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DrumBeat: September 16, 2007
Posted by Leanan on September 16, 2007 - 9:11am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'
Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell, has issued a stark warning that the price of oil could hit $150 per barrel, with oil production peaking within the next 20 years.He accused the industry of having its head "in the sand" about the depletion of supplies, and warned: "We may be sleepwalking into a problem which is actually going to be very serious and it may be too late to do anything about it by the time we are fully aware."
A Perfect Oil Storm on the horizon
In the 2005 television docudrama “Oil Storm,” a hurricane that destroys a vital US pipeline, a tanker collision which closes a busy port, terrorist attacks and tension with Saudi Arabia lead to wild speculation, crude oil prices around USD 150 per barrel and an oil crisis that paralyses America.It’s just fiction, but not far from the truth!
What has always prevented the oil sand development has been the cost. To produce oil here you need to put almost as much energy into the sands as you get out in the form of crude, making it one of the most energy-intensive and environmentally damaging sources of fuel. That the oil sands are being developed at all epitomises the remarkable crossroads at which the world stands in terms of energy production. Plenty of oil is still out there, but it is increasingly difficult and expensive to access. This reality, usually played down by the oil industry, coincides with the rise of the 'peak oil' movement. The concept of 'peak oil' is based around the theory of M King Hubbert, a geophysicist working in the 1950s who predicted - accurately - that US oil production would peak two decades later and then enter a rapid decline. The peak oil debate grew to prominence during the high oil prices of the 1970s, but in recent years a new generation of industry experts and geologists have added their voices.
Only A U.S. Recession Can Lower Oil Price
After OPEC agreed to boost production by half a million barrels a day this week, the cartel's secretary-general, Abdalla el-Badri, came out and said that US$80 oil won't last because the fundamentals don't support it.We've heard that one before. Many people made that argument over the last four years as oil made its inexorable climb from US$30 to who-knows-what. In retrospect, they were mostly wrong.
Is the $100 barrel on its way?
Speaking in Canada last week, Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said he saw no fundamental reason why crude prices had breached such levels. "There is a lot of psychology in the price," he said.Van der Veer has a point, but he would no doubt admit that the era of cheap oil has been over for some time. While the real price of oil is still shy of its all-time peak, it is getting closer to the levels seen in the 1980s. And now that the barrier of $80 has been breached, there is a growing belief that the day of $100 oil is not that far away.
Malthus and Mein Kampf come to Cork
For those who like their environmental gloom'n'doom spread with a thick dollop of Utopian totalitarianism and garnished with a slice of Galtonian pseudo-science, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas holds its sixth annual conference in Ireland this coming week.Present will be the usual motley of silk-suited Carbohypocrites - each avidly promoting their tax-eating, alternative-energy start-ups - a gang of anti-capitalist activists, a squawk of sensescent members of the poitical elite, and a whole Bronze Age roundhouse of associated Gaia worshippers.
A flavour of what will be on offer can be had from this excerpt from one Nate Hagens of the Vermont-based Gund Institute of Ecological Economics (sic)...
World crude supply sufficient says Iran
World oil supply is sufficient and may even be more than sufficient despite the recent rise in oil prices, Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said.
South Korea: High oil prices pinch big industries
As oil prices continue to rise on limited global supply, local industries are feeling the pinch. Airlines, the shipping industry and oil refineries, which are particularly vulnerable, are adjusting to the soaring oil prices, while bracing for possible further hikes.
Questar Corp. is planning next year to build a natural gas pipeline hub in northwestern Colorado - a project that will help Utah and its neighboring states play an increasingly important role as natural gas suppliers to the nation.
About 350 gas stations in five states will lose BP name
BP isn't the first brand to leave. Conoco Phillips left parts of South Dakota early last month.
Conoco out of Fujairah project
US firm ConocoPhillips has ended its involvement in a 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery project alongside Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) in Fujairah due to increasing costs eating into possible profit margins, according to our sister publication Meed. Both Conoco and Saudi Aramco are considering scrapping a similar 400,000 bpd refinery in Yanbu for the same reason and have held talks over the project's viability.
