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Climate change and Peak Oil (sort of) on Oprah:
If Oprah Talks, Will People Listen?
Scarlet Alert
Yes, I sometimes take my lunch late and watch Oprah. Today I have no problem admitting it. I would like to think that I witnessed a world-changing event. Or at least a U.S.-changing event. Because, usually, when Oprah talks, people listen.
Today (27 October 2005), Oprah brought global warming to the average American household. … The topic of peak oil (without calling it that) also came up, as our dependence on oil was named the #2 cause of global warming (after coal), and that this oil was running out.
(27 October 2005)
Peak oil forum at Parliament House, Sydney
Ian McPherson, Sydney Peak Oil
The Sydney Peak Oil group has organised a public forum for November 15th, at New South Wales’ Parliament House no less!
It will feature as speakers
– Professor Ian Lowe of Griffith University, current President of the Australian Conservation Foundation
– Ian Cohen, Greens Member of the Legislative Council,
– Rowan Tucker-Evans of Sydney Peak Oil Group
Venue: Tuesday November 15, 6pm
Theatrette, Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney.
A pdf flyer for the event can be found here.
The organisers will apparently be distributing to the entire NSW Legislative Assembly, prior to the forum, www.oilposter.org posters, a 30 minute cutdown of the End of Suburbia DVD, and print materials.
(1 November 2005)
[Energy and Food] The Industry: Gastronomics
MATT LEE and TED LEE, New York Times Magazine
The rise of fuel prices over the last year seems to have had little effect on how much we pay for food. That pint of raspberries imported on a gas-guzzling jet from Argentina? Still five bucks. Nevertheless, the high cost of petroleum has rattled the people in the business of putting food on the nation’s table. With prices at the grocery store and in restaurants holding steady, producers and middlemen have been forced to absorb the increase.
In Poolesville, Md., Eric Spates grows No. 2 yellow corn on nearly 300 acres. His tractor and combine burn about 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel every season, which cost him $1 each last year. This year, it’s $2.50 a gallon. That’s a $6,000 hit in my checkbook,” Spates notes. Add to that the cost of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer made using natural gas, which went from $85 a ton last year to $200 this year.
And, unfortunately, the price Spates will get for his corn won’t rise accordingly. In fact, it is quite low now, hovering around $2 a bushel. (He starts to make money only when it rises above $2.40.) So Spates, 36, is holding on to most of his crop until January, banking on nationwide supplies running low and the price going up. And if it doesn’t?
(30 October 2005)
PowerSwitch Newsletter October 2005
James Howard, via EnergyResources
List of Peak Oil news and events, including links to reports, audio files and the powerpoint presentations from the October 11th ‘End of Oil’ conference. Audio files from Peak Speak conference in July are also now available. Reflections on a year of PowerSwitch.org.uk and much more…
(28 October 2005)
Saudi Arabia Oil Production Tapped Out
Dr. Joe Duarte, RigZone
Secret government papers are raising concerns about Saudi Arabia’s ability to increase oil production significantly, raising the danger of perpetually high oil prices and the potential for frequent shortages.
According to the New York Times: “doubts about Saudi Arabia’s assurances of how much it can expand capacity – and for how long – have been raised in a secret intelligence report and in a separate analysis by a leading government oil adviser”
(27 October 2005)
Joe Duarte repeats much of the recent NYT article, but also references Matthew Simmons and gives space to his detractors. -AF
Chemistry Nobel Winner & Energy Champion Richard E. Smalley, 62, Dies
New York Times
Richard E. Smalley, the Rice University chemistry professor who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering a new spherical form of carbon and championed the potential of nanotechnology to create a more sustainable economy, died Friday at 62 at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The cause was leukemia, a spokesman for Rice said.
(29 October 2005)
There are some Peak Oil related articles by Richard Smalley here:
Future global energy
prosperity: the Terawatt Challenge
Testimony of R. E.
Smalley to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; Hearing on sustainable , low emission, electricity generation
There is an online video of an energy presentation, an example of
Smalley’s powerful speaking style and understanding of the energy crisis
both of which shall be missed:
babe.rice.edu/media/Smalley_OEF_20031101_300k.wmv
-AF
Peak Oil: There’s No ‘There’ There
Michael Lynch, World Energy Monthly Review
Nearly 10 years ago, several geologists revived the theory of M. King Hubbert that oil production could be modeled using a bell curve fit to historical production and the peak (and total volume) thus projected, or that discoveries could be modeled and extrapolated to estimate total resources. The work received moderate attention, becoming a favorite of many in the environmental community, for example, but suddenly seemed much more valid when oil prices rose in 2004. Continuing problems have meant that more and more attention has been paid to these arguments, with a much greater presumption of its reliability amongst casual observers. …
This is not to claim that the process is a smooth one or that supply will automatically appear. The 1998 price collapse caused a reduction in upstream investment, and the subsequent mega-mergers slowed activity. Recent political developments in Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq and Russia have constrained upstream investment, partly out of expectations that future prices will only be higher.
Finally, peak-oil advocates ignore the economic cycles, insisting that this is the first commodity cycle with a boom but not bust. That belief is based almost entirely on assumptions that are unlikely to prove valid. Oil demand growth last year was an outlier, and is unlikely to be repeated; this year’s demand growth is clearly sharply lower. In all likelihood, prices will respond within the next few months, and the Malthusian alarmists will once again fade away until another generation of researchers unlearns the lessons of its predecessors.
Appeared in Opinions/Letters to the Editor
(October 2005)
Michael Lynch is perhaps the most vocal and tireless critic of the ‘imminent’ Peak Oil theory. The article is worth reading as a succinct summary of his most repeated points. He makes one good point at least, that the research base for imminent Peak Oil is very small, consisting primarily of the Hubbert-inspired work of Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere of ASPO, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Baktiari (who uses ASPO data), Richard Duncan, and a few others (see experts at hubbertpeak.com).
The Hubbert style methods are supplimented by the quite different approaches of people like Chris Skrebowski and Mattew Simmons who reach similar alarming conclusions. But all in all, the core work on predicting Peak Oil is done by a remarkably small group of scientists and researchers. What does give their work some added credibility however is the incredibly dubious assumptions and methods used by the international energy agencies, as best summed up in this excellent article by Werner Zittel et al. An average high school student could easily understand the problems, and it is this, as much as the rising oil costs which has given Campbell et al. a well deserved public platform in the media.
Ultimately Lynch puts his faith in the belief that there is much more oil to be found, and that science and engineering will overcome problems of extracting more marginal reserves. These arguments have been taken up elsewhere. There is an article based on a JP Morgan conference call featuring both Colin Campbell and Michael Lynch, Peak Oil, Debate or Vendetta which is well worth a read -AF
