It's extraordinary how inventive one can be with ethanol right now.

The bulk of extra supplies that could be put into the market come from two places. One, they come from other Persian Gulf suppliers, of which Saudi Arabia is at the top of the list.

The Russians are turning east to the Chinese - to the Europeans' surprise. It always seemed to me that the relationship between Russia and China would shift from being based in Marx and Lenin to being based in oil and gas.

Clearly, the Chinese need the resources, but I don't think they want to clash with the industrial world which happens to be the market for their goods.

An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.

According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.