The Oil Drum

Michael Klare: The Pentagon v. Peak Oil

Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Hubbert's Peak, The Question of Coal, and Climate Change

Currently there is a vigorous debate about fossil-fuel production, and whether it will be sufficient in the future. At the same time, there is an intense effort to predict the contribution to future climate change that will result from consuming this fuel. There has been surprisingly little effort to connect these two. Do we have a fossil-fuel supply problem? Do we have a climate-change problem? Do we have both? Which comes first? We will see that trends for future fossil-fuel production are less than any of the 40 UN scenarios considered in climate-change assessments. The implication is that producer limitations could provide useful constraints in climate modeling. We will also see that the time constants for fossil-fuel exhaustion are about an order of magnitude smaller than the time constants for sea level and sea-level change. This means that to lessen the effects of climate change associated with future fossil-fuel use, reducing ultimate production is more important than slowing it down.

Mexico oil output drop may spark crisis

Declining oil output in Mexico could spark a major fiscal crisis there, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Wednesday, while also railing against US immigration policy.

"There is no doubt that Mexican overall (oil) production is down and if it continues down, and prices don't continue up to offset that, then there is a huge fiscal crisis pending," the former US central banker said via a video link to a business conference in Mexico City.

What's in the Energy Bill?

The controversial energy bill now on the Senate floor takes a different approach than the bill pushed through by a Republican Senate in 2005. That measure sought to increase domestic oil production through subsidies and other incentives. With Democrats now in charge, the new bill focuses on decreasing consumption of oil and gasoline.

Winter heating oil import dependence set to jump

The U.S. energy industry has sharply reduced its production of heating oil in favor of cleaner, higher-profit fuels like diesel -- a move that could see the nation relying more heavily on imports next winter heating season, analysts said Wednesday.

Roscoe Bartlett: Commemorating Admiral Rickover's 1957 speech on energy

Mr. Speaker, this is really a very important day in our history. Exactly 50 years ago today in St. Paul, MN, Admiral Hyman Rickover gave a very famous speech. In a few moments, I will have here a copy of that speech, and I want to spend most of the hour that we have this evening going over that speech, because he was amazingly prophetic. This was a speech given to a group of physicians, and it was about energy. Of course, his primary interest was nuclear energy, and this was a speech about energy in general.

Pickens wants to build world's largest wind farm

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is planning to cash in on the wind energy boom by building the world's largest wind farm in West Texas.

The oil tycoon wants to install large wind turbines in parts of four Panhandle counties in a project that would produce up to 4,000 megawatts of electricity, Pickens spokesman Mike Boswell said Wednesday.

Why did the Soviet Union fall?

In a simplified way, the story of the collapse of the Soviet Union could be told as a story about grain and oil.

Outside View: Iran`s oil weapon

There is no doubting the strengthening energy ties between Iran and China, whose imports of Iranian crude have risen by 14 percent in the first four months of this year from last year`s figures, at a time when China is deliberately trying to curb its appetite for imported oil. The growing cooperation in oil follows the dramatic $70 billion deal that China`s giant Sinopec Group made with Iran to buy 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas over 30 years from Iran and develop the giant Yadavaran field.

In this context, it is not easy to see China approving severe sanctions against Iran at the U.N. Security Council. And given India`s equal hunger for imported oil and gas, and the current discussions between Indian and Iranian officials over a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan, it is not easy to see India throwing its weight behind sanctions, despite the close strategic ties that have been forged between New Delhi and Washington.

Emissions scheme "seriously undermined", says WWF

The conservation group WWF said that while the mechanism of carbon trading was sound in principle, the way the first phase of the scheme, running from 2005-2007, had been handled meant no reductions will have been achieved.

Aura Green Line: GM's hybrid cost cutter

Saturn's hybrid sedan costs less than other hybrid cars, but it's not worth as much either.

Consumers Plan to Employ Gas-Saving Tips to Achieve Greater Fuel Economy According to New Study

With gas prices on the rise this summer, there is no shortage of fuel economy advice available to consumers who want to save a few dollars at the pump. Drivers are often encouraged to improve their vehicle's fuel economy by reducing air conditioning use, changing filters regularly, checking tire pressure, having fuel injectors cleaned and using a fuel additive to increase engine performance. But how likely are consumers to actually use any of these gas-saving tips to help save money?

Kuwait seeks Calgary's help

State-owned Kuwait Oil Co. is looking to enlist the knowledge and expertise of Calgary-based firms to help in the development of its heavy-oil reserves with a goal of producing a total of 900,000 barrels per day by 2020, a senior KOC official told the Calgary Herald on Wednesday.

