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Heinberg: Don’t panic; prepare!
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
The financial sky is falling. Hey, that’s not my opinion; it’s news straight from the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. America’s top mortgage companies and investment banks, and the world’s biggest insurer have either already gone bankrupt or are in the process of doing so.
For someone who wrote a book titled The Party’s Over, this might seem like a propitious moment to shock readers into greater depths of fear and apprehension. After all, we’re only witnessing the doom of the financial world now; we have yet to see the collapse of the transport and food infrastructures, which are merely fluttering at the moment as the result of high oil prices. When the inevitable and imminent decline in world oil production really starts to bite, the support struts of normalcy will truly come unglued.
Okay, so let’s all have a good scream now: AAAAAIIIEEEEEEGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Good. Now that that’s out of our systems, let’s reflect. Panic helps no one. We have a diminishing amount of time in which to work within a structure that still has some semblance of stability. We should take advantage of every remaining moment. Now is the time for careful, methodical action.
(17 September 2008)
John Michael Greer interview (audio)
KMO, C-Realm Podcast Episode 120
The Long Descent
KMO welcomes author and Archdruid, John Michael Greer, to the program to discuss his new book The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age and explore the possibility that Peak Oil may play out more like a fall down the stairs than like a plunge from a third floor balcony.
Do the worldviews of Peak Oil aficionados, Singularitarians, and Trekkies all spring from the book of Revelations, and are modern visions concerning progress and the human future really just ancient religious myths in secular drag?
(17 September 2008)
KMO starts out reading from the Book of Revelations. The actual interview begins several minutes into the podcast (at about 56:00). -BA
CNBC documentary “The Hunt for Black Gold” Sept 24
Reality TV
CNBC’s ‘THE HUNT FOR BLACK GOLD’ Reported By Maria Bartiromo Premieres On Wednesday, September 24th At 9pm & 1am ET
On Wednesday September 24th at 9PM & 1AM ET, CNBC presents “The Hunt for Black Gold,” an original one-hour documentary reported by Maria Bartiromo. CNBC, First in Business Worldwide investigates the dramatic and historic spike in oil and gas, how big American Oil companies spend those historic profits, whether big oil feels responsible for the ripple effect of high oil prices as well as what’s going to happen if the country doesn’t adequately prepare for that inevitable moment when crude runs out.
Bartiromo travels the world, providing a rare look inside oil infrastructure and taking viewers to some of the most remote and valuable places on the planet-Alaska’s North Slope and the Gulf of Mexico-two critical areas in the national oil debate.
Bartiromo interviews Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and Senator McCain’s Vice Presidential pick, who is at the center of the oil debate. Palin discusses the hot button issues such as drilling in the pristine ANWR, breaking the grip foreign oil holds on America as well as her thoughts about Senator Obama and Senator Biden’s naivete about renewable energy feeding hungry markets.
Bartiromo also speaks with the men who run the most profitable companies in the history of the United States including a rare sit-down interview with ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva…
… “The Hunt for Black Gold” also looks at the peak oil theory: How much oil is left? Is the planet running dry? Some of the foremost experts say yes.
There are online excerpts from the documentary, including interviews with Matt Simmons and Sarah Palin. -BA
The Next Big Disruption: Peak Oil
Denis Pombriant, CRM Buyer
What happens when the demand for oil clearly surpasses suppliers’ ability to provide it? No industry will escape the disruption of so-called peak oil, including CRM, writes columnist Denis Pombriant. The time to begin looking for solutions and opportunities is now.
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“Peak oil” is a term that resonates very little with about 95 percent of the population. I discovered this by asking a lot of people and getting blank stares. A few hardy souls ventured a guess, and those guesses were not far from reality. If you take those words to a search engine you will be surprised by the number of hits you get. I got nearly 5 million hits the first time I searched on the term.
… As I look at this disruptive moment, my natural reaction is to ask what effect such a disruption might have on business and what CRM Improve customer service and productivity with Avaya Unified Communications. might be able to offer in the way of solutions. In performing my analysis, it became clear to me that there are numerous front office business processes that are highly dependent on energy, especially for travel.
… Sales calls are a primary example, but they are not alone. There are energy considerations in the call center, and marketing departments can do a lot to help take some of the energy footprint out of front office business processes. Driving or flying to see customers are activities that are highly dependent on energy use, and in an environment where the price of fuel is high and volatile, the cost of selling will become more unpredictable, and so will profits.
We have just completed a new white paper, “CRM & Sustainability”, which examines the challenges that this disruptive moment called “peak oil” is about to inflict on the global economy.
(17 September 2008)
It looks as if downloading the paper requires registration (free). -BA
Where are Libya’s oil exports headed?
