Colin Campbell - The Great Peak Oil Awakening Has Begun

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 17 Nov 2009, 07:12

E V World - 16/11/09

Dr. Colin Campbell is one of the first professional petroleum geologists since M. King Hubbert to identify the inevitability of peak oil, a phenomenon that sees demand for petroleum exceeding supply.

He wrote the following letter to the Manchester Guardian in response to its series of articles about peak oil, especially its report that the IEA was downplaying oil and gas field depletion rates globally, while exaggerating the potential of future field discoveries in its World Energy Outlooks.

Article continues ...

Yves75 · Post by **Yves75** » 17 Nov 2009, 08:03

Same letter also posted on the oil drum :

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5970

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 17 Nov 2009, 12:29

Has this letter actually been published in the Guardian? I can't see it on their website.

fifthcolumn · Post by **fifthcolumn** » 20 Nov 2009, 00:17

The 20% unidentified unconventional is
Electricity based substitutes + Conservation + Shale Gas + Oil Use Avoidance

And he's propounding the same old crud about the financial system being based on growth in oil supplies.

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 20 Nov 2009, 00:36

fifthcolumn wrote:The 20% unidentified unconventional is
Electricity based substitutes + Conservation + Shale Gas + Oil Use Avoidance

And he's propounding the same old crud about the financial system being based on growth in oil supplies.

With respect 5th, it's not crud; or only if we find a replacement for oil damn quick.

Mike Ruppert puts it rather pithily:

Mike Ruppert wrote:Each of the trillions of dollars created out of thin air since the fall of 2008 is a commitment to expend energy that cannot and will not ever be there.

(http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48990)

Without a growth in energy use - or an inconceivable improvement in energy efficiency - all the new money we print is still chasing the same numbers of cars, bananas and mobile phones. Result: inflation. OR: The new money is ploughed into purely speculative investment, creating a de facto pyramid scheme that must ultimately collapse. I understand that this is, in fact, what has been happening: the money that's been printed for the banks, the banks have simply invested in government bonds, rather than in new businesses, whose real value depends on increasing energy use.

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 20 Nov 2009, 03:01

[quote="Ludwig"]

2 As and a B · Post by **2 As and a B** » 20 Nov 2009, 07:46

RITA:
Storm May Be the Coup de Grace for the American Economy and Many of Us As Well

by
Michael C. Ruppert

September 21st, 2005 1530 PST (FTW) – As I pack my bags to head to Washington for Congressional Black Caucus hearings on the September 11th attacks (to be conducted this Friday and Saturday) my inbox is being progressively flooded with emails from inside sources in the energy industry about what Hurricane Rita is now likely to accomplish – the near-complete destruction of an already teetering US economy.

Fully 30% of all US refining capacity is in the target zone. Perhaps most importantly, almost every refinery capable of producing diesel fuel is in immediate danger. This promises (especially in the wake of Katrina) a devastating and irreplaceable shortage of the diesel fuel needed to power America’s harvest of grain and food crops this month and next. Without diesel fuel to power the harvesters and combines, crops may be left to rot in the ground presenting a double whammy: food shortages (with prices that may treble or quadruple) and export defaults negatively impacting the financial markets and trade deficit.

Even before Rita strikes, fully 30% of all domestic natural gas production is shut in. The US cannot import natural gas from overseas like it can both crude and refined products. Repair work on infrastructure damaged by Katrina has been halted as crews have been evacuated. The remaining half of Gulf energy production undamaged by Katrina is directly in Rita’s crosshairs. Natural gas prices are up over 110% and home heating oil futures are up almost 70% before Rita even gets here. Since Katrina, US domestic oil production is down one million barrels per day (from 5Mbpd to 4 Mbpd). We were producing 9 Mbpd less than a decade ago.

Peak Oil has made replacement of losses almost impossible even as Saudi heavy-sour is being spurned as useless around the world, even with discounts of up to $10 and $12 per barrel.

A Bloomberg article today contains a quotation from a Wall Street energy expert as saying, “‘Rita is developing into our worst-case scenario,’ said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. ‘This is headed right into our other major refining center just after all the damage done to facilities in Louisiana. From an energy perspective it doesn't get any worse than this.’”

The Chairman of Valero Energy agrees with the Bloomberg assessment calling Rita a potentially national disaster. His opinion is important because Valero operates more refineries in the US than any other company.

CNN is now predicting $5 per gallon gasoline and this will not likely go away with market manipulations. We had not yet experienced the permanent spikes resulting from Katrina, and the emergency reserves of the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the International Energy Agency have already been tapped once and not refilled.

