NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing the Electric Grid

Full interactive U.S. map here.

Renewables, Here and Now!

The article describes how to implement clean and renewable energy carrier technologies here and now, based on established methodologies in first world countries located in temperate climate zones.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=1188444&sponsor=

Jim Rogers sees oil at US$200 as world is running out of reserves

INTERNATIONAL. Investor Jim Rogers is bullish on oil as crude prices collapsed to four-year lows and the world is running out of known oil reserves.

Rogers said he is the world's worst market timer and a horrible short-term trader, but a sharp sell-off in oil prices suggested a bottom.

Rogers, who remains bullish on commodities, estimated known world oil reserves at today's consumption rate are about 16 years, which indicates crude prices will again trend higher.

"Oil Reserves are dropping 7% a year and these drop in reserves will cause serious supply problems in the near future."

"We're going to see US$200 oil at some point, it may be by 2013. It's a sad fact but the world is running out of known oil. Oil will make a big comeback," he said"


More at Business Intelligence Mideast here.

World unaware as oil dries up: Experts

For more than a century it has been cheaper than coffee and as constant as ocean waves.

Getting it is simple. You select the grade, insert the nozzle, squeeze the handle and gasoline comes out. There seems no end to it. Until now.

On top of the other problems plaguing the world, such as global warming and the current financial meltdown, there's a third pressing issue that threatens to bring the good life to an end: The world is fast running out of oil.

Given that crude oil makes up 36.4% of the world's energy consumption, the seriousness of shortages cannot be underplayed. Our reliance on oil is almost total. It fuels 100% of air and sea transport and most of our land transport.
Most petroleum sources are on the downward slide

Without oil there is no petrochemical industry. Agriculture, manufacturing, building materials, the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the medicines we take depend on oil.

Running out of oil is a question of when -- not if.

Normand Mousseau, a physics professor at Universite de Montreal who has written a book on the end of oil, says the beginning of the end struck last summer. "This is why the prices jumped to $147 a barrel," he said. "As soon as the economy comes back, they will be right back up."


More at the Vancuver Sun here.

Slight Majority Of U.S. Energy CFOs Disagree That World Has Reached Peak Oil

Approximately 48% of U.S. E&P chief financial officers believe that the world has reached its peak petroleum production rate or will reach it within the next few years, while another 52% disagree with that statement, according to a new survey by Chicago-based national professional services firm BDO Seidman LLP.


The BDO Seidman Natural Resources 2009 Outlook survey was conducted by Market Measurement Inc. in the fourth quarter and included input from 100 U.S. E&P CFOs.


The survey finds there are similarly differing opinions in predictions regarding when the world’s demand for petroleum will peak—31% believe it will be in less than 10 years, 43% believe it will be in 10 to 20 years, 14% believe it will be 20 to 30 years and 8% think it will reach peak more than 30 years from now.


BDO Seidman partner and national energy industry practice leader Charles Dewhurst says, “I think perspectives have likely shifted dramatically in recent months on whether the world is nearing a peak level of petroleum production. If you had gathered opinions only six months ago on this issue, most were worried that existing sources were drying up. Now, people are hedging their bets.”

More at Oil & Gas Investor here.

Peak Oil 101 from T. Boone Pickens: The Pickens Plan

The Pickens Plan

I don't really understand his affection for the role of natural gas in transportation. Most of us oil buffs know that natural gas has a sharper cliff than oil does once it runs out! He must have his money bets on the natural gas, I don't know. I do appreciate and respect his desire to bring people onto the same page and his concern for the next generations.

Joyce Marcel: Our "Cheap Oil Fiesta" s Over

Click here for full article.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and for a little while, at least, it sounds lovely.

Imagine a world where the air is cleaner because fewer people are driving cars. Where you can hop on a train to visit your friends in the West River Valley or spend a day in Boston, arriving refreshed instead of wiped out from highway driving. Where chemical-drenched agribusiness is dead, and food is grown locally. Where big box stores are gone, and the shops on Main Street sell the things you need. Where small schoolhouses again dot the hills of tight little communities.

This vision harks back to a simpler time, perhaps one directed by Robert Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart. But it may not turn out to have a happy ending.

James Kunstler came through our town over the weekend, giving a talk at Marlboro College on Saturday and sharing his semi-apocalyptic view of a post-cheap oil future. He’s talking about the time when “our cheap energy fiesta” is over, and his vision has a certain relevant ring in a week when gas prices creep up over the $4 a gallon mark and truckers in Spain tie up all the roads to protest paying over $10 a gallon for diesel.

Already, many of us are driving more fuel efficient cars, converting to fry oil, trying to piggyback errands in town and, in general, driving less to save gas. And many more of us are worrying how we’re going to heat our homes next winter.

