Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (review)
John N. Cooper, Axis of Logic
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil [2006 Community Service Inc: The Community Solution program, DVD 53 Min, ISBN 0-910420-32-7] is a marvelous film that provides a welcome contrast to the abundance of toxic, depressing predictions for the future in the world of post-Peak Oil. All who have been demoralized by the succession of books foretelling societal disaster post-Peak Oil can take hope and learn from the experience of Cuba following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cuba’s Peak Oil preceded the world’s by ten years or more. In the early 1990s, Cuba’s curtailed supply of Soviet oil resulted in major challenges: both how to feed the nation and how to sustain an economy on much less readily available energy. Hunger and a paralyzed transportation and industrial system were imminent. Initially the Cuban government imposed rationing to assure everyone had access to the basic necessities, as some of us will recall was done in the US during WWII. But that only managed the severe shortages. The Cuban people responded to the food crisis by largely abandoning their large scale agricultural system based on fluid fossil fuels and by developing a system of locally managed and operated farms and urban plots worked sustainably.
(5 May 2006)
‘Oilway To Hell’ – downloadable video
@erobar films
‘Oilway To Hell’ is a one-minute movie made to raise global awareness of the current energy situation and the possible choices that still remain : switching from oil to coal or nuclear… and/or becoming much more sober in our energy requirements.
(7 November 2005)
Alaska oil industry consultant: Statistics point to peak production; prices likely to go higher
Alan Bailey, Petroleum News
It’s well known that U.S. oil production has been declining for many years. And, in Alaska, oil production is well past its peak. But has worldwide oil production peaked? And what impact might worldwide oil production capacity have on already soaring oil prices?
On May 1 Petroleum News discussed these topics with Alaska oil industry consultant Roger Herrera.
“I really have to believe that the world is very close to, if not past, peak oil,” Herrera said.
Coming from a background as an oil geologist in the days when there might be a one in 20 chance of striking oil with a wildcat well, Herrera was trained to be an optimist about finding oil. So, anticipating declining production really goes against the grain with him.
“Yet here I am,” Herrera said. “I find myself a very strong proponent of the problems associated with world peak oil, which in most people’s minds is a negative position to take.”
Herrera sees the statistics of oil field discovery and production as providing the pointers towards peak production.
“If you look at the sizes of the oil fields that are added every year, they are smaller and smaller and we’re not replacing the oil that we’re using,” he said.
(7 May 2006)
Energy industry views on peak oil, alternative energy
Angel White, Oil & Gas Journal
HOUSTON, May 5 — Representatives of several segments of the energy industry approached alternative energy from various perspectives during an Offshore Technology Conference panel discussion May 4.
Ahmed Hashmi, BP PLC vice-president, group technology, said the question about oil and gas is not whether production has peaked but that it will. And the world, he said, must prepare.
Hashmi also said rising global average temperature and growing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, however incomplete science may be about their correlation of the phenomena, cannot be ignored.
He said the world needs more total energy, more energy choices, and more security of energy choices.
…Fred Palmer, Peabody Energy Corp. senior vice-Pres., government affairs, said about energy sources: “In a peak oil world we need everything, everywhere, all the time.”
He said, “Global energy demand is young, but oil and gas supply is old,” pointing out that 50% of global oil supply comes from 120 giant fields, most of which are about 25 years old.
(5 May 2006)
CSIS Forum: Saudi oil minister Naimi and US energy secretary Bodman (PDF)
Center for Strategic & International Studies
…DR. SCHLESINGER: We have just five minutes left. Could all three of you please discuss your view of peak oil theory – I’ve just left five minutes for this – (laughter) – and how it might be changing. Thank you. Mr. Minister?
MIN. AL-NAIMI: You know my opinion of what this theory – whatever it is. I believe yesterday we saw an example of what can be done. I believe there are at least 14 trillion barrels of reserves in the world, seven (trillion) of which are conventional and probably seven (trillion) so-called non-conventional. And if you look at what has been produced, maybe a trillion, maybe a trillion plus. With advance in technology, I believe our ability to recover more of the 14 trillion is there. And so my opinion of the theory is it is – what should I say? I think I have called it many different names. (Laughter.) But don’t worry about it.
DR. SCHLESINGER: Sam?
SEC. BODMAN: Well, the theory is, I think, accurate insofar as any theory. And that is eventually – as the minister has said, eventually, we’re going to run out of oil. We will have produced that which we can. We’ve seen, for example, in the United States – we have seen production decline. And we had peak oil in our country – in the lower 48 anyway – 1980 roughly?
DR. SCHLESINGER: 1970.
SEC. BODMAN: 1970, thank you. Well, I was within 10 years. That’s pretty good for me. (Laughter.) And we have been declining since there, and so that’s the theory. I mean, the question is, how do you apply that on the worldwide basis? And I comfortable that the nations that supply our country – both OPEC and non-OPEC nations – are making every effort to make oil available to the marketplace. They are simply doing everything that they know how to do to make it available. And I scrutinize that. I work hard. I travel. I read, and I am comfortable that the minister is correct that so-called peak oil, when you look at it on a worldwide basis, is some years off.
DR. SCHLESINGER: The peak oil theory was developed by King Hubbert, a geologist based upon his geological observations. It is absolutely sound insofar as it went. It left out development of technology, the availability of near-oil substitutes such as the tar sands, and notably that rising prices increase what could be recovered commercially. But within the context that King Hubbard put forward, it is correct. As the minister indicated, he hopes that sometime in the next 25 years that we will find an alternative. And I think that we must recognize that there are limitations ultimately with regard to oil supply and that we should not assume that this bonanza manna from heaven will be always available in the form of conventional oil.
(2 May 2006)
