giovedì, settembre 28, 2006

Il crollo dei prezzi del petrolio

Ecco un'immagine da www.wtrg.com dell'andamento dei prezzi del petrolio al NYMEX degli ultimi 12 mesi. Si nota il nettissimo crollo recente ma, se si è interrotto come sembra, non è un'oscillazione fuori della norma degli ultimi tempi. Se è un'oscillazione "normale", i prezzi dovrebbero ripartire verso l'alto a breve.


mercoledì, settembre 27, 2006

Petrolio a 150 dollari al Barile!

Una predizione dei futuri prezzi del petrolio da "The Oil Drum". La predizione è ottenuta scomponendo i dati recenti nelle loro varie periodicità e poi ricomponendole per estrapolare il futuro. Vale per quello che vale, ma è comunque una cosa da tener d'occhio. Chissà mai che non abbiano ragione???





















Da
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/21/102525/040

(Ringrazio Pierluigi di Pietro per la segnalazione)

martedì, settembre 26, 2006

Petrolio a 40 dollari al barile

Adnan Shihab Eldin, ex segretario generale dell'OPEC, dice la sua: il petrolio potrebbe scendere a 40 dollari al barile verso la metà del 2007.

Nella grande roulette dei prezzi, ognuno dice la sua. Siccome tutti i prezzi sono stati menzionati per l'anno prossimo, almeno qualcuno avrà la soddisfazione di aver avuto ragione. Contentiamoci di questo, perché di più di così è difficile dire.

Da notare in questo articolo di fonte cinese, la frase lapidaria "The current price swings were mainly due to geopolitical factors, such as the crisis over Iran's nuclear issue, the Iraqi issue and the Middle East tension."

Qualsiasi cosa può sembrare vera se detta con sufficiente sicurezza

_______________________________________________________________



http://english.people.com.cn/200609/22/eng20060922_305466.html

Oil price could slide to $40 per barrel: OPEC official
font size ZoomIn ZoomOut

An official from the Organization of Petroleum Export Countries (OPEC) has said that world oil prices could drop to as low as 40 U.S. dollars a barrel by mid-2007, Kuwait-based Arab Times reported on Friday.

Adnan Shihab Eldin, former OPEC acting secretary general and now a top contender for the post of OPEC secretary general, made the prediction in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on Thursday, said the report.

"It's possible that the price may dip to 40 dollars, but not this year, maybe in 2007 and 2008," depending on geopolitical situations, Eldin was quoted as saying.

He, however, ruled out the possibility of any price plummet to per-2003 levels, saying "it is very difficult for me to think of prices sliding to pre-2003 levels," the Arab Times reported.

"We are taking about perhaps 40 dollars, 50 dollars or 60 dollars," Eldin said, adding that strong fundamentals of supply and demand, which underwent a dramatic change over the past three years, would continue to support prices within that range or a bit higher.

The current price swings were mainly due to geopolitical factors, such as the crisis over Iran's nuclear issue, the Iraqi issue and the Middle East tension.

Oil prices, which have tripled over the past three years, dipped briefly below 60 dollars on Wednesday, a six-month low.

venerdì, settembre 22, 2006

Si avvicina l'Attacco all' Iran

Continuano ad arrivare notizie che i piani di attacco all'Iran sono in pieno sviluppo e che sono arrivati al momento a una "seconda fase." Le linee di attacco principali sarebbero ormai state decise, si sta lavorando al momento ai dettagli, per esempio su come gestire le linee di rifornimento alle forze attaccanti.

Queste notizie non sono, ovviamente, confermate, fanno parte del rumore di fondo di una situazione complessa e confusa. Nessuno sa esattamente cosa sia stato deciso a porte chiuse da quelli che hanno il potere di scatenare una guerra che, forse, farà uso anche di armi atomiche.

Comunque, se ne continua a parlare e non si può escludere che ci sia qualcosa di vero. La notizia di seguito arriva da "Prison Planet", sito non particolarmente affidabile, ma che comunque raccoglie un po' di tutto; nel gran rumore non si può escludere che qualcosa di vero nella storia ci sia.

________________________________________________________________


Senior intel official: Pentagon moves to second-stage planning for Iran strike option

Larisa Alexandrovna / Raw Story | September 21 2006

The Pentagon's top brass has moved into second-stage contingency planning for a potential military strike on Iran, one senior intelligence official familiar with the plans tells RAW STORY.

The official, who is close to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking officials of each branch of the US military, says the Chiefs have started what is called "branches and sequels" contingency planning.

"The JCS has accepted the inevitable," the intelligence official said, "and is engaged in serious contingency planning to deal with the worst case scenarios that the intelligence community has been painting."

A second military official, although unfamiliar with these latest scenarios, said there is a difference between contingency planning -- which he described as "what if, then what" planning -- and "branches and sequels," which takes place after an initial plan has been decided upon.

The rest at

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/September2006/210906_b_strike.htm

giovedì, settembre 21, 2006

Al Gore: Niente più Tasse sul Reddito

Un'idea interessante da Al Gore. Invece di tassare i redditi, tassare le emissioni di sostanze inquinanti. Abbiamo bisogno di idee innovative, altrimenti non ne usciamo fuori. Questa potrebbe essere la chiave di volta di un sistema che ci fa uscire dalla spirale suicida dei consumi e del cambiamento climatico



Gore says tax pollution, not payrolls


By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Mon Sep 18, 5:27 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President
Al Gore on Monday suggested taxing carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees' pay in a bid to stem global warming.

"Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution," Gore said in a speech at New York University School of Law.

The pollution tax would replace all payroll taxes, including those for
Social Security and unemployment compensation, Gore said. He said the overall level of taxation, would remain the same.

"Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution," Gore said.

Gore, a longtime environmentalist, also proposed that the United States re-join any successor to the U.N. Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012.

The rest of the article is at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060918/pl_nm/environment_gore_dc

mercoledì, settembre 20, 2006

Implosione della Popolazione


Per anni, ci siamo preoccupati dell "esplosione della popolazione". Sembra che quel tempo sia finito, almeno in Russia, dove la popolazione si potrebbe dimezzare entro la metà del secolo corrente, e questo senza che nessuno si sia impegnato nel promuovere cose come il controllo delle nascite o la procreazione responsabile.

Lo scavallamento al di la del picco della popolazione era previsto già dal 1972 nei calcoli del MIT "I limiti alla crescita". Secondo queste proiezioni, quindi, quello che vediamo non è un fenomeno soltanto Russo ma qualcosa che gradualmente dovrebbe estendersi al resto del pianeta.

La saggezza convenzionale vuole che la riduzione della popolazione sia un male; però potrebbe anche darsi che, se la sapranno gestire e stabilizzare, i Russi potrebbero anche trarne vantaggio.

