DrumBeat: May 31, 2008
Posted by Gail the Actuary on May 31, 2008 - 8:35am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Oil prices could hit $200 a barrel in the next few months. How the spike changes everything.
This spring, America hit a historic point. With average gas prices per gallon edging toward $4, America's notoriously profligate ways started to change fast. Americans are driving less, using mass transit more, buying fewer gas guzzlers, indeed shopping less wantonly in general, and lowering their previously unshakable confidence as consumers. Suddenly, Americans are acting differently; if not exactly like Swedes, then not quite like themselves, either. It's a shift that could change the world.
Boston: MegaBus yesterday charged into the ultracheap bus wars with an offer hard to beat - a free ride to the Big Apple.Like BoltBus, which rolled out service last month, MegaBus offers at least one seat per bus on its Boston-to-New York route for $1. Other seats cost up to $14 each way. Chinatown rival Lucky Star matched the fares.
Haynesville Shale: Penn Virginia natural gas well hits big
Shares of natural gas producer Penn Virginia Corp. soared nearly 19 percent after an East Texas well showed the ability to produce as much as 15 million cubic feet per day.
The Radnor, Pa.-based company's Fogle 5-H, a well drilled 11,378 feet vertically in Harrison County and 3,861 feet horizontally, had an initial production rate of about 8 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, which was greater than expected.
Pipeline capacity constraints currently limit production to about 5 million cubic feet per day. But increased pipeline capacity, expected in July, will enable an initial production rate of 10 million to 15 million cubic feet per day, the Philadelphia-area company said.
QUEENSLAND'S sugar growers increasingly could diversify into more lucrative crops given fears global sugar prices are set to continue their slide as a prolonged supply glut is worsened by easing demand.
Push for ethanol hits grain supplies
Farming industry leaders and analysts say the push by governments to ensure 10 per cent of petrol is made up of biofuels such as ethanol will leave the nation critically short of grain.They claim that despite assurances by the NSW and Queensland governments and the biofuels industry that it would use only plant waste for ethanol, tens of thousands of tonnes of animal feed-quality grain and wheat starch are being used to make the taxpayer-subsidised fuel.
Amazing coal seam gas bubble may burst
Turning coal seam gas into liquefied natural gas is a promising technology -- but nobody has actually produced large amounts from it so far and the projects now in focus will take several years to bear fruit.Companies with strong LNG expertise might have the patience and resources to see their investments through. For ordinary shareholders, impatience -- cashing out now to take advantage of the dizzying rise in the sector's share prices over the past two days -- would be smarter.
Tourism hit by fuel costs, economic downturn
The last time the tourism industry was hit by an economic downturn was after the Asian crisis in 2000.But that will be just a blip compared to what operators are now facing, says Paul Yeo, head of the inbound tour operators council and the travel agents' association. . . Yeo reckons the last time New Zealand's tourism industry faced such strong headwinds as it does now was in the years after the 1987 sharemarket crash.
WoodMac: Climate bill would affect gas processors, cut production
WASHINGTON, DC, May 30 -- Global climate change legislation due to reach the US Senate floor as soon as next week could reduce natural gas supplies and greatly increase prices, concluded a study by Wood Mackenzie Ltd., Edinburgh.The study, commissioned by the American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), examined consequences of a provision inserted into S. 2191 that would require gas processors to buy cap-and-trade program gas emission allowances for ultimate end-users (OGJ, Apr. 7, 2008, p. 80). Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) introduced the original bill Oct. 18, 2007.
US drilling dips below 22-year high
US drilling activity slipped below a 22-year high this week with 1,877 rotary rigs working, 12 less than the prior week but up from 1,774 units a year ago, said Baker Hughes Inc.The decline was primarily in land drilling, down 11 to 1,788 active rigs. Inland waters activity dipped by 1 rig to 22. Offshore drilling increased by 1 rig to 65 in the Gulf of Mexico, but the total count in US waters was unchanged at 67.
Among the rigs still working, 1,479 were drilling for natural gas, 390 for oil, and 8 were unclassified. Directional drilling increased by 3 rigs to 388. Horizontal drilling declined by 11 to 533.
No respite with huge fuel hike
Johannesburg - The retail price of petrol will increase by 50c a litre on Wednesday next week, according to a statement from the Department of Minerals and Energy on Wednesday.This follows the 55c a litre increase last month. The price of unleaded petrol in Gauteng thereby increases to 996c a litre and to 972c at the coast.
