Inflation or Deflation?

Mish at Global Economic Analysis is still convinced that we are headed for deflation. I am not so sure. Here is why:

What will be the effect of all the deficits that the local, state, and Federal governments will be running. The fact that we are entering this recession/depression from a period of high levels of deficits, don't give me much confidence in deflationary theory.

All the Keynesians and Monetarists infesting the government wouldn't want government to shrink, people wouldn't want it either. What will that do to the dollar?

What if the Chinese and Japanese governments use their dollar reserves to stimulate their economies? What impact will it have on the dollar?

I also believe, that it's not just subprime borrower, but our whole country is broke. How could that be good for us as a borrower? How can that be good for the dollar? Do you think, given the conditions, it will be easy for the deficit spending government to knock on the door of People's Bank of China, Bank of Japan or Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, and get approved for credit as we frequently as we will need them?

The fact that no player in the market wants to buy the subprime loans is telling. It is worthless. Who would want to buy the currency ( increasingly backed by failed mortgages ) of a country that is essentially bankrupt?

There is no doubt that the credit turmoil in America will have it's ripple effects across the rest of the world, but does it change the fact that we still are the subprime borrower ?

Addendum 10/04/08 12:04AM pacific:

Another way to look at USD as a CMO backed by the worst mortgages in America. A mortgage backed currency called Assignat was once tried in france. It led to hyperinflation and a collapse.

U.S. Farmland Values Reach Record on High Crop Prices

U.S. farmland values are at a record high even as the rest of the country suffers the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, with the highest crop prices ever pushing up agricultural real estate.

The value of all land and buildings on farms averaged $2,350 an acre at the start of this year, up 8.8 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an annual report. Surging corn, wheat and soybean prices boosted values in the Northern Plains, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, by 15.5 percent, the biggest increase in the country, according to the report.

(Click the subject line to read the full bloomberg article.)

Peak Oil Linkfest - 09/29/07

New York Times: Rising Food Prices Lead to Less US Food Aid

A U.S. newspaper says rising food prices have helped cut U.S. food aid to its lowest level in a decade, and have possibly resulted in more hungry people around the world.

The New York Times cites data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing the United States has bought less than half the food aid this year than it bought in 2000.


Lifestyle changes prepare locals for energy changes

Michael Brownlee wants to help you change your life.

The head of Boulder Valley Relocalization has a radically different view of the future, one in which the daily gridlock on U.S. 36 would be a thing of the oil-guzzling past, where farms would dot large swathes of Boulder County open space, Kentucky bluegrass would give way to food crops in suburban yards and businesses would plant rooftop gardens. Solar panels and other renewable energy would supply a large portion of the community's energy. Local businesses would meet many more of the citizenry's daily needs, and customers could even choose to use a local currency.


Peak Oil Passnotes: Neo-Peak Oil

If we think of peak oil as a subject in itself, rather than a subset of general discourse about oil and energy, then we can see it has been around for something approaching 100 years. After World War One there was sustained and popular debate about the prospect of the U.S.’s valuable resource running out. After all there was no more to be found and it was going to be too expensive anyway.

This debate has been repeated a few times since then, most notably in the 1970s, but it has never been stronger than it is now. Nor has it attracted such a wide range of people willing to discuss it.


Al Gore's climate change film 'is propaganda'

Al Gore's climate change documentary, , contains "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush", the High Court in London has heard.

The attack came as Stewart Dimmock, 45, a father of two, challenged the Government's decision to provide every secondary school in England with a copy of the former American vice-president's film as part of an environmental campaign.


Technological Advances to Quench Thirst for Oil

Oil markets are in turmoil, admits Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi in an interview in New York. With Saudi Arabia currently accounting for almost one-fifth of global crude exports and analysts expecting it to meet a quarter of the world's increasing crude thirst in the near future, the global dependence on Saudi Arabia is set to go up. As the only producer with significant excess capacity, the Kingdom has played a crucial role in alleviating temporary supply disruptions and crises. The Kingdom upped its daily production by 3.1 million barrels during the first Gulf War, for example, when oil production in Iraq and Kuwait dropped by 5.3 million barrels. It was crucial in balancing the global markets then. With geopolitics occupying center stage, the Saudi role would stay crucial to the global well-being.


Global Warming: The Great Equaliser

As the latest summit to discuss a post-Kyoto treaty continues in New York this week, the single most revealing statement has already been spoken: “We need to climate-proof economic growth”. These few words, told to reporters by the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, during the recent Vienna round of talks, define the blinded establishment approach to tackling climate change.[1] Only if continued trade liberalisation and corporate profits are kept sacrosanct, remains the assumption, is it possible to consider even a broad agreement on future cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Split in group delays vote on sanctions against Iran

The United States, Britain and France chose unity over speed and agreed on Friday to delay until November a United Nations Security Council vote on a third sanctions resolution against Iran.

The delay, a concession to Russia, China and Germany — the other three countries in the fragile coalition of six world powers that are seeking to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions — came after a week of haggling on the outskirts of the General Assembly. The six countries issued a statement advising Iran that a diplomatic offer of economic incentives remained on the table if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program.


Ethanol, schmethanol

SOMETIMES you do things simply because you know how to. People have known how to make ethanol since the dawn of civilisation, if not before. Take some sugary liquid. Add yeast. Wait. They have also known for a thousand years how to get that ethanol out of the formerly sugary liquid and into a more or less pure form. You heat it up, catch the vapour that emanates, and cool that vapour down until it liquefies.


Modeling Oil Production to Estimate URR - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and World

This is a guest post by Apparent Peak. He started his career as an aeronautical engineer and is currently retired. Now he has more time to study peak oil and write posts for TOD. He has selected "Apparent Peak" for his handle which will become obvious once you have read the post.

1) Background

I have followed the subject of peak oil since the seminal article by Campbell and Laherrère appeared in the March 1998 edition of Scientific American. Approximately one year ago, I began to casually follow some of the discussion threads at TOD. The posts, the ensuing discussions and in particular, discussions on HL, logistic functions and Khebab's The Loglet Analysis caught my interest. I decided to investigate these topics since I did not know what HL was, let alone logistic functions. A quick trip to Wikipedia explained the Logistic function. As it turns out, it is a fancy exponential function that has characteristics similar to the Gaussian distribution.


Alan Greenspan vs. Naomi Klein: who has rights to Iraq's oil?

US Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan famously spills the beans in his new memoir, The Age of Turbulence: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." (London Times, Sept. 16) On her blog Sept. 25, Arianna Huffington lauds leftist icon Naomi Klein for calling out Greenspan on this point in a Sept. 24 interview with him on Democracy Now: "Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?" (Contrast Ann Coulter's "Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil! What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?")

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/28/07

Oil Rises on Signs U.S. Gasoline Supplies Dropped a Fourth Week

Crude oil in New York rose to the highest close since Aug. 15 on speculation that U.S. gasoline supplies declined for a fourth week.

Gasoline supplies fell 2.3 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 24, according to the median of responses by 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The crude-oil market often follows gasoline during the summer. Prices were down earlier on speculation that subprime-mortgage losses in the U.S. will spread through the economy, reducing growth and demand for fuels.


The Gasoline Crisis in Iran

In late June 2007, the Iranian government launched a comprehensive gasoline rationing policy, necessitated, in part, by the growing demand for gasoline in Iran's domestic market that could not be met by its oil production infrastructure.

Although Iran is among the world's major exporters of crude oil, it has limited processing and refining facilities, and thus must import most of its refined oil for domestic use. There has been no significant investment in developing its oil refining facilities since the Shah's era, and Iran depends entirely on imported gasoline.


Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, America on the Downward Slope

Pick up the paper any day and you'll find tiny straws in the wind (or headlines inside the fold) reflecting the seeping away of American power. The President of the planet's "sole superpower" and his top diplomats and commanders have been denouncing Iran for months as the evil hand behind American disaster in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.


Energy Report is Handgrenade in Bubblewrap

The working draft of the National Petroleum Council’s forecast of global oil and gas trends runs to nearly 500 pages. Weighing as much as the chunk of foam that brought down the Space Shuttle Columbia, this curious document reads like a hand grenade encased in Bubble Wrap. Since its release, the report (and a more digestible 40-page executive summary) has received 750,000 hits. (www.npc.org.).

Facing the Hard Truths About Energy is perplexing, even schizophrenic. In maddening fashion, it blends numerous cautions about the “accumulating risks” to global oil and gas production with repeated, rosy reassurances that we “aren’t running out,” as if anyone said we were.


The last straw? Alongside debt, rising food prices threaten industrial growth

Just when the world economy seemed to have found immunity to rising world fuel prices, the rising world grain price may be the shock that finally ends its long upturn, as costlier food baskets eat into household budgets.

A surge in world oil prices - to over $70 per barrel this month, almost double the level of two years ago – has not caused a return to the production downturns and price rises (‘stagflation’) that followed previous petroleum shocks in 1973 and 1979. The global economy continues to grow strongly, with emerging markets expanding fast and a pick-up in the EU offsetting signs of slowdown in the US. Relocation of industrial production, and a widening range of services, to low-cost countries is suppressing northern hemisphere inflation rates. Among the biggest of the emerging markets, Russia’s boom is being fed by oil, China’s is still largely powered by coal, Brazil is rapidly substituting its fossil energy needs from biofuel, and India’s rising exports and capital inflows have stopped its growth being checked by rising oil demand.


Meat prices set to soar as production costs mount: analyst

The price of meat may soon increase as production costs mount and demand outstrips supply, a British analyst said Tuesday.

Richard Crane, a London-based analyst with the consulting firm Deloitte, said beef, pork and poultry producers are struggling with rising feed costs. Grain prices reached an unprecedented peak of $7.44 U.S. a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade market last week after climbing steadily for months.


How Weak Dollar Affects OPEC

When oil price spikes have occurred in the past, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has quickly increased supply, taking advantage of the high U.S. dollar selling price, but also thereby eventually driving down the oil price, making Americans and everyone else who uses oil happy.

But now, even with oil prices nearing a record high, opec is not stepping up production. Why?


OPEC has set unofficial target price of 70 usd per barrel for oil - IEA

OPEC has set an unofficial target oil price of around 70 usd per barrel, which could weigh on growth, said Claude Mandil, director general of the International Energy Agency, in an interview with the Arab Oil & Gas monthly.

'The market has become aware' that OPEC 'has set an implicit new objective of keeping prices at or around 70 usd per barrel and that the organisation is trying to defend this level,' said Mandil.


July oil output drops at Mexico's Cantarell field

Crude oil output dropped in July at Mexico's aging Cantarell offshore field, according to data published on the energy ministry's Web site on Monday. Cantarell, closely watched by the oil industry after sharp dips in output in recent months, produced an average of 1.526 million barrels per day versus 1.570 million bpd in June.

The figure meant Cantarell accounted for just 48.2 per cent of Mexico's overall crude oil output last month, continuing a steady decline over the past year at the field, which once produced around 60 per cent of the country's oil.


The end of oil is not a possibility but a certainty

Regardless of how long you've been alive, whether you're 16 or 60, it's never been a problem to get gasoline. The ability to fill our gas tanks has often felt as guaranteed to Americans as free speech and free press. However, the privilege of gas may become a thing of the past quicker than we may think.

There is one fact often overlooked when dealing with the issue of oil and that is this: We cannot make a finite resource infinite.


How Corn Ethanol Could Pollute the Bay

Despite rising food prices, it seems that nearly everyone is turning to corn-based ethanol as their choice for alternative fuel. Hidden behind these headlines, though, is an equally important but less visible cost: water pollution.

Corn is a "leaky" crop, losing more nitrogen per acre than most other crops. In the Washington region, much of this excess nitrogen ends up polluting the Chesapeake Bay and robbing fish, crabs and oysters of oxygen.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/30/07

Malthusian misery's comeback

The great demographer and economist Thomas Malthus was 23 years old the last time a British summer was this rain-soaked, which was in 1789. The consequences of excessive rainfall in the late 18th century were predictable. Crops would fail, the harvest would be dismal, food prices would rise and some people would starve. It was no coincidence that the French Revolution broke out the same year.


When life hands you vegetable oil, make biodiesel fuel

A teacher at Bloom High School has been awarded a $10,000 grant to fund a student project that will create a waste vegetable oil recycling program.

Barry Latham’s student project is titled "Free Energy for Me." A chemistry and physics teacher, he received an A+ for Energy grant from BP America.


Depleting water level a big problem

An international study group has warned that the water shortages in India and other parts of the world will be a serious problem in days to come. “Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers —China, India, and the US. “More than half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling,” Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute has said.


Chomsky: There Will Be a Cold War Between Iran and the U.S.

In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.

As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush send s more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq -- a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.


