Peak Oil discussion group's topics - tribe.net

Dan is Dead, long live the paid spammer

thomasgall — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:44:57 GMT

So he is dead, and we all agree that Peak Oil Theory is a reality.

so where do we go now since we have had to listen to his half truths and lies for so long?

What made him leave, did the world bank stop sending him checks? lol

Rene seems to be a great source of information, maybe she can keep sending us articles to update us on the situation, and maybe some of the good news of people and technologies that might solve the problem of our world running out of oil, if there is any hope.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 10 replies

Stop Global Whining!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:48:47 GMT

There is no Global warming, only global whining. Many who pride themselves as being the guardians of "science" have been duped by this junk science.

Award winning meteorologist explains that the industrial age led to global cooling up until the 1970's which led to an article in Time magazine June 24th 1974

""Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age"

No correlation between industrialization and global warming exists. The warmest decade on record was in the 1930's, followed by a cooling trend until the 70's.

Weather monitoring stations not encroached upon by urban sprawl show very little warming (.34 degrees F.)

The last decade shows no increase in average temperatures and even a dip since 2007.

If all gases in the atmosphere where reduced to the length of a football field proportionately, CO2 would represent 1 inch, and that caused by humans as thin as a dime!

Evidence in ice cores indicates C02 was 500 times higher during the "cretacious period".

C02, far from being negative, makes plants grow and is what I am expelling right now as I write this.

Global warming is junk science like DDT is harmful, peak oil, overpopulation myths etc.. All these myths tend to be believed by liberals, particularly irrational atheists.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/global_whining_vs_the_truth.html

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 10 replies

Is peak oil irrelevant?

bee_dragon — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:32:59 GMT

Does the market price of oil reflect a recognition that the resource is fundamentally limited?

Dave Cohen, writing at the Oil Drum, has been doggedly wading through the writings of economists on resource scarcity, going the extra mile (and then some) trying to understand how those on the other side of the river from him have thought about the issue of resource scarcity.

As Dave nicely explains, the traditional Hotelling model reasons that market forces will cause there to be a "scarcity rent" incorporated in the price of an exhaustible resource. The observation is that someone who sells a disappearing resource today is thereby surrendering the opportunity to sell that commodity in a future market in which it might be more highly valued. As a consequence of owners bringing more or less of the product to the market at each date on the basis of such calculations, the theory predicts that the scarcity rent should rise over time at the rate of interest.

Dave then runs into the same stumbling block as anyone else who has tried to apply this elegant theory to reality-- if you look at the inflation-adjusted price of what should be exhaustible commodities over the last century, there's no hint at all of an upward trend:

Source: Oil Drum
resource_prices.jpg

Dave concludes that sellers have been regarding the day of exhaustion as so far off in the future, that, given also advances in the technology of extraction, a scarcity rent has made essentially no contribution to the price. But Dave's geological assessment is that in the case of oil at least, declining annual production rates in fact are going to come relatively soon. He concludes that perhaps the scarcity rent is not making the contribution that it should for oil due to possible factors such as investors too heavily discounting even relatively near-term events, or deliberately misleading data provided by oil producers such as Saudi Arabia in a strategic game to prevent investments in alternatives to conventional oil reserves.

My own view is that, for most of the past century, Dave's inference is exactly correct-- the resource exhaustion was judged to be sufficiently far off as to be ignored. However, unlike those whom Dave terms the Cornucopians, I do not infer that the next decade will necessarily be like the previous century. Certainly declining production from U.S. oil reservoirs set in long ago. And if one asks, why are we counting on seemingly geopolitically unreliable sources such as Iraq, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela, and Russia for future supplies, and transferring vast sums of wealth to countries that are covertly or openly hostile to our interests, the answer appears to me to be, because we have no choice. Resource scarcity in this sense has already been with us for some time, and sooner or later the geological realities that governed U.S. oil production are also going to rule the day for the rest of the world's oil producing countries. My expectation has accordingly been that, although scarcity rents for oil were irrelevant for most of my father's lifetime, they would start to become manifest some time within mine. And I have been very interested in the question of when.

Data sources: FRED, Cleveland Fed, Bloomberg.
real_wti_oct_06.gif

If Dave had gazed not at a century of prices but rather at just the last 15 years of the price of oil relative to the PCE deflator, would he have drawn the same conclusion? If all we had was the graph above, it would seem quite natural to conclude that a rising scarcity rent could well be one factor in the recent behavior of this commodity price.

To be sure, there are some facts that fit a bit messily into that picture. One is that, over the last several years, oil futures prices have exhibited backwardation at some horizons. This is less dramatic now that it was a year ago, with the six-year-ahead contract price of $64 a barrel now above the current $59 1-month-ahead price. It is not obvious how to reconcile the behavior of futures prices over the last several years with a scarcity-rent explanation, though possibilities to investigate might be option valuation, adjustment costs, or hedging or other risk premia.

A separate set of doubts of course arise from the dramatic plunge in oil prices over the last few months, which at a minimum must reflect either some substantial new information about the long-run fundamentals or else confirm that some factors other than scarcity rent have been contributing to the oil price peak of the last year.

Despite these observations, I am not at all prepared to dismiss the hypothesis that scarcity rents have indeed started to make a contribution to oil prices over the last five years, and will become more apparent over the next five. For example, the announced intention of OPEC producers to cut back production as the price goes below $60 might be most naturally interpreted from that perspective-- producers don't see it as being in their interests to sell for less, given what the oil will be worth in the future.

Admittedly, if the oil price should fall from here down to $30, then I'll have to conclude that scarcity rents have had nothing to do with the recent price moves.

But if Dave is right about the geology, oil is not going to $30.

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/10/is_peak_oil_irr.html

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 8 replies

Who is to blame for the price of oil?

Tedster — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:42:20 GMT

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1760&updaterx=2008-06-23+14%3A55%3A05

Oil consuming nations stepped up pressure on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Sunday to increase production at an international summit on spiraling crude prices in the Saudi city of Jeddah. OPEC leaders are saying doubling of oil prices over the past year was due to geopolitical tension, unregulated speculation and a shortage of refining capacity rather than a failure by producers to supply enough crude. Antonia Juhasz, author of the book “Tyranny of Oil” comments on the current situation.
Bio

Antonia Juhasz is a policy-analyst and author iiving San Francisco. She is a Fellow with Oil Change International and the Institute for Policy Studies. She has taught at the New College of California in the Activism and Social Change Masters Program and as a guest lecturer on U.S. Foreign Policy at the McMaster University Labour Studies Program in a unique educational program with the Canadian Automobile Workers Union. Juhasz is author of The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time (HarperCollins, April, 2006).
Transcript

MISHUK MUNIER (VOICEOVER): At a summit in Saudi Arabia on Sunday between oil-producing and -consuming nations, Saudi King Abdullah said his country was not to blame for soaring oil prices.

KING ABDULLAH OF SAUDI ARABIA (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): Dear brothers and sisters, there are several factors behind the unjustified, swift rise in oil prices and they are: speculators who play the market out of selfish interests, increased consumption by several developing economies, and additional taxes on oil in several consuming countries. Despite these facts and even though OPEC - (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) has sought to meet demand we find those, who point the finger of blame at OPEC alone.

MUNIER (VOICEOVER): OPEC leaders also blamed the near-doubling of oil prices over the past year to geopolitical tension and a shortage of refining capacity, rather than failure by producers to supply enough crude. Saudi Arabia increased oil production by 300,000 barrels a day in May, and a Saudi official confirmed Saturday that the country would add another 200,000 barrels a day in July, increasing the output to 9.7 million barrels a day. But neither announcement has done much to stem the run-up in the price of oil, which closed to near US$135 a barrel on Friday. The Real News Network spoke to Antonia Juhasz, author of the upcoming book Tyranny of Oil, and asked her to explain the current situation.

ANTONIA JUHASZ, AUTHOR AND OIL POLICY ANALYST: I would say that the biggest culprit right now is speculation, and not just the fact of speculation, but speculation taking place on unregulated exchanges, speculation taking place essentially in a market free-for-all, so that we definitely are seeing not only rampant speculation, but we're also seeing criminal speculation, that we're seeing a manipulation of the market, and we're seeing the price being driven further and further and further up for just one very simple reason: lots and lots of people are making money off this. When you have supply exceeding demand, yet price is still skyrocketing, there's clearly something else going on. And the reason why there is excess supply is that the oil tomorrow is worth more than oil today. So we've got oil companies and countries and others sitting on their spare supply, waiting for it to garner more money. The US regulators themselves are identifying cases of intentional manipulation of price by, among others, companies like Marathon, BP, Shell, that the oil companies themselves are involved in manipulation.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Oil and Free Markets

