Peak oil - Aug 23
by Staff
Click on the headline (link) for the full text. Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
...The market does not believe in peak oil The preceding picture shows that the financial markets do not (yet) believe in peak oil. Otherwise the forward curve in 2007 dollar prices would move up. Many economists in trading room have joined the peak oil supporters in theirs speeches for the press, but traders have not followed. In trading rooms it is well known that what matters is not what one is saying, but what positions he or she is taking. As of today the market talks clear and loud: there is no oil crisis forecast. This observation is important because executives decide their energy policy and investments based on forward prices. As long as it is possible to buy cheap oil, why bother diversify sources of energy, or simply spend money to save energy? For example airlines buy a lot of jet fuel in advance. Forward jet fuel prices are low and that's why saving efforts are modest
In designing the programme and coming up with a theme for the conference we took on board feedback from last year's conference in Pisa and the ASPO USA conference in Boston. Consensus emerged that investing time and effort into trying to come up with an 'accurate' date for peak is not necessarily the most fertile field to furrow. 'Time to react?' was chosen because it resonates on two levels, the most obvious is designed to target the mainstream public for whom the concept is still quite new and generally poorly understood. The second is for the more seasoned student of Peak Oil where the focus of attention is moving from trying to predict when peak might occur to the realisation that the range of possible dates is finite and even the most optimistic forecasts suggest that our modern society faces a truly significant challenge in dealing with the phenomenon of Peak Oil. And that will occur within the context of the equally grave challenge we face from the threat of Global Warming. As Global Warming moves into mainstream consciousness we will explore the relationship between these two critical challenges. Agenda
Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI)* is a problematic concept. As Cutler J. Cleveland has noted, "It is impossible to precisely identify and quantify all those factors [that contribute to the energy input to energy production], or to unequivocally categorize them as either physical or economic factors." [1] Despite this difficulty in calculation, the importance of the figure is clear: it is axiomatic that if EROEI is less than 1-that is, if it takes more energy input than the produced energy output-then substantial reliance on that form of energy is not a valid foundation for modern civilization. ...The principle difficulty in calculating EROEI is the desire to define a boundary of energy inputs that will be included in calculations. At one extreme, only the direct energy inputs to energy production may be considered-e.g., the energy required to lift oil from its reservoir to the surface. This approach has the clear advantage that the considered energy inputs are finite and readily quantifiable. The downside is an EROEI figure that fails to accurately represent the actual energy surplus or deficit of process. On the other extreme, the string of energy inputs can be regressed infinitely |
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