Energy Resiliency and Security

Researchers Argue Peak Oil Is Here, Bringing Permanent Volatility

2012-01-26T13:12:00.001-05:00

The global production of oil has remained relatively flat since 2005 and peaked in 2008, declining ever since even as demand has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off large shocks in the system.

In Wednesday’s issue of Nature, James Murray of University of Washington and David King of Oxford University argue this sort of volatility is what we can expect going forward, and we’re likely to face it with other fossil fuels as well.

The notion of peak oil is fairly simple: Oil is a finite resource and at some point we simply won’t be able to extract as much as we once did. There is no getting around that limit for any finite resource. The issue that has made peak oil contentious, however, is the debate over when we might actually hit it. Murray and King are not the first to conclude that we’ve already passed the peak. Even as prices have climbed by about 15 percent per year since 2005, production has remained largely flat.

The strongest argument against this being a real peak is the increasing volume of petroleum reserves many countries are reporting. Even assuming those estimates were reliable (which Murray and King aren’t certain of), those reserves clearly have not brought increased production. In the United States, for example, production as a percentage of total reserves has dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent during the last three decades. More

Iran 'Definitely' Closing Strait of Hormuz Over EU Oil Embargo

2012-01-23T17:52:00.001-05:00

January 23, 2011 '"RT" --Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would “definitely” close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil.

Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, issued the warning in respone to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.

The Strait of Hormuz is the vital link between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

It is also one of the most strategic chokepoints in the world when it comes to oil transit.

With world oil output estimated at some 88 million barrels per day in 2011, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that some 17 million of those barrels passed through the Strait.

If economic sanctions sufficiently pressure Iran to retaliate by closing down the Strait, nearly 20 per cent of worldwide oil trade would be impacted, resulting in a massive spike in global energy costs.

With over half a million regular forces and an additional 120,000 personnel in the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard, analysts believe the consequences of a US-led war against Iran would dwarf recent Western-backed military incursions the Middle East.

Thus far, the US decision to maintain two carrier strike groups in the region has been described as “a routine activity” by Iran.

But the vast US military buildup in the region, which was bolstered when the Pentagon dispatched an additional 15,000 troops to the neighboring nation of Kuwait, was only the latest step in an obvious attempt by Washington to strengthen its military capabilities in the region. More

Australian Peak Oil Report Released

2012-01-21T23:15:00.001-05:00

Transport energy futures:long-term oil supply trends and projections

Report 117

Foreword

In 2007 the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE)commenced a project to look in a strategic way at possible alternative transportenergy futures.

This was driven by a perceived need to address two key challenges to ‘business-as-usual’ for Australian and world transport: oil depletion and global warming.

To examine the oil depletion issue, it was necessary to assemble large amounts ofdata over long periods of time (centuries in a large number of cases). BITRE has hadlong experience with assembling lengthy datasets from multiple and sometimesconflicting data sources, and then analysing their dynamics. This is what has beendone here, to examine the oil production prospects of over 40 countries/regionsaround the world, as a preliminary to delineating the scope of the oil depletionchallenge.

Recognising that the issue of the timing of oil depletion is a highly controversialarea, where information can be contested and where there is a range of views andpositions, comments are expressly invited on this report.

Future reports will examine 1) world oil demand/price relationships and 2) the kindsof responses to the twin challenges of oil depletion and global warming that may bepossible in terms of alternative fuels and propulsion technologies. More

Report in PDF

Project to pour water into volcano to create power

2012-01-19T19:29:00.001-05:00

The Boston Globe has an article on an enhanced geothermal power project in Oregon - Project to pour water into volcano to make power.

Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn’t dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes — without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents.Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for power and waning political concern over global warming.

Efforts to use the earth’s heat to generate power, known as geothermal energy, have been further hampered by technical problems and worries that tapping it can cause earthquakes.Even so, the federal government, Google and other investors are interested enough to bet $43 million on the Oregon project. They are helping AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle and Davenport Newberry Holdings LLC of Stamford, Conn., demonstrate whether the next level in geothermal power development can work on the flanks of Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore.“We know the heat is there,’’ said Susan Petty, president of AltaRock. “The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic.’’ More

Security by Design

2012-01-19T15:55:00.001-05:00

It is commonly assumed that our national security depends only on our capacity to project military power beyond our borders and has little to do with how we organize the internal business of the country.

