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World a-twitter over peak oil
Multiple authors, Twitter via Summarize
Partial results of a search for Twitter comments on “peak oil” using Summarize Conversational Search.
cbell619: @schwier water is going to be the next peak oil. just wait about 15 years
about 4 hours ago
schwier: Watched a video on peak oil with father-in-law. Scary if true.
about 4 hours ago
plasticbasket: Peak Energy: Bracing For $150 Oil – http://tinyurl.com/5owzgj (expand)
about 16 hours ago
FeedTheBull: [Neeti Bhalla] with $130 – $140 oil…we are looking at 0% growth…CPI will peak in 3rd quarter and then fall to 3.5% – 4% next year.
… freiburghaus: Der Peak-Of-Oil ist nun definitiv hinter uns… Fliegt Kinder, fliegt!!!! solange ihr es euch noch leisten könnnt http://tiny.cc/GMOku
JonNott: Heard on Today: Peak oil is a capacity issue, we need to get it out the ground quicker to see if it’s really running out.
acroll: Sliding into Toronto on the train. A much more civilized way to travel. Hope peak oil means a rail resurgence. 1 day ago
Matt_Green: Prediction – Due to peak oil (http://is.gd/PER), within 5 years the average NZ student can not afford to fly to Europe for their OE
(10 July 2008)
Courtesy of Post Carbon technical guru Jason. -BA
Review: World Made by Hand, Part I
Byron W. King, Whiskey & Gunpowder via Howe Street
World Made by Hand is a beautifully written novel about a very difficult time, post-Peak Oil. Some books hit you in the gut and force you to think; and this is one of them. You may go where you don’t want to go. But it’s quite a trip.
The book begins innocently enough. Two men are fishing in a stream near an old railroad bed. They are talking, enjoying each other’s company. It is “sometime in the not-too-distant future.” And thus does a story unfold over a couple of summer months. The only hint that something is amiss comes when the narrator states that he “couldn’t remember a lovelier evening before or after our world changed.”
The world changed? Then the two fishermen gather their belongings and walk back to town. They are walking, of course, because there are no motorized vehicles. In this world there is no oil. But the lack of oil is just the beginning of this summer’s tale.
(10 July 2008)
Asking one of the less comfortable questions about our energy future…
Heading Out, The Oil Drum
… Ken Deffeyes, who did so much to bring this current situation [about peak oil] to our attention with his writing and books, who has said that he is no longer a prophet, but has become a historian. His remark implies that the much of the debate over peak oil is perhaps over.
And there I would disagree with him, because I remain critically concerned, as Euan is, that the world does not really understand the size of the problem that is approaching, and the speed of that arrival.
Further the information that controls the shape of the production curve, post peak is usually derived relating to the pattern of the peak in the United States. To anticipate that the world curve will look the same, overlooks the critical difference that, at the present time, there is no satisfactory alternative fuel to satisfy demand. Thus the market imperatives to extract more oil in the immediate short term to meet needs may over-ride more rational concerns about achieving maximum ultimate recovery by producing the oil more slowly. This is a different situation than that which held over the time that the American production plot was developed, and alternate supplies of oil were available from abroad.
One of the significant concerns relates to the rate at which production decreases in mature fields. The average value has been assumed to lie at around 4 – 4.5%, and it is initially disquieting to note the comment that the Wall Street Journal recently quoted from the IEA.
Project delays averaging 12 months, coupled with global average decline of 5.2% – up from 4% last year – are the factors behind these revisions. Over 3.5 mb/d of new production will be needed each year just to hold global production steady. “Our findings highlight again the need for sustained, and indeed, increased investment both upstream and downstream – to assure that the market is adequately supplied,” stated [IEA Executive Director Nabuo] Tanaka.
The acceleration in the decline rate is likely to continue as more horizontal wells become the norm in oil fields and as these become spent and drop out of production.
(10 July 2008)
