Oil Depletion Debate

Catalyst - Oil Crunch, ABC TV

2011-06-27T23:48:00.005-05:00

Chris Skrebowski interview (Catalyst - Oil Crunch, ABC TV), Petroleum Review magazine

Dr Jeremy Leggett interview (Catalyst - Oil Crunch, ABC TV)

Fatih Birol (IEA) interview (Catalyst - Oil Crunch, ABC TV)

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At 88,000,000 Barrels Per Day....

2011-05-11T16:55:00.004-05:00

As of today (5-11-2011) global oil consumption is around 88 million barrels per day. Those 42-gallon barrels could fill 67,200,000 steel drums. Since 55-gallon steel drums are 3 feet tall, how many miles long would those 67.2 million drums be if we laid them end to end? 38,182 miles. That enough 55-gallon steel drums to encircle the earth 1 1/2 times each day. The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901 miles. In one year you could encircle the earth 560 time. Here's how you do the math:

An oil barrel is 42 gallons
A 55 gallon steel drum is 3 feet tall by 22 inches wide
A mile is 5,280 feet
The circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles
The speed of sound (Mach 1) is 768mph

(88,000,000 x 42gal) / 55gal = 67,200,000 steel drums
(67,200,000 x 3ft) / 5,280 = 38,182 miles long
38,182 / 24,901 = 1.53 or 1 1/2 time around the earth each day
(38,182 miles x 365days) / 24,901 = 560 times around the earth each year.

The speed at which you'd have to lay those drums end to end to cover the 38,182 mile distance?
(38,182 miles per day / 24 hours) = 1,591mph
1,591mph / 768mph = 2.07 or Mach 2

The Rule of 70:
In finance we have what's called the "Rule of 70" that's used to calculate the doubling time for a principle's investment given an annual rate of return. To calculate how long it'll take for your investment to double divide 70 by your annual interest. For example, if you were to deposit $100 in a savings account earning 7% annualized rate of return, your $100 would grow to $200 within 10 years.

The Rule of 70 not only applies to investments but also applies to a country's gross domestic product, its GDP. It's claimed that, among developing countries, China is growing at an annualized rate of 7% (actually down from 9%). If that's true then within ten years China's need for commodities to fuel its manufacturing would need to double from its current demand. Imagine, within 10 years, China needing double the oil, coal, copper, aluminum, iron, etc. that its GDP currently consumes.

The Rule of 70 also works in reverse. For example, if you started with $100 in a non-interest bearing account and drew down that principle at 7% per year, within ten years you $100 would shrink to $50. Your investment would be cut in half.

Similarly, oilfields have an annualized percentage decline rate. This begs a critical question: Of all the world's oilfields currently in production, what is their aggregate rate? That is, what is the decline rate on the world's current oil supply?

Schlumberger CEO, Andrew Gould, has stated the decline rate could be 8%
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated a decline rate of 6.7%
Cambridge Energy Associates (CERA) believes the global decline rate is 4.5%
It should be noted that of the recognized credible sources CERA's 4.5% is the most optimistic.

Applying the Rule of 70 to global oil declines. Given the above percentage decline rates, how many years would it take for the world's current oil capacity of 88-90 million barrels to be halved to 44-45 million barrels? Or to put it another way: How much time is there to put online 45 million barrels of new production to keep capacity at current levels?

Schlumberger: 70 / 8 = 8.75 years.
IEA: 70 / 6.7 = 10.44 years
CERA: 70 / 4.6 = 15.2 years

If Global Production Capacity is 90,000,000 bbl/day how much oil does the oil industry need to put online to offset the above decline rates?
Schlumberger: 7,920,000 bbl/day
IEA: 6,030,000 bbl/day
CERA: 4,140,000 bbl/day

If the most optimistic decline rate, CERA's 4.6%, is correct then the oil industry still needs to put on line the equivalent of Japan's daily oil consumption of 4,363,000 bbl/day each year just to keep oil production at current capacity and that is assuming Japan's oil demand did not increase with time.

Oil Consumption by Country
# 1 United States: 18,690,000 bbl/day 2009 Time series
# 3 China: 8,200,000 bbl/day 2009 Time series
# 4 Japan: 4,363,000 bbl/day 2009 Time series
# 5 India: 2,980,000 bbl/day 2009 Time series

Chris Nelder: Saudis approaching production limits
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcas...011-0512-1.mp3

The Crash Course by Chris Matenson

2011-05-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

Financial Sense interview May 11, 2011
audio link
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2011-0511-1.mp3

Financial Sense In Depth interview link
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/in-depth/2011/05/11/chris-martenson/the-crash-course

Chris Martenson's webpage
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Financial Sense The Trade of the Century

2010-12-18T20:38:00.006-06:00

Erik Townsend: This week on the Financial Sense Newshour, Jim Puplava is pleased to welcome Erik Townsend, a successful private investor living in Hong Kong. Jim and Erik discuss the case for peak oil arriving sooner than later, and the investment opportunity
this presents to the educated and nimble investor.

Audio MP3 link

Link to original with audio's references
Financial Sense The Trade of the Century

For those who access this blog

2010-10-12T14:16:00.031-05:00

The following video about this recently released book is a excellent introduction to the topic of oil depletion. I recommend reading Hirsch's book.
The 12 videos will play in succession.
The Impending World Energy Mess by Dr. Robert Hirsch
12 part Q&A with Dr Robert L. Hirsch

Robert Hirsch Interview on Financial Sense

Robert Hirsch Biography

The Hirsch Report: Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management created by request for the US Department of Energy

Up until now I’ve been using this blog as a means to saving bookmarks. Since I know people are accessing these bookmarks I decide to put together links in an outline format.

So this post is for those wanting a general outline or flow of information to follow. My goal was to organize it from top down approach. I don't like to give personal opinions but would rather report the information and let it speak for itself.

It takes time to go through the audios and videos below but I think they are some of the more informative. The Crash Course, especially, is instructive for its easy to follow, broad-based explanation linking how energy and money work in any economy.

If global oil production is at or near maximum production, are there any bright spots to new energy? According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) while they see an oil shortfall over the next 5 years the world will see a natural gas glut coming from shale production: Dr. Fatih Birol on World Energy Outlook post Copenhagen

People talk about the Bakken Shale having 300 billion barrels of oil as a resource play. A resource isn’t necessarily a producible reserve. Since the US consumes 7 billion barrels per year, people reason the Bakken alone could supply the US for 40-45 years. Are they correct? Consider, the USGS estimates the Bakken’s total recovery at 3 to 4.3 billion barrels, or about 6 months’ worth of US consumption.
3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate

US oil production peaked in 1970. At that time the US daily production was about 10M bbl/day. Today production has declined to 5.4M bbl/day today. Yet US daily consumption of oil has increased to about 20M bbl/day (7.1 billion barrels per year).

Graph 1

With different regions’ production around the world now in decline the obvious question is: Has the world’s production peaked or when will it peak?
For the global economy, however, the better question is: When will spare capacity be gone and consumption transitions from a Buyer’s Market to a Seller’s Market?

The Peak Of World Oil Production
http://www.propertyinvesting.net/cgi-script/csNews/image_upload/specialreports_2edb.peak-oil-chart.jpg

USGS: Graph 2 Are We Running Out of Oil?

Since 1980 annual world consumption has exceeded discoveries of new reserve estimates

BP
Graph 3

ExxonMobil
Graph 4

Graph 5

Graph 6 Since 2004-2005 global production has flattened into what many analysts predicted would occurred, a plateau. Peak oil, or peak production, is simply that point where global new production just equals global decline rates.

Graph 6 is for both conventional oil, unconventional oil, and natural gas liquids.
Conventional oil production has been around 74 million barrels per day with a slight downward decline

What some of oil industry experts are saying about the production plateau or peak

Because these are oil industry insiders the following videos are some of the most important interviews

Evaluating World Reserves: How Much Is Left?, featuring Sadad al-Husseini

Acknowledging Peak Oil, featuring Sadad al-Husseini

Peak Oil Reality: Discovery & Production Won't Meet Future Demand, featuring Sadad al-Husseini

The first UK Peak Oil Task Force Report, featuring Jeremy Leggett

James Schlesinger, former CIA Director and Energy Secretary

Oil & Gas Journal; Hess Chief: Action needed to avoid oil crisis
"Given the long lead times of at least 5-10 years from discovery to production, an oil crisis is coming and sooner than most people think. Unfortunately, we are behaving in ways that suggest we do not know there is a serious problem," Hess said...With OPEC now down to 2.5 million b/d of spare capacity, Hess said, "We no longer have the safety margin for supply interruptions and demand spikes to ensure price stability. OPEC, with approximately two thirds of the world's proven conventional crude reserves and one third of its production capacity, certainly has the resource base to relieve the pressure." However, he said, "All oil producers—OPEC and non-OPEC alike—simply are not investing enough today to ensure sufficient capacity to meet oil needs in the next 10 years."

The Rainwater Prophecy; Richard Rainwater made billions by knowing how to PROFIT FROM A CRISIS. Now he foresees the biggest one yet. By OLIVER RYAN
December 26, 2005

Investment guru Jim Rogers’ Financial Times Interview 11.03.09 Part 3/4

Investment guru Jim Rogers’ Financial Times Interview 11.03.09 Part 4/4

A plateau in global production acts as a ceiling to economic growth.
The price economic model looks something like the following:
Price/supply/demand model

In the above ASPOTV videos Brown University PhD Sadad Al Husseini (recently retired VP of Saudi ARAMCO) said he believes spare capacity will be gone within a few years. That’s echoed in this following quote from the United States Joint Forces Command’s Joint Operations Environment Report 2010

United States Joint Forces Command:
U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010
“A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India. At best, it would lead to periods of harsh economic adjustment. To what extent conservation measures, investments in alternative energy production, and efforts to expand petroleum production from tar sands and shale would mitigate such a period of adjustment is difficult to predict. One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest...By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day...The implications for future conflict are ominous, if energy supplies cannot keep up with demand and should states see the need to militarily secure dwindling energy resources.”

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA)out of approximately 19 million barrels of oil the US consumes each day 8.989 million barrels of oil is consumed as gasoline with an addition 3.945 million barrels consumed as Distillate Fuel Oil (Diesel Fuel and Heating Oil).

Using an analogy to put into perspective the U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010, a 10M-barrel per day shortfall in global supply would be similar to having every gasoline station in the United States going dry. Imagine every road, every city street, every state highway, and every interstate highway across all 50 states vacant of automobiles. Yet that global capacity shortfall could be upon us by 2015. Even without global production actually declining increasing demand from developed and developing countries can push demand to those shortfall levels.

Jeffrey Brown, petroleum geologist, has put forth “The Export Land Model.” As wealth grows in exporting countries middle class standards of living increase which in turn increases the domestic consumption for the exporting country’s own production. As the country’s oil production peaks and goes into decline Net Exports decline faster than the country’s production decline rates. Mexico (the US’s 3rd largest import supplier) is expected to become a net oil importer within 5 years. When Mexico becomes an oil importer who will replace it as the number 3 importer into the US?

Referencing the US Joint Forces Command’s report, what is “a massive expansion of production”? According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2008 the oil industry must put on line the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia every 5 years just to keep global production at present capacity.

National Geographic editorialized the International Energy Agency (IEA) report by saying it would be like putting online a new Kuwait’s worth of oil output every year: "The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. government, forecast last year that, all things being equal, world energy consumption would increase 50 percent by 2030. That's a good round number, summing up the desire of people across the world for refrigerators, televisions, ice cubes, hamburgers, motorbikes, and maybe even a little air-conditioning in the tropics.”

