Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet has now, 2012 December 23, published my article "EU must drastically reduce its oil imports". In Swedish, "EU måste skära ner sin oljeimport drastiskt". Michael Lardelli has made a great translation of the article and I have added some relevant photos and graphs. Every week you are around 1000 persons that read my blog and I which you all Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
We are in the midst of an amazing energy boom, but by sweeping the idea of peak oil under the rug we are ignoring a significant fact: the relationship between hydrocarbon reserves and flow rates are not the same as they used to be—reserves have increased but flow rates are not as high or sustainable.
A recent spate of official reports from energy agencies are predicting a rosy future of economic growth underpinned by cheap oil abundance. However, as Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed shows, scientific evidence largely ignored by mainstream media confirms that while we have enough oil and gas to burn our way to climate catastrophe, the age of cheap oil abundance is a myth.
Welcome to the last ODAC Newsletter, the final news roundup from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre…2012 saw US oil production grow to its highest level in 15 years, largely because of surging tight oil production by fracking, and many pundits such as Ed Morse of Citi are claiming “peak oil is dead”. So has ODAC been worrying its silly little head entirely unnecessarily for the last five years, and could all our energy troubles soon be over? We continue to think not…
I attended the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco two weeks ago at which I heard a very interesting presentation by David Hughes of the Post Carbon Institute. He is more pessimistic about future production potential from U.S. shale gas and tight oil formations than some other analysts. Here I report some of the data on tight oil production that led to his conclusion.
It is now all but impossible to limit global warming to less than +2°C from pre-industrial temperatures. The hope offered by fossil fuel limitations and ecnomic slowdown is fading. We now have to consider life in a 4 °C warmer world.
This weekend…I went to see a performance of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito…And I was uncomfortable. It’s not because I was bored with the opera. I was uncomfortable because of peak oil.
A weekly update, including:
•Oil and the global economy
•Middle East
•Europe
•The climate summit
•Quote of the week
•Briefs
The era of cheap oil is rapidly coming to an end, ushering in ‘economic peak oil’ – the point at which the cost of incremental supply exceeds the price economies can pay without significantly disrupting economic activity at a given point in time.
Here in the Washington DC area and around the nation, election day was a constant stream of poll results, election updates, and pundit analysis. But missed by many was the contest in Maryland’s 6th district, where Roscoe Bartlett — the second-oldest serving member of the US House of Representatives – was denied his bid to serve his district for an 11th term.
Global Challenge: Recently, new data on available oil reserves, new deep-water deposits, oil sands and especially "shale gas" has given rise to concerns about what these resources means from a climate perspective. The seminar "Peak Oil Postponed?" Aims to analyze the importance of these tasks.
From 22 to 26 October the IPU gathered for its 127th meeting in Quebec, Canada. For the first time in its history it had a panel session that discussed energy.