The nation’s armed strength and its “soft power” are necessary components of security, but they are not—and cannot be—the whole of it. A larger vision of security includes the internal resilience, health, and sustainability of the nation, that is to say its capacity for self-renewal. Real security, in other words, is inseparable from issues of energy policy; education; public health; preservation of soils, forests, and waters; and broadly based, sustainable prosperity.

From this perspective, America is less secure than at any time in its history, despite expenditures in excess of $1 trillion per year for the defense budget and war appropriations. The challenges of the twenty-first century are larger, more complex, and longer-lived than any we have faced before. Of these, the most salient is not terrorism or the ongoing global economic crisis, but rather the threat posed by rapid climate destabilization.¹

What was a solvable problem when first presented to President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 is approaching irreversible catastrophe. The heart of the problem is our failure to establish a coherent and farsighted energy policy despite the verbal commitments of every president since 1973 to raising energy efficiency and developing renewable energy sources. That failure, in turn, has amplified many other problems now grown into crises, including the unnecessary expenditure of trillions of dollars paid to unfriendly governments to secure oil resources that we waste because of inefficiency; foreign policy entanglements in politically unstable regions; the resulting military burdens—financial and human—of fighting wars to maintain access to energy that we otherwise would not need; and blowback from consequences that we fail to anticipate. More

Independent Panel to Start Inquiry Into Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

2012-01-15T19:39:00.001-05:00

A powerful and independent panel of specialists appointed by Japan’s Parliament is challenging the government’s account of the accident at a Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and will start its own investigation into the disaster — including an inquiry into how much the March earthquake may have damaged the plant’s reactors even before the tsunami.

Kiyoshi Kurokawa is the chairman of a new committee that will investigate the accident at a Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The bipartisan panel with powers of subpoena is part of Japan’s efforts to investigate the nuclear calamity, which has displaced more than 100,000 people, rendered wide swaths of land unusable for decades and spurred public criticism that the government has been more interested in protecting vested industry interests than in discovering how three reactors were allowed to melt down and release huge amounts of radiation.

Several investigations — including inquiries by the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, and the government — have blamed the scale of the tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern coast in March, knocking out vital cooling systems at the plant.

But critics in Japan and overseas have called for a fuller accounting of whether Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, sufficiently considered historically documented tsunami risks, and whether it could have done more to minimize the damage once waves hit the plant.

Questions also linger as to the extent of damage to the plant caused by the earthquake even before the tsunami hit. Any evidence of serious quake damage at the plant would cast new doubt on the safety of other reactors in quake-prone Japan. Tsunamis are far less frequent. More

The Peak Oil Crisis: Gasoline in 2012

2012-01-11T17:28:00.001-05:00

In recent days there has been much discussion in the press about what might happen to gasoline prices in the coming year.

Cognizant of the fact that retail gasoline is currently running nearly 30 cents per gallon higher than it was in January 2008 the year when prices topped out at a national average of $4.11 and that gasoline futures have risen by 30 cents a gallon in the last few weeks, there is reason for concern. Typical of the stories is one from the Los Angeles Times that quotes Tom Kloza, long-time chief analyst for the Oil Price Information Service and the go-to guy when one needs numbers and forecasts on gasoline prices.

Kloza notes that for the last decade gasoline futures prices, which ultimately determine pump prices, have risen from an autumn low to a spring high by an average of 83 percent. During these years, the annual winter-spring price surge has varied anywhere from 52 to 169 percent making higher prices by summer a fairly sure bet. This year the 2011 low for gasoline on the NY futures market likely will turn out to have been $2.44 a gallon on November 25. If one does the arithmetic using the average price jump of 83 percent, futures prices could be expected to top out in the vicinity of $4.46 a gallon next spring. Adding in the additional 60 cents to get the gasoline taxed and to the nozzle of your pump, we could theoretically be paying a national average on the order of $5.00 a gallon before the 4th of July. This of course assumes that nothing bad happens in the Middle East that restricts or seriously threatens the flow of oil exports and sends prices much higher.

The $5 scenario is too much for Kloza so he settles for a fall-to-spring increase of only 40-45 percent this year which has pump prices topping out between $3.90 and $4.25 a gallon. An increase of only 40-45 percent, of course, would be the smallest winter-spring price rally in this century, but $4 a gallon is something the average American has seen before and can comprehend - forecasting $5 gasoline for six months from now is simply not acceptable considering the economic and political havoc it would be likely to cause. More

Powering Sustainable Energy for All

2012-01-11T14:09:00.001-05:00

As a child growing up during the Korean War, I studied by candlelight. Electric conveniences such as refrigerators and fans were largely unknown. Yet within my lifetime, that reality changed utterly. Easy access to energy opened abundant new possibilities for my family and my nation.