“But it's not at all clear where that energy can come from, because we happen to be alive at the moment when the oil is starting to run out. In November 2008 the International Energy Agency estimated that production from the world's mature oil fields was declining 6.7 percent a year, a rate that is expected to get even worse over time. Offsetting this decline will require finding a new Kuwait's worth of output every year, or somehow squeezing that much more from existing fields. Many observers think we've already passed the peak of oil production. An optimist in this world is someone who thinks it might still be a matter of years. But there's little question where the future lies, which is why the cost of a barrel of oil spiked to $147 last year. It took the prospect of a Great Recession to bring it back down to $40. Curbing high gas prices with recurrent economic slumps is probably not the smartest of remedies."

Since we have developing countries, such as China and India, increasing their oil consumption, the IEA World Energy Outlook 2008 is projecting that to not only offset decline rates with four new Saudi Arabias 2 additional Saudi Arabias need to be brought online between the years 2007 to 2030. Six new Saudi Arabias in that timeframe would be like putting online a new Saudi Arabia worth of production every 3.8 years.

IEA World Energy Outlook 2008
Main text
The projected increase in global oil output hinges on adequate and timely investment. Some 64 mb/d of additional gross capacity — the equivalent of almost six times that of Saudi Arabia today — needs to be brought on stream between 2007 and 2030. Some 30 mb/d of new capacity is needed by 2015. There remains a real risk that under-investment will cause an oil-supply crunch in that timeframe. The current wave of upstream investment looks set to boost net oil-production capacity in the next two to three years, pushing up spare capacity modestly. However, capacity additions from current projects tail off after 2010. This largely reflects the upstream development cycle: many new projects will undoubtedly be sanctioned in the near term as oil companies complete existing projects and move on to new ones. But the gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010. Around 7 mb/d of additional capacity (over and above that from all current projects) needs to be brought on stream by 2015, most of which will need to be sanctioned within the next two years, to avoid a fall in spare capacity towards the middle of the next decade.

IEA Word Energy Outlook 2008 Press Release
The prospect of accelerating declines in production at individual oilfields is adding to these uncertainties. The findings of an unprecedented field-by-field analysis of the historical production trends of 800 oilfields indicate that decline rates are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030. "Despite all the attention that is given to demand growth, decline rates are actually a far more important determinant of investment needs. Even if oil demand was to remain flat to 2030, 45 mb/d of gross capacity - roughly four times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia - would need to be built by 2030 just to offset the effect of oilfield decline", Mr. Tanaka added

Wall Street Journal: Peak Oil: Get Ready for the Oil-Supply Crunch, IEA Says

About the IEA
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an intergovernmental organization which acts as energy policy advisor to 28 member countries in their effort to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for their citizens. Founded during the oil crisis of 1973-74, the IEA’s initial role was to co-ordinate measures in times of oil supply emergencies. As energy markets have changed, so has the IEA. Its mandate has broadened to incorporate the “Three E’s” of balanced energy policy making: energy security, economic development and environmental protection. Current work focuses on climate change policies, market reform, energy technology collaboration and outreach to the rest of the world, especially major consumers and producers of energy like China, India, Russia and the OPEC countries. The most recent meeting of the Governing Board of IEA member countries at Ministerial level was held on 14-15 October 2009 in Paris.

Is there any mainstream media articles?

Guardian: Key oil figures were distorted by US Pressure, says Whistle blower

On September 1, 2010 Der Spiegel reported the following:
'Peak Oil' and the German Government
Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis
By Stefan Schultz
Partial quote: “A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis.
The term "peak oil" is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline. This would result in a permanent supply crisis -- and fear of it can trigger turbulence in commodity markets and on stock exchanges.”

Oil isn’t simply liquid fuels. “The United States highway network consists of 4 million miles of roads and streets.”80% of the asphalt gets recycled for road repairs. Asphalt is less than 2% of a barrel of oil yet that 2% paved all those miles

A partial list of consumer products are made from petroleum. The list includes consumer good not normally thought of as being petrochemical. Items such as shampoo, toothpaste, and even aspirin.

Many in the Green Movement believe we could simply switch from petroleum to biomass (bio diesel from algae). If you took the 85,000,000 forty-two gallon barrels of oil consumed by the world each day it would fill 64,909,090 fifty-five gallon steel drums. (I convert to steel drums because it is easier to visualize.) At 3 feet tall and laid end-to-end those drums would stretch 36,880 miles long. Since the earth circumference is 24,900 miles, that daily consumption of oil would fill enough steel drums to encircle the earth 1 1/2 times every day, or 540 times per year.

(85,000,000bbl x 42gal) / 55gal = 64,909,090 fifty-five gallon steel drums
(64,9090,090 x 3ft) / 5280ft = 36,880 mile
36,880 / 24,900 = 1.48 or encircling the planet 1 1/2 times each day
(36,880 x 365days) / 24,900 miles = 540 times per year

The energy density for a 42 gallon barrel of oil is 5,800,000btus How do grow enough biomass for vegetable oil and ethanol equivalent to those energy densities and still produce enough food?

Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, Ph.D., Senior Energy Advisor, Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI)
Audio The Decline of World Oil Production & Its Possible Impacts

A Conversation with Robert Hirsch, "The Impending World Energy Mess"
October 16, 2010 interview

Chris Martenson admits he isn't an industry expert. However, Martenson’s The Crash Course is an excellent broad-based, conceptual understanding for bringing together the economy, energy issues, and resource issues. In addition to energy, an important point to take away from the course is an understanding of how a fiat, debt-based, monetary system works to loan money into existence.

Because a fiat monetary system loans money into existence there will always be more debt to GDP. Implicit to a debt-based monetary system is the requirement for perpetual economic growth to service debt obligations. If economic growth requires increasing energy supplies then global oil depletion becomes a threat to the monetary system itself. Can we go nuclear? As you’ll hear in The Crash Course chapters on peak oil, the energy equivalent of the oil we import into America is equal to output of 750 nuclear power plants. Out of the 437 nuclear plants worldwide the US operates 104. There’s only a few thousand available nuclear engineers capable of keep those 104 plants in operation. Even then, electricity and batteries are a poor substitute for the energy density provided by oil. The immediate problem is having relatively cheap, available liquid fuels.

As a liquid fuel Matt Simmons was working on a project to manufacture ammonia from seawater using wind turbines of the coast of Maine. This link is to an audio interview with Simmons. The second half of the audio with with Titan Oil Recovery

The Crash Course

Seeing the World Through an Energy Lens by Mary Logan, University of Alaska.
In this power point lecture Logan presents a "Big Picture" systems view of economics. Through the lecture she develops her argument and then presents her conclusions for her view of future living standards.

In addition to the Crash Course, this September 2010 interview with Martenson is worth listening to:

Episode-515- An Interview with Chris Martenson – Author of The Crash Course

Episode-516- A New Look at Peak Oil

Economist Jeff Rubin on Oil and the End of Globalization [FULL]

As oil prices increase resources like oil shale becomes economically producible, right? Those arguments ignore The Law of Receding Horizons. As oil prices increase so will the input costs to extracting alternative resources like oil shale. The result of The Law of Receding Horizons is that an investor never attains an economic profit due to the increasing input costs.

Energy and Capital; Receding Horizons
The Next Big Thing
By Chris Nelder

FinancialSense.com - Preparing For and Learning to Survive the Coming Perfect Storm: Part 1

Preparing For and Learning to Survive the Coming Perfect Storm: Part 2

If peak oil affects the debt obligations and unfunded promises, will the Federal Government be able to meet its debt obligations and unfunded promises for future Social Security and Medicare payments?

According to the Dallas Federal Reserve President, in this speech “Roadblocks to Recovery” the Federal Government owes $104 Trillion in present value terms.

Roadblocks to Recovery (With Apologies to W. H. Auden and Gershon Bleichröder)
Remarks before the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth
Dallas, Texas
February 10, 2010
“We cannot count forever on the largess or the misfortune of others to mask our own imbalances here at home—for fiscal profligacy in Washington today hinders our ability to address fiscal challenges tomorrow.”
“These challenges are coming. Off balance sheet, there lie two massive, unfunded liabilities not accounted for in the "conventional budget accounting" of the federal government—most significantly, Social Security and the government obligations of current Medicare programs.”
“Pundits and analysts like to focus on the year in which Social Security will go permanently into the red on an annual cash flow basis—which recently was projected to occur in 2019 but could occur as early as 2016. But they largely ignore the severity of the broader problem: accumulated entitlement debt over the infinite horizon. According to our calculations at the Dallas Fed, that unfunded debt of Social Security and Medicare combined has now reached $104 trillion—trillion with a 'T'—in discounted present value. And while much attention in recent years has been devoted to Social Security, the lion's share of the total entitlement shortfall (nearly $90 trillion) actually comes from Medicare. This is a prodigious number. Others—like Pete Peterson's foundation, which uses a different time horizon in its methodology—calculate the unfunded liability at north of $40 trillion, growing by a sum of $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year. No matter. The problem is frightful, whether you take his numbers or ours.” - Richard W. Fisher, Dallas Federal Reserve.

In April 2008 John Williams of Shadowstats gave this interview on Financial Sense: Hyperinflationary Depression 2010. At that time nobody knew who the next president would be. In the previous month, March 2008, Bear Sterns had been bailout for $80 billion and the Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, was saying we were over the worst of it. In the interview Williams was saying the Federal Reserve and the Government bailouts were just beginning and that if stimulus money wasn’t pumped into the market we’d see a collapse not unlike the Great Depression. In the following September 2008 the market collapsed. It was reported that Hank Paulson had gotten on his knees to beg Nancy Pelosi and the Congress for the funds.

As of today, October 2010, Williams is saying theirs a high probability of a hyperinflation beginnng between the months March 2011 and June 2011.

July 2010 interview with John Williams.

Two years ago (September 2008) the global economy almost collapsed. Hank Paulson was on his knees before the Congress, followed by world governments coming together in emergency meetings.

What was the extent of the Paulson and Congressional meetins?
CSPAN Rep Paul Kanjorski Reviews the Bailout Situation
Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman

The Mortgage Meltdown is intertwined with all this
First broadcast September 17, 2007

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 1

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 2

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 3

American Enterprise Institute panel discussion Oct 6, 2010
This is a technical discussion on the global financial markets. The audio begins after 7 1/2 minutes. Question: if the economy is as bad as these men illustrate and global production has peaked, or facing a shortfall in supply, how do world economies grow out of debt if liquid fuel supplies cannot increase?

What could Rep Paul Kanjorski's collapse have been like that he spoke of on CSPAN?
FSN In Depth: Joseph A. Tainter PhD, The Collapse of Complex Societies.

So what is the solution? The answer to that depends upon what you want the outcome to be. We might have “to face the brutal facts whatever they are” that no solution to what we want actually exists. The Sockdale Paradox

The Sockdale Paradox

2010-10-03T08:09:00.005-05:00

A change from the bookmarks I've been posting

THE BRUTAL FACTS
Turn on your audio to listen to this link The Sockdale Paradox

who was admiral James Stockdale?
http://ezinearticles.com/?Leadership-Attitude---The-Stockdale-Paradox&id=3819855
"James B. Stockdale was one of the highly respected Vice admiral in the history of United States Navy. He set a remarkable example and won many awards for his high levels of spirit, courage and endurance. He was also Vice Presidential candidate in 1992."

"Jim Collins included Stockdale philosophy as Stockdale Paradox in his renowned book 'Good to Great' as "confronting the brutal fact of the situation, yet at the same time, never give up hope."

