Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I was involved in one of those periodic discussions that spring up about The Limits To Growth recently and found myself wondering, not for the first time, if other people have read a completely different version of the book to the one I possess.
Coal prices could double again
U.S. scraps ambitious clean-coal power plant (FutureGen)
UK firm wants carbon freedom at new coal-fired plant
SATIS – Egypt (offshore) announced in January 2008 Another gas discovery in a proven area Egyptian oil liquids production peaked in 1993 at just under 950,000 barrels per day, mostly from the Gulf of Suez and the Western Desert. It has been declining by an average of 2.5% per year ever since, despite increasing condensate and natural gas liquids production from its newly developed offshore shallow and deep water gas fields located in the gas-prone Nile Delta.
The discussion at The Oil Drum takes a more personal nature with me; much of my own history involves looking back toward a simpler time in agriculture. (The account of a “recovering energy engineer.”)
Shell’s 108,000 employees earned “an obscene” £14 billion in profits last year.
If, as I imagine, Shell keeps a similar number of contractors off the books to keep the head-count down, the profit per head is about £70k. If you earned £70k as profit in a business, you probably wouldn’t expect to be sand-bagged with a windfall tax by a starving Chancellor.
Within the next ten years the size, shape, efficiency, fuel and numbers of private automobiles is going to undergo a radical change. The nine million gallons of gasoline we currently use in the U.S. each day simply will not be available in the quantities desired at any price.
Dr Jim Buckee has just retired as President and CEO of Talisman Energy, a major independent Canadian oil company with a market capitalisation of $25-billion. On the phone from Perth, Dr Buckee told me that ‘peak oil’ was now either here, or very close.
Indonesia urged to promote low-carbon economy
Rep. Bartlett responds to Bush’s SOTU
The end of oil is just a game
Biggs’s tips for rich (a little ‘peak oil’ in his morning coffee?)
Heavy footprint weighs down U.S. empire
Why Cape Breton shakes in the echo of this distant boom (tarsands)
The energy efficiency option
How did South Africa come to this? Whereas we once had a huge surplus of generating capacity, now the entire country faces regular blackouts, and some of our key economic sectors are under threat. Mines have been forced to shut down as their electricity supplies cannot be guaranteed, while energy hungry aluminum smelters continue to operate so that we can have our beer dispensed in cans.
The kinder, gentler energy superpower: Canada
The oil majors in Africa: Trickier times ahead for big fish
Supergrid could provide 30% of Europe’s electricity
Norwegian gas will go to highest bidder
TOD blockbuster: “Powering civilization to 2050” by Stuart Staniford
Will peak oil drive relocalization?
Investment guru Jim Rogers: $90 to $100 oil not high enough to slow demand
Barclays Capital: Triple digit oil price regardless of peak