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:57:46 GMT

Energy is too important to be left to businessmen and markets, right? We need people whom we really can trust to get things under control. Like politicians.
I'm looking at Carpe Diem, the blog of Dr. Mark J. Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. He compares prices of gasoline from 1919 to today against price changes of a first-class postage stamp.
At $4 a gallon, today's gasoline price is 16 times higher than its price in 1919, 25.5 cents. Over the same period, first-class postage went from 2 cents to 42 cents, a 21-fold increase.
And postage prices never went down. Only up.
From 1970 to 1980, there was about a 10-fold increase in oil prices. However, by the mid-1980s prices had dropped by two-thirds and remained relatively unchanged for the next 15 years. Now, prices are up by six-fold since 2001.
History, particularly near term history, is not difficult to access. Search newspaper and magazine articles of the late '70s. The headlines were about the "energy crisis." The world was supposedly running out of the stuff. We were at the alleged beck and call of Arab oil producers who stood at any moment to use the "oil weapon" against us.
Oil companies were being attacked, as they are now, for the amount of money they were making. When prices sharply dropped in the mid-'80s, these same firms had to cut back, lay off folks, and oil towns like Houston went into depression.
Politicians who want to punish firms with a "windfall profits" tax when prices go up don't propose "loss subsidies" when prices go down.
Our real crises occur when we believe those who challenge what makes this country work – people, markets and freedom.
Back to professor Perry's blog: He shows that with the 10-fold increase in oil prices in the '70s, our energy consumption patterns changed dramatically. Today, we consume half the energy to produce one dollar of output than we did in 1970. We're now twice as energy efficient as we were.
Yes, markets work when we let them.
Think the guys who drill in 10,000 feet of water offshore looking for oil and gas earn too much?
According to a Business Week survey, median compensation for the CEOs of the 12 largest oil firms in 2007 was $15.4 million. The CEO of the largest, ExxonMobil, earned $21.7 million. Top earner was the CEO of Occidental Petroleum at $33.6 million.
All chump change when we look at the Celebrity 100 list published by Forbes Magazine.
Over the last year, for example, Oprah Winfrey earned $275 million, rapper 50 Cent $150 million, Steven Spielberg $130 million, and Beyonce Knowles $80 million.
With oil prices more than doubling in the last year, we are going to get a market response both with supplies and with how much we consume if we keep politicians at bay.
The "energy independence" goal is pure political baloney. As renowned energy economist and professor emeritus of MIT Morris Adelman writes, "It does not matter how much oil is produced domestically and how much is imported." It's a global market, and new supplies from any source will depress prices.
Although we import two-thirds of our oil, it comes from well over 20 countries. And despite conventional wisdom, our two largest suppliers are Canada and Mexico.
Appreciate that environmentalism belongs to the Hollywood elite who make their millions and then contribute to Democrats who tell us we shouldn't invest in carbon-based fuels.
Climate change is politics, not science. As environmental scientist S. Fred Singer recently wrote in the New York Sun, 30 percent of climate scientists surveyed were "skeptical" regarding claims about global warming caused by human activity. "More than 31,000 scientists" have signed a petition questioning the U.N.'s science on all this and opposing the recent "cap-and-trade" legislation in Congress.
Tens of millions of working folks need cheap fuel for their homes, their cars and their trucks.
Yes, drill offshore, drill in Alaska, mine oil shale and build nuclear plants. Leave all options open.
But let free markets and businesspeople drive these decisions. Not politicians.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67601
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/search?q=PRICE+OF+GAS

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 1 reply

Thought of the Day on Oil

thomasgall — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:56:55 GMT

OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel.
OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel.
Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel.
Can't buy it? Tough! Eat your oil!
Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled filet of camel a__!!!

Iran pulled billion of dollars from European banks, Europe with the EU could join with us in selling grain to them for this price!

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Dems want control over U.S. oil flow

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:48:29 GMT

A report by Fox News, captured in a clip posted on YouTube.com, showed Waters challenging the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, to guarantee the prices consumers pay will go down if the oil companies are allowed to drill wherever they want off of U.S. shores.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67490

Hofmeister replied: "I can guarantee to the American people, because of the inaction of the United States Congress, ever-increasing prices unless the demand comes down."

The Shell exec said paying $5 at the pump "will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies."

Waters responded, in part, "And guess what this liberal would be all about. This liberal will be about socializing … uh, um. …"

The congresswoman paused to collect her thoughts.

"Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies. …"

The oil executives responded, according to Fox News, by saying they've seen this before, in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 22 replies

OPEC chief appeals for calm over oil

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:10:56 GMT

There is no issue with oil supply. Peak oil is a myth. I have yet to see any rationing of gas anywhere. Demand is down over 2007 due to ridiculously high prices due in part to the weak dollar and speculation in the stock market. If there is any good to come of this it will be more U.S. drilling and the building of more refineries.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalEnergy08/idUSWLA462520080610

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 27 replies

Energy Independence Via Ethanol Floods Out

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:17:21 GMT

Last update: 1:42 p.m. EDT June 12, 2008Comments: 57SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- As floods of near-Biblical proportions inundate Iowa, the prophets of ethanol are retreating to high ground.
Some of Wall Street's biggest guns downgraded ethanol producers on Thursday, sending shares plunging. Biofuel Energy Corp. (BIOF:biofuel energy corp com
News, chart, profile, more
Last: 3.20+0.24+8.11%

1:47pm 06/13/2008

BIOF 3.20, +0.24, +8.1%) , one of those hit hardest, saw 20% of its stock value wiped out.
Even industry titan Archer Daniels Midland (ADM:Archer Daniels Midland Company
News, chart, profile, more
Last: 32.77-0.75-2.24%

1:47pm 06/13/2008

Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolio
Analyst
Create alertInsider
Discuss
Financials
Sponsored by:

ADM 32.77, -0.75, -2.2%) was reeling, its shares down 7% as analysts took a hard look at how rising waters in the corn belt are drowning hopes of a bumper crop for the region's new, heavily subsidized ethanol plants.

www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...tory.aspx

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Oil could Hit $400 by 2018

Tedster — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:35:03 GMT

This is actually lower than what I would expect, but given that Oil has been used to hedge against the dollar. But, since I agree that there is a bubble in oil, I think it is not unlikely, and $200 is a critical point where more people will get out of there cars it will level off for a period of time.
================

Oil Could Hit $400 a Barrel by 2018
That's the forecast from U.S. Navy Admiral William Owens, who sees rising tensions between the U.S. and China as they scramble for energy

by Jame DiBiasio

US military analysts looking at trends that will affect the relationship between America and China believe they see clear signs of future trouble—and are developing ideas to foster cooperation to try to avoid conflict.

Admiral William Owens, former vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff—the second-highest ranking position in the US military—and former commander of the US Sixth Fleet in the Pacific, addressed the Asia Society in Hong Kong this week regarding some of the economic, social and military projections regarding US-China relations in 10 years' time.

Although now retired from the US military (he is currently CEO and chairman of private-equity group AEA Holdings and managing director of AEA Investors, a board member at Daimler Chrysler and Wipro, and former CEO of Nortel), Admiral Owens has been behind a recent, informal dialogue among senior retired military officers from the US and China.

Admiral Owens says one trend that can be safely extrapolated is the growth of the middle class in China and many other emerging markets. The demographics suggest these middle classes are entering a 15-year boom, which is great for many businesses but will incur environmental costs and change military relationships.

In 1945, there were around 50 million people in the world that could be counted as middle class. That figure rose to 250 million in 2005, and will reach 750 million in 2018—all wanting a car, a flat-screen TV, a refrigerator and so on.

"The big story is productivity in China," he asserts, noting it is an incredible 9%, or three times the level of productivity in the US during its 1990s peak. Admiral Owens attributes this to the country's high-quality infrastructure. It will allow the Chinese economy to soon become the second-largest in the world, with a GDP big enough to justify comparison with the US.

That in turn means demand for energy will see oil prices reach $400 a barrel by 2018, he argues. This is not only because of demand in China, India and elsewhere, but because of the nationalisation of oil fields in countries such as Russia, Venezuela and in the Caucasus. And energy efficiency in China is not very high.

A Sino-US initiative on clean coal could mitigate this, however, Admiral Owens suggests. China and America are the world's two main producers of coal, which is used to fire all those new power plants in China and elsewhere.

"We need a $100 billion Darpa-like fund for clean oil financed and developed between these two countries," he proposes, referring to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm that has spawned, among other things, the precursors to the internet.

Such a project could help alleviate the pollution from industrialisation in China, but wouldn't affect his projection for oil prices. He notes today, US citizens are paying $4/gallon for petrol, and suggests they should expect to pay something around $10/galloon by next decade. The impact in China will be less dramatic, because of the continuing appreciation the renminbi (and indeed rising oil prices will contribute to the continued slide in the dollar's value).

Another projection of this: the internet will be a major mover in the Chinese economy. There are now 210 million mainland people online, up by 50% from 2006, and this will increasingly drive revenues for various industries. "China's moving to 3G and wireless media, and it will probably leapfrog the West," he predicts.

Put together these developments in China's growth, and it stands to reason that it will have a much bigger military budget. Today the US spends around $500 billion annually on its military—and that's before off-budget wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admiral Owens is critical of this large budget, noting the military annual budget during the Clinton presidency was around $250 billion.

"The first seven days of the Gulf War was fought with the Clinton military," he says. "I think it's enough, and that we should put that money into education, to help our society and grow our economy."

Even so, today the US spends around 4% of GNP on the military. Assuming China spends 2-3% of its GNP on its military—which is a reasonable figure for a big country—it would then have a military budget of $400 billion by 2018. It's only about $80 billion today, and can already challenge the US by shooting down satellites or build secret submarine bases on Hainan Island.

"How's it going to be when we're spending $600 billion and China's spending $400 billion?" Admiral Owens wonders, given the relative growth of both economies in 10 years' time. "The US will react," as it is likely that politicians in the US will find it impossible not to adopt a confrontational attitude.

The upshot: "2018 doesn't look good unless we take action," he says. This should involve collaboration in common areas, including a clean-coal technology initiative, but also in military areas, such as agreeing to ban weaponry in space or to negotiate reductions on nuclear arsenals.

Admiral Owens says cyber warfare will become an important area, and urges both governments to agree to a 'no-first-use' policy. "We can both shut down the other's society on the internet today," he warns. "Banks, insurance companies, everything is vulnerable." He adds that an attack by a nation is nothing like an attack by a hacker. Russia is suspected of launching a cyber attack on Estonia that had a serious effect on its economy.

On a positive note, he says that 'engagement' became the American byword for how to deal with China under the Clinton administration, one that has been pursued by George Bush. The national security advisor who came up with that buzzword, Anthony Lake, is now advising the Barack Obama campaign.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb20080610_688373.htm

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Summary of what causes oil price changes.