"When interviewed by Jim Collins about Vietnamese Prisoner of War (POW) camp, Stockdale said "I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."

Trends in World Oil Supply/Consumption and Net Exports/Imports

2010-09-28T16:29:00.001-05:00

The Oil Drum (graphs) Trends in World Oil Supply/Consumption and Net Exports/Imports

Episode-516- A New Look at Peak Oil

2010-09-27T22:57:00.001-05:00

click on above title and see audio to listen to episode 516.
Jack does a good job of explaining peak oil for the someone who doesn't understand what it is and why it affect everyone's standard of living.

Episode-515- An Interview with Chris Martenson – Author of The Crash Course

2010-09-27T22:52:00.003-05:00

click on above title to go to website then click on audio to listen to the interview with Chris Martenson.

click here to watch The Crash Course

The Crash Course: The End of Money? (PBS)
38:05 - 1 year ago
Chris Martenson, PhD, presents part of his Crash Course seminar on WGBY-TV (PBS) in Springfield, MA. The Crash Course teaches viewers how our economy, energy needs, and environmental concerns are converging, and will make the next 20 years very different from the last 20. Published in February 2009. Visit www.chrismartenson.com to see all the Crash Course videos.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7406937111575905756#

Exclusive interview: Robert Hirsch

2010-09-20T08:53:00.002-05:00

Clink link for story:Exclusive interview: Robert Hirsch

Partial quote:
Peak Oil’ : Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Energy sounds the alarm

Interview with Robert L. Hirsch (1/2) - LINK to full text of original

James Schlesinger, President Carter’s Energy Secretary, wrote the foreword to a book written by Dr Robert Hirsch, an former US official who predicts a fall of the oil production within 5 years.

Never before has a high-ranking political figure like Schlesinger given his support to such a prognosis. The book will be published in the US on October the 1st. Here is an exclusive interview with its author.

Dr. Robert Hirsch has a unique place in the ‘peak oil’ issue. Back in 2005, he was the main author of the first pessimistic report ever published by a public administration (presentation on Wikipedia).

Not just any public administration : the Department of Energy of President George Bush.

Robert Hirsch has been a manager of petroleum exploratory research at Exxon, a senior staff member at the RAND Corporation, and director of the US research program on nuclear fusion energy.

His 2005 conclusions did not get any attention from the mainstream or financial media.

Today, Robert Hirsch perseveres. According to him, it’s now obvious : we will soon face a decline of world black gold supplies.

Peak oil : “A conspiracy to keep it quiet” in Washington, says Robert Hirsch

Interview with Robert L. Hirsch (2/2) - LINK to full text of original

. . .

oil man: - What happened after you published your 2005 report on ‘peak oil’ for the US Department of Energy (DoE) ?

The people that I was dealing with said : « No more work on peak oil, no more talk about it. »

People that were high in the administration hierarchy ?

The people that I was dealing with were high in the laboratory level. They were getting their instructions from people on the political side of the DoE, at high levels.

After the work we did on the 2005 study and the follow-up of 2006, the Department of Energy headquarters completely cut off all support for oil peaking and decline analysis. The people that I was working with at the National Energy Technology Laboratory were good people, they saw the problem, they saw how difficult the consequences would be – you know, the potential for huge damage – yet they were told : « No more work, no more discussion. »

That was in 2006, under Bush administration. Has anything changed with the Obama administration ?

It has not changed. I have friends who simply won’t talk about it now. So I have to assume that they are receiving the same kind of instructions.

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis

2010-09-17T23:47:00.002-05:00

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 1

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 2

Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis Part 3

FSN In Depth: Joseph A. Tainter PhD, The Collapse of Complex Societies

2010-09-10T18:41:00.004-05:00

Audio link to interview

Source to Financialsense.com interview

Youtube: Joseph Tainter; The Collapse of complex Civilizations

FinancialSense.com - Preparing For and Learning to Survive the Coming Perfect Storm: Part 1

2010-09-05T10:42:00.010-05:00

Audio link to interview

With:
Nicole M Foss
Antony Froggatt PhD

Nicole Foss: Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth, where she writes under the name Stoneleigh. She and her writing partner have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance, energy, environment, psychology, population and real politik in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it. Prior to the establishment of TAE, she was previously editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and finance.

Her academic qualifications include a BSc in biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate diploma in air and water pollution control, the common professional examination in law and an LLM in international law in development from the University of Warwick in the UK. She was granted the University Medal for the top science graduate in 1988 and the law school prize for the top law school graduate in 1997.

On this week’s Financial Sense Newshour, Nicole lays out her ominous thesis of a coming deflationary depression, made worse by peak oil. Nicole believes that the depression will cause demand for energy to go down, creating further energy shortages and less and less economic growth.

Dr. Antony Froggatt: Antony Froggatt is a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House. He has worked on international energy and climate issues for over 20 years providing research and information for a wide range of bodies including companies, governments, the media, non-government organizations and international organizations and has published over 50 reports and papers.

On this week’s Financial Sense Newshour, Dr. Froggatt discusses his latest research white paper, [for Lloyd's of London] “Sustainable Energy Security” with Jim Puplava. Dr. Froggatt makes the assertion that businesses which prepare for and take advantage of the new energy reality will prosper, but failure to do so could be catastrophic. He also mentions that the world is heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike.

Preparing For and Learning to Survive the Coming Perfect Storm: Part 2

IEA Chariman Dr. Fatih Birol on World Energy Outlook post Copenhagen

2010-09-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

LLoyd's of London: Lloyds 360 Risk Insight

2010-06-17T18:07:00.002-05:00

Sustainable Energy Security
Strategic Risks and Opportunities for Business

Chris Nelder FSN News Team Energy Expert. A very infromative interview

2010-06-09T23:15:00.003-05:00

http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/team/nelder.html

RealAudio
http://www.financialsensenewshour.com/broadcast/fsn2010-0605-2.ram

MP3
http://www.financialsensenewshour.com/broadcast/fsn2010-0605-2.mp3

Two Years Remission for Financial Bad Conduct PEAK

2010-05-05T22:33:00.006-05:00

Two Years Remission for Financial Bad Conduct
PEAK
Chris Skrebowski
aspo-usa.com/2009proceedings/Skrebowski_Oct_12_2009.pdf
My conclusions at very best
•Supply will start to tighten the moment economic recovery occurs and prices will rise
•Much depends on Opec’s use of its spare capacity of about 5mn b/d
•Much depends on Opec’s oil price ambitions
•Rapid oil price rises would threaten economic recovery
•Oil supply will most likely peak in 2014/15 at under 92 million barrels/day
•There could be supply shortfalls in winter before Peak
•Oil supply in international trade will peak earlier than the oil production peak

Peak Oil matters because ‘The flows matter’
•Consumers need delivery flows
•Reserves are only useful as flows
•Peak oil is when flows can’t meet the demand
•The oil industry is slow moving and predictable
•Flows can be geologically constrained –e.g., the North Sea
•Flows can be politically constrained –e.g., Russia, Saudi Arabia
•Flows can be physically constrained –e.g., Nigeria
•Flows can be skills constrained –e.g., lack of experienced engineers
•Flows can be capital constrained –e.g., Mexico, Venezuela
•Many talk of reserves and ignore flows
•Others talk about access and ignore flows
•Peak Oil flows will occur no later than 2015.

Latest BP statistics (2009) show Peaks are already happening
•OECD production peaked in 1997and has now declined by 2.5 million b/d (-11.5%)
•Non-Opec, non-FSU production peaked in 2002 Has now declined by 1.50 million b/d (-4.24%)
•Total non-Opec production decrease in 2008 -613,000 b/d
•North America/Mexico peaked in 1997 now down 602,000 b/d (-4.2%)
•North Sea -UK/Norway/Denmark peaked in 2000now declined by 1.87 million b/d (29.4%)
•Around 28 significant producers in decline (accounting for over40mn b/d)
•About 50% of global production from decliners
•Can the other 50% outrun depletion and meet demand? For how long?

United States Joint Forces Command: U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010

2010-04-14T07:12:00.021-05:00

United States Joint Forces Command:
U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010

“A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India. At best, it would lead to periods of harsh economic adjustment. To what extent conservation measures, investments in alternative energy production, and efforts to expand petroleum production from tar sands and shale would mitigate such a period of adjustment is difficult to predict. One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest...By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day...The implications for future conflict are ominous, if energy supplies cannot keep up with demand and should states see the need to militarily secure dwindling energy resources.”

According to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration:
Out of the 19.498 million barrels of oil the US consumes each day 8.989 million barrels of oil is consumed as gasoline and 3.945 million barrels is consumed as Distillate Fuel Oil (Diesel Fuel and Heating Oil). I'm not sure how much of that is consumed by the US Military. However...

...Using an analogy to put the U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010 into perspective, a 10 M/bbl per day shortfall out of the global supply chain would be like having every gasoline station in the US going dry. It's akin to having every county dirt road, every city road, every state highway, and every interstate highway vacant of automobiles across all 50 states.

Range Livestock Production, Food, and the Future: A Perspective

2010-03-25T09:47:00.002-05:00

Ranching and farming systems could soon drastically change because of rising world
population, depletion of water supplies, agricultural land loss to urbanization,
fossil fuel depletion, and concerns about food health
By Jerry L. Holechek

Bakken Shale, and interviews with Titan Oil Recovery & Dr Hirsh Interview,

2010-03-23T11:02:00.015-05:00

The following two relate to the Bakken Shale
http://bakkenshale.blogspot.com/2007/10/time-for-reality-rant.html

Nov 21,2009, The interview with Titan Oil begins after the Matt Simmons interview at around 23 1/2 minutes
Audio inteview with Titan: www.netcastdaily.com/broadcastfsn2009-1121-3a.ram"

www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2009-1121-3a.ram
www.titanoilrecovery.com

ASPO Youtube interviews from November 2009
Be sure to take note of these men's professional background:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd7QGbNKxoQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUVY2qrEfd8&feature=related

Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, Ph.D., Senior Energy Advisor, Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI)
Topic: The Decline of World Oil Production & Its Possible Impacts
actuall interview with Hirsch begins at about 6 minutes

www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2009-1114-3a.mp3

Steel Drum Pipeline Encircling the Earth

2009-07-08T14:59:00.024-05:00

Everyone has seen a steel drum. If you make an oil pipeline by stacking 55 gallon drums end to end representing the world's 2008 daily demand for oil, how long would it be and how fast would the oil have to flow to cover its length in a 24 hour period?

42 gallons equals one oil barrel
A 55 gallon steel drum is 3 feet tall by 22 inches wide
A mile is 5,280 feet
The circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles
Speed of sound 768 mph

Using these above numbers let’s do some math:

Take the 85,000,000 bbl of oil & times it by 42 gal in a barrel to equal 3,570,000,000 total gallons of oil used everyday.

Divide those total gallons by 55 gallon steel drums: 3,570,000,000 gal / 55 gal steel drum = 64,909,090 drums of oil consumed each day.

At 3 feet tall it takes 1,760 drums laid end-to-end to build a pipeline one mile long: 5280’/3’ = 1,760 drums.

Daily consumption of oil in drums divided by the number of drums in a mile: 64,909,090 drums/1,760 drums in a mile = a 36,880 mile long pipeline worth of drums being consumed every day.

Circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles.

At 85,000,000 barrels per day, in one year’s worth of consumption enough oil drums could be filled to make the trip around the world 540 times: (36,880 miles * 365 days)/24,901 miles = 540.

