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Minnesota State Legislators Meet To Discuss Oil Reserves Drying Up
Northland News Center
Today, state legislators listened to the dire warnings of an energy leader at the Minnesota State Capitol.
The world’s oil reserves are drying up according to Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker from Houston who has recently written a book on the subject.
Simmons says oil production has already peaked and soon supply won’t be able to keep up with demand.
“The demand models show that oil growth is just going to continue on straight up and the problem is: if we’re peaking now, it’s the gap between we needed 115 million barrels a day to -whoops – it looks like we only have 60 to use and it will create social chaos,” says Simmons.
Already, a major oil company is recognizing the seriousness of this of this potential crisis.
Simmons says Shell Oil CEO Jeroen van der Veer is already preparing his company for a bleak future.
(5 February 2008)
World oil supply may have already peaked
Lester Brown, People and Planet
Is world oil production peaking? Quite possibly, says Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute. Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show a pronounced loss of momentum in the growth of oil production during the last few years.
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…The peaking of world oil production will be a seismic event, marking one of the great fault lines in world economic history. When oil output is no longer expanding, no country can get more oil unless another gets less.
Oil-intensive industries will be hit hard. Cheap airfares will become history, for instance. The airline industry’s projected growth of 5 percent a year over the next decade will evaporate. The food industry will be severely affected by rising oil prices, since both modern agriculture and food transport are oil-intensive. The automobile industry will suffer as well when demand for cars plummets. Pressures will intensify on the three or more major auto companies that are developing plug-in hybrid cars that run largely on electricity to bring them to market quickly.
Higher oil prices have long been needed both to more accurately reflect the indirect costs of burning oil, such as climate change, and to encourage more-efficient use of a resource that is fast being depleted. While higher prices are desirable, the rise should not be so abrupt that it leads to severe economic disruptions.
Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
(5 February 2008)
Science 1101 Part 1: The Science of Oil and Peak Oil
Gail Tverberg, The Oil Drum
Last week, I posted a draft of proposed peak oil curriculum. There were a lot of comments. Thanks to everyone! Many of the comments related to things I had left out or hadn’t explained adequately. After considering the comments, I decided that folks were right, and added some more material. Since the post was already fairly long, I broke it into two parts. I also reorganized sections to make a more logical flow.
(5 February 2008)
Revision of a good introduction by one of the clearest peak oil writers. -BA
