Expert says rising sea levels pose threat to rice

This article belongs to the Global food crisis story arc.

news.yahoo.com :

Rising sea levels triggered by climate change pose an "ominous" threat to some of the world's most productive rice-growing areas, the International Rice Research Institute has warned. "Some of Asia's most important rice-growing areas are located in low-lying deltas, which play a vital role in regional food security and supplying export markets," senior climate scientist Reiner Wassman told the IRRI magazine Rice Today. "With Vietnam so dependent on rice grown in and around low-lying river deltas, the implications of a sea-level rise are ominous indeed."

Rice is the staple cereal of nearly half the world's 6.6 billion people. Wassman said the impact of global warming on the key cereal would depend on the patterns of change in rice-growing regions. But he warned a threatened rise of between 10 and 85 centimetres (four to 34 inches) in sea levels over the next century could have "enormous" impacts on some countries, including key rice exporter Vietnam. Wassman also said more frequent or more intense droughts, cyclones and heat waves posed "incalculable threats to agricultural production."

IEA : Oil 'extremely tight in 5 years'

theoildrum.com -> livescience.com :

When scientists say oil production could peak soon, the reports are met with skepticism, especially in industry. When economists talk, industry pays more attention. That makes Monday's [9 Jul 2007] forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA) significant.

A handful of scientists have been saying for years that the peak is not just inevitable but will come sooner rather than later. Another handful disagreed. Earlier this year, a Swedish researcher used a new method of estimating oil reserves and potential new discoveries to conclude that oil could peak as early as next year.

Now, the IEA, which advises 26 industrialized nations, says "oil looks extremely tight in five years time." What exactly does tight mean? It means, in very simple supply-and-demand terms, that the sudden and rapidly growing demand (most noticeably from China and India) will soon outstrip the supply (which everyone who admits the dinosaurs are gone would agree is finite). The IEA notes the acceleration in demand, which is no secret, but it also points out that supply from mature regions is falling faster than expected.

IEA sees oil supply crunch looming

energybulletin.net -> news.yahoo.com :

World oil demand will rise faster than expected to 2012 while production lags, leading to a supply crunch, the International Energy Agency said on Monday [9 Jul 2007]. The outlook, which updates an IEA forecast last issued in February, coincides with a jump in oil prices to more than $75 a barrel, closing in on a record high near $79, on concerns of a tightening market. "Despite four years of high oil prices, this report sees increasing market tightness beyond 2010," the IEA said. "It is possible that the supply crunch could be deferred - but not by much."

"The results of our analysis are quite strong," said Lawrence Eagles, head of the IEA's Oil Industry and Markets Division. "Something needs to happen." "Either we need to have more supplies coming on stream or we need to have lower demand growth." While foreseeing higher demand, the IEA expects less supply to come from producers outside OPEC and the agency also trimmed a forecast for the 12-member group's unused production capacity.

The IEA trimmed its forecast for supply from non-OPEC producers by 800,000 bpd in 2011, partly because of project delays, and touched on the thorny subject that oil supplies are nearing a peak. "Certainly our forecast suggests that the non-OPEC, conventional crude component of global production appears, for now, to have reached an effective plateau, rather than a peak," the report said.

- This was a significant piece of news coming from the IEA which has been asserting for years that peak oil is far away. It's quite a U-turn. Sure they may argue that it's a plateau vs a well-defined peak, non-OPEC supply vs global supply, but at least IEA is on the same page as the peak oil community on the timing : we have 4, maybe 5 years.

(2007-07-19 12:39:36 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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