Tedster — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:17:26 GMT

This article is brief, but because it depends on having charts, I will just post the link.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/80487-what-can-possibly-explain-the-price-of-oil

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 0 replies

Prices surge for oil-based goods.

Tedster — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:24:36 GMT

Beyond gasoline: Prices surge for oil-based goods

By Ron SchererThu Jun 5, 4:00 AM ET

Besides gasoline, the Department of Energy calculates, there are 57 major uses of petroleum – everything from cosmetics to ballpoint pens, nylons, and even the waxes in chewing gum.

That is why the effect of high oil prices is now spreading well beyond the pump, where gasoline hit another record price of $3.98 a gallon on Wednesday. Now, consumers will have to brace themselves for other higher costs, since businesses such as Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Colgate-Palmolive are raising prices on their products to recoup energy costs.

In brief, this means less money in consumers' pockets in the months ahead. But it also goes beyond consumers. For example, the price of asphalt is up 65 percent so far this year – and municipalities' and states' road departments are cutting back. This may mean bumpier roads ahead.

"Not quite half of what we consume is energy, food, and other commodities that are significantly affected by the rising cost of petroleum," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

On a year-over-year basis, energy prices are up 15.5 percent. Much of the most recent surge in oil prices has yet to be factored into consumer prices. But anecdotal signs are emerging that companies can no longer absorb the higher energy costs.

Last week, for example, Dow Chemical announced a 20 percent across-the-board price increase on its products, which range from antifreeze to cleaning fluids to pharmaceuticals.

Similar moves are expected. "It's just the tip of the iceberg," says Ann Paulins, director of the School of Human and Consumer Sciences at Ohio University in Athens. "The retailers can't absorb it all."

GroceriesThat sentiment is echoed by Wegmans, a grocery chain based in Rochester, N.Y., that normally tries to keep price increases to a minimum. Now, however, prices are rising on nearly every shelf.

"We're talking increased raw materials, packaging, transportation, the whole ball of wax," says Jo Natale, a spokeswoman. "We have tried to absorb as many increases as possible to remain competitive, but we have reached the point where retail prices have to go up."

Late this spring, the CEOs of some major consumer-products companies also said they had to start to recoup higher energy costs.

"Through the retailer, they have to pass on to consumers their higher costs," says Ali Dibadj, a securities analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. in New York. "The price increases are ranging from 4 to 6 to 10 percent."

On April 30, Clayton Daley, chief financial officer of Procter & Gamble, told securities analysts that the company expects to incur about $1.4 billion in higher energy costs this year.

Between May and August, he said, the company would raise prices 4.5 percent on Always and Tampax products, 7 percent on Crest Pro-Health Rinse, 6 percent on Dawn, 8 percent on Swiffer refills, and 11 percent on Oral-B power brushes and refills.

One day later, Larry Peiros, chief operating officer of Clorox, told securities analysts that the company had already raised prices on a number of brands. It had already announced a 13 percent price increase in May on Pine-Sol cleaner.

Later in May, Kimberly-Clark, which makes diapers under the brand name Huggies, said it is increasing prices by 6 to 8 percent from mid-July to late August. The company already increased prices by 4 to 7 percent in February.

On the streets of New York, a mother, Rachel, pushes her two children Daisy and Dillon in a tandem stroller. She thinks some of the companies are reducing the number of diapers in each box, even if the price is not rising. "Everything is going up," she moans.

Even if the prices are not up now, some consumers expect them to rise soon. That's the case with Marc and Silke Lugert of Ottawa, as they push 1-year-old Marla in her stroller around Columbus Circle in New York. "In the next six months, prices will rise," says Mr. Lugert as he holds the hand of his other daughter, 4-year-old Paula.

It's not just the grocery shelves being affected by rising energy costs. To find other price hikes, one need look no further than the road.

AsphaltThe price of asphalt, according to contractors, is up about 65 percent so far this year. Another 10 percent price increase is expected in the next two to three weeks.

The paving material is rising in price in large part because liquid asphalt comes directly from crude oil that's been refined. Asphalt is what is left over after the refiners have made gasoline, kerosene, and other products. It is dense and dirty.

The asphalt business has undergone some changes as the price of oil, as well as diesel, has increased. A growing number of refiners are adding special units that can refine this dense oil into diesel and jet fuel. At the same time, refiners are selling more low-grade oil to ocean freight companies, whose business is booming as US exports rise. The end result: more competition for less supply.

"They are talking shortages in Minnesota," says Steve Hall, CEO of Hardrives Inc., a contractor in Minneapolis. The situation has become so uncertain that asphalt suppliers won't quote prices yet for next year.

State contractsStates are reacting to the higher prices, highway contractors say, by reducing the number of jobs that had been planned. "They are trying to stretch their dollars as much as they can," says Patrick Nelson, special projects manager at Lehman-Roberts Co. in Memphis, Tenn.

Mr. Nelson's company has only one state job to bid on in Tennessee as its Department of Transportation has cut back, he says. If his company bids on the project, he says, it will include an escalation clause to pass on the rising prices.

To stretch dollars, Nelson says, states are resorting to thinner pothole patches and "micro-seals" that wear out faster. "It will catch up with the states," he says.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 0 replies

Why oil costs over $120 per barrel

Rene — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:50:07 GMT

I found this article to be well written, offering a good analysis of why oil prices are high and likely to remain that way:

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4007#more

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Oil may hit $200 within 2 years

Tedster — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:12:09 GMT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayxRKcAZi630&refer=home#

Goldman's Murti Says Oil `Likely' to Reach $150-$200 (Update5)

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan
Enlarge Image/Details

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil may rise to between $150 and $200 a barrel within two years as growth in supply fails to keep pace with increased demand from developing nations, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts led by Arjun N. Murti said in a report.

New York-based Murti first wrote of a ``super spike'' in March 2005, when he said oil prices could range between $50 and $105 a barrel through 2009. The price of crude traded in New York averaged $56.71 in 2005, $66.23 in 2006 and $72.36 in 2007. Oil rose to an intraday record of $122.49 today on speculation demand will rise during the peak U.S. summer driving season.

``The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months, though predicting the ultimate peak in oil prices as well as the remaining duration of the upcycle remains a major uncertainty,'' the Goldman analysts wrote in the report dated May 5.

A report yesterday showed U.S. service industries expanded in April, signaling higher energy use. The Institute for Supply Management said its index of non-manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, grew for the first time since December. China is increasing refining capacity and boosting imports to meet rising demand for the Olympic Games.

U.S. gasoline demand typically climbs going into the summer season when Americans take to the highways for vacations. The peak-consumption period lasts from the Memorial Day weekend in late May to Labor Day in early September. Monthly fuel sales were the highest during August in five of the last six years, according to data from the Department of Energy.

China Consumption

China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, has more than doubled oil use since New York crude oil dropped to this decade's low of $16.70 a barrel on Nov. 19, 2001. Record prices have failed to stem rising consumption in developing nations, with demand led by China, India and the Middle East.

Price forecasts for spot U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil for 2008 to 2011 were revised higher by Goldman. The 2008 price estimate was raised to $108 a barrel from $96, the 2009 forecast to $110 from $105, and 2010 to 2011 estimates are projected at $120 from $110, the analysts including Murti and Brian Singer said, citing slowing supply growth in Mexico and Russia, and low spare production capacity in OPEC.

Deutsche Bank AG Chief Energy Economist Adam Sieminski, who forecasts oil averaging $102.50 next year, today said Asian demand and limited extra supply will keep pushing oil to record levels. There's a ``huge risk'' that prices will rise to a level, perhaps $200, ``when demand finally collapses because ordinary people can no longer afford to burn as much energy as they are burning now,'' Sieminski said in an April 25 report.

Threats to Supply

Oil has also rallied amid a dispute between the U.S. and Iran regarding the Persian Gulf oil producer's plan to develop nuclear energy.

In Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, militants have attacked oil installations and kidnapped workers since the beginning of 2006, forcing Royal Dutch Shell Plc to halt output.

In Venezuela, production has slumped to about 2.34 million barrels a day from almost 3 million barrels a day in 2002, according to Bloomberg's estimates, before President Hugo Chavez fired almost 20,000 workers who had closed the state oil company in an attempt to overthrow the government.

Iraq's oil production has yet to reach levels attained before the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 as the country struggles with sectarian fighting and attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Mexico's production has fallen below 3 million barrels a day since October as Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, failed to compensate for a 30 percent drop at Cantarell, its largest field, which accounts for 40 percent of output.

OPEC Capacity

``There are supply constraints with many producers, especially from non-OPEC struggling to find new reserves and China and Middle East demand keeps growing,'' said Victor Shum, senior principal at energy consultant Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore. ``The fundamentals are prompting investors to get into oil in a big way and all that points to higher prices.''

Spare production capacity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is low and the group's exports may fall because of ``lackluster'' supply growth and rising domestic consumption in member countries, the Goldman analysts said.

``Non-OPEC supply is struggling to grow, with notable declines being seen in Mexico and Russia showing signs of rolling over following an extended period of rapid growth,'' said Goldman, the world's biggest securities firm by market value.

Prices are also poised to gain as major oil-exporting countries restrict foreign investments, limiting supply growth, while demand from developing countries, or ``non-OECD'' nations is rising on economic expansion and power shortages, prompting higher demand for gasoil and fuel oil, the Goldman analysts said.

`Super-Spike'

Crude oil for June delivery was trading at $122.18 a barrel, up $2.21, on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:22 p.m. Futures yesterday rose to $119.97, the highest closing price since trading began in 1983.

``The core of our super-spike view has been that a lack of adequate supply growth coupled with price-insulated non-OECD demand growth'' is leading to higher prices, the analysts said. That could result in a ``sharp correction in oil demand,'' the Goldman analysts said.

