Peak oil review - June 29

A weekly review including:
- Production & Prices
- In the Congress
- Briefs

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Prices & supplies - June 29

The Coming Mystery Of The Missing Barrels Of Oil
Oil: What price can America afford?
European gas war looms as Ukraine seeks cash to pay Gazprom for July deliveries

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Peak oil review - June 29

A weekly review including:
- Production & Prices
- In the Congress
- Briefs

read more

Web & media - June 29th

It’s not a Twitter revolution in Iran
Hyperlocal Journalism Business Model
Fibber McGee, Molly, and Your Energy Future

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Prices & supplies - June 29

The Coming Mystery Of The Missing Barrels Of Oil
Oil: What price can America afford?
European gas war looms as Ukraine seeks cash to pay Gazprom for July deliveries

read more

Vision 2050: A Sustainable future for Cheshire West and Chester

This Vision for a Sustainable West Cheshire is intended to guide the Cheshire West and Chester Authority (CW&C) in taking decisions about the future of the area. It is centred on the premise that if we are to achieve a truly sustainable community by 2050 the direction of travel set now must be right.

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How to Boil a Frog free goodie release

New interviews, articles, links at our sister site, “How to Boil a Frog. Frogmaster Jon Cooksey is preparing for the release of the eponymous movie How to Boil A Frog.

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The Oil Intensity of Food

This is a guest post by Lester R. Brown, founder and President of the Earth Policy Institute. His principal research areas include food, population, water, climate change, and renewable energy; see his list of publications by clicking here.

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.

 

Discoveries of conventional oil total roughly 2 trillion barrels, of which 1 trillion have been extracted so far, with another trillion barrels to go. By themselves, however, these numbers miss a central point. As security analyst Michael Klare notes, the first trillion barrels was easy oil, “oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.” The other half, Klare notes, is tough oil, “oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places.”

This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.

Efficiency gains can help reduce agriculture’s dependence on oil. In the United States, the combined direct use of gasoline and diesel fuel in farming fell from its historical high of 7.7 billion gallons (29.1 billion liters) in 1973 to 4.2 billion in 2005-a decline of 45 percent. Broadly calculated, the gallons of fuel used per ton of grain produced dropped from 33 in 1973 to 12 in 2005, an impressive decrease of 64 percent.

One reason for this achievement was a shift to minimum- and no-till cultural practices on roughly two fifths of U.S. cropland. But while U.S. agricultural fuel use has been declining, in many developing countries it is rising as the shift from draft animals to tractors continues. A generation ago, for example, cropland in China was tilled largely by draft animals. Today much of the plowing is done with tractors.

Fertilizer accounts for 20 percent of U.S. farm energy use. Worldwide, the figure may be slightly higher. As the world urbanizes, the demand for fertilizer climbs. As people migrate from rural areas to cities, it becomes more difficult to recycle the nutrients in human waste back into the soil, requiring the use of more fertilizer. Beyond this, the growing international food trade can separate producer and consumer by thousands of miles, further disrupting the nutrient cycle. The United States, for example, exports some 80 million tons of grain per year-grain that contains large quantities of basic plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The ongoing export of these nutrients would slowly drain the inherent fertility from U.S. cropland if the nutrients were not replaced.

Irrigation, another major energy claimant, is requiring more energy worldwide as water tables fall. In the United States, close to 19 percent of farm energy use is for pumping water. And in some states in India where water tables are falling, over half of all electricity is used to pump water from wells. Some trends, such as the shift to no-tillage, are making agriculture less oil-intensive, but rising fertilizer use, the spread of farm mechanization, and falling water tables are having the opposite effect.

Although attention commonly focuses on energy use on the farm, agriculture accounts for only one fifth of the energy used in the U.S. food system. Transport, processing, packaging, marketing, and kitchen preparation of food are responsible for the rest. The U.S. food economy uses as much energy as the entire economy of the United Kingdom.

