Geopolitics & Military

ODAC Newsletter – Dec 4

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Oil prices ended Thursday under $76/barrel following a week of mixed economic and geopolitical news. A surprise announcement at the end of last week that Dubai, that shining symbol of sustainable development in the Middle East, would not pay the interest on some of its massive debts on time, briefly rallied the dollar pushing down oil prices…

Peak Oil: The Eventual End of the Oil Age

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We cannot be lulled into a false sense of security: though oil prices have declined from their historic highs, there is little doubt that peak oil is real. A 2008 research project completed at Washington University in St. Louis found strong evidence in support of the theory. Please feel free to circulate this academic document as a primer on peak oil.

Staking Out the Middle Ground

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In my view, the Uppsala study is unduly pessimistic, implying an immediate crisis (in 2010 and thereafter) which is not in accord with reasonable expectations about future production levels both within OPEC and outside the cartel. In alerting the public to the peak oil issue, the Guardian is doing good work. But not knowing any bettter, they picked the wrong study in my view. The false choice the Guardian offers us, the IEA or Uppsala, amounts to a kind of all or nothing proposition.

Some predictions on the forthcoming Russian-Ukrainian gas ‘crisis’

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We’ve recently heard more veiled threats from Putin about Ukraine being unable to pay for gas (thus presumably leading to new attempts at cutting them off), which suggests that Russia is getting itself ready to start a new crisis.

Feeding the world, climate change, and peak oil – Nov 17

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-UN links climate with hunger
-Hungry for change
-The Links Between Food Security And Climate Change
-Agriculture in the Climate Change Negotiations, Platform Issue Paper
-The one thing depleting faster than oil is the credibility of those measuring it
-Promoting climate-smart agriculture