Crude oil's increase above $100 a barrel was partly because of the dollar's decline against the euro, which boosted oil prices because it made commodities cheaper for buyers outside the U.S. and attracted investors as a hedge against inflation. Oil in New York touched $100 a barrel on Jan. 2.

The U.S. currency has declined more than 5 percent against the euro so far this year.

Members of OPEC, which supply more than 40 percent of the world's oil, have said supplies are adequate and blamed speculators for pushing prices up to records. The producer group won't consider raising output before it meets in September as the market is well supplied, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said on May 2.

There's a fundamental misperception that so-called speculators are driving prices to unjustified levels, the Goldman analysts said. ``Unfortunately, we do not think the energy crisis will be solved by finding and punishing the big bad speculator.''

Commodity investors, the Goldman analysts wrote, are ``helping to solve the energy crisis'' by speeding up the process for oil companies to spend more on energy projects and at the same time encourage efficiency.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nesa Subrahmaniyan in Singapore at nesas@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 6, 2008 12:27 EDT

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 1 reply

In Brazil, Another Gusher

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:42:06 GMT

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/apr2008/db20080415_868659.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

"The latest of the announcements came Monday, when the head of ANP, Brazil's government oil regulator, revealed "unofficial" figures from a new reservoir, known as Carioca, which may hold 33 billion barrels of oil and gas. If confirmed, it would be the world's largest discovery in at least 32 years. Carioca, which is located in the Santos Basin, 170 miles from shore underneath 2,000 meters of water, would follow on the November mega-discovery by state oil company Petrobras (PBR) of the offshore Tupi field, with its already confirmed reserves of 5 billion to 8 billion barrels, and a later discovery known as Jupiter, a natural gas area that Petrobras says is as big as Tupi and perhaps even more important for gas-hungry Brazil."

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 7 replies

Forties Pipeline

Tedster — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 04:04:06 GMT

Could somebody summarize what the shut down was all about.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 0 replies

Forcast of $200 by years end.

Tedster — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:51:53 GMT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aV.TB3STwSR8&refer=energy

Oil May Hit $200 as Refiners Buy Costlier Crude, Verleger Says

By Robert Tuttle

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil may rise to $200 a barrel by the end of the year as refiners increase purchases of low- sulfur oil to make diesel fuel, economist Philip Verleger said.

Ultra-low-sulfur diesel powers most U.S. trucks and diesel- burning cars. To make the fuel, refiners are buying more-costly low-sulfur oils such as the West Texas Intermediate crude traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, said Verleger, president of PKVerleger LLC, in an interview.

``It's conceivable'' oil could rise to $200 a barrel by the end of the year, he said. If economic ``growth resumes, we are short diesel and no way we are going to fill the gap.''

Lower-sulfur crude is easier to refine into ultra-low-sulfur diesel than heavier, higher-sulfur oils, said Verleger, who, in 2005, predicted oil would rise to $100 a barrel. The diesel was introduced to the U.S. in 2006 to cut air pollution.

Converting higher-sulfur crude into diesel requires hydrogen, which is in short supply, Verleger said. The element is a byproduct from making gasoline. Refiners are making less of the motor fuel than in the past because of increased ethanol use, and therefore less hydrogen, Verleger said.

The 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard, signed last December, mandates that the U.S. use 9 billion gallons of renewable fuels, such as ethanol this year and 36 billion gallons by 2022. U.S. gasoline production in November was 1.4 percent lower than two years earlier, Energy Department data show.

Ethanol Requirement

An option ``would be for Congress to waive the ethanol requirement,'' Verleger said. ``There are a lot of reasons to do this.''

Oil has also risen because investment funds are buying commodities, Verleger said. ``These index funds are playing an important role in lifting prices across the board.''

The returns on the index funds are ``negatively correlated'' to stocks and bonds, Verleger said.

``That finding causes the leading pension funds to put more money into these commodity funds because it has the effect of diversifying portfolios,'' he said. ``This is an ongoing processes that probably has another five years to go.''

Crude oil for June delivery rose $2.93, or 2.5 percent, to $118.99 a barrel at 11:01 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are up 81 percent from a year ago.

West Texas Sour, a crude oil that is higher in sulfur, was trading at $112.38 a barrel at 9.03 a.m., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Tuttle in New York at rtuttle@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 25, 2008 12:17 EDT

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 3 replies

Manipulating The Oil Reserve

thomasgall — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:49:20 GMT

Thomas I. Palley
January 26, 2007

Thomas Palley runs the Economics for Democratic and Open Societies Project. He is the author of Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism. His weekly economic policy blog is at www.thomaspalley.com.

2006 was the year that oil prices came close to breaching $80 per barrel. This was despite the fact that there were no significant supply interruptions and oil demand actually fell in industrialized countries. That raises the question of what caused the spike.

It turns out there is good reason to believe that record oil prices may be due to our own strategic oil reserve, which the Bush administration may have been manipulating to drive up prices for the benefit of its clients. This is something Congress must investigate, and here is some preliminary evidence.

Any finding of manipulation would go far beyond corruption and be close to economic treason, because when oil prices increase America must pay more for its imported oil. That, in turn, increases the trade deficit and our foreign debt. Alternatively, one can think of price manipulation as the equivalent of a tax increase on American families that is paid to foreign governments, including Iran. While some small energy scandals are under investigation by Congress, the big enchilada is the strategic oil reserve, which may have been “strategically” manipulated to drive up oil prices. The key to understanding this manipulation is demand and supply and oil storage capacity.

The last three years have seen rapidly rising oil prices, and a tight oil market has meant that even small increases in demand have had large price impacts. During this period the Bush administration purposely expanded inventories of the strategic oil reserve, which rose from 600 million barrels in May 2003 to 700 million barrels in August 2005. The administration therefore increased demand by 125,000 barrels per day, and oil prices rose from 30 dollars per barrel to 70 dollars.

As oil prices rose, Wall Street became increasingly engaged in commodity speculation (the destructive effects of which is a story for another day), and this is where storage matters. As speculators entered the market the spot price of crude oil rose above the futures price. However, buying spot oil means taking delivery, which requires storage capacity. By adding to the strategic reserve, the administration not only increased oil demand but also increased storage capacity because the oil it bought was stored in the strategic reserve’s caverns. That helped speculators by adding storage capacity vital for cornering the market.

That brings us to today. Over the last month spot oil prices have been tumbling. The reason is that the market has finally run out of storage capacity, which means that all oil produced must now be immediately sold—and that has driven oil prices down. This suggests there has never been a supply shortage warranting seventy-five dollar oil, and absent the administration’s dealings, oil prices might not have risen as they did.

The story does not end here. With private sector oil storage capacity exhausted, the administration has now announced its intention to double the size of the strategic oil reserve from 700 million barrels to 1.5 billion barrels, and it plans to start purchasing 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

The result has been predictable, with the price of oil jumping from $50 to $55 per barrel over the last week (01/19- 01/24). Not only will these purchases increase oil demand, they will also provide new storage capacity needed to re-corner the market.

One last piece of evidence concerns Hurricane Katrina and the oil loan program. Following Katrina, gulf oil production was interrupted causing shortages of crude for refineries. The administration’s response was to loan crude to refiners who were to pay it back in kind. That was a huge gift to refiners who got the oil they wanted and then made a killing on the processed gasoline that was in short supply after Katrina. The proper way to handle the situation would have been to auction the oil, in which case taxpayers would have got the windfall disaster rent (excess profit) resulting from Katrina. This is because refiners would have been willing to pay a high price knowing that gas prices were high.

But there’s yet more damage. If government had auctioned the oil, it could have chosen when to buy it back. Instead, companies paid it back in kind in late 2005 and early 2006, and these payments tightened the market demand and also freed up private storage capacity facilitating further market cornering.

The oil market is full of smoke that provides perfect cover for corruption. Every price blip calls forth explanations in terms of Chinese demand, more violence in Nigeria’s delta region, cold weather, threats from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. The strategic reserve is the perfect vehicle for corruption since transactions can be cloaked in the veil of national defense. But the situation is clear. A motive exists, the bad character of the administration is known and the circumstantial evidence is strong.

Congress must investigate the strategic oil reserve, how it has been managed and what its purpose is. The recently announced expansion serves no real national security function (though that will be the justification) and will only drive up oil prices and add to the budget deficit and national debt.

One last factoid. A recent IMF study documented that oil prices in the U.S. appear to be politically manipulated, falling prior to elections—as they did in 2002, 2004 and 2006. If you are an economist you ask how that is done. The answer is the strategic oil reserve.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 2 replies

Largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:55:50 GMT

And it is right here in the USA!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349728,00.html

The U.S. Geological Survey calls it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

An assessment by USGS in 1999 found the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge had 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, said Brenda Pierce, a geologist for the agency

The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 39 replies

Oil impact on the economy in the next few decades.

Tedster — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:16:56 GMT

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3351034996507948781&hl=en

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 1 reply

Confessions of an Ex Doomer!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:11:38 GMT

If you're reading this, you are aware of and probably concerned about the depletion of earth's finite fossil fuel resources, on which modern technological civilization is almost completely dependent, popularly called "Peak Oil" or PO for short. Good for you! By becoming aware of the issue and seeking to learn about it, you are already ahead of the vast majority of people. By trying to find out what, if anything, you can do about it, you're even further ahead. I'm betting you are more likely than average to be open-minded and someone who thinks for him/herself. My advice: don't stop thinking for yourself by adopting without question the dogma of PO doomerism.

I consider myself to be a person of above-average intelligence and a critical thinker, and yet I was sucked in by the 21rst century's equivalent of a doomsday cult. I was ripe for the picking.

