DrumBeat: July 18, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 18, 2006 - 9:35am
Topic: Miscellaneous
[Update by Leanan on 07/18/06 at 9:37 AM EDT]
Sweltering heat across the U.S. leads to record-setting energy use from New York to California.
In New York, power outages stalled trains yesterday. They are running on reduced service today. LaGuardia Airport suffered a power outage last night.
Oil spike: a surmountable challenge?
The politics of the Middle East are so incendiary that energy analysts are not sure how high prices will rise.
Don't expect the scarcity of fossil fuels to drive us toward alternative energy sources anytime soon: we're getting smarter about finding and extracting oil.
Ford first to offer clean-burning hydrogen vehicles
Senator to introduce landmark bill cutting fossil fuel emissions
Repair of post-Katrina wetlands may hinge on oil
U.K.: The new commuter belt
Fed up with over-priced cities and overcrowded trains? The new breed of commuters are going to fly into work from their homes in Spain and eastern Europe, claims a trendspotting report.
The Big Question: Was the break-up of the railways such a disaster that it needs to be reversed?
Plan? What plan? Alberta's energy future:
It's only 16 pages long and hasn't yet been shared with the public, but Alberta's Integrated Energy Strategy, if adopted as currently drafted, could eventually leave a hefty fossil-fuel footprint on every Canadian business.
The thing that was striking, or at least what I remember about it (it was about 4 AM EDT after all), was that he was making the point that ~85 million BPD (and maybe 86 million by the 4th quarter) is the maxiumum amout we will likely ever be able to achieve no matter what the demand is. That it is "sooner" than other experts have predicted didn't seem to be a surprise to him.
( Sidebar: By definition the peak, the summit. Enjoy the view because it's downhill in every direction from here.)
And demand/supply imbalances will raise the price until the demand pressure subsides. But it won't change the maximum.
(Those of us whom have been following this for more than a few years don't find any of this surprising. My own sense of the peak, up to 2004, was that the peak would occur in early to mid 2007. In the meantime, it looked to me that the Bush Administration was hoping that it would occur in the 2009-2010 timeframe, making it SEP. Somewhere in late 2003/early 2004, based upon the data I was watching from the GOM and elsewhere, I became convinced that somewhere in the second quarter of 2006, we would "summit." Have we? I don't know but it sure is looking like it.)
Pickens also admitted he was wrong in the past about the oil sands in Alberta and is now heavily invested in them (he made the point that he's invested with his own money, and invested a few other things).
He has no plans to retire.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/13/autos/autos07.fortune/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/12/news/economy/pluggedin_lashinsky.fortune/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/20/news/economy/pluggedin.fortune/index.htm
Is this CNN or Treehugger?
Honda's new Accord 2.2 i-CTDi Sport has this week set no fewer than 19 world speed records and achieved 3.07 litres / 100 km (92 imperial mpg, ~76.6 US mpg) fuel economy to boot. British racing driver Robin Liddell and freelance journalist Iain Robertson were part of the European record-setting team.
Amongst the speed records set, which were all achieved in Production Car Class B (2000 - 2500 cc), were 133.04 mph (1 mile flying start), 84.25 mph (1 mile standing start) and an average speed of 130.38 mph over a 24-hour endurance period. These records were all set at Papenburg high-speed oval test track in north-west Germany on 1 and 2 May, and are all subject to FIA ratification.
Two production cars, randomly selected by FIA officials, were used to undertake the speed records, and apart from the fitting of roll-cages, racing harnesses and radio equipment for track-to-pits communication, no other modifications were made to the cars.
Following the speed record attempts, the same two cars were then driven 419 miles from Papenburg test track to Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt in order to complete the fuel economy run. The route comprised of a mixture of motorway and non-motorway driving, during which one of the Accords achieved a staggering 92 imperial mpg (US mpg=~76.6) average.
I've got a 1991 Accord EX wagon with 275K miles and still going strong, and a 1997 Accord EX wagon that hasn't even been broken in yet at 116K miles.
-best
I sometimes listen to CNBC on XM Radio in the car and at work. So far this morning, I have heard two summaries of Bodman's remarks by CNBC's energy reporter, Melissa Frances.
In the first report, she said that Bodman was predicting that Iraqi production would be up to 3 mbpd by the end of the year.
In the second report, she played a clip of Bodman saying that the US economy was very resilient in the face of rising oil prices.
So far, there was not one single reference to the United States Energy Secretary saying that world oil supply cannot meed demand.
