Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast

Source: The Independent

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html

---

This is the head of the IEA talking. If he's waking up to the fact that Peak Oil is imminent, hopefully President Obama and the rest of the world leaders will too.

We really need to end the influence of speculators in the energy markets.

;)
till somebody can say "I told you so"

lol

:)

DJ13!
Anything to fuel the speculation.
Not saying that Peak Oil is a fallacy, or even that we haven't already achieved it, but there are MUCH bigger fish to fry right now....
hamerfan

The world's been on a production plateau -in other words, essentially flat for 5 years now.

diversified into solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and other sources of power?

Oh wait, the higher the price of oil, the more in their pockets.

Diversification into other energy sources, on a massive level, would only diminish their profits.

If oil goes, we're going to need a lot more energy than those sources can reliably supply.

:dem:

-Laelth

invest in and research alternate sources of power. We are obviously way behind the need.

Just don't spend my money building useless windmills that provide no useful electricity and do more harm than good.

Wind Power BLOWS.

See the following:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/25/wind-turbine-bats.html
http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/faqs.html
http://www.nortexwind.org/index.htm
http://www.stopillwind.org/index.php
http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/
http://www.savewesternny.org/
http://www.wind-watch.org/
http://www.epaw.org/
http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/?p=166
http://www.rivercitymalone.com/?p=654
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/21/the-unbearable-lightness-of-wi
http://notesfromotherside.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-on-renewable-energy.html
http://www.pest-03.org/ (Power Engineers Supporting Truth)

Or just watch this series of videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNxvkrgoPLo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_utFV2ukOtU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOd5tSZF3A4&feature=related

There's more, but you get the idea. :)

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

Apparently I picked one that wasn't very effective because I'm left thinking "....and?"

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that trite stuff.

People are getting sick. Their land values are dropping. Mountaintops are being clear-cut. Very few jobs are being created in the areas that these windmills are placed. Wildlife (bats, in particular) is suffering. And, to top it all off, the windmills don't produce useful energy (because a conventional plant must always be running in reserve to replace the lost power if the wind stops blowing).

Wind power is just not a good idea.

:dem:

-Laelth

I appreciate your opinion, but the things you mention are very subjective which means reasonable people could come up with varying opinions given the same facts. They are also trivial, imo. Beauty and land values? Should those things trump the more imperative environmental issues? How many are "very few jobs" and how many do they compare to in conventional energy? Whole mountaintops are being clear cut ... or 3-4 acres around each windmill? People are getting sick exactly how and with what maladies?

Sorry, but these arguments sound almost concocted or contrived. And that's my considered opinion. :shrug:

If wind power did anything to reduce global warming, I would agree with you. Some sacrifices will have to be made to save the planet. But wind energy doesn't even reduce carbon emissions.

Feel free to peruse the links above if you're interested.

Thanks for the response.

:dem:

-Laelth

That's kind of BS. Those alternate energy sources could run cars or anything else. As much as I love big v-8 engines, the truth is that electric motors are 5 times as efficient and can be powered by all sorts of things.The big energy companys fear solar panels on every roof and wind turbines because they don't control them and can not make a profit once they are in place. edit By the way don't blame me, I don't own a car or truck. I have a perfectly good motorcycle that gets 40 to 50 MPG, depending on how hard I ride it.

Our battery technology is no where near close to producing the same kind of range that gasoline provides, but I presume we will get there. Storing electricity is a problem because we live on a big ball of metal that sucks electricity to itself. It quickly drains batteries. It even sucks static electricity out of the sky--that's called lightning.

Either way, we're going to need a lot more electricity in order to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Right now, gas and coal are simply cheaper to use. I don't think the big energy companies "fear" alternative energy. The big companies will go where the money is. If solar becomes cheaper than gas, they'll do solar. The fact is, solar is very expensive (and the sun doesn't shine at night--people want electricity 24/7, not just at night). Wind is useless, geo-thermal is highly impractical, tidal power (if fully utilized) would consume and destroy our coasts and marine estuaries. For lots of reasons, most "green energy" is impractical. If it were cost-effective, private companies would be doing it now without massive government subsidies.