Luis de Sousa, The Oil Drum: Europe
Libya is a relatively new country, having declared independence in 1951. For the last 39 years, the country has been ruled by a single man, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. Over the years, the identity of this leader and his exquisite sense of style have mingled with the identity of the country itself.
Libya joined OPEC right after its creation, and played a pivotal role in the 1973 oil crisis. For the next three decades, Libya endured tense (and sometimes belligerent) relations with western countries. In recent years, as international oil prices have been rising, Libya has been able to re-institute itself as a reliable partner to the West, taking full advantage of the wealth promised by its still considerable oil resources.
… The Macroscopic View
Even with the increased consumption projected here, Libya remains as an important oil exporter for the period considered.
There is much irony in Libya’s history as an oil producer. If Colonel Gaddafi hadn’t reached power, the country probably would have extracted most of its oil during times of cheap energy (as happened in most of Europe). While the country was forced into isolation for decades, Libya now reaches the XXI century with half of its oil reserves to extract and healthy foreign relations, looking set for what maybe the country’s Golden Age.
(18 September 2008)
Documentary Film On Peak Oil and Suburban Sprawl, “Sprawling From Grace,” Available On DVD
press release, EMotion Pictures
EMotion Pictures Productions, LLC announces the release of its current documentary film Sprawling From Grace; Driven To Madness available for purchase in DVD format.
“At a time when people are looking at alternative energy sources for our current oil dependency, we’re excited to release this film as a way of showcasing the problems created by suburban sprawl,” stated David M. Edwards, producer and director of Sprawling From Grace. “It details the difficulties and dangers we face from an aging transportation infrastructure, and brings attention to the problem of peak oil and how it relates to the current oil crisis.”
This film features former President Bill Clinton; former Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis; author of The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler; and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. It explores how our nation is responding to the growing concerns of peak oil and the looming oil crises, and investigates the ability of alternative energy to replace petroleum. The film reveals the relationship between transportation and development, and advocates for change in the way in which we build our cities.
“In the future, we will see the reintroduction of public transportation and transit in order to guide sensible, sustainable urban development,” stated Edwards. “We must abandon the strategy of treating the symptoms, and look for a sustainable cure.”
The oil crisis is the most important problem facing Americans today. The economy, the war in Iraq, national security; all the big issues of today have strong roots in the oil crisis. Oil prices are spiraling out of control. Our country’s economic structure is based on cheap energy. Without cheap transportation fuels, all areas of our economy begin to wobble.
The first order of business must be to curb consumption. As stated in the movie, “Contrary to popular belief, Americans are not addicted to oil. Americans are addicted to unencumbered transportation, and it is this addiction we must address before the American dream, becomes the American nightmare.”
(18 September 2008)
Website for the film: http://www.sprawlingfromgrace.com/ . Video clips from the film are on the website.
Peak oil “wrong,” says Schwartz
Dallas Kachan, Cleantech Group
Forget everything you’ve heard about peak oil as a driver of clean technology, said futurist Peter Schwartz today in a provocative closing session at the Cleantech Forum XVIII in Washington D.C.
“The peak oil people simply don’t know what they’re talking about, they don’t know the facts,” claimed Schwartz, co-founder and chairman of the Global Business Network and author of five books.
“Peak oil is wrong. We really don’t know how much oil there is in most of the oil reservoirs of the world. Oil reservoirs are complex geological structures, and most of the data is in private hands, or in state governments, and they are not particularly forthcoming about how much is there.”
The theory of peak oil, credited to M. King Hubbert, theorized that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His model, now referenced as Hubbert’s peak, is widely touted to suggest that world oil reserves are now declining and that demand now outstrips humanity’s ability to deliver the amount of oil required. The peak oil model is cited by many as a fundamental driver of development of non fossil-based sources of energy, such as wind and solar.
From 1982 to 1986, Schwartz headed scenario planning for the Royal
Dutch/Shell group of companies.
“We don’t know how much is out there,” he said today. “And they tend to be very conservative, these estimates. And technology changes, and that opens up new reserves deep offshore. When I was at Shell, we could only drill into a thousand feet of water. Today, they’re drilling into 10,000 feet of water, and 20,000 feet below that.”
Peak oil proponents point out that no meaningfully-sized new reserves have been discovered in years, that the oil that is known is relatively finite, and believe it will become too expensive and resource-intensive to produce meaningful amounts of petrochemical products from other known sources of oil like the Canadian tar sands.
“We are not going to run out of oil before the issue of climate change drives change. It’ll be costly oil. But it’ll be climate change catastrophes [such as sudden, unexpected displacement of large numbers of people, and massive property damage], and more expensive oil, not the fact that we’re running out of oil, that will drive change,” according to Schwartz.
(17 September 2008)