Energy transforms lives, businesses and economies. And it transforms our planet — its climate, natural resources and ecosystems. There can be no development without energy. Today we have an opportunity to turn on the heat and lights for every household in the world, however poor, even as we turn down the global thermostat. The key is to provide sustainable energy for all.

To succeed, we need everyone at the table — governments, the private sector and civil society — all working together to accomplish what none can do alone. The United Nations is well-placed to convene this broad swathe of actors and forge common cause between them. That is why I have established our new initiative, Sustainable Energy for All. Our mission: to galvanize immediate action that can deliver real results for people and the planet.

This is the message I will bring to the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi starting Monday. As I see it, we face two urgent energy challenges.

The first is that one in five people on the planet lacks access to electricity. Twice as many, almost 3 billion, use wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste to cook meals and heat homes, exposing themselves and their families to harmful smoke and fumes. This energy poverty is devastating to human development.

The second challenge is climate change. Greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels contribute directly to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere, with all the attendant consequences: a rising incidence of extreme weather and natural disasters that jeopardize lives, livelihoods and our children’s future. More

Energy Wars 2012

2012-01-10T15:23:00.001-05:00

Last week, the president made a rare appearance at the Pentagon to unveil a new strategic plan for U.S. military policy (and so spending) over the next decade.

Let’s leave the specifics to a future TomDispatch post and focus instead on a historical footnote: Obama was evidently the first president to offer remarks from a podium in the Pentagon press room. He made the point himself -- “I understand this is the first time a president has done this. It’s a pretty nice room. (Laughter)” -- and it was duly noted in the media. Yet no one thought to make anything of it, even though it tells us so much about our American world.After all, when was the last time the president appeared at a podium at the Environmental Protection Agency to announce a 10-year plan for a “leaner, meaner” approach to the environment, or at the Education Department to outline the next decade of blue-skies thinking (and spending) for giving our children a leg-up in a competitive world? Or how about at a State Department podium to describe future planning for a more peaceable planet more peaceably attained?

Unfortunately, you can’t remember such moments and neither can America’s reporters, because they just aren’t part of Washington life. And strangest of all, no one finds this the tiniest bit odd or worth commenting on. Over the last decade, this country has been so strikingly militarized that no one can imagine 10 years of serious government planning or investment not connected to the military or the national security state. It’s a dangerous world out there -- so we’re regularly told by officials who don’t mention that no military is built to handle the scariest things around. War and the sinews of war are now our business and the U.S. military is our go-to outfit of choice for anything from humanitarian action to diplomacy (even though that same military can’t do the one thing it’s theoretically built to do: win a modern war). And if you don’t believe me that the militarization of this country is a process far gone, check out the last pages of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent piece, “America’s Pacific Century,” in Foreign Policy magazine.

Then close your eyes and tell me that it wasn’t written by a secretary of defense, rather than a secretary of state -- right down to the details about the “littoral combat ships” we’re planning to deploy to Singapore and the “greater American military presence” in Australia. More

The Peak Oil Crisis: Closing Out The Year

2012-01-09T16:33:00.001-05:00

The returns are in and we now know that world price of a barrel of oil averaged $111 in 2011. This was up 14 percent from last year and well above the previous high of $100 set in 2008.

The average barrel of oil that we bought last year cost $15 more than the year before. Here in America, we burn about 6.7 billion barrels of the stuff each year. Therefore, our collective oil bill for 2011 was about $100 billion higher for the same amount of energy that we burned in 2010. This $100 billion created few new jobs here in the USA. Much of it went overseas and into the coffers of people who don't like us very much.

Last year's news was dominated by the Arab spring and its derivatives which spread from Wall Street, to Moscow, to villages in China as the revolution in communications technology coalesced in the hands of a new generation making dissidence against governments everywhere far easier to organize. By the way, the latest count of cell phones shows that in excess of 5 billion have been produced. Not all of these are still active, of course, but for a world of 7 billion people, many of whom are too young to talk much less carry a mobile phone, that is an impressive number. It is clear the world is changing in ways we cannot yet comprehend.

