‘Peak Oil’ - the idea that the world’s supplies of oil have either peaked or will soon start declining, has suddenly gained new respectability
‘Big Oil’ changes it’s mind
Here’s some choice quotes:
MARK COLVIN: Meanwhile, ‘peak oil’ - the idea that the world’s supplies of oil have either peaked or will soon start declining, has suddenly gained new respectability.
It’s been derided by the big oil companies for years, but at the end of last week came a turnabout.
The Chief Executive of the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, Jeroen van der Veer put out a paper on Friday forecasting the end of easy oil.
Mr Van der Veer said the result could be a worldwide scramble to mitigate climate change.
You can read about van der Veer’s comments, over at Shell itself, and in a Times article online (”Shell chief fears oil shortage in seven years”).
Dr Jim Buckee has just retired as President and CEO of Talisman Energy, a major independent Canadian oil company with a market capitalisation of $25-billion.
On the phone from Perth, Dr Buckee told me that ‘peak oil’ was now either here, or very close.
JIM BUCKEE: It is the underlying decline of the world’s major fields that is the dominant driving factor here.
If you think that at the moment the world is consuming 30-plus billion barrels a year of oil and is finding seven or eight billion barrels a year. And this state of affairs has been going on now for 20 or more years. It’s obviously unsustainable and the world is increasingly drawing on the bigger older fields.
You couple that notion with the irreversibility of decline and you’ve got a very alarming picture.
JIM BUCKEE: I think it’s pretty alarmist if one or more of the worlds largest oil companies say, listen guys, supplies of oil are gonna get tight. The ramifications are immense.
Always the line of the major oil companies, Exxon, Shell, BP has been, ‘there’s plenty of oil, you know technology will overcome shortages; we’ll find it’.
They changed a little bit to, ‘there’s plenty of oil, but access is difficult’ and then this is a change again saying, ‘well actually, it looks like it’s finite and you know we’re looking over the hill’.
Good intentions, actually possible?
Back in December, there was a reported change in government policy.
Times Report.
BBC Report.
John Hutton, the energy secretary, will this week announce plans to build enough turbines to generate nearly half Britain’s current electricity consumption. He will open the whole of Britain’s continental shelf to development, apart from areas vital for shipping and fishing.
Britain’s current range of coal, gas, nuclear and other power stations are capable of generating 75 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, but less than 0.5GW comes from wind. Planning consents have been granted for a further 3GW and the government had already made clear it wanted this raised to 8GW.
So, what’s happened since then…
Well, it all sounds great, and then this happens!
The BBC’s Gaelic news service, Radio nan Gaidheal, has learned that Scottish Government ministers are “minded to refuse” the 181 turbine scheme.
More than 5,000 letters of objection to the proposals were received by the Scottish Government.
Councillors on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) voted by 18 to eight to support the £500m project in February 2007.
But the final decision on the planning application rested with the Scottish Government.
The news was welcomed by local anti-wind farm campaigner Dinah Murray, who said the refusal would allow islanders’ lives to return to normal.
Bloody NIMBYS!!! 
To quote someone on the Powerswitch forum…
“It’s often said that environmentalists want us to abandon technology and return to a medieval agricultural existence. The NIMBY and BANANA fraternity are actually taking us there…..and the Olduvai Theory will be more than just thinkable….”
In the Scotsman, it was reported that the proposed Lewis site could have generated a significant amount of electricity.
The fate of the Lewis wind farm is far from just a barrage of hot air among island folk. It goes to the heart of Scotland’s attempt to generate 50 per cent of its electricity using renewables, such as hydro, wave or wind power, by 2020.
At the moment, Scotland produces 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of electricity through renewables. That must rise to 6 GW within the next 12 years. The Lewis wind farm has the capacity to produce 0.651 GW, 11 per cent of the country’s total renewables requirement.
That’s quite a significant amount, but we do have a big task ahead of us though.
Taking the two good years, we are setting up between 200-300Mw of new Wind based electricity.
The UK alone however, needs 33Gw (33000Mw) by 2020. So, for the next 12 years, we need to set up 2750Mw per year. So, for Britain alone, we need to increase the European Wind Generation capacity by 11 times! (2750Mw / 250Mw). If you factor in the rest of Europe as well, and those numbers start to seem quite daunting.
I have two thoughts on this…
1) We need to reduce consumption as well has a massive ramp up of renewable production.
2) If the government starts to push through renewables despite opposition (just like Nuclear), or maybe the general population when faced with the stark reality that there is a choice of that so-called ugly turbine or no electricity at all… we are going to need a whole bunch more of people trained up in how to build and erect this stuff.
2008 Jan 30 Gavin