Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Fred Upton been much in the news of late as chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives. He told us as recently as April 24, 2009 that “climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions.” But now that he has finally gotten a little power, he has contracted selective science disorder.
Brent crude surged to $104 this week as anti-government protests spread to Libya and Bahrain, prompting a violent reaction from the authorities in both countries. 24 protesters are reported killed in Libya, and in Bahrain 4 have been killed and hundreds injured. Unlike Libya, Bahrain is not a significant oil producer, but there are fears that instability there could spread to its neighbour Saudi Arabia…
We often hear statements suggesting that by ramping up shale gas production, the US can raise total natural gas production and solve many of its energy problems, including adding quite a number of natural gas vehicles, and replacing a large share of coal fired electricity generation. While there is the possibility that shale gas will allow US natural gas supplies to increase for a few years (or even 10 or 15 years), natural gas is only about one-fourth of US fossil fuel use, so it would be very difficult to ramp it up enough to meet all of these needs.
Colin Barr at Fortune Magazine has some interesting discussion of the WTI-Brent spread (this is the difference in prices between the basic spot price of West Texas blend oil in Cushing Oklahoma, and the price of the Brent contract in Europe). “How do you get $4 gas when oil is just $85? The answer starts with some unprecedented behavior in global oil markets, where the benchmark European oil standard, known as Brent crude, is trading at a $20-a-barrel premium to the U.S. benchmark, the West Texas Intermediate futures contract that trades on Nymex. The two typically trade within a few dollars of one another.”
History repeats itself: food riots are breaking out across the poorer nations, the Middle East is in turmoil and Brent crude has passed the $100 mark – 2011 is opening just like 2008 did.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Budget struggles in Washington
Increasing the energy efficiency allows us to pay a higher price per unit energy. This enables higher ultimate production of fossil fuels with their associated CO2 emission to the atmosphere.
Several prominent organizations dealing with peak oil, have just launched a petition drive urging President Obama to mark the anniversary of the Gulf spill with a major speech to the American people on the subject of peak oil.
Oil subsidies of nearly $40 billion will be on the block if Democrats have their way. And though the GOP and the industry claim cutting the handouts will cost American jobs, a former Shell CEO says that when prices are high enough, Big Oil doesn’t need help. What’s for sure is that, to have any hope of getting America prepared for peak oil, we’ll need an energy policy that stops encouraging people to use more of the oil that we’re already running out of.
Were the Egyptian people that bravely took to the streets to overthrow a tyrannical regime taking part in the world’s first peak oil revolution?
The 2008 crude oil price, $147 per barrel, shattered the global economy. The “invisible hand” of economics became the invisible fist, pounding down world economic growth to match the limitations of crude oil production.—Kenneth Deffeyes (petroleum geologist). An excerpt from Chapter 3 of Richard Heinberg’s upcoming book The End of Growth.
Last year a German military report on peak oil was leaked: “Peak Oil: Implications of Resource Scarcity on Security.” Last month, the final report was officially released by the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center. It is available online in German. [Excerpt]