36,880 miles / 24 hours in a day = 1,537 miles each drum volume of oil would need to travel every hour to cover the 36,880 mile distance in a 24 hour period. 1,537 miles / 768 mph speed of sound = 2 or twice the speed of sound.

The distance from Los Angeles to New York is 2,462 miles (http://www.laalmanac.com/transport/tr53.htm). At mach 2 speeds each drum volume flowing through this pipe would travel the distance in 1 hour 35 minutes.

To summarize: at 85,000,000 barrels worth of daily oil consumption you could build a pipeline using steel drums 36,880 miles long (or approximately 1.5 times the circumference of the earth), and since you’d be replacing this pipeline’s volume every day the oil flowing through it would need to traveling at two times the speed of sound! And in one year's worth of production you could use enough 55 gallon drums to encircle the earth 540 times!

The Condensed version for the above math.
This would fit on a note card:
(85,000,000bbl x 42gal) / 55gal = 64,909,090 fifty-five gallon steel drums
(64,9090,090 x 3ft) / 5280ft = 36,880 mile long pipeline
36,880 / 24,901 = 1.48 or a pipeline stretching 1 1/2 times around the earth....every day 24/7
(36,880 / 24hr) / 768mph = Mach 2 or twice the speed of sound the oil would need to flow to replace the 85 million barrels being consumed every day.
(36,880 x 365days) / 24,901miles = 540 times you could encircle the earth every year with steel drums.

Will the world be able to replace even half that volume using bio fuels?

The IEA’s World Energy Outlook Report 2008 basically states the world oil industry needs to average bring on line the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia every 5 years just to offset annual decline rates on existing oilfields. However, according to the IEA to meet increasing demands from developing countries such as China and India the industry needs to average a new Saudi Arabia evey 3.5 years between the years 2007 and 2030:
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/11/iea-world-energy-outlook-2008.html

As National Geographic magazine put it: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2009/03/energy-challenge/mckibben-text
"The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. government, forecast last year that, all things being equal, world energy consumption would increase 50 percent by 2030. That's a good round number, summing up the desire of people across the world for refrigerators, televisions, ice cubes, hamburgers, motorbikes, and maybe even a little air-conditioning in the tropics.

But it's not at all clear where that energy can come from, because we happen to be alive at the moment when the oil is starting to run out. In November 2008 the International Energy Agency estimated that production from the world's mature oil fields was declining 6.7 percent a year, a rate that is expected to get even worse over time. Offsetting this decline will require finding a new Kuwait's worth of output every year, or somehow squeezing that much more from existing fields. Many observers think we've already passed the peak of oil production. An optimist in this world is someone who thinks it might still be a matter of years. But there's little question where the future lies, which is why the cost of a barrel of oil spiked to $147 last year. It took the prospect of a Great Recession to bring it back down to $40. Curbing high gas prices with recurrent economic slumps is probably not the smartest of remedies."

The US uses ¼ of the world’s demand for oil, or approximately 20-22 million barrels per day. Of those 20 million barrels, we produce 5 million domestically and import 15 million barrels. Our highway transportation fleet consumes 10 million barrels in oil for fuel usage every day. In other words, ban all highway transportation, close all filling stations - basically, vacate the roadways with all internal combustion engines, and you would still have to import 5 million barrels into the US (half its demand) to supply the 10 million being consumed elsewhere by the US economy.

Every presidential campaign candidates make promises of getting the US off imported oil while keeping the economy growing and prospering. Is that goal possible?

Mexico is the #3 import supplier into the US. However, Mexico’s key oilfield, Cantrell, is declining at an annualized rate of 35% http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService_3_MOLT/idUSTRE55F4HK20090616.

If Mexico's decline continues, geologist Jeffry Brown projects Mexico will become a net oil importer within 5 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model. If so, what country, or source of oil, will the US look to for replacing the oil imports now coming from Mexico?

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence"

2009-04-27T21:23:00.002-05:00

CATO Institute presents video and debate with
Robert Bryce author of
Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence"

Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy

2009-03-25T19:09:00.005-05:00

WSJ: We can double the output of solar and wind, and double it again. We'll still depend on hydrocarbons.

By ROBERT BRYCE

Robert Bryce's blog

During his address to Congress last week, President Barack Obama declared, "We will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years."

While that statement -- along with his pledge to impose a "cap on carbon pollution" -- drew applause, let's slow down for a moment and get realistic about this country's energy future. Consider two factors that are too-often overlooked: George W. Bush's record on renewables, and the problem of scale.

By promising to double our supply of renewables, Mr. Obama is only trying to keep pace with his predecessor. Yes, that's right: From 2005 to 2007, the former Texas oil man oversaw a near-doubling of the electrical output from solar and wind power. And between 2007 and 2008, output from those sources grew by another 30%.

Mr. Bush's record aside, the key problem facing Mr. Obama, and anyone else advocating a rapid transition away from the hydrocarbons that have dominated the world's energy mix since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is the same issue that dogs every alternative energy idea: scale.

Let's start by deciphering exactly what Mr. Obama includes in his definition of "renewable" energy. If he's including hydropower, which now provides about 2.4% of America's total primary energy needs, then the president clearly has no concept of what he is promising. Hydro now provides more than 16 times as much energy as wind and solar power combined. Yet more dams are being dismantled than built. Since 1999, more than 200 dams in the U.S. have been removed.

If Mr. Obama is only counting wind power and solar power as renewables, then his promise is clearly doable. But the unfortunate truth is that even if he matches Mr. Bush's effort by doubling wind and solar output by 2012, the contribution of those two sources to America's overall energy needs will still be almost inconsequential.

Here's why. The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total solar and wind output for 2008 will likely be about 45,493,000 megawatt-hours. That sounds significant until you consider this number: 4,118,198,000 megawatt-hours. That's the total amount of electricity generated during the rolling 12-month period that ended last November. Solar and wind, in other words, produce about 1.1% of America's total electricity consumption.

Of course, you might respond that renewables need to start somewhere. True enough -- and to be clear, I'm not opposed to renewables. I have solar panels on the roof of my house here in Texas that generate 3,200 watts. And those panels (which were heavily subsidized by Austin Energy, the city-owned utility) provide about one-third of the electricity my family of five consumes. Better still, solar panel producers like First Solar Inc. are lowering the cost of solar cells. On the day of Mr. Obama's speech, the company announced that it is now producing solar cells for $0.98 per watt, thereby breaking the important $1-per-watt price barrier.

And yet, while price reductions are important, the wind is intermittent, and so are sunny days. That means they cannot provide the baseload power, i.e., the amount of electricity required to meet minimum demand, that Americans want.

That issue aside, the scale problem persists. For the sake of convenience, let's convert the energy produced by U.S. wind and solar installations into oil equivalents.

The conversion of electricity into oil terms is straightforward: one barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 1.64 megawatt-hours of electricity. Thus, 45,493,000 megawatt-hours divided by 1.64 megawatt-hours per barrel of oil equals 27.7 million barrels of oil equivalent from solar and wind for all of 2008.

Now divide that 27.7 million barrels by 365 days and you find that solar and wind sources are providing the equivalent of 76,000 barrels of oil per day. America's total primary energy use is about 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Of that 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, oil itself has the biggest share -- we consume about 19 million barrels per day. Natural gas is the second-biggest contributor, supplying the equivalent of 11.9 million barrels of oil, while coal provides the equivalent of 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. The balance comes from nuclear power (about 3.8 million barrels per day), and hydropower (about 1.1 million barrels), with smaller contributions coming from wind, solar, geothermal, wood waste, and other sources.

Here's another way to consider the 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that come from solar and wind: It's approximately equal to the raw energy output of one average-sized coal mine.

During his address to Congress, Mr. Obama did not mention coal -- the fuel that provides nearly a quarter of total primary energy and about half of America's electricity -- except to say that the U.S. should develop "clean coal." He didn't mention nuclear power, only "nuclear proliferation," even though nuclear power is likely the best long-term solution to policy makers' desire to cut U.S. carbon emissions. He didn't mention natural gas, even though it provides about 25% of America's total primary energy needs. Furthermore, the U.S. has huge quantities of gas, and it's the only fuel source that can provide the stand-by generation capacity needed for wind and solar installations. Finally, he didn't mention oil, the backbone fuel of the world transportation sector, except to say that the U.S. imports too much of it.

Perhaps the president's omissions are understandable. America has an intense love-hate relationship with hydrocarbons in general, and with coal and oil in particular. And with increasing political pressure to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, that love-hate relationship has only gotten more complicated.

But the problem of scale means that these hydrocarbons just won't go away. Sure, Mr. Obama can double the output from solar and wind. And then double it again. And again. And again. But getting from 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to something close to the 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day needed to keep the U.S. economy running is going to take a long, long time. It would be refreshing if the president or perhaps a few of the Democrats on Capitol Hill would admit that fact.

Mr. Bryce is the managing editor of Energy Tribune. His latest book is "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence'"(Public Affairs, 2008).

The End of Suburbia movie

2009-03-21T20:26:00.001-05:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6478590936988054561&ei=c2XFSZDxHpKYrALZ5ZTMCw&q=the+end+of+suburbia&hl=en

World Oil Use in '09 to Fall by Most Since 1982: IEA

2009-02-13T16:27:00.001-06:00

As you read it keep in mind this youtube graph http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vGDwGLU7s
I’ll underline the points in the article to focus on in relation to this graph

World Oil Use in '09 to Fall by Most Since 1982: IEA
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29134718
World oil demand will contract this year by the most since 1982 due to extreme weakness in the global economy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

The Paris-based agency also said supply will be lower than previously expected this year, risking a new price surge when demand recovers which could disrupt the world economy.

Global demand is expected to fall by 980,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 84.7 million bpd in 2009, the IEA said in its monthly oil report.

Its forecast last month was for demand to contract by 500,000 bpd.

The forecast adds to evidence that the financial crisis is sharply eroding fuel use.

The IEA, which advises 28 industrialized countries, said the latest reduction to demand may not be the last.

"The bottom line is that 2009 looks like a pretty weak year," David Fyfe, head of the IEA's Oil Industry and Markets Division, told Reuters. "It's far too early to say if this is the end of the downward demand revisions because the financial and economic spillover is still unfolding. We're hostage to any further weakening in the overall economy."

The IEA has removed 3 million bpd from its forecast for 2009 demand since last summer, when oil prices hit a record high of $147.27 a barrel.

They have since plunged to below $40 as the economic crisis deepened and widened.

It revised this year's oil demand forecast lower after the International Monetary Fund cut its estimate for global GDP growth in 2009 to just 0.5 percent.

"The continued -- and dramatic -- revisions of the past few months underscore the extreme weakness of the global economy," it said.

Oil prices pared gains after the IEA report was issued.

U.S. crude was up above $38 a barrel.

Supply Impact

The IEA also said that future oil supply growth has come under threat from the collapse in prices.

"Hand in hand with the downward revisions in demand is the impact on supply," Fyfe said. "The trend now is that downside demand revisions are being matched on the supply side."

Since oil fell from its peak last summer, the IEA has reduced its estimate of potential supply in 2009 from OPEC members and other countries by 1 million bpd.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have delayed 35 new oil projects, the producer group's secretary general said on Monday, in response to lower prices and falling demand.

The IEA said only clear signs of an economic recovery would spur investment in new supply and a large cutback in spending at the moment could have dire consequences later on.

"The danger is that if too much investment slips now, the scale of the price response to resurgent demand could again destabilize the global economy."

As demand has fallen, oil inventories in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have risen to high levels.

Stocks at the end of December stood at 57 days of demand cover, compared with 52.5 days at the same time the previous year, the IEA said.