In my opinion, this is a classic case--at least so far--of the Main Stream Media in action, as described in my "Iron Triangle" thesis. (see link below)
http://www.energybulletin.net/15126.html
Another talking head last night on Bloomberg said 18 months of constricted supply and at that point more oil and better transportation of it will come on line.
Clearly no consensus on this point.
Last year, the Texas State Geologist said that Texas may not be able to match its 1972 peak production, but with the use of improved technology, Texas can significantly increase its oil production.
So, I guess that one could argue that there is no "clear consensus" on the Texas oil production decline.
Texas oil production is now down close to 75% from its 1972 peak, and Texas has never shown a year over year increase in production over the past 33 years--despite a frantic drilling program after its initial decline.
Texas, the Lower 48, Total US, Russia and the North Sea have all peaked in the vicinity of 50% of Qt. None of these regions--as in zero, nada, null set--have shown production higher than its peak in the vicinity of 50% of Qt.
The latest EIA data show that world oil production and oil production from the top four net oil exporters are all down since December.
It's a virtual certainty that the world's four largest producing oil fields are all declining.
What part of this is not clear?
To argue in favor of rising oil production, you have to ignore the following: (1) It has never happened in the regions cited and (2) currently world oil production is falling.
So, you can argue in favor of rising oil production, but it is contradicted by historical models and by recent data.
To top it all off, the Energy Secretary says we can't meed demand. Do you think that this is just a coincidence as we cross the 50% of Qt mark, and start showing a decline?
Should read:
"To argue in favor of rising oil production (beyond the peak level in the vicinity of 50% of Qt), you have to ignore the following: (1) It has never happened in the regions cited and (2) currently world oil production is falling."
1977 9.95
1978 10.49
1979 10.88
1980 11.17
1981 11.37
1982 11.48
1983 11.42
1984 11.17
1985 11.00
1986 11.18
1987 11.48
1988 11.56
1989 11.23
1990 10.44
1991 9.32
1993 6.73
If you round up to 11 mbpd, the above data table shows 11 years with production of about 11 mbpd--five years on both sides of 1984.
Khebab's HL plot shows 1984 to be the 50% of Qt mark.
Khebab took only the production data through 1984 to generate a predicted production profile throuth 2004. The actual Russian post-1984 cumulative production was 95% of what the HL model predicted--again based only on production data through 1984.
The same exercise for the Lower 48 showed that post-1970 production was 99% of what the HL model predicted.
(I'm practicing for the Peak Oil debate tonight--interesting timing given Bodman's remarks.)
You make some good points. I am certainly no expert in this field, but I do my homework and have taken the Danish outlook on this that named 2020, granted a few years back, as the true peak point.
We certainly do not argue that it will occur, and relatively soon.
This off Charles Schwab site (and yes, I note the doublespeak in this statement):
Kuwait To Clarify Its Oil Reserves Within Days -Min -2-
1:42 PM EDT July 18, 2006
Sheikh Ali also threw his weight behind the long-delayed $8.5 billion development of its northern-most oilfields, Project Kuwait, which has attracted consortia led by BP PLC (BP), Chevron Corp. (CVX), and ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM).
Kuwait wants to double oil production to about 900,000 barrels a day from four northern fields. This target is a key plank in Kuwait's quest to boost its total production capacity from 2.7 million barrels a day currently to 4 million barrels a day by 2020.
But lawmakers are concerned how increased tax revenues - which currently make-up about two-fifths of the overall economy - from future production will be used.
Sheikh Ali said in the statement: "I'm confident that this strategy was only approved for the interest of Kuwait, and there is nothing" proposed in the plan that undermines Kuwait.
He said upgrading capacity in the north "does not mean an exhaustion of these fields, but develops the efficiency of the fields."
Separately, the minister said oil producers weren't influencing current oil prices.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, he added "will not save any effort to use its available mechanisms to achieve" a balance in the oil market.
-By Adam Smallman, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0) 20 7842 9343; adam.smallman@dowjones.com
Remember the old adage about how something can't become clear whenever a persons livelihood depends upon it not ever becoming clear.
Is there a way you -- or TOD -- could get an article published about this?
I guess in Adbusters such an article would be preaching to the choir, but in Harpers it might reach a few ears for whom it would cause creative disequilibrium, at the very least. Where else might such an article be published?
Sooner or later, even the MSM will crack as a groundswell of awakening people make changes in spite of the Iron Triangle....I think....I hope....
I've long suspected that perhaps the single most traumatic event to occur in modern industrial society will be the dawning upon the great masses of people that the world oil supply is starting to contract. I have absolutely no doubt that TPTB want to push that day as far into the future as they possibly can.
