ODAC News
Thursday 01 Nov
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
Oil / Petrol Prices
1a/ Soaring oil climbs past $96 mark
(BBC News, Thu 01 Nov)
1b/ Oil
Traders Raise Bets on $125 Crude as Options Jump
(Bloomberg, Thu 01 Nov)
1c/ Gasoline
in Europe Rises to Two-Year High on U.K. Refinery Fire
(Bloomberg, Thu 01 Nov)
1d/ Giving
thanks for $100 oil (Market Watch, Thu 01 Nov)
Review of
2/ Energy questions that
will need to be answered
(Liverpool Daily Post, Mon 29 Oct)
Oil and Money Conference - Media Reports
3a/ World oil output struggling, say Arab experts (Reuters, Tue
30 Oct)
3b/ Finfacts Ireland Summary of the Oil and Money conference
(Finfacts, Wed 31 Oct)
3c/ Total
chief warns on oil output
(Financial Times, Wed 31 Oct)
Oil and Money Conference –
4/ Oil
and Money conference interviews: Sadad al-Huseini and
Fatih Birol (lastoilshock.com, this week)
4a/ Oil
has peaked, prices to soar - Sadad al-Huseini
(lastoilshock.com, Mon 29 Oct)
4b/ Oil
reserves over-inflated by 300bn barrels – al-Huseini
(lastoilshock.com, Tue 30 Oct)
4c/ IEA
reviews reliance on USGS resource estimates
(lastoilshock.com, Wed 31 Oct)
Economy -
5a/ Surge
in 100% mortgages means thousands risk negative equity
(The Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
5b/ Rock's
wholesale run
(BBC News [Robert Peston], Thu 01 Nov)
5c/ Credit
crunch 'may cause price fall' (The Telegraph, Thu 01 Nov)
5d/ House
price gloom as the wealthy turn away (The Times, Mon 29 Oct)
Energy Supplies –
6a/ Rising
fear of energy crisis this winter
(The Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
6b/ EDF
given green light to build gas-fired power plant
(The Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
6c/ ‘Climate
Change + Peak Oil = Cutting Carbon + Resilience Building’ or ‘Why Malcolm Wicks
Really Hasn’t Got This Peak Oil Thing…’
(Transition Culture, Mon 29 Oct)
Canadian Business on Peak Oil
7/ Big questions, big
answers (Canadian Business, Wed 31 Oct)
Peak Gas / Peak Oil - Energy Intelligence
8a/ Twin
Peaks -- Will 'Peak Gas' Soon Join 'Peak Oil?' (Energy
Intelligence [Energy Intelligence Briefing], Wed 31 Oct)
8b/ Global
Oil Production to Plateau in 2012
(Energy Intelligence [International Oil Daily], Wed 31 Oct)
8c/ Peak
Gas Could Be Coming Sooner Than You Think (Energy Intelligence [World
Gas Intelligence], Wed 31 Oct)
**********************************************************************************************************
1a/ Soaring oil climbs past $96 mark
(BBC News, Thu 01 Nov)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7072476.stm
Comment: The price of oil jumped by
over $5/barrel earlier today past $96/barrel (it has since dropped to nearer
$93/barrel). What is most bizarre is the almost total lack of interest society
has in the current high, and increasing, price of oil. Last year, when oil
prices were rising April-Aug., the BBC News website mentioned Peak Oil in
several articles, even published one or two Peak Oil articles which until last
week or so were available with every oil price article (under the ‘Analysis’
section), but have now been removed. The BBC News website no longer mentions
Peak Oil.
This article is a good example of the
not-very-credible excuses for high oil prices – the weakness of the dollar,
Turkey/Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria: but no mention of the long-term (5-6 months)
drawdown in OECD oil stocks as a result of demand outstripping supplies; the
fact that oil prices have been increasing for 7-8 years, not the last couple of
months; or the many problems associated with increasing oil supplies – shortage
of workers, aging oil and gas infrastructure, domination by national oil
companies instead of western/ international oil companies, and Peak Oil. And we
have the cheek to blame OPEC for not producing enough oil: “Oil producers' body
Opec continues to be criticised for not doing enough
to restrain prices … ”, turning a blind eye to the fact that the one thing we
can control is our own consumption but refuse to do so.