I first became aware of the unsustainability of modern civilization in the 1970s, during the so-called oil shocks. I was a kid, but reasonably bright and with a scientific bent, so I read almost everything I could find on energy in general and oil in particular. What I discovered wasn't comforting. We had just 30 years of oil left! We needed it for all the chemicals and plastic things I had previously taken for granted. And here I was, burning this valuable stuff up in Dad's lawnmower! There had to be a better way.

I looked at renewables, but at the time, they all looked like losers. I wouldn't hear the term EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Input) for another 30 years, but even a teenager could see that if you put more energy into something than you could expect to get out of it, it wasn't going to solve the problem. That was true for alcohol fuels, and it was true for solar (photovoltaic) panels. Fusion power sounded good but again even a teenager could see that if you don't yet know how to make something work, it would be foolish to gamble the future on figuring it out in time.

Then I found coal and nuclear power. There was lots of coal, at the time, 500 years worth. And nuclear power, we couldn't ever run out of that (not necessarily true, but I believed it at the time). I had the answer - we were saved! You see, I liked modern technology, and I still do - to me, it was (and is) worth saving. I set the snooze alarm for 1990 (a few years before the oil was due to run out) and more-or-less forgot the whole thing.

In 1987, I first heard about global warming. This was surprising since during the 70s I remember people saying we were heading into a new ice age. Still, I looked at the CO2 and temperature data, and it did seem as if the cooling trend had ended and the earth was gradually warming up, and of course the rise in CO2 levels was clear as a bell. Although the causal relationship was yet unproven, it seemed to me that we'd be better safe than sorry, and so this just looked like another good reason to cut down on using fossil fuels. Unfortunately, mainstream thought seemed to have gone strongly against nuclear power, apparently (to me, having read a lot about it) without much more reason than that Hollywood had made it the spawn of the devil. Since I had already concluded renewables weren't going to do the job, I was resigned to the idea that we would burn through the remaining fossil resources until there weren't two carbon atoms left clinging together, and only then switch to nuclear power.

By the mid-90s it was time for my wake-up call. I discovered and started reading BP's world energy report. The forecast oil doomsday hadn't occurred, in fact there was a comfortable increase in the reserve numbers and the R/P (Reserve-to-Production) ratio had expanded to 40 years. It was beginning to look like this wasn't going to be a problem in my lifetime. The price of oil had crashed and headlines talked about an oil glut. All this extra oil was good news, but it looked as if, instead of counting our blessings at having another century or so of petro-chemical production, the US was hell-bent on burning it up in monstrous, wasteful trucks. What happened to the conservation programs? And when exactly were we going to start building nuclear plants? What about global warming?

About ten years later, I was debating energy issues with one of my greenie friends at dinner. While we both agreed on the need to kick the fossil fuel habit, her contention was that we could get all the energy we needed from renewable sources, whereas I was convinced that we needed nukes because renewables were a Hollywood eco-fantasy and that if you "did the math", you'd probably need a solar cell the size of the entire desert southwest to meet the energy needs of the US. She challenged me to prove that, so off I went to the web to do some research. In doing so, I found...

LifeAfterTheOilCrash (LATOC), Matt Savinar's oil doomsday site. It knocked me out of my chair. Everything I had believed for over 30 years was true, only it was worse than I thought! I had thought that even though we appeared to be stupidly squandering our fossil resources instead of switching to new energy sources, we still had, well, 40 more years to get our act together. But I had foolishly assumed that we could keep producing oil at today's rate until we got close to the end, at which point there would be a steep drop to zero. In fact, though, it was much more likely that a gradual decline in production would set in well before the end, and that while the oil would never completely "run out", production levels far below the ones needed to keep our present technology running would be devastating. Doh!

That's like finding out that the exam you haven't studied for is being given tomorrow morning. But that wasn't the worst of it. LATOC makes the case that it's too late to switch to new energy sources because the effort of switching will itself take energy, energy we won't have as oil production declines. LATOC also argues that we can't get enough energy from the alternatives to power our civilization at current levels. It knocks them down one by one. In short, too little, too late, to save technological civilization. But that still wasn't the worst of it. LATOC makes the point that the so-called green revolution that has enabled us to feed the world's booming population is entirely based on fossil fuels. As bad as it would be to see technology collapse, the doomsday scenario had expanded in the blink of an eye to include a dieoff of billions of people due to either starvation, or wars over the world's dwindling resources.

I went into a black despair. I became a doomer (hence the pseudonym). Well, I was sort-of a doomer - sort-of, because I'm not one to just surrender to fate. I soon learned that there were at least two different types of doomers, the fatalists and the powerdowners. The fatalists figure you might as well bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye. The powerdowners seemed to view the end of industrial civilization as a good thing and are looking forward to some sort of new agrarian age, albeit one where lots of people have to die to make room for the survivors. It's a little hard to tell them apart, frankly. Powerdowners claim to have a plan to wind down civilization to sustainable levels. But the plan seems to involve lots of people dying, and most of the survivors becoming a new peasantry. If you like modern technology and don't like death, that plan is hard to distinguish from the doomsday itself. Plus, powerdowners are convinved a powerdown is inevitable after wars and such have played themselves out - thus, fatalists are powerdowners who are foolishly not getting ready. One thing they have in common is the inevitability of the end of modern life.

As I said, I'm not one to surrender to fate. I had to do something. At the very least I could warn people! I told friends and family. I joined an on-line discussion group. I started looking at my own lifestyle to see what I could do to reduce my energy consumption. There wasn't much - after all, I'd been aware of the depletion issue for 30 years. I don't drive much, and I don't use much electricity. I avoid disposable plastic stuff. I recycle everything. I got a motorcycle license and a small motorbike to cut my driving even more. I put compact fluoresent bulbs in the lights I use. I started looking for inefficient appliances to cut my power needs even more.

I also continued my research into energy alternatives. After all, I still hadn't answered my friend's question about how big a solar cell it would take to run the US (answer: for electricity alone, it would be about 1/7 the size of Nevada, according to one solar power site). What I found was encouraging. Renewable technologies had advanced considerably since the 1970s when I'd last looked. Wind turbines had emerged as the most cost-competitive technology, and were being built in Europe. Even solar cells were no longer energy-losers; you could get back the energy needed to make them in a few years and then get decades of free power from them afterwards. Fuels made from waste products, or crops grown specifically for fuel, were energy winners now, given the right feedstock. In particular, vegetable oils could be used in diesel engines, and produced with an energy payback of 3 for 1. Brazil was making a go of ethanol from sugar. Nuclear power still looked attractive, despite decades of Hollywood's best efforts to brainwash me. And there was still lots of coal (250 years worth at today's production levels in the US, because we're burning it up faster than we were before). I started wondering just how impossible it really was to switch from fossil energy sources to a combination of these alternatives using coal to bridge the gap, and I started finding flaws in the logic behind LATOC. In due course, I found four whoppers.

First, doomers tacitly assume that anything short of our current energy consumption level would be catastrophic. They also count as a shortage the expected growth in energy demand from industrializing countries like China and India, perversely using an expansion of modern civilization (that they don't believe can occur!) as further proof that it will collapse. Truth is, there is tremendous waste in our current use of energy. A trip to the grocery store is like going to a monster truck rally these days. Is it really necessary to drive a 5000 pound vehicle to buy groceries? To go anywhere? Huge amounts of food are wasted. In fact, a lot of food is grown to feed animals for meat, a very inefficient way to produce food. (I like meat - I just don't eat that much of it.) We could cut back a lot and not miss it. In an emergency, we could cut back even more, just like we did to win World War Two. It wouldn't be much fun, but it would be possible, and no one would have to starve.

Doomers usually respond to this by making the silly argument that conservation won't work because of something called Jevon's paradox. In 1865, Jevon, writing about coal resources in England, argued that improving the efficiency of use of a resource would only cause demand to increase for the resource as the price dropped. Ergo, conservation causes demand to go up and you run out anyway. Doomers are dead wrong about conservation, though. In fact, surprise, they're dead wrong about what Jevon actually said, too. In the 1970s, conservation efforts and efficiency improvements in cars alone made a big dent in oil usage, enough that you can see it in the world's oil production statistics. Europe made the changes permanent by using taxes to keep demand down. The US didn't, so when the bottom dropped out of oil prices in later decades, we went back to our wasteful ways. Europeans use roughly half the oil per person than the US does. This all proves two things: conservation can enable us to get along with less oil if we have to, and people respond in predictable ways to price changes. Doomers forget that Jevon's so-called paradox assumed that the resource in question was still abundant. But once it runs short, all bets are off. If oil production started falling, the price is not going to go down unless demand goes down even faster. Even Jevon predicted that the price of coal would soar eventually, as the resource became scare in the 1930s - doomers don't know or don't mention that. Incidentally, Jevon was wrong about the end of coal spelling doom for industrial England - he couldn't forsee the switch to oil.

The second flaw is in assuming that because we use oil to do something now, we have no other way to do it. In particular, doomers argue that none of the alternatives will work because they all require oil to implement. Wind farms and nuclear plants require oil to produce the materials they're made from, to transport the materials to the site, and to run construction equipment. Electric cars take oil to manufacture. Even coal mines need oil to run mining machinery. Once we run out of oil, we won't be able to do any of those things anymore, goes the argument. The most obvious problem with the argument is that while these activities require energy, the energy doesn't have to come from oil. We use oil for many of them now because it's cheap and convenient, but that doesn't mean we can't use another energy source when oil's no longer cheap or available. Another problem with this argument is that many of these activities don't even use oil now! They use electricity or natural gas (natural gas will also eventually start to run short, but most likely a decade after oil does). The final problem with the argument is that if things really do start to get as bad as LATOC would have you believe, building energy infrastructure will have much higher priority that most of our present transportation uses. In an all-out emergency, rationing could be implemented giving first priority to food production, energy infrastructure, and long-distance transportation of goods, especially food. The annual road trip to see Aunt Tilly and the annual vacation getaway to the Caribbean would be below the line.

