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"...If energy weren’t very important then it wouldn’t matter that you have a need for 100 and a supply of 70. But since energy is the one thing that makes our entire global economy work ... when you start having that sort of mismatch, the bullies get to the front of the line and take it first. The urgency of this blows away this sort of vague worry about global warming: I don’t know anybody who thinks that’s an issue that will affect our lives in the next 15 or 20 years. If we don’t solve this in 10 years, it’s too late." Matthew Simmons (source)

May 2008 ~ Latest news this month see below for more

For other latest news regarding oil depletion and its consequences, please see below In addition, every day, from Energy Bulletin, see the Daily Energy Headlines "Oil is so important that the peak will have vast implications across the realms of geopolitics, lifestyle, agriculture and economic stability... there is nothing in the pipeline to replace these losses as our usage increases five times faster than discovery..."

MP Chloe Fox said: "I urge people to please go on the internet, go to Google, type in the words 'peak oil theory', and if you read what I have read, you will not be able to sleep at night." (Extract from Australia Hansard Tuesday 5 June 2007 )

What is "Peak Oil"?                                                               

Latest News in the press (Daily since April 2004)

(See also Guardian report on renewable energy)       ASPO      Books and websites      The Hirsch Report (pdf new window)

Depletion Protocol     Dr. Colin Campbell's presentation April 2005.
 
"Our long-standing addiction to cheap oil has cost us dearly in terms of health, global security, human rights and a changing climate.
It has also long stifled investment and innovation in alternative energy sources and technologies.
Maybe we should look at expensive gas as an opportunity rather than a crisis."
Mitchell Anderson - staff scientist with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund in Vancouver.
 
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett's Special Order Speech OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL (warmwell page as HTML) House of Representatives April 20, 2005
The latest GAO report March 2007 (link http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07283.pdf) reveals that the United States is particularly vulnerable and the United States federal government is unprepared to respond to severe consequences from an increasing risk of significant disruptions to world oil supplies from peak oil ...
Member States of the EEC have to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products Directive

Matthew Simmons March 2008 :".. I think prices have to go way higher. The sooner people get used to the fact that we are still living in a fool’s paradise, the better ... you just can not argue that $100 a barrel is expensive when you realize it is 15 cents a cup - do you know anything other than crude oil that sells for 15 cents a cup? I know wine doesn’t, bottled water doesn’t."

May 9 ~ Oil over $126, new peak for 5th straight day

May 7 2008 ~ Gordon Brown and George Bush "whistling in the wind by blaming OPEC for the latest price surge. The cartel no longer has the capacity to crank up production even if it wanted to do so"

May 2 2008 ~Exxon oil production struggles for growth

May 1 2008 ~ Government’s plans to meet its renewable energy targets through offshore wind stymied by Shell.

Wednesday 23 April 2008 ~ Oil is now within striking distance of $120 a barrel. Grains prices still rising

April 17 2008 ~ Nigeria’s oil output ‘could fall by a third’

April 16 2008 ~ "a 50-50 chance we'll reach $125 by Labour Day"

April 16 ~ (Reuters) - A giant Brazilian oil reserve estimate that came out this week is overblown, but a larger area encompassing the find could indeed contain 33 billion barrels

April 15 2008 ~ “the period of intense oil production [growth] is over”.

April 11 2008 ~ " because extraction methods have become more efficient - "decline rates" are also higher in major fields.

April 10 2008 ~ Oil hits record high after US inventories

March 30 2008 ~ "Oil remains at the heart of the game and, if anything, it is even more important than before."

March 27 2008 ~Oil prices went above $108 a barrel after one of Iraq's main export pipelines was blown up.

Another key measure of the oil price, London Brent crude, finsihed $1.01 higher at $105, having peaked at $105.60 during the session.

March 27 2008 ~ "Energy shortages are now so frequent across the world there is a new web site, www.energyshortage.org, devoted to keeping track of them all."

March18 2008 ~ "Oil prices rose to consecutive record high levels in recent weeks, driven by the US currency's persistent slump against the euro..."

March15 2008 ~ Oil hits record $US111, US dollar dives

March15 2008 ~ Oil and gold hit new highs.

March 12 2008 ~ "The price of oil soared to a new record level above $110 (£54) a barrel yesterday

March 9 2008 ~ Markets rattled by signs of renewed credit crisis

March 6 2008 ~ "Crude oil traded near a record $US104.95 a barrel in New York

March 4 2008 ~ Gas supplies to Europe could be hit

March 3 2008 ~ Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have blamed factors beyond its control, such as speculation and the weak dollar, for oil's record run.

Feb 26 2008 ~ Oil prices could top $300 per barrel within the next five years: Matthew Simmons

March 3 2008 ~ Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have blamed factors beyond its control, such as speculation and the weak dollar, for oil's record run.

Feb 26 2008 ~ Oil prices could top $300 per barrel within the next five years: Matthew Simmons

Feb 26 2008 ~"....last week, Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of oil major Royal Dutch Shell, released a study that predicted the days of easy-to-reach oil are at an end.

February 24 2008 ~ the most crucial energy issues that must be addressed by the new US administration in its first 30 days in office

Feb 22 2008 ~ "... behaviour must change because nothing can compensate for the rising cost of petroleum." French P.M

20th February 2008 ~ world leaders are steering the world toward an energy disaster characterized by shortages, high energy prices, inflation, civil unrest and famine.

February 18 2008 ~ One of the primary purposes of government is to anticipate future threats and take appropriate risk management measures, so we cannot turn from this challenge …

February 15 2008 ~ natural gas based fertilizer prices will continue to rise along with the commodity, as more and more competition for gas ensues, further boosting the price of food, and making the heat or eat problem even more acute.…

February 8 2008 ~ Canada’s production of natural gas and conventional oil is declining…

February 8 2008 ~ Australia’s first transition town…

February 8 2008 ~ Making biofuels leads to "excessive land clearing" and releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide

February 7 2008 ~ "The key is going to be agriculture"

February 6 2008 ~ recent slump has changed the equation for the cartel

February 5 2008 ~every indication that worldwide petroleum production will begin an inexorable, inevitable decline beginning around 2010

January 31st 2008 ~ "The rest of us are going to have to find alternative means of transportation..."

January 25th 2008 ~ "World demand for oil and gas will outstrip supply within seven years, according to Royal Dutch Shell."

January 25th 2008 ~ "Get thee to the productive side of the economy. Grow something, or learn to make or repair something useful."