:dem:

-Laelth

and only then will they diversify.
It is scary/appalling to me that we are still decentralizing our small towns (such as consolidating schools, moving government service offices such as S.S.A. out of town), widening highways and adding to highway systems, when there isn't a plan to get to those facilities, or use those roads, when easily collected oil is gone. Our governments have to be aware of Peak Oil, surely to God the proponents of the idea have let the Congress and Senate members in on it, as well as others in leadership roles. Instead of putting schools, groceries, and public facilities way the hell and gone away from our homes, we ought to be repurposing abandoned town centers and encouraging walking or bikes. And of course, buying local. Even if Peak Oil is a scary story, we should be looking at other kinds of fuel that don't wreck the planet and we should be looking at ways to get around that doesn't involve paving over every square foot of earth.

Sunlight is free.

Turning it into usable energy via thermal action or photovoltaic conversion -- not so free.

--d!

I have seen the cost drop first from 8$ a watt to 4$ now at 1$ a watt installed. There is no longer a way to deny that it can be done if the will to do it was there. Being a retired electrician and a certified solar installer, one night I took a few hours< well maybe more then a few> and calculated what could be done with one month of Iraq money and found that we could cut fossil fuel use could be cut in half in 3 years. That was at 4$ a watt. It can be done and must be done, so don't believe the propaganda that solar and windmills will not do the job. Do some research and calculate it for yourself. It doesn't take an engineer to figure it out. We are the victims of a scam game of epic proportions.

A few solar companies now claim to PRODUCE solar panels for $1/watt, but that does not include the cost of installation.

some in Congress are well-aware of Peak Oil. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has been up there with his charts and speeches SO many times. His compatriot was Gilchrest, who was defeated. Both are Republicans, but truly have (had) an understanding of Peak Oil. Generally when C-SPAN showed him talking, there were less than a handful of people there listening.

:dem:

-Laelth

Peak oil is now, not ten years from now.

http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/politics/GlobalOil.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

But it's nice to see the IEA get a crack in their rose-tinted glasses.

The only reason we are not in more trouble is the "demand destruction" resulting from the global economic collapse. We are between a rock and a hard place; if the economy "recovers", oil will go through the roof. Making the necessary "structural adjustments" will take a lot of time and cause a lot of pain. It would be helpful to get the goddamn speculators out of the energy markets.

of course the oil industry loves this for pushing prices higher and no doubt are behind getting the press out there. they are actually helping to get the clean energy independence programs fueled - so thanks to them in particular.

Seriously, we could all do with less driving. More expensive oil means it's harder to subsidize against mass transit. More incentive for trains, light rail, and perhaps just maybe, the laws can be updated to legally build walking neighborhoods.

There's some serious money been made on cheap oil, and some fat cats are going to feel the pinch before they can diversify their holdings-again... But if those of us in the middle and on the bottom get hit, we're also in the best position to make some long overdue changes in the ways we live.

I've despised car culture for as long as I can remember, the end cannot come soon enough for me.

Fortunately for us, we don't have oil whores in charge of the country anymore. These assholes are in for a rude awakening if they try to rape us like they did when the assholes were in charge for 8 years.

Since oil is priced in dollars, a fall in the dollar means that a user will need more dollars to buy the oil.

I'm not saying that the dollar's decline is the sole reason for the recent increase in prices, but it is a factor often overlooked.

back in '73. You didn't even need specialized knowledge of oil futures or potential reserves. The knowledge that concerted effort by a group had cut off the flow was sufficient. That was the "gun on the wall," and from it anyone with knowledge of story construction could see the eventual developments. Whether it was concerted effort by a cabal, or the realization that only a finite commodity could be so manipulated -- didn't matter how the endgame was formulated, the outline for the plot had been laid bare. Only the willfully ignorant deny it now.

for the last 30 years - since that Goddamn Reagan!

because politically and economically, it's going to be the challenge of our lifetimes. Less oil = less economic growth (if any). Oil is used in almost everything: transportation, pharmaceuticals, roads, tires, plastics, computers, etc. Less oil means more competition for that oil which of course means more war for resources.

:banghead:

drill. It's disaster capitalism at it's finest!

there's really nothing we can do besides pressure those in charge to ignore the whalers who cry out that nothing's wrong - we need a smart energy policy, we need to keep the promise to give 5000-7500 tax credit to purchase an electric car, thousands to weatherize or add electric making devices to our homes, etc...

ignore the GOP gnashing of teeth

They will do it catastrophically, but they will do it.

They're not the answer for everything, but it's a start.

-------------------------------------------------------

Offshore windmills hold clean-energy promise (S.F. Chronicle, 8-2-09)

Someday decades from now, California's sprawling coastal cities could draw their power from floating windmills that bob on the sea like buoys, far from shore.

Their blades would spin over deep ocean water, turning in winds that are steadier and stronger than they are on land. Undersea cables would send their electricity to shore.

