Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A report just published by researchers at the Smith School at Oxford University concludes that the age of cheap oil has now ended as demand starts to outstrip supply as we head towards the middle of the decade. The report also suggests that the current oil reserve estimates should be downgraded from between 1150-1350 billion barrels to between 850-900 billion barrels, based on recent research.
Health care reform dominates the news as Dems struggle to push their reform package through Congress. I applaud the effort, but can’t help wondering why climate change is being left out of the debate.
-We’ll open a nuclear power station every 18 MONTHS, say Tories
-UK must transform to meet future energy needs, warn top engineers
-The islands of black gold
-Are working hours being cut to save jobs?
-Throwing the Race for Green Energy
-A Rising Green-Tech Tide Will Lift All Boats
-The war of words over home-produced electricity feed-in tariffs could cost dearly
-Wind resistance
-Marine energy projects approved for Scotland
This paper talks about the likely systemic impacts of peak oil, including the possibility of collapse. With a long publication such as this, it is difficult to know how to present a reasonable subset of the material. In this post, we are publishing the Summary as Part 1. Our tentative plan is to publish three additional excerpts from the paper later. Those who wish to read the paper now can download it from the link above.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-UK Summit to Discuss Peak Oil
-Prices and Production
-China – Droughts and Bubbles
-Quote of the week
-The Briefs
In the last year I’ve read several articles expounding on the many non-OPEC* oil discoveries that have been made in recent years and how large the oil resource is within the non-OPEC sphere of the world. The objective of these articles is to reassure the reader that all is well for non-OPEC oil production, now and in the foreseeable future. If all is so well outside OPEC, one must ask why the non-OPEC oil production rate has not exceeded the level achieved in 2004 in spite of the elevated price of oil since then.
Climate change activists are foolish from a rhetorical point of view to respond to every discrete piece of disinformation spread by the fossil fuel lobby and its legion of paid publicists and unpaid dupes. Instead, these activists need to focus on the overwhelming case for human-induced climate change and advance that as succinctly and clearly as they can.
Lord Hunt calls UK industrialists together to discuss government response to any early onset of decline in global oil production. (excerpt)
The net energy of pre-industrial agriculture, taken as a whole energy-gathering system, must have been low, with EROEI probably on the order of 1.1-1.6 depending on place and time.
OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna this week caused no surprises in deciding to keep production quotas unchanged. Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi described current prices as “beautiful”. Indeed as the group met the oil price rose to $82/barrel, close to its 2010 high despite only 53% compliance by OPEC to its quotas and low US demand.
The “Peak Oil” concept — that the world’s petroleum-production rate will soon reach its maximum and commence an inevitable decline, with negative economic consequences — has been around in scientifically articulated form at least since 1998; long enough to see it confirmed in significant ways.