_______________________________________________________________________


Mother Russia now sees more abortions than babies born
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1794617,00.html


IN THE two days since Lisa Petrachkova was born, Russia's population
has dropped by an estimated 2,000 people. By the time she is one, more than 200,000 Russians will have died of unnatural causes; almost seven times the estimated civilian deaths in Iraq since the war began.

By her 50th birthday, Russia's population could have halved, based on current trends. Little does she know it as she lies next to her mother, Masha, in a Moscow maternity ward, but Lisa is on the front line of a national fight for survival. By Russian standards, she is lucky to have made it even this far: last year, there were 1.6 million registered abortions in Russia and 1.5 million births.

"The situation is critical," said Vladimir Kulakov, deputy head of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and an adviser to President Putin on the demographic crisis. "The most important thing for every nation is to have confidence in its future."

Russia's population has been in decline since 1992 due to poor medical care, one of the world's least healthy diets, and a national weakness for vodka.

Continue reading at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1794617,00.html

MOSCA IN DIFFICOLTA'?

Dal Financial Times di ieri, arriva questa notizia dal titolo ambizioso "Mosca si trova di fronte una reazione internazionale". Sembrerebbe che i poverini si trovino in difficoltà!

In realtà, leggendo bene, i Russi si stanno muovendo per prendere il controllo di due progetti di sviluppo di risorse di gas e petrolio, uno alle Sakhalin, l'altro nella Siberia dell'Est

Erano iniziati come "Joint Ventures" con la Shell e altri gruppi europei e giapponesi. Apparentemente, i Russi ritengono a questo punto di avere sufficienti risorse interne per prendersi carico di questi progetti da soli e incrementare il proprio controllo sulle risorse petrolifere.

Poi, gli occidentali si divertano pure a fare la voce grossa, e il FT a scrivere titoli cretini come questo
____________________________________________________

Moscow faces global oil backlash


http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20060919&ID=6035961

Russia was facing a global backlash on Tuesday over its threat to halt work on a $20bn (£10.6bn) energy project led by Royal Dutch Shell.

Japan led the chorus of anger. Shinzo Abe, chief cabinet secretary and front-runner to be next prime minister, warned the move would damage international relations and jeopardise foreign investment. The European Union voiced concern and Britain protested to the Russian authorities.

But even as the international community was protesting against the suspension of an environmental permit for the Royal Dutch Shell-led Sakhalin-2 project, it emerged that another large foreign energy project faced a similar threat.

Russian prosecutors have threatened to suspend an exploration licence for TNK-BP, the Anglo-Russian joint venture, to develop Kovykta, the massive gas field in Eastern Siberia.

A source familiar with the situation said prosecutors in Irkutsk, capital of Eastern Siberia, demanded a local agency for natural resources suspend TNK-BP's licence?on?environmental?grounds and for failing to fulfil its terms.

On Tuesday Russia insisted its move to cancel the environmental permit for Sakhalin-2 was not politically motivated and was prompted entirely by environmental concerns.

If the move is ratified by Russia's industrial safety agency, work on the huge gas and oil development would be halted.

Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of Russia's environmental watchdog, accused the project operators of serious breaches of environmental law, including marine and river pollution on the Pacific island of Sakhalin. He expected the natural resources ministry's decision to revoke the permit to be approved by a further technical body within days.

Ministry officials say the Shell-led consortium would be forced to suspend work on phase two of the project, which includes building the world's largest liquefied natural gas plant and pipelines linking it to offshore oil fields.

The suspension of Shell's permit has been widely seen as a tactic to secure a better stake in the project for the Russian government: a charge the authorities strongly rejected on Tuesday. The moves against Shell and TNK-BP come as the Kremlin looks to expand its influence over the energy sector. It is known to want Gazprom to take a substantial stake in Sakhalin-2. Gazprom is also seen as the front-runner to replace the private Russian partners in the TNK-BP venture.

The move was keenly felt in Japan, where Sakhalin gas and oil are crucial for strengthening energy security and reducing dependence on the Middle East. The trading companies Mitsui and Mitsubishi own 25 per cent and 20 per cent of the project, with the rest owned by Shell.

Copyright 2006 Financial Times

martedì, settembre 19, 2006

Il Picco dell'Australia

Arriva in questi giorni il rapporto ad interim preparato dal senato australiano sulla questione del le future disponibilità di petrolio per il trasoporto.

Con una bella lezione di democrazia partecipativa, i promotori rel rapporto, sei senatori australiani, hanno richiesto opinioni, informazioni, e input a tutti quelli che avessero qualcosa da dire sull'argomento. Ne hanno ricevuta in quantità, incluso una nota da parte di ASPO-Italia, come pure audizioni con Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari, uno dei fondatori di ASPO-Internazionale.

Il risultato è un rapporto molto comprensivo, dove si cerca di essere bilanciati ma dove, molto chiaramente, il bilanciamento è a favore del concetto del picco del petrolio. I sei senatori australiani prendono il problema seriamente e sono molto preoccupati.

Curiosamente, l'australia sembrerebbe un paese senza problemi di risorse data la scarsa densità di popolazione: invece l'urbanizzazione è avvenuta quasi esclusivamente sulle coste dove sono state create città su modello americano, ovvero con vasti sobborghi abitativi, che si basano fortemente sul trasporto individuale automobilistico. Con la crisi del petrolio, gli Australiani si troveranno in grave difficoltà

Di fronte alla situazione, i sei senatori discutono molte possibilità, ma non identificano niente di serio. E' un vero peccato che in tutto il rapporto non ci sia neanche un paragrafo dedicato alle energie rinnovabili, con l'eccezione dei biocombustibili. I senatori soffrono di una fissazione verso i combustibili liquidi e gassosi e non riescono a vedere nessuna alternativa possibile, come invece potrebbe essere il trasporto che accoppia trazione elettrica e energie rinnovabili.

Quando parlano di idrogeno dicono "può essere prodotto dal reforming del gas naturale, carbone o biomassa, o per elettrolisi ma al momento sostanziali emissioni di CO2 accompagnano tutti questi metodi di produzione di questo combustibile". Chiaramente, non hanno capito gran che di cosa produce e non produce CO2. Contentiamoci, vorrei vedere i senatori italiani alle prese con la termodinamica.