Govt to decide on fuel price hike today
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister AK Antony, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister Murli Deora deliberated over options for nearly two hours on Friday evening. None of them commented on the issue.However, options that are believed to have been discussed are of raising petrol price by Rs 3, 4, 5 or 7 a litre and diesel by Rs 1, 2, 3 and 4 per litre. Besides, a Rs 20 per cylinder hike in domestic LPG price may also be proposed.
Global biofuel output to soar:
Paris • Global production of biofuels will rise rapidly over the next decade, helped by high government blending targets and subsidies, the OECD and the UN’s FAO food agency said in a report published yesterday.These rises will boost already soaring world agricultural commodities prices and their availability for food and feed, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organisation said in co-drafted report. “With a biofuel output that should more than double over the next 10 years, according to the most conservative estimates, the pressure on agriculture will flare up,” Jacques Diouf, head of the Rome-based FAO, said.
Gazprom calculated that production cost of 1.000 cubic meters of gas at the Yamal peninsula equals to $91 compared with $7-10 at older large gas fields that the monopoly inherited from the Soviet Union. As to the Arctic shelf, these figures may double, or even triple. So, mining will be efficient only if energy carriers prices go up, which is hard to imagine now.
The yesterday’s meeting of TNK-BP BOD was aimed to decide on employment of CEO Robert Dudley and Executive Director German Khan but ended by a scandal. Russia’s holders left the meeting stripping it of required quorum. Formally, the third party is yet outside the conflict, but the RF government is forging an instrument already. A new criminal case is likely to be initiated to extent to both Russia’s and Britain’s managers of TNK-BP, including Robert Dudley.
Iceland is still shaking with aftershocks from the big quake
With Iceland being located on the junction of the Eurasian and North American Tectonic plates, large parts of the country are volcanically active. Some of the volcanoes even erupt with somewhat regular intervals. Consequently the Icelandic Meteorological Office keeps a close watch on all seismoligical activity in Iceland. The image from their website shows the current and last 48 hours’ level of activity with yesterday’s large earthquake, magnitude of 6.1 - 6.3, literally off the chart. The green stars on the map represent quakes over 3 on the Richter scale.
Shocked! How the oil crisis has hit the world
British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.
Oil price profiteering to be curbed at ICE Futures Europe and Nymex
Two of the world's largest energy exchanges have forced traders to deposit significantly more money when investing to curb volatility in energy markets and drive out speculators.
Funding bonanza for oil-from-algae firm
Sapphire CEO and co-founder, Jason Pyle, is being cagey about revealing how much it costs to produce his algae-based product or how much it would cost at the petrol pump. In interviews, he indicated that production costs per barrel would be similar to petroleum-based fuel, which is very much a moving target at the moment.
Energy boss with the wind in his sails
But can he be happy that half his term has gone by and his industry is beginning to resemble a bunch of turbines becalmed by lack of wind at a time when traditional alternatives such as oil are more than $130 a barrel?
A four-cylinder solution to the mid-size crisis
As the cost of putting a tiger in the tank keeps going up, drivers are opting for a smaller cat under the hood.Small-car sales have been a rare pocket of strength for the slumping auto industry in recent months as Americans sought relief from sky-high gasoline prices. But many buyers are sticking with mid-size or larger vehicles and choosing a smaller engine instead -- saving money on the sticker price and at the pump without downsizing their ride.
A drop in oil, and a pall in Germany, give solar stocks a shiver
Crude futures slid more than $4 a barrel, and when anxiety about fossil fuel supply eases, alt-energy shares often wilt. The other issue has been less discussed. Despite its gray skies, Germany has used public-sector largesse to become a leader in solar installations. Here's the worry: If lawmakers in Berlin quicken planned subsidy cuts, as they are contemplating, solar's future gets cloudy in a key locale.
The Huge Hybrid: Few Takers for a New S.U.V. Twist
General Motors and Chrysler are betting that their 5,500-pound, eight-seat S.U.V.’s — long the scourge of environmentalists — can be reformed as hybrid models, albeit ones getting 20 miles to the gallon.