January 21st 2008 ~ "Peak Oil is about RATE. And RATE is dependent on the SIZE, AGE and QUALITY of the RESERVES. "

January 17th 2008 ~ "the U.S. economic outlook has worsened"

January 15th 2008 ~ World leaders queasy over record oil prices

January 12th 2008 ~ High oil prices? You ain’t seen nothing yet

January 9th 2008 ~ the real problems are indeed "below ground"."

January 7th 2008 ~ look beyond the conflicting forecasts and to focus on the consequences of underestimating the severe consequences of the peak oil problem

January 3 2008 ~ shortages for diesel and heating oil now seem likely to develop before they do for gasoline

January 3 2008 ~

(Reuters) - ".... The weak dollar, cold weather in the United States and unrest in Nigeria helped lift oil, which in turn boosted gold. ... U.S. light crude for February delivery fell 25 cents to $99.37 a barrel by 0426 GMT. Crude touched a record of $100 in the previous session, surpassing November's $99.29 peak. .... "Oil is particularly news-sensitive at the moment as we are in the peak heating oil demand period and prices are being driven by cold weather in the United States and tensions in oil producer Nigeria and to a lesser extent, Pakistan." Suspected militants mounted attacks in Nigeria's oil city, Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, killing 18. Regular attacks by militant groups since February 2006 have already cut oil exports by the world's eighth-largest crude exporter by about 20 percent. Investors will now be watching if crude can establish itself firmly above $100 a barrel. "

December 15 2007 ~

Guardian ~ "Expensive oil and food boosted euro zone inflation in November even higher than initially estimated to its steepest level in six and a half years, data showed, raising concern at the European Commission.
Consumer prices in the 13 countries using the euro rose 0.5 percent month-on-month and 3.1 percent year-on-year, the European Union statistics office said on Friday. The annual figure compared with 2.6 percent in October and the initial 3.0 percent estimate, which shaped market expectations. It was the highest rate since May 2001, when inflation also reached 3.1 percent -- its strongest level since measurements for what is now the euro zone started in January 1997. "These inflation numbers are bad news all round and come against a background of elevated and rising inflation expectations," said Klaus Baader, economist at Merrill Lynch. "The credibility of the anti-inflationary regime in Europe is not really what it used to be." The European Commission expressed concern ....."

December 10 2007 ~

Independent ~ "The oil rush is also scarring a wilderness landscape: millions of tonnes of plant life and top soil is scooped away in vast open-pit mines and millions of litres of water are diverted from rivers – up to five barrels of water are needed to produce a single barrel of crude and the process requires huge amounts of natural gas. The industry, which now includes all the major oil multinationals, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell and American combine Exxon-Mobil, boasts that it takes two tonnes of the raw sands to produce a single barrel of oil....as oil prices hover around the $100-per-barrel mark, Lord Browne's successor, Tony Hayward, announced that BP has entered a joint venture with Husky Energy, owned by the Hong Kong based billionaire Li Ka-Shing, to develop a tar sands facility..."

December 5 2007 ~

www.energybulletin.net ".......The magnitude of the coming decline in oil availability is truly alarming..... A collapse of the dollar seems imminent because of the converging effects of the unsustainable boom financed by ballooning consumer debt and the unsustainable flooding of the world economy with US Dollars to import two thirds of their oil as well as a flood of consumer goods. The United States is bankrupt but nobody wants to admit it. The main reasons that in the US Dollar retains any value at all are that a large number of countries hold dollars as foreign reserve, almost everybody buys their oil in dollars and manufacturing countries, particularly China, do not want to see a collapse of their largest market.
The consequences and speed of the downfall of the American Empire are highly unpredictable, but it is certain to be a disaster for the whole world, which ever way it unfolds. I worry that the US high command may do something really stupid, like launching military action to seize oil by force by attacking Iran or Venezuela for example. My only hope is that their current war for oil is going very badly and I don’t think the American people will support any new resource wars. However, this may change if the economy collapses and there is massive unemployment and hardship similar to that of the Weimar Republic of the 1920s...." (Read in full)

December 3 2007 ~

Rutland Herald ~ The U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded in a report earlier this year, "… there is no coordinated federal strategy for reducing uncertainty about the … timing (of peak oil) or mitigating its consequences." In Vermont, things are no better. A doctoral student, after interviewing top officials in Vermont state government, recently concluded that the state has no reliable response to peak oil. At the local level, we're seeing only the beginnings of a response. Many cities and towns have energy teams, knit together in the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network. The Brattleboro Select Board has appointed a Peak Oil Task Force, which is drafting a report on the town's vulnerability to peak oil. On Tuesday, the Middlebury Select Board began considering its own task force...."

November 2007 ~

Independent ~" .....a growing appreciation of the finite limits to global oil production. Not only is production running pretty much at full bore, but there are also doubts about the ability to increase production in the medium-term. The second is the surge in demand from the emerging economies, principally China. And the third is the growing evidence of an economic slowdown in the US and the relationship between the higher oil price and that slowdown. A word about each....
...The worldwide rise in food prices is, in part, the result of using maize for fuel rather than for food. It also changes the sense of power: Russia and the Middle East have become more important; Western Europe and the US less so.....
.... If China is to go on using all the additional oil that is available, or more, the rest of the world will have to get by with less. This makes the present surge in the oil price different from all previous oil shocks: it is caused by rising demand rather than restricted supply...
....Eventually, higher energy and raw material costs must feed through into US inflation. The weak dollar will exacerbate this trend. So can the US Federal Reserve credibly cut interest rates further in the face of this inflationary pressure? Quite a few sceptics have questioned the wisdom of its most recent cut, and neither the Bank of England nor the European Central Bank has sought to follow – the ECB may even increase rates later this year. While the world has coped with oil prices approaching $100 a barrel surprising well so far, the US at least will find it harder to do so.
The surge in the oil price is just one element of pressure on the world economy. Countries that are growing strongly can cope. Countries that are already under pressure, such as the US, are finding it harder to do so. And countries in the middle, such as the UK? Well, higher energy prices will be one more headwind against the economy, resulting in slower growth next year. Money spent at the petrol pump is money not available to spend on something else. "

November 2007 ~

.energybulletin.net".... oil prices could move irreversibly over the $100 a barrel threshold in the not too distant future, as the global economy faces a serious energy shortage.
This gloomy assessment comes from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based organization representing the 26 rich, gas-guzzling member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The agency is not known for alarmist warnings, and its World Energy Outlook is typically viewed by policy wonks as a solid indicator of global energy supplies. In a marked change from its traditionally bland, measured tones, the IEA's 2007 report says governments need to make urgent, bold decisions on energy policy, or risk massive environmental and energy-supply crises within two decades - crises and shortages that could spark serious global conflicts.
"I am sorry to say this, but we are headed toward really bad days," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol told TIME this week. "Lots of targets have been set but very little has been done. There is a lot of talk and no action." ....."