In sostanza, il rapporto è un passo avanti nel senso che riconosce con chiarezza l'esistenza del problema. Quanto alle soluzioni, ancora non ci siamo proprio. Ci vuole pazienza


Non sembra che il rapporto del senato australiano sia disponibile su Internet. In compenso, sul sito del senato si trovano le minute dei colloqui con Bakhtiari. Un testo interessantissimo, assolutamente dal leggere!

domenica, settembre 17, 2006

Effetto Trantor: Come ti Cementifico il Pianeta

E' un pianeta interessante, il nostro. Un pianeta di minatori; pieno di gente che scava, trivella, buca, raccoglie, trasforma, e costruisce. Dei vari minerali, quelli per uso per costruzione sono i più ampiamente scavati. A lungo andare, con questa tendenza, arriveremo all "Effetto Trantor" dal nome del pianeta capitale dell'Impero Galattico immaginato da Isaac Asimov nella sua serie di romanzi "Fondazione". Trantor era un pianeta completamente e totalmente ricoperto di edifici, che veniva continuamente rifornito di cibo e tutto il resto da astronavi interstellari che arrivavano dal resto della galassia. Non era molto pratico, e infatti Asimov ce lo fa vedere vuoto e abbandonato dopo il crollo dell'impero. Noi non siamo ancora arrivati a trantorizzare la terra, ma ci stiamo lavorando sopra con molto entusiasmo anche se non siamo il pianeta capitale di un impero galattico.

La trantorizzazione sembra particolarmente avanzata in Italia dove leggiamo in un articolo di Maria Cristina Treu che

  • Secondo i dati Eurostat, in Italia nell’ultimo decennio del 2000 le costruzioni hanno sottratto all’agricoltura circa 2.800.000 ha di suolo. Ogni anno si consumano 100.000 ha di campagna, pressocchè il doppio della superficie del Parco Nazionale dell’Abruzzo. D’altra parte l’Italia è anche il primo paese d’Europa per disponibilità di abitazioni; ci sono circa 26 milioni di abitazioni, di cui il 20% non sono occupate, corrispondenti a un valore medio di 2 vani a persona. Ciononostante, il suolo agricolo è sempre ritenuto potenzialmente edificabile: in alcune regioni è necessario disporre di almeno un ettaro di terreno di proprietà per farsi una casa, in altre bastano 5000 o 3000 mq, a volte anche non accorpati, e spesso senza l’obbligo di registrare, a costruzione avvenuta, l’utilizzo del diritto edificatorio su una parte o sull’intera proprietà.


L'Italia è un paese di costruttori, e per costruire ci vuole principalmente cemento. Vediamo qui i dati presi da AITEC (www.aitecweb.com). Notate la caduta dopo il 1992, l'anno di inizio di tangentopoli. Poi ci siamo ampiamente ripresi e oggi abbiamo largamente superato il record di tangentopoli. Siamo a oltre 48 milioni di tonnellate di cemento l'anno, per 58 milioni di abitanti fanno la bellezza di 830 kg di cemento a persona all'anno. Per una famiglia di 4 persone immaginiamo che qualcuno depositi un blocco di quasi 10 kg di cemento tutte le mattine sulla soglia di casa.

In tutto il mondo si producono oggi circa 2.3 miliardi di tonnellate di cemento all'anno. Sembra che molta gente, poveracci, siano meno evoluti di noi, su una popolazione di 6.5 miliardi di persone fa la miseria di 340 kg all'anno per persona. (da http://www.ecosmartconcrete.com/enviro_statistics.cfm)

La Cina, grande paese di cementificatori, fa 1 miliardo di tonnellate all'anno da sola. Però sono anche tanti e non fanno altrettanto bene di noi; su 1.3 miliardi fanno soltanto 730 kg a persona, all'anno. (da http://www.aggregateresearch.com/caf/press.asp?id=9395)

Ma, in realtà, il cemento è solo uno dei materiali che si usano per le costruzioni. Il resto è pietra, mattoni, asfalto, piastrelle e tutto il resto. Approssimativamente, il totale dei materiali da costruzione estratti è tre volte il solo cemento. Se l'Italia è in media con il resto del mondo, abbiamo oltre due tonnellate di materiali da costruzione a testa tutti gli anni. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0068-98/fs-0068-98.pdf

L'Italia sembra dunque il paese che si è maggiormente impegnato nella trantorizzazione del pianeta. Quanto ci vorrà per arrivare a pavimentare tutto il territorio italiano? Questo è difficile a calcolarsi a partire dalla quantità di cemento e materiali da costruzioni prodotte. Si fabbricano ogni sorta di strutture, da edifici multipiano (parecchie tonnellate al mq) a pavimentazioni per strade e parcheggi, qualche kg per metro quadro.

Se comunque prendiamo il dato di Treu dell'articolo riportato prima, abbiamo circa 1000 km2 all'anno cementati. Su una superficie totale è di 300.000 km2 del territorio italiano, questo vuol dire cementarne l' 1% in tre anni. A questi ritmi, una persona che vive i normali 75 anni, potrà vedere nel corso della sua vita la cementazione di un quarto del totale del territorio. Tuttavia, se consideriamo la frazione già cementata, nonché l'espansione economica prevista da tutti coloro che si occupano di pianificazione, a questi ritmi in meno di un secolo l'Italia potrebbe essere trasformata in un unico tappeto di cemento, attraverso il quale spuntano le cime degli Appennini e delle Alpi.

La trantorizzazione dell'Italia è a portata di mano; non ci resta che costruire le astronavi e conquistare l'impero galattico.












Beppe Grillo ha scritto una nota simile a questa intitolata "I Serpenti di Cemento"

sabato, settembre 16, 2006

Il Convegno di Portovenere "Advances in Energy Studies"

Mi è capitato già qualche volta di trovarmi a delle conferenze dove parecchie centinaia di persone si riuniscono per discutere di risparmio energetico, arrivando tutti in aereo, o quasi. Un po' della stessa contraddizione l'ho vista al convegno "Advances in Energy Studies", dove un gruppo di scienziati di tendenze nella media abbastanza catastrofiste si è riunito in un albergo a quattro stelle di Portovenere per quattro giorni.

D'altra parte, cosa ci dobbiamo fare? Il mondo è pieno di contraddizioni e il convegno di Portovenere è stato uno dei più interessanti - e di più alto livello - a cui mi è mai capitato di assistere in campo energetico. Forse è valsa la pena sprecare qualche barile di petrolio in più per portarci speakers dal Brasile, USA e Australia, per citare i posti più lontani da dove sono arrivati.

Questo convegno è organizzato ogni due anni dal professor Sergio Ulgiati dell'Università di Siena. Il "taglio" dei lavori è fortemente influenzato dall'eredità intellettuale di Howard Odum (1924-2002), ricercatore americano che ha introdotto per primo concetti che soltanto ora cominciano a essere apprezzati in campo energetico, fra questi quello di "emergia", ovvero "embedded energy", vale a dire la quantità di energia (tipicamente misurata in unità di energia solare) necessaria per produrre un manufatto. E' un concetto sotto molti aspetti simile a quello di EROEI (ritorno energetico) che serve a valutare la sostenibilità di un processo o oggetto, indipendentemente dal suo valore monetario.

