Peak Oil Headlines – 22 September, 2005

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

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

IEA Head: “Leave oil before she leaves you”
Translation of Le Monde article on IEA warnings
Thanks to reader “x” who provided this partial translation of the Sept 19 Le Monde article on the IEA’s warning on oil production: La production pétrolière des pays non OPEP décroîtra “juste après 2010”, prévient l’AIE.
Reader “x” writes:

The IEA has been quiet but it is starting to make people get ready for a bleak future; oil production outside OPEC would begin declining just after 2010. This message will be carried along [with] others in the agency’s annual report “World Energy Outlook 2005” to be released on the 7th November.

Outside OPEC [are] large producers like Russia, China, US, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan or Norway which make about sixty per cent of world crude oil. “Conventional oil production – except extra heavy oil and bitumen – will reach a ceiling just after 2010”, explains Fathi Birol the chief economist of the IEA. “production profile thereafter will depend on technology, prices and investments”.

This acknowledged expert adds that if “investments are enough and prices stay at correct levels, production may stabilize for some time”, before going down. On the other hand “low prices and insufficient investments – in exploration and production – will induce a steeper decline”, he warns. So the bulk of production growth will come from OPEC countries, as he concludes. In particular from Middle East and Africa, two parts of world attentively studied in the next report “World Energy Outlook 2005”.

“Oil is like a girlfriend. You know that she will leave you at some point in the future. To avoid a heartbreak, you should leave her behind!” sums up Faith Birol. Consequently the upcoming report is said to adapt as a mantra a much tougher message: “Save energy. Save oil. Diversify, please. Get out of oil!”

For Claude Mandil, head of IEA, “indeed there is a problem as far as conventional oil is concerned”. However he recalls that non conventional oil (deep water offshore, extra heavy oil and bitumen) has promising possibilities. “I am not a doomsayer about global resources, he resumes, even if we must rely on a number of countries getting smaller”, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and UAE. [The] IEA head, in the other hand, is more “worried about climate change” which is looming.
[Increasing the] Production [in the] short term will be at the heart of discussions among OPEC country delegates, gathered at Vienna Monday and Tuesday….
(21 September 2005)
Jerome a Paris has more on the article at Daily Kos.

The main lesson from Katrina for our petrosociety
Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter #110
…Much has been said about the consequences of Katrina, an event for which there was little preparedness or “government compassion.” Among the meanings of the whole experience: a wealthy society’s betrayal of poor people and minorities, damage to the energy industries’ ability to maintain production and distribution, and environmental devastation that will endure because of toxic spills. However, there’s little indication that many people have grasped the main lesson of Katrina.

Most of Katrina’s lesson is simply this: if the nation could not handle very well a localized disaster, what will the country be like when the entire industrialized world runs permanently short of petroleum in the grip of the coming (final?) energy crisis? This reality is grasped, incidentally, by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (Republican, Maryland) and his staff.

The biggest step in awareness the public could make is to reject the aspects of our lives and culture that contributed to the Katrina disaster. Because of the almost entire lack of meaningful leadership nationally on down, this will only happen with more disasters as lessons, as people in the short term just want food, shelter and other basics — understandably so. Even those of us in a comfortable position to make choices can rarely conceive of completely restructuring the way we grow food — an example of how we must start treating the land, air and water.
(21 September 2005? no date on original)

Apocaphilia, Peak Oil and Sustainability
Jamais Cascio, WorldChanging
Although I recognize that the depletion of oil supplies is a serious problem, I haven’t always been entirely supportive of the “peak oil” movement. There’s a good bit of “apocaphilia” in many of the peak oilers, a fascination with the end of the world that goes well beyond terriblisma. I’m not saying that they look forward to things falling apart, the center not holding, and mere anarchy loosed upon the world, but some may well be looking forward to being able to say “I told you so.”

More importantly, a good many of those who pay close attention to the peak oil theories are all too ready to discount any attempt at solutions, declaring flatly that it’s too late, that no solutions will be sufficient, and that no amount of “techno-fix” or “idealism” will be able to handle the social trauma inflicted upon our civilization by the depletion of oil reserves. I count James Howard Kunstler in this group, as his Long Emergency (and ongoing blog, Clusterfuck Nation) seem to be terribly influential in the peak oil community. As we’ve explored here a bit, Kunstler has no time for people who want to fix the system, seeing only the cleansing hand of catastrophe as the only way we’ll change our ways.
(15 September 2005)
Peak Oil vs Viridian Green? The issue is extensively discussed in the comments section of the original article. -BA

The Real Oil Shock
Matthew Simmons, Time Magazine
One expert argues that the Saudis won’t be able to meet demand; we’d better prepare now
————
Between 1950 and 2005, the world’s use of oil grew more than eightfold, bringing global demand to 85 million bbl. of oil per day. Despite that incredible growth, the world’s oil appetite is just getting a head of steam, as countries like China and India finally move toward lifestyles comparable to those of Europe and the U.S. Most oil-forecasting models show demand rising to between 120 million and 130 million bbl. per day by 2025 or 2030. The only way this demand can be met is for most of the additional supply to come from the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia providing the bulk.

Don’t bet on it.

For decades, almost all public-policy planners, aided by most oil experts, assumed that the Middle East had vast quantities of proven oil reserves that could be extracted at extremely low cost, thereby enabling oil demand to grow to almost any level. Anchoring that belief is a hope that Saudi Arabia’s oil production can increase from around 9 million bbl. a day in 2005 to 25 million or even 30 million bbl. a day by sometime between 2025 and 2030.

