The Peak Oil Crisis: A Report to Remember

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

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

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

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

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

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

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