SYNOPSIS: The fine print of The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View report downplays the potential of oil shale, a misnomer, and Canadian tar sands.
Without any press conferences, grand announcements, or hyperbolic advertising campaigns, the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world’s largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years.
However, as with all advertisements, it’s best to read the fine print. ExxonMobil’s world oil production forecast shows no contribution from “oil shale” even by 2030. Only about 4 million barrels of oil per day from Canadian “oil sands” are projected by 2030, accounting for a mere 3.3 percent of the predicted total world demand of 120 million barrels per day. What explains this striking disconnection between the magnitude of the frontier resources and the minimal amount of projected oil production from them? Canadian “oil sands” are actually deposits of bitumen (tar), which are the result of conventional oil degradation by water and air. Tar sands are of a completely different character than conventional oil deposits; making tar sands usable is a capital-intensive venture that requires special procedures such as heating to separate the tar from the sand, mixing the tar with a diluting agent for pipeline transport, and constructing specially equipped refineries for processing.
What all this means is that the petroleum industry is approaching a turning point. Conventional petroleum production will soon–perhaps in five years, ten at best–no longer be able to satisfy demand. For their part, American consumers would do well to take a cue from their Western European counterparts, who enjoy a comfortable lifestyle despite a per capita use of petroleum that is half of that in the United States. The sooner the United States begins this transition away from oil, the easier it will be. That’s a far more attractive option than trying to squeeze oil from stone.
The most serious constraint, though, is natural gas supplies. Production of oil from tar sands requires between 400 and 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas per barrel of oil produced, depending on the extraction method used. Natural gas production, despite a near doubling of drilling activity, is flat or decreasing both in Canada and in the United States–which has prompted prices to triple over the past few years. Given these high gas prices, it almost makes more sense just to sell the natural gas directly rather than use it to produce oil from tar sands.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=what+is+the+world%27s+largest+oil+company&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=1msx&oq=worlds+largest+oil+company
http://peakoil.blogspot.com/2005/05/exxonmobil-sounds-silent-peak-oil.html
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corn, oil, wheat, lead, copper, manufacturing
gold, silver, lead, zinc, car production.
Duration : 0:9:25
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Richard Duncan, Institute on Energy and Man, speaks on Peak Oil and Olduvai Theory at a Social Contract conference on September 30, 2007: www.TheSocialContract.com .
Richard Duncan presents Peak Oil data, which indicate that we are at or near Peak Oil. We have been used to a 100% increase in world oil production since 1970; that’s what we’re used to, that’s what we want, and that’s what we’ll never get.
Geologist Walter Youngquist says we’re now in depletion dominance: it dominates technological change, investment capital – it dominates everything.
Think of the Olduvai Theory this way: you have a video of world history from pre-history until 2010. Then you stop the camera and then you play the video backwards. As awful as this is, one must remember that the Copernican Throry was rejected for over 200 years before being accepted. The Olduvai Theory explains how population, immigration, etc., will adjust to the local ecological carrying capacity worldwide, and that localities will be completely dependent upon solar energy.
For more presentations at this Social Contract event, see
Mike Hethmon, IRLI, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPzstO-xWR8
Mike Hethmon, IRLI, part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMgvDwwYo1E
Jim Edwards on the SPP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZcJIJJIs8E
For more information on the Social Contract, see http://www.TheSocialContract.com
Duration : 0:8:22
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http://chuckdevore.com/ – California has been overspending while driving jobs out of state with high taxes and burdensome regulations. One non-tax revenue solution that creates jobs: tap the billions of barrels of oil off the California coast using modern, environmentally safe methods of drilling. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, candidate for U.S. Senate against Barbara Boxer in 2010, authored a bill to do just that. It passed the State Senate, but it failed in the Assembly where majority Democrats expunged the vote so it no longer officially happened at all. DeVore was interviewed by Fox News’ Stuart Varney on the issue.
Duration : 0:3:11
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A brief look on how I make a hydrogen gas electronic controller.
Duration : 0:2:53
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http://www.warsocialism.com/
“SHORTAGE OF ENERGY” or “LONGAGE OF PEOPLE”?
