Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
June ASPO newsletter available
Dr Colin Campbell, Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) – Ireland
Articles In ASPO Newsletter 66 (June 2006)
* Venezuela buys oil
* Saudi Arabia struggles to maintain production
* Bolivia takes a lead
* Bolivia takes a lead
* The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived its Peak Oil
* Oil Trade Currency
* Saudi Arabia Revisited
* Major Oil Companies close to Peak
* Britain moves nuclear
* Water, Energy and Food Prices
* US wakes up to Capacity limits
* Excellent New Film
* Registration of national ASPO members
* Russia
* Mexican Deepwater Discovery Discredited
* Saudi Arabia – Can It Deliver? Audio Conference
(June 2006)
See original for links to individual articles and to PDF of the entire newsletter. It looks as if the website is still being updated for the new issue. Currently, there’s a different URL for the PDF version than that given on the site.
New book on oil and agriculture by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
New Society Publishers
Eating Fossil Fuels
Oil, Food, and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture
By Dale Allen Pfeiffer
The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the US show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources.
Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings:
* The world-wide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40% of the photosynthetic capability of this planet.
* The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet’s carrying capacity.
* Studies suggest that without fossil fuel based agriculture, the US could only sustain about two thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion.
Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, relocalized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world’s population.
Dale Allen Pfeiffer is a novelist, freelance journalist and geologist who has been writing about energy depletion for a decade. The author of The End of the Oil Age, he is also widely known for his web project: www.survivingpeakoil.com.
(June 2006)
Dale Allen Pfeiffer’s must-read article by the same name appears in the Energy Bulletin archives. -AF
Mother Earth News: Declare energy independence
Jimi DiPeso, Mother Earth News
We the people need to motivate Uncle Sam to create a rational and revolutionary energy strategy.
Fact: All forms of energy are subsidized. Oil. Gas. Coal. Nuclear. Renewables. All of them. No type of energy stands alone in the market, free of tax breaks, research grants or other forms of government help. Fact: Subsidies are ultimately funded by the taxes we pay.
Few except pure libertarians would do away with all government intervention in the energy marketplace. But the salient question is, given the increasing problems connected with conventional energy, which subsidies make sense and which don’t?
The question must be asked because our current energy habits are not sustainable for the environment, our national security or our economic health. The United States must establish a long-term strategy to shift to cleaner, more diverse, more secure sources of energy used more efficiently. Subsidies can be a major tool in this effort, and those that move us closer to that goal deserve support. Those that don’t should be terminated.
…At some point, crude oil production will peak and begin an inexorable decline. No one knows for sure when “peak oil” will be reached, but some experts say it is just around the corner. Long lead times will be necessary to introduce replacement fuels, according to a 2005 study published by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Better to start sooner on alternatives rather than later, or risk serious harm to the economy, the study said.
The clinching argument for a new energy strategy is global warming. Few reputable scientists disagree that the climate trend bears human fingerprints.
Jim DiPeso is the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America), a grass-roots organization that seeks to restore the Republican conservation tradition.
(June/July 2006)
Mother Earth News published many good articles during the 70s energy crisis.
Kunstler in Canada
Original: “Imperfect Future”
Alisa Gordaneer, Monday Publications
It’s odd, but strangely plausible, that a man who isn’t an architect, doesn’t have any training in urban planning, and has no real background in geology would become the unofficial spokesperson for a new movement towards global sustainability. Perhaps it’s unlikely, or perhaps it’s a sign that people in North America are increasingly looking to someone for leadership, ideas, solutions-and in the absence of political leaders who acknowledge the importance of sustainable development, economics and communities, someone had to fill that place.
Enter James Kunstler, a journalist and author whose role has become that of a pubic intellectual, his message centred on the growing concern of peak oil, and what that will mean for our lives as we know them.
…”We’re going to see generally a very big hangover from the customs and practices of the last 30 years. . . . there’ll be a lot of wishful thinking around the whole idea that we’re entitled to be living this way. We’re going to have to rethink the whole thing.”
And will we? Certainly there’s no reason to doubt that we will, indeed, find ourselves living differently. “Human societies are self-organizing,” Kunstler points out. “We will be compelled to behave differently whether we like it or not.”
It’ll be an easier transition, though, if we’re aware of what’s happening to begin with. “Right now the public discussion about these problems is incredibly lame. Certainly there’s a growing awareness that we’re entering an oil predicament, but the only thing we’re talking about is keeping our cars running, by any other means at all.”
But that’s just sustaining the unsustainable, he suggests. “We’re stuck in a kind of psychology of previous investment, that militates against us thinking about doing things differently.”
So who’s responsible? In a way, we all are, both for our individual actions and for those we elect. “For all the cluelessness and denial and silliness, there’s a sincere desire for people to understand what they’re facing,” Kunstler says.
James Kunstler speaks in Victoria at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, at the McPherson Playhouse. Tickets $12.50. 386-6121. He is also a keynote speaker at the Gaining Ground Summit on Thursday, June 15.
(6 June 2006)
(Audio) Roger Blanchard on the Future of Global Oil Production
Global Public Media
Roger Blanchard, author of The Future of Global Oil Production: Facts, Figures, Trends And Projections, by Region talks about his book with GPM correspondent Jason Brenno. Blanchard is Associate Professor of Chemistry at Northern Kentucky University. He teaches a course covering energy and energy resources and has a particular interest in petroleum because of its importance to industrial society.
(8 June 2006)
Oil Geologist: U.S. must develop oil alternatives
Robert D. Stensland, Statesman Journal
Nearly 3 million barrels of oil per day comes from Canada and Mexico, but still roughly half of our energy needs come from areas outside of North America. As oil production goes into decline, we can expect our standard of living to do the same unless action is taken now.
We must start to make planners and government officials aware of the problem so we can transition to other sources of energy. There is much discussion, pro and con, about “peak oil.” Remember that the question is not if, but when. This writer thinks that the evidence strongly suggests that the “when” is upon us.
Robert D. Stensland of Salem is a retired geologist with more than 33 years experience in the oil industry. He can be reached at [email protected].
(7 June 2006)
Notable because this is a name from within the oil industry speaking out, whom I don’t think we’ve heard from before. -AF
Special Screenings of OilCrash!
via Peter Lunsford
The peak oil film that was so well received at the Austin SXSW Film Festival is being screened at four special screenings. The name of the film has been updated to, “A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash“.
The special screenings are as follows:
At the The Newport International Film Festival (Newport, RI)
Friday, June 09, 2006 8:30 PM Newport Art Museum
Saturday, June 10, 2006 1:30 PM Opera House 1
Tickets are available on the festival website.
also being screened in…
New York:
5:00pm
Wednesday, June 14th
Tribeca Film Center
375 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10013
Los Angeles:
5:00pm
Wednesday, June 14th
MGM Screening Room
10250 Constellation Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Seating at these two screenings is by reservation only. If you would like to attend either of these screenings please RSVP to [email protected].
This is an astounding film with extensive interviews with Matt Simmons, David Goodstein, Matt Savinar, Colin Campbell, Roscoe Bartlett, Fadhil Chalabi, and other international oil experts. There are reviews at Salon.com and Turner Classic movies and eFilmCritic.com. A trailer is available at youTube.