November 7 2007 ~

Stuff co.nz World oil prices are racing toward record levels of US$100 a barrel, and gold is rushing to its highest in almost 30 years, as the United States dollar slumps against other currencies.

November 2 2007 ~

BBC analysts said that crude oil would probably break through $100 a barrel this year....There are also concerns about geopolitical issues such as a clash between the US and Iran, and an escalation of hostilities between Turkey and rebel Kurdish fighters based in the northern areas of Iraq....The problem facing oil markets and analysts is that all of the factors are combining to create a high level of uncertainty in the market and this, in turn, is driving prices higher..."

October 29 2007 ~

New Scientist ~ "It is downhill all the way for oil, according to a study by the Energy Watch Group (EWG) in Berlin, Germany. It reported this week that world oil production peaked in 2006 - far earlier than expected. EWG analysed oil production figures and predicted it would fall by 7 per cent a year, dropping to half of current levels by 2030. The announcement comes as oil prices reached record highs last week, at more than $90 a barrel, and contradicts optimistic projections by the International Energy Agency in Paris, France.
The report also predicts significant falls in gas, coal and uranium production. The group warns that supply shortages could cause "a meltdown in society", leading to scenes of mass unrest, such as those that took place in Burma earlier this month when the government pushed up fuel prices..."

October 22 2007 ~

Wall Street Journal ~ The wagering over $100 oil has begun in earnest. Oil prices, which rose briefly above $90 a barrel Friday, are more likely to head toward $100 than $80 in the next month, according to the number of bets placed by options traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The large number of options held to buy crude at $100 a barrel could also act as a pull on prices toward that level. ...

October 8 2007 ~

www.iht.com ~ 'This is an industry in crisis masked by high prices,' " said J. Robinson West, chairman of PFC Energy, an oil industry consulting firm in Washington. "There are no easy barrels left. The only barrels are going to be the tough barrels." There is plenty of oil and gas still in the ground, energy executives say. But global consumption is rising so fast they must keep looking for new sources. Despite concerns around the world about global warming and the role of fossil fuels in causing it, government specialists project that global oil and gas demand will jump about 50 percent in the next 25 years. At the same time, the big discoveries of the past three decades, like the North Sea and Alaska's North Slope, are drying up...."

October 5 2007 ~

www.miningmx.com"........if ASPO sounds like a voice on the fringe, it's worth considering that its founder – Colin Campbell, a geologist of 40 years' experience – has whipped up a veritable chorus of international support. He's joined by other prominent voices, including former Shell chairman Lord Oxborough, who has claimed that the world's oil industry is somnambulate in respect of alternative strategies to falling oil reserves. It's difficult to tell if there's an element of hysteria brought on by China's advent as a superpower and the ensuing commodities bull run. The current spikes in the oil price are partially informed by speculators capitalising on oil supply fears. However, Aspo's report quotes BP's Statistical Review, which shows that consumption in 2005 was 3.8 billion tonnes of oil, 8% growth over the past five years. Projecting similar growth for the next five years would imply oil consumption of about 4.1 billion tonnes, the report says."

September 21 2007 ~

abs-cbnnews.com ".....It was with much reluctance and foot-dragging that OPEC announced early this week they were pumping an additional 500,000 barrels of oil per day in November to cover for what they claim is a perceived undersupply in the world market and an expected rise in fuel stockpiling in preparation for the winter months in the temperate zones. Even then, prices in the world markets continued to rise. This has simply forced us to accept with eyes more open that we are no longer secure in a world fueled by oil and fossil fuels. This is an immutable fact that could drastically reshape the way our economies will run in the near future.....We are mere spectators watching a tableau where bigger forces are at play; all we can do is sit tight and hope that the ending is not one that is tragic."

September 16 2007 ~

Independent on Sunday " Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis' David Strahan and Andrew Murray-Watson " Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell.....ahead of his address to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in Ireland this week, one of the most respected names in the energy industry, said a rapid increase in the price of oil was inevitable as demand continued to outstrip supply. He said: "We can probably go on extracting oil from the ground for a very long time, but it is going to get very expensive indeed. And once you see oil prices in excess of $100 or $150 a barrel, the alternatives simply become more attractive on price grounds if on no others."
Lord Oxburgh added that oil majors must invest more heavily in developing viable alternatives to oil and gas. ...
Commenting on whether "peak oil" - the point when global oil production goes into terminal decline - was likely to be reached in the near future, he said: "In a way it scarcely matters; what really matters is the gap between production and demand. I don't know whether there is going to be a peak in world oil production, whether it's going to plateau and then slowly come down. It could well plateau within the next 20 years, and I guess I would be surprised if it hadn't."...."

September 14 2007 ~

CNN ~ "The end of oil. A small - but growing - group of experts think world oil production will peak in the next few years, to devastating effect. ....Adherents are growing, and include some fairly well-known names. In the coming week, a former chairman of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell (Charts) is speaking at a peak oil conference in Ireland, as is former U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger. Most peak oil proponents simply don't believe the numbers put forward by industry and the government. The world will produce 118 million barrels of oil a day, up from its current 85 million barrels per day, just to satisfy projected demand by 2030, according to the Energy Information Agency. "That's never going to happen," said Richard Heinberg, a research fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of three books on peak oil. Heinberg says world production of regular crude oil actually peaked in May 2005. He also says production in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries is in decline, and that global oil discoveries peaked in 1964. Most importantly, he says reserves in the Middle East, where EIA predicts the bulk of new supply will come from, have been "systematically overstated." "Everyone just takes their figures at face value," Heinberg said. "But they are national oil companies, they can't be audited." Instead of production ramping up to 118 million barrels per day, Heinberg sees a plateau over the next few years, then gradual declines beginning in 2010. By 2015, he says the rate of decline will accelerate as field after field runs dry and few new supplies are found. By 2030, the world could be looking at powering its economy on 30 million barrels a year. "It's going to be an enormous shock to the global system," said Heinberg. "We're talking something on the order of the Great Depression, perhaps much worse." As for billions starving to death when crops dependent on fossil fuel-based fertilizers fail en masse, he said, "that's the worst case scenario, but it can't be ruled out."......."

