Energy Policy

ODAC Newsletter – Jan 7

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2011 blew in with strong echoes 2008 as food and fuel prices rose strongly. The UN warned food prices are reaching “dangerous levels” as the global food index rose above the level that caused widespread rioting three years ago, and the IEA’s Fatih Birol cautioned rising oil prices could derail the economic recovery. WTI is around $88/barrel and Brent crude almost $94.

Wood heating and public policy

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Energy is actively debated on several fronts these days. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill, drilling in the arctic, and the Alberta tar sands spark debate about the environmental wisdom of continued oil exploitation. Climate change is caused mainly by the combustion of fossil fuels, something that goes on at a spectacular rate around the world. Peak oil – meaning the maximum possible global production rate of conventional oil – has entered the mainstream discussion after a decade of lurking in the shadows. But judged by policy discussions about our energy future, wood heating is virtually nonexistent.

The Queensland flood is coming to your neighborhood

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With the global oil markets tight and prices rising, any new source of demand could easily have an outsized impact on oil prices in the next few months, right down to what you pay for gasoline at your local pump. As the global energy markets become tighter and tighter, a flood on the other side of the world is enough to trigger off a shock wave that will be felt everywhere.

The peak oil crisis: 2011 – a pivotal year?

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With the final surge in the world’s production of fossil fuels coming to an end the outlook for the global economy changes dramatically. … If much of the 5 or 6 million b/d of productive capacity that OPEC claims to have in reserve does not really exist or cannot be opened in a timely manner, then much higher oil prices seem likely by spring. This, of course, will reduce demand again and we are off on another cycle of falling demand, more economic damage, and eventually lower prices.

Robert Hirsch on “The Impending World Energy Mess”

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Robert Hirsch made waves as the 2005 author of what became known simply as the Hirsch Report, the first study funded by the US government on peak oil and its consequences. The experience of writing that report left him shaken at the consequences of peak oil. Now he says that in the next 2-5 years we’ll see world oil production permanently decline, a phenomenon “unlike anything faced by modern civilization.”
(audio interview about Hirsch’s new book)