Il taglio "Odumiano" del convegno è stato presente in una larga percentuale delle presentazioni, il linguaggio degli Odumisti è inconfondibile e tende ad allontanare un po' il non iniziato. D'altra parte, vale la pena di approfondire il metodo di analisi di Odum che sembra fornire una visione globale del problema energetico che va ben oltre le farneticazioni che spesso si leggono in giro.

Su un titolo come "Advances in Energy Studies", evidentemente si rischia di disperdersi su una miriade di soggetti scollegati, cosa che in parte è avvenuta a questo convegno; ma l'aspetto "strategico" non è mai stato perso di vista. Particolarmente interessante è stato l'incontro con Joseph Tainter, autore di "The Collapse of Complex Societies" del 1990, veramente la bibbia del catastrofista. Tainter viene dall'Arizona ed è persona assolutamente affascinante per la profondità del pensiero e la visione che ha del concetto di sostenibilità

Fra le altre cose interessanti che riporto dal convegno, consiglio a chi è interessato a certi profondi misteri della sostenibilità di fare un giretto sul sito www.exergoenergy.com. Non è di facile digestione, ma vale la pena di dargli un occhiata

Ulteriori informazioni sul convegno si trovano a www.chim.unisi.it/portovenere

La presentazione di Ugo Bardi si trova a:

http://www.aspoitalia.net/images/stories/ugo/portovenere2006/portoveneresep06verbose.pdf

mercoledì, settembre 13, 2006

Ecologia delle Città

Commento ricevuto da Fabrizio Argonauta

L'aumento delle megalopoli, nel numero e nelle dimensioni, non potrà che accelerare l'esaurimento delle risorse, esaurimento che si abbatterà innanzitutto proprio su coloro che vivono in città enormi o anche solo grandi. Sarà impossibile senza petrolio nutrire milioni o decine di milioni di persone stipate in ogni singola città, che ovviamente non può produrre derrate alimentari per autosostentarsi. Stiamo assistendo al prologo del suicidio di massa tipico di molte specie animali in condizione di sovrappopolamento. Cosa mai ci sarà di 'sapiens sapiens' in questo 'homo'?

Plan B 2.0 Book Byte 2006-10
For Immediate Release
September 12, 2006


THE ECOLOGY OF CITIES

Lester R. Brown

Urbanization is one of the dominant demographic trends of our time. In 1900, 150 million people lived in cities. By 2000, it was 2.9 billion people, a 19-fold increase. By 2007 more than half of us will live in cities—making us, for the first time, an urban species.

In 1900 there were only a handful of cities with a million people. Today 408 cities have at least that many inhabitants. And there are 20 megacities with 10 million or more residents. Tokyo’s population of 35 million exceeds that of Canada. Mexico City’s population of 19 million is nearly equal to that of Australia. New York, São Paulo, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Delhi, Calcutta, Buenos Aires, and Shanghai follow close behind.

Cities require a concentration of food, water, energy, and materials that nature cannot provide. Concentrating these masses of materials and then dispersing them in the form of garbage, sewage, and as pollutants in air and water is challenging city managers everywhere.

Most of today’s cities are not healthy places to live. Urban air everywhere is polluted. Typically centered on the automobile and no longer bicycle- or pedestrian-friendly, cities deprive people of needed exercise, creating an imbalance between caloric intake and caloric expenditures. As a result, obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in cities in developing as well as industrial countries. With more than 1 billion people overweight worldwide, epidemiologists now see this as a public health threat of historic proportions—a growing source of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a higher incidence of several forms of cancer.

Read the whole article at

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch11_ss2.htm

martedì, settembre 12, 2006

Conferenza ASPO-USA

La sezione statunitense di ASPO annuncia la conferenza ASPO-USA che si terrà dal 25 al 27 Ottobre a Boston, presso la Boston University.

Si preannuncia una cosa molto interessante, con speakers prestigiosi e discussioni di ogni genere. Chi ha bisogno di ulteriori informazioni può contattare gli organizzatori ai siti listati



Conference on Peak & Decline of World Oil Production


Boston – The Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (ASPO-USA) and Boston University (BU) will co-sponsor the 2006 World Oil Conference, Time for Action: A Midnight Ride for Peak Oil, on the BU campus October 25-27, 2006. The Conference will bring energy experts from around the world to discuss the likely timing, impacts, and intelligent responses to the growing Peak Oil challenge. Virtually every sector of our society and economy will be affected by Peak Oil, from transportation, manufacturing, air freight, and agriculture, to homebuilding, city planning, and finance.

For Conference details, please see: http://www.aspousa.org/fall2006/index.cfm .


ASPO-USA (www.aspo-usa.com) is a broad-based, non-profit, non-partisan coalition of energy experts, scientists, educators, and members of environmental, business and non-profit organizations. The Boston Conference is part of ASPO-USA’s mission to support research and public education initiatives aimed at mitigating the impact of Peak Oil on our society and economy.

Please call one of our Contacts above for assistance before, during, or after the Conference.

ASPO-USA - P.O. Box 371438, Denver, Colorado 80237 - Phone: 303-759-1998

ASPO-USA is A Non-profit, Non-partisan Research and Public Education Initiative to Address America’s Peak Oil & Energy Challenges

lunedì, settembre 11, 2006

La Seconda Fase: il Diniego


Come si sa, di fronte a ogni nuova idea, ci sono quattro fasi di risposta.

1. Ignorarla
2. Negarla
3. E' vera, ma non è importante
4. E' quello che avevo sempre detto io.

Con il picco del petrolio, siamo nettamente nella seconda fase, quella del diniego. E' un momento in cui arrivano da tutte le parti spiegazioni del perché la teoria non può funzionare, che il petrolio è abbondante, eccetera.

Fino a non molto tempo fa, eravamo ancora nella prima fase; ci stiamo muovendo rapidamente. A questi ritmi saremo alla quarta fase entro un paio d'anni.

da "news.com.au, vari dirigenti di ExxonMobil Australia si divertono così.

___________________________________________________________________________


THE world has an abundant supply of oil, and high petrol prices are just the
reality of a globally traded commodity, ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark
Nolan said today.

Mr Nolan used his speech to the Asia Pacific oil and gas conference in
Adelaide today to debunk the theory of peak oil, which suggests oil supplies
have peaked and will dwindle over the next 20 years.

Such predictions, he said, had been around since the 1920s, particularly at
times of high oil prices.

“The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little
question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist,” Mr Nolan
said.

“According to the US Geological Survey, the earth currently has more than
three trillion barrels of conventional, recoverable oil resources.

“So far we have produced one trillion.”

Mr Nolan said the oil industry had always underestimated the extent of
global resources and the ability of technology to both extend the life of
existing oil and gas fields and find new ones.