Bleak forecast for global business

Liquid fuel shortages, massive unemployment, high interest rates and severe recession.

Those are just some of the bleak prospects ahead for the global economy as our energy supplies dry up, according to a keynote speaker at the Smart 2007 supply chain conference to be held in Sydney next week.

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (review)

The problems Hubbert foresaw are compounded at every turn. There's the new-found need for oil of developing nations that once managed without it; or that none of the alternative energy sources is even nearly as useful as oil; or that no one would vote for a truthful politician who might help effect change, because the truth involves much higher petrol prices and the likelihood of a depression worse than the one in the 1930s.

Cuba's Castro Almost Fully Recovered, Chavez Says

Chavez said his country's natural gas had been "kidnapped" by the U.S., whose President George W. Bush he blamed for triggering a "global energy crisis." Chavez also criticized U.S. attempts to help replace part of its gasoline needs with biofuels as "insane," echoing Castro's statements opposing the use of food crops for fuel.

Baltics need investment to avoid electricity crisis

"In 2010, if we don't make additional investments, the Baltic states will become an energy-deficit region."

Death toll reaches 289 in sizzling Pakistan

At least 57 more people died across Pakistan due to exposure to intense heat, raising the death toll to at least 289, media reports said on Thursday.

...People battled the sizzling temperatures amid frequent power outages as the country was facing its worst ever energy crisis, with electricity demand exceeding the supply by 2,900 megawatts.

Violent protests were staged in the port city of Karachi, where a major fault in one of the electricity generating units caused power cuts that continued in some cases for 12 hours.

Pakistan: Citizens ‘shed’ anger, protest load shedding

The city witnessed riots, Wednesday as well, in protest against the unannounced load shedding of electricity.

The residents and shopkeepers, enraged with power outages, protested against the KESC by burning tires on roads and as a result, traffic was blocked for several hours.

Paksitan: Shortage of power reaches 2900MW

The countrywide electricity shortage is learnt to have increased to about 2,900MW owing mainly to continued closure of about 25 generating units across the country, adding to the misery of consumers in the sizzling temperatures.

“This is the worst energy crisis in Pakistan’s history. Accounting for almost 20 per cent of the requirement, the gap between demand and supply is even higher than the 10 per cent shortfall faced in the early 1990s,” a senior Wapda official told Dawn.

Pakistan Govt to exercise options of taking control of KESC if power crisis not overcome

Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaqat Jatoi Wednesday told the National Assembly that if Karachi Electricity Supply Company fails to control the energy crisis than the government has alternate options to take control of the corporation.

Is a federal RPS the answer?

The renewable portfolio standard amendment, put forward by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would set a national renewable energy target of 15 percent by 2030.

Scientist not all doom and gloom about climate response

The crowd nudged Alley out of his scientific cloister, asking him to recommend policies for addressing the threat that climate change presents.

Moving away from our dependence on fossil fuels for energy is an essential first step, he said. "We have to change anyway. The oil companies are very smart, and they can see peak oil from here."

Can green computers help save the world?

Computer makers are waking up to the fact that their products emit as much CO2 as aviation.

All Hail the Washing Machine

Proselytizing for suburban sprawl, Reagan administration veteran Ron Utt was once quoted in The New York Times denying that the sedentary lifestyle of suburbia contributes to obesity. Instead Utt points his finger at the washing machine, arguing, "you're fat for a lot of reasons, like the fact that you don't do laundry by hand."

It's just like a Heritage Foundation fellow to romanticize the days when soiled clothing was laboriously beaten with a paddle, scrubbed on a washboard, and then hung out to dry. It was women who did that work, both for their own families and as wage workers. And as anti-sprawl author James Howard Kunstler points out in Geography of Nowhere, it is women who so often get stuck shuttling children to and fro five times a day in our sprawling, car-dependent suburbs. The landscape of the 1950s all too often promotes the values of the 1950s.

Costs don’t stop drivers from going it alone: More than ever commute solo as suburbanites can’t change habits

WASHINGTON - More people than ever are driving alone to work as the nation's commuters balk at carpools and mass transit.

Regardless of fuel prices, housing and work patterns make it hard for suburban commuters to change their gas-guzzling ways.

...For most suburban commuters, "it's very hard to find someone to ride with, and it's very hard to find public transportation," said Alan Pisarski, author of "Commuting in America." "There aren't always a lot of options for people."

