Fuel firms go green to bulk up profits.
Posted by Laird on Oct 19, 2008
Fuel firms go green to bulk up profits
Fuel companies are bulking up their diesel and their profits with harmful biofuels. Some firms are adding twice as much of the plant based fuel as required under Government rules, despite growing evidence that its production is pushing up food prices, destroying rainforests and killing wildlife.
BP is using palm oil, a “green” fuel blamed for endangering Orangutans in Indonesia where farmers rip out forests and lay fuel crops plantations in their place. Under the Government’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, suppliers have to mix 2.5 per cent biofuel into their fuel.
But tests carried out by Green peace reveal the level is twice that. Biofuel is cheaper than fossil fuels, especially at the moment with oil prices at a high level. Shell are selling diesel with 4.9 per cent biofuel. BP is selling 4.8 per cent biofuel mix.
BP defended its use of palm oil, saying it backed industry moves towards making it sustainable.
Arctic energy reserves “may spark polar war”
Posted by Laird on Sep 28, 2008
Arctic energy reserves “may spark polar war”
Oil and gas reserves under the Arctic ice cap could trigger a polar war, it is claimed.Russia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and the U.S. all have interests in large tracts of the region, under which lie untapped energy resources. With the ice caps melting, access to the reserves will be easier, sparking a rush for ownership, says Jane’s International Defence Review. Even Britain is claiming a right to the wealth as the island of Rockall in the North Atlantic is part of the British Empire. Current difficulties in Arctic exploration mean There is “no imminent threat of a conflict” but “towards 2020 the omens are less encouraging”, says the latest issue of Jane’s Review
PEAK OIL are we there yet?
Posted by Laird on Sep 22, 2008
This is one of those un-answerable questions, Due to two major factors:-
1; Most oil producing countries class their known held oil reserves as a state secret.
2; Large oil companies will manipulate their oil reserve figures to gain the best future market price per barrel (in other words you cannot believe a word they say)
This makes all predictions on the date of “Peak oil” as a best guess game.
But there is no question (all are agreed) that the “Peak discovery of oil” was in the mid 1960’s.
The available figures for 2006 show that for every 1 barrel of new oil discovered that year, we used up 5 barrel out of our known of reserves!!!Also most new oil found will be harder to harvest plus the new discoveries are mainly classed as dirty oil (higher refinery costs).
Interesting article from “wolfatthedoor.org”.
For years, the experts have been warning of the dangers of oil depletion. They have been accused of crying wolf. This time, the wolf really is at the door.
The Real Danger
Everyday in the news, we hear of the threat of climate change. There are international conferences, television documentaries, books galore. Leaders meet regularly to discuss the issues and define programs. Yet, while climate change is undoubtedly a serious problem, the most dangerous aspects are not likely to threaten us for several decades and even then will be ambiguous in their results, bringing hazards for many, benefits for some, and little effect for a few. But there is a danger whose consequences will be far more destructive and which will hit us much sooner. It is a danger that will affect everybody, rich or poor, wherever they live in the world. It will require enormous financial and scientific strides to defeat, strides which the world’s governments show few signs of taking. It is a danger which, quite feasibly, could lead to the end of our industrial civilisation. It is the danger of peak oil.
I recently asked a question on a website about the financial dangers of peak oil and one reply ended with this:
“I remember being told twenty years ago that there was only twenty years of oil left. We are now being told again that we have twenty years of oil left. I wonder if we will be told the same thing in another twenty years!”
This is typical of the level of misinformation around about peak oil. Few people seem to be aware of it and many of those who are consider it a problem for the far future. I suspect that most people asked about “how long oil will last” would place the time hundreds of years in the future. If you don’t already know, ask yourself this question:
Using the known amount of available oil and the present rate of consumption, how long would it be before all that oil is used up?
