Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
PowerSwitch recently held a conference outside London, titled Peak Speak, providing a platform to discuss the causes, consequences, and mitigation of the peak and decline in global oil production, and action that can be taken. Report includes notes on the speakers, topics they covered, and links to presentations.
Huge, tarlike deposits in Canada and Venezuela will be critical over the next 50 years to the supply of liquid fuels as the world’s production of easily pumped oil plummets. Yet, turning this nonconventional oil source into synthetic oil is not likely to be the solution to our energy crisis, as some claim. Canada is no Saudi Arabia.
Spurred by the nation’s relentless thirst for energy, geologists are suddenly taking a fresh look at the oldest oil-producing basin in the world. They are wondering if Mother Nature stashed a jackpot in the cellar, down deep where the rocky roots of the Appalachian Mountains spread into Ohio.
Wildcat drillers in China are battling Beijing after the State resumed rights over their oil wells.
On 11 October 2005, in London, a major conference will look at the peak
oil problem and its impact on climate change, the world’s food supply and
the world economy. Speakers include Michael Meacher MP, Tim Lang and
Andrew Simms (of NEF), and the chair will be Dr Ian Gibson MP. The
conference is being organised by East Anglia Food Link, CRed, Sustain and
PowerSwitch.org.uk.
Peak Oil is coming soon, no doubt about it in my mind. But like religious groups who set the date for the Second Coming only to end up looking like fools, some caution is advised. If Peak Oil is postponed for a few more years due to a recession, the number of peak oil books and websites will also decline. If that happens, the actual peak in oil production may arrive with more of a whimper than a bang…
A new 30min Peak Oil documentary DVD will be launched on Friday 15th July. Produced by Amund Prestegard, and recommended by Colin Campbell, it takes a look at the causes and consequences of Peak Oil, with a focus on the UK.
Politely framed and important challenge to the peak oil argument, questioning why oil suppliers would willingly for-go the massive potential profits:
"…So how could it be that there are billions and billions of easy dollars to be made, and nobody can be bothered to collect them? Unless you have a clear answer for that question, an economist at that point is going to ask whether you’re sure that you’ve got all the facts straight, that oil really is going to sell for $200 a barrel in just two years."
Occasionally, there are tipping-point moments and we are witnessing one at the moment. Seismic change is afoot. As oil prices breach $60 a barrel and pessimists warn that the world could be as little as 10 years away from a first-order resources crisis, China’s largest oil company, CNOOC, has launched a $18.5 billion bid for one of the US’s juiciest medium-sized oil companies, Unocal.
Decades of an “environmental bubble economy” built on the over-exploitation of natural resources has accelerated global warming, environmental degradation, depletion of water and oil, and brought falling crop yields, precipitating a crisis in world food security with no prospects for improvement under the business as usual scenario.
Good coverage of the development of one grass roots peak oil awareness network on US west coast, five hundred more articles like this please.
Expanded efforts to drill for oil and natural gas off the California coast and elsewhere in the US will be among the direct impacts of the growing demands for oil and natural gas as their supplies diminish.
