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New strategy for peak oil blogging:
in the moment of now
Jon S., Peak Energy (Seattle)
Sorry for the radio silence!
The peak oil space, and especially the “peak oil blog” space, has changed pretty dramatically in the last year.
In large part, this reflects events on the ground. (“earth”)
Energy supplies have plateaued for the near term. Drilling in the arctic, as savvy observers realize, is not going to change that.
I am trying to come up with a blogging approach which will make the best use of my time and achieve the maximum results. I think there is a glut of information related to energy depletion right now; I am going to attempt to formulate an editorial position which assimilates energy issues with the converging resource wars, global environmental devastation, and economic implications therein.
All that — and free tacos for all.
(6 January 2006)
A couple of us at Energy Bulletin have been feeling the same way: the web is awash with articles on peak oil and climate change. It’s impossible to keep up with it all. How can we best focus our efforts — and not burn out? -BA
Willyoujoinus Report (PDF)
Last year Chevron launched Willyoujoinus.com as part of a campaign, unique among the energy companies, of highlighting the energy challenges of the 21st century. Comments were invited from the public on the topic ‘How can we make oil and gas supplies last longer, as the search for other fuels continues?’ They have now published a report prepared by the Aspen Institute summarising the discussion. It can be read here and you can read a discussion about it at Powerswitch.org.uk. The report does mention Peak Oil, however moves to the abiotic oil theory in the same paragraph. In other respects it seems like a reasonable attempt to summarise the responses. -AF
Alternet
Alternet has three current articles providing different perspectives on Peak Oil (all assuming a fairly immenent peak) including Kunstler’s predictions for 2006 which we have already published. The following two are taken from the recent edition of World Watch Magazine:
Over the Peak
Christopher Flavin, World Watch via Alternet
As oil prices soared from $24 per barrel in early 2003 to a peak of $70 per barrel in September 2005, the question being asked by experts and policy makers alike was whether we’ve “entered a new era,” as Chevron Corporation CEO David O’Reilly has said, or just encountered a temporary glitch that will be corrected by market forces, as ExxonMobil President Rex Tillerson argued in a speech to the World Petroleum Congress last September. The most intriguing thing about this raging debate over whether oil production will soon peak — and put an end to the go-go days of the petroleum age — is that it’s occurring at all. The fact that a century into the age of oil, and with the global economy dependent on $3 trillion worth of this black liquid each year, we don’t know how much is left, is extraordinary.
It turns out that most of the forecasters who are responsible for the long-term energy projections on which private and public decision makers rely — from Wal-Mart to the International Energy Agency — have been on automatic pilot, assuming that whatever the future level of demand, the oil companies will be able to extract sufficient oil to meet it. You don’t have to be a card-carrying member of the “peak oil” school that has gathered behind former Shell geologist Colin Campbell to see that this is a dangerous assumption.
(11 Jan 2005)
Planning For the Peak
Robert K. Kaufman, World Watch via Alternet
You will never wake to the headline, “World Runs Out of Oil.”
Rather, global oil production will rise, reach one or more peaks, and decline. Well before production declines to very low levels, the peak will mark a point of no return that will be a watershed in the economic history of the 21st century. For the first time, industrial economies will be forced to a lower-quality energy source. And this decline will affect every aspect of modern life.
(11 Jan 2005)
Norway Sees Dip in 2006 Oil Production
AP, MSN Money
Oil production from Norway’s offshore fields is expected to decline by almost 5 percent this year, although natural gas exports continue to set new records, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Thursday.
The government agency’s annual resources report projected production of about 2.43 million barrels per day in 2006, down from 2.56 million barrels per day in 2005.
The report said crude oil flows from the world’s third largest oil exporter also declined about 9 percent from 2004 to 2005. It said that was due partly to lost production from the Snorre offshore field after it was shut down into early 2005 because of a natural gas blowout in late November 2004.
(12 Jan 2006)
Find a couple of spare planets or face global oil war
Richard Beeston, The Times
THE world faces the real threat of a new conflict over oil as China competes with existing world powers for scarce resources to feed its growing economy, according to a report published today.
The State of the World 2006, released by the Worldwatch Institute, says that last year China became the second- largest importer of oil, after the US, while consuming 26 per cent of the world’s steel, 32 per cent of rice production,
37 per cent of cotton and 47 per cent of cement. China is set to become the world’s largest carmaker in the coming decade.
While environmentalists are concerned about the impact on the world’s climate and the drain on its resources, strategists fear that the competition for energy, particularly oil, could destabilise the planet. According to the report, China was nearly self-sufficient in oil in the mid-1990s. But over the past decade its consumption has doubled and it has now overtaken Japan as the second-largest importer of oil, with 3.2 million barrels a day in 2004.
It predicts that if the economies of China and India continue to grow at their current rate, the world will not be able to produce enough oil to meet demand by 2050, when consumption will have grown from the current 85 million barrels a day to 200 million barrels. “Few geologists believe that output will reach even half those levels before beginning to decline,” the report says.
(12 Jan 2006)
Professor warns about implications of Peak Oil
Eva Sylwester, Oregon Daily Emerald
The supply of oil that has supported global transportation, economies and even food distribution for the past century will soon be unable to match ever-increasing demand, author and professor Richard Heinberg told a crowd at the Eugene Hilton on Tuesday night.
Heinberg is a professor at New College of California, a small, private liberal arts school with campuses in San Francisco and Santa Rosa. He studies Peak Oil, the concept that petroleum is a finite resource and that production of it will eventually reach a peak and then decline severely.
Earth’s population has grown from 1 billion in the early 1800s to 6.5 billion today, which Heinberg attributes to the use of oil to transport resources from areas where they are abundant to areas where they are scarce.
Heinberg compared this to the growth of yeast in a sugar solution. At first the yeast feast on the sugar and proliferate abundantly, but when the sugar runs out, the yeast get poisoned by their own waste products and die off. This process is reliably used in the manufacturing of alcohol.
“So this raises an important question,” Heinberg said, switching to an overhead that read, “Are people smarter than yeast?”
(12 Jan 2006)