As Iowa Job Surplus Grows, Workers Call the Shots
Last year, the state added nearly 13,000 nonfarm jobs, in part because of growth in ethanol and wind energy, and lost 3,300 people from the workforce. With statewide unemployment at 3.5 percent, compared to a national rate of 5 percent, nearly everyone who wants to work and can work has a job. “We’re looking for ways to grow our population,” Ms. Buck said.
It’s Easier to Be Green if It Also Saves Money
One quick way to save gasoline is to drive less.
In normal times, the number of miles driven in the United States rises each year, as more people drive more cars and as rising housing costs force some commuters to move farther and farther from their jobs.But the Federal Highway Administration estimates that in March — the most recent month for which data is available — vehicles traveled 246 billion miles. That is a lot of driving, but the figure is down 4.3 percent from the previous March.
Oil bubble could prove threat to pension funds
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pension funds and other investors who rushed into oil through commodity indexes this year chasing big returns as other asset classes tanked could face steep losses if prices fall from record highs.An avalanche of cash has rolled into commodities through simple long-only indexes this year, feeding the record-setting oil rally some experts say could be a bubble that is becoming more vulnerable to shifts in supply and demand fundamentals.
More critically, the bill, which also calls on companies to reduce their carbon emissions by about 66% by 2050, will drive up both the demand and the price of natural gas (a low-carbon alternative) to unprecedented levels, which will in turn further erode the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Limited natural gas supply capacity will pit power-sector purchases in direct competition with demand from the residential, commercial and farm sectors. . . .None of this would be a problem if we had plenty of natural gas production capacity, but U.S. production of the commodity is fragile, despite record well completions.
Russia - Power, Manufacturing Building Natural Gas Demand, Says RNCOS
A new research report, “Russian Oil and Natural Gas Industry”, from RNCOS, a leading market research company, predicts Russia’s domestic natural gas consumption to grow at a CAGR of 4% from 2008 to 2012. . .
The RNCOS research also says that Russia might see a rise in gas prices in coming years but the consumers will remain relatively inelastic towards price growth. Thus, the gas demand will not slump; rather, it will steadily increase in future. Consequently, the Russian natural gas industry will overwork to add to the current production level during 2008-2012. In addition, independent natural gas producers are expected to post high growth in future due to government support.
Michigan peak oil conference begins today
The International Conference on Peak Oil and Climate Change: Paths to Sustainability begins today in Grand Rapids, Michigan with an introduction by U.S. Congressional Peak Oil Caucus member Vern Ehlers and a keynote by Dr. David Goodstein, author of Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. . .
The conference starts at 5 p.m. today and runs through 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 1 at the Calvin College Fine Arts Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Additional information is available at the web site: PeakOilConference.org.
You Think Flying Is Bad Now...
Something has to give as airlines adjust to $130 oil and brace for a record yearly loss. Not all of the majors will survive. . .
This consolidation will come with a cost: Experts believe that for the U.S. industry to shrink to a size that would allow the surviving carriers to earn a profit will require hefty fare hikes and a 20%-to-25% cut in capacity. That means fewer routes, fewer flights, and even more crowded planes. The biggest losers would be smaller cities like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Baton Rouge, La., that became accustomed to dozens of daily flights, usually on 50-seat jets that the majors use to feed traffic to their hubs. But oil priced near $130 has rendered those smaller jets uneconomical, meaning that carriers are likely to fly one much larger plane on marginal routes each day, but no more. "We might keep one flight just to keep Congress off our back," muses one industry executive.
Coast-to-coast flights will change, too. With roughly 30% of the weight of any transcontinental flight consisting of the fuel alone, meaning airlines are burning fuel just to carry fuel, carriers can be expected to replace many of those longer nonstops with one-stop flights, intended largely for refueling.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
Good discussion of Peak Oil/Peak Exports in Part One of Hour #3.
IMO Puplava and Co. are criminally dismissive of AGW, Polution in general, the pain that the "free market" inflicts on the lower income 90% of the population.
Their solution is drill everywhere and burn more coal.
Of course they have a pretty huge inve$tment in BAU which is why I believe that the concept of protecting "store of wealth" is what garantees that we go screaming up to the edge of the cliff.
OTOH, they are money managers and offer investment advice-you can logically only compare them to their competitors, a majority of which are bunco artists and grifters.