Peak oil - expensive food

At one time the need for more food resulted in the worldwide increase in arable land via the clearing of forests and irrigation of arid land. The land available has peaked and is decreasing because of salination of irrigated soils, diversion to bio-fuels and the growth of cities. Cheap fossil fuels allowed pumping of water for irrigation, and cheap food transport encouraged the growth of cities away from the centres of food production.


Forget Big Oil - politicians bowing to Big Ethanol

When the Senate passed an ethanol-friendly energy bill last month, there was no particular scientific or economic reason for setting 36 billion gallons - six times what is used today - as America's renewable fuels requirement within 15 years.

But there was a political reason for that number: Senators wanted to one-up President George W. Bush, who had called for 35 billion gallons in his State of the Union message.


The choice is ours: Big Oil or Chavez?

In the coming century, the world will transition from cars that run on liquid fuels to cars that run on something else, perhaps electricity or hydrogen. Until then, we have a choice. Either support the "Big Oil" companies that are SEC and IRS regulated, traded on the major stock exchanges, contribute to our economy and national security, and whose employees are our neighbors, or butt into energy myths and stand by idly (gleefully?) while Hugo Chavez ejects "Big Oil" from Venezuela.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/16/07

IEA calls for Opec to increase production

World oil demand growth will accelerate in 2008 to 2.5 per cent from this year’s 1.8 per cent despite high oil prices, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog said on Friday.

The International Energy Agency’s forecast comes as Brent oil rose to a fresh 11-month high of $77.60 a barrel , about $1 below the all-time high set last August.


World not running out of oil, says report

Proponents of “peak oil”, the theory that global crude oil production is nearing its zenith, are unimpressed with a US oil industry group’s findings that the world has plenty of oil.

This week the US National Petroleum Council, a board of high-level US oil industry executives, releases its study titled, Facing the Hard Truths about Energy, conducted at the behest of US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.


On the precipice: Energy security and economic stability on the edge

I am a Major in the United States Army. When looking at this report for the first time, one may legitimately ask why an Army officer is writing about energy issues.

The genesis for this project began many months ago when I was conducting research for a project related to the development of the future force in the US Army. I believed it was important to include an effective assessment of what the world might look like in the year the force was projected to complete its initial fielding (2030).


New Oil Reports Add Confusion To 'Peak Oil' Theory

Proponents of "peak oil" -- the theory that global crude oil production has hit its zenith and is headed for a steep decline -- are upset with a U.S. oil industry group's findings that the world has plenty of oil. Next week the U.S. National Petroleum Council -- a board of high-level U.S. oil industry executives -- releases its study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," conducted at the behest of Energy Secretary Sam Bodman. According to the report's executive summary obtained by Reuters, the world is not running out of oil but there are "accumulating risks" to securing supply through 2030. In a draft letter to Bodman outlining its findings, the National Petroleum Council says, "The world is not running out of energy resources, but there are accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources relied upon historically."


In West China, saving the go-go juice

I heard about a village two hours from Chongqing City with old city walls surrounding smoke stained wooden beamed homes, cobble stone streets and stone carvings chiseled into cliff faces 400 years ago. Along the way to Lai Tan, I wanted to gaze out of bus windows and simply compare the differences between Chinese and western methods of fossil fuel use and human power, but first I had to get to the bus station.


Energy's Manpower Peak? - Why the biggest problem might not be oil.

For headhunters like Tom Zay, business couldn’t be better. “I have never seen demand like this,” says Zay, a managing director in the Houston office of Boyden, an executive worldwide search firm. “We’ve had cycles in the past. But this is different.”

Indeed it is. While Zay looks for executives and top-level managers, the entire energy industry – from welders, tank builders, and roughnecks to petroleum engineers, nuclear engineers, and technicians – is strapped for talent. And the problems are likely to get substantially worse before they get better. Nor is the labor shortage limited to the U.S. and the hydrocarbon sector. Rather, it is worldwide, and being felt in industries ranging from coal mining to nuclear power. The reasons for the labor crunch are many: an aging workforce, lagging student interest in engineering, a lack of interest in blue-collar jobs like welding, and perhaps most important, the strong commodity prices that have led to a boom in energy projects of all types.


Potential Energy Crunch May Bring Other Fuels to Fore

World oil and gas supplies from conventional sources are unlikely to keep up with rising global demand over the next 25 years, the U.S. petroleum industry says in a draft report of a study commissioned by the government.

In the draft report, oil-industry leaders acknowledge the world will need to develop all the supplemental sources of energy it can -- ranging from biofuels to nuclear power to oil extracted by unconventional means from the oil sands of Canada -- to meet soaring demand. The surge in demand is expected to arise from rapid economic growth in such fast-developing countries as China and India, as well as mounting consumption in the U.S., the world's biggest energy market.


Energy: the new cold war

Since the close of the cold war, we have been growing used to threats such as terrorism where the enemy has no state or territory. But soon we will have to get used to new strategic challenges, such as energy security, where fossil fuels will be used as weapons to achieve political ends. Energy security will be synonymous with national security and economic security.


Oil 'could hit $95 a barrel this year'

The key Middle Eastern members of oil cartel OPEC were tonight coming under pressure for an immediate increase in production after a warning from Goldman Sachs that prices could hit a peak of $95 a barrel by the end of the year.

With a new bout of speculative activity today driving Brent crude to within a few cents of the record $78.65 reached last summer, Goldman said shortages of supply were behind the steady rise in oil prices.


Disaster at the end of the cheap energy era

While warning signs are appearing of associated crises in the rapidly rising Third World populations and the rising prices for diminishing world resources of food and raw materials, the International Energy Authority has belatedly accepted the reality of peak oil and the fearful impact this will have on the future of the world.

The devastating nature of this issue is that humanity has used up half of the world's oil reserves, with the remaining half overwhelmingly lower in quality and in less accessible fields.


Are these the last days of the Oil Age?

Oil ruled the 20th century; the shortage of oil will rule the 21st. There is now no doubt about the rising trend in oil prices. In 2003 a barrel of Brent crude sold for $29; in 2004 it rose to $38; in 2005 it rose to $54.50; in 2006 it rose to $65. Last Friday the price closed at $77.50. Some dealers expect it to test the $80 level quite shortly.


Crude Oil Rises to 11-Month High as North Sea Production Drops

Crude oil rose to an 11-month high in New York and London after a pipeline shutdown and maintenance work reduced North Sea Brent oil production.

Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said they lost output from North Sea fields that produce oil and gas after BP Plc closed the pipeline. BG Group Plc said its Armada oil field in the North Sea has been shut for maintenance since June. The International Energy Agency said in a report today that global oil demand will rise 2.5 percent next year.


