Peak oil review – June 21
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Deepwater Horizon
-Peak oil and the President’s speech
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Energy Policy
Interview with Jeff Rubin
Jeff Rubin was the chief economist at CIBC World Markets for almost twenty years. He as one of the first economist to accurate predict soaring oil prices back in 2000 and is now a sought-after energy expert. Peak Oil Review caught up to him in Toronto last week. Part 1 of a 2-part interview.
Playing the risk game (1 of 2)
BP’s oil disaster is partly the result of approaches to risk which lead us to believe we know more than we do.
A grim outlook for emissions as climate talks limp forward
Those who thought the failed Copenhagen climate talks last December were a diplomatic nadir, from which only recovery was possible, are in for a shock. Since then, efforts to refloat the talks have seen a lot of ballast thrown overboard — including most of the scientific underpinnings of a deal to protect the world from dangerous warming. If a deal is finally done, probably in South Africa at the end of 2011, it may prove a diplomatic success but a climatic catastrophe.
Natural gas – June 21
-The Costs of Natural Gas, Including Flaming Water
-Marcellus Shale gas drilling put under microscope: Moratorium weighed as towns, people wary of potential mishaps
-Struggle for Central Asian energy riches
-Russia Cuts Gas Deliveries to Belarus
Blackbeard’s return
For some years — and long before the Gulf of Mexico spill — Big Oil has seemed to be in existential peril. These gargantuans have been starved of new resources and wrong-footed by state-owned oil companies like China’s Sinopec and Malaysia’s Petronas, which are also competing around the world for drilling rights. At stake has been not only Big Oil’s good health — after all, how many people really care whether Chevron or Shell thrive, apart from their shareholders? — but also the power of nations. It’s part of narrative of the rise of the East, and the decline of the West.
ODAC Newsletter – June 18
“For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered…”. These were the words of President Obama during his national address on the Gulf oil disaster from the Oval Office on Tuesday. Is the President accepting that we have reached peak oil?…
Peak oil notes – June 17
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Deepwater Horizon
Zero Carbon Britain 2030
zero carbon britain 2030 is a fully integrated vision of how Britain can respond to the challenges of climate change, resource depletion and global inequity. It examines how we can meet our electricity and heating requirements through efficient service provision, while still decreasing emissions.
Oilwatch Monthly June 2010
Conventional crude production – Latest figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that crude oil production including lease condensates decreased by 107,000 b/d from February to March 2010, resulting in total production of crude oil including lease condensates of 73.41 million b/d.
A tepid plea for unspecified change
Last night’s presidential speech on the Gulf oil spill had been pre-billed by the Washington Post as Barack Obama’s “Jimmy Carter moment.” But reading any of Carter’s speeches (a good one to start with is that of April 18, 1977) side by side with last night’s bromide is an invitation to nostalgia and bitter disappointment.
Getting at a tiny portion of the truth in Obama’s speech
In 2006 when I first met Julian Darley, author of _High Noon for Natural Gas_ and the founder of the Post-Carbon Institute, the world was excited by then-famous “Jack” oil field find in the Gulf of Mexico. Both of us were watching the way the world was interpreting the data – people were claiming that there might be 10, 12, 15 billion barrels of oil – five miles down underneath the ocean…Darley, framing the issue brilliantly, observed that “this isn’t salvation, this is digging around in the couch cushions for loose change.”
