Category: Peak Oil

The United States has built a broad economic recovery hopes achieved finally in oil and gas production the Rocky, but these reserves will dry from the third decade of the twenty-first century, to return to dependence on Gulf oil, the International Energy Agency also predicted, she wondered whether the Gulf States are ready to take the job again. The past few years have seen a radical shift in the accounts of the United States with the bravado of its experts to come to the Renaissance oil and achieve a degree of “energy independence” the opposite of the expected downturn. Reviews that went after four decades on the oil boycott led by Saudi Arabic Arabic, that rocked the global power system in 1973, the United States might withdraw “umbrella security” exorbitant cost of Gulf oil. This change has occurred in the United States confidence in prospects for self-sufficiency in energy […]

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Talkin’ trash: Are we literally throwing away energy? Philipp Schmidt-Pathmann wakes up every day thinking about trash. What got him thinking about it in the first place is how much of it is simply dumped into landfills across America when most of what is not recyclable could instead be turned into energy for homes and businesses everywhere. Schmidt-Pathmann has seen a better approach in his native Germany where only about 1 percent of all municipal waste goes into landfills. This compares with about 68 percent in the United States of the 400 million tons discarded annually, he explains. (Exact numbers are hard to come by, but he prefers figures collected by Biocycle Magazine .) Germans recycle almost 70 percent of their municipal waste and burn almost all the rest to turn it into energy. Schmidt-Pathmann is founder and executive director of the Zero Landfill Initiative based in Seattle. He […]

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“The Stone Age didn’t end because humanity ran out of stones.” — Ronald Bailey We used to be afraid of something called Peak Oil. Peak Oil was the idea that oil production had reached its zenith, or would soon, and was poised to plunge; we inevitably faced a drought of the black gunk. In 2007, CNN reported: The world has reached the point of maximum oil output and production levels will halve by 2030 — a situation that will eventually lead to war and disaster, a report claims. The physicist Niels Bohr said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Some time has passed and we can see how this particular prediction has panned out. In 2006 the world produced about 72 million barrels of oil a day. Last year (despite an ongoing financial slump) the world produced about 73 million barrels of oil a day. […]

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UK officials have claimed Britain needs fracking for industry to ‘prosper’ and ‘the economy to grow’. Increasing data challenges these claims. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP I hate to say I told you so, but… In 2012, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that the US would outpace Saudi Arabia in oil production thanks to the shale boom by 2020, becoming a net exporter by 2030. The forecast was seen by many as decisive evidence of the renewal of the oil age, while informed detractors were at best ignored, at worst ridiculed. Among my many reports exposing the geological and economic fallacies behind the shale boom narrative are this , this , this and this . Even here on the Guardian, one headline declared the IEA report shows that " peak oil idea has gone up in flames ." But the IEA’s latest assessment has proved the detractors right all along. […]

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Good news sells, and doesn’t rock any boats, but policy makers and politicians comforted by rosy forecasts are unable to understand the risks and properly prepare the country for long-term energy sustainability…. A more prudent, conservative US oil forecast would look very different. It would consider that, although surprises are always possible, the most productive fossil fuel resources do tend to be discovered first and produced first. It would take note of the fact that production in fracked wells declines extremely quickly, requiring an accelerating drilling treadmill to maintain—let alone grow—production, with associated collateral environmental impacts. It would assume that most tight oil plays producible at current oil prices have already been discovered and put into production, and that major new resources—if they exist—are unlikely to be forthcoming unless there is a significant rise in oil prices. In short, the forecast would be based on actual data from existing […]

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Commodities / Crude Oil When In Doubt, Worry About Oil One of the starkest oil worry pot pourri presentations – ruthlessly mingling fact, fiction and fantasy (but pretending its all fact) – can be had here http://energypolicy.columbia.edu… Steve Kopits is the Managing Director of a known and still-in-business oil and energy forecasting firm, Douglas-Westwood. Both Kopits and D-W would appear to be (still) employable, but for how much longer we can only guess. The Kopits presentation is showcased by the Dublin sustainable economy and development firm FEASTA, with an even more ghastly presentation by David Knight called ‘Peak Oil and Climate Change – Two Sides of the Same Coin?’ FEASTA says that, as it perceives things,  Global Warming and Peak Oil are the two largest threats to the planet, human life and civilization. To be sure this inevitably includes oil prices. Where is any so-called “peak oil induced” takeoff […]

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On World Environmental Day, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underscored that sustainable energy is the golden thread that links poverty eradication, equitable economic growth and a healthy environment. Speaking today (5 June)at the first annual Sustainable Energy for All forum, Ban pointed out three goals for 2030: “universal access to modern energy services. Double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency. Twice as much renewable energy in the global energy mix. Our efforts so far show that these objectives are realistic. Our focus now must be to achieve them.” He said this can bring us closer to our goals of universal energy and a life of dignity and opportunity for all. Ban said “along with its campaign on energy and women’s and children’s health, the Decade can bring us closer to our goals of universal energy and a life of dignity and opportunity for all. Modern energy […]

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Geological constraints have the potential to substantially increase the future oil price.” Wow. Talk about the obvious. Northwest Resident on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 3:32 pm  “…geological constraints have the potential to substantially increase the future oil price…” And economic constraints have the potential to substantially sink the future oil price via demand destruction because there is a point at which very few will be able to afford that increased future price. Salaries and government hand-outs don’t increase to keep pace with the rising price of oil. Just exactly the opposite. The higher the price of oil gets, the more businesses can’t afford to continue operations, the more people lose their jobs or don’t get raises, and the less tax revenue the government collects to redistribute to the poor and unemployed. shortonoil on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 4:02 pm  “Our approach […]

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In a lecture to the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy in February of 2014 Steven Kopits, who is the Managing Director of the consultancy, Douglas Westwood explains how conventional “legacy” oil production peaked in 2005 and has not increased since. All the increase in oil production since that date has been from unconventional sources like the Alberta Tar sands, from shale oil or natural gas liquids that are a by-product of shale gas production. This is despite a massive increase in investment by the oil industry that has not yielded any increase in ‘conventional oil’ production but has merely served to slow what would otherwise have been a faster decline. More specifically the total spend on upstream oil and gas exploration and production from 2005 to 2013 was $4 trillion. Of that $3.5 trillion was spent on the ‘legacy’ oil and gas system. This is a sum […]

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