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Peak oil could hit soon, report says (8 posts)

1. truthmod
   Administrator

   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/08/...

   Yeah, I know these reports come out every week...but we haven't talked about PO on here in a while.

   There is a "significant risk" that global oil production could begin to decline in the next decade, researchers said today.

   A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk.

   Falls in production will lead to higher and more volatile prices, and could encourage investment in even more polluting fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which "need to stay in the ground" to avoid dangerous climate change as a result of carbon emissions, the researchers said.

   The new report said there was too much geological, political and economic uncertainty to predict an exact date for peak oil, which would not lead to a sudden decline but a "bumpy plateau" with a downward trend in extraction.

   Posted 15 years ago #
2. truthmod
   Administrator

   ‘We have already entered peak oil,’ IEA source reportedly claims

   http://rawstory.com/2009/11/we-entered-peak-oil-ie...

   We have already entered peak oil, IEA source reportedly claimsTwo International Energy Agency whistleblowers have come forward with startling claims about the world's supply of crude oil, according to a report published Tuesday.

   "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone," an unnamed former IEA official told British newspaper The Guardian. "I think that the situation is really bad."

   Posted 15 years ago #
3. truthmod
   Administrator

   Thanks, NYT, I'm so relieved.

   No Peak in Oil Before 2030, Study Says

   http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/no-pe...

   Few topics can inflame oil watchers more than the debate over “peak oil” – that difficult-to-predict moment when the world’s oil production reaches its highest level before beginning a long and irreversible path of decline.

   In recent years, ominous warnings about peaking production have gained some prominence among traders and some analysts. They helped explain why oil prices soared last year on fears that oil supplies would fail to catch up with the projected growth in consumption.

   A retired geologist predicted, wrongly it turned out, that global oil production would peak on Thanksgiving Day, 2005. Others believe that the peak in production will happen from 2011 to 2015.

   In this minefield, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the consulting firm founded by the oil historian Daniel Yergin, has resolutely been on the optimistic side of the peak oil abyss.

   In a new report released this week, the firm once again explains why it believes that oil supplies will keep growing for the next two decades. After that, the firm says, production will reach “an undulating plateau,” meaning it will remain more or less flat for a couple more decades after that.

   Posted 15 years ago #
4. NicholasLevis
   Member

   These motherfuckers. Their happy prediction practically dictates an immediate global crash program to replace the permanent growth imperative and rebuild the infrastructure of everything for sustainability. 20 years wouldn't be enough time to convert without huge disasters, and they treat it as though it's in the 205th century, no biggie. Yergin's 62 and I'm guessing he wants to be 82. Stupid git. Undulating plateau, what the fuck do you think that will be like, you IHS fuckers?! If they believed and understood their own words, they'd have to be on the fracking barricades to expropriate the oil companies and devote their revenues to anything but oil - not serving as their PR division!

   Posted 15 years ago #
5. truthmod
   Administrator

   Yeah, fuck Cambridge. Are we supposed to trust these guys because they're near Harvard and MIT?

   CERA are the guys who have been challenged to a $100,000 bet with members of ASPO and other Peak Oil researchers:

   http://www.energybulletin.net/node/40165

   http://www.aspo-usa.com/archives/index.php?option=...

   A group of businessmen and energy experts who believe that global oil production will soon peak, plateau and decline has issued a $100,000 wager to Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), a prominent oil forecasting think tank. Members of the challenger group also renewed an invitation to hold a public debate on the issue of peak oil with CERA.

   The group is betting against CERA’s June 2007 forecast that world oil production capacity will reach 112 million barrels per day (mmb/d) by 2017, which extrapolates* to107 mmb/d of actual production, up from about 87 million barrels today. CERA will hold its annual conference in Houston next week.

   “CERA is forecasting an addition of 20 million barrels within a decade,” said Steve Andrews, co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (ASPO-USA). “That’s a vision in search of reality. Anything is possible on paper, but we are betting you can’t do that with the drill bit.”

   The challenger group also notes that CERA called for a civil dialogue on peak oil, but then declined several invitations to engage in such a conversation. Andrews said members of ASPO-USA would be happy to debate the issue, during CERA week, or at another time and place that is mutually convenient.