A new dawn for nuclear power

Despite its environmentally unfriendly image, nuclear power is firmly back on the world's energy agenda thanks to the need to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Paul Norman, Andrew Worrall and Kevin Hesketh describe how the next generation of nuclear power stations will be cleaner and more efficient than ever


Peak Oil Passnotes: Peak Oil Zombie Attack

As we have made clear many times in this column we hold little truck with many of the whackos who inhabit the wondrous world of ‘Peak Oil’. Yes, despite the title of the column. No sooner do people start talking about energy supply crunches, plateauing production or acreage inflection then a host of bedraggled crazies rise forth from their graves to tell us a number of scary items.

Firstly, we are often told humanity is going to “die off.” What a great idea. It could almost be a book, or a series of books and a website. Oh wait. It is. Like an energy-related version of the film 28 Days Later. Every lazy person around the planet can argue how many people will be alive in 2050 or 2100 and no one can prove them wrong. Ker-ching!


"Peak oil" advocates blast U.S. industry study

Proponents of "peak oil" -- the theory that global crude oil production has hit its zenith and is headed for a steep decline -- are steamed with a U.S. oil industry group's findings that the world has plenty of oil.

Next week the U.S. National Petroleum Council -- a board of high-level U.S. oil industry executives -- releases its study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," conducted at the behest of Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.


Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle"

As Matt Simmons pointed out several years ago, the critical problem with post-peak exporting regions is that we would have two exponential functions (declining production and generally increasing consumption) working against net exports. From the point of view of importers, it is quite likely that we are facing a crash in oil supplies. In my opinion, what I have described as the “Iron Triangle” is doing everything possible to keep this message from reaching consumers.


Iran Asks Japan to Pay Yen for Oil, Start Immediately

Iran asked Japanese refiners to switch to the yen to pay for all crude oil purchases, after Iran's central bank said it is reducing holdings of the U.S. dollar.

Iran wants yen-based transactions ``for any/all of your forthcoming Iranian crude oil liftings,'' according to a letter sent to Japanese refiners that was signed by Ali A. Arshi, general manager of crude oil marketing and exports in Tehran at the National Iranian Oil Co. The request is for all shipments ``effective immediately,'' according to the letter, dated July 10 and obtained by Bloomberg News.

Peak oil Linkfest - 07/13/07

President: Iran not to halt uranium enrichment work

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the West should not expect his country to suspend uranium enrichment. He made the comment as a delegation from the UN nuclear watchdog arrives in Tehran.


Reader Mail: Peak Oil, Global Economy Shifts Away From US Towards Asia

Some questions about Peak Oil from a reader. And by the way, while we don’t always have space to publish your questions and comments in the e-mail edition of the Daily Reckoning, there is plenty of room in the comments section under any post on the website. You can respond directly to other readers, too. Here’s a question:


Play peak oil before you live it

On April 30, 2007, an oil crisis shook the world. Supply chains were interrupted, and in the ensuing weeks the price of gas pushed higher and higher, peaking around $7 per gallon. The American economy sputtered to a halt as shortages spread -- Detroit's car factories cited lack of demand and shut down for the duration, trucking fleets scrambled for fuel to move their cargo, supermarkets jacked up their prices, and commuters bitched and moaned and grudgingly changed their lifestyles. Looting broke out, along with the occasional riot.


IEA boss denies and confirms peak oil in same breath

It seems that the International Energy Agency, the intergovernmental energy watchdog, has been going in overdrive lately. First, we had the interview of its chief economist warning us that we were going toward a wall without Iraqi oil, then the recent publication of their yearly outlook report predicting shortages within 5 years, and now we have another disquieting interview in Le Monde, the big French daily, with Claude Mandil, the head of the Agency, who pulls no punches, despite an apparent denial of "peak oil". Follow me below the fold for a translation.


OPEC says no plans for increased production; crude prices continue upward

Light, sweet crude for August delivery was up 99 cents a barrel to trade at $73.55 midday on the Nymex. London Brent crude made its way above $76 a barrel before settling at $75.44 a barrel – up $1.36.


Why does Kuwait keep its oil reserves secret?

Kuwait's Acting Oil Minister Mohammad Al-Olaim has reaffirmed the oil reserves at 100 billion barrels under the pressure from the members of parliament.

Some lawmakers had threatened not to pass this year's budget, which is with a projected deficit of around 10.3 billion U.S. dollars, if the oil sector didn't tell them the truth about the country's oil reserves.


Global Warming May Spawn Floods of Beaches and Cities

Global warming may spawn more flooding at northeastern U.S. beaches and cities and disrupt the ski industry unless heat-trapping emissions are curbed, scientists said in a report.


'Swindle' director hits back at critics

THE director of a controversial documentary about global warming airing on ABC television tonight says he's been vilified for challenging popular theory.

Briton Martin Durkin directed The Great Global Warming Swindle, which seeks to debunk the idea that climate change is being caused by human activity.


The Peak Oil Crisis: A Tale of Two Reports

In the last few days, two important reports on the prospects for world oil production were “released.” While these reports reach diametrically opposite conclusions, each of them, in its own way, is likely to make a contribution to the debate over just when the economic troubles occasioned by the peaking of world oil production will occur.


Platts Survey: OPEC Oil Output Up Slightly in June, Well Above Target

The 10 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) bound by the group's crude oil output agreements boosted production by 40,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 26.6 million b/d in June, from a revised May level of 26.56 million b/d, a Platts survey showed July 11. This is well above the 25.8 million b/d production target set in February by the so-called OPEC-10.


Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle"

As Matt Simmons pointed out several years ago, the critical problem with post-peak exporting regions is that we would have two exponential functions (declining production and generally increasing consumption) working against net exports. From the point of view of importers, it is quite likely that we are facing a crash in oil supplies. In my opinion, what I have described as the “Iron Triangle” is doing everything possible to keep this message from reaching consumers.


U.K. Parliament Members Form `Peak Oil' Study Group

The U.K. parliament formed a group to study peak oil, the theory that world oil production is approaching its zenith, as British lawmakers face up to the country's future as an energy importer.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, which held its first meeting June 26, comprises 32 members of the House of Commons, or lower chamber, and seven from the House of Lords, or upper chamber.