The 14 percent of energy used in the food system to move goods from farmer to consumer is equal to two thirds of the energy used to produce the food. And an estimated 16 percent of food system energy use is devoted to canning, freezing, and drying food-everything from frozen orange juice concentrate to canned peas.

Food staples such as wheat have traditionally moved over long distances by ship, traveling from the United States to Europe, for example. What is new is the shipment of fresh fruits and vegetables over vast distances by air. Few economic activities are more energy-intensive.

Food miles-the distance that food travels from producer to consumer-have risen with cheap oil. At my local supermarket in downtown Washington, D.C., the fresh grapes in winter typically come by plane from Chile, traveling almost 5,000 miles. One of the most routine long-distance movements of fresh produce is from California to the heavily populated U.S. East Coast. Most of this produce moves by refrigerated trucks. In assessing the future of long-distance produce transport, one writer observed that the days of the 3,000-mile Caesar salad may be numbered.

Packaging is also surprisingly energy-intensive, accounting for 7 percent of food system energy use. It is not uncommon for the energy invested in packaging to exceed that in the food it contains. Packaging and marketing also can account for much of the cost of processed foods. The U.S. farmer gets about 20 percent of the consumer food dollar, and for some products, the figure is much lower. As one analyst has observed, “An empty cereal box delivered to the grocery store would cost about the same as a full one.”

The most energy-intensive segment of the food chain is the kitchen. Much more energy is used to refrigerate and prepare food in the home than is used to produce it in the first place. The big energy user in the food system is the kitchen refrigerator, not the farm tractor. While oil dominates the production end of the food system, electricity dominates the consumption end.

In short, with higher energy prices and a limited supply of fossil fuels, the modern food system that evolved when oil was cheap will not survive as it is now structured.

# # #

To continue reading about localized agriculture and urban gardening, see Farming in the City at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/PB3ch10_ss5.htm.

Adapted from Chapter 2, “Deteriorating Oil and Food Security,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.

The Trouble With Energy - Part 4

This is part 4 of a series of posts co-authored by phoenix, who is an Engineer heavily involved in the energy sector. It will be based on a submission we made recently to the Australian Government.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Part 3 is here.

Introduction

In parts 1-3 we presented the problem. In essence, it is this:
- The migration to alternate and renewable energy sources will take a significant time to plan and implement.
- Due to the depletion of fossil fuel resources, we don’t have enough conventional energy sources to support the building of this infrastructure if we assume continuing growth and “business as usual” for this period of time.
- The expense of the anticipated infrastructure will place an almost unendurable strain on GDP.

We now turn to solutions. We have not identified any “silver bullet”, nor is our list of solutions exhaustive. In this section (part 4) we will look at the Australian situation and identify some of the types of questions that need to be asked. In part 5 we discuss some of the issues that the world in general may need to consider.

Exploring Solutions

Energy scarcity is a crisis that will unfold over an extended period of time. In order to deal effectively with this crisis the government needs to take strong decisive actions on a number of fronts encompassing:
- our energy reserves
- our energy supply
- our energy consumption.
The effort required to retool our economy to run on renewables is an exercise that will take decades. Conversely, the impact from an imbalance in energy supply and demand can have serious effects on economies within a matter of months. This was demonstrated by the oil shock in 2008.

Although market forces will certainly sort this problem out, we have seen in recent months that the market can be brutal. The government simply cannot stand back and allow market forces to operate to solve this problem.

The authors recognise that some of the following suggestions will present difficult political hurdles. It must also be acknowledged that, even with the following actions being rapidly implemented, Australia will still have severe difficulties in making the timeframe for transition and timeframe for depletion match.

General

From the analysis in this paper it is clear that the most effective government action that can be taken is to limit growth in the export of fossil fuels. If, in fact, we froze energy exports at their current levels while allowing domestic consumption to increase at 2.5% p.a. then we would have enough reserves to last till 2082 and thus allow a reasonable time frame for the economy to transition to a fully renewable base.

