Not so happy endings

Heading Out pens a piece on the endings of various cultures. The comments are as illustrating as the essay.

Oil came this close to hitting $100/barrel.

The State of Connecticut has its very own Peak Oil report (PDF) to review, which includes this tasty morsel:

Oil reservoirs in the Lower Tertiary layer of the Gulf of Mexico are not in one large field but rather scattered in many pocket fields. Due to the vast depths and scattered nature
of the pockets, each discrete area would require separate well systems and production platforms. Compared to Mexico’s highly concentrated Canterell field—probably the third-largest oil producer in the world—the Lower Tertiary will require much more time and money to surrender its oil. A production platform can cost up to $1.5 billon dollars. The fields appear to be too far from shore to gather and transport the oil by pipeline, so the transportation of that oil would cost more. Far more testing will need to be done before this kind of investment is made.

They are referring to the Jack-2 strike by Chevron, proclaimed well over a year ago. Yup, there's oil out there, but can we afford it?

And reported at the Drum, Louisiana Sweet Crude went over $100/barrel for a very short period of time. Theories abound; refinery maintenance, unpegging oil from the dollar, rumors of another interest rate cut by the Fed, all of the foregoing.