DrumBeat: November 16, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 16, 2006 - 9:30am
Topic: Miscellaneous
NEW YORK -- Oil prices sank over 4 percent Thursday, hitting a new low for 2006, as swelling inventories and the December contract's expiration on Friday forced traders out of the market...."The storage at Cushing is full, if you're long you would have to take delivery." said Nauman Barakat, an energy trader at Macquarie Futures, the trading arm of Macquarie investment bank. "Basically this is confirming that inventories are very high."
Barakat was referring to the storage tanks at Cushing, Okla. where oil is stored until it is shipped to an industrial user, like a refinery.
But with the February crude contract currently trading higher than the December contract, there is no incentive for traders to sell their product, said Sal Gilbertie, an energy trader at Fimat in New York. Instead, they are just keeping it in Cushing.
Besides, said Gilbertie,"If you take delivery and there's no place to put it, what are you going to do? You're dead. No one's buying."
Oil output fell in October, says Opec
Opec, which pumps 40% of the world’s oil, said production from its members fell last month and left its estimates for annual world oil demand this year and next little changed.The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) began cutting production this month in an effort to stem price declines, following an emergency ministerial meeting on October 20. Many oil analysts, including those at the International Energy Agency, doubt Opec will achieve all the announced 1.2 million barrels a day cutback, which started officially on November 1.
Just a reminder...the Energy Institute presentations on oil depletion will only be available for two weeks.
Peddling PetroProzac: CERA ignores 10 warning signposts of peak oil
Commodity Strategists: Oil May Fall Below $50 in 2009
Experts: Azerbaijan can ensure its full energy independence
Asia Coal-to-Liquids Faces More than Cost Constraint
SINGAPORE - Countries looking at developing coal-to-liquids projects should be net energy importers with state backing, ideally with deregulated fuel prices and no carbon constraints as well as large coal and water resources, an executive said on Wednesday.
CHINA ENERGY WATCH: Allure of Oil Sands Hard to Resist
Canada's vast reserves of oil sands make it the promised land for countries worrying about their energy security, but a slow start by Chinese companies in breaking into the market has left them struggling to catch up with foreign rivals.
China sets sights on Canadian uranium
G20 in bid to avert energy crisis
MELBOURNE: Preventing China and India's rapid growth from destabilising global energy markets will head the agenda when the world's most powerful economic officials meet in Melbourne this weekend....[Australian Treasurer Peter] Costello said November 18-19 meeting's most pressing issue was ensuring world energy and commodity supplies remained secure so demand from China and India could be met without producing price shocks.
Houston Meeting Mulls Post-Castro Boon for US Oil Giants
The end of Fidel Castro's long reign could open the door for U.S. energy companies to return to Cuba, but the potential campaign is fraught with uncertainty, a University of Miami expert said Tuesday.
Norwegian investment blacklist includes Boeing
OSLO, Norway - What do Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Boeing Co., Honeywell International Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp. share along with being U.S.-based?They're all corporations that have been put on a blacklist by a Norwegian state investment fund that aims to make the nation's huge oil wealth grow for the benefit of its citizens while making the world a better place.
Energy crisis isn’t going to resolve itself
Imagine, just for a moment, a world with no petroleum. Imagine how different daily life would be.Many of the acts we take for granted become problematic if not impossible without petroleum. There would be no hopping in the car for a five-mile drive to the grocery store or turning a thermostat dial to fend off the cold.
Senator to push for more geothermal power
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who will be the chamber's majority leader once Democrats take control of Congress in 2007, said U.S. energy companies need more incentives to produce geothermal power, which uses heat pockets beneath the earth's surface to turn water to steam, powering turbines and generating electricity.
Making Ethanol from Wood Chips: One startup is scaling up experimental techniques to demonstrate the commercial potential of cellulosic ethanol.
Government to review oil royalties: Interior Department plans to review how it collects the fees for drilling on federal lands in response to outcries.
Oil industry sees Africa as most promising
America faces a future of managing imperial decline
Bush's failure to grasp the limits of US global power has led to an adventurism for which his successors will pay a heavy price.
Saudi Arabia - Global Energy Security
There is little reason to believe Saudi Arabia will run out of oil, will not meet its production goals, or has serious investment and oilfield management problems.
Big Oil headed for tougher Congress
NEW YORK - So far this year, 40 bills have been introduced in Congress about alleged gasoline price gouging. Twenty-one bills have addressed windfall profits by oil companies. Few have gotten past the press-release stage.But next year, Big Oil is likely to feel as if it's wearing one of those "kick me" signs.
In 2nd coal rush, new mind-set in the mines
A new generation of miners is living the good life not seen here since coal was king.
Will India Come Out of the Cold?
Last year President Bush agreed to end the moratorium on nuclear trade with India, but the deal is running into trouble with the nuclear powers and the U.S. Congress.
Nigeria: Irate youths besiege PHCN office in Abakaliki
More than 100 youths (Tuesday) besieged the Abakaliki District office of PHCN protesting a one-month-old power outage in the Ogoja road area of the city.