September 12 2007 ~

Could salt water become the ultimate green fuel source?
WKYC ~ " We watched as they poured Morton's salt into a container, mixed it with water and then exposed the fluid to the Kanzius radio frequency device. An intense flame erupted over the test tube...... Professor Emeritus, Rustum Roy, at the Penn State University Materials Lab is a leading expert on the science of water. He was impressed by the discovery but wanted to see it for himself. .... Material Science faculty exposed more than 50 different water combinations to the radio frequency to see the reaction. "This is the biggest discovery in 100 years in water research" exclaimed Professor Roy.
......many engineering experts aren't as impressed. Energy experts like University of Akron Professor Emeritus, Rudy Scavuzzo, Ph.D, say the burning of salt water is nothing more than a new twist on a high school science experiment. Scavuzzo told Channel 3's Mike O'Mara that the Kanzius invention requires too much energy to be worth celebrating. "There is no breakthrough", said Professor Scavuzzo, "Because there are more efficient ways of breaking water down to hydrogen and oxygen."
..... at PSU, Professor Roy wants the critics to reserve judgment until more research is done with the device. "Certainly it needs investigation and certainly we ought to look at the question of how efficient it is", said Roy. "Because that will determine how much John Kanzius shakes up the world. He has shaken up the scientific world already. But this will determine how much he shakes it up." Pointing at the RF machine, Roy added, "That's a tremendous advance in a new empirical discovery."

September 12 2007 ~

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly ~ "OPEC agreed today to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day. But check out this sentence in the New York Times coverage:
Consuming nations, including the United States, have been urging OPEC producers to put more oil on the market, warning that the winter months would see a big jump in consumption that non-OPEC producers would not be able to meet. Note that this is now apparently conventional wisdom: the only spare oil production capacity left in the world is in OPEC. The non-OPEC peak isn't five years off, or ten years off. It's now.
Contributor Hurricane Jim writes:
500,000 bpd...are we supposed to be impressed by this? I hate to say it, but that's about enough petrol for N. VA to take one trip to the Wal-Mart and back. I fear that the issue here, with so called production increases, isn't about markets or capacity, but more about letting the cat out of the bag...as in their "spare capacity" isn't all it's cracked up to be anymore, a fact the world is probably going to find out about sooner rather than later..."

September 11 2007 ~

Reuters ~ "Saudi Arabia persuaded OPEC to raise oil output by 500,000 barrels per day on Tuesday in a gesture to consumer nations worried by the economic impact of $77 oil and rapidly diminishing fuel stocks. After seven hours of talks, OPEC officials announced the hard-won deal, effective November 1. Before the meeting Libya, Algeria and Venezuela were inclined to resist the proposal put forward by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbors....U.S. crude oil was down seven cents at $77.42 after the deal but still within sight of its record high of $78.77 a barrel......Simon Wardell, energy analyst at Global Insight, said even with extra OPEC oil global crude stocks could fall by 100 million to 150 million barrels by the end of the year. "That will push global inventories down to their lowest levels since 2004, with a risk that they could fall further if there is a cold winter," he said. " ....

September 8 2007 ~

Richard Heinberg.com ~ ".... In summary: We have used the plentiful, cheap energy from fossil fuels quite predictably to expand our power over nature and one another. Doing so has produced a laundry list of environmental and social problems..... the problem of our dependence on fossil fuels is central to human survival..... If we do focus all of our collective efforts on the central task of energy transition, we may find ourselves contributing to the solution of a wide range of problems that would be much harder to solve if we confronted each one in isolation. With a coordinated and voluntary reduction in fossil fuel consumption, we could see substantial progress in reducing many forms of environmental pollution.
The decentralization of economic activity that we must pursue as transport fuels become more scarce could lead to more local jobs and more fulfilling occupations, and more robust local economies.
A controlled contraction in global oil trade could lead to a reduction of international political tensions. A planned conversion of farming to non-fossil fuel methods could mean a decline in environmental devastation caused by agriculture and economic opportunities for millions of new farmers. Meanwhile, all of these efforts together could increase equity, community involvement, intergenerational solidarity, and the other intangible goods listed earlier...."

September 2007 ~

Energy Bulletin ~..... The last report from nearly two weeks ago places our gasoline inventory at 192.6 million barrels. This may sound like a lot unless you that know as a nation we are burning in excess of 9.6 million barrels a day. If our minimum operating level really is somewhere in the vicinity of 185 million barrels, then we have about 18 hours of reserves left should there be a serious supply interruption  like from a hurricane. Even if the MOL is 170 million barrels or less, we only have a few days of useable reserves left and these are not evenly distributed across the country.
.....Gasoline prices are temporarily lost in the angst of the credit crisis. But this too will end. Sometime in the next few months, some event is likely to set off a spike in gasoline prices. Be it a hurricane, terrorist attack, adverse geopolitical crisis or some credit crisis development, the realization will dawn that we are extremely short of gasoline and have little hope of remedying the situation over the short term. Then the troubles will begin.
Dont overlook the possibility that someday soon there will be a run on the gas stations. A tank of gas is so important in America today that at the first reports of an impending gasoline shortage many of us will rush to fill our tanks. If we all did this at once, the national reserve would be drained by something on the order of 50 million barrels. A lot of us are sure to be disappointed because there simply is not enough gasoline in the system for this to happen."

August 20 2007 ~

Kansas.com ~ Peak oil, the point at which production of oil worldwide begins a progressive decline, is probably coming soon, economist George Littel told members of the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association at their annual convention this morning. Further, Littel said, when peak oil arrives it will be an economic, not a geologic, event because demand for energy is a strong driver of new exploration and production. ...... He also predicted an "ugly end" to the U.S. ethanol industry, which he said he "could find nothing good to say" about. And finally, he predicted a minor recession by the end of 2007 and a more substantial one at the end of the occupation of Iraq, which he thinks will come in 2013. Littel, of Groppe, Long and Littel, spoke to convention-goers at a breakfast meeting.

July 26 2007

Times Are these the last days of the Oil Age? William Rees Mogg ".....For the future, oil supply will be a zero-sum game. Some nations will be "haves" but others will be "have nots".
The shortage of oil and natural gas, relative to demand, had already changed the balance of world power. Historians may well conclude that the US decision to invade Iraq was primarily motivated by the desire to gain physical control of Iraq's oil and to provide defence support to other Middle Eastern oil powers. Political motivations are always mixed, but oil is an essential national interest of the United States. If the US is now deciding to withdraw from Iraq, the price will have to be paid in terms of loss of access to oil.... ..nothing will take us back towards the innocent expectation of indefinite expansion of the first months of the new millennium."