Implementing such restrictions to exports is politically very difficult. It has implications for our international reputation, creation and the maintenance of jobs, and ultimately for national security. On the other hand, allowing exports to grow unchecked and then attempting to restrict them when a crisis is imminent has even greater implications with regard to these considerations.

Defining Resource Quality

Resource quality is a sliding scale, but is rarely referred to in this fashion. Rather, assumptions are made about price-points and resources are quoted in solid-sounding numbers, based on those assumptions.

It is currently not possible, for example, to get a clear answer to the question “How much oil is left in reserves worldwide?” The answer ranges from 650 Billion barrels to untold trillions, depending on the assumptions made by the estimator.

Given enough energy input, it is possible to turn even the lowest-quality oil shale into synthetic oil, so this range of answers is understandable, but the assumption that future energy infrastructure will be provided to support this conversion is never articulated, and thus is invisible to decision makers.

This lack of detail makes it very difficult for decision makers to generate decisions. Decision makers need reports that incorporate quality as part of the report.

Public Awareness

Because of the lack of public awareness in relation to energy matters many of the actions necessary to be taken by government will be highly unpalatable to the general public and thus political suicide for any government attempting to do the right thing for Australia’s long term security.

Action : The federal government to commence a widespread media campaign to educate the public with respect to energy matters and the need for conservation. This campaign must extend beyond environmental impacts and address the significance of energy security.

Maximising the public wealth

While we have indicated above the pending energy shortages for Australia looming over the next 50 years, it is clear that the international community will experience these shortages sooner and more severely. This implies that there will be very large increases in the value of all fossil fuels.

Other nations have demonstrated that building a Sovereign Wealth Fund based on windfall resource income can avoid the problems associated with “The Dutch Curse” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse ). This would ensure that the value of natural resources are returned to the Australian public purse to help fund the huge expenditure required in building renewable infrastructure.

Action : All Australian states to implement a sliding scale for the application of resource royalties. Under the sliding scale 80% of the change in the international traded price for fossil fuels is taken up by increases in royalty levied on the respective resource.

This one action is probably the most significant, as the single measure will provide public finance for the transition costs, incentive for domestic transition and limitation of the rate of resource exploitation. Of course it must be implemented cautiously in order to avoid serious damage to Australia’s good reputation for sovereign risk.

Australian Ownership of Resources

While the exact dates relating to energy depletion are unsure, two factors are certain. As depletion occurs, the value of energy resources will escalate dramatically and energy resources will become a major source of international disputes. Given that we are not a major world power Australia must take a strategic view and not allow a circumstance to be created that might cause us to be engulfed in a dispute over the development and allocation of our own resources. The first defense against such disputes is to limit, as far as possible, foreign ownership of in situ resources.

Action : All future development applications for extraction rights of fossil fuel resources to require a minimum 80% Australian ownership.

Population

New situations require rethinking of previous paradigms. If unlimited growth is the dominant paradigm then force-growing Australia’s population is arguably a good thing. However if resources are constrained then expanding the population can conceivably lead to social issues. Some current policies may need to be reconsidered. Some suggestions for discussion:
- Stop all but skill shortage based immigration. Or all net immigration.
- Drop the unmarried mother benefit.
- Stop the baby bonus.
Many recent studies have shown that if the entire world lived our first-world lifestyle, the resources required would equate to the resources of several planets.

The current population of Earth cannot live the way the first world lives, so we have three choices:
1. Reduce our standard of living.
2. Reduce the population of Earth.
3. Continue an inequitable system in which the first world lives well, at the expense of the rest of the population.
Ultimately, the rest of the world will want a lifestyle comparable with the lifestyle enjoyed by developed nations, continued inequality is not an option. If we do not want to compromise on standard of living, then we have to look at ways to address our population.