The third flaw in the argument is a bit more subtle. It is the assumption that the energy required to switch to alternatives must come on top of what we are using energy for now, rather than instead of some of it. For example, Savinar argues that we won't have the energy to power a crash program of building efficient cars. This ignores the fact that we are already building cars, millions of them every year. The energy used to build them is already counted; the energy needed to build efficient cars doesn't just add to the total. It takes roughly the same energy to build an efficient car as an inefficient one. It would take 10-15 years to turn over the automobile fleet - it doesn't have to happen all at once. Another example: we are today using energy to expand the infrastructure associated with oil consumption, things like roads, airports, and shopping malls. If things get as bad as LATOC says, we won't need those things anymore. That energy and construction equipment could be used to build power plants instead.

The fourth flaw in the argument is even more subtle. Perhaps you've guessed it by now. Doomers argue that there is no energy source we can switch to that can take oil's place in modern civilization. That might or might not be true, but it's beside the point. No single energy source has to, provided we can put enough of the others together. LATOC and others knock down alternatives one by one. But if (for example) we can produce biodiesel from fuel crops, why can't that be used to run construction machinery to build power stations? I've come to believe that no single energy source will take oil's place, but rather that by combining all the ones we know about, we can put together a workable solution that will be good enough to last 200 years or more - enough time for our descendants to come up with something else, or, if they can't, to gradually reduce their numbers without letting anyone starve.

By now, I had become what the doomers call an optimist, defined as anyone who doesn't think a collapse and dieoff are inevitable. I prefer to think of myself as a realist. The real optimists think the peak in oil production won't happen for another 10-20 years. They could be right, but it almost doesn't matter because we need to act now either way. A later peak just means we have more breathing room to get our act together. It's like finding out that exam you haven't studied for was postponed a week - you still need to study for it, only now you don't have to pull an all-nighter cramming! I personally think we're at or very near peak production now, on a plateau that will probably not be enough to satisfy the newly industrializing countries while supporting our wasteful usage.

I began to see the doomer viewpoint for what it is: dogma. A dogma is something you have to believe, without questioning it. And I began to see the hidden agenda of the powerdowners, namely, to bring about their utopian vision of the neo-agrarian society, no doubt with themselves its leaders. They know that most people won't willingly accept a return to centuries past, because most people are like me. We like our modern first-world lives! Some of us wish more people in the world could have the same lifestyle, even if it means sharing what's available a bit better. But if people can be convinced that a powerdown is as unavoidable as gravity, they may bring it about simply by surrendering to it and not looking for alternatives. Scratch the surface of the powerdowner philosophy, and you'll find Marxism dressed up in radical environmentalism.

The doomers may or may not be correct about our inability to switch the energy basis of our civilization, but their case is far from proven. The mere fact that people are debating what to do shows that a lot of people (even the doomers) don't believe the future is totally out of our hands. The track record of doomsday forecasts is poor - no one can really know the future. The smug certaintly of the doomers that they've got all the answers is what finally shook me out from their midst. The doomers are right about one thing - fossil energy sources aren't going to see us through the 21rst century. But if we don't change course soon, the way forward isn't going to be an agrarian utopia. It will be powered, at least in the US and for the remainder of my life, by coal. The environmental effects of that (primarily sea level rise from global warming) aren't the legacy I want to leave to future generations.

If going back to the land is appealing to you, that's terrific! No one's stopping you, or any of the doomers either. In fact, it's a good thing to have people make some worst-case preperations, just in case the doomers are right. But if, like me, you think technological and industrial civilization is something worth preserving, then let's get to work. Don't be fooled by doomer technobabble. This stuff isn't really too hard for the average person to understand. Look for yourself. And not just at the self-serving prophets of doom, many of whom simply cite each other in a kind of circular support system. Check your prejudices at the door and actually look at sites from the nuclear power industry, renewable power advocates, and environmentalists. Sift them for biases to get to the facts. And keep thinking for yourself.

-- by Doctor Doom
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/07/307-confessions-of-ex-doomer.html

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 37 replies

Canadian oil sands

bee_dragon — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:52:59 GMT

[snip]

“Locally it's completely destructive,” said David Keith, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Calgary. “Oil sands mining turns what was previously undisturbed forest into a big hole in the ground.”

Keith says the scarring of this earth is just a small part of the problem. Extracting oil from tar sands and oil shale releases three times as much carbon dioxide as traditional oil drilling.

“As conventional oil, the stuff that's easy to pump, the stuff that's cheap, gets scarce, the industry will move to further down the food chain — the industry will move to things like oil sands, to oil shales,” he said. “And each of those things has a bigger carbon footprint than the original light oil it replaced.”

Suncor says it has cut its carbon emissions in half in the past decade, and most of the oil companies in Alberta are working on reducing their water and energy usage. But it may be too little, too late to meet Canada's global pledge. Canada has signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for a cut in greenhouse gases by 2012.

“It's obvious we're not going to meet the Kyoto targets,” said George. “Tar sands is just one factor.”

Some critics of fossil fuels have questioned why companies like Suncor are putting so much effort into developing more oil instead of looking into alternative energy sources. George counters that argument with a reminder that the world still depends heavily on hydrocarbons for transportation fuels.

“If you think about the jet you flew in to get here to Calgary, if you think about transportation by car, we're going be very dependent on that for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Last month, Canada announced strict new rules requiring the oil sands industry to capture the majority of its carbon emissions. It's a move welcomed by oil companies like Shell, which say they do need to address the climate issue if they're going to keep extracting oil far into the future.

“There’s no doubt my company shares the global concern around climate change,” said Straub. “So having taken that as a given we're working constantly on new technologies to address the CO2 issues. We believe that a lot of the conventional resources are into decline. And that's why they require unconventional resources like ours in the oil sands."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23958032/

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 0 replies

Shell exec says world not running out of oil

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:43:22 GMT

Last time it was Exxon, now it is shell. Listen carefully, peak oil is a myth! Hubbert was wrong, Simmons is wrong.

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Shell U.S. President John Hofmeister
John Hofmeister, the Houston-based president of Shell Oil's U.S. operations, expressed doubt about the validity of peak oil theory in an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box show.

"The peak oil theory has really swamped the world. God bless Matt Simmons," Hofmeister told CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla, according to a transcript provided to WND by CNBC. "His assumptions are correct based on his hypotheses, but his hypotheses are too narrow."

Matt Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker who specializes in the energy industry, is widely known for his 2005 book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," in which he analyzed oil depletion data from Saudi Arabian wells.

The peak oil theory argues the world's oil resources are finite and will be completely exhausted at a future date.
Simmons, one of the most vocal and visible of the peak oil advocates in the industry today, has also been a frequent television guest arguing that the world is running out of oil.

In a recent YouTube.com-archived appearance on Bloomberg TV, Simmons argued the world has hit peak oil now, predicting prices as high as $300 a barrel

The peak oil theory, first espoused by Shell Oil geoscientist M. King Hubbert in 1956, has come under increasing criticism in recent years, as repeated predictions of world oil depletion have failed to match empirical data documenting increasing reserves.

For instance, data produced by the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration currently shows 1.3 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves worldwide, more than ever in recorded history, despite a doubling in world oil consumption since the 1970s.

In what has become a contentious worldwide debate over whether peak oil is fact or fiction, Simmons dismisses statistics that are not consistent with his depletion models.

The Energy Information Administration "has been as inept at forecasting oil outlook in both production and prices as anyone," Simmons told WND in an e-mail, "yet so few ever remember their awful forecasts."

Hofmeister explained to the CNBC audience why he believed Simmons' hypotheses were too narrow.

"In other words, Simmons is looking at conventional oil only," Hofmeister said. "In the industry, we look at unconventional oil as well."

Unconventional oil is a reference to oil that is not found as crude oil in reservoirs contained in sedimentary rock layers just below the surface of the earth.

An example of unconventional oil is the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, from which oil is produced.

When President Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, the price of oil was approximately $24 a barrel, too low for the oil sands to be converted to oil economically.

But now, with the price of oil hovering near $100 a barrel, conversion of the oil sands has become economically feasible. Canada has become the largest supplier of foreign oil to the U.S., supplying the U.S. with more than 70 million barrels of oil a month, according to current EIA statistics.

Hofmeister also questioned whether Simmons' models accurately estimated the probability of new discoveries of previously unknown oil reserves.

"Simmons is also basing his conclusions on a particular study of one country, Saudi Arabia, while there are a whole lot of other reservoirs around the world we're still discovering," Hofmeister continued. "Some day we will peak, but not because we don't have enough oil."

For instance, WND recently reported Brazil's announcement of the discovery of a new ultra-deep offshore oil field in the Atlantic Ocean, containing an estimated 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil, enough to expand the country's proven reserves by 40 to 50 percent.

Again, Simmons is dismissive.

"The great Brazil find, as best laid out in the February issue of World Oil, is a great example of a handful of extremely expensive, rank wildcat wells finding at least traces of hydrocarbons," he said.

"But until scores of other wells are both flow-tested and also cored, there is no solid idea of how much oil might ever be recovered," he continued. "Given the severe deepwater rig shortage, it might take a decade or more to genuinely test the Santos Basin."

"I would be delighted to be wrong on all this," Simmons wrote, "but too much hard data is too specific, and the optimist case is all faith-based theories."

Brazil disagrees with Simmons' pessimistic outlook.

Sergio Gabrielli, the chief executive officer of the state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA claims the new find off the coast of Brazil may contain as much as 80 billions barrels in oil reserves which Brazil is moving to commercially exploit and further explore right now.

