Peak oil – Nov 26

November 25, 2005

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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


Peak Oil

US grapples with ‘the age of energy insecurity’

Carola Hoyos and Sheila McNulty, Financial Times
As fuel prices rise with winter’s approach, the debate over US energy security has reached a fevered pitch.

The nation has very little excess supply of oil – a fact underlined by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Domestic sources open to exploration and production are being depleted and any emergency oil production capabilities are in the Middle East. The fact is that the US is subject to unreliable energy supply at unreasonable cost.

“Welcome to the age of energy insecurity,” says Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, the consultancy.
(22 November 2005)
UPDATE 27 Nov: Many of the Financial Times articles now appear to be behind a subscriber-only wall.


Bodman asks Natl Petroleum Council:
Can oil production satisfy rising demand?

David J. Lynch, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has asked a high-level advisory board to answer one of the toughest questions dogging the U.S. economy: Can world oil production meet steadily rising demand?

In a previously unreleased Oct. 5 letter to ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, chairman of the National Petroleum Council [NPC], Bodman asked for a study of the industry’s ability to produce enough oil and natural gas at prices that won’t cripple the economy.

“He’s asked them to take a big-picture look out several years. … He wants to get some definitive information,” says Craig Stevens, an Energy Department spokesman.

The most noteworthy aspect of Bodman’s request is a reference to the “peak oil” debate. At issue: the claim by a vocal minority of energy experts that the world is at, or near, maximum oil production.

…The NPC study is intended to answer that question [of peak oil]. The roster of the 175-member body, created in 1947 by President Truman, reads like a “who’s who” of the petroleum industry. The council is chaired by Raymond, CEO of the nation’s largest oil company.

That causes Simmons to doubt whether the NPC will endorse the peak oil camp. But Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., who met with President Bush this summer to urge government action, says: “Any thinking person has to recognize at some point the world is going to face a crisis.”
(24 November 2005)


Achieving energy freedom for the people of Washington

Hans Dunshee and Jeff Morris, Seattle Times
WOULD you rather buy fuel grown by local farmers — or oil pumped from Saudi Arabia? We can have clean, renewable sources of fuel that aren’t affected by whatever happens in Louisiana or Iraq. This is a bold vision. But if we take strong action, the people and businesses of Washington state can enjoy energy freedom.

Our economy is based on cheap oil. Yet, even Big Oil admits the world is running out of oil, with millions more people in developing countries trading their bicycles for cars. The era of cheap oil is over.

Watch out for quick fixes from politicians saying just drill for more oil in our parks, pass some tax breaks or build a refinery in Hoquiam — whether the people in Hoquiam like it or not. More of the same won’t get the job done.

Our choice is simple: Join the global scramble as more buyers chase less and less oil; or find another way…

Rep. Hans Dunshee, left, D-Snohomish, is chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee. Rep. Jeff Morris, right, D-Anacortes, is chairman of the House Technology, Energy and Communications Committee.
(25 November 2005)


Move past era of oil, experts say

Greg Gordon, News & Observer (North Carolina)
Former CIA Director James Woolsey paints a dire scenario: A terrorist attack causes a months-long, 6 million-barrel reduction in Saudi Arabia’s daily petroleum output, sending the price of oil skyrocketing past $100 a barrel.

Industry banker and author Matthew Simmons says the kingdom’s oil fields are deteriorating anyway. And a recent New York Times story cited an intelligence report suggesting the Saudis lack the capacity to pump as much oil as they boast they can.

Even if nothing disrupts the projected flow of Middle East petroleum, Energy Department consultants warned earlier this year that “the world is fast approaching the inevitable peaking” of global oil production — a problem “unlike any faced by modern industrial society.”

They wrote that the United States and other nations are in a race with the clock to find alternative sources for oil, “the lifeblood of modern civilization,” and avoid potential economic disaster.

After years — or even decades — of sitting on the fringe of the world oil debate, Congress is starting to pay attention to the issue of what to do when production dwindles.
(25 November 2005)
UPDATE Nov 27. This article was also run by the Sacramento Bee and the Minn. Star-Tribune. Mobjectivist has commentary.


Speculation surrounds oil peak

Patrice Hill, Washington Times
Thanksgiving marked the day that some analysts thought global oil production would have reached its peak, ushering in a new era of fuel shortages. These petro-pessimists were using the same formula as the one that accurately predicted the apex of U.S. oil production in 1970.

Matthew Simmons, author of “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,” is one of them. He thinks Saudi Arabia has pumped much of its usable reserves and will start to experience production declines.

Even analysts who are more optimistic warn that chronically high prices and occasional supply crunches are likely in the years ahead. The world’s consumers are using up nearly all the oil being produced today, and the outlook for growth of supplies is uncertain.
(25 November 2005)


“Real Oil Crisis” on Australian television
(transcript)
Catalyst, ABC
Narration: What would happen if the world started running out of oil?

Jeremy Leggett: It’s going to be very difficult to get gasoline for transport. Food is not going to be getting through in enough quantities to the shops,

Narration: Conventional wisdom says that’s at least 30 years away.

So why does a growing group of petroleum experts believe it’s coming within three?

Eric Streitberg: Ah. I think it’s happening now frankly.

Peter Newman: It gives me nightmares when I think about what we’re headed for.

Narration: Are they just scaremongerers or have the rest of us been asleep at the wheel. Are we about to hit the real oil crisis?

Jeremy Leggett: Really when the crisis dawns I think people are going to be looking back in anger. How have we allowed ourselves to get into this mess?

Narration: In just a century, we’ve allowed our lives to become entirely dependent on cheap oil.

Jonica Newby, Reporter: And it’s not just that 90% of our transportation is fuelled by oil. This shopping centre is literally full of petroleum products.

Look: the fabric in these clothes – petroleum based. These plastics, petroleum based. It takes on average 6 barrels of oil just to bring one cow to market.

Narration: Yet who of us stops to think oil is a finite resource – the lifeblood of our modern world is steadily pouring away.
(24 November 2005)


Andrew McNamara Talks About Peak Oil

Global Public Media
Queensland Australia Parliament member Andrew McNamara gives a peak oil presentation in Montville, Queensland, and takes questions.
(25 November 2005)


Happy (belated) Peak Oil Day!

Jamais Cascio, WorldChanging
Reasonable people may disagree, but Princeton geology professor emeritus Ken Deffeyes, author of 2001’s Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage and 2005’s Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak (sense a theme?), stated on his blog in early 2004:

Although it is a bit silly, we can now pick a day to celebrate passing the top of the mathematically smooth Hubbert curve: Nov 24, 2005. It falls right smack dab on top of Thanksgiving Day 2005. It sounds a little sick to observe a gloomy day, but in San Francisco they still observe April 18 as the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

That’s right — according to one of the more preeminent peak oilers, yesterday was the day the world saw its maximum oil production. Probably.
(25 November 2005)
More on Peak Oil Day from:
The Oil Drum
Mobjectivist


Tags: Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Oil