This week at the Oil and Money conference, Sadad al-Huseini,
the former head of exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, was interviewed
by
Article: Oil prices have continued
their unremitting climb, passing the $96 a barrel mark after figures showed a
surprise fall in US crude reserves. US light crude rose as high as $96.24 in
Asian trading on Thursday morning before falling back to $96.05.
Traders were concerned by a second weekly fall in
At the current rate of increase, prices are set to top
$100 a barrel during the next week.
Adjusted for inflation, prices are still below the
$101 high reached in November 1980.
... The
The
... An array of factors has been driving oil prices
higher.
Oil prices have risen as the sliding greenback makes
oil, which is priced in dollars, cheaper to buy outside the
The dollar hit its weakest levels against the pound
since 1981 on Wednesday.
At the same time, oil investors have been casting a
nervous eye on
In past months, there have also been concerns about
the stop-start violence in
Oil producers' body Opec
continues to be criticised for not doing enough to restrain prices despite
agreeing to lift daily output by 500,000 barrels, an increase which came into
effect on Thursday...
1b/ Oil Traders Raise Bets on $125 Crude as Options Jump
(Bloomberg, Thu 01 Nov)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601207&sid=aunTjVe_xS_s&refer=energy
Article: Oil traders are increasing
bets that crude will reach $125 a barrel this year because of record world
demand and threats to supplies from the Middle East and
Traders held 2,526 call options contracts, each
granting the right to buy 1,000 barrels of December oil at $125 in
1c/ Gasoline in Europe Rises to Two-Year High on
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aRl5XZQWk4ic&refer=energy
Comment: Late spring / early summer
this year,
Article: Gasoline prices in northwestern Europe advanced to the highest in more than
two years following a fire at a
Spot gasoline for immediate loading in
Petroplus
Holdings AG had a fire in a naphtha plant at its 172,000 barrel-a-day Coryton refinery in southeast
Naphtha for immediate delivery rose $9 to a record
$799 a ton, Bloomberg data showed. The contract surpassed its previous record
of $791 a ton achieved on Oct. 29.
Naphtha, processed from crude oil, is used in gasoline
and petrochemical production...
1d/ Giving thanks for $100 oil
(Market Watch, Thu 01 Nov)
Comment: A commentary from Market
Watch declaring Peak Oil is here, and how you can make money out of it.
Article: There is no doubt about it,
peak oil is here.
If you haven't felt it yet just wait a few months.
Old man winter is about to knock on may of our doors
and so will the heating oil and natural gas bills, likely to be 30% to 40%
higher than last year.
With an economy already reeling from high agriculture
prices, a subprime housing problem and mounting debt, the specter
of high gasoline and heating costs is likely to break the bank for many
Americans.
The fact of the matter is that many more Americans are
living paycheck to paycheck,
even people who have never had to before.
Inflation is rearing it's head at every turn and
meanwhile the Fed seems to be oblivious.
... For myself those are solar and electric and sugar
and bio-fuel.
As alternative energy investors we want to look for
companies that are established but not yet on the full radar screen.
In the solar space we want to find companies that
already have the technology, and materials (vital), also the company that's
most desirable would already have power contracts with major companies.
Evergreen Solar fits that bill.
And while surging energy prices might make oil stocks
look appealing, why not buy sugar which is much cheaper and possibly will get a
big boost if ethanol and sugar tariffs are lifted or reduced? With oil
approaching $100 a barrel, the political incentives could certainly make that
possible.