Armed men attack Nigerian oil facility
LAGOS, Nigeria - Eleven armed men attacked a southern Nigeria oil facility owned by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC Wednesday, leaving two attackers dead, police officials said.
Oil prices rise on OPEC leader's warning
VIENNA, Austria - Oil prices rose Thursday, after the U.S. government reported that gasoline inventories had fallen for the fifth straight week and OPEC's president warned that the group may decide to further reduce output.
Honda's vision of the future -- a car powered by hydrogen
Climate talks timetable implies US could be out of Kyoto fold for years
White House sued for not doing report on warming
Environmental advocates sued the Bush administration Tuesday for ignoring a 2004 congressional deadline to report to lawmakers and the public on the latest research on global warming.
San Francisco: Peak Oil Hearing Scheduled Friday
San Francisco, CA November 13, 2006 - The second in a series of city hearings on peak oil will take place this Friday, November 17, 2006, at 2:00 p.m. in room #263 of San Francisco City Hall at a hearing of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo).
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: The Studies
Across the world governments are scrambling faster and faster preparing for the coming energy crisis. Delegations from China are everywhere making deals for a share of the soon-to-dwindle oil flow. Almost weekly there is a new announcement from Beijing regarding plans for more wind, solar and biofuels. Japan and Korea are looking for alternative sources of energy supply. Sweden is saying, flat out, that peak oil is coming and is making plans for a fossil fuel-less future.
12,000-mile trip to have seafood shelled
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 16/11/2006
A seafood firm was accused of "environmental madness" yesterday for choosing to send langoustines on a 12,000-mile round trip to Thailand to have their shells removed.
After the shellfish is caught in Scottish waters, it will be frozen and shipped to the Far East in containers, where it will be peeled by hand and sent back to Britain to be sold as scampi in supermarkets and restaurants.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=CTRI0ATL5IPBFQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/200 6/11/16/nprawn16.xml
Though, that's a way of "only" 5000 miles or so ..
Sometimes, it is tough for me to figure out which party is the more clueless about energy policy. The answer from the Republicans is to explore and drill more. The answer from many Democrats is that we just need to switch to any one of many readily available alternatives. It seems that neither side grasps that a HUGE conservation push will be required before any measure can work, and I have yet to see a high profile politician out there stumping for electrification.
By 2008 the economic symptoms of the energy crisis may be severe enough to wake up the Herd and they may appreciate the honesty and "the plan" - IF a credible leader steps forward instead of a slew of useless career politicians.
All true, but misleading.
He did not "hunt the hunters' and take from a SUV, but got an 8 point buck with an excellent shot.
Alan
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"Hillary Clinton had no credible opposition. She could have said anything in her commercials, and what did she do? She came out against child molestors.
If you're going to spend $29 million to get re-elected against nobody, why not raise an issue that needs to be raised? She could easily have talked about energy and global warming, and probably won by an even bigger margin."
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Maybe Hillary aware of but is very ignorant of the Energy problem - so she decided it's better to keep her mouth shut rather than open it and remove all doubt?
We can't be decieved into believing senators aren't aware of energy issues and GW. We really have to make our government leaders more accountable and not just assume that since they aren't talking about these issues they must not be aware of them.
Tom A-B
I'm assuming that you have written or talked to your congressional representatives and others about this problem. I'd be interested in hearing your views about Schweickert and Tester, for that matter. My respresentatives still seem clueless about how just mouthing their support of alternative fuels is not going to get the job done.
Schewickert of Montana seems more knowledgeable that most, but I fear he is a bit too glib about the promise of coal to diesel with respect to its co2 sequstrations potential and its impact on Montana water supply.
Boxer will be conducting hearings on global warming. I hope this will yield some light on the fact that we have to quit harping on so called alternative energy as a magic bullet.
The basic problem, however, is that people perceive conservation and efficiency as sacrifice. We still operate under the Bushian paradigm that the American way of life is non negotiable. This means that any move to conservation is considered unacceptable.
It would be great is you or someone like you could testify when these issues come up. Or maybe your company wouldn't be particularly wild about that.
Such a 'tude goes back to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine
which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region
While there is plenty to blame on Bush, All ills don't lead to Him.
I have spoken/written to several of them. Most of them state their concern, but they don't show any passion for the issue.
I think Schweitzer really cares about energy issues, but I think he is really deluded about coal to liquids. That is a very capital intensive, environmentally unfriendly option (even if it would provide economic stimulus to Montana, which is a big reason he is behind it). Tester ticked me off during his campaign, because he jumped on the "Big Oil is behind all of your problems" bandwagon. One of his campaign workers came to my home, and I confronted him about it. He said "It isn't personal." I said "For me it is."
I got a flu shot yesterday, for $20. Disposable plastic syringe with steel needle, wrapped in crisp plastic packaging. Used once, for me, and thrown away.
