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Petrol $2 by Christmas
Braden Quartermaine, News.com.au
A WORLD oil expert predicts the price of unleaded petrol in WA will crash through the $2 [a litre] mark this summer.
London-based expert Chris Skrebowski arrives in Perth today for talks with the WA Government and to speak at a conference about the oil crisis.
Mr Skrebowski, the editor of the Petroleum Review journal, believes “peak oil”, when world oil production starts declining, will occur in 2010 or 2011.
He said WA motorists’ pain at the bowser would worsen.
“It’s certainly going to go through $2 in the not-too-distant future,” Mr Skrebowski said. “You could see it as early as Christmas, or the beginning of next year. In most of Europe, they’re paying rather more than that (now).”
He said in the long term Australians could expect to pay a lot more than $2 a litre.
There was worldwide complacency about the looming oil crisis, but he praised the WA and Federal governments’ offering LPG conversion subsidies.
“At the moment, by denying or minimising the problem, we are simply not tapping into all the solutions that could be generated once you make people really think about it,” he said.
His advice to the WA Government is: Be prepared.
“Look in a clear-eyed way at the problem, don’t be hoping that it’s all going to sort itself out,” he said. “See how you’re vulnerable, what is actually the threat _ and what you can actually do about it.
“Forewarned is forearmed. With a fairly low population density and people travelling a great deal, of course, you are vulnerable to the cost of fuel.”
(19 Aug 2006)
New blog: Peak Oil Blues
Exploring emotional reactions to Peak Oil
From the About page:
We all know there are sites that list the ‘facts and figures’ about the cost of fossil fuels and the number of barrels left for the planet to use. Sites about global warming. We also hear about the volatility of the US dollar and the financial markets. This information is out there, albeit in conflicting detail. We don’t want to be another blog that repeats those numbers. Our goal here is to talk about the emotional reactions to living in such a time of uncertainty.
www.peakoilblues.com
(Aug 2006)
David Holmgren on the Heinberg-Holmgren speaking tour of Australia (Audio)
Andi Hazelwood, Global Public Media
Permaculture co-originator David Holmgren talks to GPM correspondent Andi Hazelwood about H2, his Australian capital cities speaking tour with Richard Heinberg. Holmgren also discusses the responses he gets from policy makers, how he responds to “techno-fixers”, how oil depletion will affect Australia differently than other affluent countries, and why food security needs to become a major component of the urban sustainability discussion.
(21 Aug 2006)
According to the website for the Peak Oil and Permaculture Capital City Tour of Australia:
In August-Sept 2006 David Holmgren will be joined by Richard Heinberg, leading environmental educator from California on a public speaking tour explaining the truth and opportunities from the coming end of cheap energy. As well as taking the message to a larger public audiences in big capital city venues, this tour aims to make clear the sustainable alternatives to the “war that will never end in our lifetimes” and the “something will save our unsustainable addictions” stories which are the default reactions to the realities of peak oil.
Peak Confidence
Alan Wartes, So Long, Hydrocarbon Man
… even if peak oil is followed by a nice, smooth depletion curve rather than abrupt shortages (a big “if”), this is no guarantee that humans will react as smoothly. The reason is simple. The economic equations that turn oil into money are not pure math: so much energy in, so much money out. No, they include terms that have to be described as psychological at best, or – probably more accurately – as metaphysical. There is a commodity that is far more slippery than oil, upon which the whole runaway train glides.
It is called confidence. (It should give us no comfort that this is also the key ingredient in any successful “con.” The “con” man has to get and keep his mark’s trust for the scheme to work.) Confidence is an essential ingredient in modern economics. Newscasters often report on “consumer confidence” as if they could actually count it, like the number of Big Macs sold. The fact is, our economic machine is built on nothing more tangible than ideas. Ideas shrivel up and blow away without the consent of large numbers of people to believe them – to act as if they are the truth.
“The truth” that our economic system pretends to represent is the idea that our modern way of life can and will go on forever. It is the idea that the future will always be “like today, only moreso.” Confidence in this premise borders on mental illness for two reasons. First, it permanently anchors our attention in the future, dissociating our consciousness from here and now. Second, it requires that we ignore fundamental scientific concepts like entropy and the other laws of thermodynamics. In other words, we have created an elaborate science fiction set in a future fantasy world, but have forgotten that it is only a story. The only thing that gives this illusion the appearance of reality is that we have all agreed to “role play” our way through life as if it were true. Our confidence in the system is the one thing it can’t live without.
The subversive and revolutionary question is this: what happens when people really start to catch on to the fact of peak oil? What happens when people start to realize that the economy is never again going to get better, that it can’t get better because it has – literally – run out of (cheap) gas? The illusion of never-ending growth and prosperity for all depends entirely on ever greater supplies of (cheap) oil. Economic “opportunity,” as we have defined it, is a virtual synonym for (cheap) oil. What happens when the pain of peak oil finally amps up and overcomes all the dulling and distracting “drugs” we take as a culture?
(21 Aug 2006)
Peak Oil Passnotes: Supply ‘Cushionitis’
Edward Tapamor, Resource Investor
…we are seeing the WTI hit exactly $70 intraday, some seven dollars off its high in around eight days active trading. Brent is around $72. A big, big move to the downside.
There is one other reason, Goldman Sachs. They are not excited about the new gasoline contract for – cough – reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygenate blending or RBOB. New regulations in the U.S. have meant that RBOB is replacing methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in gasoline. Sachs are not about to risk a load of cash on this new contract so they have simply stopped playing.
The result of such a big player leaving the table is that there is no liquidity – or relatively little – in the gasoline market. This has pulled down the price of gasoline which has impacted on the price of crude. So the combination of events, Lebanon ceasefire, Prudhoe Bay, staying half-online, Nembe Creek being repaired and RBOB illiquidity have stuck a knife in the gut of the oil price. Then we hear stuff like this.
“Some of the factors and disruptions that helped drive us to very high levels have been resolved now,” according to a statement by from Eoin O’Callaghan at the French bank BNP Paribas.
No they have not.
Lebanon is not resolved, Nigeria is not resolved, Prudhoe Bay and BP’s general behaviour is not resolved, Iran is still awaiting the outcome of its nuclear enrichment programme and demand is still healthy. What has happened is the market has seen a great time to take a big chunk of profits. A breather. That is all.
If we were smart guys we would open a book on the first “Oil Makes Dramatic Surge” headline. No doubt you will see it in the next sixty days. We will be told all the stories about collapse, markets imploding, frenetic activity on the trading floor and ‘peak oil freaks’ will be telling us to ride Oxen to work. Then we will do the same dance all over again. Isn’t energy great?
(18 Aug 2006)
Bring on the oxen -AF
