Oil Crash: A New 90 minute documentary on the planet’s dwindling oil resources
OilCrashMovie.com
From the promotional website:
Is it really money that makes the world go round? If only it were so simple. Oil lubricates our global economy.
Proof? 98% of the world’s transportation is directly dependent on oil.
Just two analogies to illustrate the value of oil:
A single barrel contains the equivalent energy of twelve men working for a whole year: We owe our wealth to the abundant supply of cheap energy.
Ten calories are needed for every calorie produced on a US farm: We literally eat oil.
Demand continues to grow and there is less and less new oil to be found: Already we are using up four barrels of oil for every new one discovered.
We have reached or are about to reach the peak in worldwide production. The price of oil – even now far less than that of bottled water – is still much too low given its limited availability and its unique qualities.
(Jan 2006)
The Oil Crash movie is produced by Lava Productions in Switzerland and is due to be completed at the end of January -AF
Energy, the Big Story of 2005
Jim Puplava and John Loeffler, Financial Sense News Hour
Transcript of the Christmas Eve edition of the Financial Sense News Hour featuring interviews from year including James Howard Kunstler, Matthew Simmons, Kenneth Deffeyes, Michael Klare and many financial experts. Streaming and downloadable audio of the show is available at the site.
(8 Jan 2006)
Twilight in the Desert: an interview on peak oil with Matthew Simmons
Sandra Ward, Barons via Japan Focus
Japan focus editor writes: Barrons, the weekly magazine for investors published by Dow Jones (publisher of the Wall Street Journal), is a pillar of the American business elite. So when Barrons runs a lengthy article on the “twilight for oil,” take it as a strong signal that the issue has parked itself squarely in the mindset of the global investor class.
Of course, it has been obvious for several months that investors’ hot money was in part driving oil prices upwards. Some of them raked in large profits by taking advantage of escalating concerns over the adequacy of oil and gas supplies, especially as the effects of hurricanes, the continuing war in Iraq, disruptions in Nigeria and elsewhere, and other threatening news regularly appeared on the front pages of the global media.
But this particular article is at best tangentially about how to make yet more money from the continuing energy crisis. Rather, it’s well worth a close read because it presents the views of oil analyst Matthew Simmons, one of the most respected exponents of the thesis that we face a catastrophe of immense proportions unless we start taking our collective energy predicament seriously.
(6 Jan 2006)
URGENT OIL APOCALYPSE BRIEF
The Daily Reckoning, via EnergyResources
From the investment newsletter:
“The American people are going to pay a terrible price for not having hadan energy strategy…” – Former CIA Director Robert Gates
PETROLEUM APOCALYPSE!
Six months ago, an analyst group made up of former top-level U.S. government officials calculated a global oil scenario beginning RIGHT NOW, December of 2005…
In this extremely likely scenario, just 3 minor disruptions in the already-strained world oil supply chain cause:
– $150-a-barrel crude prices
– A $5.32 pump price for gas
– More than 2 million jobs lost
– A 28% drop in the S&P 500.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are 4 MAJOR CATASTROPHES
(8 Jan 2006)
This continues for pages in this style. Ron Patterson comments “You can expect more and more such alarms as this, coming from every direction as we near the peak. And I think we are very near the peak.” -AF
Predicting US Production with Gaussians
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
So, I was fooling around tonight, and made a long term graph of US production growth rates (year-on-year), which looks as follows. Because the data are so noisy, I fit a polynomial to it just to get a sense of the trend. The polynomial came out almost a straight line. I varied the degree (in the graph it’s a polynomial of degree 6), but it always wanted to be more or less straight.
(8 Jan 2006)
PeakOil.com Guest comments “Stuart’s at it again. Comparing linearizations to logistic to Gaussians…but he does come up with some pretty neat findings! (lots of charts and geekspeak in this one too…not for the faint of heart!)” -AF
“There Has To Be A Crisis”
Michael Kane, From The Wilderness
“Maybe the answer is… there has to be some crisis, a big crisis. And I think the margins of error today in the world are so much different than they were when you (James R. Schlesinger) were Secretary of Energy, to recover from such a crisis that it is a very frightening prospect if we don’t get serious about this. And I think both political parties, the Congress, and the President have this as its [sic] greatest responsibility.” [emphasis added]
— Senator Chuck Hagel speaking about the looming American energy crisis.
***
December 5, 2005 0900 PST (FTW): On November 16, 2005, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing on Peak Oil and the coming American energy crisis that is too close for comfort: so close, in fact, that the Senators and witnesses present repeatedly called such a crisis both unavoidable and necessary. This came on the heels of an announcement that a Congressional Peak Oil Caucus had been formed within the House of Representatives.
Thus far there is still no talk on Capitol Hill addressing the unsustainable nature of “the American way of life.”
The hearing, chaired by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), was titled The High Costs of Crude: The New Currency of Foreign Policy. Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), John Sununu (R-NH) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) were also present to hear testimony from former CIA Directors James R. Schlesinger and James R. Woolsey.1 Schlesinger was also the first head of the Department of Energy (DOE) created by Jimmy Carter in 1977. This is a position Woolsey seems to be on track to hold if a Democratic Administration takes office in 2008.
Schlesinger’s testimony locked in on Peak Oil and never let go. He stated what those following the subject have long known: that world discovery of oil peaked four decades ago; that high oil prices may lead to a worldwide recession; and that economic shock and political unrest are likely on the horizon. He also added that Peak Oil could prevent our military from maintaining world dominance if the oil supplies needed to advance the war machine could not be secured.
(5 Dec 2005)
We somehow missed this article by Michael Kane when it was first published -AF
GOING LOCAL! Conference in Boulder CO
PREPARING FOR THE ACCELERATING ENERGY CRISIS, Community Conference & Relocalization Expo, Jan. 14
Megan Quinn, Julian Darley, Albert Bartlett. New documentary “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”
Hosted by Boulder Valley Relocalization:
Local energy, local food, local economy!
Read More…
