Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-If Shale Gas Is a Game-Changer, Why Are All the Major Producers Looking for Oil?
-Natural Gas: Continually Running Into New Obstacles
-Pennsylvania’s Drilling Wastewater Released to Streams, Some Unaccounted For
-Fracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond
2011 blew in with strong echoes 2008 as food and fuel prices rose strongly. The UN warned food prices are reaching “dangerous levels” as the global food index rose above the level that caused widespread rioting three years ago, and the IEA’s Fatih Birol cautioned rising oil prices could derail the economic recovery. WTI is around $88/barrel and Brent crude almost $94.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Top 10 developments of 2010
-Oil and the global economy
-Briefs
Many automobile enthusiasts believe that the electric car is the wave of the future that will help save the environment while expanding the availability of private transport to the world’s growing middle class. They are wrong on both counts.
A mid-weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-China
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Iran
-US Natural Gas
-China
-Briefs
“Fuel demand continues to strengthen, a positive sign for the economy.”
– John Felmy, Chief API economist
We may ultimately find that shale gas is nothing but an energy sink. It will provide net energy for a while to those who are living now while burdening future generations with huge cleanup costs that, in terms of energy, may equal or exceed the energy gain we are currently receiving from this supposedly “clean” energy source.
How do ‘developing’ countries prioritise energy goals? How should they in the face of climate change? These countries, with per capita energy consumption and CO2 emissions which average one-sixth those of the ‘industrialised’ world, are not primarily responsible for climate deterioration, but on the other hand they are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because, says the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) they have fewer resources to adapt – socially, technologically and financially.
For the majority of the populations in these countries climate change issue is not a priority concern compared with problems of poverty, natural resource management, energy and livelihood needs.
“…we don’t know when exactly the oil is going to start peaking and production is going to start running down, but…we don’t as a nation want to be putting ourselves in hock…to these sorts of markets…” So said UK Energy Minister Chris Huhne speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme on Thursday. ODAC believes that this is the first time a UK energy minister has actually acknowledged peak oil as a factor driving policy. While the statement remains vague on timing, this is nonetheless a very welcome shift.
Global Public Media’s Julian Darley speaks to David Hughes, geologist with Natural Resources Canada, about global and North American oil and natural gas supply issues.
– Robert Rapier reviews “The Impending World Energy Mess” by Hirsch et al
– Crude Oil Futures Increase to 25-Month High in New York as Dollar Tumbles
– Coal and Cancun
– U.K. Natural Gas – An Early December 2010 Status Report
The Obama administration announced this week that it has reversed its decision to open up new leases in areas of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. The intention to lift the moratorium which had been in place since 2006 was made weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. See the recent UKITPOES paper for more on the likely impact of the Gulf of Mexico disaster on oil production…