The peak oil story changed little last year. Global oil production hung in around 88 million barrels a day (b/d) despite the Libyan uprising which took nearly 1.6 million b/d out of production for several months. For much of last year global oil production was below consumption resulting in a gradual drawdown of world reserves. With OECD stockpiles of about 2.6 billion barrels, plus the new reserves being accumulated in China, a slight shortfall in production is not a problem for the time being. More

Iran oil ban could herald economic disaster for Europe

2012-01-07T15:48:00.001-05:00

Oil prices could spiral out of control and potentially herald deeper economic hardship for Europe if the European Union joins the U.S. Oil prices could spiral out of control and potentially herald deeper economic hardship for Europe if the European Union joins the U.S.in banning Iranian oil imports, analysts warned.

EU officials said on Wednesday that European governments agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil.

But several countries within the EU are heavily reliant on oil imports from Iran, and none more so than economically struggling Greece, which currently imports 30 percent of its domestic oil from the country, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Greece to collapse

Greece’s economy is already mired in deep recession and could feasibly collapse entirely if the sanctions were imposed, Paul Stevens, economist and emeritus professor at Dundee University in Scotland, told CNBC.

Were that to happen, the Greek economy could take its European neighbors down with it. But the likelihood would be that Greece would have to ignore the import ban and that the EU would have to allow it to in order to avert economic disaster.

“Let’s assume the European Union is stupid enough to go along with the U.S. in imposing sanctions on Iran. That would only mean 250,000 barrels of heavy sour oil not coming into the EU,” Stevens said. More

The Peak Oil Crisis: 2012 – Apocalypse Now?

2011-12-22T11:03:00.001-05:00

A case can be made that some very bad things might be coming in the next year or so

This would not be a biblical apocalypse or even a Mayan one, but rather an event of our own making. The world has made so many problems for itself in recent decades that the whole edifice of civilization is showing signs of coming unglued.

This sort of thing has happened within living memory - remember 1914 and 1939 - so a year in which much comes undone should not come as a great surprise. If you are looking for a general theory of what is about to happen to us, you might start with Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies in which the author identifies 17 examples of rapid societal collapse. In a nutshell, if anybody thinks the Roman Empire collapsed from too much complexity, one should look at the U.S. tax code or the efforts to refinance the EU's sovereign debt. Compared to the machinations of the 7 billion people currently running around the world, the Romans were running a kindergarten.

Whether the global civilization, or significant parts thereof, comes unstuck sooner or later is obviously a judgment call, but a case can be made that some very bad things might be coming in the next year or so. There would seem to be two fundamental problems behind the coming upheavals. One is that we are running into constraints on resources and the other is that the OECD nations have simply accumulated so much debt that it is unlikely to ever be repaid. No one ever thinks of the atmosphere's ability to absorb and carry off carbon emissions as a resource, but as the world's climate changes for the worse, that is exactly what it is. It could easily turn out over the course of the next 10 decades, that the atmosphere's ability to absorb greenhouse gases turns out to be far more important than reserves of fossil fuels. More

Harnessing the Sun's Energy for Water and Space Heating

2011-12-14T14:24:00.001-05:00

The pace of solar energy development is accelerating as the installation of rooftop solar water heaters takes off. Unlike solar photovoltaic (PV) panels that convert solar radiation into electricity, these "solar thermal collectors" use the sun's energy to heat water, space, or both.

China had an estimated 168 million square meters (1.8 billion square feet) of rooftop solar thermal collectors installed by the end of 2010—nearly two thirds of the world total. This is equivalent to 118,000 thermal megawatts of capacity, enough to supply 112 million Chinese households with hot water. With some 5,000 Chinese companies manufacturing these devices, this relatively simple low-cost technology has leapfrogged into villages that do not yet have electricity. For as little as $200, villagers can install a rooftop solar collector and take their first hot shower. This technology is sweeping China like wildfire, already approaching market saturation in some communities. Beijing’s goal is to reach 300 million square meters of rooftop solar water heating capacity across the country by 2020, a goal it is likely to exceed.

Other developing countries such as India and Brazil may also soon see millions of households turning to this inexpensive water heating technology. Once the initial installment cost of rooftop solar water heaters is paid back, the hot water is essentially free.

In Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are also spreading fast. In Austria, 15 percent of all households now rely on them for hot water. Germany is also forging ahead. Some 2 million Germans are now living in homes with rooftop solar systems. Roughly 30 percent of the installed solar thermal capacity in these two countries consists of “solar combi-systems” that are engineered to heat both water and space.