“We should not forget that we can recover almost twice as much oil today as
when we first discovered it over 100 years ago,” he said.

Read the rest at:

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,20390685-5005361,00.html



sabato, settembre 09, 2006

Quelli che gli Dei vogliono perdere, prima li fanno impazzire

Arriva un'altra delle folli segnalazioni che girano su Internet. Secondo questa, ci sarebbero 2000 miliardi di barili sotto le montagne rocciose, in Colorado. Ovvero, ci sarebbe più petrolio li sotto di quanto ne sia mai esistito in tutto il mondo.

Pazzia pura, teoria Babbo Natale, cornucopianismo rampante, chiamatelo come volete. E' un indizio della disperazione in cui ci stiamo trovando. Se vi divertono cose del genere, potete leggerlo tutto a

http://www.effective-biz.com/33/




The U.S. Govt’s
Secret Colorado
Oil Discovery

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world — more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. Three companies have been chosen to lead the way. Test drilling has already begun…


Dear Reader,

Five months ago, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey…

It was conducted to determine the official amount of oil a thousand feet deep in the Rocky Mountains…

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.


Popolo Allevato a Quiz

Commento ricevuto da Massimo de Carlo su una segnalazione di Leonardo Libero

Popolo allevato a quiz e reality (?!) per consumare,
un respiro uno spot pubblicitario. TV pubblica e
privata con intelligenza zero, voglia di educare zero.
Bambinoni allo sbaraglio nella vita che un giorno si
troveranno a grattare le briciole che qualcuno ha
lasciato.

Caro Leonardo, non tutti sono così sprovveduti perchè
cresciuti a pane e consuma. Ricevo continuamente
telefonate da sconosciuti da tutta Italia che mi
dimostrano che qualcuno continua a pensare con la
propria testa, dall'operaio all'amministratore
pubblico. Magra consolazione perchè il Carosello
continua.

AUTO: GLI ITALIANI SOGNANO IL SUV MA BOCCIANO TICKET ANTISMOG = UNO SU DIECI VUOLE L'IDROGENO - 60% CHIEDE ECOINCENTIVI


Roma, 2 set. - (Adnkronos) - Gli italiani sognano di comprare un Suv o un fuoristrada ma non vogliono i ticket antismog; chiedono gli eco-incentivi ma bocciano l'auto elettrica e continuano a girare in auto anche quando la benzina e' alle stelle. Lo rivela un'indagine del periodico Nuova Energia che fotografa vizi e virtu' ecologiche degli italiani al volante.


Potendo acquistare un'auto senza vincoli di budget, il 29% predilige i giganteschi sport utility vehicles (suv) o i gipponi fuoristrada, senza temere il rischio di future ecotasse su questi veicoli considerati inquinanti e superingombranti. Al secondo posto c'e' la berlina, con il 26% dei consensi mentre si piazza solo al terzo posto l'auto da citta' - monovolume compatta o citycar - con il 23%, 'tallonata' dalle sportive (22%). E, solo il 9% considera i ticket sull'ingresso nei centri storici che diversi sindaci stanno studiando, come una soluzione per ridurre lo smog.


Ma la vera sorpresa arriva sul fronte delle auto ecologiche con l' idrogeno che distanzia alla grande le quattro ruote elettriche. Se l'11,4% degli intervistati sceglie la trazione ibrida, il 10% colloca le vetture alimentate con l'idrogeno al top delle preferenze, mentre solo il 2% acquisterebbe un'auto elettrica.Una scelta ''paradossale'' secondo gli esperti in quanto soluzioni gia' sul mercato come i veicoli elettrici, a GPL, a metano piacciono meno di una ''non-soluzione'' come e', almeno per l'immediato futuro, l'alimentazione a idrogeno.


Al metano va il 10% delle preferenze mentre il gpl, rileva l'indagine di Nuova Energia, rimane nell'ombra con meno del 5% dei consensi, il biocombustibile ha una fiammata di interesse (6%). Sul fronte dei carburanti, il diesel si conferma l'opzione piu' gettonata con il 28,5% delle preferenze mentre al secondo posto si piazza l'alimentazione a benzina con il 23,3% delle scelte. L'indagine rivela anche altri aspetti interessanti. Ad esempio che l'andamento dei prezzi del petrolio non incide sui comportamenti al volante; che blocco del traffico e car sharing faticano ad essere accettati come soluzioni anti-smog.


Ma quali sono i criteri che piu' contano nell'acquisto dell'auto? Il 45% degli italiani da' priorita' a design e linea ma anche alla sicurezza. Anche il prezzo e' una variabile importante per il 44% degli interpellati. Seguono le esigenze lavorative o familiari (38%) e i consumi (37%) ''a conferma che manca ancora una cultura diffusa della mobilita' sostenibile intesa come efficienza energetica'' sottolineano gli esperti. In sesta posizione fra le motivazioni di acquisto, il marchio che detta le scelte del 25% degli italiani e le prestazioni (solo il 22%).


Quanto al caro-benzina, il 49% degli interpellati dichiara il rialzo dei prezzi del petrolio non ha minimamente modificato le abitudini e le scelte di mobilita'. Il 42 ha risposto di aver modificato in maniera solo marginale le abitudini al volante. La scelta di usare meno l'auto privata privilegiando il mezzo pubblico ha convinto solo il 6% degli interpellati. Rari i casi di chi ha orientato l'acquisto di un nuovo mezzo sulle alimentazioni alternative quali il metano e la trazione elettrica (3,6% su base nazionale).


Sul fronte ambientale, la sensibilita' degli automobilisti italiani e' decisamente non brillante. Per la maggioranza degli italiani (63%) l'antidoto migliore allo smog non e' lasciare l'auto a casa ma avere un dell'eco-incentivo all'acquisto di mezzi alternativi, seguita dal potenziamento dei mezzi pubblici (47%) mentre l'ampliamento dei parcheggi e' una mossa vincente solo per il 9%.


Grande freddezza anche sui ticket a pagamento nei centri urbani (suggerito appena da 9 italiani su 100), sullo 'sconto' sul biglietto per i mezzi pubblici (8%), il car sharing (7%), il blocco della circolazione (5%). Bocciate le targhe alterne (4%) mentre il 16% degli intervistati sostiene addirittura che lo smog in citta' non c'entra con la mobilita'. Oltre il 60% (con punte del 68 a Milano) pero' sa che cosa e' il car sharing anche se pochissimi lo hanno gia' utilizzato e solo il 7% sembra ritenerlo efficace.


