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SF peak oil resolution - continuing coverage
David Room, Global Public Media
Sue Vaughn, Allyse Heartwell and Jennifer Bresee talk to correspondent David Room about San Francisco's peak oil resolution.

Sue Vaughn- San Francisco Green Party
Allyse Heartwell- Supervisor's Subcommittee, San Francisco Oil Awareness
Jennifer Bresee- Supervisor's Subcommittee, San Francisco Oil Awareness
(26 April 2006)

Peak oil series:
Venezuela: Slowly Turning Off the Tap Toward the US
Joe Duarte, MD, Financial Sense Online
[Financial Sense Online] Editor’s note: The Peak Oil series continues. In this installment, Dr. Duarte looks at one aspect of the geopolitical equation, the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela, a key component of future developments.

The article is particularly prescient, given the fact that crude oil closed the week of April 21, 2006 by closing above $75 in the June contract, and some regions of California are already paying over $4 per gallon.

This analysis appeared on April 18., 2006 at www.joe-duarte.com. It has been updated and revised for this series.

Other key installments of the Peak Oil series are below...
(22 April 2006)

Do Oil Reserves Tell Us Anything?
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
Maybe.

Of course, the reason to ignore proven reserves numbers is that two thirds of the global total rests with characters like these:

[Graph of reserves of Middle Eastern countries, showing a huge uptick in oil reserves in the 80s when no major discoveries had been reported]

The only thing proven by these time series is that the sources of the data are dishonest and we won't be certain of anything useful about the situation until long after the fact.

But is there anything useful to be extracted from the rest of the world's data? After all, reserves data in other countries are covered by legal or professional standards which might count for something (Bubba wrote a nice summary a while back). I decided to take a look at the BP history of claimed proven reserves for various countries of interest.

Now, I note several cautions. Firstly, the data only extend from 1980-2004, and are annual numbers. Secondly, BP says as to the source of the data...

...On the whole, reserves trends here seem to lead production changes, and the slowing in reserve increases from 2002 on seems to have successfully forewarned of the production plateau that started in late 2004. What we don't see is a sharp recent upturn in reserves getting ready to support the CERA storyline that the world will soon have plenty of oil production again.

All-in-all, these couplings are imprecise, but there seems to be at least a qualitative argument to suggest that the trends in proven reserves are consistent with the idea that we are close to the peaking of global production, unless someone comes up with a bunch of new discovery somewhere.
(27 April 2006)

Peak oil panic
Ronald Bailey, Reason Online
Is the planet running out of gas? If it is, what should the Bush administration do about it?
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...The good news is that the peak oil doomsters are probably wrong that world oil production is about to decline forever. Most analysts believe that world petroleum supplies will meet projected demand at reasonable prices for at least another generation. The bad news is that much of the world’s oil reserves are in the custody of unstable and sometimes hostile regimes. But the oil producing nations would be the ultimate losers if they provoked an “oil crisis,” since that would spur industrialized countries to cut back on imports and develop alternative energy technologies.

...The prophets of oily doom are opposed by preachers of energy abundance. Chief among the latter is the energy economist Michael Lynch, president of the Massachusetts-based Global Petroleum Service consultancy.

...So who’s right? Fortunately, it looks like humanity is at least a generation away from peak oil production. Unfortunately, there could be another “oil crisis” any day now.

...The problem is that the vast majority of the world’s remaining oil reserves are not possessed by private enterprises. Seventy-seven percent of known reserves belong to government-owned companies.

...If ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, or other private companies actually owned the reserves, the world would be in a much more secure position with regard to oil production.

...Instead of preparing for an energy war, the best policy is to let markets have free rein. Even if, say, the Iranians make the political decision to disrupt the flow of oil to world markets, those markets left to themselves will eventually discipline them. The temporarily higher prices will encourage more exploration and technological advances, which will bring energy prices back down. On the day of his inauguration in 1981, President Ronald Reagan lifted oil price controls. Five years later oil prices fell below $10 a barrel.

One day, the oil age will end. As with all resources, there is ultimately a finite supply of oil. So it is not yet clear how the world will power itself for the bulk of the coming century. But we have at least another three decades to find alternatives to petroleum.
(May 2006 issue)
From the PO blogosphere comes responses such as that by Big Gav (Peak Energy Australia)

Reason has an article on "Peak Oil Panic", which offers an introduction to the subject via a fairly standard recital of the peak oil litany, then rapidly disappears off in to an abstract realm of free market thinking - their solution - make all those pesky socialists and other national oil company bureaucracies hand over the black suff to the fine folk at Chevron and Exxon, who will exploit the fields much more quickly an effectively than a bunch of leftist layabouts could ever hope to manage. They don't appear cognizant of the fact that exploiting a finite resource faster doesn't make the problem go away - but then, they appear happy enough to believe Lynch, Economides, Yergin and the other optimistic forecasters of global oil recovery potential (ignoring the global warming problem of course).