The Oil Drum

Jason Godesky at Anthropik offers "The World's Biggest Machine is Breaking Down":

Many of the so-called "alternatives" to fossil fuels rely on the electrical grid. We have seen the problems that nuclear and photovoltaics will face even delivering on their production promises, but even if they were to somehow solve those problems, there is still the problem of the grid itself. Most of the energy sources offered are simply means of generating electricity; this is applied to necessities like transportation through innovations like hydrogen batteries or electric cars. Even so, the electricity itself must be transported from the nuclear power plant, PV cell, or other means by which it is produced, to the car it will power, or the home it will heat, or whatever other task the energy is needed for.

That transportation is provided by the electrical power grid. Sometimes called "the world's biggest machine" by engineers, most of the energy "alternatives" proposed will require it to not only continue supplying us with the energy we use now (and the energy we'd need for economic growth anyway), but additionally to also carry the energy load we will need to replace our fossil fuel usage. This will be an impossible feat, since the current load alone is already breaking down "the world's biggest machine" under the weight of its own complexity.

A few other goodies under the fold as well...

[editor's note, by Dave Cohen] Fellow TOD contributor Bubba is co-author of this report. He is an industry insider. It seemed important for those of us concerned about peak oil to respond to the Jack-2 test well result and all the publicity it has spawned. I also had conversations about this piece with Byron King at Whiskey And Gunpowder. Byron writes frequently about peak oil issues. I take full responsibility for this post's contents since I did the final editing.

With the successful test drilling of Jack-2 in the ultra deepwater Gulf of Mexico, there has been a media blitz proclaiming the good news. The "peak oil" theory is under attack. From Business Week's September 7, 2006 article Plenty of Oil--Just Drill Deeper The discovery of reserves in the Gulf of Mexico means supply isn't topping out, we learn

You can tune out all the scare talk about Peak Oil for a while--probably a long while. Peak Oil is the theory, on the verge of becoming conventional wisdom, that the world's petroleum supply is topping out and will not be able to meet global demand soaring along with the economies of China and India. But a successful test in a mammoth field deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, announced on Sept. 5 by Chevron (CVX), Devon Energy (DVN), and Norway's Statoil (STO), should help put that scary scenario on hold for decades....

Cambridge Energy Research Associates predicts world oil and natural gas liquids capacity could increase as much as 25% by 2015. Says Robert W. Esser, a director of CERA: "Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we're concerned."

Let's take a closer look at the prospectivity, geology, economics, technology, reservoirs, hydrocarbons and logistics of the Lower Tertiary play in the Gulf of Mexico (henceforth the LTGOM).