Fossil Fuels

WikiLeaks (energy and climate) – Dec 9

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– Shell boasts it has infiltrated Nigerian government
– WikiLeaks climate change cables
– Wikileaks Reveals Hushed Concern Over Tar Sands Oil in US State Dept.
– Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solón Responds to Secret U.S. Manipulation of Climate Talks
– WikiLeaks: oil deal executive ‘was paid £46,000 a month’

Energy – Dec 6

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– Tertzakian: Look for oil price between $80 to $100 per barrel in 2011
– Analysis – Colombia defies “peak oil” but for how long?
– Andrew McKillop: Black Hole For Oil Price Policy (Petro-Keynsian growth?

Why oil shortages may make nuclear a less viable option

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The decline of oil supplies is likely to increase the risk of nuclear accidents, decrease the likelihood that the funds for decommissioning will be available, and increase the likelihood of inadequate uranium supply. An estimate of oil supply at 2080 is provided, based on Collin Campbell’s forecast to 2050 in April 2009.

Coal, climate, and confusion

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Both of these outcomes (the peak and decline of coal production within a few decades, or 4°C of surface warming) would be an unmitigated disaster for human civilization. There’s no doubt about it. Running low on coal would be great for the climate, but would blow up human economies. If we have more coal than we know what to do with, we would blow-up the climate but the coal would help sustain human economies, absent a miraculous breakthrough in renewable energy.

Reaping whirlwinds: Peak oil and climate change in the new political climate

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Political prognostication is a dangerous game, but one of the certainties of the latest election was that the US will not be enacting any significant federal climate legislation. If inaction is certain on climate change, it may be that all is not entirely hopeless if we reframe the terms to addressing our carbon problem. Peak-oil activism could accomplish many of the goals of climate activists. Unlike climate change, peak oil doesn’t carry the ideological associations with the left that climate change does. Could peak oil provide a framing narrative for political action to address both climate change and peak oil?

ODAC Newsletter – Dec 3

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The Obama administration announced this week that it has reversed its decision to open up new leases in areas of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. The intention to lift the moratorium which had been in place since 2006 was made weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. See the recent UKITPOES paper for more on the likely impact of the Gulf of Mexico disaster on oil production…