Ma quanto pagherebbero di piu' gli italiani pur di avere un'auto ecologica? Il 39% del campione interpellato ha risposto nulla. Il 34% si e' ''sbilanciato'' ammettendo di poter pagare il 10% in piu' ma solo il 3% e' disponibile a pagare anche il 50%. L'inchiesta ha preso in considerazione sette diverse tematiche: le caratteristiche dell'auto dei sogni; l'atteggiamento nei confronti dei combustibili; in particolare degli alternativi; gli elementi che determinano la scelta di un'autovettura; la modifica dei propri comportamenti al variare del prezzo dei carburanti; le soluzioni ritenute piu' idonee per combattere i problemi del traffico; il livello di conoscenza (e di impiego) del car sharing; la disponibilita' a pagare di piu' per utilizzare combustibili a minore impatto ambientale. Info: www.nuova-energia.com


(Sec-Ccr/Col/Adnkronos) 02-SET-06 11:30

venerdì, settembre 08, 2006

Troppi Americani

Commento ricevuto da Fabrizio Argonauta

La popolazione degli Stati Uniti sta per raggiungere il numero di 300.000.000 individui e qualcuno comincia a pensare che in relazione al consumo medio siano troppi. In effetti la definizione ‘sovrappopolazione’ è aleatoria se non la si mette in relazione a qualche cosa. Dunque possiamo definire sovrappopolato quel territorio nel quale una determinata specie animale (nel nostro caso l’homo sapiens sapiens) non trova più la sufficiente quantità di risorse per sostentarsi. In base a questa definizione di sovrappopolazione, l’unica oggettiva, l’articolo apparso su Boston Globe lancia l’allarme per la situazione degli Stati Uniti. Purtroppo l’Italia è messa peggio sia da un punto di vista di abitanti per km2, sia da un punto di vista delle risorse naturali. La triste situazione è che l’invasione migratoria da paesi con un tasso di natalità spaventoso e incontrollato verso gli Stati Uniti e l’Europa farà perdere ogni speranza in un futuro auspicabile per i nostri pochi ed incolpevoli figli.

Alarm sounds on US population boom; Report says growth threatens resources

Date: Thursday, August 31, 2006
Source: Boston Globe (US)
Author: John Donnelly

WASHINGTON -- The United States, now at nearly 300 million people, is the only industrialized country that has experienced strong population growth in the last decade, creating concerns that the boom and Americans' huge appetites for food, water, and land will sharply erode the nation's natural resources in coming years, according to a report released yesterday.

The Northeast remains by far the most densely populated region of the nation, but it also had the slowest population growth in the country during the 1990s, including a 2 percent population reduction in urban areas, said the Center for Environment and Population, a Connecticut-based nonprofit research organization that produced the report.

In contrast, the South and the West were booming, creating new pressure on fragile environments and water sources.
For the first time, the report compared national and regional population trends with environmental indicators, highlighting stresses that growing populations are placing on nature, according to the report and outside analysts.

While some researchers focus on alarming fertility rates in poor countries, which grew by 16.3 percent from 1995 to 2005, the US population grew by 10.6 percent in that period, or 29 million people, the report noted. Europe during that time grew by 504,000 people, or less than 1 percent.

The US population boom was attributed to high birth rates, immigration, and increased longevity.

Americans consume like no other nation -- using three times the amount of water per capita than the world average and nearly 25 percent of the world's energy, despite having 5 percent of the global population; and producing five times more daily waste than the average in poor countries.

``Most Americans say that most of the population [increases] are happening in other parts of the world, but if you look at this report, the trends that stand out are what's happening here" in the United States, said Victoria Markham, the center's executive director and author of the report.

One of the most alarming findings was that baby boomers -- those born between 1946 and 1964, about 26 percent of the US population -- were not downsizing as their children became adults and moved out. Instead, many have moved into bigger houses or bought vacation properties, and the tally of homes with space greater than 3,000 square feet went up 11 percent from 1988 to 2003.

In suburbs nationwide, Markham said, ``You are losing pieces of land rapidly, and the species you're seeing in your backyards are there because they don't have normal predators anymore, or they have lost their land."

Despite a relatively small migration from urban areas, the Northeast continued to feel the pressures of development. The report said that elevated ozone levels make Maine's Acadia National Park the fifth-most polluted park in the country, and air pollution has damaged 30 percent of Vermont's upland forests.
But the booming South and West regions show some of the most dramatic environmental stresses, according to the report. For example, the four fastest-growing states -- Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah -- all have areas of acute water shortages.
Martha Farnsworth Riche , a former US Census Bureau director and a current fellow at Cornell University's Center for the Study of Society and Economy , believes that US population increases are partly to blame for environmental headaches attributed to global warming.

``The movement of people to the South and the West . . . increases the vulnerability to weather events like earthquakes, hurricanes, and storms," she said in a telephone interview. ``A lot of people say it's global warming that is at fault, but sometimes it's because we put people where we didn't have them before."
The report can be found at www.cepnet.org.
John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.
<<>>

Petrolio? Nessun Problema

Sull'onda dell'abbassamento dei prezzi del petrolio (ieri meno di 67 dollari al barile) e delle notizie dal Golfo del Messico, Business Week ci informa che era un falso allarme, di petrolio ne abbiamo in abbondanza.

Da notare come, all'inizio, dice che la teoria del picco del petrolio "E' vicina a diventare saggezza convenzionale". Però da ultimo la definisce "spazzatura"

Da notare anche la frase a trucco "anche se potesse rivaleggiare la scoperta di Prudhoe Bay del 1968" messa in modo da lasciare intendere che, si, la scoperta del golfo del Messico è comparabile a quella di Prudhoe Bay. Ma Prudhoe Bay conteneva 25 miliardi di barili in una zona relativamente facile da sfruttare. Questo nuovo pozzo ne contiene (forse) sei miliardi in condizioni di difficoltà e costi spaventosi.

Secondo i calcoli, comunque, ricordatevi che ogni miliardo di barili in più trovato sposta il picco in avanti di meno di una settimana. Fate un po voi il conto se sei miliardi bastano a spostare il picco in avanti di "decenni" come dice qui.

Segue il testo originale


<http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/sep2006/
pi20060907_515138.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_investing>

SEPTEMBER 6, 2006

COMMENTARY
By Mark Morrison

Plenty of Oil—Just Drill Deeper

The discovery of reserves in the Gulf of Mexico means supply isn't topping out

You can tune out all the scare talk about Peak Oil for a while— probably a long while. Peak Oil is the theory, on the verge of becoming conventional wisdom, that the world's petroleum supply is topping out and will not be able to meet global demand soaring along with the economies of China and India. But a successful test in a mammoth field deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, announced on Sept. 5 by Chevron (CVX), Devon Energy (DVN), and Norway's Statoil (STO), should help put that scary scenario on hold for decades.

One huge oil reserve, even if it could rival the 1968 discovery of Prudhoe Bay and increase U.S. reserves by up to 50%, will not turn around the world's tight energy markets, of course. It won't even bring the U.S. close to energy independence when oil and gas get into full-fledged production four or five years from now.

