China’s oil grab
An amazing thing has happened. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China has now surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest energy consumer.
Consumption & Demand
Peak oil, prices, and supplies – July 21
-The Impending Peak and Decline of Petroleum Production: an Underestimated Challenge for Conservation of Ecological Integrity
-How Much Does a Gallon of Gas Cost?
-Offshore Oil Drilling and Hurricane Risks
-BP’s Tony Hayward ‘set to step down’
Projection of world fossil fuel production with supply and demand interactions (paper excerpt)
Fossil fuels are currently an essential component in the global economy and the growth of the human population. The fossil fuel production projections from this study suggest that many of the IPCC fossil fuel projections appear overly optimistic. Based on the assumed URR values, it is predicted that global fossil fuel production will peak before 2030. For this reason, it is imperative that appropriate action be taken as early as possible to mitigate the effects of fossil fuel decline, to avoid energy shortages in the near future.
Canadian tar sands – energy future or poisoned chalice? – July 20
-Andrew Nikiforuk Is Tyee’s First Writer in Residence
-Unist’ot’en leadership takes to the streets to assert their rights and stop the Enbridge pipeline
-Powering up Canadian prosperity
Peak oil review – July 19
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Deepwater Horizon
-Demand projections
-Briefs
-Quote of the week
Big Oil makes war on the earth: The Gulf Coast joins an oil-soiled planet
If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil — and just know that you’re not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades.
Lloyd’s Sustainable Energy Security White Paper – Some hits; some misses
Lloyd’s hired Chatham House to prepare a white paper on the risks of peak oil called Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic risks and opportunities for business. It seems to me that this new report gets quite a few things right, but it misleads in the direction of thinking things are better than they really are, when it comes to timing and alternatives.
Renewables & efficiency – July 16
-Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050
-Report sees need for 500 additional biofuels plants
-No link between wind turbines and health: report
-Residents reject wind farm health findings
-Locally Owned Wind Power: Quaint it Ain’t
Peak oil notes – July 15
A midweed roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-The Oil Market Report
Review: Sound Truth & Corporate Myth$ by Riki Ott
At just before 10 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, the Transocean Ltd.-owned and BP Plc.-operated floating oil rig Deepwater Horizon was boring an exploratory well in the Macondo Prospect—about 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast and nearly a mile underwater—when it exploded without warning from a well blowout. …BP has tried repeatedly to stop the flow, to no avail. (As of this writing on Tuesday evening, July 13, it remains to be seen whether the well cap installed last night, a Band-Aid pending completion of the long-awaited relief wells next month, will actually work.) The spill’s magnitude has beggared description or belief.
Continuing oil spill consequences and catastrophes – July 13
-Wanted: Some Journalists With Guts to Take on the Government and BP!
-Out in the Oil with Captain Dave
-Obama admin imposes new freeze on deepwater drilling
Canada’s energy superpower delusion
First off, Canada is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, an “Energy Superpower”. This term was first used by Prime Minister Harper on the eve of the 2006 G8 meeting.