Simmons' pessimistic focus on oil depletion statistics are today being contested, even by traditional oil industry experts such as Daniel Yergin and his Cambridge Energy Research Associates, or CERA, in Cambridge, Mass.

"This is the fifth time that the world is said to be running out of oil," Yergin says in industry speeches. "Each time, technology and the opening of new frontier areas has banished the specter of decline. There's no reason to think that technology is finished this time."

Yergin came to world fame in the oil industry with the publication in 1991 of his now-classic book, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power."

A Jan 18 press release on the CERA website presents additional data questioning one of Simmons' key assumptions.

In a study that examined oil depletion data from 811 separate oil fields accounting for about two-thirds of current global production and half of the total proved and probable conventional oil reserve base, CERA concluded the aggregate global decline rate is 4.5 percent, not the 8 percent cited in many studies.

The study, drawing from a source CERA described as "the most extensive field production database in the world," demonstrated lower decline rates in recent years due to better reservoir management practices and the impact of new technology.

CERA concluded the new data means "no near-term peak oil" is likely, directly countering the predictions of peak oil advocates such as Simmons.

Finally, as WND recently reported, new scientific discoveries have produced important evidence supporting the abiotic theory of the origin of oil.

Scientists have recently reported abiotic liquid hydrocarbons exuding from the mantle of the earth in fissures such as the Lost City Hydrothermal Field on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and abundant abiotic liquid methane found on Titan, the giant moon of Saturn, as found by the Cassini-Huygens mission jointly launched by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Traditional petro-geologists have maintained that oil is biological in origin, arising from organic material deposited in sedimentary soil.

The organic theory of the origin of oil has served as a logical underpinning of the tautology at the heart of the peak oil theory.

Only a finite amount of biological material was deposited in sedimentary soil capable of forming oil, so there has to be a finite amount of oil.

The abiotic theory suggests oil is formed naturally in the mantle of the earth by chemical reactions such as are described in the Fisher-Tropsch equations the Nazis developed to make synthetic oil from coal prior to World War II.

The abiotic theory would suggest more deep-earth discoveries of oil should be forthcoming, especially with new technology to find and recover cost-effectively offshore oil.

With more than 70 percent of the earth covered by water, much previously unexplored territory remains to be explored for oil, as ultra-deep drilling technology continues to progress.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59502

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 24 replies

Oil reserves are double previous estimates, says Saudi

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:57:17 GMT

In the wake of katrina and rising fuel prices people began to worry about oil supplies in the same way they irrationally worry about global warming during a warmer than usual winter month. During this time Saudi Arabia joined Exxon and allaying those fears. Here is the article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/oil-reserves-are-double-previous-estimates-says-saudi-508699.html

Here are some quotes:

Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer, and Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company, yesterday declared that the world had decades' worth of oil to come, in an attempt to calm fears about the record prices experienced in recent weeks.

Forming a powerful alliance, the Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said, at an industry conference in Johannesburg, that the country would soon almost double its "proven" reserve base, while Exxon's president, Rex Tillerson, spoke of 3 trillion or more barrels of oil that are yet to be recovered.

Mr Naimi said that Saudi Arabia would "soon" add 200 billion barrels to its current reserves estimate of 264 billion barrels. The level of the kingdom's reserves and future production capacity are a controversial issue, with sceptics suggesting that it is running out of oil. Muhammed-Ali Zainy, of London's Centre for Global Energy Studies, said: "Since these Opec countries [like Saudi Arabia] are closed, the only information available is available to themselves alone. So they can come up with a new reserves figure and the rest of the world will just have to take it."

"Give us the customers and we will pump more oil," the Saudi oil minister told reporters at the 18th World Petroleum Congress, adding that more refineries needed to be built. He said that enough global output would be added in the next three to four years to restore "some margin of safety" to oil markets."

"Mr Naimi said talk of oil scarcity reminded him of the 1970s, when people also thought the end of the age of oil was at hand. "But in the intervening years, when we were supposedly facing a precipitous decline, world oil reserves more than doubled," he said."

"It is widely accepted that demand for oil will rise over the next decade or two. Most projections of how that demand will be met assume that Saudi Arabia will be able to ramp up production to 15 million barrels a day or more by 2020."

Craig Pennington, an energy analyst at Schroders in London, said: "The message from these two [Naimi and Tillerson] is that, 'Don't worry. We do have enough oil. Just give us time to bring it in'."

So here is the message, "don't worry, be happy"

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 22 replies

World OIl Conference to Discuss Peak Oil

Rene — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:45:26 GMT

A conference was held in Houston in October 2007 to discuss the "peak oil" issue. This link provides all the slides that were shown at the conference for anyone interested in learning more about what was discussed:

http://www.aspousa.org/proceedings/houston/presentations/

More infromation about the conference can be found here:

http://www.aspousa.org/proceedings/houston/index.cfm

Here is an overview of the planned discussions:

http://www.aspousa.org/aspousa3/index.cfm

One quote from the link above;

"Peak Oil experts don't claim that we will "run out of oil," but that we'll run out of cheap oil, as production decreases and demand increases. They note that below-ground limitations and above-ground disruptions could create a perfect storm of constraint, as rapid depletion of major oil fields continues to fuel resource nationalism, geopolitical turmoil, and rising oil & gas prices.

The deniers of Peak Oil say that technology, new discoveries, "reserves growth" and unconventional oil will come to the rescue. If their optimistic predictions are wrong, we are in deep trouble; if the Peak Oil experts are wrong, we will have conserved and mitigated ahead of schedule. ASPO-USA says the latter prudent and conservative approach is the path we must take as a nation."

I think the main thing to take away from all this material is that there is a lot of uncertainty about "peak oil" but there are real reasons for concern and people who know the most about oil; people in the oil industry are starting to voice thier concern. Oil people are optimistic by nature. You have to be to keep drilling dry holes and believe the next one will be a "gusher". Oil people are trained to deal with risk and uncertainty, so what they have to say about his uncertain situation ought to be listned to.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 22 replies

Are Peak Oil Denialists Theories Complete Nonsense?

Tedster — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:36:07 GMT

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20080303/why-climate-skeptics-are-really-denialists-and-alarmists-are-misnamed

Why Climate Skeptics Are Really Denialists and Alarmists are Misnamed
by David Sassoon - Mar 3rd, 2008 in Cap on Emissions

This week, New York City is playing host to an international conference on climate change different from any other that has gone before. The people convening it, and those making presentations, are all self-proclaimed "climate skeptics." And here is the purpose of the conference, in words taken verbatim from the invitation letter sent by the sponsor, the Heartland Institute:
The purpose of the conference is to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science, and that expensive campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or cost-effective.
In other words, it's a media event designed to promote a fixed point of view with a negative agenda of opposition.
That, ladies and gentlemen (of the media especially) is not a "skeptical" agenda but a denialist enterprise.
And here is what is most sinister: they are out to deny the validity of the most organized and effective form of skepticism we know -- empirical science, in the present instance put in the service of studying the earth's climate. They have turned reality upside-down. They have stolen the name "skeptic" from its rightful owners and given them another name instead -- "alarmists."
Skepticism implies a rational process of evaluation based on empirical evidence, and a willingness to allow the mass of evidence to persuade. This is precisely what the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change --the largest, collaborative scientific enterprise in human history -- have done.
If you trace their findings from their first assessment report through the fourth -- a period of scientific inquiry spanning almost two decades -- you will see the gradual and careful evolution of their thought as evidence of global warming has accumulated. Only in the very last report released last year do they say with certainty that global warming is human induced and urgent action is needed.
What took them so long? Their skepticism, which is practiced through the scientific method to which they are devoted.
Hired Denialist Guns
What about the Heartland Institute? On what is their skepticism based? The scientific method? Peer-reviewed science? Actually, no. They have circulated petitions and collected signatures and written op-eds and convened a conference and published pseudo-science and done many other things to deny the findings that have emerged out of the true scientific process. They use the methods of political operatives, not scientists.
They do claim they have scientists on their side. But these are not scientists qualified to conduct climate research, or to pass judgment upon it. Perhaps they have one or two qualified scientists on their roster of paid attendees. But one or two paid scientists do not a conference make. IPCC has more than 2000 independent scientists working without professional allegiance to political ideology. (Media please take note of this ratio when you insert balance into your reporting.)
Let's remember a few other things about Heartland. Before taking up the cause of global warming denialism, they worked to help the tobacco industry deny that smoking causes cancer. Their primary agenda appears to be this: protect the right to put smoke -- in your lungs or in our air.
And they are guns for hire. They've received $800,000 from Exxon since 1998 to mount their denialist campaign. Please recall, it was in 1998 that we saw the disclosure of that famous oil industry memo -- the one that kicked off a deliberate campaign to sow doubt on climate science in order to protect industry profits.
The Wall Street Journal's Denialism
So step one is to make sure that we do not let Heartland and its comrades-in-arms at the John Locke Foundation and many other places use the noble title "skeptic." They are not skeptics in the least. They demean the tradition.
By calling themselves "skeptics" they engage in a form of propaganda that would make Stalin proud. Because this conference and their intensifying denialist campaign is murdering truth to serve ideological ends.
What is also worth noting is that they have the support of one of the great organs of denialist propaganda -- the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. The editors there -- led by Paul Gigot -- have long supported the denialist enterprise, and last week wrote in support of the Heartland conference. It has required the Journal to be in denial of the action afoot to put a price on carbon and to capitalize upon the opportunity, the hottest business story there is.
Yet these editors refuse responsible engagement with this reality and prefer to turn it on its head. They support denialism and so force themselves into adopting an anti-business position. Isn't that odd -- the Wall Street Journal, America's financial newspaper of record -- anti-business? It would be like Johnson & Johnson, known for Band-Aids and baby powder, campaigning to promote assisted suicide.
Alarmists
Not only have the denialists stolen the noble name that belongs to the Earth's honest scientists, they have coined a term to unfairly label the true scientists and skeptics: "alarmists." It is amazing that we let the denialists get away with this crime. If they tried to do the same thing in the realm of medical science instead of climate science, we'd have thrown them in jail a long time ago.
Would we call a medical doctor who diagnoses a terminal disease and prescribes a difficult cure an "alarmist"? Are the doctors who identified AIDS and SARS and other epidemics -- alarmists?
Let's say you were an HMO intent on denial -- of coverage -- for these conditions, and you bankrolled a campaign so you wouldn't have to pay for the cures -- as Exxon has bankrolled Heartland. That would be called practicing medicine without a license. And we would all be horrified by the callous disregard for human life, lock up the offenders and throw away the key.
So let's not be fooled by the false dichotomy that the fossil fuel propaganda machine has succeeded in selling to the media and the American public. It looks like there is a debate between skeptics and alarmists over global warming. There isn't. It's a manufactured illusion.
What's really going on is this: there's a war being waged by denialists against scientists, who are the true skeptics, and against humankind and against the earth.
It is a war that the media has yet to cover, and it is a war that should be the cause of universal alarm.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 5 replies

