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Dear Saudi Arabia, only you can save the planet
George Monbiot, Guardian,
We have gone mad, Your Majesty, and only you can cure our affliction
An open letter to the leader of Opec’s biggest oil producer, the one man who can force Britain to cut its carbon emissions
—
King Abdaullah of Saudi Arabia
Your Majesty,
In common with the leaders of most western nations, our prime minister is urging you to increase your production of oil. I am writing to ask you to ignore him. Like the other leaders he is delusional, and is no longer competent to make his own decisions.
You and I know that there are several reasons for the high price of oil. Low prices at the beginning of this decade discouraged oil companies from investing in future capacity. There is a global shortage of skilled labour, steel and equipment. The weak dollar means that the price of oil is higher than it would have been if denominated in another currency. While your government says that financial speculation is an important factor, the Bank of England says it is not, so I don’t know what to believe. The major oil producers have also become major consumers; in some cases their exports are falling even as their production has risen, because they are consuming more of their own output.
But what you know and I do not is the extent to which the price of oil might reflect an absolute shortage of global reserves. You and your advisers are perhaps the only people who know the answer to this question. Your published reserves are, of course, a political artefact unconnected to geological reality. The production quotas assigned to its members by Opec, the oil exporters’ cartel, reflect the size of their stated reserves, which means that you have an incentive to exaggerate them. How else could we explain the fact that, despite two decades of furious pumping, your kingdom posts the same reserves as it did in 1988?
You say that you are saving your oil for the benefit of future generations. If this is true, it is a rational economic decision: oil in the ground looks like a better investment than money in the bank. But, reluctant as I am to question your Majesty’s word, I must remind you that some oil analysts are now wondering whether this prudence is a convenient fiction.
… your restrictions on supply – voluntary or otherwise – are helping the government to meet its carbon targets. So how does it respond? By angrily demanding that you remove them so that we can keep driving and flying as much as we did before.
(27 May 2008)
Report on First General Assembly of ASPO Switzerland, May 24th 2008, University of Basel
Francois Cellier, The Oil Drum: Europe
ASPO Switzerland was founded 1.5 years ago by Daniele Ganser, a young professor of contemporary history at the University of Basel. … Last Saturday, ASPO Switzerland held its first general assembly in the Aula of the University of Basel …
… When my wife and I were wandering through the old parts of Basel after the conference, asking ourselves, how many of the people we saw going about their daily business have an inkling of Peak Oil and what it means for them, we came to the conclusion that Switzerland by and large is still behaving like Sleeping Beauty before the prince came to rescue her.
Switzerland is at the tail end of European countries with respect to fuel efficiency in private vehicles. Whereas 10 years ago, the average private car in Switzerland weighed 1300 kg, the average weight of private cars has meanwhile risen to 1500 kg. Whereas the minergy standard was developed here in Switzerland in the 1990s, even today, only 20% of the new houses are built to that standard. Central oil heatings still dominate the heating market here in Switzerland, and even new buildings are still frequently equipped with oil burners.
The economy continues to be going strong, and the warning signs of the looming oil crash aren’t on the wall yet. For Mr. and Mrs. Swiss, Peak Oil has not turned into an issue as of now. They are more surprised than alarmed about the suddenly rising prices at the gas stations, and they have not modified their driving habits yet because of them.
… However, with all this talk about when Peak Oil is going to occur, there was hardly any time to talk about its consequences. What does Peak Oil mean for Switzerland?
Colin Campbell mentioned briefly that, after Peak Oil, the oil producing nations will keep more of the remaining oil for themselves, i.e., oil export will dwindle faster than oil production. Switzerland, as a country poor in natural resources and big guns, may suddenly find itself at the end of the feeding line. Yet, I doubt that this message came across.
It was mentioned once in a fleeting remark that one of the consequences of Peak Oil and its accompanying high fuel prices will be a shift of wealth from the consumer to the producer nations. Hence Switzerland may find itself in a considerably weakened position economically after Peak Oil.
(26 May 2008)
SwissInfo has a video report on the conference (in German):
Der Ölpreis liegt bei über 130 Dollar pro Barrel. Doch wie weiter, wenn die Ölvorräte langsam zur Neige gehen? In Basel haben Fachleute über diese Frage diskutiert.
Supply-demand imbalance boosts oil prices
David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
… Stagnant production over the past few years makes some wonder whether the dreaded moment of “peak oil” has arrived.
Petroleum is a finite resource, and sooner or later, global production of it will peak before going into an irreversible decline. No one knows for certain when that moment will hit. It’s the kind of milestone that can only be seen in retrospect, after years of falling production. But the fact that oil companies have not yet been able to ramp up their output to capitalize on today’s prices alarms people who believe peak oil is upon us.
“It’s a strong signal that global oil production is probably peaking about now,” said Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute think tank in Sebastopol. Heinberg has popularized the notion of peak oil in a series of books.
“That’s not to say we won’t see another month or two of higher production, here or there,” he said. “But we’re on the plateau.”
Many if not most oil industry analysts disagree. A few even argue that enough new wells will be drilled in the next few years to create an oil glut and lower prices.
“We’re projecting by the end of 2009 we may actually be in a surplus,” said Frank Verrastro, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
(26 May 2008)
The end of oil is nigh
Kevin Davie, Mail & Guardian (South Africa)
This school of thought has enjoyed only fringe status until recently, but is now fast moving to the mainstream as crude oil prices continue to break new records
… The subject [peak oil] is studied by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (Aspo), which has chapters in countries across the globe. Its South African affiliate last year completed a study for the presidency as part of an exercise to model the future of the country up to 2019.
An Aspo study, Energy Futures for South Africa, says that oil discoveries around the world have been declining since the 1960s.
“The evidence from real oil wells [for example, in the US South and the North Sea] provides empirical evidence that oil production roughly follows a bell-shaped curve, rising to a peak and then falling,” says the document.
“Approximately two-thirds of the oil-producing nations have passed their individual peaks.”
The Aspo report says that because oil is used to make most products and to fuel transport, shortages will have significant effects on the economy, financial markets, transport, mobility, agriculture, food, population, geopolitics and conflict.
The consequences of oil depletion can be mitigated, says Aspo, through energy-efficient transport systems, switching to renewable sources of energy, changing people’s patterns of personal consumption, enhancing food security through localised and organic agriculture, pursuing “eco-village” residential development and constructing energy-efficient buildings.
South Africa, Aspo says, has both strengths and vulnerabilities in facing the challenges of global resource depletion and climate change.
(27 May 2008)