But the capability to find and recover petroleum at extreme depths, temperatures, and pressures, as demonstrated by the Chevron team, may indeed tip the balance of supply and demand in the long term. There will be a new frenzy of drilling at these depths in the Gulf of Mexico, where about a dozen promising exploration wells have already been drilled.

WORLDWIDE DEPOSITS. Other parts of the world that once appeared beyond the pale may also come into play. Areas believed to have oil deposits extremely deep beneath the ocean floor, which could now become commercially recoverable, include the North Sea off the coast of Britain, the Nile River Delta off the coast of Egypt, and possibly coastal Brazil, says Andrew Latham, a vice-president at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie in Edinburgh, Scotland. Other analysts say West Africa could harbor lots of ultra-deep deposits. The areas have produced oil before but never from these depths.

The record-setting Chevron well, called Jack 2, which is 175 miles off the Louisiana coast, is more than five miles deep, including more than a mile of ocean depth. Modern 3-D seismic gear enabled the team to know where to drill to have a chance to make their $100 million-plus bet that oil would flow from such a deep formation. The drilling was the work of an advanced deep-sea rig—Transocean Inc.'s Cajun Express—one of 13 the company has launched since 1998 capable of drilling to depths of 35,000 feet, about double what the previous generation could do. Earlier drilling had established promising reserves in an area of the Gulf 300 miles long and 80 miles wide, but the Chevron project found a flow rate of more than 6,000 bbl. a day
of light, sweet crude. The discovery confirmed the area's commercial viability, strengthening hopes that as much as 15 billion barrels of oil could be recovered in the vicinity.

Pioneering isn't cheap. Steel and skilled labor rates are going through the roof, as are rental rates for state-of-the-art offshore rigs. BP (BP), for example, will be paying $520,000 per day starting late next year for the same rig it is now getting for $190,000 per day. That's because these fancy rigs, which house 200 people and rise 415 feet into the air, are in short supply with drilling picking up. Still, energy experts believe that producing oil from ultra-deep wells can be profitable as long as oil, selling for $67 per barrel today, stays at or above $40 to $45.

SOME ARE SKEPTICAL. Matthew R. Simmons, chairman of an energy investment bank bearing his name and one of the leading proponents of Peak Oil, is sticking to his guns. "One well tells you almost nothing," he says. Simmons says the deep wells are "unbelievably expensive" and often fall short of expectations. "The history of the
industry is full of disappointment."

But given the powerful combination of high oil prices and new technology, the industry is gaining confidence that supplies will grow. It's pushing hard to produce oil and gas from difficult tar sand and shale fields as well as rejuvenating older fields with enhanced recovery methods. Cambridge Energy Research Associates predicts world oil and natural gas liquids capacity could increase as much as 25% by 2015. Says Robert W. Esser, a director of CERA: "Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we're concerned."

Morrison is national correspondent for BusinessWeek.
With Stanley Reed in London and Chris Palmeri in Los Angeles

mercoledì, settembre 06, 2006

Petrolio scende, se ne trova di nuovo

Il momento è catartico: il petrolio scende, oggi (6 settembre) è andato sotto i 67 dollari al barile, e questo nonostante le escandescenze del presidente Ahmedi-Nejad che invita Bush a convertirsi.

Inoltre, sul NY times annunciano una scoperta che sembra seria. 6 miliardi di barili nel golfo del Messico; va presa con cautela e tenendo conto che sono solo meno di tre mesi di consumo mondiale, ma tutto fa; era un pezzo che non si facevano scoperte del genere (immaginati cosa hanno pensato quando hanno trovato Al Ghawar, con 260 miliardi di barili.....).

Inshallah!

_____________________________________________________________________________


From the NY TImes, September 5, 2006

New Oil Field in Gulf May Yield Billions of Barrels

By JOHN HOLUSHA

What could be a major discovery of domestic oil in the Gulf of
Mexico was announced today by a trio of companies led by Chevron
Corporation.

The discovery, in the deepest water yet explored in the Gulf, could
be the biggest domestic oil field since the northern Alaska field
opened a generation ago.

The news pushed the price of crude oil to a five-month low of $68.38
a barrel in midday trading, although tensions in the Middle East and
the threat from hurricanes remained as concerns for traders.

The new field's location near the coast of the United States makes
it particularly attractive, said J. Larry Nichols, the chairman of
Devon Energy Corporation of Oklahoma City, which holds a 25 percent
interest in the find. The discovery "could not have happened in a
better place," he said in a news conference.

The prospective yield of the area, called the lower Tertiary, could
approach six billion barrels of oil, Devon said. The other owner,
with a 25 percent interest, is Statoil of Norway. Chevron owns 50
percent.

Statoil said the test results were "very encouraging and may
indicate a significant discovery." It said the company and its
partners plan to drill another well in the area next year to try to
determine the extent of the field.

Chevron said the well, known as Jack #2, and located 270 miles
southwest of New Orleans, produced a "sustained flow rate of more
than 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day" in a production test. The
company said it found the oil producing formation about 20,000 feet
below the bottom of the Gulf, with the well drilled to a total depth
of 28,175 feet.

"More than half a dozen world records for test equipment pressure,
depth and duration in deep water were set during the Jack well
test," Chevron said.

martedì, settembre 05, 2006

Il Pianeta Affamato

Dall "Independent" del 3 Settembre un'altra storia che rovescia tutti i paradigmi accettati finora. I raccolti non aumentano più in modo significativo dagli ultimi 15 anni e negli ultimi sei-sette anni abbiamo vissuto sulle riserve di derrate. I prezzi degli alimentari sono in aumento e si teme che la situazione vada a peggiorare. Non aiutano, anzi fanno enormi danni, sia la diffusione di allevamenti di bovini per il mercato del fast food, sia la diffusione degli "energy crops" per la produzione di combustibili.

In sostanza, la "rivoluzione verde" cominciata negli anni '70 non ce la fa più a tener dietro all'incremento di popolazione. Siamo di fronte a una catastrofe alimentare che potrebbe farci ricordare le carestie degli anni '70 come delle prove di dieta a punti. E notate che l' "independent" è un giornale mainstream, non un giornale di catastrofisti.




The hungry planet

As stocks run out and harvests fail, the world faces its worst crisis for 30 years
By Geoffrey Lean
Published: 03 September 2006

Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years. Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger level.

Food prices have already started to rise as a result, and threaten to soar out of reach of many of the 4.2 billion people who live in the world's most vulnerable countries. And the new "green" drive to get cars to run on biofuels threatens to make food even scarcer and more expensive.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which produce the world's two main forecasts of the global crop production, both estimate that this year's grain harvest will fall for the second successive year.