Ethanol Boondoggle: Your Taxes at Work

In recent years, the price of gasoline has soared as the supply of crude oil has risen in response to unprecedented global demand. But never fear, Uncle Sam is here! Citing the need to decrease our country’s dependence on foreign and potentially unreliable sources of energy, Congress, encouraged by President Bush, has passed laws mandating that ever-greater quantities of corn-based ethanol (CBE) be produced, and subsidizing this production with tens of billions of dollars. Could it be that our leaders are finally demonstrating bipartisan unity for the good of the country? Well, “unity,” yes, “good,” no.


The Coming Conflict in the Arctic

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush spent most of their time at the “lobster summit” at Kennebunkport, Maine, discussing how to prevent the growing tensions between their two countries from getting out of hand.

The media and international affairs experts have been portraying missile defense in Europe and the final status of Kosovo as the two most contentious issues between Russia and the United States, with mutual recriminations over “democracy standards” providing the background for the much anticipated onset of a new Cold War. But while this may well be true for today, the stage has been quietly set for a much more serious confrontation in the non-too-distant future between Russia and the United States – along with Canada, Norway and Denmark.


Climate Expert Questions Gore's Global Warming Campaign

This past weekend concerts took place around the world to focus attention on the problem of global warming, which former U.S. Vice President Al Gore says is the greatest single threat facing humankind today. Most of the world's scientists agree that it is a problem and that it is largely caused by human use of fossil fuels, which produce so-called greenhouse gases that trap the Earth's heat. Al Gore and scientists who wrote the United Nations report on climate change say the debate is over and the time has come to act. But some prominent climate scientists are objecting to that, claiming that the debate has yet to even begin. VOA's Greg Flakus recently spoke to one of them and filed this report from Fort Collins, Colorado.


The biofuel myths

The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.


Kuwait and IEA Show Declining Oil Production Future

Crude oil prices could reach levels of US$100 per barrel or more if some of the latest production factors in the news become reality.

Not only has the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy watchdog of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, warned in its latest medium-term oil market report that a market crunch is looming over around 2012, but some OPEC producers are breaking even more negative news. After a short analysis hype in the beginning of 2006, analysts have been forgetting to cover OPEC countries currently battling reserve issues.


Peak Oil Now?

Demand for oil is continuing to grow, and threatens to burn up excess oil capacity by 2012, according to a new report released today by the International Energy Agency.

Excess capacity in OPEC is forecast to drop by 2 million gallons per day by 2009, and to virtually zero out by 2012. It won’t take until 2012 — or 2009 for that matter — for the cost of that tight supply to ripple through the economy straight down to the American homeowner and car driver.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/08/07

Around the Markets: Biofuel demand gives lift to commodities

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years, driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS, the world's largest money manager.

"Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments," Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


Green facade: Why the state's eco-friendly cars aren't doing the job

During the past two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration sunk more than $17 million into a state fleet of cars and trucks designed to be environmentally friendly.

So far, the 1,138 "flex-fuel" vehicles have traveled a collective 10 million miles and burned more than 413,202 gallons of gas.


Real Alternative Energy Sources

If Congress is going to subsidize energy to free us from dependence on foreign oil, it should — at the very least — spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on something that will work.

The unfortunate truth is that neither ethanol nor any other so-called renewable alternative energy now being discussed on Capitol Hill is likely to make any significant contribution to our energy needs.


Marchetti's Curves

This is a brief account of the Energy Susbstitution Model developed by Cesare Marchetti in the 1970s at IIASA. Using data from the latest BP Statistical Review the evolution of the energy market is compared with the model to understand why the Hubbert Peak of fossils fuels represents a problem today.


World 'building up risks over energy supplies'

The world is not running out of crude oil and natural gas but there are 'accumulating risks' to securing global supplies through 2030, a high-level board of US oil company executives found in a report.Those risks include "political hurdles, infrastructure requirements and availability of trained workforce," according to the study by the US National Petroleum Council, conducted at the behest of US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

The NPC, whose members include executives of big oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, will present the study at its July 18 meeting.


Oil hits 10-month high near $75 on Nigeria, demand

Oil surged over 2 percent to nearly $75 a barrel on Thursday on strong demand and as fresh violence in Nigeria spurred supply concerns.

London crude rebounded after slipping from earlier highs on U.S. government data that showed crude supplies rising and refiners ramping up gasoline output to meet summer holiday driving demand.


Is Fear About Climate Change Causing a Nuclear Renaissance?

Some prominent environmentalists are urging that we reconsider nuclear power. But they have been met with resistance from many who believe nuclear power never will be a solution to global warming.

Sitting in the belly of the beast -- Dominion's 2,000-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut -- the company's chief nuclear officer, Dave Christian, seems an unlikely environmentalist. But he says concern about climate change is what got him involved in the peaceful pursuit of the atom in the first place.


IAEA: Iran Slowing Expansion of Nuclear Enrichment Capabilities

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has slowed the expansion of its nuclear enrichment capabilities.

In Vienna Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei said IAEA inspectors have seen a slowing in the installation of centrifuges that enrich uranium at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.


Opec has little power to ease oil price – Algeria

Algeria’s Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said yesterday there was “not much” Opec could do to bring down high oil prices as global crude stocks were already sufficient.

“There is plenty of stocks. It’s a problem with capacity and refining,” Khelil said ahead of a gas pipeline conference in Brussels. “Even if it (Opec) increases production, it’s just going to increase stocks and not have any effect because prices are drawn by petroleum product prices.”


World facing oil ‘supply crunch’ as demand soars, agency warns

The world faces an energy squeeze as soaring demand for fuel exceeds the rate of growth in the supply of crude oil, the West’s leading energy forecaster has predicted.

In a gloomy appraisal of the global oil balance, the International Energy Agency yesterday predicted a world of increasing market tightness beyond 2010. The world faces a “supply crunch” by 2012, according to the agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report, with weak increases in oil output from nonOpec countries colliding with strong demand and diminished spare capacity within the cartel of oil producers.


Exploding a fair few wordy myths

AFTER recent comments from Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, debate is raging over whether America and Australia went to war in Iraq because of oil.

This is absurd. Nobody was more surprised to discover that Iraq had oil than the Allies. Goodness, with all that fuel around, it was just as well that those weapons of mass destruction were only prevented from exploding by the fact that they didn't exist. Otherwise, the whole country could have gone up in flames. Oh, wait a minute … Anyway, here are some ideas that should probably be blown up.


Iran's oil output to fall without investment - report

Iran's oil production capacity will fall by five percent a year without new investment, a senior oil official was quoted on Sunday as saying by the Iran's student news agency ISNA.