The U.S. rooftop solar water heating industry has historically concentrated on a niche market—selling and marketing more than 9 million square meters of solar water heaters for swimming pools between 1995 and 2005. Given this base, the industry was poised to mass-market residential solar water and space heating systems when federal tax credits were introduced in 2006. Led by Hawaii, California, and Florida, annual U.S. installations of these systems have more than tripled since 2005. More

What Peak Oil Looks Like

2011-12-08T12:24:00.001-05:00

There are times when the unraveling of a civilization stands out in sharp relief, but more often that process makes itself seen only in the sort of scattered facts and figures that take a sharp eye to notice and assemble into a meaningful picture. How often, I wonder, did the prefects of imperial Rome look up from the daily business of mustering legions and collecting tribute to notice the crumbling of the foundations on which their whole society rested?

Nowadays, certainly, that broader vision is hard to find. It’s symptomatic that in the last few weeks I’ve fielded a fair number of emails insisting that the peak oil theory—of course it’s not a theory at all; it’s a hard fact that the extraction of a finite oil supply in the ground will sooner or later reach a peak and begin to decline—has been rendered obsolete by the latest flurry of enthusiastic claims about shale oil and the like. Enthusiastic claims about the latest hot new oil prospect are hardly new, and indeed they’ve been central to cornucopian rhetoric since M. King Hubbert’s time. A decade ago, it was the Caspian Sea oilfields that were being invoked as supposedly conclusive evidence that a peak in global conventional petroleum production wouldn’t arrive in our lifetimes. Compare the grand claims made for the Caspian fields back then, and the trickle of production that actually resulted from those fields, and you get a useful reality check on the equally sweeping claims now being made for the Bakken shale, but that’s not a comparison many people want to make just now.

On the other side of the energy spectrum, those who insist that we can power some equivalent of our present industrial system on sun, wind, and other diffuse renewable sources have been equally vocal, and those of us who raise reasonable doubts about that insistence can count on being castigated as “dormers.” More

IEA Leaders Speak Out on Our Current Energy Situation and Peak Oil at Oil Price

2011-12-07T12:41:00.001-05:00

Every November following the publication of the IEA's World Energy Outlook, the leadership of the Agency travels to major capitols in an effort to explain to the world's leaders the conclusions of the new publication. Parts of this year's briefings contain not-so-subtle hints as to what sort of energy policies the world's leaders might like to follow if they want to avoid killing off all life on earth a century or so from now. Earlier this week the travellers stopped in Washington, where sandwiched between visits to various dignitaries they briefed an assemblage of some 200 journalists.

Although I had already ploughed through the 600-page report and extracted some wisdom for these columns, I thought it might be interesting to hear about how the IEA's leaders, who oversaw the scope and approved the findings of the new report, saw the global energy situation.

The Agency's new Executive Director and former Economic Affairs Minister for the Netherlands, Maria van der Hoeven, went first, making the point that the global energy situation has become far more challenging during the past year due to the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, the Arab Spring uprisings, and the financial upheavals in the EU. She emphasized that the world must invest some $38 trillion over the next 25 years to maintain the flow of energy that we have become accustomed to having.

IEA's Chief Economist Fatih Birol gave the heart of the presentation. Birol began with his three principal worries: Despite global lip service to slowing global warming, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere continued to grow last year; All governments claim to want more efficient use of energy resources, yet efficiency continues to drop; and finally high energy prices with oil prices on track to top $150 a barrel within a few years will kill any economic recovery. As an example, Birol pointed out that coal had been selling for $60 a ton as long as the Chinese were exporting it. This year when China switched from being a coal exporter to becoming even a rather small importer, prices rose to $120 a ton. More

Iran's Growing Isolation a Dubious Win for the West

2011-12-01T12:35:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) - Scenes from Tehran Tuesday of bearded Iranian youth swarming over the walls of the British embassy evoked memories of the 1979-81 hostage crisis that created the image of Iran as a pariah state.

But the incidents vary in ways that are more worrisome for international peace than the seizure of the U.S. embassy by radical students some 32 years ago.
The latest events come in the context of an escalating intelligence and economic war between Iran and the West over its nuclear programme that could spiral out of control at a time that the world economy and an already unstable Middle East can ill afford.

The hostage crisis took place while Iran was still in the throes of revolution and solidifying its form of government. Then leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini embraced the action after it became clear that it was both popular and a means of disposing of moderate rivals within the new regime.
In contrast, Tuesday's event - despite an expression of regret by Iran's foreign ministry - appears to have been orchestrated by the regime's security forces.

It followed two mysterious explosions, one of which destroyed an Iranian missile facility, and new U.S. and European economic sanctions, including a British cutoff of dealings with Iran's Central Bank, a move that hawkish U.S. lawmakers are hoping to replicate by the end of this year. Even before Tuesday's attack, the European Union was scheduled to consider additional sanctions at a meeting in Brussels Thursday.

