Peak
Oil
Editor's
note:The probability that oil production on our planet
has already peaked carries with it a death sentence for
millions, maybe even billions of people within a single
generation from now. By posting
these articles, we
are attempting to educate our members about all the nuances
involved in a world that is running out of hydrocarbon
energy. We explore its effects on transportation,
electricity, economic growth and contraction, political
power, civilization and – perhaps most importantly – food
production. The
essays below examine the facts and ramifications of the
end of the industrial age.
(watch) Peak Oil: The Richard Heinberg Interview (watch)
 Richard
Heinberg discussing 'The Party's Over - Oil, War, and
the Fate of Industrial Societies' (audio library)
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Peak Oil in 2007
As the global warming controversy heats up, so has discussion of "peak oil" ...
the time when world oil production will peak and then decline. Some
people dismiss it as a plot by big oil companies to justify high
prices, while others assume this is another deception campaign by
environmentalists to encourage conservation. Given the continual
manipulation of public opinion, doubts about peak oil are
understandable. The world is massive and providing cheap fuel has
never been a problem throughout our lifetime. Technological
advancements in fuel efficiency and alternative energy should provide a
solution before the Earth runs out of oil. Nevertheless, there are five
reasons to worry that peak oil is near: MORE>> |
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The
Prophecy of Oil
On
August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake's oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania
struck a gusher, making him the man credited with drilling
the first commercially successful oil well in America. In
the time between then and now, the world has burned through
about 900 billion barrels of Drake's discovery. Global
daily oil consumption today stands at around 82 million barrels,
and many experts believe the emerging mega-industrialization
of nations like China and India will cause that daily consumption
to reach at least 120 million barrels a day by the year 2030.
Not to fear, however; ExxonMobil believes there are some
14 trillion barrels still in the ground, including nonconventional
resource fields like the tar sands of Canada and petroleum-rich
shale in the western United States. MORE>>
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Peak
Oil, Stolen Elections, Energy Wars
| Apocalyptic
fantasy is the heritage it seems of everyone growing up in
a monotheistic culture, and no one of us has avoided the stomach
turning terror of wondering if the next turn around the corner
might lead to disaster. We titillate our fears with movies
like The Day After Tomorrow. Hal Lindsay made a fortune
preying on that fear. History is full of ridiculous stories
of whole communities standing outside awaiting the end of the
world on the word of some deranged bookworm's interpretation
of holy scripture. MORE>> |
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Civilization
as we know it
is coming to an end soon
This
is not the wacky conclusion of a religious cult, but rather
the result of diligent analysis source by hard data and
the scientists who study global “Peak Oil” and
related go-political events.
So who
are these nay-sayers who claim the sky is falling? Conspiracy
fanatics? Apocalypse Bible prophesy readers? To the contrary,
they are some of the most respected, highest paid geologists
and experts in the world. And this is what's so scary. MORE>>
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| With
the dawn of the 21st century the world has entered a new stage
of geopolitical struggle. The first half of the 20th century
can be understood as one long war between Britain (and shifting
allies) and Germany (and shifting allies) for European supremacy.
The second half of the century was dominated by a Cold War between
the US, which emerged as the world's foremost industrial-military
power following World War II, and the Soviet Union and its bloc
of protectorates. The US wars in Afghanistan (in 2001-2002) and
Iraq (which, counting economic sanctions and periodic bombings,
has continued from 1990 to the present) have ushered in the latest
stage, which promises to be the final geopolitical struggle of
the industrial period - a struggle for the control of Eurasia
and its energy resources. MORE>> |
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Very
often when I talk to people about the likelihood of oil shortages
or price hikes in the future, they come back to me with the statement ‘well
I read that we have another 50 years of oil or 70 years or whatever
it is’. And, what they are really saying is, it will be
50 years before we run out of oil. Actually, in fact I think
it will be a lot longer than that. I would guess a century from
now there will still be oil in the ground and probably some way
of pumping a bit out now and then. But, the question of when
we will actually run out of oil is absolutely the wrong question
to be asking. We should be asking when will production peak? MORE>>
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| When,
in May 2001, the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial
Watch filed suit to see the records of Dick Cheney's National
Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), it was the first to
protest the unheard of secrecy at the energy task force. As
the White House stonewalled, the Government Accounting Office
(GAO) filed suit the following February. Congress had, after
all, funded the project. Non-governmental officials had played
major roles in its deliberations and, under the Constitution,
the GAO had an obligation to see how the money was spent and
what was produced. White House refusals prompted media speculation
about deals with Enron and big oil companies; a divvying of
spoils, a rape of the environment. Judicial Watch was later
joined in its suit by the Sierra Club. A scandal for everyone! MORE>> |
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| Oil
has been the cheapest and most convenient energy resource ever
discovered by humans. During the past two centuries, people in
industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in which
more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global
population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall.
Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built
on the assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that
it can go on forever. MORE>> |
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Industry
observers noted that Aramco had never before said so much
about their reserves and how they hold production
steady in their ageing oil fields, but much of the Aramco
presentation concentrated on the benefits of new technology,
especially in their medium-sized fields, and the possibilities
of future discoveries, without noting that well productivity
had fallen by more than half since the early 1970s. More
than half of Saudi Arabia's oil comes from one giant field,
Ghawar, the largest ever discovered, and the health of
this field is now in serious doubt, after decades of water
injection to maintain pressure. MORE>>
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The
world began running out of oil soon after the birth of
modern drilling during the 1850s. The question since then
has always been:
When
will the spigot start drying up?
Mounting
evidence suggests that an important turning point may
be close. According to several studies, oil production
is expected to begin a permanent decline within a few
years, prompting social and economic upheaval across
the globe. MORE>> |
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When
visitors tour the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's oil
empire — a sleek glass building rising from the desert
in Dhahran near the Persian Gulf — they are reminded
of its mission in a film projected on a giant screen. "We
supply what the world demands every day," it declares.
But the country's oil fields now are in decline, prompting industry and
government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom
will be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years. MORE>>
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A recently
declassified CIA document casts new light on some of
the most significant geopolitical events of the past
quarter century. This document, an Intelligence Memorandum
titled "The Impending Soviet Oil Crisis (ER 77-10147)," was
issued in March 1977 by the Office of Economic Research
and classified "Secret" until its public release
in January 2001 in response to a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request. MORE>>
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It is increasingly
clear that the US occupation of Iraq is about control of global
oil resources. Control, however, in a situation where world oil
supplies are far more limited than most of the world has been
led to believe. If the following is accurate, the Iraq war is
but the first in a major battle over global energy resources,
a battle which will be more intense than any oil war to date.
The stakes are highest. It is about fixing who will get how much
oil for their economy at what price and who not. Never has such
a choke-hold on the world economy been in the hands of one power.
After occupation of Iraq it appears it is. MORE>>
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Natural
gas once was touted as the abundant, affordable energy source
of the future.
Now there are escalating worries about a massive shortfall of the commodity,
and that could lead to higher prices for the fuel that is used to heat
most Utah homes and run some of the state's power plants.
Sounding the alarm is Andrew Weissman, founder and chairman of Energy
Ventures Group LLC, based in Washington, D.C. MORE>>
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Annual
crude oil output at Daqing Oil Field, China's largest oil
field, will fall to 30 million tons by 2010, a steep drop
of 18.4 million tons from last year's level, Xinhua news
agency reported yesterday.
Daqing's
crude output will shrink by 7 percent yearly in the following
seven years. Its crude output is expected to drop to 20 million
tons by 2020, said Gai Ruyin, mayor of Daqing City in Heilongjiang
Province. MORE>>
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