In some countries, people bring their own needles if they need medical care, because otherwise, you'll be stuck with needles that have been used on countless other patients, and not necessarily sterilized between uses.
Since I think hard about peak oil I try to understand the relationship between our health standards, medical practices, economic status and limitation of growth through the physico-economical restriction of the flow of oil.
In France for example, the effect is already visible in every sector of our health system. As poverty spreads fast among our people, our social security system is put at an extrem strain, pushing it close to collapse. The pharmacological firms invest less and less, innovations are close to zero. In hospitals less doctors and nurses are available. From October to December some medicines aren't available any more. In rural areas, doctors are fleeing the sector, soaring energy prices beeing among the motives for leaving the countryside. In France fees for doctors are fixed so they feel more and more the weight of the gasoline prices on their income, and more so since the number of doctors decrease. This is a real worrysome down spiral.
I fear that the medical sector will on of the first to suffer from peak-oil.
I think you hit one of the biggest issues with peak oil.
The overall effect is to first stop economic growth then cause a continuous recession unless the world economy moves away from oil. But I think you have just nailed the biggest social effect. Our welfare programs are very dependent on growth and the associated taxes. In a world were most people are poorer every year the social programs will unravel quickly leaving the poor in the same position they where in the 1920's.
Russia went through this with the collapse of the Soviet Union and they still have not recovered. Oil money is the only thing keeping Russia out of chaos.
Second and Third world countries are decreasing gasoline/NG gas subsidies.
Recent discussion on the impact of peak oil on public health can be found here, on the blog of my colleague, Dr Paul Roth.
We are keen to develop contacts with any health professionals around the globe who share our concerns about PO and the future of healthcare. Dr Roth can be contacted via his blog and I can be contacted either via the ASPO Australia website or my email which is on my TOD profile.
Dr Jim Barson
Convenor, Health Sector Working Group, ASPO Australia
My wife has been an RN for 30 years and tells the story of a small rural hospital where she worked in the 70's. Disposable medical equipment was becoming the rule everywhere at that point. This hospital took dumptruck loads of re-usable stainless steel tools and equipment, that would be replaced with disposable stuff, and dumped it down an old mine hole. Difficult to counter this type of economic pressure.
It is possible to slow down the evolution of resistant bacteria by not using any antibiotics in cattle feed, avoid making antibiotics freely available to the public, not treating benign infections with antibiotics, strongly encourage to follow thru with all the pills in a cure and rotating the use of different antibiotics over time in sufficiently large regions. It wont solve the problem but it can or rather could have bought decades that could have been used for resarch into new kinds of antibiotics. Perhaps the development of resistant bacteria still can be slowed down.
Maximizing the use of antibiotics makes sense as a short term way of increasing manufacturing revenue but it kills the product and people in the long term.
Where do you break this cycle? Until we break every step of these associations (i.e., that a cold is an illness, that an illness is to be treated, that treatment is pharmacetical) we aren't going to reach the goal of keeping antibiotics from being freely available.
This is something that a broad campaign through all healthcare providers as well as telivision and highschool needs to be communicated to the public. A contract welder on my rig never wears his respirator and his sinuses get clogged up and inflamed. He comes to me and says he wants antibiotics. Very few pathogens have a pill that fixes them much better than supporting the patient and letting the illness run its course. I spent twenty minutes explaining allergies versus viral colds and flu versus a bacterial infection. He looked at me and asked "so can I have antibiotics?" LOL
Most drug resistant antibiotics come from the meat industry and nursing homes where large numbers are pumped regulary into human or bovine petri dishes.
For a peak oil note if TSHTF most of these strains will die out. The people will get them then get better or die. Since nobody will be traveling great distances or very often the rate of transmission will drop. Treated diseases like AIDS and TB will rapidly overcome a patient untreated (especially if they are undernourished or stressed.)
All in all the medical system is broken as are patients with a burger king have it your way attitude, if one doctor does not prescribe he loses a patient to the one that will (not just antibiotics, narcotics too)
matt
I can't tell you how many times I've heard variations on your story. I'm skeptical that a "public awareness" campaign would have much impact, though. It's our model of health/illness that is at the root of the problem, and the bulk of our medical professionals are believers in that model.
They'd be just as effective as the antibiotics. That is the patient would feel a lot better.
Medicine sucks sometimes......it should not be about money but it is.
Did you end up giving him any?
Doing what is right for the patient is not always what they want.
There are many companies working on vaccines and new antibiotics for antibiotic-resistant staph, as well as numerous other microbes. In an energy-starving post-peak world I think resources for research (biomedical or otherwise) will dwindle and the Microbes will win.
Culling Homo Sap by disease may be more "humane" and more democratic than war or starvation.
Need quarantene camps with very good hygene for environmental refugees.
Need police force to get envronmental refugeees to the camps.
Need lab capacity to sort people into groups to minimize spread of disease in the camps.
The alternative with an unprepaired nation state could get very ugly fairly fast. :-(