Oil industry hits peak production (Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari)

Oil industry hits peak production
PM - Monday, 10 July , 2006 18:34:00
Reporter: Barney Porter

MARK COLVIN: A leading expert has warned that the world's oil industry has started to reach its peak production rate and is already in the first phase of a transition to an uncertain future.

Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari predicted on this program two years ago that the crisis would begin in 2006 or 2007.

Now he says the current estimates of oil reserves are grossly exaggerated and we are approaching a time when oil may reach $US 300 a barrel and demand will out-strip supply.

It may happen this decade.

Barney Porter has the story.

BARNEY PORTER: Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari says in one regard, the science is simple.

ALI SAMSAM BAKHTIARI: Crude oil is the master domino. When you tumble crude oil, all the other dominoes tumble, whichever they are. And that is what makes this peak oil so important.

(more)

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1683169.htm

An Open Letter to Greg Palast
by Richard Heinberg

Dear Greg,

Congratulations on your new book, Armed Madhouse. As with your previous work, I admire your dedication in exposing the machinations of government and corporate miscreants.

However, this time around you’ve also taken a potshot at a target that I happen to know a good deal about and have been closely involved with for a few years—the efforts by a growing number of analysts to forecast the arrival, and prepare the world for the consequences, of Peak Oil. In this instance I think your negative comments about Peak Oil and those of us who study it are not well informed. Ordinarily I wouldn’t respond to an ill-considered statement by an otherwise admirable author; but unfortunately you go on for several pages on this theme, and I’ve started receiving e-mails from folks who are troubled by what you said. In my many years of fighting to protect our planet from environmental destruction, I have learned how important it is to make sure that our supporters have the most accurate information possible. Time and again, I have seen our opponents seize on internal disagreements as wedges in their drive to weaken and damage the credibility of the environmental movement. I feel the responsibility to help sort out the factual issues in this instance particularly strongly because you have worked so hard to earn your reputation as a truth-teller in these perilous times.

First let me make clear where I’m coming from with my critical analysis. Before you assume that, just because I disagree with you, I must therefore be secretly in the employ of the Heritage Foundation or some nefarious corporation, I should point out that in my own recent book, Powerdown, I take the Bush administration to task as vehemently (if not at so great a length) as you have done. And I teach in a program on “Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community” at a small, far-left liberal arts college where you have lectured. So we are in other respects natural allies.

In your book, you place your critique of Peak Oil in the context of scathing attacks on the Bush energy plan and the oil companies’ enormous ongoing political influence. These are serious problems and you deal with them skillfully and entertainingly. But, in contrast to these subjects, the Peak Oil discussion is more about science than politics, and when it comes to science, catchy phrases don’t count; only a careful weighing of evidence does. I’m sorry to say that you don’t appear to be fully informed about the terms and history of this debate.

Let’s start with your description of the work of the late geologist M. King Hubbert and the study of oil depletion.

(much more)

http://www.energybulletin.net/17914.html