July 25 2007 ~

Independent ~ "Humanity is approaching an unprecedented crisis when not enough oil and gas will be produced to keep industrial civilisation running, the world's top oilmen warned last week..... The 420-page report, the most comprehensive study ever carried out into the industry, has been produced by the National Petroleum Council, a body of 175 authorities that reports to the US government. It includes the heads of the world's big oil companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, Shell and BP.... The report concludes that "the global supply of oil and natural gas from the conventional sources ... is unlikely to meet ... growth in demand over the next 25 years". ....
Though vast amounts of oil and gas remain underground, "complex challenges" and "global uncertainties" are likely to put an end to "the sufficient, reliable and economic energy supplies upon which people depend". And the crunch could come sooner, with oil production becoming "a significant challenge as early as 2015". This chimes with the International Energy Agency's prediction that oil supplies could become "extremely tight" in five years. .."

July 21 2007 ~

evworld.com ~ The National Petroleum Council's July 18, 2007 report sees world oil and natural-gas supplies unlikely to keep up with rising demand over the next 25 years...World oil and gas supplies from conventional sources are unlikely to keep up with rising global demand over the next 25 years, the U.S. petroleum industry says in a draft report of a study commissioned by the government.....oil-industry leaders acknowledge the world will need to develop all the supplemental sources of energy it can..."

July 21 2007 ~

Webdiary.com.au ~"...... The International Energy Agency's Oil Market Report estimates that oil demand will rise to 88.2Mbd in 2008, and that supply will rise to just meet that increase. We need to remember here that the IEA is a persistent denier of the existence of any peak-oil problem on the horizon, so there is a strong chance that they're being optimistic. Even if they aren't, their forecast suggests at least a year or more of the current situation, in which the tightness of supply over demand means that any real or rumoured interruption to supplies will push the price up further."

July 19 2007 ~

Aspo-usa.com "On Wednesday, the National Petroleum Council (NPC) plans to release its report on oil and natural gas trends out to 2030....Troubling trends are referenced, but their ramifications are dodged....Previous NPC forecasting has been flawed, according to ASPO-USA. The NPC's 1999 report on North American natural gas predicted stable prices and soaring production; within a few years, the exact opposite occurred. The current report forecasts production increasing seamlessly from 86 million barrels/day today to more than 115 million barrels/day by 2030.
....The NPC's Executive Summary contains some profoundly misleading graphs, according to ASPO. One suggests that petroleum supplies will grow for another two decades, another that five nations in the Middle East are capable and willing to double oil exports. Experts have serious doubts about both assumptions.....
.....The NPC study seems oblivious to geopolitical and economic reality. Nowhere in the executive summary are the countries of Iraq or Iran mentioned or leaders such as Putin or Chavez. The word "OPEC" appears only once, in a footnote. "In the final analysis, the NPC Study is woefully inadequate, leaving the Secretary of Energy and the American public with inadequate warning of the huge economic and social risks that many experts believe are just around the corner," says Udall...." Read in full

July 18 2007 ~

A video record of an interview with David Strahan can be found here. See link to David Strahan's Guardian Comment article below

July 14 2007 ~

Guardian "....Brent crude was up by more than $1 to trade at a new 11-month high of $77.60 on the back of concerns over supply triggered by the shutdown of a North Sea pipeline. With global demand for oil strong, traders were also unsettled by a report from the International Energy Agency warning that supply would rise only modestly in 2008."

July 7 2007 ~

Guardian ~ "....Disrupted production in Nigeria pushed the price of brent crude oil just above $76 a barrel yesterday, the highest level since August last year. It later fell back to $75.64. Attacks by rebel groups on the Nigerian oil industry have cost the equivalent of 611,000 barrels per day in lost production over the last year and a half. With the stand-off between the government and rebels in Nigeria highlighted by the kidnapping of a three-year-old British girl on Thursday, analysts warned that there was no immediate prospect of a fall in prices. "The global oil picture is fairly tight in terms of supply and demand growth," said Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil market analyst at BNP Paribas. US refinery demand is set to start soaking up inventories of crude at a time when meteorologists have predicted that the respite America had in 2006 from hurricanes could be short-lived. Demand for fuel in the US traditionally strengthens in the summer when motorists take to the roads in the holiday season...... Analysts expect refineries to ramp up crude oil runs in the coming weeks after a spate of lengthy unplanned maintenance shutdowns. Last week, inputs to US refineries rose in every part of the United States, except for the West Coast, according to government data.
Producers' cartel Opec has resisted calls from the International Energy Agency, representing 26 industrialised nations, to increase production in a pre-emptive move."

June 29 2007 ~

Huffington Post ~ "..... Depletion of aging oil fields is relentless. The world's largest oil fields -- all of which once produced at least one million barrels of oil/day -- are all in permanent decline. The smaller new fields brought into production can't offset the declines in the old war horses. It's like being on a treadmill that is both speeding and ramping up, where you work harder and harder just to stay in place.
9. New technology isn't saving the day. In the US, where we've applied the best technology available, production has slowly declined since the late 1970s.
10. Oil exports are riding for a fall. In exporting countries like Mexico, where production slips while domestic consumption grows, exports will shrink at an accelerated rate. China, the UK and Indonesia, oil exporters during the 1990s, are now importers. World oil exports will peak before world oil production peaks.
Highly hyped liquid substitute fuels, such as ethanol from corn and liquids from coal or oil shale, come with their own unique baggage. They can't be scaled up quickly, require huge energy and water inputs, and pose a range of environmental problems. ...."

June 29 2007 ~

Malaysia Sun ~ " Iran an example of 'peak oil' fear. ..... American petroleum economists say the events in Iran provide a timely warning as the world approaches peak oil', when the peak moment of exploration is passed and oil becomes scarcer and more expensive."

Tuesday June 26, 2007 ~

Guardian "The real casus belli: peak oil" Comment by David Strahan, author of "The Last Oil Shock - A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man" ".... global oil production is likely to peak within about a decade. Aggregate oil production in the developed world has been falling since 1997, and all major forecasters expect world output excluding Opec to peak by the middle of the next decade. From then on everything depends on the cartel, but unfortunately there is growing evidence that Opec's members have been exaggerating the size of their reserves for decades. .." More

June 22 2007 ~

Money Week~ "How Peak Oil went mainstream" is a Money Week headline this week: "Matt Drudge has just taken Peak Oil mainstream. Up until today, you could randomly ask 10 people on the street what "Peak Oil" is and you'd get a blank stare from at least nine of them...."
The Drudge Report had taken notice of the article in the Independent (June 14) containing the paragraph "scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives..."

