Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Fuel cell company Bloom Energy made quite a stir over the weekend, with a spot on the CBS “Sixty Minutes” TV program in the United States (The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough? – see the link for the video and transcript).
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-The Iranian standoff
-Nuclear power for the U.S.
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
For the world economy to be considered sustainable; that is, to reach and maintain a decent level of living for the entire global population for a century or two, the use of renewable resources should not exceed sustainable yields; pollution levels should not surpass the environment’s absorbing/regenerating capacity; the drawdown of nonrenewable resources should decline in proportion with the depletion of stocks; and environmental goals and technical progress helping to achieve them ought to gain universal application.
While reading Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman’s Marketing Metaphoria: What deep metaphors reveal about the minds of consumers, (MM), I recalled a healthcare consultant who told me, “You really should market peak oil, but you’ve got to give folks some good news to win them over.” I laughed and replied, “Are you kidding? I’m not selling whiter teeth”…
Even for staunch proponents of U.S. biofuel policy, it is hard to argue that the current subsidy on grain ethanol serves the purpose it was designed to serve. With ethanol mandates now in place in the form of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), there is a mechanism – with penalties for non-compliance – to ensure that gasoline blenders use the mandated amount of ethanol. Maintaining a subsidy on top of a mandate would be like paying people to obey the speed limit.
Over the past decade oil optimists repeatedly forecast a glut in oil supplies that kept failing to materialize. Now, they are reaching for a fig leaf hoping no one will remember their consistently errant predictions. That fig leaf is the idea that we have reached peak demand, and that that’s the reason we have not seen oil production rise in the past several years.
-American Blitzkrieg: loving the German war machine to death
-This isn’t Falklands II
-Yemen’s water crisis eclipses al Qaeda threat
-Barclays and Bank of America see looming oil crunch
– China’s CNPC in Iran gas deal
-Saudi Arabia fears a peak in oil demand – and it’s going green, sort of
– OPEC strategy reveals that they’re 100% short-term focused, and sure Of peak oil
The mood amongst oil company executives meeting in London this week for the Petroleum Week conference was largely bullish, with global oil demand expected to recover this year as the world economy crawls out of recession. But the production side of the equation is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive…
Here is a post offering hope to those who consider themselves ’spaced out,’ ADHD (attention deficit), scattered, air-headed, a Space Cowboy, forgetful, inconsistent, unreliable and the like. There IS hope for you, and you can prep.
What is likely the best current thinking on the peak oil situation concludes that world oil production will stop growing at the end of this year; will just balance annual global depletion of 4 million b/d for the next four years or so; and then enter into irreversible decline.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Iran
