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Oil Giant Sees Some Strains in the System
Clifford Krauss, NY Times
As chairman and chief executive of ConocoPhillips, James J. Mulva is steering the third-largest American integrated energy company at a time of great profit but also growing concern over global warming and rising gasoline prices and questions as to whether Big Oil is doing enough to cope with either challenge.
…Q. You have announced support for a national mandatory framework to address greenhouse gas emissions. Is this a new day for ConocoPhillips and the oil industry or is this simply green marketing?
A. It’s not a new day nor green marketing for ConocoPhillips or the industry. There is a recognition of the science that is becoming quite compelling. Climate is changing. We are concerned with greenhouse gas emissions, and as a company and as an industry we need to participate in the development of a national policy and framework to address climate change.
Q. According to the Department of Energy, the United States will consume 28 percent more oil and 19 percent more natural gas in 2030 than it did in 2005. Where will we find all that oil and gas?
A. I question whether the supply will be developed to meet those demand expectations. I believe demand is going to be constrained by supply.
Q. Drivers are concerned about rising gas prices. What can American drivers expect to pay at the pump in the short term, medium term and long term?
A. I would like to see gasoline prices decline. However, I believe that is somewhat unrealistic. Energy costs are going to continue to escalate as a result of the cost it takes to add new resources of energy.
(30 June 2007)
End Of Suburbia interview (Audio)
Andy Barrie, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
Andy Barrie spoke with Gregory Greene, director of End Of Suburbia. Runs 5:18 minutes.
(1 March 2007)
The End of the World (as we know it) (Audio)
Steve Paulson, The End of the World via Wisconsin Public Radio
It’s the liberal’s apocalypse. Consider empty big-box stories, deserted highways, worthless pieces of paper we used to call money. The economy collapses. There’s widespread violence and social unrest. The only people with a fighting chance ride out the storm in life-boat communities with access to locally-grown food. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the peak oil crisis. Also, doomsday scenarios from Islam to Christianity.
SEGMENT 1:
After a YouTube clip on the subject of Peak Oil, we meet journalist Bryant Urstadt, author of a Harper’s story called “Imagine There’s No Oil: Scenes from a liberal apocalypse.” Urstadt tells Steve Paulson about the grim future the peak oilers are already getting ready for and thinks we should all buy gold. Also, Ken Eklund is the creator of the alternate reality game “World Without Oil.” He describes the game and we hear the comments of several game bloggers.
SEGMENT 2:
Theologian Martin Marty tells Steve Paulson that The Rapture, the vision of the end of the world recently popularized in the “Left Behind” series of Christian books, is a fairly recent concept and can’t be found in the Bible. Also, British novelist Jim Crace reads from and talks with Jim Fleming about his novel “The Pesthouse.” It takes place in America after an un-named eco-disaster has decimated the population and destroyed much of our hi-tech civilization.
(June 2007)
Rather silly interview with Bryant Urstadt about the peak oil movement. Urstadt says that the figures developed by peak oil make a lot of sense, but he feels that whatever happens, people somehow will be able cope. Kurt Cobb made the intellectual argument against the Urstadt’s original article when it appeared last year: “Is the peak oil movement really just another apocalyptic cult?”. (Urstadt’s original article is behind a paywall.)
Urstadt’s dismissal of peak oil as Apocalyptic is suprisingly rare in the media. When reporters actually talk to peak oil groups or visit eco-communes, they are usually respectful, even if unconvinced. Urstadt’s original article itself was also more serious than this trivial interview would suggest.
More interesting was the interview that followed, with Ken Eklund, the creator of the recent alternate reality game “World Without Oil.” -BA
Addressing the Oil Crisis in the U.S.
Paul Notari, Solar Today
The United States faces a crisis of major proportions. Experts agree that oil production is near peaking globally and may fall dramatically during the next decade.
…In the long term, many experts are optimistic that we can wean our nation from oil through greater use of mass transit, pedestrian-friendly communities and, for personal vehicles, a transition to hydrogen fuel cell technology and electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
In the short term, however, our options are fewer and far from perfect. The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet, no single remedy. The only realistic approach in the immediate term is to address both the supply and consumption sides of our oil dilemma with an open mind, considering the pros and cons of every option.