Ultimately I think the drill/mine more energy for the sake of keeping modern man running is going to win over any environmental concerns. Money and power really do make the world go round - and we will unfortunately be dragged kicking and screaming into a low carbon age.....but not one where carbon rationing has happened because of green concerns.
There is talk all over the world (especially here in the UK) of revisiting all those previously uneconomical coal seams.
Also carbon sequsetration will remain the echelon of the ever hopefull greens and big corps mouthing off about new green technology to seem like they are doing something (whilst actually doing virtually nothing.)
I can't remember specific figures but BP's "green" investment is a drop in the ocean compared to their total profit. Disgusting? Yes but then the shareholders and director always come first.
Furthermore the NOC's don't give amonkeys about being green.
Marco.
True, but economic descent will make such moves difficult, as will energy descent (eg South Africa) and possibly Climate Change too (eg. Australia). These overlapping crises will make doing anything extremely difficult. Especially for the UK which would be facing serious problems even without the aforementioned crises.
Governments are going to be in a funk, bombarded from all sides and trying to appease a very angry population (especially the poverty stricken former middle-class). In the UK the impact has hardly been felt and Gordon Brown's popularity is already at lows not seen since the 1940's.
I think there is a general underestimate of just how bad things are going to get (no I don't mean Mad Max bad) and that what we have today and what we are capable of doing today will somehow still be the same in the future. It won't, it will be gone. Economics is the Command and Control system for our civilisation, its destruction via the economic collapse will leave us as helpless as an army without communications.
Yes, things will be attempted, there will be successes and of course enormous failures, but overall it will all be lost in the overarching chaos.
"Their solution is drill everywhere and burn more coal."
As oil detoxification takes hold, the junkies will not be rational. I suspect it will get weirder and weirder with every uptick in price. The longer I study the subject and the response of our society to the issue, the bigger doomer I become.
Amen to that. Character (or lack thereof) determines destiny.
WT, is the Newsweek article the one you couldn't talk about a few days ago? This is really the MSM dropping the sugar coating and beginning to tell it straight.
Hope for motorists:
Ivanhoe Energy
Ivanhoe Energy has successfully tested a patented technology that upgraded Athabasca bitumen feedstock to 19 API pipeline ready heavy oil. The technology might be used in tar sands areas to upgrade bitumen onsite for pipeline transport to refineries eliminating the need for diluent pipelines from refineries currently used to transport bitumen downstream of existing tar sands SAGD bitumen extraction facilities. The upgrade process produced distillate rich heavy oil and enough petroleum gases & C-5 naptha to fuel the upgrader and to power steam generators used to extract bitumen underground using proven SAGD methods without consuming any natural gas.
http://www.ivanhoe-energy.com/i/pdf/2008_WHOC.pdf
This above ground technology is a major step change in the oil industry and might provide pipeline ready heavy oil in the years to come as many conventional light oil fields continue to decline in production.
If you want to "upgrade" long hydrocarbon molecules to shorter ones you have to add hydrogen at some point. If not "upstream" then "downstream", i.e. at the refinery at the other end of the pipeline. The usual source of this hydrogen is natural gas. Theoretically the hydrogen source could be water, but that would require even more energy, that would have to come from something, e.g. coal or nuclear. In this case they probably are just trying to get around the limited amoung of NG available "upstream".
This process cracks the longer molecules. The plant only did the lowest part of the upgrading to 19 API. It incorporated a process called fluid cracking and fluid coking. There was some coke produced as a result of the operation. There was also a desulphurization unit to remove sulphur from the emissions. There was less surface disturbance and no tailings ponds to clean up. The layers containing tar sands are already polluted with the oil that occurs in a natural formation.
Another company called Petrobank has been trying underground THAI fireflood recovery. Other companies tried vertical fireflood methods for decades then gave up as SAGD appeared better to them. Per a recent presentation they have been able to get an average 12 API oil (12 is heavier than 19). This is similar to the API grade output that Suncor gets from its SAGD Firebag steaming operations. In the lab tests of the THAI process the initial API output was supposed to be higher (lighter oil). In the field testing the lab process cannot be duplicated. There is also a problem with sand production and irregular flow of liquids.
In a previous Drumbeat (maybe six weeks ago) a story described difficulty with the THAI -Toe to Heel Air Injection- process having big emissions problem. Too much air pollution and CO2 coming out with the bitumen. THAI does not look promissing for getting tar out of the sand in Alberta.