Preservation of Gas Reserves

While our gas reserves are ultimately limited, they are abundant in comparison to our domestic demand. Gas is the only readily exchangeable substitute for oil in many transport and industry applications. A plethora of both domestic and international energy companies are generating proposals for the explosive expansion of Australian LNG exports. While it is unpalatable for Australian governments to limit this industry, the alternative of later having to curtail exports after the infrastructure is built would be devastating to the country’s sovereign risk profile.

Action : The federal government to set in place a moratorium over the development of any new export contracts or facilities for the export of LNG.

Oil Excise

The most immediate effects of energy depletion will be experienced in shortages and resultant price hikes of oil-based fuels. This was demonstrated in 2008 and will be repeated again as soon as growth from China and India outstrips the drop in demand resulting from the global economic crisis. The International Energy Agency has warned that a decrease in investment combined with economic recovery, particularly in China, is likely to create a “Supply Crunch” within 3-4 years (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abnkGOUOzC3w ).

The approach by government to the issue of excise and tax on oil based fuels will be the most powerful message they can send to the general public concerning the gravity and impact of oil depletion. The general public do not have the knowledge or skills necessary to interpret the likely price effect of the future oil demand/supply imbalance. They will need simple guidelines concerning future price in order to make sensible personal decisions.

Action : Federal government to set up an Oil Excise Commission whose specific task is to maintain a forecast of future oil prices for a period of 20 years out. The oil excise will be set at a level that produces a linear increase in prices up to the forecast. The commission will act independent of the government and be charged with decreasing excise in the event of spikes in the international oil price and increase it when the international price falls. In order for this to be acceptable to the public the net tax take over time could be maintained at current levels.
Action : All fuel excise rebates including the Queensland government general rebate to be repealed immediately.

Biofuel Excise

The government currently imposes an excise on the production of biofuels equivalent to 50% of the tax on oil based products. This tax is therefore imposes a 19c/L impost on the adoption of biofuels as an alternative to oil. It is totally illogical to be imposing special taxes on an industry where growth is critical to the national interest.

Action : Repeal all excise on domestically produced biofuels.
Mandated Renewable Energy Target

Through the existing MRET scheme all of the required legislation and systems are in place for the government to encourage a progressive uptake of renewable energy. The problems that the generation industry have in delivering higher levels of renewables all relate to confidence in the consistency of government policy. This is understandable given the plant and equipment associated with generation has a useable life of 30 years or more.

Action : The MRET scheme to be modified to incorporate the following
- The target to be based on a percentage of electricity consumption and not on a set number of GWHrs
- The target implementation schedule to be extended by an increase of 2% per year from 2020 all the way out to 2050
- Removal of the penalty cap to the tradable value of the RECs. The RECs should be allowed to trade for there full value and the target should be truly mandated.

Conversion to Plug-in Electric Vehicles

The government should facilitate the current trends towards hybrid and electric vehicles, thus encouraging a conversion of oil based energy demand to an electricity base. With future increases in the oil price there will inevitably be a transfer of energy demand on to the electricity generation system.

In the initial phase this will consist of increased load from public transport systems. Increases in load will result from electrification of rail and increased use of conveyor systems in lieu of haul trucks in mining. The major change however will be as a result of the take up by the public of plug-in electric vehicles for commuter transport. Plug-in vehicles should not present severe difficulty for the electricity system to manage if they are confined to drawing power in off-peak times. However, the large uptake of off peak power will necessitate a rapid roll out of timed metering.

Action : State governments to legislate that distributors are to provide access to timed metering to all consumers upon request.

Gas Network System Management

At present power station developers are progressing with a major switch to gas fired generation based on the lower carbon emissions of this fuel. The aggression with which this switch is pursued will depend on the treatment of existing coal fired generators under the new CPRS regime. This switch to gas however is being considered in isolation of the requirement of gas to provide an interim substitute for oil. In combination with proposed LNG export facilities the gas industry is in real danger of an over commitment, resulting in a price hike and disruption to the market.