Police reportedly stood by while members of the Basij - a volunteer force of thuggish young men considered more loyal to the office of the current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, than to the government headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - broke into the British compound in downtown Tehran, destroyed property and burned documents. More

The Peak Oil Crisis: A Report to Remember

2011-11-22T21:05:00.001-05:00

Last week the International Energy Agency released its annual report (600 pages) on just where energy production and consumption in the world is going over the next 25 years.

Four or five years back, producing the annual World Energy Outlook was a rather straightforward task. All the IEA had to do was to take the world's current rate of economic growth, calculate how much oil, coal and natural gas it would take to support that growth and publish the results. There was never much consideration of whether resources would start to run out or become too expensive to exploit, or what, if anything, the massive amount of carbon dioxide that was being dumped into the atmosphere was doing to the climate.

In the last few years the IEA's annual report has come to recognize that the next 25 years are unlikely to be anything like the last 25 and the report has become much more nuanced. Gone are the extreme predictions that the world will be consuming 50 percent more oil 25 years from now. In their place are forecasts that global oil production will depend heavily on what alternative policy paths are taken by major governments and how much ($38 trillion is necessary) will be spent to find and exploit fossil fuel resources in the coming years.

As global energy policies and the realities and costs of production are very much in flux these days the EIA has decided to look at the future from three differing perspectives and forecast how the future might evolve if one of these three paths is followed. The first of course, is business as usual with no major changes to the energy policies of the major countries. The second is termed "new policies" which looks at what might happen if the major energy consumers do what they say they will do with regards to carbon emissions. The third, the "450 Scenario," examines what might happen if the world takes seriously the warning that we must keep atmospheric carbon below 450 parts per million which is believed will keep global warming down to a 2oC increase in average global temperature. More

The Peak Oil Crisis: Transitioning to Cold Fusion

2011-11-17T16:13:00.001-05:00

Events move quickly these days. Two weeks ago we were watching Bologna, Italy where an entrepreneur and a retired physics professor claimed to have discovered the Holy Grail of energy - cold fusion or as it is now known: Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. At the time, there was (and still is) widespread concern that the various demonstrations of an energy-producing devices were a scam as the developers, for commercial reasons, refused to give outsiders access to their inner workings.

If you are coming late to this story, the Italians' "energy catalyzer" is a table-top-sized device containing powdered nickel known as the "reactor." When hydrogen is introduced into the container and heat is applied, the device gets hotter and hotter so that the output of heat exceeds the input by so much that no known chemical reaction can be responsible for generating the heart. This leads to the conclusion that the hydrogen is fusing with the nickel producing energy similar to that coming from the sun or from the detonation of a hydrogen bomb.
Now so much energy coming from such a small and inexpensive device, in violation of what are thought to be the principles of physics, seems too good to be true. As this phenomenon had not been independently repeated and verified by other laboratories, many pronounced it a fraud, a few the greatest breakthrough of the age, and the rest of us remained agnostic while awaiting further developments.
They were not long in coming. Last week it was learned that George Miley, a Professor Emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois who has been conducting experiments similar to those in Italy for many years, has been observing anomalous amounts of heat emanating from test equipment similar to that being used in Bologna. Miley has been experimenting with palladium-zirconium alloys, but says his experiments are producing so much heat that could only be coming from fusion of atomic nuclei. Unlike the Italian experiments which are aimed at developing a proprietary commercial product, the Illinois experiments are being conducting under the auspices of a state university with details of the experiments being made known as soon as possible. At a university the aim of scientific research is to win a Nobel Prize, or at least academic prestige, not to make money. More

Civilian nuclear power is viable long-term solution

2011-11-05T14:27:00.001-04:00

Abu Dhabi: The civil nuclear energy programme now being developed in the UAE is an effective solution to the country's energy needs, Dr Hans Blix, Director General Emeritus of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in the capital yesterday.
"The UAE has taken a lead role in adopting an advanced programme of civil nuclear power. Nuclear weapons proliferation does not automatically follow from civil nuclear programmes," Blix told delegates at an energy conference organised by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR).
"Around the world, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a long-term solution to the energy dilemmas of the future. While the recent nuclear accident at Fukushima caused concern, we can describe this incident as a bump in the road," said Blix.
He said in response to the Fukushima incident in Japan, European countries have subjected their nuclear plants to "stress tests" and found that safety standards are adequate.
However, Blix said there are sharp divisions over the viability of civil nuclear power in the future.
"Ultimately, the long-term case for nuclear energy is subject to economic and environmental considerations.
"For instance, nuclear power is becoming less important to the overall energy needs of the US due to the important breakthroughs in the exploitation of shale gas," he added.
Blix said the safe use of nuclear energy is a compelling option for meeting future energy needs. More

