Matthieu Auzanneau

Pic pétrolier : deux vice-présidents de Total répondent à Oil Man

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English summary: Total has agreed to present on my blog its scenario on world future oil production. No peak oil in sight according to Total, provided the industry puts on stream 45 Mb/d in the next 15 years. How can this tremendous task may be achieved ? Huge uncertainties remain in this unpublished scenario.

La direction du groupe Total a accepté de présenter ici son scénario sur l’avenir du pétrole. Selon elle, aucun déclin des extractions ne s’annonce à l’horizon… à condition de développer d’ici 15 ans l’équivalent de la moitié de la production mondiale actuelle ! Comment réussir pareil tour de force ? De vastes zones d’ombre subsistent dans ce scénario inédit. [excerpt]

Don’t count on revolution in oil supply

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This is a guest post by Sadad al-Huseini, now a petroleum consultant and formerly executive vice president of Saudi Aramco for exploration and production, and is a response to the recent article in PIW (Petroleum Intelligence Weekly) by Leonardo Maugeri on his new study Oil: the Next Revolution, challenging his optimism about future oil supplies.

The monkeywrench wars

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As the most gizmocentric culture in recorded history, America was probably destined from the start to end up with a military system in which most uniformed personnel operate machinery, and every detail of making war involves a galaxy of high-tech devices. That seems like a huge advantage to most Americans; in practice, it may not be. With the able assistance of Arthur C. Clarke and the Principia Discordia, the Archdruid explains.

Considerations of Chinese demand growth

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There are many parts of the country where these interconnections and improvements to the infrastructure are still going on. As those changes occur, the increasing use of power-driven vehicles continues to rise, and with it the need for increased supply. The risk of exacerbating popular unrest if that change were to stop is just one reason why it is bound to continue, and with it China’s continued need for additional supplies of all forms of fossil fuels.

An interview with Charles Eisenstein: “Something in your heart knows that this is what life is supposed to be about”

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“I’m not talking about the abolition of money, I’m talking about the transformation of money, so that it takes on the properties of gift. One of those would be that you no longer maintain wealth, status and security by keeping a lot of it, in a gift culture the more you gave the richer you were. The wealthy person was the generous person. Another aspect of it would be to be part of the circle of the gift as in ecology where the waste of any creature is a food for the next.”

The resilience imperative and civil disobedience

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Perhaps we need to follow the leads of McKibben, Jaccard, and Hansen, and go get arrested. Perhaps we need to breathe deeply and act courageously to make hope more concrete and despair less convincing. Perhaps those of us in the 50 to 90-year-old set need to commit to civil disobedience to honor our children, grandchildren and our hopes for their survival. The time has arrived for all of us, but especially the post-war “growth generation” to break out of our too comfortable zones.

Greece: A traveler’s perspective

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The media is full of scary stories about what is happening in Greece – but what is the situation really like at ground level?

The heart-breaking beauty is still there, the 1,400 islands with soils so fertile that the tables are laden with more fresh produce than people can eat haven’t gone away either, and nor have the 10 million or so adaptable souls, some of whom are actually unaware there is a crisis.

From Denmark to Bhutan: the policies of happiness

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Over the last 100 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously, but it appears that people have not become much happier. In 2006, the first ‘Happy Planet Index’ (HPI) measured happiness across 178 countries. The small south Pacific island of Vanuatu was the happiest nation. Germany ranked 81st, Japan 95th and the US 150th.

Various surveys have indicated that while wealthy western nations use up vast quantities of the world’s scarce resources, many of their citizens are not much happier, or are indeed less happy, than those who belong to poorer countries that use far fewer resources.

Is solidarity a thing of the past?

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Humans now labor in narrow occupational niches within our highly complex society in the same way that species occupy ecological niches in nature. This specialization leads to competition within each niche for the limited number of positions available. Consequently, the harder the economic times, the more intense the competition for the reduced number of positions within each niche. This leads to anxiety among those already holding a job since they are often not skilled enough to find work in other niches. The employee often asks himself or herself, “What could I possibly do if I were no longer able to do this kind of work?” Naturally, this concern also creates anxiety among those who are unemployed and seeking jobs within a particular niche.

So, it is no wonder that those in the middle and lower strata of society have a difficult time joining together for common action when they are daily locked in a struggle over keeping or getting jobs in their respective niches.

Running on empty: big airlines in big trouble

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Most people living in our modern industrial society take air travel for granted. We think very little about hopping on a plane and travelling around the world for little more than a couple of weeks wages. As jet fuel prices bounce along with the price of crude however many airlines are increasingly struggling to break even. Fuel prices now account for 35 percent of operating costs compared to 15 percent a decade ago. The future of the global aviation industry is in big trouble.

Mother: Caring for 7 Billion (documentary film review)

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The documentary takes a penetrating look at overpopulation, what fuels it and why the world has become complacent about the issue after making a good start in addressing it during the late 60s. The film dispels some key myths about overpopulation – chief among them the belief that it’s long been solved – even if it stops short of admitting the inevitability of a world population crash as the Earth’s resources deplete. And it conveys its message in an engaging, visually immersive style that finds just the right balance between hard facts and ordinary human involvement.