The good news is that with oil reaching above $90 and
well on the way above $100 we will see more and more money and investment pour
into these alternative energy companies and ideas. The trick is picking the
right one.
**********************************************************************************************************
2/ Energy questions that will need to be answered
(Liverpool Daily Post, Mon 29 Oct)
Comment: Unusual to see a well-written
Peak Oil article in the British media that is not in The Guardian or The
Independent. It does happen, occasionally. The journalist, Peter Elson,
reviews the Peak Oil report released last week from the Energy Watch Group.
Peter deserves a journalistic medal for not mentioning the ‘optimistic’
viewpoint.
Article: THE other week, I joked about
the new nature reserve of
This survey by German-based Energy Watch Group grimly
warns that extreme fossil fuel shortages will lead to wars and social
breakdown.
Oil production, it claims, peaked last year, which was
much earlier than previously expected. From now on, fossil fuel production will
drop by around 7% annually. This appears to be not a case of crying wolf, as
the markets are now setting record prices for oil every day over the last week
and hit more than $90 (£44) a barrel.
Britain’s oil production has peaked already – some
eight years ago – and has already dropped by about a half since 1999 to 1.6m
barrels a day So what are we doing?
... Certainly, if oil prices continue to rise, we
can’t escape the consequence of inevitable worldwide change which will impact
upon every aspect of our lives. Our world, which has become so heavily based on
plastics derived from oil, will disappear.
Major petroleum products include petrol, aviation
fuels, kerosene, diesel, lubricating oils, bitumen, plastics, synthetic rubber,
packaging, fabrics, dyes, adhesives and paint.
When I started my career, I used a metal typewriter,
now I’m writing this column on a plastic keyboard and screen. Worse than the
impact on typing, our lights will go out and our means of cooking will cease.
One of the few groups addressing the problems of “peak
oil”, the Oil Depletion Impact Group, is based at the
Environmentalist Jeremy Leggett, who wrote a book
about oil depletion called Half Gone, says that the Brit- ish
government and our energy industry is in “institutionalised denial”.
It’s chilling (and will get chillier) and we can’t say
we weren’t warned, but both answers and action seem as elusive as ever.
**********************************************************************************************************
3a/ World oil output struggling, say Arab experts
(Reuters, Tue 30 Oct)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL3080747520071030
Comment: Reuters reporting on the Oil
and Money conference.
Article: Leading figures from the
"There is a real problem -- that supply may not
be possible to increase beyond a certain level, say around 100 million
barrels," Libya's National Oil Corporation chairman Shokri
Ghanem said at an industry conference.
"The reason is, in some countries production is
going down and we are not discovering any more of those huge oil wells that we
used to discover in the Sixties or the Fifties."
Sadad al-Husseini was a key architect of Saudi Arabian
energy production policy for more than a decade whilst a top official at state
oil firm Saudi Aramco. He was even more pessimistic, saying world oil
production had already plateaued.
"We are already three years into level
production," Husseini also told the annual Oil & Money conference, a
gathering of top executives.
The views are far more conservative than those of the
International Energy Agency, adviser to consumer countries, that supply will
rise to 116 million bpd by 2030 to meet demand, from about 86 million bpd now.
Production is in decline in some regions, such as the
A five-year rally in oil prices, which hit a record
high above $93 a barrel on Monday, is leading to growing interest in peak oil
-- the view that supply has reached, or will soon reach a high point and then
fall.
"So many people are talking about the peak oil
theory," Ghanem said. "It is not the figure
itself but the principle that the world cannot continue being able to produce
oil infinitely."
Peak oil theory has its detractors, who say technology
can help extend the life of the world's reserves.
The price surge has also coincided with rising
scepticism about the size of the world's oil reserves.
OPEC sits on about 75 percent of the world's total
proven oil reserves of 1.208 trillion barrels, according to figures compiled by
BP in its Statistical Review of World Energy.
Husseini said at the conference that reserves
estimates are too high and oil prices can only remain on a rising trend.