Samsung Engineering eyes $1b Saudi orders
South Korea's Samsung Engineering Co. expects more than $1 billion in plant orders from Saudi Arabia in the last quarter of this year, a company executive said."We expect to receive two separate orders valued at more than $1 billion in Saudi Arabia in the fourth quarter to build a petrochemical plant and a refinery," Hong Sung-Il, head of Samsung Engineering's investor relations team, said on Thursday.
Iraq to start deliveries of discounted oil
Iraq is to start this week delivering oil to Jordan at preferential rates under a delayed year-old agreement, the kingdom’s transport minister said in an interview published on Sunday.
China to supply Nepal with petroleum products
Accepting the plea of Nepal government, the Chinese authorities said that they were ready to export petroleum products to Nepal.
Mexico: Investors, industrialists shrug off pipeline blasts
The July bombings were downplayed as a single shot by an oddball insurgent group. But after last week's attacks, Mexican officials' comments contained hints that they can't do much to stop it from happening again, at least in the short term.
Problem dams on the rise in US
The Kaloko dam in Hawaii stood 116 years – until last year when it collapsed after heavy rains, killing seven.Potential disaster was averted in April in Hollis, N.H., when a dozen families were evacuated and engineers made a controlled breach of an old pond dam to keep it from failing.
Such incidents are warning signs that many of the nation's more than 87,000 dams are in need of repair. Last month's high-profile collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis focused America's attention on bridge problems. The nation's dams are worse off.
Is it too late to stop the ethanol con job?
Biofuels aren't living up to their hype. By now, it's obvious they won't cure the planet of its oil addiction or take the edge off global warming - two of the alleged advantages touted by the biofuel industry. Biofuels may even be harming the planet.
Official: Russian Fuel Ready for Iran
Enriched uranium fuel is ready to be shipped from Russia to Iran's first nuclear power plant, state television on Sunday quoted Iran's foreign minister as saying.
Ben Bova: It’s up to government to promote alternative energy
Factories are not going to be powered by windmills or solar cells. Neither will big cities such as New York or Tokyo. For such intense consumers of electrical power, the only possible replacement for fossil fuels is nuclear.
At an isolated rig in the South Australian outback, hope is growing that a clean way to fuel the future can be drawn from hot rocks thousands of metres below the Earth's surface.
McGuinty looking to hydrogen-fuelled GO trains
The Ontario government is talking to Bombardier Transportation about funding the development of one of the world's first hydrogen-powered trains, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.
This Year's Winner: Don't Flush Good Water After Bad
There are lots of folks who know the war isn't over and are doing their part to waste less, be it energy, water, food or another resource. They get that each individual effort is important to the cause. And it was those people I wanted to hear from in soliciting entries for my Penny Pincher of the Year contest.
Early woodsmen used highway of ice
The new railroads should have solved the fuel problem, but they didn't. In December 1879, the Salt Lake Daily Herald explained why: The big railroad companies stopped acting as common carriers of coal; they only shipped fuel from their own mines.
Ammunition costs more; some calibers are scarce
A big jump in the cost of ammunition in the last two years is hampering both the suppliers and users of the bullets.Suppliers and dealers blame high fuel prices, the demand for ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan and China's demand for copper, lead and brass — key components of a firearm cartridge.
American leaders are oil addicted
When President Bush proclaimed that "America is addicted to oil" in the 2006 State of the Union address, he confused the issue. It is not the American public that is addicted to oil, but its leaders.
Carolyn Baker - Collapse Happens: Exploring Options, Spotlighting "Earthwise Farm & Forest"
People come to us to learn about designing and building their own homes, understanding off-grid power systems, composting toilets and grey-water systems, on-farm slaughtering, bio-dynamic practices, spiritual gardening, dowsing, forest management, grazing systems, food preparation, timber harvesting, and working draft animals. We recognize that perhaps the most valuable product of our farm is our experience. We do not promote ourselves as possessing the "Right Way". We have skills, and we are glad to share them with people who value the learning.
