The CEOs Speak

At Peak Oil Reality you will find the following article along with links to interview videos with oil company CEOs and industry analysts.I put this up in particular after getting into a verbal tussle with my Texas uncle. He refuses to consider the facts unless they are spouted by someone with "boots on the ground" so to speak. Well the boots are speaking, and what they have to say is not happy

Thunder Horse Or How 1 Billion Became 5 Billion

While cruising The Oil Drum I found this article about Thunder Horse. It details in pretty plain language the reality around the development of the field. What started out as a $1B dollar development pretty quickly rose to $5B after Hurricane Dennis. All for 300K bpd of oil. And that is in the Gulf of Mexico, which is challenging, but somewhat less so than the Atlantic.Think about this as you

Chicken Little or Something Worse?

Either the sky is falling or we are about to head down a very slipperly slope. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The New Oil Finds - Reality

The Australians get it. The Sydney Morning Herald lays out the economic realities of extracting oil from the new finds. You can expect that from here on out anything we find will be equally costly to extract and produce. This is why we are headed down a difficult path in regards to oil, especially in the transportation segment, which eats up the vast majority of the oil we use.This article

The BGA/43rd Ward Candidate Forum

First off, The Toddler was a no-show at the candidate forum for the Cook County Board Prez. No show and no call to explain why, and he had committed to coming.Andy Shaw, Exec Dir of the Better Government Association (BGA) and forum moderator, took an opportunity to invite the 3 candidates who were present (Toni Preckwinkle, Terry O'Brien, Dorothy Brown) to comment on the Toddler's failure to

Post Peak Living

An interesting site about Peak Oil and what do as we descend down the energy slope.

Our Warming Country

A new study of record high and low temperatures produces a trendline of warming temperatures over the past 50+ years. The study was limited to only the weather stations in operation since 1950, which provides a solid baseline to work with. Your mileage may vary at your specific location, but the trend for the country is clear.

Rising Gasoline Prices

From Daily Finance, a straightforward explanation on why the price of gasoline is still high despite reduced demand, and why prices will keep rising.

A Rose By Any Other Name.......

Found this notice about a production decision involving a Brazilian field.“We still see the same amount of reserves in the field,” Leemaster said. “However, instead of a high, short peak, we anticipate the field will produce the same amount over an increased lifespan.” Learn to live with less now and count on a lengthy supply at the lower number, or crank the system to its max and blow it all out

Letter to the Reps

This letter, and one slightly modified for the President, is going to Schakowsky and Durbin.I spent this afternoon reading a variety of material related to the article in The Guardian regarding the allegation of pressure by the United States on the International Energy Agency (IEA) as it developed global oil reserve estimates. The article can be found online at this link: http://

Somebody's Lying

The Guardian posted an article alleging that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has fudged its figures regarding the future of oil at the behest of the USA. The source is unidentified, but Kjell Aleklett, President of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), states he had a similar conversation with an IEA source;This report was one of those discussed at a round table meeting that

Transitioning - Part Deux

Last week I posted about a meeting being held by Transition Rogers Park. Moonglum has inquired about that meeting. Click on the link for Transition and you will see all the current activity, including groups and a notice about our next meeting on November 19. The notes from the November 5 meeting are included under each of the groups. Much of what we did was group work, however I also did a

A Modern Day Land Grab

Back in the bad old, good old days there was a fair share of land grabbing occurring. First it was all manner of precious commodities; oil, gold, silver, gas. But now, we're talking food. And now we are talking fundamentals. Take a good look at who is leading the way. Consider, also, the implications:Yet, in this dog-eat-dog world, the very actions that the rich countries are taking will

Is The End Near?

Hugo Chavez is holding on, but for how much longer?

Complex Systems

This article describes reports from the Denver ASPO conference on complex systems. The interrelationships of energy, water, credit, etc. create far reaching consequences when one fails. If you read nothing else, check out the section on water. Electric power is dependent not only on fuel to generate the electricity but also water.And you thought Peak Oil was just about the oil.

The Elephant In The Room

In the years I have been following peak oil issues I have been struck by the views of the 'doomers', who expect a global crash resulting in massive population die-off as the world claws its way back to a balanced environment. What I have come to realize is that those views vary only in terms of time and scale. Today I came across two separate articles discussing the issue of population.At The

Sustainable Bioenergy

From Robert Rapier, a presentation on sustainable bioenergy. This is particularly important in vew of last night's discussion at the Transition meeting - what 3-5 things do we need to do now. Robert's presentation is about sugarcane ethanol in particular. Along the way he points out that the Brazilians produce and consume oil in almost equal amounts, whereas US production and consumption are

Left Coast Parking Wars

Chicago sold its meters. Maybe they should have tried this instead.

Psssst! Hey Buddy! Wanna Make a Fortune?

Check it out. The Chinese are at it again. First they racked and stacked the frequent flier miles buying up oil contracts. Now they have decided that the precious metals in their possession may be too precious to sell to us mere mortals. Or at any rate at the current market price. Talk about sticker shock!

Transitioning

Shameless PlugTransition Rogers Park MeetingNovember 5 @6:30 PM - 8:30 PMRogers Park Library on Clark StreetWhy should you attend? Keep reading.One of the issues I have with members of the Progressive set (I consider myself a Centrist) is their penchant for rosy scenarios. They are the ultimate optimists and I sometimes wonder how they deal with reality when it bites them in the fanny. When

Harvest Woes

The Wall Street Journal has posted an article about the harvest. It's pretty bad:The combination of a late planting season and an unusually cool, wet fall is causing one of the latest harvests in recent memory. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said just 20% of the corn crop had been harvested in the major corn-producing states, compared with 58% on average by this point in 2004