Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The following is the text of an address by Richard Heinberg to the Moana Nui Conference in Honolulu, November 12, 2011. Honolulu was concurrently hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Conference; as a response to that secretive international trade meeting, the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala Ka Po collaborated to organize Moana Nui.
US oil prices rose this week on news that the glut of crude stocks at Cushing Oklahoma, which has depressed the benchmark WTI contract for months, may soon be drained. Enbridge is to buy the Seaway pipeline which runs from the Houston area to Cushing, and plans to reverse its flow.
Although the Canadian Gas Association calls methane a versatile, abundant and safe fuel, its unconventional cousin, shale gas, has been shaking the ground all the way from Lancashire, England to Dallas, Texas.
-Onshore wind energy to reach parity with fossil-fuel electricity by 2016
-Gas Companies Caught Using Military Tactics To Overcome Drilling Concerns
-EU biofuel target seen driving species loss: study
-New study suggests EU biofuels are as carbon intensive as petrol
-Local Power: Boulder Considers Moving Off the Grid
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Day 2 of the ASPO-USA Truth in Energy conference continued the wide ranging discussion about our current energy predicament, the reasons society isn’t talking about it, and potential ways to begin preparing for a world with increasingly scarce liquid fuels.
– Investment firm to encourage Arctic drilling
– Climate change: there is no plan B
– Battle to Save an Unsung Fish Critically Important to Ocean’s Ecosystem (menhaden)
– Obama Re-election Strategy Is Tied to a Retreat on Smog
– BBC drops Frozen Planet’s climate change episode to sell show better abroad
– Libya Seeks UK Firms to Develop Oil Sector and Construction Industry
– The push is on to discredit clean energy investment
– Tom Whipple on cold fusion
– Peak oil conference in London Dec 6: Assessing PO’s economic impact on global oil supply
– N. American oil output could top 40-year-old peak
– Peak oil and significant change for rural Australia
US production of crude oil peaked in 1970 at 9.637 mbpd (million barrels per day) and has been in a downtrend for 40 years. Recently, however, there’s been a tremendous amount of excitement at the prospect of a “new era” in domestic oil production. The narratives currently being offered come in the following three forms: 1) the US has more oil than Saudi Arabia; 2) the US need only to remove regulatory barriers to significantly increase production; and 3) the US can once again become self-sufficient in oil production, dropping all imported oil to zero.
To minimal serious coverage in the media and on the internet, the Nord Stream was inaugurated in Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic Coast on Nov. 8 in the presence of Pres. Medvedev of Russia and the prime ministers of Germany, France, and the Netherlands, plus the director of Gazprom, Russia’s gas exporter, and the European Union’s Energy Commissioner. This is a geopolitical game-changer.
What is Nord Stream? Very simply, it is a gas pipeline that has been laid in the Baltic Sea, going from Vyborg near St. Petersburg in Russia to Lubmin near the Polish border in Germany without passing through any other country. From Germany, it can proceed to France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Great Britain, and other eager buyers of Russia’s gas.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The IEA’s November Oil Market Report
-The IAEA’s report on Iran
-The Keystone pipeline decision
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