This kind of floating windmill has not yet been deployed en masse. But a model of one sits in the Berkeley office of Principle Power, one of several companies trying to tap the powerful winds at sea.

Principle has signed agreements with utilities to test its device, called the WindFloat, off the coasts of Oregon and Portugal. Three connected canisters filled with ballast water will support a wind turbine, with cables mooring the entire device to the seabed.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/03/MN0Q18ABIT.DTL#ixzz0NAj30aTO

you realize we have to keep power running in the background for when wind isnt blowing right?

That means even when we are generating wind power we STILL HAVE coal plants running in the background for drops in power?

Lets get some real solutions

can be used to create a fuel, which may be stored and used at any time (including "when the wind isn't blowing").

is one example. is a better one.

If the electricity is renewable, so too will be the fuel.

is ALWAYS blowing.

There are also technologies in development and operation for storing energy created during the day, by PV for instance, and returning it at night. Of course, most energy use is during the day when the sun is bathing us with energy.

But even that's not a solution.

There's no such thing as a free lunch...

Burn all the fossil fuels - and Earth becomes Venus and no kind of life we'd recognize will survive here...

There's a rather significant carbon footprint and energy requirement in the manufacture of solar panels, windmills (especially by the millions), cars, etc. etc. etc.

Nuclear -- another depleting resource that has a huge carbon footprint from mine to disposal...

Power DOWN! We must re-create an ecology that DOESN'T USE GOBS OF ENERGY!

NO MORE GOD DAMN COAL...unless you like daytime temperatures in the neighborhood of 500 degrees F...

How about drilling in ANWR.
We haven't reached peak yet because we still haven't explored a multitude of untapped resources.

This would give us the time we need to find a realistic alternative energy resource.

ANWR would require billions in infrastructure to extract only a small amount of oil. Even the oil companies are against it. But your friends in the GOP love the idea because they see it as a "symbolic defeat of Liberalism" (their own words) and an opportunity for Halliburtan to scam more taxpayer dollars.

We here in Florida make much of our income from tourism, which is fueled by our clean beaches. Don't think about fucking that up for us with your dreams of short term oil profits.

Solutions exist, but they don't make the usual suspects rich. Think about it; you can't put a meter on sunshine. Once the power elite no longer control the distribution of the worlds fuel, the entire power structure is altered. It's not as easy to enslave people for pennies when they live in self sustaining homes and drive cars that run for pennies and don't break down easily. Old ideas are killing us. It's time to evolve.

Gas prices go up, tourism goes down. If they drill offshore the proposal is that Florida would get 37.5% of the revenues. The industry thinks the area holds 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - enough to heat 2 million homes for 15 years.--> http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1160018.html

We need to do what we know will work now. Then work on alternative energy sources.

There is potentially enough crude in the Gulf that drilling could bring us more oil than we are currently importing.
The oil in ANWR could make us less dependent on oil in Iran or Venezuela. It doesn't have to last for long just long enough until we start mass producing alternative energy sources.

I don't see wind farms out in the middle of the ocean as a realistic solution. Wind dies you still need coal or fuel power plants to get your power from. Plus one good hurricane and say bye bye to millions of dollars.

Building more nuclear plants is a good idea too. I hear France is like 90% nuclear now. Cleaner than coal or gas, and will leave more gas available for cars.

I hear making cars that run on Natural gas may be a cheaper alternative. And we can get all the natural gas we need here in the states.

existing cars can also be converted for natural gas, which has been taking place all over the globe.

You have to charge it for 30+ minutes every 100 miles. Electric isn't ready to replace gas yet.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2009/08/68495969/1

Still some work required for long haul drives, though.

Or 200 million homes for .15 years (nearly two months). That'll solve the problem, alright.

In fact it's better than a car that only goes 100 miles on a 30 minute charge.

A car that does a daily commute on a 30 minute charge is quite significant, in principle. That, coupled with renewable electricity could take care of most daily tranportation needs (mass transit is another solution). These are necessary steps to long term solutions.

The choice isn't between "doing nothing" and drilling off the Florida coast.

Because the remaining oil reserves are small potatoes compared to the ones that have already peaked in production. Those multitudes of small, untapped resources can't replace the massive oilfields that we've been tapping for the past 50 years.

Peak Oil isn't about when all oil is gone. It is what occurs when we've burned through HALF of all the oil reserves on the planet. The first half is the easy to get stuff, while the second half is the hard to extract (and EXPENSIVE) stuff.

