BP adds fuel to the oil price debate

BP has now come forward to admit that peak oil is a reality and is occurring.

According to the oil producers' cartel Opec, the blame lies with speculators in the international markets. But Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, describes that view as "a myth".

He argues that the main cause is the tight balance between global supply and demand. Which is in turn 'Peak Oil' - demand outstrips supply, simply because there is not enough oil left in the world or the oil that is left in the world is plentiful but it has become too costly, too energy intensive to extract or too difficult to extract.

BP's new Statistical Review of World Energy - a key information source for many people in the industry - highlights what has been going on.

Falling production

According to BP, global oil consumption grew by 1.1% in 2007, while total production fell by 0.2% or 130,000 barrels per day - the first decline since 2002.

Production in Opec countries was cut in November 2006 and February 2007.

The largest production cuts last year were in Saudi Arabia - the country which has by far the largest oil reserves in the world and is normally the world's largest producer. But BP says Saudi Arabia's 12.6% of global output was almost matched by Russia.

In 2008, BP expects Russian output to fall by around 1%. And although Saudi Arabia has committed itself to some small production increases, the balance between supply and demand looks likely to remain extremely tight.

The rise in oil prices has been remarkable. In 1997 the average price of a barrel of Brent crude was $12.72. In 2007 it was $72.39. And earlier this month it touched $137.

Source: News.bbc.co.uk

Read BP's 2008 Statistical Review of World Energy

Ron Paul on Energy

It's time to VOTE for Ron Paul.

As president, I will work to restore a free-market in energy. In particular, I will work with Congress to repeal federal regulations and taxes that impede the development of new energy sources. Such policies give government bureaucrats the power to pick winners and losers, and cause resources to be devoted to those producers with the most political clout rather than to the producers who are best able to meet the needs of consumers. Alternative sources should prove their viability in the free market. Any source that truly is cheaper and cleaner, yet still reliable, will not need government help to develop or sell.

Returning to a free market in energy will encourage conservation as well as the development of new forms of energy. In a free market, conservation occurs naturally when property rights are strictly enforced to prevent pollution and because resources become more costly as they become scarcer.

I have cosponsored legislation designed to encourage the development of alternative energy. H.R. 550 extends the investment tax credit to solar energy property and qualified fuel cell property, and H.R. 1772 provides tax credits for the installation of wind energy property.

Nuclear energy can also provide the American people with a reliable and environmentally sound alternative. Therefore, I will repeal federal regulations that hinder the development of nuclear energy. However, I will also repeal all federal subsidies and privileges granted the nuclear industry. Nuclear power should prove its worth in the free-market.

Clean, safe, and reliable energy is far too important to leave to the political whims of Washington bureaucrats.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study

Output peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% a year

Decline in gas, coal and uranium also predicted

New study warns that world oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030. Report also forecasts extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.

“The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel. "The world soon will not be able to produce all the oil it needs as demand is rising while supply is falling. This is a huge problem for the world economy," said Hans-Josef Fell, EWG's founder and the German MP behind the country's successful support system for renewable energy.

“The report presents a bleak view of the future unless a radically different approach is adopted. It quotes the British energy economist David Fleming as saying: "Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society."Mr Schindler comes to a similar conclusion. "The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life." Jeremy Leggett, one of Britain's leading environmentalists and the author of Half Gone, a book about "peak oil" - defined as the moment when maximum production is reached, said that both the UK government and the energy industry were in "institutionalised denial" and that action should have been taken sooner.” "When I was an adviser to government, I proposed that we set up a taskforce to look at how fast the UK could mobilise alternative energy technologies in extremis, come the peak," he said. "Other industry advisers supported that. But the government prefers to sleep on without even doing a contingency study. For those of us who know that premature peak oil is a clear and present danger, it is impossible to understand such complacency."”

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Now more than ever we need to adopt Zero Point Energy.

12inch miracle tube could halve heating bills

It sounds too good to be true - not to mention the fact that it violates almost every known law of physics.

But British scientists claim they have invented a revolutionary device that seems to 'create' energy from virtually nothing.

Their so-called thermal energy cell could soon be fitted into ordinary homes, halving domestic heating bills and making a major contribution towards cutting carbon emissions.

Even the makers of the device are at a loss to explain exactly how it works - but sceptical independent scientists carried out their own tests and discovered that the 12in x 2in tube really does produce far more heat energy than the electrical energy put in.

The device seems to break the fundamental physical law that energy cannot be created from nothing - but researchers believe it taps into a previously unrecognised source of energy, stored at a sub-atomic level within the hydrogen atoms in water.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Cover-up plan on energy target

Government officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of wriggling out of it.

In contrast to the government's claims to be leading the world on climate change, officials within the former Department of Trade and Industry have admitted that under current policies Britain would miss the EU's 2020 target of 20% energy from renewables by a long way. And their suggestion that "statistical interpretations of the target" be used rather than new ways to reach it has infuriated environmentalists.

An internal briefing paper for ministers, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, reveals that officials at the department, now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, think the best the UK could hope for is 9% of energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro by 2020.

It says the UK "has achieved little so far on renewables" and that getting to 9%, from the current level of about 2%, would be "challenging". The paper was produced in the early summer, around the time the government published its energy white paper.

Source: Guardian.co.uk