This is known as the R/P ratio in the oil business (the first bit of jargon). It may surprise you to know that in the BP Statistical Review for 2007 (using data from 2005), the length of time is 40.5 years. So, any person under the age of about thirty or forty would be likely to have to face a world without any oil. The reality is not so simple as this but unfortunately the situation is far worse. Peak oil is not about when we run out of oil but, rather, when the production of cheap oil starts to decline. And, as we shall see, that is much closer than we think.
So weather we like it or not this really the time to start seriously thinking about making some changes re: our own domestic power sources, both wind and solar are the best option for most of us. (Governments and big business will have to deal with the larger national & global issues )
Increased Energy Costs Worldwide
Posted by Laird on Jun 9, 2008
Geoffrey Lean, The Independent
http://www.truthout.com
The Iraq War means oil costs three times more than it should. How are our lives going to change with oil heading toward $200 a barrel?
The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.
The oil economist Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), Says that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.
He spoke after oil prices set a new record on 13 consecutive days over the past two weeks. They have now multiplied six fold since 2002, compared with the fourfold increase of the 1973 and 1974 “oil shock” that ended the world’s long post-war boom.
Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to an unprecedented $200 a barrel over the next year, and the world is coming to terms with the idea that the age of cheap oil has ended, with far-reaching repercussions on their activities.
Dr Salameh, director of the UK-based Oil Market Consultancy Service, and an authority on Iraq’s oil, said it is the only one of the world’s biggest producing countries with enough reserves substantially to increase its flow.
Production in eight of the others — the US, Canada, Iran, Indonesia, Russia, Britain, Norway and Mexico — has peaked, he says, while China and Saudi Arabia, the remaining two, are nearing the point at of decline. Before the war, Saddam Hussein’s regime pumped some 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, but this had now fallen to just two million barrels.
Dr Salameh told the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil last month that Iraq had offered the United States a deal, three years before the war that would have opened up 10 new giant oil fields on “generous” terms in return for the lifting of sanctions. “This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price,” he said. “But the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil.”
Chris Skrebowski, the editor of Petroleum Review, said: “There are many ifs in the world oil market. This is a very big one, but there are others. If there had been a civil war in Iraq, even less oil would have been produced.”
David Strahan: What happens next? The expert’s view
at just under 86 million barrels per day, global oil production has, essentially, stagnated since 2005, despite soaring demand, suggesting that production has already reached its geological limits, or “peak oil”.
Recession in the West may not provide relief on prices. There is increasing demand from countries such as China, Russia and the Opec countries, whose consumers are cushioned against rising prices by heavy subsidies. The future could unfold in a number of ways:
Oil price collapses
Fuel subsidies could suddenly be scrapped, dousing demand. Cost pressures have forced Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan to cut them, but China is hardly strapped for cash. Opec producers are under no pressure to abolish subsidies; as the oil price rises they get richer. Prospect: very unlikely.
Peace could break out in Iraq, the long-disputed oil law agreed, and international oil companies start work on the world’s largest collection of untapped oil fields. Prospect: vanishingly unlikely.
Oil price stabilises or moderates
Deep recession in the West might cut oil consumption enough to offset growth in the developing world and Opec, or even engulf them too, softening prices. Prospect: unlikely in the short term.
Oil price soars
Russian oil output has gone into decline; Saudi Arabia has shelved plans to expand production capacity, and advisers to the Nigerian government predict its output will fall by 30 per cent by 2015. More news like this, expect oil at $200 a barrel.
Prospect: likely.
Big oil producers will increasingly divert exports for home consumption. Opec, Russian and Mexican exports expected to fall, pushing oil to $200 by 2012. Prospect: highly likely.
The writer is author of ‘The Last Oil Shock’, John Murray, lastoilshock.com
Peak oil
After 150 years of growth, the oil age is beginning to come to an end. “Peak oil” is the common term for when production stops increasing and starts to decline. At that point what have been ever-expanding and cheap supplies of the resource on which all modern economies depend become scarcer and more expensive, with potentially devastating consequences.
