Peak Oil News

As a part of our continued site upgrades, we are now offering 4 new services: daily peak oil news feeds, the ability to submit peak oil articles (with HTML), a submission form for link exchanges and/or RSS feeds, and a RSS feed tool for peak oil webmasters. We hope these new features will provide a better resource for our visitors while giving webmasters and bloggers a new way to increase their online visibility. The subject of oil depletion and world energy supplies is increasing on a daily basis - we are dedicated to improving our site in order to meet the growing public ...

It is going to take a monumental change in thinking and habits in order to reduce our dependance on oil as an energy source. At the point of peak production we will find ourselves scrambling to compete for what fuel supplies remain. How will we deal with this crisis? The Energy Information Agency predicts we will reach this point sometime in the next few decades, at which point petroleum will be far too expensive to use as a transportation fuel source. We are going to have to make some serious personal lifestyle choices in order to avoid a complete economic breakdown. Will we have the collective motivation to make these important changes? » Source: ...

The Stripper Well Consortium has developed an innovative new technology which will decrease production costs and increase oil production in low-producing oil wells, known as 'stripper wells'. This technology is hoped to be able to help secure the U.S. nation's oil and gas supplies by taking advantage of many low-yield wells. Currently 80% of United States oil wells are classified as marginal so this advancement has the potential to supplement current oil production rates and decrease costs, hopefully increasing production by up to 30 percent. It is believed that the new technology's major acheivement will be to reduce wear and tear on oil and gas pipelines. » Source: PressZoom The technology, named the ...

Most schemes for a post-oil technology are based on the misconception that there will be an infrastructure, similar to that of the present day, which could support such future gadgetry. Modern equipment, however, is dependent on specific methods of manufacture, transportation, maintenance, and repair. In less abstract terms, this means machinery, motorized vehicles, and service depots or shops, all of which are generally run by fossil fuels. In addition, one unconsciously assumes the presence of electricity, which energizes the various communications devices, such as telephones and computers; electricity on such a large scale is only possible with fossil fuels. » Source: Counter Currents To believe that a non-petroleum infrastructure is possible, one would have to imagine, for example, solar-powered machines creating equipment for the production and storage of electricity by means of solar energy. This equipment would then be loaded ...

The much-touted potential for Canada's oil sands to offset projected declines in North American oil production remains highly questionable because of constraints on natural gas production and environmental problems, a group of Swedish industry experts concludes in a new report. To meet its ambitious targets, the industry would likely require the construction of a nuclear power plant near Fort McMurray in Alberta in order to replace natural gas in the energy-intensive production process, the scientists argue. » Source: Globe and Mail Writing in the influential European journal Energy Policy last month, the analysts for the Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group warned that the world should not count on Canada's massive oil sands deposits to meet future demand growth. "While the theoretical future oil supply from the oil sands is huge, the potential ability for the Canadian oil sands industry to meet expectations ...

The world needs to spend $1tn a year in alternative fuels, starting 20 years before the peak in conventional oil production, in order to mitigate fuel shortages, a US Energy Department study showed. Production peaks in Texas, the UK and Norway were examined as part of two studies for the department that advised on "crash course" efforts to cope with an eventual shortage of gasoline and other liquid fuels. The study, led by Robert Hirsch, didn’t predict when world production will peak, though Hirsch told reporters his guess is "within the next five to 10 years." » Source: Gulf Times "Conventional oil will peak at some point," Hirsch said at the Oil and Money Conference in London. To lessen the impact, "we have to start a long time before the peak or we’ll have severe liquid fuels shortages worldwide." Conventional oil production peaked ...

Syntroleum announced that its Fischer-Tropsch (FT) jet fuel has been successfully tested in a United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress Bomber aircraft. The plane lifted off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., with a 50/50 blend of FT and traditional JP-8 jet fuel which was burned in two of the eight engines on the plane. This marks the first time that FT jet fuel has been tested in a military flight demo, and is the first of several planned test flights. The test is a result of more than four years of successful research and development efforts with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), focused on producing a high-performance alternative fuel for military applications. » Source: Green Car Congress The program culminating in the test flight today is the first step in opening up new horizons for sourcing fuel for ...

Collaborative research between the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and Honda R&D Co., Ltd., the Honda Motor Co., Ltd. subsidiary responsible for research and development, has resulted in technology and process for the production of ethanol from cellulosic soft-biomass such as the leaves and stalks of plants. The RITE-Honda process uses a bacterial strain developed by RITE that ferments sugar into alcohol and applies Honda engineering technology to enable a “significant increase” in alcohol conversion efficiency in comparison to conventional cellulosic bio-ethanol production processes, according to the partners. » Source: Green Car Congress The process consists of the following steps: Pretreatment to separate cellulose from soft-biomass; Saccharification of cellulose and hemicellulose; Fermentation of sugar into ethanol using microorganisms; and Ethanol refinement. Current approaches allow fermentation inhibitors, collaterally formed primarily during the process of separating cellulose and hemicellulose from ...

It was a great day for many companies and environmentalists back in 2003. Back then the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that a newly constructed natural gas-to-liquids demonstration facility near Tulsa, Oklahoma would open. The Ultra-Clean Fuels Program, managed by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, was built under a cooperative agreement among DOE, Syntroleum Corp., Marathon Oil Co. and Integrated Concepts Research Corp. (ICRC). Plant construction costs were valued at over $40 million, of which DOE provided $16 million on a cost-share basis. According to the press release of October 3, 2003, The facility would utilize the proprietary Syntroleum® Process to convert natural gas to transportation fuel. The DOE said the plant consisted of three primary components: an autothermal reformer that changes the natural gas into synthesis gas; a Fischer-Tropsch unit that converts the synthesis gas into synthetic crude product; and a refinning unit that upgrades the synthetic crude product into ...

If you think your fuel bill has skyrocketed, pity the people who operate the eight-engine B-52 bomber. The lumbering aircraft, built in the 1950s when jet fuel cost a quarter a gallon, guzzles 47,000 gallons in a single mission. Today, that's $100,000 a fill-up. Tally in the gas hogs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — fighter jets, bombers and cargo planes — and you can understand why the American taxpayer got a $5-billion fuel bill last year for the Air Force alone. On Tuesday, the Air Force will begin test flights here that could represent a major step in the Pentagon's plan to find less costly sources of fuel. A B-52 will take off with two of its engines burning a new blend that may eventually replace the oil-based kerosene formula that has powered jet engines since they were invented. Source: LA Times The test flight, which will be observed by top ...