Banning Edison

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:31:02 GMT

Another bright idea from our government. Ban the incandescent light bulb made in the USA and force everyone to buy the mercury laden Chinese made compact fluorescent. In addition to being dangerous, ugly and vastly more expensive, they do not last as long as they claim on the package either. Looks like I will have to stock up on a 5 year supply of the incandescent and hope that new technology (LED) becomes widely available as an alternative before then.

Congress bans incandescent bulbs
Massive energy bill phases out Edison's invention by 2014

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 19, 2007
7:18 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

Incandescent light bulb
In addition to raising auto fuel efficiency standards 40 percent, an energy bill passed by Congress yesterday bans the incandescent light bulb by 2014.

President Bush signed the 822-page measure into law today after it was sent up Pennsylvania Avenue in a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle. The House passed the bill by a 314-100 vote after approval by the Senate last week.

Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the legislation will boost the energy efficiency of "almost every significant product and tool and appliance that we use, from light bulbs to light trucks."

The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt.

All light bulbs must use 25 percent to 30 percent less 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient than they are today.

Australia was the first country to announce an outright ban by 2010.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59298

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 13 replies

Daylight savings time ends up increasing energy use.

Tedster — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:04:22 GMT

USA TODAY
Powered by

Study: Daylight saving boosts energy use
By Dennis Camire, Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — For Benjamin Franklin, daylight saving time was about saving candles and for modern lawmakers, it's about electricity — but a recent university study found it might actually cost more energy when the nation resets its clocks Sunday.

Matthew J. Kotchen, a professor of environmental economics at the University of California in Santa Barbara, and Laura E. Grant, a doctoral student in the same field, studied the effects of daylight saving in Indiana, where some counties used it and others did not. The states changed the law two years ago so that all counties now use daylight saving time.

In an interview, Kotchen said using residential electricity bills for Indiana, he and Grant found that daylight saving time reduced electricity use for lighting but that more was used for air conditioning in the summer and heating in the fall than was saved.

Question: Why was the study done?

Answer: Conventional wisdom and the rationale for daylight saving time has been as an energy saving policy.

The point of the study was to actually evaluate whether it does in fact save energy because there has been surprisingly little research that has looked into that question.

What were the results?

We found based on the natural experiment in Indiana that contrary to the conventional wisdom, daylight saving time ... decreases consumption for artificial illumination but increases consumption for heating and cooling.

The magnitude of our estimate (for increased usage) ranged between 1% and 4%.

In the study, what was the cost of daylight saving time?

The change in costs to Indiana residents in terms of increased electricity demand ... is just over $3 per household per year. Over the whole population, that comes out to $8.6 million a year.

Another element ... is the social (and economic) cost of pollution emissions. Having to generate more energy for electricity means there is going to be more pollution.

We estimate those costs are between $1.6 million and $5.3 million per year in increased pollution costs.

Do the results apply to the whole nation?

Based on places that have similar sunrise and sunset times and climate of Indiana, the same results might apply.

But while this is the effect in Indiana, and we suspect that it is in a lot of other places ... there may be places where daylight saving time actually does save energy.

We're currently working on further research to try to come up with estimates for the nation as a whole.

How was the study conducted?

For several decades, only some counties in Indiana had practiced daylight saving time and a majority had not. Then in 2006, they all turned it on.

We got residential electricity billing statements for over 250,000 households, some in the counties that experienced the policy for the first time and some in the counties that didn't have a change in policy.

In the end, we simply compared the difference between before and after between the two groups, which enabled us to isolate the effect of daylight saving time.

What does the study mean for using daylight saving time?

The immediate thing ... is whether or not we should be continuing to use the energy argument as the reason for why we do daylight saving time.

There are other reasons we might want daylight saving time ... like increased leisure activities. Some people argue it is better for health and it actually stimulates economic growth.

Those are other things that we should want to account for and be part of the discussion.

If we decide that energy is what we care about, we may want to ask what is the best time for having daylight saving time. Maybe the dates we have are not optimal for reducing energy consumption.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-08-daylight-saving-time_N.htm

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 1 reply

Krupp's "Earth: The Sequel" videoclip -what do we think?

AlaskaSteven — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:46:36 GMT

Three minutes and forty seconds long:
http://earththesequel.edf.org/trailer

Dead right and completely on target, pure false hope and technofix delusion, bits of both...?

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 0 replies

Are Peak Oil Theories Complete Nonsense?

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:24:47 GMT

We were all taught that oil is derived organically from all of those dead animals. But recent evidence is leading some to doubt the organic theory and postulating an abiotic origin for Oil. Is oil really going by the wayside or are liberals just wishing this to be so in order to drive us back to the stone ages?

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56480
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Saturn's moon Titan
Saturn's moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to a team of Johns Hopkins University scientists, adding to evidence that oil is not biological in origin.

The scientists at the Laurel, Md., institution were reporting this week on data collected from NASA's Cassini probe.

"Several hundred lakes or seas have been discovered, of which dozens are estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than the entire known oil and gas reserves on Earth," wrote lead scientist Ralph Lorenz of the university's Applied Physics Laboratory in the Jan. 29 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56480

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 54 replies

What are you doing NOW, to prepare?

Celsius — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:56:53 GMT

So yea, most of us here understand what PO is about, and its ramifications. We also know the hard times are just around the corner. But what are you doing now to prepare?
Even if it is something small or big, where are you concentrating your energies? Most of us have an already stretched budget, so any little ideas are welcomed.
Lets help each other on this one and contribute what we have done, or projects we are working on that others can do in a realistic manner.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 3 replies

Ethanol policy threatens to starve the world

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:42:10 GMT

By Ernest Istook

Drought. War. Poverty.
These are leading causes of hunger, according to the United Nations. Soon we may add another.
Ethanol.

Across the globe, people are discovering it's a new contributor to world hunger. Led by the United States, governments are paying companies billions to make ethanol from corn and other crops. The result: these crops are diverted from the food supply, creating artificial shortages and higher prices.

Even record harvests haven't suppressed food prices. Instead, prices are soaring to all-time highs.
Corn that traded around $2 a bushel just two years ago is now well over $5 a bushel. The impact ripples through the food chain of milk, butter, eggs, flour, pasta and everything else, because dairy cattle, beef cattle, poultry and swine depend on the corn for their feed. When chicken feed doesn't cost chicken feed anymore, then neither does anything else.

Other grains, like wheat, are also at record highs because farmers are planting less wheat and more corn, thanks to the ethanol incentives. Less supply, plus more world demand, means higher prices for wheat products, too, from flour to bread to pasta.

Full-scale food riots may arise in some parts of the world, as more and more grain is diverted into fuel production. The Earth Policy Institute reports that ethanol-related food protests occurred last year in Mexico, Italy, Pakistan and Indonesia. A price-driven stampede killed three and injured 31 at a supermarket in China.

"We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history," the EPI proclaimed in January. "The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before."

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57062

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 7 replies

The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:54:10 GMT

http://www.springer.com/geosciences/book/978-0-387-95253-6

About this book
Suppose someone claimed that we are not running out of petroleum? Or that life on Earth began below the surface of our planet? Or that oil and gas are not "fossil fuels"? Or that if we find extraterrestrial life it is likely to be within, not on, other planets? You might expect to hear statements like these from an author of science fiction. But what if they came from a renowned physicist, an indisputably brilliant scientist who has been called "one of the world's most original minds"? In the The Deep Hot Biosphere, Thomas Gold sets forth truly controversial and astonishing theories about where oil and gas come from, and how they acquire their organic "signatures." The conclusions he reaches in this book might be at first difficult to believe, but they are supported by a growing body of evidence, and by the indisputabel stature and seriousness Gold brings to any scientific enterprise. In this book we see a brilliant and boldly orginal thinker, increasingly a rarity in modern science, as he developes a revolutionary new view about the fundamental workings of our planet. Thomas Gold is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an Emertius Professor at Cornell University. Regarded as one of the most creative and wide-ranging scientists of his generation, he has taughtat Cambridge University and Harvard, and for 20 years was the Director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.
Written for:
General readers, industry, scientists/professionals

Another book on the subject:
http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?DEPARTMENT_ID=6&SUBDEPARTMENT_ID=165&ITEM_ID=1769

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 3 replies

About Dan

Tedster — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:09:33 GMT

Dan as far as I am concerned is an alt who is so disparate to convince us of something that is inconsistent about scientist already have consensus on; even going as far as using an article which its conclusion that tries to site a study that doesn't back it.

I don't think that we should make any further attempts to answer him directly as he clearly is in a category that is often fits perfectly as a troll.

posted in Peak Oil discussion group - 6 replies