Action : Federal government to immediately establish a national body for the management of the eastern seaboard gas network. The body will be responsible for forecasting and managing future gas demand in a way similar to the way NEM (National Electricity Market) is used to manage the eastern states electricity market. This body should also oversee the effective roll out of an eastern states gas pipeline network so that this fuel can be used as an interim energy source to cushion the effects of oil depletion.

Vehicle Efficiency
While there is little that governments can do directly to effect the efficiency of motor vehicles there is significant measures that can be taken to influence the acceptance and take-up of high efficiency vehicles.

Action: Increase tariffs imposed on all imported vehicles using a sliding scale based purely on fuel consumption levels.

Action : Impose increased sales tax on all locally manufactured vehicles based purely on fuel consumption levels.

Conversion to Gas

The above mentioned action to restrict export of LNG will be extremely unpopular with gas resource developers. The industry may have already progressed on some facilities to the point where companies would expect financial redress from the state for their expenses.

One possible carrot that could be enacted by the government, is to encourage the expansion of the domestic gas market and therefore provide developers with an equivalent outcome. The development of a domestic market could also be deployed to mitigate disruption from oil supply issues which will take effect much earlier than other energy restrictions.

Action : Government rebates for the conversion of industrial vehicles to CNG.

Support for Australian Industry

The investment of $50 - $100 billion (depending upon which path we take) per year for 40 years represents a sizable portion of the national economy. Typically 20% of the cost of a new power plant is expended on technology and design, 60% on the supply of equipment and 20% on construction.
As a nation we cannot afford for half of this monetary investment to be siphoned off to foreign suppliers of equipment and technology. The government is currently making efforts to support local technology developers and this will be beneficial. There is also a roll for support of local suppliers/builders of the equipment associated with the plants concerned.

Conclusion

We are faced with a number of energy problems. These problems are associated with exponential declines in the amount of energy available for productivity. These declines are additive, which is likely to lead to very sudden, unpredictable outcomes. The timeline for these problems is not known with any certainty, but the oil and gas price spike of 2008 and subsequent price volatility indicates that the market anticipates that a crisis is near.

In this series we have demonstrated that:
1. Our economic productivity is linked to energy availability.
2. Future supplies of energy may be subject to sudden curtailment
3. In Australia, we have the capacity to become Energy Independent, utilizing purely renewable resources.
4. The transition to infrastructure that utilizes renewable energy will itself require time, energy and resources. We will require most of our available resources to make this transition.

The clear conclusion is that if we export significant quantities of our energy resources we risk not having enough to make the transition. Part of our future export strategy should be to estimate how much of our energy bounty can be safely exported without jeopardizing a future transition strategy.

In this, section we have looked at solutions specific to the Australian situation. None are Silver Bullets.

If we want our grandchildren to enjoy a sustainable lifestyle, then it appears that we may need to go through a bit of pain. This period of pain is likely to happen whether we want it to or not…our choice is to manage it, or not.

DrumBeat: June 28, 2023

‘Coal-eating’ bugs may solve energy crisis

Craig Venter, the controversial American scientist who helped decode the human genome, has announced the discovery of ancient bacteria that can turn coal into methane, suggesting they may help to solve the world’s energy crisis.

The bugs, discovered a mile underground by one of Venter’s microbial prospecting teams, are said to have unique enzymes that can break down coal. Venter said he was already working with BP on how to exploit the find.

Venter even suggested the discovery could open up the world’s coalfields to an entirely new form of mining, where coal is infected with the bacteria, allowing methane to be harvested “without even digging up the coal”.

Dmitry Orlov: The slope of dysfunction

Perhaps you have heard of the Peak Oil theory? Most people have by now, even the people whose job used to involve denying the possibility that global crude oil production would peak any time soon. Now that everybody seems a bit more comfortable with the idea, perhaps it is time to reexamine it. Is the scenario Peak Oil theoreticians paint indeed realistic, or is it firmly grounded in wishful thinking?