Proven oil "reserves" are overstated by 300
billion barrels of speculative "resources", mainly in OPEC countries,
he said. By 2030, production of oil and natural gas liquids could fall to about
75 million bpd.
"As long as demand continues to grow, oil prices
can only go up," said Husseini.
3b/ Finfacts
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011642.shtml
Comment: Very brief overview of a few
of the speakers.
Article: Oil industry experts predict
supply crunch in coming years; Underinvestment, skill shortages and
difficult-to-access reserves, likely to keep oil above $100 a barrel for
sustained period
As the price of a barrel of crude oil heads for the
$100 threshold, and will soon exceed the real dollar all-time record value
reached in 1980,* the annual Oil & Money Conference was told in
London on Monday, that shortages of skilled labour and long-term
under-investment mean oil supplies are unlikely to meet the expected growth in
demand over the coming years.
Nobuo Tanaka, the Executive Director of the
International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy adviser to 26 industrialised
countries, including
3c/ Total chief warns on oil output
(Financial Times, Wed 31 Oct)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b0d83bfa-87df-11dc-9464-0000779fd2ac.html
Comment: Christophe de Margerie, CEO
of Total, has told us before that global oil production is unlikely to reach
100 Mb/d, see Total chief says world will find oil target tough (The
Times, 08 Sep 2006). What makes this article much more interesting is that
de Margerie is blatantly challenging his colleagues in Big Oil who still deny
Peak Oil is a problem: << Mr de Margerie, however, said while forecasts could
always change, “100m barrels [per day] … is now in my view an optimistic case”.
He added: “It is not my view: it is the industry view, or the view of those who
like to speak clearly, honestly, and not… just try to please people.” >>
Article: The world’s capacity to
produce oil will fall well short of official forecasts, the chief executive of
Total warned on Wednesday
In an unusually stark prediction for the head of one
of the world’s biggest oil companies, Christophe de Margerie, CEO of the French
group, said it would be difficult to reach even 100m barrels a day.
... Mr de Margerie, however, said while forecasts
could always change, “100m barrels [per day] . . . is now in my view an
optimistic case”.
He added: “It is not my view: it is the industry view,
or the view of those who like to speak clearly, honestly, and not . . . just
try to please people.”
... Mr de Margerie said the problem was not with the
amount of oil in the ground. “Reserves have never been so big,” he said, partly
because advances in technology had made more sources of oil accessible.
Instead, the constraints were the industry’s ability
to produce the oil quickly enough and oil-rich countries’ willingness or
ability to develop their reserves.
“We have been, all of us, too optimistic about the
geology. Not in terms of reserves, but in terms of how to develop those reserves:
how much time it takes, how much realistically do you need.”
He said the industry had also “misunderstood” that
resource-rich countries would want to preserve some of their best oil fields
for the future, while offering smaller and more difficult fields to foreign
investors.
In many countries, including
... Few oil company leaders have spoken out about the
limits to oil output in such uncompromising terms as Mr de Margerie, even
though most have been struggling to increase production. Total is one of the
fastest-growing of the “big five” international oil companies in terms of
volume growth, but it was recently forced to trim back its projections of extra
output.
Last year Thierry Desmarest,
Mr de Margerie’s predecessor, created a stir when he
predicted that world oil production would peak around 2020.
Rex Tillerson, chairman of
ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, told the FT earlier this year that
he believed oil production from sources outside the Organisation of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries could have “a little more growth”, but would soon
level off.
**********************************************************************************************************
4/ Oil and Money conference interviews: Sadad al-Huseini
and Fatih Birol
(lastoilshock.com, this week)
Comment: The annual ‘Oil and Money’
conference was on earlier this week.
Items 4a, b and c available at:
http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/
4a/ Oil has peaked, prices to soar - Sadad al-Huseini
(lastoilshock.com, Mon 29 Oct)
Comment: Podcast and article.
