Peak Oil News

Wed. Oct. 25 to Fri. Oct. 27, 2006 (Plus Evening & Sat. Sessions) - Boston University, GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA - Experts to discuss impacts of - and responses to - Peak Oil The Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (ASPO-USA) and Boston University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies (CEES) will co-sponsor the 2006 World Oil Conference, Time for Action: A Midnight Ride for Peak Oil, on the BU campus October 25-27, 2006. The Conference will bring energy experts from around the world to discuss the likely timing, impacts, and intelligent responses to the growing Peak Oil challenge. Virtually every sector of our society and economy will be affected by Peak Oil, from transportation, manufacturing, air freight, and agriculture, to homebuilding, city planning, and finance. » Source: Global Public Media “For ...

I wanted to be a geologist once — even claimed it as my major at the University of Georgia. Then they made me take calculus. I decided on a degree in English not too long thereafter, thinking I’d read books about oil and rocks instead. Research for last week’s column on the oil discovery in the Gulf intrigued me, as did the responses I received. Like addicts worrying about where our next fix will come from, we all seem to have an opinion on the future of oil. Back in the 1950s geologist Marion King Hubbert posited that crude oil was a finite resource and went on to illustrate when the U.S. and world would reach a peak in production by using a bell curve. The curve rises from left to right, as new oil is discovered and infrastructure is put in place to extract it. The curve goes back down ...

"That argument known as peak-oil theory has provided intellectual backing for the boom in crude prices. . ." This quote comes a September 14 Wall Street Journal article that was entitled "Producers Move to Debunk Gloomy 'Peak Oil' Forecasts" and detailed efforts by Exxon Mobil and Aramco to counter peak oil advocates. » Source: The Huffington Post The piece appeared more than a year after the publication of my book, "Over a Barrel," the first chapter of which challenged the notion of oil as a scarce resource. And it was published barely a week after my post, "Massive Oil Find in Gulf of Mexico Brings Gloom to Peak Oil Pranksters" 9/08/06 (you always read it first on Huffington). That post, focusing on the important Gulf of Mexico find underlined the vast potential for new oil discoveries not only in ...

Leading players in the petroleum industry, including Saudi Arabia and Exxon Mobil Corp., are aggressively arguing that plenty of crude oil remains for world consumption, in an effort to counter critics who contend crude output is about to plateau. That argument, known as the peak-oil theory, has provided intellectual backing for the boom in crude prices and sowed doubts among some policy makers about crude's long-term reliability as an energy source. Such doubts, coupled with concern over sky-high prices, have added impetus to the search for oil substitutes--including in Washington, where President Bush this year declared the U.S. "addicted to oil" and sparked a boom in interest in ethanol. » Source: Mail Tribune Some in the industry now are keen to fight the threat posed by such fears. Tuesday, Abdallah S. Jum'ah, chief executive of Saudi Arabian state-owned Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil ...

Of all the many aspects of the predicament of industrial society, the peak of world petroleum production will likely have the most drastic impact in the short and middle term. Now it’s true, of course, that plenty of other resources are also running short worldwide, from topsoil and fresh water to dozens of minor but economically important minerals. In the latter days of a system designed and built to pursue the delusion of infinite material growth on a finite planet, shortages are inevitable, but no other globally traded commodity is as central to the world’s industrial economies as oil, or faces so imminent and irreversible a decline. » Source: The Archdruid Report Thus the end of the age of cheap oil promises a sea change in the world’s economies and societies as significant as the beginning of the fossil fuel age some three ...

The world has an abundant supply of oil, and high petrol prices are just the reality of a globally traded commodity, ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said today. Mr Nolan used his speech to the Asia Pacific oil and gas conference in Adelaide today to debunk the theory of peak oil, which suggests oil supplies have peaked and will dwindle over the next 20 years. Such predictions, he said, had been around since the 1920s, particularly at times of high oil prices. » Source: The Australian “The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist,” Mr Nolan said. “According to the US Geological Survey, the earth currently has more than three trillion barrels of conventional, recoverable oil resources. “So far we have produced one trillion.” Mr Nolan said the oil industry had ...

Relax! There's plenty of oil left in the ground. By 2030 conventional fossil fuels will still account for 80% of the world's energy requirements. At least that's the view espoused by Mark Nolan, chairman of Exxon-Mobil Australia. It is also the view of the US Department of Energy. Now I'm not here to promote conspiracy theories, only to promulgate them. FN Arena attempts only to be an objective news service, providing food for thought. Lord knows I get into enough trouble for suggesting central bank gold price manipulation (based on the evidence collected by others), but then I'm lauded on the other side of the fence. It is with the credo of objective journalism in mind that I have delved into the great Peak Oil debate. » Source: FNArena Put very simply, supporters of the peak oil theory believe the world's supply ...

Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) is a widely touted US-based energy advisor firm. They bill themselves as a source to “help decision makers anticipate the energy future and formulate timely, successful plans in the face of rapid changes and uncertainty.” One aspect of our energy future about which CERA appears certain is the concept of peak oil. "Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we’re concerned", said Robert W. Esser, a geologist by training and CERA’s senior consultant/director of global oil and gas resources, according to Business Week online national correspondent Mark Morrison (Sept 7). » Source: Energy Bulletin A wide range of very serious organizations are looking at and/or have commented upon the concept of peak oil, including the National Academy of Sciences (10/05), the US GAO (11/06), and the National Petroleum Council (2/07), working at the ...

The peak oil movement — an unlikely alliance of geologists, physicists, oil industry consultants and environmental activists — seems to be gaining momentum and winning new converts. For the first time, some say, peaksters have begun to grab the attention of Washington and Wall Street. The US Energy Secretary has now asked his advisory body, the National Petroleum Council, to investigate if oil supplies could keep pace with (the rising global) demand. Further, the US government accountability office, a non-partisan congressional watchdog, is due to release a study on peak oil this November. Interestingly, a congressional peak oil caucus has also been formed in the meantime, too. » Source: MENAFM Naturally with the theory of peak oil coming increasingly under discussion, the focus is bound to shift on Ghawar, the world's super giant well — accounting for more than six percent of the global oil needs ...

The need for such a protocol is becoming increasingly plain. Petroleum is a non-renewable, polluting, and depleting resource on which the world has become dangerously dependent. This in itself should be cause for nations to find ways to reduce their consumption and thus their dependency. However, there is also the problem of uncertain future supply. Long before the last drop of petroleum has been recovered from any given reservoir the possible rate of extraction tends to peak and then fall off for purely physical, geological reasons. Today, most oil-producing countries have already reached and passed their national production peaks and are in steady decline. There is universal agreement that the world as a whole will reach its peak rate of production at some point in the next few decades-but there is controversy as to when, exactly, the peak will come. While some analysts forecast the maximum flow rate as occurring later ...