Ippoippo

‘Big Oil’ changes it’s mind

Australia’s ABC/National Radio recently had a programme on air (Tuesday 29th January), that was covering Peak Oil.

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.

It was like something out of the cinema… the scene that greeted us when we got back from Sunday Market.

As I pulled around the corner, to park the car in the drive, it was just like The Birds… as they were all lined up… WATCHING!!

Except, our neighbours were cows.

There were more of them, out of shot.

Anyway, Yuko was most amused by all this. Other pictures are here.

Talking of birds

On the ‘Chicken Front’, an interesting article The Telegraph on a rise in Organic and Free Range chicken sales.

Rather annoying to see just Jamie Oliver getting credit for it though

Meanwhile, Hugh has this response to some of the negative press since the showing of “Hugh’s Chicken Run”.

Yep. Osaka Police lived up to their reputation of being the worst in Japan, when they decided that they needed 460 Patrol Cars (and a helicopter) to chase down a lone car (so that’s 2240 officers versus one person).
To make things more embarrassing for them, they didn’t even catch the guy… who had to crash off before the police got their hands on him.

There’s some footage over at Japan Probe.

In other Japan news…

Nessie

Now, I have to admit that this looks quite cool.

Kobe Beef… don’t let Hugh F-W see this

In recent weeks, there has been a fair bit on British TV about animal welfare when it comes to the production of food. This has included Chickens on Channel 4, and young animals (Calfs for Veal, Suckling Piglets and Kids etc) on BBC3.

Well, this is quite an interesting article on Kobe beef, which is rather well known.
Link here.

In fact, this is not even a new story, as this was covered back a few years ago.

I guess Westerners just want to remember the old stereotype image of pampered cows, getting pissed on beer, being massaged and having a very nice life…. rather than the reality.

You know when there is a recession… (or one brewing up)…

When the Japanese ‘Entertainment Industry’ goes through a downturn.

“Naturally the rise in oil prices will impact on the sex business,” remarks analyst Takashi Kadokura, who for over a decade has specialized in researching Japan’s underground economy. “At ‘soaplands’ and fashion health massage shops, increases in fixed costs like electricity and gas will have to be passed on to customers.”

Take the price of the Type-A heavy oil used to fire the water boilers at soaplands, which Kadokura notes has leaped upwards from 66 yen a liter at the start of 2007 to around 80 yen a liter by November. As a result, many soaplands have boosted their admittance fees.

The true effect of peak oil!