OPEC has agreed to remove 4.2 million bpd of oil output in a bid to balance the market and shore up prices, but questions remain about some members' compliance with output targets.

The IEA said if OPEC successfully implemented all of the output cuts, supplies would be 1.5 million bpd below its estimate of demand for the producer group's oil in 2009.

"This implies a substantial draw in stocks later in the year unless demand again trends weaker, or non-OPEC supplies prove stronger than expected," the IEA said.

Matt Simmons' latest presentation and video

2009-01-27T14:03:00.003-06:00

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/Dallas%20Committee%20On%20Foreign%20Relations.pdf

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=matt+simmons&st=month

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQS-VFai1k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70yhrjJHnZs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n899IEBYyc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5ZJbgooPk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtgEyw6HYN4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dMjU5qgFSI

A Map of the Oil World

2009-01-11T17:44:00.000-06:00

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/06/business/20071107_WINNERSLOSERS_GRAPHIC.html

Peak Oil - Politics, Geopolitics, and Choke Points Video

2009-01-11T16:44:00.001-06:00

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4958

Let’s “hope and pray that Hirsch is wrong” about our oil supply

2009-01-11T16:40:00.000-06:00

http://www.rgemonitor.com/financemarkets-monitor/255063/lets_hope_and_pray_that_hirsch_is_wrong_about_our_oil_supply

The Next Disaster

2008-12-08T11:11:00.001-06:00

The Next Disaster
Jesse Bogan, Kerry A. Dolan, Christopher Helman and Nathan Vardi, 11.27.08, Forbes Magazine dated December 22, 2008
Narco violence is exploding--just as oil prices are plunging and Mexico is bracing for a deep U.S. recession.

http://www.forbes.com/home/forbes/2008/1222/073.html

The narcotraficantes have infiltrated the highest levels of law enforcement, including, allegedly, Mexico's principal link to Interpol and its former senior drug czar.
"We have more dead than you have in Iraq."
The explosion of narco terror comes alongside a precipitous drop in oil prices and the crushing effects of a deep U.S. recession. The climate of fear is kicking the life out of the economy.
State-owned oil monopoly Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) contributes 37%--$80 billion in 2008--of federal revenue.
Pemex is in sorry shape. From a peak of 3.3 million barrels a day in 2004, output is down to 2.8 million barrels.
Pemex says it must spend $20 billion a year for two decades just to keep output stable. That will be very tough to pull off without outside investment--especially for a company sagging under $100 billion in debt.
(with certain calculations) jobless figure soars to 10%. Feliz expects that number to reach 12% next year.
Eighty percent of Mexican exports--$240 billion this year, up 10% from 2007--go to the U.S., where shoppers aren't spending.
Drug-related violence pervades all segments of life in Mexico.
An executive can shell out as much as $500,000 a year to protect himself and his family
Most Mexicans, however, believe the cartels are winning the war.
On the other side of the border look for a large drop in remittances from Mexicans living in the U.S.

IEA World Energy Outlook 2008

2008-11-12T10:24:00.012-06:00

Main text http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/WEO2008SUM.pdf
The projected increase in global oil output hinges on adequate and timely investment. Some 64 mb/d of additional gross capacity — the equivalent of almost six times that of Saudi Arabia today — needs to be brought on stream between 2007 and 2030. Some 30 mb/d of new capacity is needed by 2015. There remains a real risk that under-investment will cause an oil-supply crunch in that timeframe. The current wave of upstream investment looks set to boost net oil-production capacity in the next two to three years, pushing up spare capacity modestly. However, capacity additions from current projects tail off after 2010. This largely reflects the upstream development cycle: many new projects will undoubtedly be sanctioned in the near term as oil companies complete existing projects and move on to new ones. But the gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010. Around 7 mb/d of additional capacity (over and above that from all current projects) needs to be brought on stream by 2015, most of which will need to be sanctioned within the next two years, to avoid a fall in spare capacity towards the middle of the next decade.

IEA Word Energy Outlook 2008 Press Release http://www.iea.org/Textbase/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=275
The prospect of accelerating declines in production at individual oilfields is adding to these uncertainties. The findings of an unprecedented field-by-field analysis of the historical production trends of 800 oilfields indicate that decline rates are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030. "Despite all the attention that is given to demand growth, decline rates are actually a far more important determinant of investment needs. Even if oil demand was to remain flat to 2030, 45 mb/d of gross capacity - roughly four times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia - would need to be built by 2030 just to offset the effect of oilfield decline", Mr. Tanaka added

WSJ: Peak Oil: Get Ready for the Oil-Supply Crunch, IEA Says
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/11/12/peak-oil-get-ready-for-the-oil-supply-crunch-iea-says/

About the IEA http://www.iea.org/about/index.asp
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an intergovernmental organisation which acts as energy policy advisor to 28 member countries in their effort to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for their citizens. Founded during the oil crisis of 1973-74, the IEA’s initial role was to co-ordinate measures in times of oil supply emergencies. As energy markets have changed, so has the IEA. Its mandate has broadened to incorporate the “Three E’s” of balanced energy policy making: energy security, economic development and environmental protection. Current work focuses on climate change policies, market reform, energy technology collaboration and outreach to the rest of the world, especially major consumers and producers of energy like China, India, Russia and the OPEC countries. The most recent meeting of the Governing Board of IEA member countries at Ministerial level was held on 14-15 October 2009 in Paris.

RigZone.com: Oil-Price Rebound Could Be Severe

2008-11-02T09:26:00.005-06:00

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=68514

by Guy Chazan Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday, October 29, 2008
LONDON (WALL STREET JOURNAL via Dow Jones Newswires), October 29, 2008

The slump in oil prices has spread relief among consumers and fuel-reliant industries, but also is squeezing the companies who could invest in new sources of oil -- spurring concerns that prices will prompt them to shelve investments.

Industry executives warn that could mean the world will face a dramatic ramping up of prices as soon as the global economy, and demand, begins to rebound.

"Low oil prices are very dangerous for the world economy," said Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, the United Arab Emirates' energy minister, speaking Tuesday at an oil-industry conference in London. "We need an adequate and reasonable oil price that will continue to stimulate investment." With prices now languishing, he said, "a lot of projects that are in the pipeline are going to be reassessed."

The global economic slowdown has driven down demand for oil, pushing crude prices to levels not seen since the spring of 2007. In an attempt to stem the decline, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed last week to slash output by 1.5 million barrels a day -- its biggest single reduction in almost eight years.

But the move didn't stop the slide. U.S. benchmark crude for December delivery fell 49 cents on Tuesday, or 0.78%, to $62.73 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That is down about 57% from its record high of $145.29 in July.

Nobuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based watchdog, was one of several experts at the annual Oil and Money conference here predicting that the industry could be setting the stage for yet another supply-and-demand whiplash down the road. "We're concerned that supply won't catch up with demand after this crisis," Mr. Tanaka said. "The supply crunch may come again, but in a more acute way."

The price of crude began its rally five years ago, when an oil industry that hadn't invested enough in new capacity during the years of low prices failed to cope with surging demand from the booming economies of China and India. That scenario could now play out all over again. "I hope we don't go through the same cycle," said Mr. Al Hamli.

In two years' time, "we could see much higher prices than we saw three months ago, if the investments are not going through," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist.

To be sure, most big oil companies have shown no sign of trimming their investments. Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it is sticking to its capital-investment target of $36 billion for this year -- the largest in its history -- and Chevron Corp. is also charging ahead with its $23 billion program.

Most of the majors' big projects are designed to break even at prices substantially lower than the current cost of crude. "I don't think there will be major changes in investment," said Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil company ENI SpA. "Maybe in unconventionals, but not conventional oil projects."

Yet it is precisely the so-called unconventionals that have become a big focus of the oil companies' activities in recent years. Billions of dollars have been poured into squeezing crude out of Canada's gooey tar sands, converting Venezuela's heavy oil, and pumping ultra-sour natural gas in the Middle East. Some of those projects could now be scaled back or even abandoned, conference speakers said. Already, some independent companies producing natural gas in the U.S. have announced cuts in investment.

"If this oil price stays low, alternative energy, Canadian oil sands, Brazilian new discoveries will be out of the market," said Abdalla Salem El-Badri, OPEC's secretary-general.

Though forecasters expect demand for oil to be flat or even negative next year in the rich world, it is likely to grow in countries like China, whose economy has so far weathered the world-wide financial crisis.

Mr. Birol said falling oil prices will also deter investment in alternative energy. Low-carbon technologies such as wind and solar were economically competitive only so long as oil prices were high. Countries set to meet in Copenhagen next year to agree a new deal on curbing emissions may decide it is a "luxury" in view of the financial crisis. Lower oil prices are "not good news for climate change," he said.

We Won’t Get Fooled Again

2008-09-14T10:14:00.002-05:00

We Won’t Get Fooled Again
… unless we believe in "energy independence"
http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/905148.html
"What If We Outlawed Driving?
All of that brings us back to today and the new national cry for energy independence. The British Telegraph reported that, if elected, John McCain will put Governor Sarah Palin in charge of our oil and energy policy. After all, she’s a huge backer of drilling more oil in her state, although not for any reason as altruistic as improving our nation’s energy supply. No, Alaska gets over 80 percent of its state revenues from oil production, so the more oil that is produced out of Alaska, the more money Alaskans have to spend.
It’s even more interesting, at least as it concerns our being energy independent, that the official Republican platform now calls for an end to the nation’s ethanol mandate. Both parties once touted that net energy waste of our resources as being our energy salvation.
Again let me tell you a truth no politician will: Total energy independence for America is never going to happen in our lifetime, no matter what either party says.
Let’s assume that on her first day in office as our Vice President and new Energy Czar, Palin attempts to make us energy independent by outlawing all automobiles and trucks. No exceptions: Clear every last vehicle off every last highway. Guess what? With absolutely no need for gasoline or diesel, closing every gas station and truck stop — not to mention every new car dealership in the U.S. — America will still use more oil than we produce domestically. That’s how big the problem is.
It’s true. Around half of the oil we import, or somewhere around 10 million barrels of oil per day, goes into transportation fuel. That means the country uses 10 million barrels of oil without driving — yet we produce only 5.1 million barrels domestically.
Yes, take every motorized vehicle off our highways and we still need more oil than we currently produce. And that’s why the proposed "energy independence" is a political pipedream — not possible.

