Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
George Monbiot said in a recent article that “We were wrong about peak oil. There is enough to fry us all”. He is wrong on peak oil, but right with his general conclusion. There are enough fossil fuels to fry us all.
George Monbiot announced in the Guardian on Monday “We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all”, an article which concluded “peak oil hasn’t happened, and it’s unlikely to happen for a very long time”. Several people have written, and even stopped me while I’ve been out shopping, to ask for my take on his piece, so here it is. It has been a tricky thing to write, as in the time it took me to compose it, so many other interesting analyses of it have been posted, many of which I have tried to reference here…What he does prompt is a rethink in terms of how we present peak oil.
– Oil Declines After Biggest Gain Since 2009 on Europe
– Protests to continue against Shell Arctic drilling
– EU begins boycott of Iranian oil
– China responds to Fukushima
– Monbiot: We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all
– David Strahan on Peakonomics: why the oil price slide is temporary
– Peak Plastic: One Generation’s Trash Is Another Generation’s Treasure
– Peak Blame (interview with Mark Robinowitz of OilEmpire.us)
– Der Energieforscher Ferdi Schüth über die Energiewende und die Zeit danach (interview)
– Peak oil and the lost message of the carbon tax in Australia
While I feel this conference [in Vienna] was disappointing in general, the organisers are not to blame. They did their best and produced the programme that had to be, with ASPO opening itself to the wider society. But after 10 years of activity ASPO’s message has failed to pass. Policy makers, climatologists, the energy industry, by and large are all yet to fully acknowledge the problem and its implications.
The current period can be undoubtedly characterized as an economical, ecological, cultural, political, but also moral crisis. The solution seems to be as far off as ever and problems seem to be getting worse by the day everywhere. Why is that, what can we expect in the future and what are the safe outcomes from this future bottleneck? We have been talking to Nathan Hagens at the latest ASPO conference in Vienna…
Evidently growing public concern about the inevitable decline in world oil production has rankled some powerful people, who’ve been knotting their ropes in search of a bit of favorable data to use as the pretext for a public lynching…The Peak Oil debate is not a sporting event. What matters is not which side wins, but what reality awaits us.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
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-Ten to follow on Twitter
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– Oil posts fourth biggest daily gain on record
– Oil Surges Most in More Than a Year on European Agreement
– We Could Stop Importing Oil From the Middle East Today If We Wanted To
– A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy
There is no evidence from the top three oil producers (Saudia Arabia, Russia and the U.S) that their production will be even close, in total, to current levels by the end of the decade.
Now there comes an Energy Study from Harvard which boldly states that this is rubbish – that by 2020, global production will be at 110.6 mbd and these concerns that most of us have at The Oil Drum (inter alia) are chimeras of the imagination.
It is therefore pertinent to begin with examining where the study (which was prepared with BP assistance) anticipates that the growth in supply will come from.
Since 1949 the United States has had more than 2.6 million oil and natural gas wells drilled into its surface. Many more wells have gone uncounted since they were drilled before comprehensive records were kept. Add to that some 680,000 waste injection wells of which more than 150,000 inject industrial wastes, some of it considered hazardous. And, this may not be the full count since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admits that records are inadequate on the largest class of injection wells which it says “in general…inject non-hazardous fluids into or above [U.S. drinking water].” The “in general” part is not terribly reassuring.
The novel describes a future in which humans have evolved into an entirely new species, the Neu-humans. They are distinguished by their short tails, freckled appearance and super-intelligence—along with a strong tribal sensibility that compels them to tread lightly upon the planet and always make decisions rationally. The story involves an archaeological journey to the “Lands of Oregon,” from what is now northern Canada, to discover the missing link between humans and Neu-humans. The year is 3100.
