Oil

Arctic Death Spiral: New local shipping and drilling pollution may speed up polar warming and ice melting

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We’ve known for a long time about basic polar amplification. Warming melts highly reflective white ice and snow, which is replaced by the dark blue sea or dark land, both of which absorb far more sunlight and hence far more solar energy. More recently another insidious feedback has become obvious — as the Arctic ice retreats, big oil companies can drill for more fossil fuels whose combustion will accelerate warming and ice retreat…Local pollution in the Arctic from shipping and oil and gas industries, which have expanded in the region due to a thawing of sea ice caused by global warming, could further accelerate that thaw, experts say.

Report from a meeting in China about the pipelines for oil export from Canada’s oil sands

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One of the reasons that I am in China just now is that Uppsala University is discussing increased collaboration with the Chinese University of Petroleum in Beijing, CUPB. It is Professor Feng of the School of Business Administration at CUPB that leads research on Peak Oil at that university. He has just organised a workshop with the theme “The Impacts of Peak Oil”.

Keeping a strong focus on climate change

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The victory last year to stop the Keystone XL pipeline was a temporary victory. I guess all environmental victories are temporary, but this one was even more temporary than most. Mitt Romney has made it absolutely clear that if he wins the election his first duty, on his first day in office, will be to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Barack Obama hasn’t said one way or another what he will do, but the signs aren’t particularly great.

Tar sands, oil shale, and heavy oil: Why the conventional wisdom about unconventional oil is likely to be wrong

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In the old days, that is before 2010, the oil industry used to regale the public with tales of plenty that revolved around what is commonly called "conventional oil." Then in its 2010 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency announced that the peak in the rate of production of conventional oil had already arrived, probably in 2006. The agency projected that production of so-called "unconventional oil" would grow considerably over the coming decades and allow total oil production to rise. But, new unconventional oil production may not be able to make up for the decline in the rate of conventional oil production. And, rate is the key metric.

Whither peak oil?

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An update is warranted to address comments from friends and followers – comments such as “Gee, I guess Peak Oil has been postponed?”, or “I guess we don’t have to worry about Peak Oil anymore!” Often they have a smile on their face …

The shale oil plays will reduce but not eliminate our reliance on foreign oil. Should a supply disruption occur over the next decade, we will be better off having this production than not. The natural gas and NGL from these plays will provide high-quality, low-carbon heat energy for electricity as well as feedstock for plastics – which could help jumpstart manufacturing.

Overall, these plays don’t solve the much larger issue of Peak Oil, but they do help “buy time.”

Will Saudi Arabia become an oil importer by 2030?

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One week ago the news spread that Saudi Arabia would be forced to become an importer of oil by 2030. It was an article in Bloomberg’s Businessweek that announced this sensational news and referred to a report titled ”Saudi Petrochemicals – The End of the Magic Porridge Pot?” that was released by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. on 4 September.

Review: Too Much Magic by James Kunstler

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…Kunstler has a new work of social criticism titled Too Much Magic, his first nonfiction book since The Long Emergency came out in 2005. The book is an inquiry into a skewed, delusional perception of reality that Kunstler thinks has become “baseline normal for the American public lately.” Americans, he says, have been led astray by the incredible technological advancements of recent times. We’ve come to believe that any problem we face is solvable—as if by magic—with the application of some new technology.