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Peak oil activist in the Wall Street Journal
Neil King Jr., Walls Street Journal
In a World Short Of Oil, Provisions Must Be Made
Mr. Wissner of Middleville Stocks Up on Rice, Gold;
No Faith in a ‘Techno Fix’
—
MIDDLEVILLE, Mich. — It was around midnight one evening in November when Aaron Wissner shot up in bed, jolted awake by a fear: He wasn’t fully ready for the day when the world starts running low on oil.
Yes, he had tripled the size of the garden in front of the tidy white-clapboard house he shares with his wife and infant son. He had stacked bags of rice in his new pantry, stashed gold valued at $8,000 in his safe-deposit box and doubled the size of the propane tank in his yard.
“But I felt panicky, like I needed more insurance,” he says. So the 38-year-old middle-school computer teacher put on his jacket and drove to an all-night gas station, where he filled three, five-gallon jugs with gasoline.
“It was a feel-good moment,” says his wife, Kimberly Sager. “But he slept better.”
Mr. Wissner has had more than a few fretful nights since he became “peak-oil aware,” as he calls it, about 30 months ago. In embracing the theory that the world’s oil production is about to peak, Mr. Wissner has tossed himself into a movement that is gaining thousands of adherents, egged on by soaring oil prices, the rarity of big new oil finds and writings on the Internet.
There are now dozens of “relocalization” working groups scattered from Maine to Southern California pushing for people to spurn cars, buy local produce and work where they live. Mr. Wissner’s own congressman, a Republican nuclear physicist named Vernon Ehlers, is part of the 13-member congressional Peak Oil Caucus formed in late 2005. City councils from Bloomington, Ind., to Portland, Ore., have passed peak-oil resolutions to gird for the looming crunch.
Many converts, like Houston oil banker Matthew Simmons, remain firm members of the suit-and-tie energy establishment. Others have gone “off-grid,” cutting ties to the mainstream economy and growing yams in their garden as they wait for the coming chaos. Mr. Wissner and his wife fall somewhere in the middle — alienated by a car-obsessed culture, but still part of it. …
(26 January 2008)
Video at the original. Aaron Wissner is an EB contributor.
There have been other profiles of peakists in the media, but I think this article is the most prominent to date. The WSJ handles the subject fairly, and it’s always the pleasure to see the WSJ professionals at work (they’re some of the best in the business).
One of our informants tells us to expect more coverage of peak oil activists, this time by a news service. -BA
Fuel crisis looms by 2015
Melissa Ketchell, Courier-Mail, Brisbane.
T will take only seven years for world demand for oil and gas to outstrip supply, according to the chief executive of the world’s second-biggest oil company.
Adding to concerns long held by energy experts, Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said that by 2015, supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas would not keep up with demand.
“We are experiencing a step-change in the growth rate of energy demand due to population growth and energy development,” Mr van der Veer said in an email to Shell employees.
Society would have no choice but to use nuclear power and unconventional fossil fuels such as oil sands, as well as renewable energies, he said.
Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas Brisbane spokesman Stuart McCarthy said yesterday it was time for governments to act, now that big businesses were speaking openly about the problem.
Mr McCarthy wants the Queensland Government to move on a report by a committee chaired by the state’s Minister for Sustainability, Andrew McNamara.
The McNamara report warns the peak oil crisis could hit the tourism industry hard, put pressure on inflation and dramatically increase demand for effective public transport.
“We need the Government to act. This will impact far sooner than clim
(27 January 2008)
US Petroleum Supply, Ethanol, and State of the Industry – API
Gail Tverberg, The Oil Drum
On Thursday, January 17, the American Petroleum Institute (API) hosted another Blogger Conference Call. The purpose of this call was to talk about 2008 US statistical data regarding oil supply, and various related issues. In this post, I provide insights from API’s bloggers call. Since most of the numbers are fairly similar to EIA data, I also look at longer trends using EIA data.
1. API Statistical Report: In 2007, total domestic petroleum deliveries were flat–marking the third year in a row for which they experienced only minimal growth or outright decline.
From the graph, what API says about level US consumption of oil products (“petroleum deliveries”) being flat for the last three years is very much in line with what EIA is showing. US Consumption of oil products of all kinds (gasoline, diesel, fuel for airplanes, asphalt, etc) was increasing for many years, then leveled off in the last three years.
Analysis. To get an idea of how much current consumption is below that that might be expected, I fitted an exponential trend line to 1991 to 2004 data.
(26 January 2008)