Global climate change, ozone layer are tied: UN official
A meeting of signatories to the Montreal Protocol could make a "historic gesture" by working simultaneously to restore the ozone layer and halt global warming, a UN official said in an interview published Saturday.
Sorting the wood from the trees in climate change
The timber industry is pushing for wider recognition of the role of carbon stored in wood products as a legitimate climate response. Wood is becoming a significant contributor to the overall energy profile, particularly in Europe, and this is pushing up the price of timber.
Tax proposed for gas-guzzling cars in UK
Britain's Treasury chief plans to introduce a "purchase tax" of up to $4,000 on the most polluting vehicles, The Sunday Times reported.
Is California the world's last best hope against climate change?
Despite the Golden State's energy meltdown just seven years ago - remember the rolling blackouts, bankruptcies and the shenanigans of Enron and company? - all eyes today are again focused on California and its radical legislative agenda addressing the largest energy challenge of all: global climate change.
Australia says some water cuts permanent
Some water restrictions introduced in Australia's most populous state because of a long-running drought will become permanent because of the threat of global warming, officials said Sunday.Banned forever will be the practice of hosing pathways and the daytime use of sprinklers to water lawns and gardens.
Ancient records help test climate change
Diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardized thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today's climate. Historical accounts were once largely ignored, as they were thought to be fraught with inaccuracy or were simply inaccessible or illegible. But the booming interest in climate change has transformed the study of ancient weather records from what was once a "wallflower science," says Christian Pfister, a climate historian at the University of Bern.
'Ancient records'? Striking that text from 400 years ago is 'ancient,' considering how truly ancient the carbon we are returning to the atmosphere is. All part of a couple of century old, truly planetary scaled experiment, even if most of us seem unaware that we are active particpants in it, likely having effects spanning over geological time, not some trivial period measured in 10 or a 1000 human generations.
Oh, THIS outta take one TOD's posters underware and get it all cinched up. (As if it works.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.htm...
About time someone repealed one of the basic laws underlying physics.
Of course, in all fairness, it is possible that some sort of chemical action is taking place, especially with that 'secret liquid catalyst' and potassium carbonate (color me very sceptical, though).
"It sounds too good to be true - not to mention the fact that it violates almost every known law of physics."
SOLD! I can't turn down investing in something that teaches those scientists and mother nature a thing or to. The almighty dollar knows no bounds.
Plus I hear the secret ingredient is fossil fuels.
Kind've reminds me of The Matrix where the second law is defied, as explained by Morpheus, by them using humans combined with a form of fusion for powering those evil machines.
So that's like going to an airline pilot and asking him how the plane flies, only for him to reply "Why, by the use of rubber bands combined with two 120 kN turbofans running on JP-8".
Some other guy had similar claims about hydrinos, or hydrogen atoms that are at a lower state than ground state. *Shrug* We cant even make a unified theory after 110 years of trying, much less fully understand what causes gravity....
"Some other guy had similar claims about hydrinos, or hydrogen atoms that are at a lower state than ground state."
Good ol' Blacklight Power
http://www.blacklightpower.com/
Some other guy had similar claims about hydrinos, or hydrogen atoms that are at a lower state than ground state.
'Round these here parts that is what Airdale tells us.
Basic physics aside the article and the schema don't explain one thing: they claim that the reaction is taking place in a mixture of water, potassium carbonate and that "secret catalyst". After the heated water escapes, obviously the dissolved carbonate and "secret catalyst" also escape with it... where does the device continuously inject those compounds in the incoming water? How much would I need for a liter? Per joule of produced heat? Were they factored in the EROEI? Oh right, they can't because that catalyst is a secret... LOL
From the diagram, it looks like the reaction fluid does not escape from the device. The energy is transfered to the water flowing via a heat exchanger. The result may be a very efficient water heater, but the claim that there's more energy produced than that of the electric supply would violate basic physics. It should be very easy to test the claim that this device produces more energy than that supplied, so one must consider the statements by the university folks to be of some merit.
E. Swanson
Ooops. You are right, the diagram shows just that.