I did as much research as I could about the THAI process and after learning that the API increase in the process was less than what the initial lab tests suggested was possible, became skeptical. Later I learned of sand control issues. More recently there were issues about well control and well flow stated without quantitative data to define the situation. Am not sure whether or not these issues will be resolved. They seem to be planning as if the issues might be resolved, yet cannot state they have solved these problems. Their holdings in the Bakken field might help them generate cash flow while they try to resolve their issues.
if something sounds too good to be true........, well, you know.
the fortunate thing for petrobank is that their heavy oil operations are a small part of their business. they are doing very well in columbia, or so it would appear.
From the article, it sounds like they're getting the hydrogen from the feedstock itself, disproportionating the tar into lighter hydrocarbons and coke. It doesn't necessarily require the addition of water, but apparently does involve quite a lot of "cooking". And of course all that cooking is going to lower the EROEI of your product.
I am not a chemical engineer, but as a mechanical engineer with some background in chemistry I do understand what they are doing with this "HTL" process. The main advantage is the elimination of using natural gas in the ugrading of Bitumen to heavy oil for shipment to a refinery. The energy for the upgrading comes from boiling off the lighter fractions produced by this process and using them for heat source and hydrogen source instead of natural gas.
I see economic advantages to HTL by omitting high priced natural gas from upgrade process. Also the use of sand as a heat transfer media/carbon collection in vacuum process distillation is also beneficial. Main problems I see with this is that EROEI may be no better than current Bitumen upgrade methods using nat. gas. The fact that the residual coke is burned in this HTL process to make heat and clean sand may produce a large amount of CO2. So, in a nutshell the HTL process makes the oil from tar sands cheaper, but not necessaily more energy efficient and likely worse for AGW.
Most of the green house gas CO2 from oil comes from burning fuel in the gas/diesel tank, something most people have no problems with. Al Gore burned more gasoline and jet fuel in a year in his travels than over 90% of the world's population. Other people have justified their use of fuel also. Some have stated that if we were to stop using hydrocarbons at once we could not stop the effects of global warming as it might take decades or longer for the stuff to be removed from the air. Every time there is a flood, hurricane, or drought some blamed it on global warming. Are there any areas that might gain from global warming? A true expert might be able to quote any benefits warming might bring.
I have read of sea level rise of 1.8 mm per year. That means in 100 years the sea level might rise a foot and a half, unless as theorized sea level rise accelerates. Coastal erosion happened without sea level rise and is normal for some coastal areas. Wave erosion removed land mass on a regular basis while at the mouth of the Mississipi River new land mass was created. Other changes in coastal areas are due to the rising and falling of the earth's crust as the land masses and ocean floor are not static, but moving. The movements were not only horizontal but vertical.
People were currently demanding gasoline, not in pleased to be asked to give up its use to prevent global warming. One might not win an election by promising to ban the use of hydrocarbons.
Activists Keep the Faith, if Not Their Money
God may move in mysterious ways, but in this case it is fairly obvious. S/He provided legs for us to move around on. I can only imagine S/He is utterly indifferent to the price of gasoline at the pump.
Either that or it's that God's taste in cars is not SUVs...
I just had a mental image of the Gary Larson version of God, driving a Prius convertible with His long white beard flapping in the wind...
Sustainable Aviation ?
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/06/solar-impulse-solar-powered-plane-is...
Alan
NASA/NOAA had one of those too called Helios, it crashed off Hawaii. It was unmanned though. I can never get it from the press releases, do they have enough power to take off on their own?
The main problem with flight by solar energy is the power output of solar panels versus the power required to maintain flight. Speed equals drag and this plane has a top speed of 40 mph, so to get to 200 mph top speed the power required is 125 times greater because aerodynamic frontal drag goes up at the cube of the speed.
So to be competitive with high speed rail (200mph) the plane would need to have a wing area the size of six US football fields. Or if solar cells could be made three times as efficient, the wing size would need to be the size of two football fields. However, as wing size increases so does drag, thus maybe four football field size wing is required. And this is for only carrying two people on a plane that cost $50 million? The solar powered plane, even battery enhanced, is someones dream that will never transition to practical transporation.
I find a solar and sail powered ship to be more intriguing.
History shows that a 5 mast schooner (say 4,000 tons) to be most efficient.
