Posts Tagged ‘peak oil’

Research Findings Throw Some Doubt Into Theory of Peak Oil

In 1877 Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeelev suggested that the large deposits of oil and gas we find under the surface of the Earth could be made without the decay of long-dead organisms in a process called abiotic synthesis of methane.

Since then the theory has been relegated to the back shelf due to a lack of evidence and the prevailing conventional wisdom that all deep oil and gas deposits arise from decaying prehistoric animal and plant material.

While it’s no doubt that the decay of dead animals and plants is one pathway to the creation of Earth’s oil and natural gas deposits (potentially the largest), new research done with high-tech equipment simulating the conditions of deep earth suggests that Mendeelev’s theory is correct.

Well Duh: Relaxed Regulations and Exploding Speculation Cause Wildly Fluctuating Gas Prices

But from an another point of view, are wild oil price fluctuations really all that bad?

In my experience, it doesn’t take a higher degree and advanced knowledge of oil economics to see that rampant speculation is behind the crazy swings in oil prices we’ve seen in recent years. Even so, it’s a topic that economists and pundits have debated ad nauseum.

In what may be one of the most exhaustive analyses of the issues surrounding the murky field to date, Rice University researchers from the Baker Institute for Public Policy have released a new policy paper — “Who is in the Oil Futures Market and How Has It Changed?” — aimed at setting the record as straight as can be.

The Oil Intensity of Food

oil and groceriesBy Lester R. Brown

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.

As I note in my latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, discoveries of conventional oil total roughly 2 trillion barrels, of which 1 trillion have been extracted so far, with another trillion barrels to go. By themselves, however, these numbers miss a central point. As security analyst Michael Klare notes, the first trillion barrels was easy oil, “oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.” The other half, Klare notes, is tough oil, “oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places.”

This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.

Earth Policy Institute: Restructuring the U.S. Transport System — The Potential of High-Speed Rail

traffic in brisbane australiaBy Lester R. Brown

Aside from the overriding need to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to stabilize climate, there are several other compelling reasons for countries everywhere to restructure their transport systems, including the need to prepare for falling oil production, to alleviate traffic congestion, and to reduce air pollution. The U.S. car-centered transportation model, with three cars for every four people, that much of the world aspires to will not likely be viable over the long term even for the United States, much less for everywhere else.

The shape of future transportation systems centers around the changing role of the automobile. This in turn is being influenced by the transition from a predominantly rural global society to a largely urban one. By 2020 close to 55 percent of us will be living in cities, where the role of cars is diminishing. In Europe, where this process is well along, car sales in almost every country have peaked and are falling.

With world oil output close to peaking, there will not be enough economically recoverable oil to support a world fleet expansion along U.S. lines or, indeed, to sustain the U.S. fleet. Oil shocks are now a major security risk. The United States, where 88 percent of the 133 million working people travels to work by car, is dangerously vulnerable.

GreenTalk Radio: The Zero Carbon Car and Alternative Fuel Technologies with Author William Kemp

GreenTalk Radio

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily discusses the zero carbon car, high fuel efficiency vehicles, and alternative fuel technologies with William Kemp. Author of the The Zero Carbon Car and other books about alternative fuels and renewable energy.

[Courtesy of our friends at [...]

GreenTalk Radio: Business, Peak Oil, and Climate Change with Andre Angelantoni

GreenTalk Radio

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily discusses the challenges of greening business operations in the face of peak oil and climate change with Andre Angelantoni of Inspiring Green Leadership.

[Courtesy of our friends at Click to Continue Reading

Reinventing Mom and Pop Businesses At The End of Suburbia

With the end of cheap oil will we need to revive the Mom and Pop business?

Book Review: Pat Murphy’s Plan C means Community and Curtailment

If The Long Emergency and An Inconvenient Truth sounded the alarm for us to wake up and change course, Pat Murphy’s hard-hitting Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (New Society, 2008) presents a compelling case for joining together to implement plan C: revitalizing community and curtailing our consumption culture.

For the record, Plan A is our present course: more oil drilling, more growth, more carbon dioxide emissions, more consumption, more of a gap between the haves and have-nots. Plan B suggests that we can shop our way out of climate change and peak oil, if only we consume “green” products and services. But Plan C advocates a drastic reduction in consumption as the necessary ingredient for a sustainable, equitable world. Replacing competition with cooperation and materialism with meaningful human relationships, Plan C makes an appealing case for unique places where neighbors care for each other and communities work cohesively to achieve a common wealth that has little to do with money.

Plan C provides a vivid analysis of our present predicament of peak oil (and rising energy prices), climate change and the growing social and economic inequity both in the US and globally. It’s paired with timely solutions addressing food, transportation, and the built environment within the context of revitalizing our communities (read: turn off the TV and invite your neighbors over for lemonade) and curtailment that might even involve some personal sacrifices. Is a plasma TV, using about as much electricity as a refrigerator, really necessary in order to watch the evening news? Why not ditch the clothes dryer and line-dry laundry instead?

Could this be what President-Elect Barack Obama alluded to during his acceptance speech in Chicago? President-Elect Obama called it a “new spirit of sacrifice” and asked Americans to summon “a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility” and called on us to look after ourselves and each other. This definitely doesn’t sound like an appeal for us to go vacationing at Disney World, or hit the malls.

Bright Neighbor: A Facebook for the Sustainability Set?

A sample view of Bright NeighborResponding to a blog I posted earlier about governmental preparations for peak oil, one self-labeled “alarmist” commented with a plug for his own resource, a networking web site called Bright Neighbor. I thought the site was worth checking out.

According to the peak oil experts, we need better personal and collective plans for fossil fuel depletion. Randy White, an early member of Portland, Oregon’s Peak Oil Task Force, agrees. His Bright Neighbor is taking on the practical functions that he believes should be executed by the powers that be—were they up for the job.

What Is Your Government Doing About Peak Oil?

The debate over the global energy crisis continues to inch its away into the public arena. While federal governments still have not taken specific actions regarding peak oil, a number of sub-federal agencies have acted.

As experts wrestle over the question of when global oil demand will outpace supply, a number of municipalities, regional agencies, and even state governments in the U.S. and Canada have commissioned studies and drawn up plans to anticipate the decline of our oil reserves, according to an online report by Post Carbon Cities. The original study was compiled by Daniel Lerch, the organization’s program director and author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty.

Grassroots citizen groups that have begun planning for a post-peak oil future—or, at least a future without cheap oil—are clearly more numerous than local governments with such a focus, as indicated by the nearly 150 awareness groups that make up the The Relocalization Network. However, that official peak-oil resolutions been passed at all is a sign that various awareness campaigns around this issue have worked. City and state officials have heard the alarm and responded—at least in a handful of communities.

Will Peak Uranium Hit Nuclear Plants?

uranium

The safety of nuclear plants is often debated, but we rarely hear about another potential issue for nuclear energy: peak uranium. That’s the point in time when when the maximum global uranium production is reached and begins to enter a permanent decline. And while we’ve known for some time that high-quality uranium supplies have been declining for the past 50 years, nuclear operators are finally getting nervous.

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