Peak oil – Mar 3

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

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Why peak oil is probably about now
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
This post is for the benefit of those readers who’s friends or relatives just spat out their coffee over their morning New York Times in surprise that oil is starting to run out and nobody warned them before now. If you are looking around for more background information, I would like to summarize a series of arguments and analyses that have led me to the view that peak oil is most likely occurring about now, give or take a year or two. My personal coffee-spitting incident occurred about a year ago, and this is some of what I’ve figured out in the meantime.
(1 March 2006)
Comment by MOBJECTIVIST.

Peak Oil? Contrary to the theory, oil production shows no sign of a peak
Exxon-Mobil website
Will we soon reach a point when the world’s oil supply begins to decline? Yes, according to the so-called “peak-oil” proponents. They theorize that, since new discoveries have not kept up with the pace of production in recent years, we will soon reach a point when oil production starts going downhill. So goes the theory.

The theory does not match reality, however. Oil is a finite resource, but because it is so incredibly large, a peak will not occur this year, next year or for decades to come.

…With abundant oil reserves still available— and industry, governments and consumers doing their share—peak production is nowhere in sight.
(2 March 2006)
This ad appeared on the March 2 Op-Ed page of the New York Times print edition. Ironically, yesterday, the NY Times had an Op-Ed piece by editor Robert J. Semple Jr., which endorsed the concept of Peak Oil.

Scientific American magazine quickly came out with a sharp rebuttal to the Exxon ad. -BA

“The Oil Drum” meets Philly regional planning
peakguy, The Oil Drum / NYC
Today I attended a historic moment in US transportation history. In attendance were all the local transportation authorities at the federal, state and local level in the region around Philadelphia. The final segment of the I-95/PA Turnpike Interchange was approved by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), thus completing the Federal Interstate Highway System as it was designed in the 1950s. In one of those great ironic twists of fate, I was invited there to present the concept of peak oil on behalf of The Oil Drum community and to urge them to address their oil addiction by reducing automobile dependency. Typical Top-Down Planning – Just as one project is finally completed, it no longer fits the community’s needs!

…Increasing energy costs were already on their radar, as I imagine it is becoming more important to everywhere now. In their long range plan, they already identified runaway energy costs as a potential scenario, but one that had been considered a low probability back in 2003, but their interest has reawakened over the last year. They now have a draft report Titled “A Post-Global Economic Development Strategy to Energize Our Economy and Secure Our Future” that quotes Robert Hirsch, Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, the Post Carbon Institute, Amory Lovins and other usual suspects.

To set-up the peak oil problem, I presented a brief history of the oil age…

…All in all, I thought it was a productive start to what will be a long process of rethinking their regional transportation system’s infrastructure. In many cases they just talked about how reactivating their 19th Century freight & passenger rail and port infrastructure will serve them well in the 21st Century. The meeting underscored how the answers to peak oil will be different in every region.

With the NY Times Article from yesterday, there has never been an easier time to start talk about peak oil in your local area.
(2 Mar 2006)

OilCrash: a 90-minute documentary on the planet’s dwindling oil resources
movie website, Lava Productions (Switzerland)
In this compelling and highly entertaining documentary, OilCrash, Producers/Directors Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack together with Reto Caduff explain why the imminent peak in oil production will present the world with the most dire and immediate repercussions. OilCrash is the story of how our civilization as we know it, is on a collision course with geology.

Supported by a powerful mix of archival footage, NASA shots of burning oil fields, and historical film excerpts, OilCrash guides us on an exotic, visual journey to Houston and the West Texas oil country, Caracas, the Lake of Maracaibo, the Orinoco delta, Central Asia’s secretive republic of Azerbaijan with its ancient capital Baku and the Caspian Sea, Shanghai, Hong Kong and London. We visit the worlds’ capitals to learn of our future from such leading authorities as oil investment banker Matthew Simmons, former OPEC chairman Fadhil Chalabhi, and legendary former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani.
(February 2006)
Mentioned at peakol-dot-com.

Challenger for Maine governer runs on energy platform
George Chappell, York County Coast Star (Maine)_
KENNEBUNK — Christopher F. Miller, a Democrat from Gray, is campaigning for governor on an all-inclusive energy platform.

“My campaign is about getting the state to prepare for oil running out,” said Miller in a recent interview at the Coast Star office. “The longer we wait to prepare for that — if we haven’t built those windmills, we’re not going to have any way to build them. What’s the price of fossil energy? How do you price something that’s running out?”

In new windmill technology, for example, the blades are so big and turn slowly that they no longer kill birds, an early objection to wind power.

“They can deal with much less wind and generate a lot more power,” he said.

The state has to be thinking about oil depletion now and working on it now, he stressed.
(2 March 2006)
Is Miller the first US gubernatorial candidate to mention Peak Oil?

Game over for fossil fuel addiction
Clive Smith, PowerSwitch
The markets are our gods and we will be provided for by the wonder of technology. We have a very rude awakening coming and that shock will be here quicker than most of us can imagine.

Last week I visited one of London’s large West End book stores and stood looking at a couple of books in the environment sciences section. A middle aged women and her husband stopped to look, then the women proclaimed at the top of her voice, “Hmmm, here we have the DOOM Section”. As they walked off, she was heard to say, “I am still not convinced!”, as she referred to global warming.

The fact that the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are melting, which is quiet obvious when you look at satellite images over the past 20 years. Never mind the melting frozen tundra of Siberia that is releasing more methane or greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Perhaps these things aren’t really happening, because we choose not to believe them? This brought home to me, that we really do live in a society of denial.
(2 Mar 2006)
Clive Smith is on the News team at PowerSwitch in the UK.

Preparing New York City for the coming energy crisis
Dan Miner, Peak Oil NYC
…Although the City is already a leader in energy efficiency, we need to do much more. Businesses, building managers, and individuals can easily adapt many highly productive energy-saving and cost-cutting measures. And citizens can urge elected officials, civic groups, and business leaders to begin preparing now for a fuel-depleted future. In other places this process has begun, with a bipartisan Peak Oil caucus in Congress led by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD.), and a conference co-sponsored by ASPO and the City of Denver .

…More important than any single measure is the need for government officials, business leaders and civic organizations and the general public to learn about fuel depletion, and to jointly develop responses. A peak oil conference set for April 27 – 29 in Manhattan will bring national and local experts to address the problem. Concerned citizens and activists are invited to attend. For conference information, go to www.energysolutionsconference.org/ . For abundant documentation of the problem, and detailed options for increasing efficiency and sustainability in local transportation, heating and electric generation, click here for the full report, “Preparing NYC for the Coming Energy Crisis” (Adobe Acrobat required).

Dan Miner is the organizer of Peak Oil NYC, a chapter of Post Carbon Institute, and is the energy committee chair of NYC Sierra Club. He is vice president of business services at a local economic development corporation in New York City. This report does not reflect the views of that organization.
(2 Mar 2006)