June 14 2007 ~

Food Week " Bleak forecast for global business Liquid fuel shortages, massive unemployment, high interest rates and severe recession. Those are just some of the bleak prospects ahead for the global economy as our energy supplies dry up, according to a keynote speaker at the Smart 2007 supply chain conference to be held in Sydney next week.
The predictions come from Dr Roger Bezdek, a keynote speaker at the conference, described as an "internationally recognised expert" in energy market analysis and energy forecasting and President, Management Information Services, USA. He has co-authored two reports for the US Department of Energy on the economic impacts and risk management of declining oil supplies and liquid fuel mitigation options. ...Bezdek asserts that one of the major challenges preventing the issue from being taken seriously by many decision makers and industry leaders is a history of repeated and erroneous predictions of oil peaking. Data discrepancies in the past - owing to political biases or low quality of reserves data - may have given the world false assurance and prevented policy makers from taking recent, more robust forecasts seriously. "The problem of the peaking of world conventional oil production is unlike any faced by modern industrial society. Previous energy transitions, from wood to coal and from coal to oil, were gradual and evolutionary. The world is facing an imminent energy discontinuity that will be abrupt and painful," said Dr Bezdek. ..."

June 14 2007 ~

Independent ".... scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives. ...
In the 1970s Chris Skrebowski was a long-term planner for BP. Today he edits the Petroleum Review and is one of a growing number of industry insiders converting to peak theory. "I was extremely sceptical to start with," he now admits. "We have enough capacity coming online for the next two-and-a-half years. After that the situation deteriorates." What no one, not even BP, disagrees with is that demand is surging. The rapid growth of China and India matched with the developed world's dependence on oil, mean that a lot more oil will have to come from somewhere. BP's review shows that world demand for oil has grown faster in the past five years than in the second half of the 1990s. Today we consume an average of 85 million barrels daily. According to the most conservative estimates from the International Energy Agency that figure will rise to 113 million barrels by 2030.
Two-thirds of the world's oil reserves lie in the Middle East and increasing demand will have to be met with massive increases in supply from this region. ..." More

June 14 2007 ~

Sydney Morning Herald Mexico oil output drop may spark crisis ".....There is no doubt that Mexican overall (oil) production is down and if it continues down, and prices don't continue up to offset that, then there is a huge fiscal crisis pending," the former US central banker said via a video link to a business conference in Mexico City. Mexico, the world's No. 9 exporter of crude oil and a key supplier to the United States, has seen its oil output taper off from historic peaks in 2004 due to declining yields at its huge but ageing Cantarell offshore field...."

June 6 2007 ~

Chloe Fox MP (Australia) Energy Bulletin ~ "........ 55 per cent of all oil is used for transportation; shipping costs are going to increase because, at the moment, the recent doubling in oil prices has raised average freight rates by 40 per cent; pesticides and fertilisers are made from and with oil; modern medicine, defence and water distribution are all powered by oil and petroleum-derived chemicals. If demand does not decline, many products and services produced with oil will become scarcer, leading to lower standards of living. There is a lot of debate as to whether peak oil has already happened or not. Let us say that it has. It is predicted that oil production will decline by 3 per cent per year. War, terrorism, the weather and other factors will likely push that figure up to nearly 10 per cent, meaning 50 per cent less production within seven years, and so it goes on and on....."

June 6 2007 ~

Online Opinion.com Australia"Severe climate change unlikely before we run out of fossil fuel...At Mexico's enormous oilfield named Cantarell, production is declining very rapidly......Shall we regard the oil that remains underground as a resource that can cause future carbon dioxide emissions or shall we accept that it is, in fact, inaccessible?
The UN's climate panel IPCC, that recently published its fourth report on climate change, regards the oil left in ground as a resource...The fact that the IPCC calls upon our politicians to make decisions that will discourage use of fossil fuels creates an impression that enormous fossil fuel resources exist: but following the research that we do at the Uppsala Hydrocarbon depletion study Group, UHDSG, there is every reason to question this.
At Uppsala University, we study global energy resources and we have now completed a detailed analysis of future oil production. By breaking down production into seven well-defined parts we can now give a timeframe for the moment when we will reach the maximum production rate for oil, or "Peak Oil" - the historical production peak. It will occur between 2008 and 2018. If the world's giant oilfields, that produce 60 per cent of the world oil, behave like Cantarell we have a "worst case scenario" with a production peak in 2008. But if, instead, they follow the best prognosis for Cantarell, and we simultaneously reduce our consumption, then we get a "best case scenario" with maximal production in 2018.......We need new estimates of future temperature increases based on realistic expectations of oil, natural gas and coal use. Only then can we make sensible decisions for our future.
The world's greatest future problem is that too many people must share too little energy. In the current political debate we presumably need to replace the word "environment" with "energy", but the policy required to tackle the energy problem will greatly benefit the environment."

June 6 2007 ~

BBC ".....Opec secretary general Abdalla El-Badri said moves to use biofuels would make his members consider cutting investment in new oil production..."

May 29 2007 ~

Guardian " Britain's future prosperity has been hardwired to rising use of transport fuels, without a thought for the supply drying up....the white paper...mysteriously forgets to mention that the government intends to build another 2,500 miles of trunk roads and to double the capacity of our airports by 2030. Partly to permit this growth in transport, another white paper, also published last week, proposes a massive deregulation of planning law. There is no discussion in either paper of the implications of these programmes for energy use or climate change. There are plainly two governments of the United Kingdom, one determined to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel, the other determined to raise it.
...senior figures in and around the oil industry of a possible date for peak oil. They vary greatly, but many are clustered between 2010 and 2020. Another report, also commissioned by the US department of energy, shows that "without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented". The disasters invoked by the peaking of global oil supplies can be avoided only with a "crash programme" beginning 20 years before it occurs. If some of the estimates in the department of energy's report are correct, it is already too late..."`

May 27 2007 ~

CRUDE a video available online. A comment from Poster Omnitir at peakoil-dot-com "... the overall presentation of this documentary really brought peak oil and climate change into a much more interesting and mainstream-digestible format. The show used some impressive animations to describe the carbon cycle and the formation of oil during the Jurassic period. It went into detail about the greenhouse events that caused the build-up of carbon sediments in warm, stagnant oceans, and commented on the irony of how our rapid release of carbon could result in the planets next great build-up of carbon reservoirs. And of course it went into detail about the vital role of oil in modern civilization, and the potential impact peak oil may have."

