Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Here is one more thing for those of us who live in the northeastern U.S. to start worrying about – the refineries that make our gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc. are dropping like flies.
In today’s economy, these refineries are simply losing so much money that their owners who are not major oil companies that make billions from oil production are having put them up for sale or close them down.
– Could Ecuador Be the Most Radical and Exciting Place on Earth?
– El Mundo: Cómo bajar de marcha sin perder el tren
– Le “Peak Everything” (ou la fin des haricots)
It is an article of faith that global trade will be an ever-growing presence in the world. Yet this belief rests on shaky foundations. Global trade depends on cheap, long-distance freight transportation. Freight costs will rise with climate change, the end of cheap oil, and policies to mitigate these two challenges.
Few debates illustrate the messy nature of North America’s energy politics better than the postponement of the Keystone XL pipeline.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The Euro crisis
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Mark Twain is reported to have said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” What most environmentalists think they know for sure is that oil, coal and natural gas are all abundant-so abundant, in fact, that many environmentalists believe they are forced to make a Hobson’s choice of natural gas as a so-called “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy future.
The Australian Daily Telegraph published today a story on a leaked government report (BITRE 117) which (optimistically) calculated peak oil around 2017, followed by permanent decline. The report raises questions to be answered by the Federal Government.
– Boston Globe on McKibben: The man who crushed the Keystone XL pipeline
– David Suzuki: What’s So Radical About Caring for the Earth and Opposing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline?
– After Keystone XL Decision, Don’t Believe GOP Hype on Energy
– Fossil fuel subsidies: a tour of the data
– Natural gas galore?
– US Thirst for Fossil Fuels is Decimating Nature’s Wildlife: Report
– Fracking the World: Energy Companies Set Their Sights Globally
– EU prepares unprecedented attack on Iranian economy
– Barrelling towards fuel shortages
– An Iran war is brewing from mutual ignorance and chronic miscalculation
Global oil consumption fell 300,000 barrels/day in Q4 of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010 according to the IEA’s monthly oil report released this week. This was the first such fall since 2009 and reflects renewed economic weakness.
An peak oil report for the Australian government has just surfaced. Although the report was finished in 2009, it apparently was never released to the public and does not appear on a government website.
Conclusion: “the prospects for the potential supply of world conventional petroleum liquids can be summarised as ‘flattish to slightly up for another eight years or longer (depending on the duration of the global economic slowdown) and then down’. Such a finding poses challenges for global transport and more generally, given the magnitude of the downturn foreseen for the rest of the century, and given the inertias inherent in our energy systems and transport vehicle fleets”
(Excerpts. Link to complete report.)
