peak oil (1 Viewer)

[taubstumm]

aspo ireland's february newsletter is out now. here's a sentence from it:

It is well said that we started 'running out' when we consumed the first gallon of oil or dug up the first sack of coal. But finally 'running out' is not the main issue; what matters is the shift in energy supply from growth to decline, which is likely to have very far-reaching consequences for Homo sapiens.

have a read - online or as a pdf.

 

[taubstumm]

the latest aspo newsletter is out now - here's the pdf, here's the html.

it's sorta long, and sorta academic, but really worth it to sit down and spend some time having a read.

also, aspo international are having their 6th annual conference in cork in september.

 

[Goff]

Thanks. Always worth a read.

 

[J.T.S.Brown]

I'm only sitting down to watch this now, but I'd seen a few clips of it before it was done. I think it should be pretty interesting, made by a dude from Dublin.

www.oilsmokeandmirrors.com

In related videography, came across this the other day:
http://www.filmmakersnetwork.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=828

 

[Raudi Raus Schinkel]

I'm only sitting down to watch this now, but I'd seen a few clips of it before it was done. I think it should be pretty interesting, made by a dude from Dublin.

www.oilsmokeandmirrors.com

It was a good watch but a bit too conspiracy theory-laden for me.

pun pun

 

[taubstumm]

hey peeps...

rté are going to be screening future shock: end of the oil age... not next month, not next week, but tonight!

the documentary is presented by george lee (chief economic correspondent for rté news), and has him talking about peak oil and all that jazz.

if you miss it, then that link above will apparently let you watch it on the internerd after 9.30 tonight.

 

[wageslave]

I'm looking forward to that show tonight - for some reason I quite like George Lee.

An article by Irish Anarchists on the whole Peak Oil thingy called 'The politics and reality of the peak oil scare' : http://www.wsm.ie/news_viewer/1774

I like the two graphs they have on the bottom of the article:

1. A typical Peak Oil panic graph

2. What an actual pessimistic forecast looks like

(Disclaimer: I'm in the same anarchist group!ninjaaaa)


That ASPO stuff looks pretty interesting - are they a credible scientific outfit?

 

[taubstumm]

the w.s.m. article is pretty good, and they hit the nail on the head with maintaining a qualified, critical attitude and opposing 'peak oil panic'.

one disagreement i'd have with it, though (or maybe it's a clarification - i dig what they're saying, mostly) is about the reporting of reserves, which isn't mentioned in the article, as far as i could see.

the whole article seems to be implicity assuming that everyone can agree that there is an objective measure available of 'the peak', when it arrives. in effect, that everyone - oil companies, academics, anarchists, saudi princes, george bush, etc. - will look at the figures one day and go "ok lads - it's incontrovertible - we are now past the peak".

this, in turn, assumes that there is an objective measure of how much oil is left in the ground, and what rate it's coming out at, so that we can do the maths and work out when the peak will be. the problem, though, is that nobody really knows how much oil is actually left in the ground, because, generally speaking, the estimations of reserves aren't based on actual knowledge, they're based on guesswork distilled from political propaganda.

for example, it's in the interests of the saudi arabian regime for them to pretend that they have a billion squillion barrels of oil still sitting in the ground. even if they only had four cupfuls left, we could expect them to keep fronting that they have loads, because they don't want anyone to know that they're out of oil. the reporting of reserves is a political act.

so the possibility exists that we have already passed peak, but we're being lied to by those with the knowledge.

this obviously sounds a bit conspiracy-theory-ist, and the obvious rebuttal would be that if we know we're being lied to by the oil regimes, then the corporations definitely know that they're being lied to, and if we really are past the peak, then they'd be acting in post-peak ways.

the obvious answer to that, in return, is that the corporations will always seek short-term profit over long-term rational behaviour, so in effect, even though the oil companies know they're being lied to, they don't really give a shit as long as they have more oil (or more access to oil) than anybody else.

of course, this then goes around in circles, and i'm not saying that i have an easy answer one way or the other; the point is that the question of the reporting of supposed oil reserves is a political one, not a geological or mathematical one. and that distinction is crucial for understanding the whole thing.

apart from that, the aspo people are indeed "a credible scientific outfit" - the second of your two graphs there is taken from their newsletter.

 

[magicbastarder]

i remember reading (in new scientist), that when OPEC changed the rules relating to voting power at the OPEC table, they went from 'one country one vote' to weight it in favour of oil reserves. the level of stated oil reserves supposedly doubled in less than ten years as a result.

 

[classic seanc]

I don't think that link has a streaming functionality. I can't find it anyway. Can anyone else get it?

 

[nlgbbbblth]

It's on my HDD but I haven't watched it yet. Was it any good?

 

[Janer]

Does this thread effect my 10 euros worth on average per nite I need to deliver my curries?

 

[taubstumm]

I don't think that link has a streaming functionality. I can't find it anyway. Can anyone else get it?

it's online here

 

[classic seanc]

WL CHK OT WHN I GT HM!!

 

[taubstumm]

aspo newsletter no. 79, july 2007 | online now (pdf, 644k)

nice bit about reporting of reserves by b.p. - 'tis related to the stuff above about political reporting of reserves.

 

[classic seanc]

Is anybody actually going for this Oil Depletion Protocol or is it still an up-in-the-air notion?

 

[taubstumm]

august newsletter out now

aspo ireland are having a conference soon with speakers including micheál martin of well-known tree-hugging anarchists fianna fáil. hmm.

 

[Raudi Raus Schinkel]

i don't but that peakoil.ie stuff, nice dude but a lot of it dosent add up.

 

[magicbastarder]

as i've mentioned elsewhere here, i recently finished the end of oil by paul roberts. he needs a better proofreader.

 

[magicbastarder]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6926403.stm