Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For the oil industry this was CERAweek. As might be expected the conference was an occasion for considerable optimism about energy breakthroughs and successes especially in unconventional production. Behind the self-promotion there were nonetheless some notes of alarm in the air…
World coal production and consumption data for 2011 are not yet compiled and published, but one key number is in. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reports that the country’s coal output rose 8.7 percent from 2010 to reach 3.88 billion short tons last year. For comparison, US consumption in 2010 was just over 1 billion tons—and holding steady (mostly due to cheap natural gas prices). If the current trend continues, China will burn well over 4 billion tons of coal in 2012, four times as much as the US.
-Garth Lenz: The true cost of oil (TEDX talk with photos)
-To the Last Drop (video)
-Exxon in spotlight after Papua New Guinea landslide
– Stop blaming oil speculators and start listening to them: A war with Iran would devastate the economy
– We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran
– Oil creeps toward top of Asia’s economic worry list
– 10th ASPO-International Conference in Vienna May 30 – June 1
– Ölreserven: Der “Doomsday” war gestern
We have a brand-new entrant to the oil-eating-bug-runs-amok tradition: the self-published novel Petroplague. It’s a Crichton-esque thriller written by microbiology professor-turned author Amy Rogers, who says she aims to “blur the line between fact and fiction so well that you need a Ph.D. to figure out where one ends and the other begins.” The plot involves a batch of experimental, oil-hungry bacteria inadvertently loosed upon Los Angeles, which proceed to wreak a near biblical swath of destruction. Part ecology lesson and part cautionary tale, Petroplague is an entertaining entrée into the subject of oil depletion and its implications for society, human health and the environment.
An awe-inspiring takedown of a sloppy story on the death of peak oil.
Alan Kohler, who is known for his excellent financial graphs on the ABC TV (Australia) 7 pm News came out with an opinion piece on peak oil which does not display the level of research expected from him. Almost no statement in his article can be supported by statistical evidence. No numbers are shown to prove that shale oil can compensate for oil decline in maturing oil fields around the world.
What’s worse, the fight over oil in and between Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries due to peaking in key countries is completely forgotten. The EIA estimates that despite increasing unconventional oil production the dependency on OPEC oil will not be reduced. Reserves and resources are mixed up and those vast gas reserves are neither used to replace coal nor oil (as transport fuel). The CO2 from an assumed unconventional oil and gas boom will cook us alive.
The problem with such articles is that they contribute to further delay the real transformation away from oil (and fossil fuels in general) which can only be done by massive rail projects and preserving oil where it will be needed most: in agricultural production and transport of food to the cities.
2004: “Saudi oil is secure and plentiful”
2012: “Saudi Arabia must diversify oil industry”
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a detailed report on what could happen to the availability of oil and prices in the event the third and largest of the three Philadelphia refineries in question be forced to close down this coming July. Given enough time, the markets and the infrastructure will rebalance, but for now it looks as if the Northeast may be in for some abnormally high gasoline and diesel prices in comparison to the rest of the country.
– CERA-week: Total’s Upstream Chief Says Peak Oil Is Around The Corner
– CERA Energy Conference: Oil Industry Giddy With New Discoveries
– Michael Klare: America’s Fossil Fuel Fever
– Nader: Obama Can Do More on Oil Prices
– Dr. Colin Campbell: Playing with Fire
– Peak todo (Spanish – peak everything)
This time around, Europe, and in particular the Eurozone, is the area of the world getting hit the hardest by high oil prices. Part of this has to do with the relative level of the Euro and the US dollar.
In the end, it may not matter which countries were first and most affected by limited oil supply and high oil prices. It will be all of us that feel the impact.
My personal journey into home energy reduction began with taking stock of past energy use as reported on my utility bills. I quickly migrated toward reading the meters directly to gauge the impact of particular activities. What I learned from our gas meter shocked me, and ultimately led to our single-biggest energy-saving behavioral shift. I’ve already ruined any hope of suspense in the title of the post, but just how bad does something have to be before I’ll resort to a word like “evil? And how bad are your own demons? Ah—now you can’t wait to find out!