May 2 2007 ~

Blogwired.com Pentagon and the End of Oil (Updated) It looks like someone in the Pentagon started reading about peak oil, got alarmed, and decided to take the typical course of action: commission a report. According to an article in the Boston Globe, the report comes to the unsurprising conclusion that dependence on oil is indeed a problem:

April 21 2007 ~

tahoedailytribune.com ~ "A new model predicting the production of the world's active oil fields will decline sometime between 2008 and 2018 has rekindled the debate surrounding peak oil theories. The study, conducted by Swedish physicist Fredrik Robelius, analyzes oil contributions from small oil fields, as well as the 333 giant oil fields in use today. Robelius' study is unique because it examines oil fields from ground level supplies...

April 21 2007 ~

NYT ~The events in Nigeria, the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, have rippled across energy markets, contributing to higher prices and tighter supplies. [On Friday, gunmen attacked a boat carrying oil workers to an offshore rig in the delta, pushing up oil prices by more than $1.50, to $63.38 a barrel.] The United States imports more than one million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria every day.

April 21 2007 ~

energybulletin.net ~ Albert Bates, guide for our post-petroleum, globally warmed future Jan Lundberg, Culture Change "We have an individual preparedness to be concerned with, and that involves securing a supply of food, water, shelter and other basic needs for yourself and your immediate community. And then we have a larger social preparedness, without which there is no hope for the individual to survive."

April 2 2007 ~

www.engineeringnews.co.za ~ "....oil and gas resources are increasingly in places where production is technically more difficult, such as offshore the Gulf of Mexico. The oilfields of top reserves holder Saudi Arabia are off limits for foreign companies. "The international oil companies are facing a tough challenge," said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, adviser to industrialised countries. "Their existing fields are declining and they do not have access to major oil reserves."

March 30 2007 ~

wiz.com ~ " Western Maryland Congressman Roscoe Bartlett is warning ....the phenomenon called "peak oil" is inevitable, and he's calling for strong leadership to develop alternatives before it's too late. Bartlett says potential alternatives to oil are extremely limited and the report reveals the U.S. is particularly vulnerable."
The GAO report (link http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07283.pdf) will reveal the United States is particularly vulnerable and the United States federal government is unprepared to respond to severe consequences from an increasing risk of significant disruptions to world oil supplies from peak oil and other above ground political and economic factors.

March 2007 ~

BBC ~ "Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a deal in Athens to ship Russian oil to the EU via a pipeline bypassing the busy Bosphorus. The 285km (178-mile) pipeline will go overland from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas to the northern Greek town of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea.
The deal caps negotiations that have lasted 13 years. ...
.... a senior US State Department official, Matthew Bryza .... concerned that Europe could become too reliant on the Russian energy giant Gazprom as a source of natural gas. At least one third of Russian oil exports currently leave by tanker via the Black Sea and Bosphorus Strait. "

March 2007 ~

Napa Valley Register ~ "..... It was reported by various sources that "Mexico's giant Cantarell field is now in a very serious state of decline." Cantarell has been the world's second largest oil field behind Saudi Arabia's super-giant Ghawar. Cantarell began 2006 producing 2.5 million barrels of crude a day. Pemex, the state-owned Mexican oil company, admitted that they are now having a difficult time coaxing 1 million barrels daily.
This was followed by reports that the North Sea oil fields of the United Kingdom and Norway are collapsing just as fast and will be producing between 800,000 and 1 million barrels a day less in several months. The problem is that there is nothing in the pipeline to replace these losses as our usage increases five times faster than discovery..."

February 6 2007 ~

BBC ".... the prospect of a concerted cold spell has pushed prices back up. The plunging temperatures are thought to have increased demand for distillate stocks by up to 500,000 barrels a day. According to one industry expert, official figures to be published on Wednesday could reveal that distillate inventories dropped by more than three million barrels over the past week."

February 1 2007 ~

Reuters "President George W. Bush's goal of increasing U.S. renewable fuel use five-fold to 35 billion gallons annually by 2017 is impossible under current technology, the chief executive of leading U.S. refiner Valero Energy Corp. said on Thursday....At best, current technology could double renewable fuel output to 15 billion gallons a year...."

January 29 2007 ~

Guardian ~ "....Dwindling oil stocks could cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the second world war.
Over the weekend hundreds of people gathered in Wales for the Soil Association's annual conference, now it seems a good time to reflect on the enormous vulnerability of our industrialised food system's access to cheap oil. Dwindling stocks and EU trade and energy policies threaten food price hikes - and could cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the second world war...."

January 27 2007 ~

FWi ~ "Academic predicts rising oil prices will prompt a local food renaissance. A renaissance in local food for local communities is coming and the UK will need a huge increase in the agricultural workforce to deliver it. Speaking at the Soil Association Conference in Cardiff, on 26 January, American author Richard Heinberg said the peak oil theory where production plateaus and prices sky rocket could force dramatic changes on UK and world farming. Dr Heinberg, an expert on the economies of oil, suggested that the increase seen in the agricultural workforce of Cuba, which has been starved of oil by American sanctions, could act as a model for the UK. Based on this model he estimated that in 20-30 years a 16-fold increase in the UK agricultural workforce, or between 8m--10m people would have to be involved in farming and associated industries..... .. He called for policies to assist a return to local food production such as land reform, education about farming, loans and incentives and stabilised and higher food prices. .... Dr Heinberg urged the Soil Association to work with others to promote food security and energy policies to remove dependency on fossil fuels."

January 26 2007 ~

evworld.com ~ Senator Roscoe Bartlett: Man on a Mission "....the Congressman believes mankind has enjoyed the luxury of an energy-rich life made possible by a bounty of fossil fuels that took millions of years to form and that we'll use up in a few generations.
He explained that there are other "finite" energy resources we can tap, but they too are limited. The tar sands of Alberta are dependent on cheap, stranded natural gas, which will eventually run out; and that the rich seam that can be cheaply surface mined runs under a geological over thrust that will have to be mined 'in situ', increasing the complexity and expense of getting at the bitumen. The entire process also generates a host of serious environmental problems from carbon dioxide emissions to polluted tailing waters......
To get even a better sense how the Congressman feels about gasoline and carbon taxes, among other things, I encourage you to listen to our entire conversation." (evworld.com)

January 7 2007 ~

Observer "China's quest for oil..... China's foreign policy is increasingly driven by the need to feed its growing appetite for oil. ... That means less reliance on the Middle East; less transportation of oil via sea-lanes policed by the US navy; more capacity for the Chinese navy to protect Chinese tankers; and more oil brought overland by pipeline from central Asia.
Over the past two years, China has pulled off a string of strategic oil deals. In April 2005, Petro China and Canadian company Enbridge signed a memorandum to build a $2bn 'gateway' pipeline to move oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is to build a Chinese-financed pipeline to the Pacific coast through Colombia, having given China oil and gas exploration rights in 2005. Saudi Arabia surrendered to Chinese courtship in 2004 and accorded exploration rights.
In Sudan, a major source of oil, China's blind eye to human rights and mass murder if it hinders its interests is demonstrated by Zhou Wenzhong's comment when Deputy Foreign Minister about the situation in Darfur where more than 250,000 have died

Wrong: China has substantial influence on Sudan if it chose to exercise it. It does not, a commentary on China's approach to foreign policy and an awesome warning of the future if an unreconstructed China became yet more powerful."