   The 11 members of the betting pool have issued the wager to raise awareness about the fragile state of the world’s future oil supplies. Participants include Jeremy Gilbert (former Chief Petroleum Engineer for British Petroleum), Matt Simmons (Houston energy banker), Jean Laherrere (retired oil executive), Herman Franssen (economist), Marvin Gottlieb (businessman), Jim Baldauf (ASPO-USA co-founder), Steve Andrews, Bob Kanner (investment manager), Scott Pugh (retired Captain U.S. Navy), Aage Figenschou (oil industry, shipping), and Randy Udall (ASPO-USA co-founder) and Andrews.

   “CERA’s claims of ‘plentiful energy resources’ are misguided, overly optimistic and out of touch with recent warnings from oil industry CEOs,” Udall said.

   “CERA projections have been wrong so often that policy makers should think twice about embracing their data,” added Bob Kanner, CEO of Cleveland-based PubCo Corporation, who has wide-ranging investments in the oil and gas industry. “I’m participating in this bet to illustrate the need for greater truth and clarity in the prediction of oil and gas supplies. We’re not just betting our money, we’re betting our nation’s future.”

   Posted 15 years ago #
6. truthmod
   Administrator

   Oil thirst ’set to outstrip supply’

   http://www.indenvertimes.com/oil-thirst-set-to-out...

   Growing world oil use will likely outpace the rate of new supplies in 2010, eroding the huge stockpiles of crude which have mounted around the world since the start of the global economic crisis.

   According to a Reuters poll of 10 top oil-tracking analysts and organisations, oil demand is predicted to rise by 1.3 million barrels per day next year to 85.9 million bpd.

   At the same time, the rise in production from outside Opec and output of natural gas liquids from Opec members is seen rising by just 800,000 bpd in total.

   “The key question for prices is supply,” Barclays Capital analyst Costanzo Jacazio told the news agency.

   “2010 is really a bridging year – if the economies continue to perform as well as they have been doing during the early stages of the recovery, then I think by 2011 we’ll be seeing the demand numbers at or above where they were in 2008.”

   Posted 15 years ago #
7. mark
   Member

   The 2005 "Hirsch Report" commissioned by the US Department of Energy was a report about the implications of Peak Oil, prepared by the military / intelligence contractor Science Applications International Corporation. It concluded that it would require two decades of intense efforts to mitigate the impacts of Peak Oil, and that failing to do preparation and mitigation would have massive economic impacts. The report considered toxic, centralized technologies as tar sands and coal-to-liquids to be acceptable, and did not make much effort to suggest more sane solutions would be decentralization, relocalization and power down approaches. But despite this approach, it subtly said - if reading between the lines - that Jimmy Carter was right and we blew it when our society ignored the warnings of the 1970s energy crises.

   Easy mitigation of the energy crisis is not possible because Carter was sabotaged. The same forces that toppled the Carter administration are still running the show: militarism, covert intelligence agencies, centralized energy companies and the global financial system.

   Posted 15 years ago #
8. truthmod
   Administrator

   What If The EIA's Energy Outlook Were Written By An Honest Person?
   http://www.businessinsider.com/what-if-the-eias-en...

   Suppose you worked at the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the agency within the U.S. Department of Energy charged with keeping data and making projections on energy, and you had to produce an annual report with a scenario for the next 25 years.

   Being an intelligent and informed investor, you might grapple with the $147 to $33 range in oil prices over the last year and try to imagine how such volatility might happen in the future.

   You might be tempted to model a few economic factors such as GDP growth rates and credit availability, and how they affect investment in energy supply.

   You might consider the price at which producing a barrel of oil or a thousand cubic feet of natural gas becomes profitable, and the price at which it becomes too expensive and destroys demand.

   You might take peak oil, peak gas, and peak coal into account, since the best available models on those subjects all suggest peaks within the time frame of your scenario.

   ---

   But then, you’re not working for the EIA.

   ---

   If you were, you’d do something like this…

   You’d get out your crayons and your graph paper, and starting with your most recent data, you’d plot a nice, steady 1.5% global growth rate for energy demand over the next 25 years.

   You’d do something similar for supply so that it matches demand at prices that also climb at a nice steady rate. For oil prices, call it, oh, how about 0.4% per year? That sounds pretty good.

   You’d draw basically flat lines into the future for all the fuels dominant today, since you know they have serious challenges ahead, and then draw sharply rising lines for the latest and greatest technology, projecting enormous growth rates for things like shale gas and enhanced oil recovery.

   You’d be sure to count all possible supply from new sources — like a new gas pipeline from Alaska — even if those projects don’t yet exist. Hey, it could happen!

   Posted 14 years ago #

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