As for the futures comment that Bodman made, its and easy argument to make because it makes an easy target. But futures traders don't by futures contracts to lose money and many (looking at the futures chain out 6-12 months) obviously think the only direction that the price of oil is going is up.
You should tell it in the Intensive Care Unit of your nearest VA hospital.
I'm sure it would cheer up all of the amputees recently back from Iraq.
Come out of your Nzi-word bunker and tell us all how you are proud to be a fan of Hell's Ebola.
p.p.s. Was watching Chris Matthews Hardball show on MSNBC tonight (7/18/06). He asked the Syrian emassador: "How small does Israel have to get before you people leave her in peace?"
The Syrian never answered the question-- a fact that should not escape anyone but the dumbest and most virulently anti-semetic of viewers.
Instead he went into the typical staccato sleeze response: Buh buh buh but why don't you ask me how Israel is bombing our women and children? Buh buh buh but why don't you ask me how Israel smells like my mother's behind? ....
Then Chris Matthews asked the Syrian emassador: "Well what about the Golan Heights? Syrians used that to shoot at innocent Israeli farmers. I've been up there. I've seen the Syrian pillboxes." Answer: "Buh buh buh but this is a typical American delusion. You did not see what you saw. It is only beautiful valleys and pastures and indents in the ground where Syrian farmers feed their sheep. There are no "Heights"."
The 7/18 transcripts should be up soon at this location for 24 hours.
Answer: "Buh buh buh but this is a typical American delusion. You did not see what you saw."
"The Syrian never answered the question." Maybe that's because he was smekhovo.
--Golan Heights Jewish settler Joel Sheinfeld, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 4, 1993
Fact: "This oft-repeated claim about Syrian shelling ignores the repeated attacks by Israeli kibbutzniks and border police against Palestinian and Syrian villagers who were indigenous to the Syrian-Israeli demilitarized zone, which led to the shelling in question. The demilitarized zone, set up after the 1947-48 war, consists of three small patches of land along the then Syrian-Israeli border--a total of 66.5 square kilometers--populated by both Arab and Israeli villagers. According to the General Armistice Agreement of 1949, sovereignty over this area was to be determined at a later date, in the context of an overall peace agreement.
"Israel had failed to conquer these areas during the war and was determined to do so gradually in the years that followed, starting as early as 1951. As a result, the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization, assigned to monitor the armistice, recorded thousands of incidents of major and minor clashes across the Syrian-Israeli border, most of which stemmed from Israeli encroachments onto Arab-owned village lands.
"The typical incident involved small groups of Israeli kibbutzniks--armed with weapons illegally brought into the demilitarized zone--moving their tractors or other equipment onto Arab-owned farmlands to use these lands for their own agricultural projects. Arab farmers . . . resisted by firing at whoever or whatever was trespassing on their property, followed by return fire from the kibbutzniks, joined by Israeli border police, on an even larger scale.
"The Syrians, atop the Golan Heights, would then come to the aid of the beleaguered Arab villagers by shelling in the direction of the kibbutz from which the original attack came. This would be followed by Israeli artillery fire and air bombardments, often inside Syria proper. Specific, major incidents include, but are by no means limited to, the 1951 expulsion by Israeli forces of some 2,000 Arab civilians from three villages in the demilitarized zone, never to return, and the 1960 Israeli occupation of the entire village of Tawafiq inside the zone, which soldiers could only enter after cutting through the many layers of barbed wire the villagers had erected to protect their homes and farmland. In this case, it was only Syrian shelling from the Golan Heights that saved Tawafiq; and it was that shelling that finally forced Israeli troops to withdraw from the community.
"These events, and many more like them, have been extensively documented by four consecutive UNTSO chiefs of staff who were responsible for keeping peace and reporting armistice violations on both sides . . . To put this period (1949-1967) in its proper historical perspective, then, what is now termed by Israel's advocates as 'Syrian shelling from the Golan Heights' represents only a portion of what was recorded by U.N. observers at the time as 'mutual exchanges of fire on both sides,' caused mainly by Israel's campaign to gradually annex Arab-owned land inside the demilitarized zone. . .
"It is clear from the historical record that the phrase 'Syrian shelling from the Golan Heights' did not even exist at the time and does not appear in U.N. records. That is because the point of origin--the Golan-- was in itself not relevant, and because the real problem of the time was Israeli land encroachment, of which the Syrian responses were but a result. The phrase, in fact, came into use only after the 1967 war, by people seeking to justify Israel's retention of that particular territory."
--Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0493/9304041.htm
You tell them.