Peak oil – Oct 6

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

ASPO Newsletter (PDF)
C.J.Campbell, Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)
CONTENTS
867. Polar Oil
868. Peak Oil hits a political manifesto
869. Peak Oil and Geology
870. Discovery in 2006
871. Oil Price and Financial Chaos
872. World Energy Council reports Peak Oil
873. 6th International ASPO Conference
874. Two New Books
875. Conflict in Myanmar
876. IEA Medium Term Oil Market Report
(October 2007)

Peak Oil Media
Professor Goose, The Oil Drum
(6 October 2007)
Several discussions of peak oil from television broadcasts. Links to background information.

Radio interview with Jan Lundberg in San Francisco (MP3 audio)
Martin Matthews, KPOO
Listen to a new radio show with Jan Lundberg aired on Oct. 4, 2007. Topics include the Climate Emergency Fast, Trilby Lundberg, Peak Oil, depaving, upcoming convergences, and tree-sitting. Ideas for sustainable living and ushering in the “new” culture are discussed. Musical breaks are provided by The Depavers and The Freys. The one-hour program was recorded at Culture Change’s analog eco-rock sound studio in San Francisco on the prior afternoon. The interviewer is Martin Matthews, host of Reality Sandwich, the noon radio show broadcast every Thursday on KPOO-FM 89.5 (kpoo.com), the long-established African-American liberation/music station.
(4 October 2007)
Mentioned at the Culture Change website.

Peak oil in 90 minutes
Charles Hall, FEASTA
(October 2007)
Recommended by Dave Pollard at How to Save the World):

Charles Hall Explains Peak Oil in Ninety Minutes: A thorough explanation of the concept, with some great graphics in the accompanying slides.

I wasn’t able to see the slides with my browser, but the audio was okay.
-BA

Peak Oil Passnotes: Where Peak Oil Is Wrong
Edward Tapamor, Resource Investor
For regular readers of this column, you will know we take a strong middle line on the subject of peak oil. We think it is like death: At some point it is going to arrive, rather unfortunately, and the consequences of it do not appear to be favourable. It is what we do before it arrives that makes the aftermath more bearable.

There are some very important areas in which peak oil advocates are generally correct in their assumptions. Take data transparency as the biggest. No one can call, plan or predict supply and demand with any certainty when the entire industry is guessing how much oil we have.

Of course measuring liquids, sands, shales or gasses that live deep underground is a very hard thing to do. It is not like counting up a warehouse full of packing containers. But when certain areas of the globe simply will not allow the counting of the figures by anyone independent, this opaqueness is a major spanner in the works.

There are other areas of the peak oil debate which are quite frankly, a joke. Assumptions and easy “predictions” about the human race dieing off are pretty nauseating. As if the authors of these tracts are some kind of soothsayers with an ability to predict the future. They would be laughable if they did not generate significant profits for certain people, too lazy to bother working in or understanding the energy industry.

But in the middle of the peak oil debate – the gray area – lie topics that are interesting and worth discussing but with possibly erroneous conclusions.

…There will be major projects coming on stream after 2012. Currently the IOCs will not budget for them and the NOCs are too cautious to want to bother. To say they will not arrive is a mistake. Those projects will unfold in time. But whether they can replace current supplies affected even by a conservative decline rate is another matter entirely.
(5 October 2007)
Contributor Rick Dworsky writes:
If this is the best naysayers can do, peak oil consensus has arrived. Discovery must precede extraction. Well, at least the unrecoverable portions will still “live” deep underground. A soothsayer said so.

BA:
I’m not sure if Mr. Tapamore is a PO naysayer, but I would agree with Rick that peak oil consensus has arrived among those who have looked at it deeply.

Peak oil: Alternatives, renewables and impacts (PDF and Microsoft Word formats)
Clifford J. Wirth, Peak Oil Associates

Abstract:
This paper examines scientific and government studies in order to provide reliable conclusions about Peak Oil and its future impacts. Independent studies indicate that global oil production peaked in 2006 (or will peak within a few years) and will decline until all recoverable oil is depleted within several decades.

Because global oil demand is increasing, declining production will soon generate high energy prices, inflation, unemployment, and irreversible economic depression. Alternative sources of energy will replace only a small fraction of declining oil production. Because oil under girds the world economy, oil depletion will result in global economic collapse and population decline.

As oil exporting nations experience both declining oil production and increased domestic oil consumption, they will reduce oil exports to the U.S. Because the U.S. is highly dependent on imported oil for transportation, food production, industry, and residential heating, the nation will experience the impacts of declining oil supplies sooner and more severely than much of the world. North American natural gas production has peaked, importation of natural gas is limited, and the U.S. faces shortages of natural gas within a few years.

These shortages threaten residential heating supplies, industrial production, electric power generation, and fertilizer production. Because U.S. coal production peaked in 2002 (in terms of energy provided by coal), the U.S. will experience significantly higher coal and electric prices in future years as coal production declines.

The U.S. government is unprepared for the multiple consequences of Peak Oil, Peak Natural Gas, and Peak Coal. Multiple crises will cripple the nation in a gridlock of ever-worsening problems. Within a few decades, the U.S. will lack car, truck, air, and rail transportation, as well as mechanized farming, adequate food and water supplies, electric power, sanitation, home heating, hospital care, and government services.

© 2007 Clifford J. Wirth
(5 October 2007)
Contributor Clifford J. Wirth writes:

Peak Oil Associates