Iranian officials have previously put production capacity at a little more than 4 million barrels per day (bpd), with actual output -- limited to a quota set by the oil cartel OPEC -- running at a little below 4 million bpd.


Corn ethanol could be a dead end

As the nation fights to lower its dependence on foreign oil and Colorado works toward a new energy economy, the buzz word in energy circles is “ethanol,” and using it to power cars, trucks and electricity has become a hot topic.

But as the conversation continues, ethanol experts and politicians are beginning to agree that corn-based ethanol may not be the magic energy solution many have come to see it as.


Can I diet my way to a lighter eco footprint?

Lose weight and save the planet. It has all the hallmarks of a zeitgeist diet book and perhaps a TV series in which I will travel around putting punters on scales, measuring out their porridge for the day, and perhaps changing their light bulbs. But there is some validity to the idea that you can simultaneously shrink your waistline and your carbon footprint.

An extra 100lb of weight carried in your car, for example, reduces fuel economy by around 2 per cent. Even Richard Branson recently signed up to losing a stone before he takes an inaugural flight on one of the superlight carbon-fibre Boeing jets he has bought in order to save an extra 36lb of CO2. Given that his fleet allegedly produces 7.4m tonnes of CO2 a year, that's not a hugely rewarding diet


Will the coming oil crisis be the end of suburbia?

Three years ago, when I started to teach Introduction to Sociology for Lamar Community College, my brother sent me the DVD, “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream,” concerning the “coming oil crisis."

I showed it to my class to help the students better understand “social change” and what would happen to society during such a crisis. They hadn’t even heard that we were going to face such a crisis. It’s no surprise, most Americans hadn’t heard of it either; that was three years ago.


Peak Oil Passnotes: $80 Oil Beckons

The price of a barrel Brent crude is working its way back up to its records of $78.64 set last August 7. A steady and sure combination of factors has pushed it over $75 per barrel.

But when it pushes up against levels of $78 per barrel, which way is it going to go then?


Academic challenges global warming theory

An Australian academic has spoken out against the popular view that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. He believes that global warming and climate change are caused by cycles in the sun's electro-magnetic radiation. He says scientists are taking a narrow view and politicians are making policy with the wrong information.

Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee AO is a former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University. He told Tom Harwood, ABC Western Queensland's Morning Program producer that the world has been warming naturally due to increased magnetic radiation from the sun.


Ethanol, Corn, Milk, Prices Increase

It appears that oil and gasoline aren't the only things that are going up in price these days. Milk, everyones favorite beverage, has gone up in price once again.From $3.80 to almost $5.00 a gallon. But milk however, isn't the only thing that will be on the rise. Other dairy products such as butter, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream will too.


Sugar, Grains, Cotton May Be Best Commodity Buys, UBS Forecasts

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS AG, the world's largest money manager.

``Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments,'' Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


North Sea is running too dry to meet target

The energy industry warned yesterday that government targets of keeping Britain's oil and gas production at 3m barrels a day by 2010 look like being missed. North Sea competitiveness is falling and financial backers are losing confidence in the wake of tax increases introduced 18 months ago.

Civil servants have been working with oil companies to find ways to boost output offshore, but the 2007 Economic Report issued by the industry organisation Oil & Gas UK says the goal looks like being missed after five years of rising hopes.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/04/07

Bill Boyne: Oil reserves are drying up rapidly

A worldwide oil shortage is due in four years -- not 40 years.

That is the prediction of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London, an organization of scientists and oil industry experts. It was reported by The Independent newspaper in England.


Canadian Spot Natural Gas Declines on Weather, U.S. Holiday

Natural gas at Canada's largest trading point fell as moderate weather is forecast for the country's largest cities and a U.S. holiday lessens demand.

The weather in Toronto is predicted to stay within a normal range until at least July 6, according to a forecast from the government's Environment Canada. Temperatures in Montreal, the country's second-biggest city after Toronto, may reach 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) tomorrow, about 7.7 percent below its range.


Lake in Chile disappears; climate change blamed

Scientists on Tuesday blamed global warming for the disappearance of a glacial lake in remote southern Chile that faded away in just two months, leaving just a crater behind.
The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot deep crater where a large lake had been.


Why the U.S.' Oil Dependence is Bad for the U.S. Economy

Energy policy -- or more specifically U.S. oil dependence -- comes and goes in media focus. Its prominence usually increases in direct proportion to the current price of oil or gas. In addition, there has been a growing movement called the "peak oil" movement, which argues world supplies are actually at or near their highest and will continually decline from here on out. While I can't comment on the veracity of peak oil's claims, I can state without a doubt that the U.S.' national energy policy -- and specifically our oil dependence -- is economically disadvantageous.


Iran's First Nuclear Power Plant to Go Online Soon

Russian news agencies are reporting that Iran will put its first nuclear power plant online shortly after the Russian-built facility is completed in September.

The news agencies Itar-Tass and Interfax quoted Iranian officials Tuesday as saying that the nuclear facility in Bushehr will be completed in two months.


Özyürek: World will see a uranium crisis

If the CHP forms the government, Özyürek will definitely become the energy and natural resources minister. Özyürek does not like nuclear energy. He argues that Turkey should abandon its nuclear energy plans. Instead, renewable energy resources should be given priority. He cautions the world about a uranium crisis similar to the infamous oil crisis. Therefore, existing and future nuclear power stations will become idle, he says. Özyürek notes that Turkey’s plans to become an energy corridor are about to be disrupted by Russia. Özyürek elaborated on his ideas about energy policies in an interview with Today’s Zaman.


Revenues from North Sea shrink as costs soar

Britain is earning less from the North Sea as soaring costs, a weak gas price and dwindling output erode company margins and crimp government tax receipts from oil industry profits.

UK Oil & Gas (UKOG), which represents Britain’s offshore oil industry, predicts that revenues will fall well short of Treasury forecasts. The lobby group said that weaker profit margins and higher taxes would drive investment overseas and cause a more rapid fall-off in UK oil and gas production.


'Peak oil' is coming soon say BP critics

Last month, the oil company BP, reported that there were sufficient oil reserves to meet current demands for another 40 years. It said there was no need to be concerned about global scarcity, despite cutting its estimates for proven reserves for the first time in 16 years. These claims have since been hotly disputed.


Crisis, what energy crisis?

The energy gap left by declining fossil Solar fuels may be filled by alternative sources of energy. In short, the Earth has ample supplies of energy to sustain human population and economic growth. Discuss....


