ASPO DEUTSCHLAND - Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas Peak oil is real and will stunt any economic recovery During the last century, society squandered 500 million years of captured sunlight on drag races, traffic jams, private jets and overheated office buildings - warns campaign group Oil company cheerleaders proclaiming huge supplies of oil are dead wrong. Peak oil is as real as rain, and it is here now. Not 2050. Not 2020. (The oil plateau: The calm before the decline. When you read or hear about "10 billion barrels" of oil discovered somewhere, here is how to think about that - a third of that is probably not recoverable or entirely illusory. But that is not all, the volume decline includes a decline in quality and net energy. (Peak discoveries occurred 50 years ago. United States oil production peaked in 1970, exactly as Hubbert predicted. In 2010, the US Military Joint Forces Command predicted the end of "surplus oil production capacity" - their way of saying "peak oil" - and warned "the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10-million barrels per day". Dead on. Jon. Clearly true.
Yale Environment 360: Opinion, Analysis, Reporting & Debate ASPO France - Réponse à Claude Allègre La récente publication sur le site Slate d’un article « Claude Allègre : nous ne manquerons pas de pétrole » amène l'ASPO France à faire plusieurs mises au point. Les réserves de pétrole sont, bien sûr, un sujet sérieux. L'économie mondiale est étroitement liée à son approvisionnement en énergie primaire et le pétrole en constitue la part la plus importante (4,1 Gtep pour 12 Gtep d'après l'Agence Internationale de l'Energie AIE en 2007 ; tep : tonne équivalent pétrole, G : milliard. M : million). Plus de la moitié du pétrole est consacrée aux transports, en général totalement dépendants de ce liquide. L'estimation des réserves d'un champ, point de départ pour une estimation au niveau d'un bassin ou d'un pays, est un exercice intrinsèquement difficile. Rappelons que le maximum de production, non du à des facteurs politiques comme dans les années 70, n'est pas simplement un « exercice pour spécialiste» mais une réalité dans un certain nombre de provinces pétrolières.
Solve For X - George Washington Carver - R. Buckminster Fuller - Arthur C. - Marie Curie - Albert Einstein Matter Network - Clean Technology, Sustainable Business and Green News Pic pétrolier : la fin du pétrole, c’est pour quand ? 2050, 2020, 2011, déjà dépassé… les prévisions pour dater le pic pétrolier mondial (« Peak oil », en anglais), c’est-à-dire le moment où la production d’or noir commencera à décliner, ne manquent pas. Mais une chose est sûre : c’est un phénomène inéluctable auquel l’humanité doit impérativement se préparer, sous peine de connaître une crise majeure. En 1956, le géologue Marion King Hubbert fait une prédiction : la production de pétrole aux Etats-Unis atteindra son maximum aux alentours de 1970 avant de commencer à décroître. Le « pic de Hubbert » est alors violemment critiqué. Et pourtant, le scientifique avait raison : depuis 1971, la quantité de brut américain produite n’a fait que baisser. Puis fin des années 1990, plusieurs professionnels du monde du pétrole constatent que les gisements découverts depuis 30 ans représentaient un volume de brut inférieur à la production annuelle, et extrapole sur une date du pic pétrolier mondial. Etat des lieux des réserves mondiales Yann Cohignac
IEA's "Golden Age of Gas Scenario" Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change By Joe Romm on June 7, 2011 at 12:50 pm "IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change" The International Energy Agency has just issued a special report titled, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” The answer to that question is “yes” only if you are a natural gas producer who doesn’t care much about humanity. For the rest of us, the report makes clear natural gas by itself does nothing to avert catastrophic climate change. Quite the reverse. The UK Guardian‘s story put it well: Natural gas is not the “panacea” to solve climate change that fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been claiming, according to new research from the International Energy Agency.Reliance on gas would lead the world to a 3.5C temperature rise, according to the IEA. Not exactly a champagne moment. UPDATE: I’ve added a featured comment (and link) by Tyler Hamilton, business columnist at The Toronto Star. The reason is clear. So much for a Golden Age. Absolutely
This Quarter in Cleantech Venture Capital investing | Cleantech Investing : Greentech Media The various deal-tracking groups continue to step up their game, doing a better and better job each year. Looking forward to seeing additional takes from CB Insights, Ernst & Young and others, but just reviewed the Cleantech Group's Q2 media presentation (as reported on by GTM here) and had a few additional thoughts and reactions to lob in: 1. Remember that the way these numbers get reported, and given the paucity of exits in the sector, there's a fundamental momentum to see deal counts always go up over time. So when you see a clear trend downward over the past few quarters in terms of deal counts, that suggests a lot of follow-ons aren't happening. This isn't necessarily so; there are some other potential explanations at work. But when matched up against what I'm seeing on the ground, unfortunately, I think this data does reflect that a lot of cleantech startups have been getting shaken out and will continue to do so. 2. 3. 4. Those are my wish list items.