Article: Sadad al-Huseini
says that global production has reached its maximum sustainable plateau and
that output will start to fall within 15 years, by which time the world’s oil
resources will be “very severely depleted”.
In an exclusive interview with lastoilshock.com, the
former head of exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, said that oil
production had reached a structural ceiling determined by geology rather than
geopolitics, and that the technical floor for the oil price will rise by $12
annually for the next 4 to 5 years as new fields become increasingly costly to
exploit.
... Al-Huseini said that
However, al-Huseini disparaged
Western expectations that the Kingdom would produce significantly more than 12 mb/d. It was unfair, he said, to expect Saudi to “pull
everybody’s chestnuts out of the fire”.
4b/ Oil reserves over-inflated by 300bn barrels – al-Huseini
(lastoilshock.com, Tue 30 Oct)
Article: The world’s proved reserves
have been have been falsely puffed up by the inclusion of 300 billion barrels
of speculative resources, according to the former head of exploration and
production at Saudi Aramco, and this explains the industry’s inability to raise
output despite soaring prices.
... He also noted that 400 billion barrels of reserve
replacement has been reported over the last decade, and asked why this had not
been translated into new capacity. The answer, he suggested, was that a quarter
of the world’s claimed proved reserves are no such thing: not production-ready
oil, but speculative sources. “Reserves are confused and in fact inflated. Many
of the so called reserves are in fact resources. They’re not delineated,
they’re not acessible, they’re not available for
production”. By his estimate 300 billion of the world’s 1200 barrels of proved
reserves should be recategorized as speculative
resources.
... However he did go on to question the production
potential of some Gulf states, pointing out that 75% of Iranian production
comes from mature fields that are more than 50% depleted...
4c/ IEA reviews reliance on USGS resource estimates
(lastoilshock.com, Wed 31 Oct)
Comment: Podcast (11m 52s) and
article.
Article: IEA chief economist Fatih
Birol has told lastoilshock.com that the agency will review its use of resource
estimates from the United States Geological Survey, in a move that seems
certain to prompt a major downward revision of its long term oil production
forecast.
... As I report in The Last Oil Shock, a major
weakness of the long term IEA oil supply model is that it relies in part upon
resource estimates from the USGS World Petroleum Assessment, published in 2000,
which are now demonstrably over-optimistic. For the USGS numbers to come good
the world would need to discover 22 billion barrels of oil per year between
1995 and 2025. But as the USGS has now acknowledged, so far the world has only
discovered 9bn bbls per year - a massive 60% less
than forecast.
... Speaking at the Oil & Money conference in
n an interview with lastoilshock.com Mr Birol went on
to reveal that the IEA would also review the oil resource base afresh, and
would be “addressing the limitations and uncertainties” of the USGS data. The Agency
would also incorporate other sources of information to assess the “implications
of different type[s] of data on our long term thinking”...
**********************************************************************************************************
5a/ Surge in 100% mortgages means thousands risk negative equity
(The Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2202031,00.html
Comment: So many warnings of a big
fall in
Article: Thousands of first-time
buyers could find themselves in negative equity following a big increase in the
number of 100% mortgages available, according to new research issued yesterday.
An estimated 33,000 first-time buyers borrowed the
full value of their property, or in some cases more than it was worth, between
January 2006 and August 2007, said the mortgage website mform.co.uk. Such deals
are allowing people to get on to the housing ladder without having to raise a
deposit.
But earlier this week, the body representing mortgage
lenders warned that the housing market was about to stall, and some
commentators believe this has already begun. A report from the website Hometrack, published on Monday, claimed house prices fell
by 0.1% during October - the first fall for two years. There has also been a
warning that home repossessions could rise by 50% next year.
Homebuyers who have recently taken out 100%-plus loans
are particularly vulnerable to price falls, as they have no equity to cushion
them if there is a drop in the value of their home. In some cases, even a small
fall in house prices would leave them owing more on their mortgage than their
home is worth.