Mexico President Calderon: Oil Exports Will Fall Further

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Friday he expected the country's crude oil exports to slip further this year and next, continuing a decline seen in 2006.
"Starting in 2006, the volume of our oil exports has been falling at an alarming rate and from what we have observed up until now, this year and the next will be no exception," Calderon told a banking event.


North Sea output continues to drop despite record investment

The decline in oil and gas production in the UK North Sea continued in April, despite record investment in 2006, in what economists at Royal Bank of Scotland said was another sign that the province is maturing rapidly.

The latest oil and gas index from Royal Bank shows that combined average daily oil and gas production for the UK Continental Shelf stood at 2,823,141 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in April. This was about 2.3% lower than in March, ending a run of six consecutive monthly increases. The underlying rate of production continued on a firmly downward trend, falling 7.8% compared with April last year.


The Rising and Falling Power of Hydrocarbon States

The global economy runs on oil. Unequal distribution of oil throughout the world bestows power on the few states with ample supplies. Venezuela is one example of a nation that uses oil as leverage in foreign affairs: Besides consolidating his popular base at home, President Hugo Chavez has helped debt-ridden countries in that region, openly mocks the US and signed an arms-procurement deal with Russia. Chavez also fosters ties with China, just in case the US decides to stop importing Venezuelan oil. Steady demand allows oil-rich nations to act without regard to the international opinion. The US cannot complain. The one-time leading producer of oil used its own supplies to manipulate foreign policy throughout the 1900s. But as the US has learned, the supply of oil is limited; nations and companies can conserve and seek alternatives. Author Dilip Hiro warns that the power derived from oil is only temporary. – YaleGlobal


A Nuclear Phoenix?

Sitting in the belly of the beast—Dominion’s 2,000-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut—the company’s chief nuclear officer, Dave Christian, seems an unlikely environmentalist. But he says concern about climate change is what got him involved in the peaceful pursuit of the atom in the first place.

“I started studying climate science in the 1970s after reading a book [published in 1974] entitled Technology, Society and Man by Richard C. Dorf,” Christian says. “It was a very thoughtful study of the feedback mechanisms that go into global warming.”


Business View: Why not pay them not to pump their oil?

Here's an idea. There are billions of barrels of oil left in the ground, much of it belonging to the world's poorer countries. And money from rich countries is pouring into carbon-offsetting projects, many of them of questionable science. So why not just pay countries to keep their oil in the ground and avoid the emissions in the first place?


Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition

Biofuels. The term invokes a life-giving image of renewability and abundance—a clean, green, sustainable assurance in technology and the power of progress. This image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations, and even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy. Drawing its power from a cluster of simple cornucopian myths, “biofuels” directs our attention away from the powerful economic interests that benefit from this transition. It avoids discussion of the growing North-South food and energy imbalance. More fundamentally, it obscures the political-economic relationships between land, people, resources and food. By showing us only one side, “biofuels” fails to help us understand the profound consequences of the industrial transformation of our food and fuel systems—The Agro-fuels Transition.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 06/30/07

Oil settles above $70 a barrel


Oil prices settled above the psychologically important $70 a barrel mark on Friday for the first time since August 2006 on worries about gasoline supplies in the heart of the summer driving season.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose $1.11 to settle at $70.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $71.06 earlier in the session. Oil last closed above $70 a barrel on Aug. 31.


BP economist: World’s oil is plentiful

The world has plenty of oil left, although China has a growing appetite for all sorts of energy.

That was the message a senior BP economist had at a Thursday presentation sponsored by the Denver Chamber of Commerce.

Mark Finley, head of energy analysis at BP's London headquarters, walked the group of about 20 through BP's annual Statistical Review of World Energy , which was released this month.


Peak Oil Theorists Gush Obfuscation!

I know its too much to expect that determined peak oil theorists like ASPO co-founder Steve Andrews will suddenly admit they're wrong-no matter how many times their predictions of doomsday come and go without the world coming to an end. Sometimes all you can do is to shake your head at the stubborn denial. But Mr. Andrew's rejoinder here on the Huffington Post, to my "Peak Oil is Snake Oil!" piece of 6/25/07 requires some untangling to get at the pertinent facts.


Peak Oil Passnotes: Peak Market Economics

If you earned $1 million a year, life wouldn’t be bad, especially if you had only earned $300,000 a year some 36 months previously. Suppose that in order to carry on earning $1 million a year, you had to invest $20,000 each annum. You would agree and do it, in order to preserve the healthy profits you were pulling in.

Suppose that someone came up to you and asked you to invest $60,000 a year instead of $20,000. They say it would help them out. Then they told you as a result you would only earn $500,000 a year. What would you say? You would politely ask them to insert their head in a painful and probably physically impossible place.


Enrich Oil, Not Uranium!

After nights of rioting, Tehran looks like a war-torn city dotted with charred carcasses of cars and buses and the still smoldering remains of gas stations. Security checkpoints are everywhere while heavily armed soldiers guard public edifices and government buildings.


OPEC: Biofuels Not a 'Magic Bullet'

Despite near-record oil prices, investment in future oil production may be limited, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries says, due in part to increasing biofuel production.

The U.S. and European Union have already pushed forward policy that encourages replacing oil with biofuels, and the U.S. Senate passed a plan last week that would allow the U.S. government to sue OPEC for manipulating prices. OPEC's response?


Gore's seven point pledge to cut global warming

Al Gore called on people around the world to sign a "7 Point Pledge" promising personal action in curbing global warming.

The former US vice-president unveiled the pledge at a press conference to promote Live Earth, the July 7 concerts to be held in Johannesburg, London, New Jersey, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. Organisers said the concert, which is being broadcast in more than 100 countries, could be watched and heard by 2 billion people worldwide. "This is a global challenge," Gore said. "We will need a tougher global treaty, we will need every nation to be a part of the solution and we will need individuals all around the world to be part of the solution."


A cleaner North Sea? Ship fuel suppliers hedge bets

European ship fuel suppliers are hedging their bets ahead of tighter fuel quality rules from November amid uncertainty about demand for the cleaner grade and expectations that some ship operators will ignore the new rules.

European Commission regulations banning ships from burning dirtier fuel in the North Sea and the English Channel are aimed at reducing sulphur dioxide emissions that are 700 times higher than sulphur levels in diesel fuel for vehicles.