November 22 2006 ~

Energy Bulletin ".......Peter Jackson is asking us to believe that we are going to see what we have never seen before: conventional oil production rising for decades after crossing the 50% of Qt mark. This prediction is especially remarkable given the near certainty that all four of the current super-giant oil fields producing one million barrels/day or more are in decline or crashing, while there is only one new super giant field being developed, the problematic Kashagan Field that wont reach peak production, at the earliest, until 2020.
In conclusion, according to the EIA the world through August 2006 has produced roughly 100 million fewer barrels of crude + condensate than if we had simply maintained the December 2005 production level. This is consistent with the Hubbert/Deffeyes model. It is not consistent with the Yergin/Jackson model. The early data suggest that Deffeyes is correct and that Jackson is wrong, but we can't yet say with certainty who is correct."

November 22 2006 ~

Falls Church News-Press " It is not much of leap to believe that CERA is coming under heat from those who recognize that a bad call on peak oil will be devastating. This CERA report, which is obviously an attempt to defend their position, may be a sign that the message of peak oil may just be getting through to the corporate world. ..."

November 19 2006 ~

www.eurotrib.com ~ "The energy world is busy discussing the most recent study provided by CERA, the energy consultancy headed by Daniel Yergin, the author of "the Prize", the acclaimed book (and TV series) on the history of oil. Titled Why the "Peak Oil" Theory Falls Down -- Myths, Legends, and the Future of Oil Resources, it claims to thoroughly debunk the theory of peak oil...
.... these optimistic scenarios, with their aggressive titles, point in the exact opposite direction, i.e. that no effort is necessary and that markets will provide all the oil that we (the wide 'we' which includes China and the rest of the emerging world alongside the West) demand.
How insane is that?
We know the problem is there. Even its official deniers put it barely 25 years away. ..."

November 19 2006 ~

energybulletin.net ~ ".... What evidence is there to suggest that a peak in global oil production is near? CERA seeks a sober dialogue to identify "clear signposts that will herald the onset" of either the peak or their "undulating plateau" of world oil production. Here, ten reasons why this turning point is likely between now and 2015..."

November 13 2006 ~

Xianghe, Reuters & PTI ~ "G20 summit vows to combat oil crisis .........Oil, which Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said was the focus of Saturday's morning session, attracted special attention. "We are concerned that long-lasting high and volatile oil prices could slow down growth and cause instability in the global economy," the draft said.
"To stabilise the oil price at a reasonable level we agree to work together and call on the international community to strengthen cooperation to improve production and refining capacities, and to enhance dialogues between oil suppliers and consumers through the existing fora." According to the draft, the G20 stressed the need to promote energy saving and alternative sources of energy and to reduce subsidies on oil products. In a fervent appeal, Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday asked G-20 members to intensify dialogue and coordination on macro-economic policies to jointly promote the balanced and orderly development of the world economy. ..." (The G20 Forum will be held on the weekend of November 18 and 19 in Melbourne) .

November 11 2006 ~

IEA.org ~ London --- "World political leaders have decided to act with resolution and urgency to change the energy future. The World Energy Outlook 2006 shows how to make that happen", said Claude Mandil, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) today in London at the launch of the latest edition of the Outlook - the annual flagship publication of the IEA. "WEO-2006 reveals that the energy future we are facing today, based on projections of current trends, is dirty, insecure and expensive. But it also shows how new government policies can create an alternative energy future which is clean, clever and competitive - the challenge posed to the IEA by the G8 leaders and IEA ministers", Mr. Mandil emphasised. ...
.....There has been an apparent surge in oil and gas investment in recent years, but it is, to a large extent, illusory. Drilling, material and personnel costs in the industry have soared, so that in real terms investment in 2005 was barely higher than that in 2000. ....
...New biofuels technologies being developed today, notably ligno-cellulosic ethanol, could allow biofuels to play a much bigger role - if major technological and commercial challenges can be overcome.
The World Energy Outlook 2006 was produced by the IEA with input from many distinguished international experts from government, industry and academia. The annual Outlook publication has long been recognised as the leading source of forward-looking global energy market analysis and has received a number of awards from prestigious organisations around the world. .......

November 8 2006 ~

Energy Bulletin ~ "......The most prominent issue of the American campaign, of course, was the war in Iraq. While most Americans know the obvious--Iraq has lots of oil and America needs lots of oil--the debate has centered around democracy, terrorism and the human and financial costs of the conflict. Very little has been said about the fact that oil is central to economic growth and that there is no ready substitute for it. And, virtually nothing has been said about the possibility of a peak in world oil production, an event which is likely to happen within the next decade or two. (Some say it already has.) From the political rhetoric you wouldn't know that the reason Iraq has been the central issue of the campaign is precisely because of its large role in the oil markets.
In addition, soil erosion and fertility, the depletion of major fisheries, the destruction of forests, and the skyrocketing prices of raw materials such as copper, nickel and steel are all nonstarters for political candidates. It's as if the basics of civilization--stable climate, fresh water, fertile soil, minerals, and energy supplies--were afterthoughts or at most a problem of location as in the case of oil.
And yet, major issues in American politics flow directly from our ecological predicament...."

October 23 2006 ~

www.alternet.org ~ " Cities of the Future Won't Look Like Ours... The era of cheap oil is over, and lost with it an energy-rich way of life that billions of city dwellers have come to take for granted. ...

Worth reading in full

October 23 2006 ~

BBC ~ The government has been accused of "squandering" the windfalls of the country's now dwindling North Sea oil and gas reserves. Such income should have been better invested in renewable energy, says a report by the New Economics Foundation and the Worldwide Fund for Nature. It also claims that £1 in every £12 of government income comes from oil or gas, making it "hooked" on the fuels.

October 20 2006 ~

Money Week ~ "......Even The New York Times joined the chorus in a Sunday editorial, saying:

No more increasing capacity = peak oil. It's as simple as that. We now have nine and a half months of "rearview mirror" action to look back and see that world oil production has retreated from its all- time high of just over 85 million barrels a day (m/b/d) achieved in D