The oil companies sell the oil on the markets to the highest bidders. Right? Isn't that how markets work?

Google how much oil US companies sell to China and India.

That "Florida oil" will end up in Mumbai.

I saw a chart awhile back that showed how an increase in the price of energy will make transporting goods across oceans more expensive than domestic manufacturing. It will also fuel the drive for more efficient alternative energy sources. We have to give up oil sooner or later, no doubt about that.

He was the chief economist for a major Canadian bank, until recently. It is an excellent book.

The fucking oil companies do not give a shit about anything except profit.

since the 70s really. I guess how fast they will run out is all relative. Unfortunately, saying this kind of stuff doesn't help us ween off oil. Only high oil prices will do that.

Jesus would never let this happen.

until oil is prohibitively expensive, then this is just an article. Solutions will come, but not until the oil is almost gone.

You won't be able to breath the air by the time the "oil is almost gone"...

The easy half of the oil is ALREADY GONE. The rest will keep getting more and more expensive and burning it is going to increase the likelihood that Earth becomes Venus....

POWER DOWN!!!

Humans did pretty well for nearly 3 million years before getting hooked on the high-energy "civilization" over the last 150 years.

We have been fed this hyperbole since the 1970s, as noted by multiple people!

I consider this nothing more than “social engineering”. Get the masses to accept less each & every day; blame ourselves: “bad- bad humans”!

This is about power. You sure as hell aren’t going to energize a main battlefield tank on solar. You sure as hell aren’t going to power a fighter over the Mediterranean with really cool battery technology.

:sarcasm:

There, I had an extra.

If you didn't mean that last post as satire you're bat-shit looney!

I meant social engineering.

Bat-shit loony – probably along with a lot of people. We are all posting on a political blog!

Which part is the "social engineering" (that's a loaded right-wing term I've heard before that you're parroting)

Peak Oil...

Global Climate Change...

Collapse of the Ponzi Scheme of an "economy" based on cheap oil...

???

Yes, I consider oil a “renewable resource”. Provided you address the issue in geological time!

What has been proposed (by the scare freaks) for the last 40+ years is that we will suddenly run out of this valuable liquid gold. The reality check is that their figures have constantly been graphed using energy consumption scales and then compared to “proven reserves”. Proven reserves are an ever-changing target based upon current technology! In other words what we didn’t think was possibly 40 years ago is now SOP.

Rarely, if ever, are the nuclear/coal/wind/solar ever entered into their forecast models.

Venezuela, a country that literally floats (geologically) on a sea of liquid gold, has an amazing array of refineable reserves. They range from the lightest crude to the nastiest tars. Refining those nasty tars is a constantly shifting engineering process for chemical engineers.

California, think La Brea tars, in the coastal regions is also pretty nasty stuff to refine and use for fuels and lubricants, California did however build some pretty good roads with that material. Off shore California wells (deeper into the sub-duction zone) provide better/more easily refined material; it has been deeper in the womb of momma earth a little longer.

In short, yes, it is renewable. You just have to be willing to wait around!

This game is about getting you to believe that somehow you are responsible for a proposed catastrophic event ever looming before us. The reality is that these scary numbers are nothing more than propaganda.

and Global Climate Change:

http://www.peakoil.net/

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php


"If the environmentalists get out of the way, can't we just drill in ANWR?"

While some folks desperately cling to the belief that oil is a renewable resource, others hold on to the equally delusional idea that tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve will solve, or at least delay, this crisis. While drilling for oil in ANWR will certainly make a lot of money for the companies doing the drilling, it won't do much to help the overall situation for three reasons:

Reason #1. According of the Department of Energy, drilling in ANWR will only lower oil prices by less than fifty cents;

Reason #2. ANWR contains 10 billion barrels of oil - or about the amount the US consumes in a little more than a year.

Reason #3. As with all oil projects, ANWR will take about 10 years to come online. Once it does, its production will peak at 875,000 barrels per day - but not till the year 2025. By then the US is projected to need a whopping 35 million barrels per day while the world is projected to need 120 million barrels per day.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

Global Warming Basics

The scientific community has reached a strong consensus regarding the science of global climate change. The world is undoubtedly warming, and the warming is largely the result of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities.

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics

POWER DOWN!

http://www.richardheinberg.com/Powerdown.html

http://www.powerdownfortheplanet.org/

I tried to do that for years spreading the word about the Peak Oil Forum right here at DU, but as you can see from some of the responses on this thread, some just prefer to have their fingers in their ears.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=266

Great links, ProudDad! Those are some of my favorite sites.

www.transitionus.org

Transition Initiatives are part of a vibrant, international grassroots movement that builds community resilience in response to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis.

