Oil

A strategically timed item in the New York Times presents an overview of the geology that makes the Gulf of Mexico so rich in oil, how new technology has enabled us to track these deposits - and the risks we run to extract them. It was published Wednesday [July 28], one day before a special judicial panel in Boise, Idaho began to consider “how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits” stemming from BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. The seven judges will “consider which U.S. court, or courts, should oversee hundreds of spill-related suits by injured rig workers, fishermen, investors and property owners,”

Matt Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert, has long been one of the most famous and influential voices on the subject of peak oil. After the release of his book, Simmons rose to fame as Saudi Arabian oil production declined and global oil prices skyrocketed. However, Simmons has lately been making hyperbolic claims related to the deepwater spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Based on the scenarios Simmons has outlined, he argues for responses such as using a nuclear explosion to seal the well and evacuating 20 million people from the Gulf Coast. Extraordinary responses such as these would impact a great many people, so The Oil Drum staff felt that a critical look at some of Simmons’ claims was in order.

In 1972, the now-classic book Limits to Growth explored the consequences for Earth’s ecosystems of exponential growth in population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion. That book, which still stands as the best-selling environmental title ever published, reported on the first attempts to use computers to model the likely interactions between trends in resources, consumption, and population. It summarized the first major scientific study to question the assumption that economic growth can and will continue more or less uninterrupted into the foreseeable future.

To no-one’s great surprise, BP has fired chief executive officer Tony Hayward – while reporting record losses. Pausing just long enough to negotiate a hefty financial package, said to include a $1.6 million payout in lieu of notice, a $1-million-per-year-pension and shares, he leaves a company fighting for its survival. According to the Guardian newspaper, BP is reporting “the largest losses in British corporate history”...

Dave Pollard's latest at Salon is an interesting cry in the dark about how hard it is to connect with others when you see collapse coming. My guess is that some of my readers will respond with a great deal of identification, while others will be annoyed by Pollard - but I think it bears some considering.

Back in December in blisteringly cold Copenhagen, tens of thousands of activists, government workers, lobbyists, and world leaders came together for what many hoped would be a diplomatic breakthrough. Though the weather was cold, conditions seemed ripe: Environmental groups across the globe had worked hard to generate a strong display of public will, culminating in 350.org's Day of Action earlier in October, which CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." Bolstered by the announcement that President Obama would attend the talks personally, hopes were high for meaningful engagement on the part of the United States after more than a decade of inaction.

Alex Knight was interviewed about the End of Capitalism Theory, which states that the global capitalist system is breaking down due to ecological limits (such as peak oil) and social limits to growth and that a paradigm shift toward a non-capitalist future is underway. This is the second part of a four-part interview.

-Tony Hayward's departure follows that of his mentor
-Researchers Confirm Subsea Gulf Oil Plumes Are From BP Well
-Proceed with caution on shale gas
-Siemens warns growth could fall 7.5pc if energy prices rise
-Is Matt Simmons Credible?

"I don’t know where it’s going. It seems inevitable to me that it is sort of a bubble phenomenon; but bubbles can go on for 25 years or so, even though everyone knows that’s what’s happening. As long a capital markets continue to fund these things it’s going to keep on going. I’m not saying that’s even a bad thing, though I wouldn’t put any money in it, that’s for darned sure."

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-the Deepwater Horizon saga
-Energy bill on hold
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

If a catastrophe of sufficient magnitude to get the public's attention were to occur--a sudden rise in sea level or a rapid, persistent decline in world oil production--then those in the sustainability movement would move from being prophets to being emergency responders. Maybe this would finally give them the recognition and respect they deserve. Only by then it will be too late to avert the worst.

As elsewhere in western Europe, the advanced liberal consumer democracies are ever more unable (politically unwilling) to implement genuine change. Deutschland's rulers in Berlin firmly believe that techno-managerial innovation (and a hefty dose of financial risk-taking) will continue to provide cures for current ideas of what is unsustainable. As has happened time and again in Europa's history of nations, from the mid-19th century onwards, the costs of such 'revolutions' will be externalised elsewhere (east and south), and the ecological sustainability that Germany's admirable network of communes have long been admired for will remain out of reach of the country's policy and practice.

Dwindling global oil supplies are leaving the world ever more reliant on a group of unstable countries – many of which are themselves facing major domestic problems right now.
Believe it or not, many of the world’s major oil exporters cannot maintain their own domestic energy requirements. Venezuelan consumers endure electricity blackouts of “seven or eight hours a day,” but less well known is the situation in the Middle East, where residents are facing rolling power outages just as summer temperatures soar, and with it, the demand for air conditioning.

-BP testimony: Officials knew of key safety problem on rig
-EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup
-Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety

July 2010 edition of Oilwatch Monthly