[small_steps]

SL-thanks

perhaps you might track inventories of petro products as well as crude inventories, might be able to find better correlation, just a thought anyway (since US petro levels are damn near 30 lows)

[nero]

I wonder if there is any hysteresis in this relationship, ie is the path dependent on the direction that the numbers are taking. I'm a bit suspicious about using the long term data as others have pointed out the long term trend may be to lower inventories.

Anyone know about new projects that came on in 2001? That would have been a big year for deepwater, right?

As I recall, production increases in Russia have been the most significant production increases for the past few years and that since about 2000 non-Opec non-FSU production has been at a plateau.

[JohnDenver]

This bit from the IEA report is thought-provoking:

An advance briefing of the report, titled Saving Oil in a Hurry: Measures for Rapid Demand Restraint in Transport, states this succinctly.

"Why should governments intervene to cut oil demand during a supply disruption or price surge? One obvious reason is to conserve fuel that might be in short supply.

"But perhaps more importantly, a rapid demand response (especially if coordinated across IEA countries) can send a strong market signal."

LINK

This reminds me of the Hong Kong government buying stocks to foil short speculators back in 1998. The idea is this: if oil is being driven too high due to long speculators and hoarders, introduce some risk into the equation to give them the fear. The first few times, you probably wouldn't even need to implement the driving controls, you would only need a coordinated announcement that they will be implemented. This would scare the crap out of the speculators and drive the price down.

In the long run, the ideal is to form a demand side cartel (monopsony) which can control crude prices by controlling demand, i.e. OPIC (Organization of Petroleum Importing Countries).

[UIUCstudent01]

Isn't this kind of framing Peak Oil's repercussions as an attack on an enemy? And saying that 'we' [collective patriotic we] are totally in control of the situation at the same time... it could work.

The IEA planned/coerced measures for oil use regulation seems to be a bit extreme (to the non-peak oiler) but if the regulations were to be used against the new enemy (OPEC) to force prices to go down, then you can have economic warfare. (I think there is a flaw in this, i.e. China might throw a monkey wrench in it. Plus, does OPEC really need the money as much we need the oil?)

Plus, open economic warfare requires the media to be your puppet. (Oh wait..) And it could be against the whole free trade thing that some countries supposedly support.

The future looks to be precarious if open economic warfare. (Then again, it might be better than secretly feeding an ignorant, fat nation that has no clue and wants no clues that its prosperity is linked to subterfuge and devious tricks... ) I'm not alluding to anything I swear!

[billp]

Air conditioning doesn't save energy

I want to make sure that readers do not get a false impression regarding the energy consumption of refrigerated-air cooling for homes. The article on Charter Homes in Huning Ranch, Los Lunas, implies that refrigerated air is an energy efficiency feature.

Actually, refrigerated air uses three to five times more electric power than evaporative cooling. This is based on my experience as facilities engineer for a large building owner in Albuquerque, and on published information.

The story did not mention water consumption, but there is inaccurate information circulating about that as well. When the amount of water used at the power plant is considered - almost 1 gallon per kilowatt-hour - there is relatively little difference in water consumption between refrigerated-air cooling and evaporative cooling.

David Robertson
Corrales
Thursday August 31, 2006 Business Outlook, Albuquerque Journal

I underline.

Powder river coal operations

[Graeme]

Peak Oil Review -- July 14, 2008

The International Energy Agencys monthly report has OPEC production up by 350,000 b/d last month and Saudi production up to 9.45 million b/d. Although high prices will flatten OECD demand for oil during 2008-9, high demand from Asia will continue to lift world wide demand. Declines in the US crude stockpile restricted the May increase in all of the OECD countries to 24 million barrels half the normal increase. Preliminary June data suggests that the OECD crude stockpile increase was only about 100,000 b/d during the second quarter well below the 900,000 b/d increase which is normal for the second quarter.

The real issue is what will happen after the Olympics. During the major power shortage four years ago, China stepped up oil imports to keep many enterprises functioning with backup power generators. Given the much tighter coal and oil market that exists in 2008, any increase in imports likely would result in still higher world prices.

ibtimes

[Graeme]

Global oil supply will peak in 2020, says energy agency

Global oil production will peak much earlier than expected amid a collapse in petroleum investment due to the credit crunch, one of the world's foremost experts has revealed.

Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020, a development that was "not good news" for a world still heavily dependent on petroleum.

guardian

[cipi604]

2020?! Pure hope! By 2020, we'll have a very severe liquid fuels shortage.