Together we can make the transition to a more fulfilling, equitable and sustainable world.

God forfend that Mobile doesn't make record profits this year like they did for the last six. Yeah....oil is much more scarce today that it was yesterday.

We burn 85 million barrels PER DAY, and oil is a non-renewable resource we've been burning for almost 100 years. How much longer do you think we can ride this gravy train?

Of course every day we use oil, it becomes more scarce. This is one of the reasons we need to get off oil. But The point I was making was this is yet another market manipulation by big OIL. There is no significant difference today in daily production capability from yesterday. But this "scary" report is aimed not at the truth of your statement, but at increasing the PRICE of oil - even when the cost of production and demand haven't changed.

Who will rule Barter-Town?

Very likely in most of the USAmerikan Empire...

With little pockets of sanity built by those who are thinking ahead...

www.transitionus.org

The Problem of Denial

by William R. Catton, Jr.
Professor Emeritus - Sociology Washington State University

ABSTRACT

Abundant evidence suggests industrial civilization must be "downsized" to curb damage to the ecosphere by the "technosphere." Trends behind this prospect include prodigious population growth, urbanization, cultural
dependence upon ravenous use of fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources, consequent air pollution, and global climate change. Despite prolonged Cold War distraction and entrenched faith that technology could
always enlarge carrying capacity, these trends were well publicized. But there remain eminent writers who persist in denying that human carrying capacity (Earth's maximum sustainable human load) has now been or ever will be exceeded. Denials of ecological limits resemble anosognosia (inability of stroke patients to recognize their paralysis). Some denial literature resembles their confabulations (elaborately unreal stories concocted as rationalizations). Denial by opponents of human ecology seems to be a way of coping with an insufferable contradiction between past convictions and present circumstances, a defense against intolerable anomalous information.

http://www.greatchange.org/ov-catton,denial.html

"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

Human ecologists could well be dismayed by the apparent preoccupation of society's decision makers with matters of less basic importance to our global prospects than the following facts:

1. Human numbers on this planet are much greater today (and still growing) than they were just half a century ago (Demeny 1986, 29-33; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990; Keyfitz, 1991).
2. A greater fraction of the world's people today live in cities, and many cities are faced with problems of serious air pollution (Demeny, 1986,55-58; Lowe, 1991).
3. Industrialization has enabled and required mankind to use fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources at prodigious rates, with little regard for the finiteness of the Earth's deposits of these substances (Young, 1992; Flavin and Lenssen, 1994,29-49; Inkeles, 1994; Szell, 1994).
4. The combustion products we have been putting into the atmosphere may be causing climate change (Tangley, 1988;Abrahamson, 1989;Rathjens, 1991;Revkin, 1992; Ravin and Lenssen, 1994,50-70; Wigley, 1995).
5. Other products of modem chemistry have been accumulating in the upper atmosphere and wreaking havoc with the protective ozone layer (Benedick, 1991; Litfin, 1994, 52-77).

Could mass media preoccupation with less crucially significant matters explain why there appear even now to be so many literate and educated people who remain unconcerned about these facts, or who deny their truth or at least their importance?

Individuals can do amazing things. Societies don't seem to be as smart as your average lizard or frog. Societies are more like colonial entities, not much of a central nervous system, no sensory organs worth speaking of, just grow grow grow until something happens to stop it.

is that the intelligence and rationality of their actions is inversely proportional to the square of their numbers...

That's why the evolutionary dead-end represented by homo-sapiens will soon vanish...

Unlamented by the rest of the web of life...

But we sure are making a big fucking mess.

Amazing how many people are only thinking in short term here.

and there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren (not certain)...

They won't need oil...

Because if they exist in the future, the current infinite-growth on a finite Earth model of corporate capitalism will have vanished onto the dustbin of history where it belongs...

People will have powered-down and right-sized their lives...and reestablished community...

Or there will be no people...

And, in cosmic terms, that's ok too...

"The American way of life is not negotiable".

Perhaps Dick Cheney was right, though not in the way he intended.

It's not that the majority of Americans won't, it's that we can't. We're playing Pied Piper for the rest of the world relying on an infrastructure that has no long-term future.

We're glowing about the future!

:sarcasm:

supporting the notion it was due to "peak oil".

but it wasn't.