Experts Say Rosy Oil Forecasts Obscure Impending Crisis

2011-10-31T23:03:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Leading energy and economic experts will gather on Capitol Hill this week for a conference to examine how the United States will adapt to an impending oil supply crisis. Most Americans are unaware of this emerging threat in part due to overly optimistic forecasts by the U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA) within the Department of Energy (DOE).

ASPO-USA’s conference on Peak Oil, Energy & the Economy will examine the prospect that world oil supply is at or near an upper limit and will decline in the near future. Meanwhile, EIA projections indicate that world oil supply will increase by more than 20 million barrels per day by 2035, with prices rising only moderately.

“Truth in Energy” is the conference theme, calling for EIA to be more transparent and to address the possibility of severe oil constraints openly and directly. ASPO-USA is also calling for the Department of Energy to lead the development of a National Oil Emergency Response Plan to assess the consequences of oil scarcity and extreme price increases on different parts of the economy.

“America is wholly unprepared for a near-term oil supply crisis, let alone persistent oil shortages,” said ASPO-USA Executive Director Jan Mueller. “ASPO-USA delivered a letter to Secretary Chu last week urging his response to important questions that we believe DOE and EIA have failed to address.” More

The peak oil brigade is leading us into bad policymaking on energy

2011-10-30T18:43:00.001-04:00

It is almost always a mistake to assume you know where energy bills are going. This is especially true for secretaries of state, and energy policy should never be based upon assuming you know what the future will bring.
Unfortunately, it is the new conventional wisdom and an assumption prevalent across much of Europe.
Yet Chris Huhne, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change, is pretty sure that oil and gas prices are going ever upwards, that they will be volatile and that a core function of energy policy is to protect British industry and consumers from the consequences. It is a convenient assumption for renewables and nuclear: if the price of fossil fuel is going to get more expensive, then renewables and nuclear will be relatively cheap. Add in energy efficiency, and then it can be predicted that energy bills will fall if these technologies are supported.

The last time policymakers were this sure was the last time oil prices peaked – back in 1979. Oil peaked at $39 a barrel (around $150 in today's prices). It was assumed then that oil prices would go ever up, and the incoming Conservative government launched a plan to build one nuclear reactor per annum for 10 years. Instead, prices collapsed in the mid 1980s, and didn't return to the 1979 prices for more than a quarter of a century (even with two Gulf wars). More

US Military to Invest $10 Billion a Year in Renewable Energy

2011-10-30T11:32:00.001-04:00

Congress may be dithering over green energy, but the US military has no qualms about its value.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) - one of the largest energy consumers in the world at 300,000 barrels of oil a day - is quickly moving toward energy efficiency and renewables to reduce risks to soldiers, enhance national energy security, and save money.

DOD is committed to getting 25% of its energy from renewables by 2025, the Air Force plans to use biofuels for 50% of domestic aviation by 2016 and the Navy will reduce fuel consumption on ships 15% by 2020.

11.3% of DOD's energy now comes from renewables, saving US taxpayers billions of dollars.

Military spending on renewable energy spiked over 300% between 2006-2009, to $1.2 billion, and is expected to exceed $10 billion a year by 2030, according to "From Barracks to the Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces," by the Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate.

DOD currently spends about $20 billion a year on energy - 75% for fuel and 25% for facilities and infrastructure, according to Pike Research.

DOD is focusing on vehicle efficiency, advanced biofuels, and energy efficiency and renewable energy at bases.

It's expected to spend $2.25 billion a year by 2015 for efficient vehicles used in the air, land, and sea, while improving the energy efficiency of its buildings around the world - more than 500,000 of them.

That level of spending will have a considerable impact on the growth of the renewable industry. It has the potential to bridge the 'valley of death' that lies between research & development and full commercialization of these technologies," says Pike Research in another report, "Renewable Energy for Military Applications." More

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Energy Trap

2011-10-29T08:36:00.001-04:00

While waiting to see how far the Europeans can kick their can of financial Armageddon down the road, let's revisit the damage being caused by high oil prices to life here in America.