The scramble for Iraq’s ‘sweet oil’

With proven oil reserves of around 112 billion barrels and up to another 150 billion barrels of probable reserves, Iraq is the greatest untapped prize for international oil companies.

To put that in context, if Iraq does turn out to have around 300 billion barrels of oil, it will rival the world’s biggest producer Saudi Arabia - which has around 160 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Varanus blast: Apache in court

FULL capacity has been restored at the Varanus Island natural gas plant a year after an explosion cut 30 per cent of Western Australia’s gas supply.

Apache, the second-largest independent US oil producer by market value, confirmed that full capacity had been restored at its plant.

Qatargas: South Hook LNG Terminal a stepping stone for UK operations

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) “The South Hook LNG Terminal is a key stepping stone for Qatargas operations in the UK,” said Mohammad Al Naimi, General Manager, South Hook LNG terminal, world’s largest LNG terminal. The $2bn project will be supplying 20 percent of UK’s energy requirements.

Nigeria: At Last, China Makes Dramatic Entry Into Nigerian Oil Sector

But under the latest deal, Sinopec, a refiner formally known as China Petroleum & Chemical, would gain access to substantial reserves in Nigeria, some other parts of West Africa and the Middle East if the takeover of Addax is approved.

Analysts are, however, divided over the implications of the acquisition, which industry sources said is raising the fear of a possible staff rationalisation in the petroleum company.

China, Iran, Nigeria, and Oil

Demand from China may be up, however, according to the International Energy Agency, global demand for crude is off 2.9 percent year over year; US demand is down 4.9%. Although it might be popular and trendy to talk about China being the “next big thing” the reality is that the tail cannot wag the dog no matter how much it tries. The United States is still the world’s largest consumer of oil by far and should hold this position for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for China, at least for now, the laws of nature will not be rewritten.

Positioning for When Water Runs Out: Part II

These folks are well-meaning but disappointingly misguided, given that the authors are mostly civil engineers. I am 110% in favor of using sun, wind, or tides, but our water problems are pressing now, not in 20 years. Couldn’t we just once plan ahead of a known catastrophe?!! What is available now is nuclear and natural gas, and dirty old coal and oil. You want water? Fess up to the reality that it takes energy, and the energy sources we hope to replace are still the energy sources which we have in abundance — with a transportation and distribution infrastructure already in place.

In the Andes, a Toxic Site Also Provides a Livelihood

La Oroya has been called one of the world’s 10 most polluted places by the Blacksmith Institute, a nonprofit group that studies toxic sites. But for several months, the Peruvian smelting company in Mr. Rennert’s empire has claimed that low metals prices prevented it from completing a timely cleanup to lower the emissions that have given this town such an ignoble distinction.

The tensions here over the lead emissions and the smelter’s financial meltdown is precisely the kind of dire mix of foreign investment and environmental contamination feared by indigenous groups elsewhere in Peru, particularly in the country’s Amazon basin, where protests over similar issues left dozens dead this month.

Oklahoma accused BP of gasoline price-fixing

HOUSTON — Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Drew Edmondson accused BP America Inc. and two subsidiaries of illegally manipulating gasoline prices and other refined products in a scheme said to have started in 2002.

In a lawsuit filed in Cleveland County District Court, Edmondson accused BP of deceptive trade practices, saying BP acquired and hoarded short-term supplies of gasoline from the New York Harbor gasoline hub and light, sweet crude oil from Cushing, Okla.

Climate Change Bill May Be Election-Year Issue

WASHINGTON — As Democrats strained to win over crucial holdouts on the way to narrow, party-line approval of global warming legislation, they were dogged by a critical question: Has the political climate changed since 1993?