In this case the question remains where does the extra energy come from? If it is indeed from some undiscovered lower energy state of water, then how long before the water in the initial mix becomes "exhausted"? Or it endlessly goes down the energy curve?!? Could this be some sort of cold fusion? Either way sounds like a complete BS to me.
I thought it was perfectly obvious: the energy surplus is being tapped from another dimension. Imagine their outrage when the beings from that dimension discover what we're up to...
LOL! Didn't you borrow this from one of the Asimov's novels? "The Gods Themselves"?
It's gonna be the thiotimoline with it's four bonds at 90 degrees to each other that saves us, right?
--
All these memories will be lost in time
like tears in rain
You can buy ground source and air source heat pumps that put out via an exchanger 1:3 to 1:5 energy in for heat output (of course they take the heat from the air or ground). I've been lookign at a DIY one in the UK:
http://www.cooleasy.co.uk/product-wall.htm eg 1Kw elec. in, 3.3-3.6Kw heat out
The problem is that natural gas is still very much cheaper than electricity (in the UK anyway) for heating your house/water so these devices would only become viable if the price of the heating fuel relative to that of electricity was to go up. OR// if you have no natural GAS!
This device seems to be achieving the same result (if not quite as efficient) as the heat pump idea - except they don't know where the extra energy is coming from in this case.
Marco.
Furthermore the article says 'heating bills could be slashed in half' - this would only be the case if your house/water was heated by electricity alone. Most people I know in the UK gave up electric (white meter) heating in the late 80's and switched to GCH/OCH.
Marco.
The inventor holds this patent for a similar device from 1998:
http://www.primeideas.info/patents/PART51.pdf
If the device puts out more energy than you put into it, what happens when you hook two of 'em together in a loop? Mushroom cloud? Meltdown? Rift in spacetime?
A great investment opportunity, a solution to the subprime melt down and a means for America to repay her debts. It's an energy Viagra without the Viagra.
What is the EROEI on the catalyst? I am given to understand that the productions of chrome involves a heating process that uses silicon or aluminium.
Silicon is commercially prepared by the reaction of high-purity silica with wood, charcoal, and coal, in an electric arc furnace using carbon electrodes - using fossil fuel energys.
Aluminum is also energy intensive to make with an "average specific energy consumption of approximately 15±0.5 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of aluminium produced from alumina. (52 to 56 MJ/kg). The most modern smelters reach approximately 12.8 kW·h/kg (46.1 MJ/kg)." (from wikki)
On the face of things it looks good, but what the real costs are, and how long the unit and its catalyst last need to be known for a fair evaluation.
Chrome, as a heavy metal might also be a significant source of polution in the istance that these should become common place And that the catalyst had to be regularly disgarded.
The story about former Shell chairman Lord Oxburgh with which Leanan led off ("Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'") is also posted at David Strahan's website: www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=46
(Sometimes the Independent site is slow).
David Strahan has also post a full length interview with Lord Oxburgh at his site: www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=40.
(Also mentioned by Chris Vernon at TOD: Europe).
Bart
Energy Bulletin
Seems to me (from reading the linked article) that Lord O is warning oil companies that oil prices significantly higher than they are today (in adjusted dollars) will bring lots more players into the game and endanger oil company bottom lines.
He also has, IMHO, a rational outlook on PEAK!!!. (Quick! Dig caves and store potatoes!)
His take - it will happen sometime, the exact time is not important, demand will continue to increase relative to supply, but oil will be available for a long, long time.
I think he's either 1) warning oil companies to not get too greedy, or 2) advising oil companies to diverse and make sure they have some of their capital in alternative fuels, or 3) a bit of both.
I agree with Lord Oxburgh as shown in the forecast below. I think that production has hit plateau now and that oil prices could reach $150/barrel by end of 2010. Demand could outstrip supply in the next few months.
click to enlarge, updated for 0.5 mbd OPEC quota increase and for IEA Sep 2007 OMR. For a full forecast please click here
However, in an interview with Barron's today
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB118981092541828147.html?mod=9_0031_b...