Add solar PV to the deck, sides and perhaps even the sail (or a couple of sails). Smallish battery serves also as ballast. Powers auxiliary loads (microwave for cooking, refrigeration, lighting, computers, etc.) and a small electric drive. Once batteries are full, divert solar PV to the propeller.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I sailed on a 40' catamaran out of SoCal that two of these for aux. propulsion;
http://www.solomontechnologies.com/wheel.htm
We powered for about 45 min. out of the marina and out the channel.
Sailed for several hours and powered back in.
Battery bank had more power in them than when we left.
Not free energy as we were paying the price of drag while sailing but certainly a workable fishing fleet model.
Best hopes for fisheries recovery.
Energy requirement for flight is drag times speed, times the efficiency of propulsion. These solar planes are supposed to be high altitude communications or surveilence applications. They are supposed to stay up for weeks, i.e. batteries for use at night. The altitude is high enough to avoid most clouds. Unfortunately the arrangement is pretty flimsy and turbulance can be catastrophic.
We could go back to prop planes. The old prop engines use a third of the fuel as jets do. The only problem is no one is manufacturing them anymore.
Bombardier (based in Montreal) is the world's third largest manufacturer of commercial aircraft (after Boeing and Airbus). They make a complete line of turboprops as well as regional jets.
Bombardier Turoprops
It would seem that the decision to make commercial aviation fly as close to the speed of sound a practical is going to have severe drawbacks. This only made sense if the price of fuel does not dominate costs, but it looks like that is rapidly becoming untrue. It looks like aviation, as well as the automobile industry has driven blindly into peak oil. Had we not had the likes of CERA and IEA selling the don't worry be happy story they might have had some designs for the era of expensive fuel ready to trot out.
You are making a false assumption, namely that commercial jets traveling at Mach 0.8 and thereabouts at high altitude are less efficient than turboprops flying at lower altitudes. They aren't. Depending on the service, in fact, jets can be more efficient.
Do the research if you don't believe me. I think you'll find even the most efficient turboprops don't do any better than 70 passenger-mpg-gasoline-equivalent with all seats filled (I know, strange units, as they burn jet fuel, not gasoline, but the units are useful for comparing with cars). The A320 and B737NG do about the same. The big difference is that the turboprop can achieve that sort of efficiency on relatively short flights, whereas the jets, even "short-range" jets, require at least 1000 nm stage lengths.
These efficiencies pale by comparison with high speed rail at 300 km/h, and even maglev at 400 km/h (faster than some turboprops). HSR is typically in the range 400-600 passenger-mpg max (i.e. all seats filled). Some lines do exceedingly well in the real world, as well - TGV Duplex service Paris-Lyon with 3 intermediate stops, averages 80% of seats filled, giving 436 passenger-mpg equivalent. (Assuming 32 MJ/L gasoline energy density).
http://strickland.ca/efficiency.html
I probably don't need to point out the major advantage of rail and maglev: they do not require liquid fuel.
Electric powered airplanes are on the way - At least for sport aviation!
http://www.youngeagles.org/news/archive/2007%20-%2008_02%20-%20Sonex%20R...
A podcast linked here excoriates peak oil apocalypticism.
That the skeptics movement treats peak oil as if it were an end-of-the-world movement is very disappointing. It shows the pernicious effect of certain websites I won't name. My comments are there as "Mike" from Maine.
Write them, if you think it will do any good.
I didn't watch the podcast. Didn't have to. Reading his intro was enough. I've heard the argument. Economists (accountants) think somehow changing the numbers fixes everything. Politicians think changing a law fixes everything (unless you're talking bush and he thinks attacking someone else will do the trick).
Some say the free market is the answer, another says socialism and government control will save us. The preacher says pray (in whatever form that takes).
Someone has to go out and physically remove oil from the ground. Refine it, deliver it to market. Another plants a seed, contests the elements, harvests a crop and delivers it to market, using fossil fuel products every step of the way.
The system we have that does all that is in peril. The human race has outgrown carrying capacity of the planet.
It's not the end of the world. It's worse. We're going to live (and die) through this.
We are not making the necessary changes.
It's worth listening to, if just to hear the commentator make such absurd statements as that the US could recover its 1970 peak rate, if offshore areas are opened to exploration.
Also, it's startling to hear how uncritically these "skeptics" accept free market fundamentalism.