Although the price of gasoline so far this year has not reached the rarified levels that we saw three years ago, neither has it plunged as far as in did in the fall of 2008. The price of a barrel of oil on the London futures exchange, which more accurately reflects what refiners must pay for oil, rose above $100 a barrel last January, and has essentially remained there ever since -- averaging about $25 a barrel higher than last year.
The Energy Trap is a project of the New America foundation, a non-partisan think tank funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which recently conducted a survey on just how the American public is holding up under the high cost of energy. The idea of the trap is that an increasing number of Americans are caught between the cost of gasoline and a systemic inability to stop driving their cars. In the last 60 years America has become a "motorized society" in which most of our citizens have become totally dependent on daily travel by car for their existence. Take away our cars and most of us would be hard pressed to reorganize our lives to provide for the essentials of life - earn an income, and provide food, shelter, and education for ourselves and our families.
The current recession has compounded the troubles, forcing many to travel further afield to find employment - often in more than one underpaying job. More

Eco-Economy Indicators - Solar PV Breaks Records in 2010

2011-10-27T13:08:00.002-04:00

Solar photovoltaic (PV) companies manufactured a record 24,000 megawatts of PV cells worldwide in 2010, more than doubling their 2009 output.

Annual PV production has grown nearly 100-fold since 2000, when just 277 megawatts of cells were made. Newly installed PV also set a record in 2010, as 16,600 megawatts were installed in more than 100 countries. This brought the total worldwide capacity of solar PV to nearly 40,000 megawatts—enough to power 14 million European homes. Made of semiconductor materials, PV cells convert solar radiation directly into electricity. Rectangular panels consisting of numerous PV cells can be linked into arrays of various sizes and power output capabilities—from rooftop systems measured in kilowatts to ground-mounted arrays of hundreds or even thousands of megawatts. (One megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts.) More >>>

Wind Energy Driving Down Consumer Electric Rates

2011-10-25T14:14:00.002-04:00

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Wind energy is more affordable than ever, and new installations across the country are saving consumers money on their electric bills, as utilities rush to lock in long-term favorable rates.

“This is what a successful business looks like with stable tax policy. Utilities are locking in a great deal for their electric customers while it’s available. We’re keeping rates down all across the U.S., even in the heart of the South,” said Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), pointing to recent wind power purchases by the Southern Company in Alabama, Austin Energy in Texas, and Xcel in Colorado as examples.

The U.S. wind industry installed just over 1,200 megawatts (MW) in the third quarter, and about 3,360 MW on the year so far – but has more than 8,400 MW under construction. That is more than in any quarter since 2008, as the federal Production Tax Credit has driven as much as $20 billion a year in private investment.

“This shows what we’re capable of: adding new, affordable electric generation,” said Bode. “Traditional tax incentives are working. There’s a lot of business right now, people are employed, and manufacturers are looking to expand here in the U.S.”

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/13Csd)

Earth 2 Initialization

2011-10-09T19:19:00.000-04:00

IAEA Sets Up Team to Drive Nuclear Safety Action Plan

2011-10-04T05:31:00.001-04:00

26 September 2011 | The International Atomic Energy Agency is setting up a Nuclear Safety Action Team to oversee prompt implementation of the

IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety and ensure proper coordination among all stakeholders.

The 12-point Action Plan, drawn up in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, was approved by the Agency's Board of Governors on 13 September and endorsed by all 151 Member States at its General Conference last week.

The team will work within the Agency's Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, headed by Deputy Director General Denis Flory, and will coordinate closely with the Director General's Office for Policy.

"The Action Plan requires immediate follow-up," Director General Yukiya Amano said. "This compact, dedicated team will assist Deputy Director General Flory in implementing the measures agreed in the Action Plan."

Gustavo Caruso, Head of the Regulatory Activities Section in the IAEA's Division of Installation Safety, has been designated as the team's Special Coordinator for the implementation of the Action Plan.

The IAEA has already started implementing its responsibilities under the Action Plan, including development of an IAEA methodology for stress tests for nuclear power plants. The methodology will be ready in October.
More >>>

Location:Islamabad

World Food Day, 16 October 2011

2011-10-04T04:56:00.001-04:00

Food prices - from crisis to stability

Price swings, upswings in particular, represent a major threat to food security in developing countries. Hardest-hit are the poor. According to the

World Bank, in 2010-2011 rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty.

“FOOD PRICES – FROM CRISIS TO STABILITY” has been chosen as this year’s World Food Day theme to shed some light on this trend and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.

On World Food Day 2011, let us look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society. More >>>

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