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Society. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF

What $300-a-Barrel Oil Will Mean for You

2008-09-11T19:19:00.003-05:00

Barron's: What $300-a-Barrel Oil Will Mean for You
http://setup2.barrons.com/article/SB122065354946305325.html?mod=Barron

"A Very Unpleasant Truth... Peak Oil Production and its Global Consequences"

2008-08-30T16:25:00.001-05:00

"A Very Unpleasant Truth... Peak Oil Production and its Global Consequences"
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2008/Lyle.html
audios
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0830-2a.ram
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0830-2a.asx
Editorial Reviews
Product DescriptionA basic assumption underlying our economic system and our way of life is that cheap and plentiful amounts of oil will be available for the foreseeable future. In this book two retired oil company scientists present the case that this assumption regarding future oil supplies is dangerously flawed. They believe that a peak in worldwide oil production is imminent and that the ensuing decline in oil production will have devastating social consequences unless steps are taken immediately to lessen the impact of this event. Easy solutions to the problem of peak oil production such as replacing conventional oil with ethanol or relying on the Canadian and Venezuelan oil sands to solve the problem will prove to be only unrealistic partial solutions. Conservation of energy must be an essential feature of how we respond to the impending energy crisis. Development of a national mass transit system along with a massive increase in electrical power generation using nuclear power, wind power, and solar power will be required to avert disaster.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1419687611/financialsenseon

The Crash Course

2008-08-24T09:38:00.002-05:00

What is it?
The Crash Course seeks to provide you with a baseline understanding of the economy so that you can better appreciate the risks that we all face. Chapter 17's focus is on Peak Oil but I recommend starting with Chapter 1.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

World Energy TV

2008-07-25T22:55:00.000-05:00

Energy Crisis, A Discussion with Matt Simmons - 30 min - Jun 25, 2008
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3462555843300983140&q=matthew+simmons&ei=xumISOmXK4uGrgPWheC4CA

Congressional Crude Oil Speculation Hearings - June 23, 2008

2008-06-26T15:04:00.002-05:00

copy/paste the following real audio links to the address bar and hit "Enter"
These are long recordings but the quality of info is well worth the study
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/energy/energy062308_manipulation.rm
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/energy/energy062308_manipulation2.rm

Along these same lines:
Der Spiegel: How Speculators Are Causing the Cost of Living to Skyrocket
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,559550,00.html

To Sum: that supply/demand fundamentals are tight is acknowledged but there also appears to be a speculative premium as well.

T. Boone Pickens C-Span TV

2008-06-18T19:35:00.004-05:00

Transmission of Renewable Electricity
To watch, click on Flash Video to the left side of this link's page
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=206005-1
Senate CommitteeEnergy and Natural Resources
Last Airing:
06/18/2008
T Boone Pickens is interviewed in this hearing and discusses wind energy and peak oil

T. Boone Pickens, founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, gave a speech entitled, ?It?s Time America Gets Serious about an Energy Plan,? about energy policy. He responded to questions from the students and faculty in the audience. Georgetown?s McDonough School of Business sponsored this talk.4/17/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 55 min.
copy/paste the following to the address bar and hit "Enter"
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/energy/energy041708_pickens.rm'
or go here
http://38.105.88.161/Search/basic.asp?BasicQueryText=t%20boone%20pickens

House hearing on Oil Supply and Demand

2008-06-12T11:08:00.005-05:00

House Energy Cmte. hearing on Oil Supply and Demand (June 11, 2008)
To watch you will need to copy/past the following realvideo link to your address bar
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/energy/energy061108_oil.rm

Guy Caruso, chief of the Energy Information Admin., offered a long-term prognosis of the oil supply and demand. The House Energy Cmte. considered whether or not Saudi Arabia can produce 12 million barrels a day as claimed, and if oil production has peaked.
Washington, DC : 2 hr. 25 min.

Leading Oil and Gas Companies Around the World

2008-05-17T21:55:00.002-05:00

Who are the leading oil and gas companies around the world? Hint Exxon is 17th. The top 16 control over 70% of the world's estimated reserves and are national oil companies
Rank by 2006 Oil EquivalentReserves reported
http://www.petrostrategies.org/Links/Worlds_Largest_Oil_and_Gas_Companies_Sites.htm

German Energy Politician, Astrid Schneider, interview with IEA's Chief Economist, Fatih Birol

2008-04-22T14:25:00.009-05:00

What follows is an English translation, from German, with Dr. Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the IEA. April 2008
http://www.internationalepolitik.de/archiv/jahrgang-2008/april/download/1dd009358046b66009311ddacf8b74f50e1742a742a/original_ip_04_birol.pdf
http://www.internationalepolitik.de/archiv/jahrgang-2008/april/--die-sirenen-schrillen--.html

"The Sirens Shrill"

The International Energy Agency (IEA) gives alarm: The world could run out of oil faster than expected - the danger of a supply shortage is rising

Hunger for energy vs. energy shortage: While the demand for oil is on the rise, the production is decreasing - shortages, escalating prices and inflation are looming. When talking to energy politician Astrid Schneider, Faith Biro, chief economist of the IEA demands a change in policy from the member countries. His motto: leave oil before it leaves us.

Astrid Schneider:
Mr. Birol, in your "World Energy Outlook" which was published in November 2007 the IEA has warned for the first time that there could be a slump in oil production and escalting prices in the time from now to 2015. The reason you give is that there has been too little investment in oil production.

Fatih Birol:
Indeed. There are three reasons why that is so. The first one is the increasing demand, mostly from China, India and the Middle Eastern countries themselves. These countries are the main reason for the increasing oil consumption. Even if there should be a recession in the USA, this would not slow those countries down much, because India and China have a strong internal economic growth, while high oil prices will help the economy in the Middle East. The demand for oil will therefore remain high.

Schneider:
The second reason ...?
Birol: ... is, that we see a sharp decline in production from the existing oil fields, especially in the North Sea, the USA and many non-OPEC countries. Even here money should be invested, to slow down that decline. The third reason why we expect a risk for overall production is, that we looked at all oil exploration projects around the world: 230 altogether, in Saudi-Arabia, Venezuela, the North-Sea, everywhere. Even if all those projects which are already funded will be implemented, the overall capacity they can bring for new oil production is too little.

Schneider:
How much is missing?
Birol:
Exactly 12.5 million barrel a day are still missing, about 15 % of the global oil demand (the current global oil consumption is 84 million barrel a day, note from the editor). This gap means that we could face a supply shortage and very high prices during the next years.

Schneider:
Is there still a way to avoid this?
Birol:
There are only three ways out of this dilemma: First of all we have to increase energy-efficiency drastically, we have to build more economical cars, trucks and airplanes, to slow down the incline in oil consumption. Secondly we have to use more alterative fuels in the traffic sector. If you take a look at how little governments are doing to help higher efficiency, though, I have little hope that there will be such a change of policy. The third thing is that we need many more oil production projects, especially in the key countries in the OPEC.

Schneider:
You write that 5.4 trillion dollars have to be invested to meet the global oil demand. In which countries should this money be invested?
Birol:
In the Middle Eastern countries with a large oil supply - but I am not sure that those countries and their oil corporations will invest as much as would be necessary. They might think that it is not in their own interest to raise the production that much, to keep the oil prices up. A further part of the investments has to go to the non-OPEC countries, to the USA and to the North-Sea, to prevent the decline of the oil production there.

Schneider:
In the WEO 2007 it is mentioned that the rapid decline of oil production will be between 3.7 and 4.2 percent per year. Is that right?
Birol:
Exactly-

Schneider:
This decline is even steeper than the one predicted by the Energy Watch Group!
Birol:
I can already tell you that in our "World Energy Outlook 2008" which will be published in November we will deal in depth with the prospects of the oil and gas production. We will take a look at the 350 most important oil and gas fields and explore how much production rates are sinking and what that means.

Schneider:
What do you mean by that?
Birol:
As far as I know this will be the first profound public study in which we verify and revise our knowledge about how much oil and gas is going to the markets. Many people will come to new conclusions about this.

Schneider:
One of the statements of the WEO 2007 is that the complete additional oil production has to come from the OPEC countries and especially the Middle East. Salem el-Badri, the general secretary of the OPEC has announced on a conference regarding energy security in London last February, that the OPEC wants to invest 200 billion dollar until 2012 to create new production capacities of 5 million barrel (mb) a day. This is a sharp contrast to the WEO 2007 where you state that to the year 2020 we need 24 mb per day in new production capacity to satisfy the rising demand for oil. So de facto Salem el-Badri says that the OPEC will not be able to meet the expectations. Doesn't that mean that we will run into serious problems?
Birol:
Indeed. this is the reason that this year for the first time we announce a "supply crunch" situation. There is a gap between the global demand for oil and the amount which is or can be brought to the market from that region. We think that the oil producers have to increase their production output significantly, but we are not sure that they will do it or even can do it.

Schneider:
Because they don't want to?
Birol:
Let's look at the numbers: up to 2015 there will be a gap between what we expect and what the oil producers are willing or able to do to increase their capacity. This gap shows the real and serious picture of the oil market. It could mean a supply crunch and escalating prices.

Schneider:
So the things I see in the WEO are more - if I may say so - a wish list?
Birol:
You could put it that way. I think we are entering a new world oil order. The new players, which decide how much oil is going to the markets, are mostly public oil companies. For many reasons things will not be as easy as they have been before.

Schneider:
The Energy Watch Group has pointed out in its studies that the oil reserves in the Middle East are likely estimated 50 % too high. When you ask the Middle East countries today to increase their production capacities, how good is your knowledge on their oil reserves and on the amount those countries could produce if they wanted to?
Birol:
We are talking about a very important issue here and the most important accomplishment I expect from the WEO 2008 is more transparency as far as the oil reserves of the national as well as the international oil corparations is concerned.

Schneider:
Who are you hinting at?
Birol:
Just remember that a very well known international oil company has recently run into trouble because it did not have enough transparency. Therefore the IEA would like to see more openness in accord to data about oil reserves - it might be the national good of the individual states, but the rest of the world, other economies, the common wellbeing of everyone are dependent on it. At the moment we are flying almost blindly and we desperately need more insight here.

Schneider:
Does transparency alone help?
Birol:
Even if the oil reserves of Saudi-Arabia should be estimated wrongly by 50 %, they could increase their production from 12 mb a day to 18 mb. But I don't think they will raise production that much in the next 25 years. So there are mainly three different problems: geology, investment and policy of the main oil producers. Those three aspects taken together make the future of oil very difficult.

Schneider:
If I look at all those countries, there are big problems with Russia and its restrictive policy against international and market oriented oil corporations like Yukos; Iran and Iraq are international crisis hot spots, Saudi-Arabia has a very reluctant policy and seems to be difficult to approach for western companies ...
Birol:
Indeed, but that is completely legitimate.

Schneider:
... and last but not least Venezuela which has just stopped its oil exports to the energy corporation Exxon Mobil. These countries together hold 60 % of the world's oil reserves. But de facto we have no access to them, neither politically nor economically.
Birol:
That causes great strain on everyone and on our economic systems. When I look at the future, I see three strategic challenges in the energy sector: The first is oil and gas security. Just recently Russia has lowered its gas delivery to the Ukraine by 25 %. The second is climate change. And the third, and one has to admit we don't much talk about this, is the connection between energy and poverty, for example in Africa. Today 1.6 billion people, that is 25 % of the global population, have no access to electric power.

Schneider:
Will we be able to meet all three challenges?
Birol:
If you look at the dimensions, I don't think that the markets alone can solve those problems. We cannot leave everything to them. The national governments as well as international institutions have to help to define the rules and follow them. The issue is too important.

Schneider:
You are not alone with your warnings about supply shortages - at the world economy summit in Davos Jeroen von der Veer, the Shell CEO, admitted for the first time that conventional oil and gas will not suffice to cover world demand from the year 2015 onwards. Will this not lead to a further decline in production?
Birol:
Several people now think that the global oil and gas production will get into troubled waters soon, but this is not only due to resource depletion. The lack of investments is another problem, as well as the fact that some countries don't want to increase production.

Schneider:
For which we cannot blame them, can we?
Birol:
No. Before I joined the IEA I worked for the OPEC in Vienna. And every oil person had the same thoughts: I don't use up all the oil that I have today, but leave some for my children and grandchildren, so they will be able to make money from it as well. And I understand that. In many oil producing countries, oil is the sole or at least most important source of income.

Schneider:
So what is your conclusion?
Birol:
I would be very surprised if the oil productions would effortlessly increase during the next 20 to 25 years to meet, lets say, 120 mb a day without any problems. Even if the potential should be there, we will not get this oil to the markets. The conclusion is that we have to be prepared to see very turbulent, tight and high prices oil markets - this will not be good for the economy.

