Oil

-Read Chapter 2 "Peak Oil" in Peeking at Peak Oil
-Prepare to celebrate OPEC's demise
-U.K. Climate Plan Set To Curb Impact Of Oil Shocks, Report Shows

The EIA helpfully produces a breakdown of the global liquid fuel supply into components. This allows us to distinguish change in the supply of "oil" - narrowly defined as crude oil plus condensates (hydrocarbons which come out of the ground as liquid) - from changes in other things (natural gas "liquids", most of which are actually gases like ethane, propane, and butane, ethanol, and refinery volume changes.

If the world can be seen in a grain of sand, watch out. As Wisconsinites are learning, there's money (and misery) in sand -- and if you've got the right kind, an oil company may soon be at your doorstep.

It was the enlightenment, certainly, through which a whole host of new political views about public voice and the independent integrity of the individual emerged into the mainstream, even if took another 150 years, or even 200, to work themselves out. And at the same time it was the beginning of the age of extraction, when humankind started to use the stored resources of the planet at scale for their profit and endeavour. Both of these ideas are still the dominant frames of our public discourse, certainly in the richer world, and shape (almost completely) competing arguments about sustainability.

A weekly review including:
-Oil and the Global Economy
-The EU Crisis
-Iran
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs

It feels as though we now have the first informed American report on the oil issue. One is struck by how well they describe the problem that ASPO and my research group have attempted to raise awareness of during the last 10 years. That this group of Americans perceive reality in a different way than is common in the USA is presumably because they are diplomats who have been outside the USA’s borders and have studied their nation from a different perspective.

-Dump the pump: could peak oil be voluntary?
-Shell's Majnoon deal highlights Iraq oil target verdict
-Insight - Peak, pause or plummet? Shale oil costs at crossroads

The prospect of weaker oil demand in the face of the Euro crisis was balanced this week by warnings from the IEA and Saudi Arabia. Sadad al-Husseini, the former head of Exploration and Production at Saudi Aramco, wrote that "$100 for Brent is quite a correction and it will be a challenge to sustain such a low price beyond the short term"...

A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week

No civilization has ever faced the agricultural challenges confronting us over the coming decades. Ever. And if we can pull it off – wherever we CAN pull it off – it will necessarily be with an agriculture of maximum resilience; an agriculture that can get knocked down and stagger back up again and again and again. So let’s do this.

- Can we please just declare the end of 'peak oil' and start worrying about something important?
- The U.S. Has A Lot Of Shale Oil, So What?
- Chevron VP: Technology can unlock new fields, curb fears of peak oil
- The Biggest Threat to High Oil Prices
- Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy (video)
- U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream

"It's no pipe dream. The U.S. is already the world's fastest-growing oil and natural gas producer. Counting the output from Canada and Mexico, North America is "the new Middle East," Citigroup analysts declare in a recent report."

Jeffrey Brown responds: The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) sums the reported production from Texas producers, and it has been doing so far decades, while the EIA apparently uses a sampling approach to estimate Texas production. For annual production in 2011, the RRC shows Texas crude oil production at 1.12 mbpd (million barrels per day), while the EIA shows it at 1.46 mbpd, a gap of 340,000 bpd. The gap between the RRC and the EIA for monthly production is even more pronounced, on the order of about 500,000 to 600,000 bpd.

If the EIA is this far off for Texas, what about the other producing states, and what does it say about the EIA's global data?

- WWF Report: Consumption of Earth's resources unsustainable
- Monthly Review: Marx’s ecology and the understanding of land cover change
- New report from Club of Rome warns about humanity’s ability to survive without a major change in direction
- The Big Fix: documentary exposes BP, U.S. Gov't on Gulf disaster/Interview: the Tickells, filmmakers
- James Hansen: Game Over for the Climate

- Peak oil debate is over, says Total chief
- Oil Falls to 2012 Low on Greek Debt, Saudi Call for Drop
- Reuters global energy and envrionment summit