Its classic way to keep the price of something as high as you possibly can for as long as you can. Anyone seen the film Blood Diamond?

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Energy Watch Issue #46 is the Peak Oil issue. It was out in December:
http://www.energywatch.org.nz/recent.html

Trevor.

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I hope our major power companies are listening, and quietly abandoning their plans to import natural gas when ours starts dwindling next decade. As for building new gas-fired power stations – forget it.

Trevor.

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The security risks do not scale down with smaller nuclear reactors.

New Zealand would not – and probably wouldn’t be allowed to – set up a nuclear fuel manufacturing capability, nor would we set up a spend nuclear fuel reprocessing capability. We would therefore be dependent on other countries for both of these, and therefore at their mercy when it comes to setting prices and priorities. As other countries set up nuclear reactors, expect the market to favour the few suppliers of nuclear technology and services.

Nuclear reactors have long lead times. We can expand our hydro, geothermal and wind generation capability and invest in solar, tidal current and wave technology and have that all running well before a nuclear plant could be completed.

IMHO if any country doesn’t need nuclear power in the coming oil-less years, it is New Zealand.

Trevor.

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>>but it is not an answer for New Zealand

Didn’t say it was.

However, nuclear science doesn’t sit still. Smaller generation IV reactors may be applicable in future.

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thanks for the admission frog, though I agree with Sam’s analysis.

note that I don’t want government subsidies to the petrol companies either….

now would you kindly ask your mps to quit with the poetic licence they use to scare everyone too…?

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Wonder why Frog didn’t quote the recent BP sumission to the UK parliament that production is likely to peak due to flattening demand caused by political interventions rather than resource issues?

Are we scared of ‘peak demand’?

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Blue Peter said: Be green. Go nuke

peter, nuclear may be an answer for populous nations such as China and India, but it is not an answer for New Zealand.

Our electricity system has to be able to back up its largest unit for times that it will be out of service, and the reserve turbines must be already spinning at the cut-off point if blackouts are to be avoided.

Nuclear shutdowns would remove 1200 megawatts without warning, compared to a large gas station of 400MW or 250MW at one of the four Huntly units.

A single nuclear plant would risk security of supply because the NZ system cannot provide instant back up at any reasonable cost.

Building, operating and maintaining two of them would therefore be necessary. This would provide a generating capacity far in excess of New Zealand’s needs, and would therefore result in very expensive electricty.

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“Matt Simmons (MS): My opinion is that it’s increasingly likely that we actually set an all-time record in May 2005 of 74,252,000 barrels per day. And for the first three months of 2007, we’re almost a million barrels per day behind that, and we’re dropping fast. If that record still holds a year from now, I’ll bet someone ten-to-one that we set peak oil in May 2005 and it’s now past tense.”

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/casey/2008/0109.html

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“Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand.”

Sounds to me like he’s saying ‘we’ll be drilling less accesible oil, so that’s why prices are going up and please focus on this and don’t look too closely at out massive profits.’

“if policymakers… actively promote energy efficiency and new technology in four sectors: heat and power generation, industry, mobility and buildings… Since CO2 capture and storage adds cost and brings no revenues , government support is needed to make it happen quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions. At the very least, companies should earn carbon credits for the CO2 they capture and store… Companies can suggest possible routes to get there, but governments are in the driving seat. And governments will determine whether we should prepare for a bitter competition or a true team effort…”

And this all sounds like ‘we want to be paid for looking after the environment and we want government (i.e. public) money for developing new technology and we want the government to make sure we get government money without having to compete for it, ta very much.’

Not really anything new here.

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Howdy readers, sorry if my poetic licence caused a fracas. The title was chosen to “mix it up” and I agree was not entirely accurate based on the e-mail from the Shell CEO. However, the “all but acknowledged” line at the beginning should have cleared that up. To anyone used to hearing what CEOs of major oil companies come out with, that was the closest thing to an admission of peak oil that it’s economically or politically possible to come out with.

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Thanks BJ.
Yes pedantic, thrash it out over semantics, passes the time I guess. I notice fewer seem intent on debating peak oil as a theory lately, with superfluous nit-picking over minute details being more common, like squabbling over chairs on the titanic.
I could not care less about the most common discourse of how they will run their cars and trucks and flights to London. Mobility pales on a cavernous stomach. Even IF there was a smooth transition here to a stable state precariously mainlining on hydro/wind/tui/lignite CTL… it would be a fools paradise with asia in petro-collapse and australia nearing completion of their desertification project. I would wager that ‘kiwis’ are too apathetic and deeply indoctrinated in the cult of consumer greed to survive.

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I’ll second Joy, thanks BJ for taking the time.

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OK Peter – Thanks for that and welcome back.

As for when peak oil occurs or will occur, both of us know that it’s going to be impossible to accurately identify it until we can look back at it. However, the evidence of it is definitely available.

I like this guy cause he’s collected a lot of research and gone over the “The Oil Drum” and worked out a lot of it there as well.
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP2/WEAP2.html

The eye-in-the-sky view of what the Saudi supply looks like.
http://satelliteoerthedesert.blogspot.com/

This guy does more on consequences than when the actual peak shows up
http://www.roadtransport.com/Articles/2008/01/31/129670/worried-about-oil-shortage.html

This is the source where you can see Maxwell’s analysis. He hasn’t become who he is by being wrong about this sort of thing.

http://energytechstocks.com/
http://energytechstocks.com/wp/?p=819

That’s part/page 1 where he lays it out.