Schneider:
Let's assume the prices escalate - who will be hit first?
Birol:
It will be about who can afford x dollar per barrel. Some will be able to, others won't. The OECD countries will be among the lucky ones, but the developing countries will ...
Schneider:
... be the losers ...
Birol:
Exactly!

Schneider:
If I understand you correctly, you say that the demand for oil could rise 3 % globally every year, while we have to expect a decrease of 4 % in oil production in the time from now until 2015. That would be 7 % each year which are missing.
Birol:
The demand might increase a little slower. But there could be a large gap between what should be there and what actually will be there, especially, if we do not put massive efforts into improving the efficiency of cars or change to other transportation systems. If we don't take measures on the consumer side, the consumption will continue to grow. And if we have not invested enough into oil production, we will flounder.

Schneider:
But when you think of the life cycle of goods, of the long investing cycles of machines, power stations or air conditioning systems: do you think an adjustment of the consumer side to a lower supply path could be done that fast?
Birol:
No, but I don't think that prices will go up that rapidly. We can see a gradual incline and that will give the people some time to adapt. But on the long run it has to be clear: if oil will be gone by 2030, or in 2040 or 2050 does not change much.

Schneider:
You really say that?
Birol:
Yes, one day it will definitely end. And I think we should leave oil before it leaves us. That should be our motto. So we should prepare for that day - through research and development on alternatives to oil, on which living standards we want to keep and what alternative ways we can find.

Schneider:
How will the global economy react to a new oil crisis?
Birol:
If there is a great gap between supply and demand, the economies will be hit hard - yet with large differences worldwide. The German economy will suffer less than that of the Sahel Zone countries. Nevertheless we expect less economic growth, rising inflation and more unemployment for the OECD countries as well.

Schneider:
And the poor countries?
Birol:
In the poor countries, most of all in Black Africa, in India and similar countries, the effects will be much more devastating. We have calculated for example that the oil importing countries in Black Africa have lost three percent of their economic growth due to rising oil prices. We should not forget that half the people in those countries live below the poverty line of one dollar a day.

Schneider:
Do you see the danger of military conflicts between countries with high and low resources, caused by the tension on the world market?
Birol:
In my official mandate I don't often speak about wars and such. But what I can tell you is, that energy issues and geo politics are interwoven too much. The energy supply is becoming less and less an economic enterprise, but instead an economic enterprise plus geo politics! That's bad news, and I don't like that at all. We need a dialogue between the producers and consumers.

Schneider:
You mentioned that we are at the eve of a new world energy order. Who are the new players?
Birol:
On the consumer side clearly China and India. They used to be very small participants in the market and we did not see much of them in the energy game so far. They have been mere street players but now they are growing more and more into full sized protagonists.

Schneider:
And on the producers' side?
Birol:
There it is the major oil producing countries: Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. All those countries have one thing in common: the oil production is regulated by public oil corporations instead of the free market. That changes the game setup. They are not only new players, but it is a completely new situation. The rich OECD countries become less and less relevant. They are still important, but they will play a lesser role when we look into the future.

Schneider:
So the whole world economy depends on a few oil producing countries - and those countries you mentioned are not very democratic.
Birol:
Every country has its own political system which it should have set for itself. What we would like to see, though, is the opening of the markets of those countries. The free flowing of capital will be very important, so that everyone is free to invest in what he wants. But in the end these countries are free. They can decide what energy policy and political system they want.

Schneider:
What does that mean for us?
Birol:
At least we have to realize, that our oil and gas will come from countries where public corporations decide about production in the future. That is different from the past when more market oriented corporations did supply us. That is an important change.

Schneider:
The IEA has the mandate to keep watch over the oil market and to warn the OECD countries when there could be problems or shortages on the global oil market. How loud are your alarm bells ringing by now?
Birol:
We are talking about two different functions here. The first is that we can put reserves to the market when there is physically not enough oil to meet the demand. We did that in 2005 for example when the hurricane Katrina hit the USA. The second task is, as you have mentioned, to "sound the alarm". That's what we have done last year.

Schneider:
You already did ring the bell? When?
Birol:
With the World Energy Outlook 2007. It was a clear signal to the governments of all our member countries. They take energy and oil security much more important than before, now. And when we present the WEO 2008 this November, I think it possible that the sirens will shrill even louder.

Schneider:
But don't you have a process to call together the heads of state or the ministers of economy to talk to them about an oil supply crisis?
Birol:
We do have processes like that for a supply crisis. We call this an emergency situation and we can exchange information with the governments of all member countries in only a few hours time if that happens. We did that when Katrina hit.

Schneider:
Don't you see a difference there? On the one hand a crisis which is caused by a natural catastrophe which destroys some oil platforms and on the other hand something like a "longtime emergency"?
Birol:
Yes - and that is the reason we asked our member countries to switch policies. Just recently the USA and Japan did pass new bench marks for cars to reduce the energy consumption. We desperately need new rules and standards here. Europe is trying to meet the same standards at the moment, but I know some countries will have their difficulties with them.

Schneider:
Like for example Germany.
Birol:
They are still reluctant to put them into effect. But I think we give them the clear message to do it. All these are examples on how we are ringing the alarm bells, and we are ringing them loudly. I can tell you that I am very pleased to see many ministers moving into the right direction now - but it is not enough. Especially if you set the new measures in perspective to the dimension of the problems we are facing.

Schneider:
But isn't it time to give a clear signal? Especially since a lot of money is wrongly invested by the OECD countries - for example for building new airports, even though there will not be enough oil to constantly increase air travel?
Birol:
We do not only tell that to our member countries, but also to Peking or New Delhi. We explained to our Chinese and Indian colleagues how higher energy efficiency can help them, how public transport can change their life and where infrastructure investments should be put. But in the end it is up to the governments, how seriously they take our statements and warnings.

Schneider:
In the face of the looming supply crisis, wouldn't it be the right time now to call in a government conference on energy issues?
Birol:
We are discussing and checking the situation regularly. The next important step will be the WEO 2008. In 2009 we will invite to a ministerial meeting and I expect the energy security to be among the most important issues alongside climate change. But again: It is up to the governments to take actions now. We have warned them.

Schneider:
So far we only talked about oil because it has the largest share in the global energy mix. The Energy Watch Group states that we cannot just double the amount of coal or uranium once oil starts to run out. Aside from climate issues, those energy sources are not unlimited either. What does the IEA say about this?
Birol:
There is a difference between coal and uranium. Coal is a global resource, it can be found almost anywhere and we have large amounts. But the problem is - if we leave the climate change out of this for a moment - that it is becoming more and more difficult to transport the coal from the mines to the consumption centers. After having talked about oil prices already, let me tell you that the price for coal has more than doubled since the beginning of 2006. The coal prices, too, are rising because China has become an important importer while we don't see a major increase in production anywhere.

Schneider:
How do you judge the situation for uranium? Today only 60 % of the supply comes from the mines; the rest comes from storage reserves which will be used up soon.
Birol:
For the uranium reserves we see no problem for the time after 2015 to 2020, as long as there are exploration efforts in key regions like Kazakhstan, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere. I don't think the uranium supply is the main problem for the nuclear economy; it is more a question of public acceptance.

Schneider:
In the light of the shortage and problems with oil, coal and gas, the OECD, the IEA and the United Nations have called for the building of more nuclear power stations to fight climate change. However, we would need three to four times as many nuclear power plants to be able to contribute enough power to make a difference.
Birol:
To limit global warming to two degrees Celsius we have to change our system of energy production. There are four ways to do that in a climate neutral way: Energy efficiency, renewable energies, CO2 deposition and nuclear energy. If you split the necessary CO2 reduction to those techniques evenly, we would have to build 30 new nuclear power plants worldwide every year. That is almost impossible. We are currently building 1.5 new nuclear power plants a year.

Schneider:
So a renaissance of nuclear energy is out of the question as well?
Birol:
Nuclear power should at least keep its current 15 % share of the energy mix. When people from my own country ask me, if they should build a nuclear power plant, I tell them about the advantages and disadvantages. But I also tell them that a nuclear reactor should not be built against the will of the people who have to live in its environment. It might be good for the global economy, good for energy security and good for climate protection, but when the local people have a problem with it, we should definitely consider that in the planning.

Shell Oil: Energy Scenarios to 2050

2008-04-03T14:57:00.007-05:00

Shell Oil Company

Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050

video interview

http://www.shell.com/home/content/aboutshell-en/our_strategy/shell_global_scenarios/video/scenarios_video_26032008.html

The reportis located here

http://www.nam.nl/home/content/aboutshell-en/our_strategy/shell_global_scenarios/dir_global_scenarios_07112006.html

NPR interview

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89831088

PEAK OIL: ALTERNATIVES, RENEWABLES, AND IMPACTS

2008-04-01T16:01:00.001-05:00

PEAK OIL: ALTERNATIVES, RENEWABLES, AND IMPACTS
Clifford J. Wirth, Ph.D.
January 6, 2008 (Updated Quarterly)

http://www.peakoilassociates.com/PeakOilAnalysisOctober6-2007.doc

At 1000 Barrels of Oil Per Second

2008-02-26T15:14:00.000-06:00

1 barrel of oil Volume: 42 gallons
Olympic Pool Volume: 648,000 gallons*
Olympic Pool Volume: ~15,428 barrels of oil equivalent

It’s estimated the current world uses 1000 barrels of oil per second
1000 bbl x 86,400 seconds in one day = 86,400,000 bbl of oil used by the world in one day.

86,400,000bbl / 15428bbl = 5,600 Olympic sized pools of oil used each day.

5,600 pools x 365 days in a year = 2,044,000 Olympic sized pools of oil is use by the world in one year.

Olympic Pool dimensions: 50m x 25m x (2m depth)**
1 meter = 3.2808399 feet
1 mile = 5 280 feet

Olympic pool length: 164 feet
Olympic pool width: 82 feet
Olympic pool depth: 6.5 feet

164 feet length x 2,044,000 Olympic pools = 335,216,000 feet in length
335,216,000 feet /5280 feet in a mile = 63,488 miles

If all Olympic pool equivalents of oil used in one year were lined up end to end, the pool would be 82 feet wide x 6.5 feet deep x 63,488 miles long.

The circumference of the world at the equator is 24,892 miles
63,488 / 24,892 = The Olympic pools lined up end to end would stretch 2.5 times around the world

The world uses ~31 billion barrels of oil per year (31,536,000,000 = 86,400,000 x 365)
86,400,000bbl/210bbl tank = 411,429 tanks of oil used each day
411,429 tanks x 365 days = 150,171,429 tanks of oil per year

Gallons of oil per year: 31,536,000,000 x 42 = 1,324,512,000,000
1.3 trillion gallons

“One inch of rain falling on a 160 acres delivers 4,344,680 gallons of water”***
1,324,512,000,000 gal per year / 4,344,680 = 304,858 inches
304,858 / 12 inches = 25,405 feet of oil equivalency volume on top of 160 acres

1 cubic mile (length x width x height) holds the volume of 1.1 trillion gallons

IEA: Oil demand is expect to 118,000,000 bbl in 2030. According to the IEA projects, allowing for depletion, it will take 200 million barrels per day from 2001-2030 to meet the expected demand. ****

118 million barrels per day equals:
43,070,000,000 barrels per year
7,648 Olympic pools per day
2,791,677 pools per year
86,711 miles of pools laid end-to-end
3.5 times around the world
34,696 feet on top of 160 acres

Source of data for volumens
*http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/JeffreyGilbert.shtml
** http://www.answers.com/topic/olympic-size-swimming-pool
*** http://www.owrb.ok.gov/util/waterfact.php
****Page 14: http://www.iaee.org/documents/washington/Fatih_Birol.pdf

Peak Oil: What the Issue is About Video, Audio, & Papers

2008-02-26T13:18:00.030-06:00

Oil & Gas Journal

Hess Cheif: Action needed to avoid oil crisis

http://www.odac-info.org/article/hess-chief-action-needed-avoid-oil-crisis

"Given the long lead times of at least 5-10 years from discovery to production, an oil crisis is coming and sooner than most people think. Unfortunately, we are behaving in ways that suggest we do not know there is a serious problem," Hess said...With OPEC now down to 2.5 million b/d of spare capacity, Hess said, "We no longer have the safety margin for supply interruptions and demand spikes to ensure price stability. OPEC, with approximately two thirds of the world's proven conventional crude reserves and one third of its production capacity, certainly has the resource base to relieve the pressure." However, he said, "All oil producers—OPEC and non-OPEC alike—simply are not investing enough today to ensure sufficient capacity to meet oil needs in the next 10 years."

