What is the other side of the story?
Sabotage or judicious blocking due to ground water concerns?
I'm not giving Exxon a pass -- nor am I ready to agree to 'sabotage' based on the linked article. Obviously you can state your opinion but if you know more than that article outlines, I for one would be interested.
Background on Exxon sabotage allegations
This Statesman article (from Dec. 2007) provides some background and cites specifics of court testimony:
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...1230exxon.html
Looks like Corporate Greed - a not unheard of or
unknown phenomenon -- got in the way of common sense and the Texas Supreme Court wiggled out of a decision in a case that the State would like to see go away. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between the two poles. Agree the Commission should hold the hearings, a case this old is bound to have produced reams of data and evidence. Be interesting to see what the Railroad Commission does.
Approaching the age of the shale that floats the oil, I see nothing new or really shocking here. Little stupid or crooked people do surprises me, unfortunately. Humble / Esso both were pretty rapacious and their offspring Exxon should be expected to be no different. Corporations and People are prone to do what they can get away with. Here we theoretically have a big, bad Corp vs. a little guy -- but little guys also have been known to cheat, lie and steal. Generally Governments and the Courts keep the large and the small from going too far but they slip up occasionally. Courts and Commissions, regrettably, are also prone to human foibles.
People just aren't as nice as we'd like...:wry:
Thanks for the links. Curious to see how this works out.
Net Energy study (July 09)
A team of researchers has recently examined the data (of which there is precious little) relating to energy returned on energy invested (EROEI), or net energy.
Their study begins by stating, “Few issues, maybe none, are as important to industrial societies and their economies as the future of oil and gas supplies…. We no longer find large, cheap and easy to exploit reserves…” (p. 2).
The authors then point to a greatly overlooked aspect in the energy debate: “A critical issue missing from this debate is not how much oil is in the ground, or even how much we may be able to extract, but rather how much we can extract with a significant energy surplus. In other words, what we need to know is the net, not gross, energy available” (p. 2, emphasis added).
This research is an attempt to quantify what common sense tells us must be true: if we are drilling more, finding less, and the fields which we do find are either smaller, in more difficult locations, or of a lesser quality, then it stands to reason that it will cost not only more money but also more energy to find, develop and produce that energy.
They conclude that "global supplies of petroleum available to do economic work are considerably less than estimates of gross reserves and that EROI is declining over time..." (p. 1).
Their study is modestly entitled “A Preliminary Investigation of Energy Return on Energy Invested for Global Oil and Gas Production.”
Their pioneering attempt to quantify the decline in EROEI is a welcome addition to the literature.
This link provides the abstract and the link to the complete study (14 pgs):
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/3/490
More general information on EROEI may be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
World Energy Outlook (IEA, Nov.08)
Hi, Randy
One of the two documents which will be posted on EB is a bibliography of publicly-available studies which have been conducted by researchers from the military/security community (War Colleges, CNA, etc) on the issue of energy security.
The listing will identify those studies which address the issue of peak oil and which find it to be a credible near-term concern.
One item which I plan to include separately at the end (separately because it was done by the International Energy Agency, which of course is not part of the military/security research community) is the most recent World Energy Outlook (Nov. 08).
There is probably some merit in offering it now, since it really does not belong in that bibliography. Similarly with the Hirsch Report, yet both are so central to the issue, and both have such credibility, that they would surely be included in any serious analysis of the peak oil issue.
Here is what I intend to say about the WEO:
This WEO marks a significant departure from the IEA’s traditional confidence in future oil supply.
Its opening sentences state, “The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable…. “
It then warns of “dwindling resources in most parts of the world and accelerating decline rates everywhere (p. 3). The WEO calls for “an energy revolution” and concludes, “Time is running out and the time to act is now” (Executive Summary, p. 15).
This sudden tone of concern is confirmed by subsequent verbal statements made by IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol.
In a videotaped interview with George Monbiot, Birol states, “The reason we are asking for a global energy revolution is to prepare everybody for difficult days and difficult times. I think we should be very careful….”
This interview is available here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...george-monbiot
Despite this recent tone of concern and the evidence which the WEO presents, the IEA remains very reluctant to state that the peaking of global oil production (whatever combination of factors “cause” the constriction) will present some very serious challenges, that effective mitigation will require decades of cooperative effort, and that that the world appears to be most unprepared for this event.
To provide some context, it should be noted that only four years ago IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil referred to peak oil analysts as "doomsayers" and went on to say that "none of this is cause for concern."
But barely 1000 days later, the IEA has suddenly told the world that "time is running out...."
As I said previously, this issue is constantly evolving, perhaps nowhere more rapidly than at the IEA.
The complete WEO is 578 pgs and must be purchased.
The Executive Summary (15 pgs, no graphs) is available here:
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/do...es_english.pdf
There are two WEO graphs in particular which I would like to post here and which are highly illustrative, if I could only figure out how to do it (I am hopeless with computer stuff, much to my brother's amusement).