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David Strahan on the mainstreaming of peak oil (Audio)
Julian Darley, Global Public Media
Former BBC journalist David Strahan talks to GPM’s Julian Darley about the sudden attention to peak oil from the media, the NPC, the IEA, Goldman Sachs and CIBC. Strahan also recounts his experience with the UK’s new All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO).
David Strahan is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary film-maker who, since the early 1990s, has reported and produced extensively for the BBC’s Money Programme and Horizon strands. Strahan is the author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man and is a trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre.
David Strahan’s latest articles
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Buy The Last Oil Shock
(28 July 2007)
Especially good coverage of the peak oil situation in the UK. David Strahan is an occasional contributor to Energy Bulletin. -BA
Oil profits show signs of aging
Russell Gold and Guy Chazan, Dow Jones via Rigzone
Exxon Mobil Corp.’s disappointing second-quarter results highlight a new reality for the oil business: Increasing profitability amid today’s high prices is increasingly difficult.
Near-record prices for oil continue to support bottom lines, extending a string of massively profitable quarters for the industry as a whole. Exxon, the world’s largest nonstate-controlled oil company and the largest U.S. public company, both by market capitalization, still reported a quarterly profit of $10.26 billion for the quarter, among the largest in U.S. history.
… Production woes and cost inflation have affected the entire industry as oil companies spend more on increasingly expensive rigs, equipment and services to tap bigger and more complicated projects.
…Exxon reported that its global production of oil and gas was down 1%, although the impact of production quotas by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and international contracts that reduce Exxon’s share of oil when prices rise were partly responsible. Oil companies are struggling to find suitable opportunities to increase production while still making an adequate return.
…Some Wall Street analysts were concerned about Shell’s falling output, a trend that has been replicated across the industry as major oil companies contend with declining production at their mature fields and the challenges of finding new reserves. “All the oil companies are struggling to grow production,” said Peter Hitchens, an analyst at brokerage Teather & Greenwood. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to bring projects in on time and on budget.”
(27 July 2007)
The most dangerous metaphor
Andrew Leonard, Salon
When will Moore’s Law no longer hold?
For 40 years, semiconductor manufacturers have successfully lived up to the challenge of doubling the number of transistors they can squeeze onto a chip of silicon every 18 to 24 months. This magic trick has bequeathed the world computing devices that are constantly pulling off the astonishing feat of delivering greater power at less cost. Occasionally, someone will predict that the party is about to end, but so far, no one has been right.
As a consequence, culturally speaking, we expect that the iPod Nano or iPhone that hits the stores six months from now will have twice the memory and be cheaper than what’s available today. This expectation, satisfied, has become practically an inalienable right.
…But what happens after that? Electronic News offered a new twist on this age-old question last week, suggesting that while semiconductor manufacturers have a pretty good handle on how to achieve the next couple of generations, they are uncharacteristically at sea as to how to make the leap into even more nanoscopic territory.
…Moore’s Law is not a natural law; unlike the laws of thermodynamics, it is eminently repealable.
Metaphorically speaking, the end of Moore’s Law would be quite a shock. Moore’s Law inspires the kind of techno-utopianism that believes, almost as an act of faith, that humanity can innovate itself out of the messes it creates by sheer cleverness. Peak oil? Don’t worry about it — once Moore’s Law starts working its magic on solar power, we’ll have all the energy we need. World hunger in an era of drought and devastating climate change? No problem. Moore’s Law applied to biotechnology tells us that we will keep redesigning plants to deliver ever greater yields under ever more drastic conditions.
(27 July 2007)