Kunstler, an enemy of sprawl, has been writing about energy issues for the past five years. He’s not coming at this topic from a right, left, conservative, liberal, progressive, Democrat or Republican perspective. In his opinion, we’ve all screwed up.

For the last 200 years, as Americans have enjoyed an upward path of progress on every level, we have taken “bigger, faster, more” as not only our motto but our birthright.

In the past, a better technology always came along to save our butts. Kerosene replaced whale oil. Electric lamps replaced kerosene. People complained about manure-clogged streets at the turn of the last century, and then along came Henry Ford and his automobile.

Kunstler’s warning is that this upward swing will not continue indefinitely. He quotes Dick Cheney’s famous line, “The American way of life is nonnegotiable.”

“Then reality will negotiate for you,” Kunstler said. “You don’t even have to be in the room.”

The reality is a world of depleted oil reserves and intense global competition for what remains. The current manipulation of the commodity markets and the devaluation of the dollar isn’t helping, either.

Permaculture Guru David Holmgren's Website: Future Scenarios

I've just found this site. I'm not sure how long it has been up but I'd like to take a moment to circulate Mr. Holmgren's website for those also unaware of it. Having to go to work in half an hour also negates me from reading it right away as well. I will also add this interesting site to my sidebar.


I ordered my first rain barrels today here at Gardeners Supply Company. You might know they are on backorder until the second week in July! They were about the cheapest I could find for what I wanted. The garden is starting out well. Hopefully I will have some pictures up soon on this site or my picture place blog....one step at a time....

Memorial Day, 2008: The Tipping Point in the Peak Oil Debate

Full article here.

Those of us who have watched for the inevitable arrival of the peak oil crisis have been waiting for years for the day when we no longer had to fight for the acceptance of the idea, and could start getting on with the hard business of what to do about it.

And then, just like that, it happened.

Like a chorus line turning in unison from left to right, the media and the financial markets turned and embraced the notion of peak oil last week.

For convenience, let's call it Memorial Day, 2008.

CNBC devoted a whole day to peak oil coverage, allowing some in-depth discussion of the issue possibly for the first time. In the evening, it broadcast a special called "Oil Crisis."

Billionaire hedge fund manager and oil man T. Boone Pickens said he saw oil going to $150 this year, and this time, was widely quoted in the financial press. (Check out this excellent interview with him from the Milken Institute Global Conference 2008 in April.) He put the reasons behind rising oil prices plainly:

"They've got to go up, because the people that have the oil want it to go up. They're running out of oil. They're going to have to have—85 million barrels a day is all the world can produce. The demand is 87 million. It's that simple. It doesn't have anything to do with the value of the dollar. It's a fact of supply and demand. That's it."

While we might politely disagree with the legendary oil investor about the dollar part, in terms of the overall trend being about the fundamentals, he was spot-on. He took a 14 percent loss in the first two months of this year by shorting oil and natural gas, and quickly learned from the error to get long again and back into the black.

Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti, the only major investment bank analyst who correctly predicted oil over $100 last year, said that oil could breach $200 this year, and $150 was very likely. Again, this time, Wall Street sat up and took notice instead of laughing.

In the last couple of weeks, when I talked about peak oil in my radio and TV appearances, I didn't get shouted down immediately, or dismissed for holding a "controversial theory." Instead, they actually listened to hear what I had to say next.

In an interview with CNN radio last week, I think the host was rather shocked when she asked me if recent predictions of $12 gasoline in the next few years could happen.

"Easily," I said, "easily." And then explained why peak oil means that prices will have to keep going higher as long as global demand continues higher, because supply appears to be maxed out. Even as demand in the developed world declines due to price-induced demand destruction, the red-hot developing economies of the world are more than making up for it.

And you could have heard a pin drop when I explained that "there are no supply side solutions to peak oil" to another radio interviewer last week.

The dialogue didn't shift because pundits suddenly understood the importance of flow rates, or because the data on reserve estimates suddenly became clear.

It was the price that did it.

Washington Post: Time Running Out for Energy in Mexico

Click here for full article.


By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, May 16, 2008; 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON -- Mexican Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel's warning to the Mexican Congress last week sounded ominous: If legislators did not approve reforms within the oil sector, the country would suffer a "severe energy crisis" within a decade.

That's probably an understatement.

Mexico's oil production is rapidly declining. The Cantarell oil field, one of the world's largest, is responsible for almost two-thirds of Mexico's production. In 2004, it brought up 2.1 million barrels a day; today it produces only half that. Unless new sources are found, Mexico -- up until last year the second-largest supplier to the United States -- will become a net oil importer by the year 2018.

