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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Is the U.S. ready for real energy conservation efforts?
Richard Mial, La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin)
What happens when we run out of oil? How do we run our economies, fuel our vehicles and heat our homes?
If you don’t believe such a thing ever will happen (or at least not in our lifetime), then consider this slightly less-grim question: What happens when we run out of easily affordable oil?
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a conference at the University of Maryland, sponsored by the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. The topic was energy, and the speakers were industry representatives, analysts, authors, government representatives and lobbyists.
We talked about a range of energy issues — from gasoline to electric generation. During the next several weeks, I will do a series of columns outlining some of the issues these speakers raised.
But for now, let’s consider the bleakest possible scenario — the possibility that the world’s oil supply might already have “peaked,” that we’re already on the downside of oil production, and oil will only become increasingly more difficult to find and extract. And more expensive.
(18 December 2005)
Familiar material to the PO community. What’s significant is that out in Wisconsin, a newspaper editor is receptive to the message of peak oil and inspired to do a series on it. The message is spreading. -BA
Five who laid groundwork for spike in oil market
Chip Cummins, Bhushan Bahree, Shai Oster and John Fialka, Wall Street Journal via Post-Gazette
…the real cause [of the spike in oil prices] is a profound shift in the global energy system that has been 25 years in the making: The world’s thirst for oil has grown faster than the industry’s ability to slake it. As recently as the late 1990s there were gluts. Now there is virtually no spare oil left.
Many big forces combined to create the crunch: the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ obsession with avoiding market crashes, Big Oil’s emphasis on profits over finding oil, China’s new oil addiction, America’s old one, and the new role of investors in energy markets. Behind it were decisions by individuals around the world, including a Saudi minister, a British oil baron and a Beijing yuppie.
Profiles of:
The OPEC Czar: Al Naimi
The Gas Guzzler: The new Chinese car owners
The Oil Baron: John Browne, chief executive of British Petroleum
The Prophet: [our own] Matthew Simmons
The Washington Warrior: Andrew Lundquist, head of VP Cheney’s energy task force
(20 December 2005)
Discussed at peak oil-dot-com.
The unintended consequences of oil and taxation
Roland Watson, New Era Investor
In a previous blog, we made the unremarkable prediction that investment in North Sea gas and oil exploration would decline a a result of Gordon Brown’s tax raid on corporate profits in that region.
And, behold, as surely as night follows day, Shell came to the front first with declared cuts in rig counts for future exploration (see link). …
This will appear to have an unintended consequence as far as the Chancellor is concerned.
That is the suggestion that cutbacks in North Sea exploration will now draw out the tail of depletion in UK oil production. The rate of depletion will at this point appear to be unchecked, but the remaining reserves will not now be so rapidly exploited giving a deeper end to the decline of the once great British oil venture.
(19 December 2005)
Interesting point. Roland also just made another post on electric hybrids. -BA
(21 December 2005)
Peak Oil on BBC Newsnight programme 21DEC via Global Public Media
Liz Gibbons (programme producer),
Tonight we are devoting most of the programme to exploring whether we are reaching the end of the Oil Age and if we are, then what on earth comes next?
When historians look back at 2005, they may single out a few key facts. This year, the arctic sea ice shrank to its smallest ever size; record heat-waves hit parts of Asia and Africa; oil prices soared to 70 dollars a barrel; and terror came to the streets of London.
Seemingly unrelated events at first glance, perhaps, but might historians also conclude that are they all actually a symptom of the same thing?
Has our ability to rely on an endless supply of oil to maintain our living standards reached its peak? Has the decision to maintain western oil interests in the Middle East and other unstable parts of the world led to instability back home? Have the environmental consequences of our reliance on oil pushed the planet to a tipping point from which there is no return? And, if we are nearing the end of the Oil Age, how radically will our lives have to change to compensate?
Or are we all worrying far too much? Can we rely on technology, ideas, the human spirit to carry us into a new and better age? Let’s hope so…
We’ve assembled a panel of experts to chew over these issues, and our team of reporters will be giving us their view of how bad it all really is.
(21 December 2005)
UPDATED Dec 23: Changed the link from BBC to Global Public Media, since the BBC link is apparently only temporary. -BA