We're doing it to ourselves on oil, says Pickens

We have a tremendous demand in the United States. The United States uses 25 percent of the 85 million barrels used daily, and we have less than 5 percent of the population. So when you start to look around at who's doing it, we're doing it to ourselves. We are the ones that are using it, and we're the ones that are driving up the price.

Russia to Pump Up Oil Production by 2010

Russia will increase by 2010 its extraction of oil to 10 million 600 thousand barrels per day, according to data of the International Energy Agency (IEA) released here on Wednesday.

According to those estimates, Russian crude production could decline in 2012 to 10.5 million barrels per day.

US House Panel OKs Bill That Slows Oil, Gas Development Permitting

The U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Wednesday passed a broad energy bill that includes provisions that repeal laws designed to accelerate the oil and gas permitting process.

Industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, say they fear the bill could stunt domestic oil and gas production.

Industry watchers fear ethanol oversupply - Fast expansion, distribution issues could doom alternative energy boom

Lehman Brothers analysts estimated the surplus at about 1 million gallons per day starting in the second half of 2007. The firm’s report attributed part of that to the ethanol plant construction boom, but said transportation bottlenecks are a bigger problem.

Ethanol is produced mainly in the Midwest and has to be moved to coastal markets by train or truck since pipelines don’t exist, said Michael Waldron, a co-author of the report.

“The supply is coming online and there isn’t really an efficient way to get it to the demand centers on the East and West Coasts,” he said.

Venezuela to Seize 26 Oil Rigs, Equipment in Next Few Months

Venezuela will take back a total of 26 oil drills and related equipment in the next few months that had been leased to outside companies, an executive from state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, said Tuesday.

"It's 26 (rigs) that we will be nationalizing that are now in the hands of third parties," Jose Luis Parada, general exploration manager for PdVSA's western division, said on the sidelines of the 18th Annual Latin American Petroleum Show in Maracaibo.

He said the move, which includes hiring the rig operators, will consolidate the government's hold on the oil business.

James Woolsey on ending the oil era

Reliance on oil is a major environmental concern among industrialized nations, particularly the United States, which uses and imports more oil than any other country. Oil dependency is emerging as a major national security issue as well.

Last fall, we asked former CIA director James Woolsey for his take on ending the oil era.

The scramble for Africa's oil

Within a decade, the US will be heavily dependent on African oil. Little wonder the Pentagon is preparing a strategy for the region.

Re-evolution and the Steady State of M. King Hubbert

Integrity, intellectual honesty, courage, focus, foresight, leadership, belief in the goodness of the American people. These are descriptions that spring to mind when thinking of M. King Hubbert. He was a visionary who believed in the power of ideas and the need to use intellectual rigour to analyse and manage change. As a research geophysicist he understood the problems posed by the reality of peak oil and the cultural catastrophe that lay before humanity unless it realised the non-recurring historical nature of the growth phenomenon.

Hertz, Avis add hybrids to fleets

In an apparent race to be seen as the greenest company in the industry, car rental giants Hertz and Avis are adding thousands of new, fuel-efficient hybrid cars to their fleets this month.

BBC radio (starts about 40 minutes in)

Interviews with people putting together a transition town in Lewes (pop. 7000), studio discussion between a cornucupian in full denial and Jeremy Leggett.

Auto giants complain Congress punishing them

Major U.S. auto companies are trying, through allies in the Senate, to weaken the leading proposal for stricter fuel-efficiency standards but fear they are being punished in Congress after years of resisting such measures.

Saudi Aramco building 400,000 bpd refinery

Saudi Aramco has launched a project to build a new 400,000 barrel per day refinery that will cost $7 billion to $8 billion, the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) reported.

The new plant is scheduled to come onstream in early 2012, MEED said without giving the source of the report. It will be built on the kingdom's east coast at Ras Tanura, already the site of the Middle East's largest refinery complex.

Climate change brings toxic moth to England

A species of toxic moth which has been moving steadily north from the Mediterranean because of global warming has reached England, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew said on Wednesday.

Oilsands gain a dirty name

Now that Hollywood actors are buying carbon offsets to feel even better about their air-conditioned mansions and private jets, Canada is held in contempt for being the source of the dirtiest oil on the planet -- the oilsands.

Baptists approve global warming measure

Southern Baptists approved a resolution on global warming Wednesday that questions the prevailing scientific belief that humans are largely to blame for the phenomenon and also warns that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.