By Jay Hanson, August 21, 2007
to discuss the issues raised in this paper http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/th…
Longage is always soluble; a shortage may not be. — Garrett Hardin
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here that topples all our success. — John Steinbeck
A specter is haunting developed countries, the specter of “peak oil.” If you were born after 1960, you will probably die of violence, starvation or contagious disease. This is because our genetic demand for more-and-more resources, within a physical environment of less-and-less “net energy”[1] available for those resources, will inevitably lead to widespread violence and global nuclear war.
Geologists have calculated that global oil production [2] and North American natural gas production [3] are peaking about now. American coal is expected to peak about 2035.[4] No alternative — even nuclear [5] — has the potential to replace more than a tiny fraction of the power presently generated by fossil fuels.
America was specifically designed by special interests (e.g., General Motors, Firestone and Standard Oil) to require fossil fuel and automobiles [6] to be viable. The exhaustion of fossil fuel will leave many millions of Americans with no access to food or water and facing certain death. For example, ten or more millions of people in Southern California alone will die within a couple of days after drinking their toilet tanks and swimming pools dry.
Since it’s literally impossible to increase global net energy production, the only approaches which can mitigate this problem are national — to either increase national net energy, or reduce national energy demand, or both. The primary goal of American public policy should be to minimize the suffering [7] of as many American citizens as possible by delivering basic “needs”[8] gratis. Unfortunately, our democratic [9] form of government can not direct us to any specific goal because it is “process politics” instead of “systems politics”:
“As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just — or at least the best the system can achieve. By contrast, systems politics is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends.”[10]
Indeed, all measures that our present government takes to mitigate our problems will make them even worse! [11] Since our present government can not direct us to any specific goal, the first step in mitigation must be to invent a new systems politics. In other words, dump our present “special interest” government in favor of a new “common interest” government based on a new set of values:
“In brief, liberal democracy as we know it — that is, our theory or ‘paradigm’ of politics — is doomed by ecological scarcity; we need a completely new political philosophy and set of political institutions. Moreover, it appears that the basic principles of modern industrial civilization are also incompatible with ecological scarcity and that the whole ideology of modernity growing out of the Enlightenment, especially such central tenets as individualism, may no longer be viable.”[12]
The closest example in our experience was the country on a war footing during World War Two when our economy was directed towards the specific goal of winning the war. Moreover, even if the entire economy were directed towards developing renewable energy supplies, it would be a significant challenge to avoid anarchy because energy available for consumer goods could fall to about 30% of demand:
http://www.warsocialism.com/
Duration : 0:4:36
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How much oil is there? What is the data? Oil Expert Matt Simmons on oil production, oil reserves, the coming energy crisis, depletion, north sea oil, tar sands, natural gas, deceptive practices, the economy, Chavez, US oil policy.
Duration : 0:6:4
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Indonesia is the only Asian-Pacific member of OPEC that’s meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend. Much of the country’s oil reserve remains undeveloped.
Al Jazeera’s Step Vassen reports on how it is now attracting foreign investors and how many local communities are uncertain about their future.
Duration : 0:3:17
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Video 2 of… everything you need to know about the world’s limits to oil production. This video introduces the problem. (Split into video 1 & 2 due to YouTube 10 minute limit.) Later videos look at the impacts on the economy, on Australia in particular, and how best to prepare for the coming changes. These videos are all part of the Be Prepared Crash Course from http://www.BePreparedEducation.com.au
Duration : 0:6:9
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analyzing crude oil prices. elcapitalista007@blogspot.com
Duration : 0:0:29
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H E Dr Abdul Amir Al-Anbari – July 1990 Air date
Sanctions and reparations and their impact on Iraqs
recovery
Ambassador Dr. Abdul Amir Al Anbari
(Permanent Delegate UNESCO)
& International Legal Consultant, France
The Impact of the United Nations Sanctions on the Iraqi Oil Industry was discussed by Dr. Abdul Amir Al Anbari, International Legal Consultant & Former Ambassador of Iraq to the United Nations and Unesco. Sanctions have damaged the Iraqi oil industry causing a lack of communications facilities, electrical power, purified water, sewage systems and even lack of medicine. It is estimated that expenditure US$12 billion is now necessary for Iraq to reach an oil production level of 3mb/d.
Duration : 0:59:10
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