Veteran members of both parties vividly remember when many House Democrats, in the early months of the Clinton administration, reluctantly backed a proposed B.T.U. tax — a new levy on each unit of energy consumed — only to see it ignored by the Senate and seized as a campaign issue by Republicans, who took control of the House the next year.

Wind, Solar Could Play Bigger Roles in Future US Energy Mix

U.S. climate change legislation now before Congress would mandate that by 2020, 15 to 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply would come from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Currently wind and solar contribute only about 2 percent, with hydropower providing an additional 6 percent.

UAE: Finding a solar solution before the dust settles

With little rain and an abundance of sun, this desert country is just about as good as it gets for solar power. Not surprisingly, therefore, solar stands at the forefront of efforts to develop renewable energy and reduce the UAE’s emissions of greenhouse gases while providing an alternative to dwindling supplies of oil.

Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of dust. As anyone who lives here knows, dust is the nation’s sentinel against inertia: anything immobile is quickly covered, whether hanging laundry, parked cars or solar panels.

Beetles Add New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts

DENVER — Summer fire seasons in the great forests of the West have always hinged on elements of chance: a heat wave in August, a random lightning strike, a passing storm front that whips a small fire into an inferno or dampens it with cooling rain.

But tiny bark beetles, munching and killing pine trees by the millions from Colorado to Canada, are now increasingly adding their own new dynamic. As the height of summer fire season approaches, more than seven million acres of forest in the United States have been declared all but dead, throwing a swath of land bigger than Massachusetts into a kind of fire-cycle purgatory that forestry officials admit they do not yet have a good handle on for fire prediction or assessment.

China’s Big Sway Over U.S.’s Climate Change Fight

China and the United States have been playing a game of chicken: Who’s going to cave first to set tough emissions reduction rules?

The outcome could be influenced by who owes whom money, said David Gergen, former advisor to several U.S. presidents and a senior political analyst at CNN.

Richard Heinberg - Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis

Richard Heinberg has released his latest book, BLACKOUT: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis.

David Fridley, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs says, “Blackout reviews the most recent analyses of global coal reserves and concludes that peak coal production is likely much nearer than is commonly assumed. Heinberg argues cogently that the most rational strategy is to reduce consumption and to rethink our growth imperative.”

Reactive oil markets won’t wait

An equally important factor is that easily accessible oil is getting harder to find. OPEC estimates that $75 a barrel oil is needed for oil exploration and production to become profitable. Iran cites a $50 price as the minimum. Whether the much disputed point of “peak oil” has been reached or not, new demand is growing just as the cost of finding new oil becomes more expensive.

Perhaps the most gloomy aspect is the inability of politicians and bankers to plan ahead. With prices low, now would be a good time to put in place taxes and other measures to encourage energy efficiency, given that it takes years to decades for energy investments to bear fruit and that medium-term energy demand is rising.

But President Barack Obama’s energy secretary Steven Chu said it would be “politically impossible” for the U.S. to impose the sort of energy taxes that Europeans and Japanese have done to help create more efficient energy use and a motor industry that doesn’t depend on gas-guzzling vehicles.

Haynesville Shale Creates Opportunities in the Energy Sector

Last month investment advisor Marc Faber in a Bloomberg interview noted that “natural gas is the most undervalued commodity in the world right now.” He also said he was a believer in ‘peak oil’ to the extent we have developed most of the cheap and easily recoverable high quality reserves globally, but that the world would move onto other sources of energy as economics dictates. Faber sees energy prices rising over time and also much higher inflation in the U.S. — which will be good for commodities and for small cap stocks.

China oil demand’s good news, but can it be oil’s savior?

TOKYO (MarketWatch) — China’s oil demand has grown even as its production declines but analysts question whether the nation’s healthy appetite for crude will last, and cast doubt on whether its demand can single-handedly offset an expected global drop-off in consumption this year.

