Tar Sands

Exponentially on purpose: a century-and-a-half of ignored warnings

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The peak oil debate is a case of history repeating itself: people have been ignoring warnings about exponential use of finite resources for a century and a half. No-one wants to hear the argument. Even International Energy Agency forecasts of record world oil demand, and warnings that the “era of cheap oil is over” made barely a ripple in the media.

Plotting the coming oil shock

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A study based on the Hubbert model of peak oil suggests a coming global oil shock may begin as early as 2014 – which ties in with the timeline suggested in a variety of other reports and statements. Despite getting a showing online, and in the occasional business report, [peak oil is] yet to break into the mainstream media. I recently considered three major energy reports published so far in 2010 which take a number of different views on the issue.

Major reports point to oil supply turmoil and price volatility

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Major energy reports published this year are pointing to a significant rise in the price of oil due to supply constraints sometime over the next three years – the only disagreement is how soon.

So far 2010 has seen three international reports considering the future of oil production, demand and prices. These were published by high profile groups that command widespread respect – in turn, a collection of UK industrialists, the US military and a joint effort between Europe’s most recognized insurance company and a politically connected think-tank.

Largely ignored by the media, and considered separately online as they came out, it is interesting to do a compare-and-contrast between documents produced for widely different audiences on each side of the Atlantic.

Oil, civil liberties, and the G20 Summit in Toronto

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Canada seems to be heading into authoritarianism and corruption which is similar to conditions in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in which extractive industries are leading centres of national cash flow, which props up industry and state regimes. (Some people describe those international trends as a “resource curse.”) Lobbying, revolving doors between industry and government, and oil subsidies are three of the sides of Canada’s petro-regime.

Oil sands cannot save us from peak oil

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It’s quite nearly universally accepted that the easy-to-reach, cheap oil has been extracted – but is this also the case with Canada’s much-touted oil sands? The startling suggestion has been made by economist and author Jeff Rubin, blogging on the Globe and Mail business pages. He writes that the price of oil must rise in order for Albertan oil to be economically sustainable, as future expansion will be chasing supplies buried deeper underground and further from the available water supply.

ODAC Newsletter – May 21

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Oil prices fell below $70/barrel this week before recovering slightly. The drop reflected market nervousness about the gravity of the Euro crisis and its potential impact on the global economy, coupled with continued high US crude oil stocks. In the meantime all eyes continue to be focused on the Gulf of Mexico where challenges to BP’s estimate of the size of the oil spill is further damaging the credibility of the company…

It’s the end of the world (as we know it)

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This article concisely summarizes most of what has been discussed in Energy Bulletin over the past few months regarding Peak Oil. Reading all this news, I realized we are now actually facing The End of The World (As We Know It). I struggled for awhile with how to write about this. Despair is not the answer.