Rothman of ISI group
http://www.isigrp.com/corp/dec2005/miker.jsp
thinks that oil prices will go to $US45/barrel. I don't think so...
If the Mises blog people ever find out about the ideas of Jay Hansen's http://www.warsocialism.com site.....
If the world worked like the 'free market' they are pushing - there would be costs if their ideas were wrong and those costs would be bore by them and them alone. Alas, this shall not be the case.
Thank you.
Like reading a mathematical equation.
The greatest event in our lives is about to take
place.
"Since the end of 2005, the number of
allied troops has declined 20 months in a row, by an average of about 575 troops per month, and
is now at its lowest point of the entire war. If the trends of the last 20 months continue, the
number of non-US allied troops will reach zero early in the next administration."
-mindshaftgap_iraq_surge.pdf
Libertarians. I used to be one, more or less. IME, it goes with techno-cornucopianism. If you believe that technology can solve any problem, then the libertarian view makes sense. Once I started wondering "Where's my flying car?" and realized technology, too, is subject to declining marginal returns, I lost my interest in libertarianism.
Leanan, another recovering Libertarian! Spending three months on the South Side of Chicago (a ghetto) turned me around.
But gotta be fair to Libertarians. There are many Libertarians who write much better on peak oil than the one posting at the Mises site.
Bart
"I ... realized technology, too, is subject to declining marginal returns"
That might be true were there no new technological discoveries/breakthroughs.
It might be that we're currently at a stage where changes in petroleum technology might be only small tweaks. But we're currently in what seems to be the early stages of a huge technological expansion via nano-technology.
Don't confuse a slow period in a varying curve with cruising to a stop. Things can accelerate quite suddenly.
It's technological discoveries/breakthroughs that I'm talking about. Science is subject to the same rules of discovery as oil is: the low-hanging fruit is picked first.
Only if there's enough energy.
My bet is the singularity ain't coming.
"It's technological discoveries/breakthroughs that I'm talking about. Science is subject to the same rules of discovery as oil is: the low-hanging fruit is picked first."
Not at all. It's highly unlikely that there are any major oil fields waiting to be discovered.
One can not say, with any degree of certainty, the same for scientific discovery.
We're somewhere on a rapidly accelerating slope of new scientific discoveries. Research is no longer limited to a few major universities/labs in the west. The whole world is churning away. And our ability to process data is increasing at an incredible rate.
Oil is (most likely) on its downslope.
Disagree.
Disagree. Tainter has written a lot about this. We are spending more and more money on research, for less and less return.
And yet, technology is still slowing down. PhD dissertations have become "islands of trivia in a sea of minutiae." The "elephants" - the small cost, big benefit discoveries - have already been made.
The parallel with oil production is quite striking to me. The whole world is churning away. Yet we aren't getting the returns we used to.
First off, I agree with all of Leanan's disagreements. Well said, Leanan.
I have been wondering for some time if the reason for the techno-fix belief system is not due to extrapolating Moore's Law too widely.
The law of diminishing returns applies more than Moore's Law in regards to energy sources.
So your suggesting that we, as a society and intelligent race, are approaching they very cusp of scientific knowledge available in the world? Peak Tech?
Yes. And I'm not the only one.
I think the complexity that supports our technology depends on cheap, abundant energy.
If we did somehow discover a new source of cheap energy - say, aliens landed tomorrow and gave us Star Trek matter-antimatter reactors - then we could probably continue for awhile longer. Maybe quite awhile longer. Eventually, though, we'd hit a limit again. Knowledge may be unlimited, but useful knowledge...probably not.
So say we had cheap nuclear fusion power available now. Would we still never get any 'smarter' than that? :P
So, say my auntie had balls... she'd be my uncle right?
--
All these memories will be lost in time
like tears in rain
Nice paraphrasing :)
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
"..and gave us Star Trek matter-antimatter reactors"
Now, I might be wrong here...but I believe the matter/antimatter reactor was for the warp drive. The ships main power came from the fusion reactors ;)
Dang, I thought it was Trilithium crystals...