Peak oilman sticks to his guns

It never hurts to check up on what T. Boone Pickens is saying and doing. The Texas oilman, corporate raider, and philanthropist has serious cred, and it's unlikely that he's giving interviews in order to pump up his investments. His portfolio is well known, and, as he says, "There isn't anybody who can talk a commodity market up more than three or four minutes. The fundamentals will take over at some point."

In a recent interview with the Houston Business Journal, he reiterated his view that global oil production has already peaked:


The Problem's Not Peak Oil, It's Politics

Some "peak oil" cassandras warn that global energy production will soon fall into permanent decline. But a more immediate danger to world oil supplies may be the tempestuous politics of many producing countries. Witness Venezuela's move to wrest control of key oil projects from global companies on June 26. The move echoes steps taken in other nations that will likely either decrease production or slow its growth in coming years. "The oil is in the ground, but serious doubts are being raised about whether countries have the desire and means to produce it," says Leo Drollas, deputy director of the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank.


Iran an example of 'peak oil' fear

Iranian citizens are furious the government has introduced petrol rationing. There have been demonstrations, and at least one petrol station was set on fire.

Iran has the world's second-biggest proven reserves of oil but is limited in refinery capacity.

Iranians were only given two hours notice before petrol rationing began.


Rejecting the Real Snake Oil

Last Friday I spent three or four minutes on CNBC's Morning Call explaining what the concept of "peak oil" is to their viewers and arguing a bit with Raymond Learsy about the cause of our growing troubles with oil. Mr. Learsy, not content with that sound bite, wrote "Peak Oil is Snake Oil!" for this site on Monday to expand his attack on the logical notion of oil resource constraints.


Practical responses to peak oil

For those who came in late, it is increasingly clear that global oil reserves are reaching the point where half has been used up, called “peak oil”. After this point supply will no longer meet demand, and prices will rise increasingly steeply until oil becomes inaccessible.

We don’t really know how this will play out in the complex modern world because we have never faced anything like this before. The markets may give a real indication of the change by steadily rising prices, there may be a ratchet effect with an overall rise but regular short decreases in price (as already seems to be happening), or there may be sudden rises and falls until the price becomes meaninglessly high.


Cost of raising Iraq crude output approaches $75b

The estimated cost of boosting Iraq's oil output to six million barrels per day has soared to as high as $75 billion, a government adviser said yesterday.

Iraq's shattered oil industry is currently producing around two million bpd. Officials had said around $25 billion would be needed to triple that figure.


How More Ethanol Means Pricier Pizza

Milk may do a body good, but these days it's probably your wallet that gets the big workout.

Dairy products have become more expensive, causing prices to rise for some of America's favorite foods, from ice cream to chocolate to pizza.


Energy debate must include all options

RTE’S recent ‘Futureshock: End Of The Oil Age’ programme and its dire predictions of an impending energy crisis will hardly have come as a surprise to those who have followed the debate in recent years about ‘peak oil’.

As anyone who has turned on a TV or listened to a radio in the past couple of years will tell you, oil is a finite resource that we have been using like snuff at a wake, and now there’s not a lot left. Soon, all the oil that is being discovered will no longer replace all that has been produced, global production will peak and then begin to terminally decline.


China's farmers need a second liberation

China is in a rapid transition toward industrialization and integration into the world economy. However, this development has had a high price, particularly on the environment, and has put heavy pressure on local energy resources and ecosystems.

In addition, the gap in income and living standards between urban and rural areas, and between the eastern and western regions of China, has widened and the unemployment rate is increasing. Many are concerned that long-term prosperity of the country may be harmed by these social disparities.


Peak Suburbia - Kunstler

I get lots of letters from people in various corners of the nation who are hysterically disturbed by the continuing spectacle of suburban development. But instead of joining in their hand-wringing, I reply by stating my serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle — and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. It's over. Whatever you see out there now is pretty much what we're going to be stuck with. The remaining things under construction are the last twitchings of a dying organism.

Peak Oil Linkfest -06/23/07

Envoy: Tehran open to nuclear compromise

Key U.S. allies are debating the idea of a nuclear compromise with Iran that would call for only a partial freeze of Tehran's uranium enrichment program -- a stance that could put them at odds with Washington, officials said Friday.

Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts The officials -- U.S. and European diplomats and government employees -- told The Associated Press that the deliberations among senior British, French and German decision-makers were only preliminary and that no conclusions had been drawn.

UN: Climate Change Causes Darfur Slaughter

One fifth of the world lives on less than $1 a day; 1.2 billion do not have access to safe, drinkable water; and every year, 2.2 million die from disease brought on by contaminated water. A clash of civilizations is developing between Islam and the West. On a less life-threatening but still troubling note, 876 million people are illiterate.

An inconvenient Swede

Kjell Aleklett, a perky and persuasive physicist at Uppsala University, talks with characteristic Swedish candour. As president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, he jokes that all the big "strawberries" in the world's oilfields have been thoroughly picked over. ("Peak oil" just means the end of cheap oil.) Fifty years ago, the world burned four billion barrels of oil a year and happily discovered lots of big berry patches — 30 billion barrels a year. Today, those figures are exactly reversed, which goes a long way toward explaining volatile oil prices and Sweden's determined plan to get off fossil fuels by 2020. "Money is not running the world," the jaunty global player likes to say during his talks. "Money is used to buy energy." Right.

Peak Oil Passnotes: Let Me Tell You an Inventory

The prospects for oil prices rising have been knocked this week, so we are told. U.S. inventories are at nine-year highs, and the cost of a barrel of Brent crude fell back down below $70 this week, albeit by only a few cents.

But this is not the real story. Inventories in the United States are high because the refinery complex in the country is in such a weak state. Due to bits falling off, explosions, gas leaks and the odd death – another one at BP’s Texas City refinery recently – the U.S. cannot process the crude that is arriving on its shores.

Born In The Eye Of The Storm

I was sitting in the air conditioned sunroom in front of a 46” TV the other day, sipping a gin and tonic and taking in a bit of evening news about the start of the hurricane season. Just off the sunroom, a rack of boneless chicken breasts were marinating as they awaited the grill. Home made potato salad, baked beans and corn on the cob would round out the menu that evening, all foods that made me think of summer days at home when the family would gather for a barbecue. And I thought to myself, what a good life I have had, a simple life by most American standards, but one that would be the envy of thousands of previous generations. While the wealthy and privileged of days yore might boast about their palatial estates, artwork, fancy furniture, and house servants, not one of them could go out and settle into their very own personal automobile, (a vehicle capable of doing the work of over 100 horses), and zip about at the heretofore ungodly speed of 70mph if they had a mind.