Fossil Fuels

UK Telegraph Reports, “Oil Reserves ‘Exaggerated by One Third'”

by

Earlier this week, the UK Telegraph reported: Oil reserves ‘exaggerated by one third’

The world’s oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years.

Will enhanced oil recovery be an oil supply savior?

by

Oil supply optimists often say that the application of enhanced oil recovery techniques to existing and future wells will vastly expand oil reserves and oil production. The trouble is these techniques aren’t new, and they are already being widely applied. That means current oil reserves and production already reflect any effect they have had.

My Fellow Science Bloggers Meditate on the Depletion of Nearly Everything

by

I came back to my computer to find that many of my fellow Sciblings have recently taken up issues of resource depletion from various interesting perspectives – doing my work for me, I guess ;-). It isn’t exactly news to most of us that we’ve been using just about every resource on the planet far too casually, but it is interesting to see them tied together.

Alaska: Confronting the Prospect of 6 Billion Barrels of Stranded Gas

by

Alaska — and the so-called Sarah Palin pipeline — are in the crosshairs of the abrupt surge of natural gas supplies in the continental United States. Leading the charge against a much-promoted pipeline to ship Alaskan natural gas into the currently glutted Lower 48 is former Sen. Ted Stevens. The locally influential Republican says the gas should be rerouted to Asia, and that if Alaska doesn’t move fast, this fuel — the equivalent of 6 billion barrels of oil — could end up effectively stranded at home.

What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have? Part 2: The Economic Cost of Energy, EROI, and Surplus Energy

by

In real economies, energy comes from many sources – from imported and domestic sources of oil, coal and natural gas, as well as hydropower and nuclear, and from a little renewable energy – most of that as firewood but increasingly from wind etc. Most of these are cheaper per unit energy delivered than oil. So let’s look at what this real ratio of the cost of energy (from all sources, weighed by their importance) is relative to its benefits.

The peak oil crisis: a breakthrough?

by

It came as a surprise that last weekend Britain’s Energy Minister summoned a meeting of business leaders to discuss the government’s response to a decline in global oil production should it actually be imminent. Just last summer, a UK government formally rejected the notion that the demand for oil would soon overtake available supplies leading to much higher prices and global economic disruptions.

Government ‘Peak Oil Summit’ Starts the Process of Government Acknowledging Peak Oil?

by

On Monday Peter Lipman and I represented Transition Network at an event which could potentially be the day people look back to as the day when UK government finally starting to ‘get’ peak oil. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, the event, “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”, was billed as “a half-day workshop hosted by the Energy Institute in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, under Chatham House Rules”. For those who don’t know what Chatham House rules are, it means that the contents of what was said can be discussed, but none of it can be attributed to anyone.

Oxford report: World oil reserves at tipping point

by

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.

Non-OPEC Oil Production Hits the Wall

by

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.