Pessimists believe that production has passed its peak. Optimists say it may be 20 years or so away — which would give us some time to prepare — but are now muted. Last week the hitherto optimistic International Energy Agency admitted that it may have overestimated future capacity. Chris Skrebowski, editor of ‘Petroleum Review’ and once an optimist himself, believes that the world is now in “the foothills of peak oil”. Prices may ease a bit over the next few years, but then the real crunch will come. The price then? “Pick a number!”
Travel
Oil provides 95 per cent of the energy used in transport, so this will be hit hard and soon. People are likely to go on using their cars, but airlines are expected to be the first to suffer. On Thursday, British Airways’ chief executive Willie Walsh declared that the era of cheap flights was over, suggesting that those environmentalists who have made them their main target for combating climate change may have been wasting their breath.
At least three carriers have already gone bust this year. Last week, American Airlines said it was cutting routes, laying off staff, and charging US passengers $15 to check in a bag because of a $3bn rise in its fuel bills. Even Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, says the oil price is “really hurting”. On Thursday, Credit Suisse analysts said his company would slip into the red if oil prices rose just a little more, to $140 a barrel.
Cars
The world’s biggest oil well, it is said, lies beneath Detroit. US vehicles get an average of only 25 miles per gallon. Dramatically improving this would do more to ease the oil crunch than any likely new discovery. But new measures recently approved by Congress would increase the average only to the 35mpg already being achieved by China. Europe does better, if not well enough, at 44mpg.
Rising fuel prices are already beginning to drive change. Sales of 4×4s are plummeting in both the US and Britain, and those of hybrids — which do 60mpg are soaring. As the price climbs further, manufacturers will unlock long-prepared plans for much more efficient vehicles. “Plug-in” hybrids, charged up with electricity overnight, save another 45 per cent in petrol consumption. Further down the line is the “hyper car” — made of tough, light plastic — which could cross the US on a single tankful.
Houses
All new houses in Britain will have to be zero carbon — burning no fossil fuels such as oil — by 2016, the Government announced, and house builders are struggling to meet the target. At present the standard can be reached only at great expense, but the industry is confident of bringing the cost down as mass production kicks in. It is even more important to adapt existing homes.
The key step is to super-insulate the house to make it as energy-efficient as possible — and only then to provide renewable energy sources. Solar water heaters, ground source heat pumps and boilers powered by wood pellets are favourites. Rooftop windmills do not work well enough yet. Photovoltaic panels, which get electricity from the sun, are expensive but their price should come down. Britain has lagged behind other countries. Soaring energy prices should shake things up.
Shopping
effectively, almost everything is partially made of oil, and so is going to get more expensive. About 10 calories of oil are burned to produce each calorie of food in the US, and farming a single cow and getting it to market uses as much as driving from New York to Los Angeles. Some 630g of fuel is used to produce every gram of microchips.
The cult of local, seasonal produce will enter the mainstream, as everyone learns about food miles and a modern-day Dig for Victory grips gardeners — bad news for the farm workers overseas who provide 95 per cent of our fruit and half our vegetables. Trips to out-of-town supermarkets will seem extravagant, heralding a high street renaissance and a new surge in online grocery shopping, and soon we’ll all be eating our own potatoes.
Third World
Poor countries and their peoples will be hit by a devastating double whammy as both their fuel and food prices increase. Last year, when oil cost only about half as much, countries from Nepal to Nicaragua were hit by fuel shortages. At least 25 of the 44 sub-Saharan nations are facing crippling electricity shortages.
As oil is used in agriculture, its increased cost will also drive up the price of food, making more and more people go hungry. Worse, expensive petrol is bound to increase the drive towards biofuels made from maize and other crops, which then brings the world’s poorest people into competition with affluent motorists for grain — a contest they cannot win. Just one fill-up of a 4×4’s tank with ethanol uses enough grain to feed one person for a year.
Emerging economies
China and India and other developing countries will help to drive up demand for oil and compete for scarce supplies. This has already helped to raise prices: demand for oil from Western countries has actually fallen over the past two years, but the emerging economies have more than made up the slack. And they have the money to do so.
