Oil

Selling the oil illusion, American style

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US production of crude oil peaked in 1970 at 9.637 mbpd (million barrels per day) and has been in a downtrend for 40 years. Recently, however, there’s been a tremendous amount of excitement at the prospect of a “new era” in domestic oil production. The narratives currently being offered come in the following three forms: 1) the US has more oil than Saudi Arabia; 2) the US need only to remove regulatory barriers to significantly increase production; and 3) the US can once again become self-sufficient in oil production, dropping all imported oil to zero.

Charles Hall on the biophysical economy & Bill Schubart on resiliency in hard times

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Professors Charles Hall and Kent Klitgaard’s new book is Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy. Hall explained what the biophysical costs of energy are, and why they’re more important than the price. He revealed how his understanding of peak oil helped him plan in 1970 a successful retirement investment strategy that paid off in 2008. This Wednesday, November 16 is the fall conference of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, with the them, “Resiliency in Uncertain Times.” VBSR executive director Andrea Cohen talked about why they chose the theme even before Tropical Storm Irene hit the state, and author and entrepreneur Bill Schubart discussed his take on resiliency. Schubart will moderate a panel on the theme Wednesday morning.

Das Blut der Welt (The Blood of the World)

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(In German) Stefan Aust and Claus Richter have created a two part documentary on the history of oil starting with whale oil and the move from conventional oil to unconventional oil. Includes analysis on depletion and geopolitical implications.

Includes interviews with: Colin Campbell, ASPO; Fatih Birol, IEA; Matthias Bichsel, Shell, Alexander Medwedew, Deputy CEO Gazprom; Christof Rühl, Chief Economist BP; Gerhard Schröder former German Chancellor; Martin Winterkorn CEO Volkswagen Group; Dieter Zetsche, CEO Daimler AG.

At Growth’s End

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In Extraenvironmentalist #28 we speak with Richard Heinberg about his most recent book The End of Growth which uses data on global economies and international energy supplies to argue that the paradigm of economic growth has ended forever. Richard says that while our economies will still grow in the future, they’ll be constrained to lower and lower rates of growth that won’t be able to support money systems and financial obligations

Peak oil narratives

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So, people tend to be attracted more by pleasant fables rather than by inconvenient truths. That doesn’t mean that truth needs to be unpleasant, negative, or apocalyptic. However, if we want to pass our message to the public, data alone are not enough; scientific results must be presented in ways that take into account the human side of the problems. How to succeed in this task is an open question, but Antonio Turiel, who keeps the blog “The Oil Crash”, has examined it in a recent post titled “running away from reality dedicated to the “Chemtrails” legend.