After spending more than two years researching my book Twilight in the Desert, I am convinced that it is highly improbable that Middle Eastern oil–and particularly Saudi Arabian oil–can grow to those far higher levels. Instead there is a risk that Saudi Arabia’s oil output and the rest of the Middle East’s oil supply may start to decline.
(18 September 2005)

Before the oil runs out: How will this era end?
John Dillin, Christian Science Monitor
The world is swimming in crude, but it’s getting costlier to extract, and demand is rising fast. Is it the end of the line for cheap oil?
————
WASHINGTON – The warnings keep piling up. Author Paul Roberts cautions his readers about “The End of Oil.” National Geographic’s cover story last month examined how the world might survive “After Oil.” The Economist magazine asks, “Is the age of oil drawing to a close?”

With the discomfort growing, consumers are considering fuel-efficient cars. Industry has gotten serious in its search for alternatives. New efforts are focused on wind, solar, nuclear, and even old, reliable coal (in a cleaner version) for the energy future.

But is the world really running out of oil? The short answer is no. Earth is swimming in the stuff. What’s changed is that the era of cheap oil – a period that has lasted 150 years – is showing its age. Only a dramatic breakthrough – either in technology or consumption patterns – can forestall its conclusion in a decade or two.
(20 September 2005)
One of the best summaries of Peak Oil to appear in the mainstream media — might be a good article to send to non-believing friends and family. The second article in this three-part series was: How US can cope when gas prices surge. -BA

The Future of Oil
Daniel Yergin challenged on NPR (OnPoint) (AUDIO)
Tom Ashbrook, On Point Radio
When it comes to oil and Americans, that hideous price at the gas pump is just the beginning of big, scary issues these days. Next in line will be the winter heating bill — sure to be punishing this year.

But the really big monsters coming out of the closet are 1) the eye-popping vulnerability of the American energy infrastructure, as demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina as she tore through Gulf pumping and refinery capacity and 2) the monster issue of “peak oil” — the rising view that we are on the scary downhill slope of oil.

Oil super-guru Daniel Yergin knows the issues as well as any man alive. He’s in the middle of crisis and controversy.

Hear a conversation with Yergin on why the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is now pushing America toward an energy disaster.

Guests:
· Daniel Yergin, Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consulting and research firm. He is Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.” He is also co-author of, “The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy.”
· Jamie Court, President of Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights
(20 September 2005)
Recommended by qwanta at peakoil-dot-com forums. qwanta writes:

I was expecting the usual wishy-washy NPR stuff, but the host Tom Ashbrook really had Yergin on the ropes! He was quoting Simmons, T.Boone Pickins and having none of the usual cornucopian economist drivel that Yergin was coming up with.

The End of the Tunnel
Trevor Shaw, Raise the Hammer (Canada)
Do you remember when you realized that the world wasn’t what you thought it was? Did it come to you like a thunderclap, or was it a series of events that made you realize, over time, that the world wasn’t “Leave it to Beaver” or “The Cosby Show”.

…Personally, I thought I had the world figured out. I saw the programs on TV that showed life in developing countries. I had the lectures at home and at school about starving people. I knew that the western world was industrialized and modern and that we enjoyed a standard of living was never before dreamed of in history – because we earned it.

Or did we? I always thought our well deserved life came from hard work. I went to school, got a job, got married, had kids, and worked hard until a life of leisure in retirement.

Was I ever wrong.

I awoke to reality while I was socializing with some friends (Ben Bull and Ryan McGreal) at the pub one night. Ryan started talking about this so-called Peak Oil phenomenon. At first, Ryan reminded me of Mark Wahlberg’s character from I (heart) Huckabees. “Go kiss a tree.” “Cry in your beer,” I thought.

I took notes (as I often do when talking with Ryan) and reserved a couple of books from the Hamilton Public Libarary. I’ve read Hubbert’s Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes, then The Party’s Over by Richard Heinberg, and then The Long Emergency by James Kunstler.

My life turned from “Everyone Loves Raymond” to “Little House on the Prairie.”

How do I explain this? Well, it happened like a thunderclap that lasted four months (the time it took to read those three books during the summer). I have attempted to discuss this phenomemon of Peak Oil with some peers and I was alarmed, because nobody seemed to understand it.

…I think the biggest problem with “peak oil” theorists is that they are too intelligent to talk to “regular” people. A professor at McMaster once told me, “True intelligence is someone who can get their message across to regular people”.
(15 September 2005)
A member of the “Raise the Hammer” website team recalls his conversion expeience.

Drivers revolt by turning off their ignitions
Bill Bradley, NorthernLife (Canada)
The price of gasoline has got drivers throughout the world hot under the hood. Some 1,500 cities including Greater Sudbury are participating in Car Free Day tomorrow.

Nathalie Gara-Boivin, co-ordinator of the Sudbury Basin Environmental Networking Initiative, practices what she preaches.
“I’m biking instead of driving because the bottom line for me is that the world is running out of cheap oil and we have to make people aware of what is coming,” said Nathalie Gara-Boivin co-ordinator of the Sudbury Basin Environmental Networking Initiative (SBENI).
(20 September 2005)
Excellent example of how to get coverage in a local paper. Combine a local angle with a current event…then add background about Peak Oil, etc. -BA