This is the latest and greatest off the oil drum.
http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/update
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/PU200712_Fig3b.png
..and the original source article.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/13/225447/79

Given what we know at this point I think Maxwell is being optimistic except that the recession is going to kick demand in the teeth, which also affects price and how much is pumped. Which tends to make this peak rather fuzzier than it might be.

Since production did decline a little we could actually have already seen the peak. Since it COULD conceivably and with enough market price incentive, be boosted another little bit we might be premature by a year or two if we called it now.

respectfully
BJ

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Yes, I apologise for the insult, but quite frankly I couldn’t believe what I was reading on a blog that should know better on enviromental issues.

I maintain that frog said that the ceo said that peak oil was coming in 2015, where as all the ceo actually said was that demand would exceed supply in 2015.

“You don’t quite say that…. the implication is weak, but if that is not the case then I simply don’t understand why you chose to go non-linear about a pedantic point of difference.”

Well I said exactly that, in my first comment, and in all the following ones. I even made a nice drawing to illustrate the point in case I wasn’t describing it clearly in words.

Considering that frog proudly declares that a ceo of a petrolium company predicts (and therefore believes in the coming) peak oil in 2015, I wouldn’t consider the fact that he did no such thing a ‘pedantic point of difference’.

“Am I to take it from the things you’ve posted that you DON’T believe that oil production has peaked, is peaking or will peak?”

No it hasn’t peaked
The second part depends on what you mean by ‘peaking’… if you mean is heading up towards a peak, then yes it is, if you mean it is currently – right now – at the top of the peak, then no.
Yes it will peak – that’s just common sense, it is the date that is hard to determine.

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Thank you BJ.

I am so thankful for your quiet sanity & cool reason.

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So we get to the crux of your problems with this post… besides your incredibly insulting attitude.

Peak oil isn’t any sort of problem for anyone if there isn’t any demand. Is it?

Of course not.

Peak oil is a problem ONLY in the context of demand… and the CEO of Shell and Frog and the folks at the Oil Drum, all of us have a good handle on “demand” as part of the equation. The recession that is hitting the US has been reducing demand there near a year now. That recession could become something economically “worse” and demand is definitely slacking off… a little… but Inelasticity in demand for this commodity has always been the rule. Look at the economic damage that has to be done to reduce demand.

Am I to take it from the things you’ve posted that you DON’T believe that oil production has peaked, is peaking or will peak?

i’m saying that what the ceo described is NOT peak oil.
it is possible to not have enough oil without it being peak oil.

You don’t quite say that…. the implication is weak, but if that is not the case then I simply don’t understand why you chose to go non-linear about a pedantic point of difference.

The problem you have is that…. demand exceeding supply, as described by the CEO of Shell, Frog, Yourself, Maxwell, Chefurka, Simons et.al.. IS NOT A PROBLEM if the market can adjust by simply moving the price point higher and so increasing the supply. It has done this repeatedly over the past 200 years. We all understand that the market works and how well it works… and yet we are all saying that there will be a problem.

This problem comes because the invisible hand is a hand. It isn’t an eye, or a brain or a heart and it has none of their characteristics. It can react only to those things it feels in real time and it can anticipate nothing whatsoever. It has no way to prepare for the imposition of an inelastic supply.

You chide us about Supply and Demand and appear to be pointing at increases in demand as being the issue. The problem for you is that UNLESS peak oil restricts supply, the price and the supply will follow demand as obediently as a well trained dog. If the market works the price rises and the supply increases. End of problem. Only the onset of peak-oil based supply inelasticity can make it a problem.

… and since it IS a problem according to all the people I’ve mentioned so far and more, it is related to Peak Oil… not increasing demand.
.
Maxwell’s discussion,the CEO of Shell… I’ve posted half a dozen links elsewhere on this blog, showing that peak oil *in your terms* is happening.

As a result there is a problem in the supply-demand equation over the next 10 years. Peak Oil creates the problem because there is no no sane price to make supply catch up anymore… it has to go high enough to suppress demand, which is already inelastic and as a result price goes ballistic.

If we were on the upside of that peak oil curve, supply would still be elastic and price would affect supply and nobody would be concerned at the way the market adjusts.

Your abusive posts are not appreciated here. When you contribute to the discourse we can respect your opinion even if we disagree. You must however, state the disagreement more clearly than calling people “stupid” and you owe Frog an apology.

BJ

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I’m sure Peter must be wrong.

But where does the Shell CEO predict peak oil before 2015?

The van der Veer comments about demand and consumption are real interesting, thanks for sharing.

But Peter must be wrong. Please show him this by quoting the passage concerned with Shell’s observations about the oil supply. As it stands Peter seems to be right and Frog seems to be missing the boat! Can’t have that now can we?

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Aint nothing worse than a sore loser.

For the last two years supply has been struggling to keep up with almost static demand. The surge in oil prices at the start of the decade failed to dampen demand growth but the second surge mid-decade has definitely supressed the growth in demand for oil, even in India and China.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if supply fails to meet demand sooner than that – China and India and others are growing at a tremendous pace as they embrace capitalism.

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