PetroCaribe: Yes, we can

What if Jamaica does not find oil of its own? Could it invest in exploring for oil in another country and own a part of that investing company? Could it own a part of that oil and ensure its own supply in the future at a cheaper rate? Could it, in other words, own extra-territorial oil?

Oman oil output, exports reverse years of decline

Muscat: Oman last Friday reported a sharp increase in crude oil exports during the first four months of this year, reinforcing a trend in rising production after years of declining output.

Gazprom Neft Buys Half of Sibir’s Largest Shareholder

Gaining control of London-listed Sibir, which is 18 percent owned by Moscow city government, will help Gazprom Neft battle falling output from its aging fields. Sibir has rights to half of the 160,000 barrels a day produced by Salym Petroleum Development it jointly runs in Siberia with Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Oil firms steel for worst, hope for best, in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Pipelines shattered by bombs. Oil terminals crippled by suicide attacks. Officials blown up in roadside blasts or kidnapped from their office at gunpoint.

Calamities like that are
not just the worst fear of an oil executive in a hostile environment; they are the reality of the last six years of chaos, bloodshed and war in Iraq.

Sandstorm delays start to Iraq oil tenders

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has postponed the first day of highly anticipated tenders for eight major oil and gas fields due to a thick sandstorm that engulfed Baghdad on Sunday, the Oil Ministry said.

Gas drillers say use of chemicals not an environmental threat

Gas well drilling is increasing in prevalence in the Northeast Pennsylvania area, and as this is happening, many people express their concerns about the environmental impact.

Questions are raised, and one that gets attention involves the use of chemicals in fracturing fluid. Natural gas-drilling companies use the fluid, which is composed of a solution containing 99 percent water and sand, to break apart shale formations. The process, also known as “hydraulic fracturing,” or “fracing,” involves the pumping into the ground of the fracturing fluid under high pressure, thus opening up cracks and bedding planes in the shale. The use of sand prevents the openings created in the rock from closing. Less than 1 percent of the fluid used in this process contains the combination of several chemicals, and it is the use of these chemicals that has led many to wonder just how safe the use of fracturing fluid really is.

Facing competition, West Coast ports lobby for improved rail links

“We need a well-thought-out, strategic freight policy,” said Tim Farrell , executive director of the Port of Tacoma . “We need to focus on corridors from Shanghai to Chicago or Tokyo to Houston . We are just getting started, but the West Coast ports generate more jobs than the Big Three automakers.”

The looming clash over Asian shipping routes is part geography lesson, part the dreams of naval architects as they design ultra-large cargo ships, and part a short course in shipping economics — all of it overlaid with concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Researchers predict rise in sea level

Almost 80 percent of Galveston County households could be displaced by 2109 if water levels in the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay rise as quickly as they have during the past 100 years.

Gauges at the Port of Galveston’s Pier 21 show the water is 2.3 feet higher today than it was in 1909.

If that trend continues, the rising water would chase thousands of homeowners away from the coast and cause billions of dollars in damage to the area’s water, sewer and utility systems, according to a study of sea level rise released earlier this month by three researchers from the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi.

A personal response to climate change

While many Americans are feeling the pinch as the recession deepens, and reducing their consumption accordingly, others of us have already been voluntarily simplifying our lives and our consumption patterns in order to reach a more sustainable level of usage of the planet’s resources (forests, minerals, fossil fuels, agriculture, water, etc.).

The Information Age is over…

For the next century or so, mankind is going to be increasingly focused on two simple tasks: preventing additional climate change, and dealing with the damage to our society caused by climate change. Those tasks will dominate our lives, and the lives of our children.

We are going to essentially rebuild everything, and it’s not going to be just shinier and more expensive.

Climate bill could spur energy revolution

WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead.

Winners and losers emerge in climate bill

Everyone from small farmers to nuclear energy companies would be forced to re-evaluate their place in the new order. Power plants, factories and refineries would feel the first impact if the federal government moves ahead with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by about 80 percent near the end of the century.

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