Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In response to the bold moves by the Bush Administration to move its NATO and direct US military presence into the vital energy choke points of Eurasia, the major Eurasian powers are taking definite steps aimed at self-survival in energy, even military defense. (Considers Peak Oil.)
Moves by Middle East oil exporters and Russia to switch some revenue from dollars to euros lie behind the U.S. currency’s weakness, and a further rise in crude prices could prompt more declines, the billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday.
Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, “we may have already passed peak oil”.
India, sharing a ravenous thirst for oil, has joined China in an increasingly naked grab at oil and natural gas fields that has the world’s two most populous nations bidding up energy prices and racing against each other and global energy companies.
The objective of this research effort was to characterize the size and direction of the worldwide market for crude oil, including the depletion of reserves and the impact that alternative depletion scenarios would have on oil production and consumption. These scenarios were then analyzed in order to determine their impact on world and national economies, with a special focus on the United States.
Activist and author George Daffan on Peak Oil, the collapse of civilisation and the role of the mass media.
A 15-year decline in oil reserves is spurring companies such as Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Exxon Mobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp. to spend $76 billion in the next decade to boost supplies of oil from tar sands and diesel fuel from Qatari natural gas. Oil executives say they have no choice but to try alternatives to drilling because there is not much more crude to be found in their current fields.
…the next tough oil shortage, even if it is not acknowledged as a post-peak oil extraction phenomenon of diminishing supply, will cripple the globalized economy. Understanding of both the economics and social dynamics of collapse is rare, and even when it is present there is an absence of taking into account the “market factor” in ushering in collapse.
Solid article detailing the higher costs of oil sands and industry pressures driving project investments. Includes as context many startling figures: “Shell, based in London and The Hague, reported Feb. 3 that reserves fell in 2004 because it found enough oil to replace just 15 percent to 25 percent of what the company pumped. BP replaced 89 percent of production, the company said Feb. 8”.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries signalled a significant tightening of oil markets towards the end of this year, warning on Wednesday it would have to pump close to its maximum capacity next winter to meet rising demand from China against the backdrop of slowing Russian production.
The world – and of course the US – now faces an epochal predicament: the global oil production peak and the arc of depletion that follows. We are unprepared for this crisis of industrial civilization. We are sleepwalking into the future.
A new organization is being founded this month in cities across the Midwest – Oil Addicts Anonymous – modeled after the multitude of successful 12 step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