The South Texas Project nuclear plant – one of the largest in the country – is being completely shut down in preparation for Rita’s landfall. It is only 12 miles from the Texas coast and almost dead center in the hurricane’s projected path. Texas has its own power grid but catastrophic electricity shortages could easily ripple throughout the country in a short time. Electricity lost from that that facility will only be added to what is lost from other facilities powered by now critically short supplies of natural gas.

For those of you who expect FEMA to behave any differently in Texas than it did in New Orleans you are in for a crude awakening. FEMA will do what it must now do to preserve even a functioning part of America’s governing and economic infrastructure. Saving lives will be one of the least important functions in its mandate. While I had serious doubts about America’s ability to recover from Katrina, I am certain that – barring divine intervention – the United States is finished; not only as a superpower, but possibly even as a single, unified nation with the arrival of Hurricane Rita.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... torm.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita#Impact

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 20 Nov 2009, 13:17

RGR wrote: When Mike actually learns something about energy, hell, ANY energy ( let alone economics, finance, anything in the geo-sciences, or heckfire, maybe business management! ) then perhaps the quality of his contribution might be debatable. Lets not forget, this is the same guy who claimed that the US would stop functioning as a country after the hurricanes in 2005. Near clairvoyant, this guy. Maybe he'll pass gas on basic meteorology next?

Whether Katrina caused the "near-complete destruction of an already teetering economy" is doubtful. I am prepared to consider, however, that it might have catalysed it. I don't know enough about its impacts. Nevertheless it is true that the US (and world) economy shows signs - in case you hadn't noticed - of approaching its near-complete destruction.

Ruppert is an incautious commentator, and he has thrown up some red herrings in his time. But he has been spot-on on the basics. He understands that Peak Oil is happening, he understands why it means the end of economic growth, and he has presented a strong case that Peak Oil (and gas) is pretty much the sole reason why the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. And, I'm going to say it, anyone who dismisses his research into 9/11 as nonsense has not read it.

fifthcolumn · Post by **fifthcolumn** » 20 Nov 2009, 17:38

Ludwig wrote:
fifthcolumn wrote:The 20% unidentified unconventional is
Electricity based substitutes + Conservation + Shale Gas + Oil Use Avoidance

And he's propounding the same old crud about the financial system being based on growth in oil supplies.
With respect 5th, it's not crud; or only if we find a replacement for oil damn quick.

And with proper respect to you too L, we ALREADY HAVE a replacement for oil.

Wind + Solar + Nuclear + Conservation + Efficiency.

We don't have ENOUGH that is certainly true, but it can be built.
We can't magic more oil up that's for sure but with enough new infrastructure and a move to more efficient methods of doing things we can keep things going a hell of a lot better than a collapse to Somalian levels.

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 21 Nov 2009, 01:00

[quote="Ludwig"]

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 21 Nov 2009, 02:00

RGR wrote: If that isn't the understatement of the year. I'm more concerned with a cop who thinks that pedophiles quality as sources on matters of national security.

I'm surprised you're prepared to embarrass yourself with such an idiotic statement.

Mike in 2002 claimed that the Afghan pipeline was under construction. Basic, factual information...and wrong.

I can't find this claim in "Crossing the Rubicon", in which Ruppert explicitly states that construction of the pipeline had not yet begun at the time of writing.

Mike claimed that peak oil had likely happened in 2000, thereby providing his excuse for why the Towers had to come down.

Do you have a source for that? It is certainly not the argument of "Crossing the Rubicon", which is that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were intended to secure oil supplies in advance of the peak. Which, if you think about it for more than a nanosecond, makes a lot more sense.

As we later discovered, peak oil was actually in 2005...thereby removing the excuse he needed for his entire Towers diatribe.

See above. You're talking out of your arse.

And the US leaving Iraq, without actually taking the oil, would seem to put a knife through Mikes nonsense in that regard as well,

I don't recall his point on "gee we'll invade, spend tons of money, and then LEAVE, and this we do because we want to steal all the oil". Yeah, I doubt he said that.

Last time I looked the US was still in Iraq.

As for taking the oil: you are quite right. Iraq's oil is still in Iraq. Please don't tell me, however, that you are unaware of plans to get the oil out of Iraq.

You really must think we are idiots not to spot what tosh you write. How you can attack someone else's alleged lack of factual rigour with a straight face, I don't know.

I should know better than to read your posts, even when they're replies to mine. It's just kind of difficult to create the impression I'm conceding the argument. I hope I can resist next time.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 21 Nov 2009, 10:06

Ludwig- Resist the troll and the lure of the pointless argument

2 As and a B · Post by **2 As and a B** » 21 Nov 2009, 10:58

Hey RGR, what happened to that great signature you had? You know, the one warning the unwary that you are a troll, where is it?

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 21 Nov 2009, 16:19

[quote="Ludwig"]

RGR · Post by **RGR** » 21 Nov 2009, 16:21

[quote="foodinistar"]