Monday December 12, 2005

Transcripts from first Congress hearing on understanding peak oil

energybulletin.net :

...Congressman Roscoe Bartlett said that he was very pleased by the first hearing by the United States House of Representatives held by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality on Wednesday, December 7, 2005. The legislative hearing focused on H. Res. 507, a bipartisan bill which expresses "the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States, in collaboration with other international allies, should establish an energy project with the magnitude, creativity, and sense of urgency that was incorporated in the 'Man on the Moon' project to address the inevitable challenges of 'Peak Oil'."

... Related content:

* Transcripts: Peak Oil Hearing: Udall Testimony (7 December 2005)
* Transcripts: Peak Oil Hearing: Esser Testimony (7 December 2005)
* Transcripts: Peak Oil Hearing: Aleklett Testimony (7 December 2005)
* Transcripts: Peak Oil Hearing: Hirsch Testimony (7 December 2005)

See also :

1. Lawmakers: US should prepare for global oil flow peak
2. Congress issues Peak Oil resolution
3. US Senate on Peak Oil

(2005-12-12 22:59:17 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

You Know You're A PeakOiler When ...

My contribution at peakoil.com :

... when you travel 22,000 km and then meet up with some guy on the other side of the world and sit down in a outdoor cafe and talk about peak oil.

... when *you* are the one who meets up with that other guy who travelled 22,000 km and sit down and talk about peak oil .. :)

... when your colleagues blogroll you on their blogs as "Mr Peak Oil".

... when your colleagues introduce you to new colleagues as "the peak oil guy".

... when you can convert gallons to litres, miles to kilometres, metric tons to barrels and km/l to mpg without skipping a beat.

... when sometimes you might not be too sure what day it is but you are able to tell people that we use up over 84 million barrels per day every day no matter what day it is.

(2005-12-12 12:47:51 SGT) [Musings] Permalink

OPEC President-In-Waiting:Demand Is Outstripping New Capacity

peakoil.com -> nasdaq.com :

OPEC's President-in-waiting, Nigeria's Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru, said late Saturday that the group should maintain its current output policy as global oil demand continued to outstrip new capacity gains.

In a telephone interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Daukoru, who becomes president Jan. 1, said: "Demand is rising as fast as any new capacity is coming on. I don't see anything happening going into the second quarter that will push prices down below $48 a barrel" for U.S. light, sweet crude futures.

OPEC is widely expected to keeps its current production levels intact when it formally meets Monday to discuss its output policy. With output of some 30 million barrels a day, a third of world demand, almost all of its 11 members are pumping flat out. With a production rollover almost a foregone conclusion, analysts and oil traders say they are keen to hear how OPEC views second-quarter supply-demand fundamentals.

See also :

1. Is OPEC becoming irrelevant?
2. Official : OPEC has reached limit
3. Saudi Tosses Oil Production Cap

(2005-12-12 08:31:33 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Power could cost more than servers, Google warns

peakoil.com -> news.com :

A Google engineer has warned that if the performance per watt of today's computers doesn't improve, the electrical costs of running them could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag. That situation that wouldn't bode well for Google, which relies on thousands of its own servers.

"If performance per watt is to remain constant over the next few years, power costs could easily overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin," Luiz Andre Barroso, who previously designed processors for Digital Equipment Corp., said in a September paper published in the Association for Computing Machinery's Queue. "The possibility of computer equipment power consumption spiraling out of control could have serious consequences for the overall affordability of computing, not to mention the overall health of the planet."

(2005-12-12 08:28:19 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Shell Lacks Oil Sources : Merrill Lynch fund manager

peakoil.com -> bloomberg.com :

Royal Dutch Shell Plc isn't succeeding in finding enough new sources of oil, according to Robin Batchelor, a fund manager at Merrill Lynch & Co., De Telegraaf newspaper reported. Batchelor, who heads the $3.7 billion World Energy Fund, sold all of his shares in Shell last year after the company overstated its oil reserves, the newspaper said.

See also :

1. Oil Majors Hitting Peak Production Within 48 Months

(2005-12-12 08:20:27 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Why America finally woke up to climate change threat

peakoil.com -> sundayherald.com :

The turning point, history may record, was the duck moment. It was around midnight on Thursday at the crucial United Nations climate talks in Montreal, Canada, when the chief United States negotiator, Harlan Watson, threw a wobbly. Fearing that a Canadian proposal for an international dialogue on combating global warming was really a covert attempt to drag the US into binding negotiations, he walked out. But not before making the memorable retort: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."

That prompted an imaginative piece of direct action by Phil Clapp, the president of the US National Environmental Trust. On Friday morning his team scoured Montreal shops for rubber ducks, and within hours the little yellow creatures were ubiquitous in the conference centre. They were paraded by environmentalists, popped up in ministers' top pockets, and even made an appearance on the US delegation's table. The Americans, after being harangued and vilified all week, were finally embarrassed.

See also :

1. Clinton steals show at climate talks (via peakoil.com)
2. Kyoto Protocol at Montreal

(2005-12-12 08:17:36 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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