[Graeme]

From the same article:

The IEA has never before been specific about the point at which so-called conventional oil would peak. It said last month that total crude output could peak in 2030. Birol's comments follow other signs that the IEA is rapidly changing its view. In its 2007 World Energy Outlook, the IEA predicted a rate of decline from the world's existing oil fields at 3.7%, only to admit 12 months later that the speed of the fall was more likely 6.7%.

Jeremy Leggett, chief executive of solar energy company Solarcentury, said Birol's views underplayed the scale of the problem. "The IEA is very constrained in what it can say - by the demands of its constituent governments - so you have to read between the lines. We believe that peak oil will come about in 2013 at the latest but the real concern from the IEA is the adjustment of production figures," he said.

The energy agency, which represents most western governments including the UK and US, has been backtracking rapidly on previous positions.

[Plantagenet]

Well.....at least the IEA is getting warmer with their estimates of when peak oil will occur.

[emailking]

I hope this is correct, as I thought a peak might be closer to the present.

[Tyler_JC]

Utter nonsense.

The IEA has been wrong about everything for years. If we haven't officially peaked by 2012, I'll be shocked.

They'll blame it on the recession and they may be right but over the long run, we aren't going to see the kinds of increases in production that we're used to.



It doesn't matter if we peak in 2005 or 2010. We're stuck at ~85 million barrels a day of total liquid fuels.

Oil prices shot up three fold in three years and oil production didn't budge.

Can you say "Plateau"?

[emailking]

Well but we've plateaued before then on that basis.

We can't give up hope. Peak is a bad thing.

[eastbay]

Well.....at least the IEA is getting warmer with their estimates of when peak oil will occur.

'They're getting warmer' is EXACTLY the words I thought when I read the first posting... heh. Amazing.

11 years from now. Well, IMO we're now on the plateau and will remain flat awhile then start our permanent decline in the next year or two.

[davep]

video
And here's George's comments

[dorlomin]

link


What a reason to panic. 12 minutes of pure denial from the man who tells governments the state of the worlds energy.

[marq=left]Topics merged by wisconsin_cur[/marq]

[SoothSayer]

Not denial.

Just the difficult position of someone who is trying to get the truth out, without losing his job.

[cipi604]

He sais this is the first time in the world and nobody has done that research/report.
Liar
Somebody shoot him, please!

[MrMambo]

Cool thing that Monbiot is on the case!

He has written a lot of intelligent stuff on energy- especially renewable energy in the past. Everybody should read his book "Heat".

Seems also that he did a very good job with pushing Faith from IEA to speak more clearly. He actually made him achnowledge peak oil and suggest a date for it!

Although I think 2020 sounds rather optimistic its a new tone from IEA.

The combination of the financial crisis (causing investment delays) + opecs commitment to cut production to reach higher prices + the current total depletion rate of oilfields around the world its not unlikeley that we might never see the oilproduction we saw earlier this year ever again.

If we experience within a couple of years that money printing and frivolous lending + shopping returns and starts to regenerate growth in the production of goods we will see if the two years of above 6% decline combined with lack of investments in new production creates an inability of world oil producers to even match the oil production levels of 2008.

[SweetSmellofMoney]

Yes, lovely ferret, that is exactly what he was talking about. But I couldn't quite get why that was going to be the Armagedon trigger.

If Simmons is right this time with his timing, I hope everyone has their preps in place.

I am thinking of giving each member of the family a 50 lb sack of rolled oats and a very warm sleeping bag for Christmas. They all think I'm nuts anyway.

The main point of the talk, as far as I could tell, was that IEA is finally saying something resembling the truth. Instead of just following their economists assumptions that supply would alway meet demand, their geologists finally got off their collective butts and did a field-by-field assessment.

What they found horrified them.

But the people who essentially own IEA wouldn't let them publish the unvarnished truth about the severe rates of decline they see as imminent and inevitable. So they left "bread crumbs" toward the truth for those willing to look for them--things like saying "under extremely optimistic assumptions" before presenting even their grimmest predictions.

But when these geologists speak in person before audiences of people in the industry, they are apparently off the leash and are giving the stark facts to stunned audiences.

Perhaps it is their presentation of said facts to the upcoming OPEC meeting that Simmons think will trigger a severe reaction throughout the major oil-producing regions?

LOL!

Hate to make light of your Doom and Gloom moment but the fact remains constant Crude supplies exceed demand and considering the recent rash of production cuts any debate would be a mute point!

But ever more interesting is the fact that as we speak greater demand for alternative energy vehicles has already been put into actual mass production mode.

Interesting that all this spam on declining supplies comes at the very time OPEC and the Oligarchy have moved to demand higher prices per barrel!

Results to nothing more than Blackmail!

La Dolce Vita!

Regards