Rising property prices have meant that people need to
borrow even more money to get the property they want, and lenders have
responded by dramatically increasing the number of 100% mortgages available,
according to mform.co.uk
"In April this year, our research showed there
were 92 different 100% mortgages to choose from, but by October 1, this had
increased to 160," said Francis Ghiloni, the
site's marketing and business development director. "If house prices fall,
as some commentators predict, those homeowners with these mortgages are likely
to encounter negative equity."
The high-street bank Abbey recently began trialling
the "100% Plus Mortgage", which, in addition to allowing people to
borrow the full value of their property, enables them to borrow up to a further
£25,000, secured on their home. Abbey suggested the money might be used for
"renovating your home, buying a new car or consolidating all your
debts".
5b/ Rock's wholesale run
(BBC News [Robert Peston], Thu 01 Nov)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
Article: Figures published just now by
the Bank of England indicate that Northern Rock has to date borrowed around
£23bn from it.
That is in effect a loan from all of us, since the
Treasury is indemnifying the Bank of England for the entirety of the credit
extended to the Rock.
What that means is that each of us as a British
taxpayer is in effect lending £730 to the battered mortgage-provider.
It is a colossal sum.
... What does it mean?
Well, first of all the money provided by the Bank is
not cheap - so paying the interest on it is making a big dent in the Rock's
profits.
But the more worrying implication of the sheer
magnitude of the wholesale run is that none of the three putative bidders for
the Rock can possibly buy it without a cast-iron guarantee that the
Government-backed loans will stay in place.
To be clear, the extent of public sector support goes
beyond those direct loans. The Treasury has also indemnified a further £20bn
odd of deposits.
So we are talking about total public-sector exposure
to the Rock of £40bn - equivalent to around 3 per cent of our entire economy.
And that exposure could become much bigger, as other loans to the Rock fall due
for repayment...
5c/ Credit crunch 'may cause price fall'
(The Telegraph, Thu 01 Nov)
Comment: A very short article from The
Telegraph, but: << Mr Bean raised the possibility that share and house
prices could "fall significantly".>> Possibility?
Article: The Bank of England's chief
economist has warned that the credit crunch is likely to hit
In a speech last night in the City, Charlie Bean said
the recent turmoil in financial markets was likely to have "led to a
softening in the outlook for growth". He said asset prices were often
affected by situations like this, adding: "Though house prices have broadly
held up, some of the indicators point to a weaker outlook."
Mr Bean raised the possibility that share and house
prices could "fall significantly". However, he appeared to play down
speculation that the Bank will cut rates next week, saying it was still
concerned about inflation...
5d/ House price gloom as the wealthy turn away
(The Times, Mon 29 Oct)
Article: House prices fell for the
first time in two years this month, sending a shudder through millions of
homeowners already hit by rising mortgage repayments and more expensive
borrowing.
The outlook for homeowners is likely to worsen with
news that the wealthy are losing confidence in bricks and mortar as an
investment. There has been a big drop in City bonuses being used to buy prime
property in Central London and in the popular second-homes areas, triggering
fears of price falls in the South West,
Today’s figures will increase the anxiety of millions
who have banked on ever-rising prices to fund their old age and pay off
mortgages. To add to their misery came a new warning from
**********************************************************************************************************
6a/ Rising fear of energy crisis this winter (The
Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2202228,00.html
Article:
And it emerged last night that the energy minister,
Malcolm Wicks, met power providers and users last week to discuss mounting
concerns that the UK was heading into another winter of soaring prices and
power shortages, similar to the one that forced some manufacturers to shut down
capacity 24 months ago...
6b/ EDF given green light to build gas-fired power plant
(The Guardian, Wed 31 Oct)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2202034,00.html
Comment: The
Article: EDF Energy has been given the
go-ahead to build a 1,300 megawatt gas-fired power station at
The company said the new plant would be part of its
commitment to meet, in the short term, the projected "power crunch"
caused by a shortfall in generation, which could begin in 2016 unless there is
investment in new capacity.
