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CERA’s Yergin: Energy supply faces “growth challenge”
Original: “Canada ranked fifth in ability to increase oil production”
Ashok Dutta, Calgary Herald via CanWest
Canada has been ranked fifth in a new global oil grouping unveiled Thursday by an independent energy analyst in testimony in Washington to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Called Oil-15, or O-15, the new order put together by Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, includes all OPEC states – barring Indonesia – and includes five others that have the highest potential to increase supplies by 2015. Besides Canada, they are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Russia. The group is projected to produce 72.7 million barrels per day, or 69 per cent of total global oil output.
“It is a straight forward grouping of producers that are planning major investments and do not necessarily have a political agenda,” Guy Caruso, administrator of Washington-based watchdog Energy Information Administration, said in an interview.
Saudi Arabia was ranked No. 1. Its output was forecast by Cambridge to grow to 14.3 million barrels per day from 2005 output of 12.7 million bpd. Russia was in the No. 2 spot, and was forecasted to see production grow to 11.5 million bpd from 9.6 million. Iran was No. 3, with output forecast to grow to 4.3 million bpd from 5.7 million bpd, and Iraq No. 4, with output forecast to grow to 5.5 million from 2.6 million.
“We will see a concentration of growth in liquid production capacity within the O-15,” said Yergin, who was asked to make the presentation on energy security.
“After two decades of working off excess capacity, global energy supply is now dominated by the growth challenge.”
(23 March 2007)
Also posted at Vancouver Sun.
US experts seek India, China entry in global energy system
Arun Kumar, IANS via Malaysia Sun
Three US experts have suggested bringing the emerging major oil consumers, such as India and China, into the global energy system as a key diplomatic strategy to secure the stability of American oil supply.
Testifying before the foreign affairs committee of the House of Representatives Thursday, they were unanimous in suggesting this course as oil demand from large, rapidly growing, emerging economies, such as China and India, are projected to grow dramatically.
John M. Deutch, professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said India and China are eagerly pursuing state-to-state agreements to “lock-up” oil supplies.
This will increasingly put them in competition with developed economies and create strains in their relations with the United States and other import dependent countries, he said in the hearing on “Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Oil Dependence”.
To reduce the adverse consequences of oil import dependence, Deutch suggested a set of foreign policy measures such as inclusion of the large emerging developing economies, notably China and India, in the International Energy Agency (IEA) because of their importance as importing countries.
IEA is currently restricted to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries.
The US should also encourage countries to move their internal domestic prices toward world oil prices, so as not to subsidize petroleum use, he said. This is especially important in countries such as China and India where artificially low domestic prices contribute to the explosion in demand for private automobile use.
Daniel Yergin, chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, pointed to two critical new needs: to expand the focus of energy security to include infrastructure and the entire supply chain; and to bring China and India into the global system by expanding the IEA.
(23 March 2007)
Also posted at IndianMuslims.info.
Results from 20 opinion polls on energy
Various, PollingReport.com
(March 2007)
Lots of data for the adventurous to mine.
Energy plan from John Edwards
Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation
…presidential candidate John Edwards took the opportunity to lay out a bold energy plan that addresses some of the great challenges of our time.
…Some key aspects of the Edwards Energy Plan include a cap on greenhouse pollution in 2010 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050 – consistent with the dictates of the latest climate science.
He would use an economy-wide, cap-and-trade system and sell a portion of the pollution permits to raise $10 billion a year for a New Energy Economy Fund. The Fund would be used to pursue clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies and create 1 million jobs in the process – along the lines of what the Apollo Alliance has outlined.
One billion dollars a year from would go towards helping US automakers meet higher fuel economy requirements and utilize the latest technologies, including biofuels, hybrid and electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells, and ultra-light materials. Finally, Edwards’ plan calls for opening the electricity grid so that small-scale renewable electric generation – by farms, factories, schools, and communities – can compete with large, central power plants.
(22 March 2007)
