Category: Peak Oil

The Oil Age – A new quarterly peer-reviewed printed journal thumbnail 1. Background & Objectives The journal addresses all aspects of the evolving ‘Oil Age’, including physical, economic, social, political, financial and environmental characteristics. Oil and gas are natural resources formed in the geological past and are subject to depletion. Increasing production during the First Half of the Oil Age fuelled rapid economic expansion, with human population rising six-fold in parallel, with far-reaching economic and social consequences. The Second Half of the Oil Age now dawns. This is seeing significant changes in the type of hydrocarbon sources tapped, and will be marked at some point by declining overall supply. A debate rages as to the precise dates of peak oil and gas production by type of source, but what is more significant is the decline of these various hydrocarbons as their production peaks are passed. In addition, demand for […]

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Rising energy prices will challenge western way of life thumbnail A little-known Ministry of Defence (MoD) report published earlier this year warns that converging global trends will dramatically affect UK economic prosperity through to 2040. The report says that depletion of cheap conventional “easy oil”, along with shortages of food and water due to climate change and population growth, will sustain rocketing energy prices. Long-term price spikes are likely to lead to a long recession in Western economies, fuelling internal unrest and the rise of nationalist movements. The report departs significantly from the conservative and relatively optimistic scenarios officially adopted by the British government, as exemplified in the coalition’s new Energy Security Strategy published in November last year by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc). Peak “easy oil” The report predicts that “the imminent passing of the point of peak ‘easy oil’ will mean that hydrocarbon-based energy […]

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What if the world never again sees sustained prices for oil over $100 per barrel? What if—absent exogenous black-swan events like major wars—oil never sells for much more than $50 per barrel for decades into the future? Who wins? Who loses? Short answer: The winners are consumers everywhere, and American businesses that produce oil. The losers are nations that are oil monocultures, and businesses or policies everywhere anchored in expensive oil. Is such a scenario likely? Or is the current price collapse a kind of inverse bubble? History is often meaningfully predictive. In the roughly 150-year history of oil prices there have been just three short periods where oil sold for over $50 per barrel (measured in inflation-adjusted terms). It happened first for about 20 years after 1860 at the dawn of the oil age, followed by nearly a century with oil cycling around $20. The second price bubble, […]

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What if the world never again sees sustained prices for oil over $100 per barrel? What if—absent exogenous black-swan events like major wars—oil never sells for much more than $50 per barrel for decades into the future? Who wins? Who loses? The short answers: The winners are consumers everywhere, and American business that produce oil. The losers are nations that are oil monocultures, and businesses or policies everywhere anchored in expensive oil. Is such a scenario likely? Or is the current price collapse a kind of inverse bubble? History is often meaningfully predictive. In the roughly 150-year history of oil prices there have been just three short periods where oil sold for over $50 per barrel (measured in inflation-adjusted terms). It happened first for about 20 years after 1860 at the dawn of the oil age, followed by nearly a century with oil cycling around $20. The second price […]

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The world’s population continues to explode! thumbnail Feeding the World Basic survival for us humans and just about everything else living; more and more investment funds are focusing on food and water production – why? What are the facts? Starting with water; estimates suggest that the world population will increase by 40 percent to 9 billion by 2050. As their purchasing power increases, developing countries like China and India are consuming more and more goods that require water for their production. Meat, for example, can take up to 10 times more water to produce than cereal crops. Several studies have concluded that demand for water is increasing at twice the rate as the world’s population. Water is one of the strategic resources of the 21st century, along with food and energy resources. Increased investment in water infrastructure and water treatment will be necessary in order to meet higher demand. […]

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Rising energy prices will challenge western way of life thumbnail A little-known Ministry of Defence (MoD) report published earlier this year warns that converging global trends will dramatically affect UK economic prosperity through to 2040. The report says that depletion of cheap conventional “easy oil”, along with shortages of food and water due to climate change and population growth, will sustain rocketing energy prices. Long-term price spikes are likely to lead to a long recession in Western economies, fuelling internal unrest and the rise of nationalist movements. The report departs significantly from the conservative and relatively optimistic scenarios officially adopted by the British government, as exemplified in the coalition’s new Energy Security Strategy published in November last year by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc). Peak “easy oil” The report predicts that “the imminent passing of the point of peak ‘easy oil’ will mean that hydrocarbon-based energy […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

As a believer in the power of diversification and inflation protection a basket of commodities can provide in a passive index framework, it is hard to grasp how much investors love oil and gold. It must be that oil is the biggest, most economically significant commodity, and gold is the shiniest, most prized metal – arguably a currency in its own right. From the largest pensions in the world to the smallest mom-and-pop retail investors, oil and gold dominate the conversation. In Taipei this week, gold and oil were louder than ever. It is an exciting time for greater China as the first commodity futures exchange-traded funds are soon to be launched. This opens the possibility for investors in this region to get access more easily to the commodities they love, but for the commodity lady that loves passive, singling out gold and oil is a difficult task. Besides […]

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Sadly, fossil fuels are about as sustainable as my chocolate supply thumbnail WHAT exactly is Transition about? asks Sally Elias. “No, I still don’t get it,” said a good friend, exasperated. “What exactly is Transition all about?” We Dorking Transitioners have always struggled with the challenge of a succinct explanation – a lift-pitch. If you say “We are trying to save the planet”, you sound “boring and worthy” (not my words). If you mention post peak oil, people glaze over or say, “Well now they have discovered fracking we don’t need to worry”. Or if you mention global climate change… well, we all know how that goes down with some people – apparently it’s NOT HAPPENING.  I am not terribly bright, but I do hang out with intelligent people who have read a lot more, studied a lot more and understand a lot more than I do about all […]

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Energy intensity improvements, or declines in the amount of energy consumption per unit of economic output, must play a critical role in efforts to decarbonize the global economy. Global decarbonization scenarios depend on a wide range of energy intensity improvement rates. Several scenarios which rely heavily on renewable energy and exclude other technologies from consideration (i.e. nuclear or carbon capture and storage), depend on a dramatic acceleration in energy intensity improvement compared to historical rates. Policy making has only limited influence over the mechanisms behind changes in energy intensity. Further research is needed to carefully unpack the mechanisms behind historical rates of change in energy intensity in order to benchmark global decarbonization strategies. Until then, scenarios calling for a step-change acceleration in energy intensity rates should be treated with caution.  Avoiding extreme or dangerous climate change will likely require the nearly complete decarbonization of the global energy system during this century, […]

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Most people have heard the old saying: "You can put lipstick on a pig. But it’s still a pig." That’s sort of what is happening in the American oil patch as producers try to put a positive gloss on the devastation that low oil prices are visiting on the industry. Perhaps the most inventive redefinition is as follows: The part of the U.S. oil industry devoted to extracting tight oil from deep shale reservoirs in places such as North Dakota and Texas has made the United States  the world’s "swing producer."  A swing producer is a country or territory that has large production in relation to the total market, substantial excess capacity and the ability to turn its capacity on and off quickly in response to market conditions. The term makes the U.S. oil industry sound powerful and important. And, while the U.S. industry remains an important player in […]

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