T. Boone Pickens discusses the future of energy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8438421234681559490&q=t+boone+pickens&ei=7rJaSNzbKKXQ4AK-2vz2CQ

Richard Heinberg discusses the basics of peak oil, energy crisis, and economic collapse

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5sohn_peak-oil-curriculum-oil-depletion-f

Debate on the Future of Energy Prices
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8440308528190352152&q=t+boone+pickens&total=16&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=2
T. Boone Pickens and Steve Forbes debate the future of energy prices. Mr. Pickens, who had often correctly predicted the movement of oil markets, argued that global oil production was near its peak, making higher prices inevitable.

TheOilDrum: video interview

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8980485670494666459

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6877220392806016387

Blood and Oil - trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeFRcciN1w

Oil ShockWave
simulation report and summary of findings · On June 23, 2005, a group of nine former White House cabinet and senior national security officials convened to participate in a simulated working group of a White House cabinet. Their task: to advise an American president as the nation grapples with an oil crisis over a seven-month period. As they enter the room, they are unaware of the circumstances or nature of the oil crisis.
"The real lesson here [is that] it only requires a relatively small amount of oil to be taken out of the system to have huge economic and security implications."
Robert M. Gates, oil shockwave national security advisor (currently acting Sec. of Defense) http://www.secureenergy.org/reports/oil_shock_report_master.pdf

Peak Oil - True or False

http://atlanticfreepress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3530&Itemid=81

The International Politics of Peak Oil
http://www.e-ir.info/?p=395
The above article explains the issue and then makes some predictions.

Prof Rick Smalley - Our Energy Challenge
Columbia University Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center presents "Our Energy Challenge" by Nobel laureate Professor Richard Smalley of Rice University.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4626573768558163231
Power point presentation Smalley is using in the above lecture
http://smalley.rice.edu/emplibrary/columbia20030923.pdf

Caltech
Dr David Goodstein: Running out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil
http://today.caltech.edu/theater/5602_bb.ram

FSN Expert Roundtable
"Energy Roundtable"
February 2, 2008
FSN Expert Roundtable
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0202-2.ram
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/roundtable/2008/0202.html

Citi Group Oil Report
February 4, 2008
http://peakoil.solarhorizons.com/reports/Citi-Oil-Report.pdf

WSJ (Wall Street Journal) on CERA "Study Shows Oil Production Down"
http://www.marketwatch.com/tvradio/bcPlayer.asp?bcpid=203719194&bclid=86272812&bctid=1379245336

the above video appear to be down but here's a link from Royal Dutch Shell that references the reporter's, Neil King Jr., report: http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/17/the-wall-street-journal-new-fields-may-offset-oil-drop

Basically, King reported that CERA's believes existing oilfields worldwide have an average decline rate of 4.5%. But at 85-86 million barrels per day that rate of decline is about an annual loss of 4 million barrels per day. Iran produces 4 million per day. So to keep annual production levels flat the global oil industry must bring to market the equivolent of a new Iran every year. CERA believe the industry is bring on line twice that amount and that global production will be 112 million by 2017 (9 years from the present 2008). But to reach that level and allowing for annual decline rates it will be necessary to bring to market the equivolent of 9 Saudi Arabias.

The Sad Record of Daniel Yergin and Cambridge Energy Research Associates
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cera.htm

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cera.h2.jpg

Group Bets $100,000 against CERA’s supply forecast
http://www.energybulletin.net/39973.html

The WSJ article on CERA oil decline study
Jan 28, 2008
by Dr Robert L. Hirsch
http://www.energybulletin.net/39620.html

Net Oil Exports Blog http://netoilexports.blogspot.com/

Heading for the Exit Lane by Jeff Rubin (June 26, 2008)
http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/sjun08.pdf

OPEC’s Growing Call on Itself by Jeff Rubin
http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/occrept62.pdf "The call on OPEC has long been referred to as a measure of pressure on world supply, being the difference between world demand and non-cartel production. But increasingly, what bears watching is OPEC’s growing call on itself, which is simply the difference between what OPEC produces and what it consumes. Not only is the cartel, along with other key producers like Russia and Mexico, struggling to grow production, but at the same time their own internal consumption rates of oil are soaring. So much so that crude exports from the group as a whole, accounting for roughly 60% of current world oil production, are likely to fall by as much as 2.5 million barrels per day by the end of the decade—resulting in significantly higher oil prices....."

Economic price/Supply/Demand model
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vGDwGLU7s

Dr Albert Bartlett
Understanding Exponential Growth in demand
"The Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crises" http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_index.htm
http://www.guba.com/watch/3000053112

Four Corners Broadband - Peak Oil?
2005
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/

DOE: Hirsch Report
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report
http://globalpublicmedia.com/node/615
http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2005/11/Hirsch.20051117.ram

Dr Sadad Al-Husseini
Brown University PhD, former head of Saudi Armco’s production & exploration
November 1, 2007 interview
Page down to: Listen to the interview with Sadad al-Huseini.
http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=67
http://www.energybulletin.net/36510.html
In a revealing interview with journalist David Strahan at this year's Oil & Money Conference, former head of Saudi Arabian exploration & production Sadad Al-Husseini told the world that he now believes that the current level of world oil production will likely never be exceeded. Al-Husseini's view coincides with that of T. Boone Pickens, who stated at ASPO-USA's Houston conference that the world oil production peaked in 2006. The 85 million barrels per day of liquids available to the markets now is all we're ever going to get if these oil industry veterans are correct. With demand rising and supply flat, prices must rise. Accordingly, Al-Husseini believes that oil prices will rise by $12 per barrel per year from here on out, assuming a "base" price level of about $70 in 2007. The nominal price is now just above $92/barrel, so the difference must be due to the usual suspects cited by the mainstream media, including speculators, the weak dollar, rising Asian demand, resource nationalism, geopolitics in the Middle East, disruptions in Nigeria, and Iraq.

US Senate Committee Hearing on Peak Oil
Audio streams by (see: stream/download links)
1. Senator Richard G. Lugar Opening Remarks
2. James R. Schlesinger Testimony
3. R. James Woolsey Testimony
4. Question and Answer Session
http://www.globalpublicmedia.org/us_senate_committee_hearing_on_peak_oil

ASPO6 Day 1 Keynote: Dr. James Schlesinger- US Energy Secretary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4514074650758837295&ei=YVPASOCDNIj6-gGd2PD5CQ&q=james+schlesinger

First Hearing by Congress on Understanding Peak Oil (takes a minute’s wait to begin playing):
http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2005/12/HouseEnergyCommitee.20051207.ram
http://globalpublicmedia.com/first_hearing_by_congress_on_understanding_peak_oil

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R Maryland), latest video April 2008

http://video.energypolicytv.com/displaypage.php?vkey=9540d057299ec3016d72&channel=Congress
http://video.energypolicytv.com/displaypage.php?vkey=ae62f4140325d09b9afd&channel=Congress

C-Span: Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett before Congress
http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2005/10/bartlett.10-17-05vid.ram

Bill Reinert, Toyota’s alternative fuel manger on ethanol
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2201199802681775303
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2558276641904882805

USGS: Are We Running Out of Oil?
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2000/of00-320/of00-320.pdf

Oil Discovery Trend graphs
BP: http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/44/oil_discovery_trend.gif
Exxon: http://www.daveseslbiofuel.com/pix/gap.jpg

OBELE Oil CorporationOil Shock!
This article was written in 1998 when oil was $14.50 per bbl.
http://www.obeleoil.com/oilshock2.htm#Causes%20of%20Oil%20Shocks:%20Past%20&%20Future
Adobe version
http://www.obeleoil.com/OilShock.pdf

The Rainwater Prophecy – billionaire Richard Rainwater
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/12/26/8364646/

Society of Petroleum Engineers 2004 debate
Who is more the credible industry insider to this debate? In the Q&A Lynch predicted oil down to $25 in 2005 while Simmons predicted above $50
SPE's 80th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE)
Matt Simmons
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/nj45win9664/SPE/simmonhi.wmv/play.asx
http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/2980162ATCE04Simmons.pdf

Michael Lynch
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/nj45win9664/SPE/lynchhi.wmv/play.asx
http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/2980156ATCE04Lynch.pdf
Ken Deffeyes
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/nj45win9664/SPE/deffey.wmv/play.asx
http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/2980160ATCE04Deffeyes.pdf
Marlan Downey
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/nj45win9664/SPE/downeyhi.wmv/play.asx
http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/2980158ATCE04Downey.pdf
Q&A Session
(Michael Lynch predicted oil to fall to $25 range while Simmons predicted above $50)
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/nj45win9664/SPE/qahi.wmv/play.asx

FinancialSense.com audios:
I'm adding this April 2008 interview because it has a continuity to the Leeb interviews. The focus of this interview with John Williams is on how the Feb is using inflation to deal with debt. Update: It's now September 17, 2008 and 6 months have passed since I added Hyperinflationary Depression 2010 and John Williams' predition about how bad the financial failures would be has been very accurate.

John Williams Hyperinflationary Depression 2010
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2008/Williams.html
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/292

Leeb Capital Mgmt
In 2004 predicted oil to over $100 while still at $35
http://www.netcastdaily.com/1experts/2004/exp050804.ram
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2004/Leeb.html

In 2006 Leeb changed his prediction up to $200
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2006-0311-2.ram
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2006/Leeb.html

Peter Tertzakian – "A Thousand Barrels a Second"
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2006/Tertzakian.html

Matt Simmons
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2007/Simmons.html

The next two are related, video and power point. Open in two windows to follow the data while listening. ASPO 2006
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-429585738009344102
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/ASPO-Boston.pdf

Chris Skrebowski editor of the journal Petroleum Review
http://globalpublicmedia.com/people/chris_skrebowski

Petroleum Review’s MegaProjects
http://sydneypeakoil.com/downloads/PR_APR06_Megaprojects.pdf

The Report on Oil Depletion
http://www.oildepletion.blogspot.com/

German firm: Energy Watch Group Oil Report Oct 2007
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Oilreport_10-2007.pdf

The Long Emergency – James Howard Kunstler
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4878856748297910182

The End of Suburbia DVD (occasionally up for free viewing on Youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-141536352657430427&q=the+end+of+suburbia&ei=P0kySL_5NYH4rQK-3smaCg

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the%20end%20of%20suburbia&search=Search&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1

A Crude Awakening DVD documentary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-703701197044020456

Peak Oil Imposed by Nature
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1196559543206316765

How to Boil a Frog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09dwBreA-g0