For some countries, being a net oil importer is no big deal. But for Mexico, oil represents the single largest amount of revenue for the federal government -- about 40 percent. This looming "energy crisis" would be felt more than just at the pump. It would be across the board, impacting financial, social and political sectors as well.

Still, almost every expert on this issue I've interviewed or heard speak in recent months insists that it won't get that bad. They say Mexico will come to its senses and adopt the kind of overhaul that will give the country's state-run oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos -- Pemex -- enough flexibility to invest more of its profits in modernizing its operations. That way, the experts say, it could become more like Brazil's state-run Petrobras, regarded as one of Latin America's most well-run companies.

At the same time, Mexico's attitude about oil and Pemex's serious systemic flaws don't inspire much optimism. The energy proposals introduced last month by President Felipe Calderon offer some modest reforms, but probably not enough to stem the crisis. As Jeffrey Davidow, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, put it diplomatically, "the steps they are taking are not sufficient."

The End of the World as You Know It...The Rise of the New Energy World Order

This is kind of dated now but I've been pretty busy....
From Information Clearinghouse click here.

Globe and Mail on peakniks & doomers

I guess that's me! Click here for full story.

Oily Cassandra--i.e., how to get men to listen to peak oil

Click here for website and youtube video

DC Velocity: The End of Cheap Oil, Are You ready? by Charles Taylor

Full article here.

Good review of the end of cheap oil by Chuck Taylor, a supply chain consultant and speaker.

Time's up for petrol, says GM chief--Sydney Herald

Click here for full article.

I thought this was an important milestone to capture on the blog...

"The world's biggest car maker, General Motors, believes global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable.

In a stunning announcement at the opening of the Detroit motor show, Rick Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive, also said ethanol was an "important interim solution" to the world's demand for oil, until battery technology improved to give electric cars the same driving range as petrol-powered cars."...

"Mr Wagoner cited US Department of Energy figures which show the world is consuming roughly 1000 barrels of oil every second of the day, and yet demand for oil is likely to increase by 70 per cent over the next 20 years. Some experts believe the supply of oil peaked in 2006.

The remaining oil reserves are deeper below the Earth's surface and therefore more costly to mine and refine.

"There is no doubt demand for oil is outpacing supply at a rapid pace, and has been for some time now," Mr Wagoner said. "As a business necessity and an obligation to society we need to develop alternative sources of propulsion."

Good article. The article outlines Mr. Wagoner's belief, correctly in my beliefs as well, that ethanol is only an interim solution.

Aaron Wissner: How Peak Oil Changed My Life

Here's an article written by someone affected by peak oil in the same way I have:

countercurrents.org

The Bloomington Alternative: Peaking out on oil

Full article featuring Bloomington, IN, city councilman here.

I'm planning on contacting this person to possibly help me create a dialogue with my community leaders regarding resource depletion, it's impact on our community, and how we're going to mitigate the impact fewer resources will have on us locally.

Peak Possibilities -- TIME

Read full article here.

....That's alarming enough in itself. Even the optimists think we have less than three decades to go? But at industry conferences this fall, the word from producers was far gloomier. The chief executives of ConocoPhillips and French oil giant Total both declared that they can't see oil production ever topping 100 million bbl. a day. The head of the oil importers' club that is the International Energy Agency warned that "new capacity additions will not keep up with declines at current fields and the projected increase in demand."....

....It's not that the world is running out of oil. There are massive reserves available in Canadian tar sands, Colorado shale, Venezuelan heavy oil and other unconventional deposits. The problem is that most of this oil is hard to extract and even harder to refine, and it isn't likely to account for a significant share of global production anytime soon. Almost everybody agrees that the pumping of conventionally sourced oil outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already peaked or will peak soon, a reality that even discoveries like the recent 8 billion-bbl. find off the coast of Brazil can't alter because production from so many existing fields is declining.....

Oil on Google Video Here

Peak Oil Discussed on the Wall Street Journal's front page

Excerpt:

A growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day.

Some predict that, despite the world's fast-growing thirst for oil, producers could hit that ceiling as soon as 2012. This rough limit -- which two senior industry officials recently pegged at about 100 million barrels a day -- is well short of global demand projections over the next few decades. Current production is about 85 million barrels a day.

The world certainly won't run out of oil any time soon. And plenty of energy experts expect sky-high prices to hasten the development of alternative fuels and improve energy efficiency. But evidence is mounting that crude-oil production may plateau before those innovations arrive on a large scale. That could set the stage for a period marked by energy shortages, high prices and bare-knuckled competition for fuel.

The current debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

The whole article can be read
here.