… That leaves, as the most promising oil substitute, biofuels – that is, fuels like ethanol and biodiesel that are derived from biomass. Despite widespread excitement about their potential, most experts agree that biofuels have serious shortcomings.
… There is hope that ethanol produced from various cellulosic feed stocks, such as switchgrass, will provide about five times better return than corn, but the technology to accomplish that remains several years away.
Paul Notari is past chair of ASES and its Renewable Fuels and Sustainable Transportation Division. In 1980, as head of the Technical Information Branch at the Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory), he was the originator and publisher of Fuel From Farms, one of the first textbooks on ethanol production technology. The publication is recognized as one of the primary movers in launching today’s ethanol industry. For an unabridged version of this article, go to paulnotari.wordpress.com.
(May-June 2007)
Paul Notari’s nuanced position on biofuels is interesting in light of his early advocacy for them. -BA
Counterpoint: The Peak Oil Tango
Steve Andrews and Randy Udall, Solar Today
History suggests that energy is an IQ test that Americans tend to fail.
… We agree with the Hirsch Report’s finding that our biggest challenge will be liquid fuels. Corn ethanol is a dog, but cellulosic biofuels have promise. Since today’s cars waste about 80 percent of the energy they consume, there are enormous opportunities to improve fuel efficiency through advanced engine designs, lighter vehicle platforms, hybrid drives and better tires. What’s our strategy for averting the worst impacts of peak oil?
1. Start with education. …
2. Focus on efficiency. …
3. Switch fuels substantially from liquids to electricity. …
4. Improve land-use planning. …
5. Ramp up investments in mass transit….
6. Conserve. …
7. Reconsider alternative fuels. …
(May-June 2007)
Peak Oil Passnotes: Peak Market Economics
Edward Tapamor, Resource Investor
…But this is exactly what the consuming nations such as the U.S., the European nations, and Japan are asking of countries that produce oil, such as the OPEC nations and Russia. They are saying, “Produce more to make us more profitable and yourselves less profitable.” It is not going to wash.
For some time now, countries like the UK, in the form of new prime minister Gordon Brown, have extolled OPEC to produce more oil – more oil that countries like the UK cannot refine and turn into diesel or gasoline. In the main, politicians like Brown or President George W. Bush have demanded this of OPEC, but only in order to protect themselves from the heat of public opinion.
Now we are being told by the International Energy Agency’s chief economist Fatih Birol that unless Iraq produces something in the order of 6 million barrels per day by 2015, we are going to have some difficult times. Why Iraq? Why not Russia or Saudi Arabia? In fact, Iraq seems the least likely place to hit a trebling of extraction rates within eight years. Perhaps it is because Iraq is one of the few places that could actually make money from producing more oil, even if oil fell back to $50 per barrel.
Nevertheless, what this means is that the idea of “peak oil” is not just one of geology. Rather it is symptomatic of a fiscal culture, both in business and geo-politics, that profits from low margins and tightness of supply and demand. If you flood a market with product X you will see margins fall. If you keep supply demand tight you will see margins increase, even if costs have to rise.
Everybody in the energy complex sees advantage in high oil prices, except the poor countries with no oil production and the poor people in rich countries with no means to avoid the hikes in cost. As long as you have a stake in the game, keeping the balance right works.
…To destabilise things even more some consuming countries like the U.S. and the UK are talking about investing in other forms of energy such as biofuels. This means producers have even less incentive to carry on investing and producing more oil.
What this means is not that we have reached the halfway point in consuming the world’s hydrocarbons, instead what it means is that market economics will create a peak in output whenever it occurs. Profits create peaks.
(29 June 2007)
Contributor Rod Campbell-Ross writes: “Sensible explanation for the current situation.”
BA: I don’t quite understand the logic.
UPDATE (July 1, 2007): Reader David L. Beach writes:
I believe Edward Tapamor’s point is the capex and operating costs for developing new energy reserves are increasing faster than the incremental profits for making those investments, particularly against the base case of just “cash cowing” what’s already in place…..I’m seeing numbers of $150,000 per flowing barrel capex for a syncrude facility feeding unconventional oil….it appears the capex, at least in the West, may be rising faster than the price of crude.