... The company is seeking permission to build another
new gas-fired plant, at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, which would be similar in
size to the one given the green light by the government yesterday...
6c/ ‘Climate Change + Peak Oil = Cutting Carbon +
Comment: Rob Hopkins reports that
Malcolm Wicks is
Article: I had just about got over the
sense of outrage and indignation caused by reading John Vidal’s piece, Labour’s
plan to abandon renewable energy targets, which revealed Gordon Brown’s
administration as truly nailing their colours to the economic growth mast
rather than the responding to the climate change one by withdrawing his support
for the European target of 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020. Just
about. Then, the next day in a follow-up article, was a quote attributed to
energy minister Malcolm Wicks, which read“at the end
of the day, renewables is a means to an end. The end is bringing down carbon
emissions”.
Malcolm Wicks was the
**********************************************************************************************************
7/ Big questions, big answers
(Canadian Business, Wed 31 Oct)
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/columnists/jeff_sanford/article.jsp?content=20071031_154036_6540
Comment: Canadian business taking Peak
Oil on board?
Article: This past weekend a
distinguished group of experts in governance and energy gathered in
This year the centre dedicated its conference to
discussing energy, which, as an issue, is rapidly moving up the list of
priorities for decision-makers everywhere. The western world's installed energy
infrastructure is struggling to keep up with burgeoning global demand, and it's
not clear how we are going come up with the new generation. As one delegate put
it, foreign policy is increasingly being conducted on the basis of energy
needs, and talk at the conference was of the need for a "war-time" or
a Manhattan-Project-like approach to restructuring the energy infrastructure of
our western societies.
The conference's first session saw a brief discussion
of peak oil, the idea that we're closing in on a peak in terms of liquid fossil
fuels that can be produced on a ready basis. The idea we may be near peak was
considered a subject for "kooks" not so long ago, but it's being
taken more seriously today, says Thomas Homer-Dixon, one of the panel's
participants.
[The article then goes on to discuss some of the Peak
Oil issues that we are all familiar with]
**********************************************************************************************************
8a/
No link, from newsletter.
Comment: Interesting, very
interesting. Energy Intelligence raising the issue of Peak Gas. The very
fact that they even mention the words ‘Peak Gas’ should be raising alarm bells,
as in ‘situation critical’ alarm bells. Response from government - Better get
our economists on the job (ODAC interpretation of
Article: Is "peak gas" about
to follow "peak oil" onto the energy market stage? Although not
exactly issuing the alert, Qatari Energy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister
Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah
kicked off this week's Oil & Money Conference by intimating that the
projects now in operation and development in the key
8b/ Global Oil Production to Plateau in 2012
(Energy Intelligence [International Oil Daily], Wed 31 Oct)
No link, from newsletter.
Comment: More info from the Oil and
Money conference.
Article: Global oil production will hit
a plateau around 2012, market-watchers agree, but while some see output picking
up later with nonconventional oil and biofuels
playing a larger role, others expect worldwide oil production to peak in five
years -- although it could stay there for 15 years before declining.
8c/ Peak Gas Could Be Coming Sooner Than You Think
(Energy Intelligence [World Gas Intelligence], Wed 31 Oct)
No link, from newsletter.
Comment: Same item as 9a but different
EI publication. Not clear why E.Intel. should be
reporting on Julian Darley’s High Noon for Natural
Gas now?
Article: If global oil production is
peaking, can natural gas be far behind? Geology, logistics, production history
and economics suggest that gas output could plateau sometime between 2010 and
2025, writes British environmentalist Julian Darley in High Noon for Natural
Gas: The New Energy Crisis. It's a position not lacking in statistical support
and industrial logic -- despite the radical contrast it presents to
conventional industry projections for continued high growth in global gas
production.
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