Deep Green: peak oil changes everything

(Greenpeace UK) - Here’s the latest in the Deep Green column from Rex Weyler - author, journalist, ecologist and long-time Greenpeace trouble-maker. The opinions here are his own.

As the era of cheap liquid fuels draws to an end, everything about modern consumer society will change. Likewise, developing societies pursuing the benefits of globalization will struggle to grow economies in an era of scarce liquid fuels. The most localized, self-reliant communities will experience the least disruption.

Oil is a fixed asset of the planet, representing stored sunlight accumulated over a billion years as early marine algae, and other marine organisms (not dinosaurs) captured solar energy, formed carbon bonds, gathered nutrients, died, sank to the ocean floors, and lay buried under eons of sediment. Like any fixed non-renewable resource, oil is limited, and its consumption will rise, peak, and decline.

World oil production increased for 150 years until the spring of 2005, when world crude oil production reached about 74.3 million barrels per day (mb/d), and total liquid fuels, including tar sands, liquefied gas, and biofuels reached about 85 mb/d. In spite of the efforts since, and tales of “trillions of barrels” of oil in undiscovered fields, liquid fuel production has remained at about 85.5 mb/d for three years, the longest sustained plateau in modern petroleum history. Discoveries of new fields peaked 40 years ago.

Meanwhile economies everywhere want to grow, so demand for oil soars worldwide. The gap between this surging demand and flat or declining production will drive price increases and shortages. That’s peak oil.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: Greenpeace UK, Rex Weyler, August 4, 2008 ]

Study: Saudi oil exports may start falling in 2014

(PeakOil.com, Bloomberg) - Saudi Arabia’s oil exports may start to fall in 2014 after it reaches maximum production capacity of 12.5 million barrels a day and domestic consumption grows, Chatham House said in a report.

“Once production levels off at a plateau, exports will decline” as local demand rises, the London-based think tank said in report titled “Ending Dependence: Hard Choices for Oil- Exporting States.” Current Saudi output capacity is 11.3 million barrels a day, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said June 30.

While production may hold steady for decades, the kingdom’s exports may fall as more oil is diverted to the local market. The Saudi economy absorbed 20 percent of the country’s oil output in 2006, Chatham House said, citing data from BP Plc’s Statistical Review and national statistics. The report didn’t estimate a figure for future demand. Local consumption rose 7 percent last year to 2.15 million barrels a day, BP data show.

To ensure the Saudi economy keeps growing, other sources of income will be needed to replace oil revenue, which may plateau by the middle of the next decade, according to the report’s authors John Mitchell from the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies and Dundee University Emeritus Professor Paul Stevens. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Nigeria will stop exporting oil by 2040, the researchers said.

Oil output from Iran, Kuwait and Nigeria, whose production capacity represents more than a quarter of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ total, will level off as soon as 2010, the report said. Oil exports may last longer if producing nations scrap domestic fuel subsidies to reduce energy use or adopt renewable energy.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: PeakOil.com, Bloomberg ]

Peak Oil - How Will You Ride the Slide?

Matt Simmons (Bloomberg): Peak Oil Now, Oil Perhaps to $300

Video analysis from the Bloomberg Report discussing that the world has already reached Peak Oil. This was post in 2007.

 

READ MORE HERE [ Source: Bloomberg Report, YouTube.com ]

Peak Oil Review — June 30, 2008

While last week started quietly, Thursday and Friday turned into a frenzy, with prices surging from a low of $132 a barrel on Wednesday to touch a new high of $142.99 on Friday. The week closed with oil at $140.21, another new high closing price. The $10 a barrel increase was mostly due to financial developments—such as a weak dollar, a major drop in the equities markets, and a flight to the safety of commodities—rather than to oil industry news.

Industry news for the week was mixed. Shell started up its offshore platform that had been overrun by Nigerian militants, while Chevron in Nigeria declared force majeure due to a pipeline bombing last week. China seems to be producing more gasoline and diesel in response to the recent price increases. Iraq is on the way to a banner month producing 2.5 million b/d in comparison with the 1.5 million averaged in 2007 and Mexico’s Cantarell oil field continued its relentless decline.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: Energy Bulletin ]

Imagining peak oil - June 30

As forecasters take that possibility more seriously, they describe fundamental shifts in the way we work, where we live and how we spend our free time.

The more expensive oil gets, the more Katherine Carver's life shrinks. She's given up RV trips. She stays home most weekends. She's scrapped her twice-a-month volunteer stint at a Malibu wildlife refuge -- the trek from her home in Palmdale just got too expensive.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: Energy Bulletin ]