The FAO is still compiling its latest crop forecast - due to be published next month - but told The Independent on Sunday late last week that it looked like barely exceeding 2 billion tons, down from 2.38 billion last year, and 2.68 billion in 2004, although the world's appetite has continued to grow as its population rises.

The USDA estimates it will be even lower - 1.984 billion tons. This would mean that it would fall 58 million tons short of what the world's people are expected to consume this year: 10 years ago, by contrast, farmers grew 64 million tons more than was consumed. The world's food stocks have shrunk from enough to feed the world for 116 days in 1999 to a predicted 57 days at the end of this season, well below the official safety level. Prices have already risen by up to 20 per cent this year.

The gathering crisis has been largely unnoticed because, for once, the harvests have failed in rich countries such as the United States and Australia, which normally export food, rather than in the world's hungriest ones. So it has not immediately resulted in mass starvation in Africa or Asia.

Instead, it will have a delayed effect as poor people become increasingly unable to afford expensive food and find that there is not enough in store to help them when their own crops fail.

The lack of world attention contrasts with the last great food crisis, in the mid-1970s. Then Henry Kissinger - at the height of his powers as Richard Nixon's Secretary of State - called a World Food Conference, in which governments solemnly resolved that never again would they allow humanity to run short of sustenance. The conference, in Rome, resolved to eradicate hunger by the mid-1980s. Kissinger himself pledged that "within a decade, no child should go hungry to bed".

Yet, a generation later, more than 800 million people worldwide are still constantly hungry. Every day, some 16,000 young children die, at least partly because they do not get enough food. And the new food crisis threatens to be even worse than the last one. In the seven years running up to the Rome conference grain production fell below consumption only three times, compared to six now.

It was at the conference that I first met Lester Brown, who has, ever since, been the principal prophet of the coming scarcity, repeatedly warning of the new crisis which is now upon us.

Brown - who now heads the Earth Policy Institute, a respected Washington-based think tank - gleaned his first insights into the world's predicament as a tomato tycoon when he was a teenager. Back in the early 1950s, when he was just 14, he and his brother bought an old tractor for $200 (£105), rented a couple of fields near their home in southern New Jersey and started growing the vegetables after school.

Soon the brothers were among the top 1 per cent of tomato growers in the United States. They easily qualified for the Ten-Ton Tomato Club - "the Phi Beta Kappa of tomato growers" - which is open to those who harvested that amount per acre.

Then Campbell's Soups, trying to lower costs, threw money into research to increase yields. Within a few years, the club had to change its name to the Twenty-Ton Tomato Club. But the pace of improvement could not be sustained. Despite decades of more research growth of yields slowed dramatically; by the mid- 1990s the best growers were getting about 30 tons of tomatoes per acre.

That, says Brown, is what has been happening to the world's harvests as a whole. Between 1950 and 1990 grain yields more than doubled, but they have grown much more slowly since. Production rose from around 630 million tons to 1.78 billion tons, but has only edged up in the past 15 years, to around 2 billion tons.

"The near-tripling of the harvest by the world's farmers was a remarkable performance," says Brown. "In a single generation they increased grain production by twice as much as had been achieved during the preceding 11,000 years, since agriculture began. But now the world has suffered a dramatic loss of momentum."

Apart from increasing yields, there has always been one other way of boosting production - putting more land under the plough. But this, too, has been running into the buffers. As population grows and farmland is used for building roads and cities - and becomes exhausted by overuse - the amount available for each person on Earth has fallen by more than half.

There are more than five people on Earth today for every two living in the middle of the last century. Yet enough is produced worldwide to feed everyone well, if it is evenly distributed.

It is not just that people in rich countries eat too much, and those in poor ones eat too little. Enormous quantities of the world's increasingly scarce grain now goes to feed cows - and, indirectly, cars.

The cows are longstanding targets of Brown's, who founded the prestigious Worldwatch Institute immediately after the 1974 conference, partly to draw attention to the precariousness of food supplies. As people become better-off, they eat more meat, the animals that are slaughtered often being fed on grain. It takes 14kg of grain to produce 2kg of beef, and 8kg of grain for 2kg of pork. More than a third of the world's harvest goes to fatten animals in this way.

Cars are a new concern, the worry arising from the present drive to produce green fuels to fight global warming. A "corn rush" has erupted in the United States, using the crop to produce the biofuel, ethanol - strongly supported by subsidies from the Bush administration to divert criticism of its failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Just a single fill of ethanol for a four-wheel drive SUV, says Brown, uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year. This year the amount of US corn going to make the fuel will equal what it sells abroad; traditionally its exports have helped feed 100 - mostly poor - countries.

From next year, the amount used to run American cars will exceed exports, and soon it is likely to reduce what is available to help feed poor people overseas. The number of ethanol plants built or planned in the corn-belt state of Iowa will use virtually all the state's crop.

This will not only cut food supplies, but drive up the process of grain, making hungry people compete with the owners of gas-guzzlers. Already spending 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, they simply cannot afford to do so.

Brown expects the food crisis to get much worse as more and more land becomes exhausted, soil erodes, water becomes scarcer, and global warming cuts harvests.

Full article at

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1325467.ece

Iran e Giappone: Accordo sul Petrolio

Dal Sito della BBC del 3 Settembre, resoconto di un prospetto di accordo fra Giappone e Iran per lo sfruttamento di un nuovo giacimento.

Sembra che questo giacimento, "Azadegan" contenga 26 miliardi di barili di petrolio. La quantità è indubbiamente notevole anche se, messa in prospettiva corrisponde a solo un anno di consumo di petrolio mondiale

Si tratta poi di vedere come mai un pozzo così importante, un "pozzo gigante" ormai raro nel generale esaurimento, non sia stato messo in produzione ormai da molti anni.

In effetti, ci ricordiamo che la produzione di petrolio iraniana è tipicamente "heavy", ovvero petrolio pesante che richiede particolari trattamenti e dal quale non è facile tirar fuori carburanti. Questo, fra le altre cose, costringe gli iraniani a importare carburanti

Ci ricordiamo anche che la produzione Iraniana è calata bruscamente al tempo della cacciata dello Shah, nel 1979, e non mai più raggiunto i livelli di una volta. Sembrerebbe dunque che andare a sfruttare Azadegan sia un raschiare il fondo del barile. Secondo alcuni commenti, si tratterebbe di un giacimento di petrolio altamente solforato il cui sfruttamento sarà estremamente costoso e difficile; per questo gli Iraniani hanno avuto bisogno di capitali giapponesi

Da vedere come la cosa evolverà, ma è certo che Azedagan non potrà invertire la tendenza al declino della produzione petrolifera iraniana

______________________________________________________________

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5309904.stm



Iran and Japan close to oil deal

Iran's nuclear row with the West has caused global oil prices to rise
Iran and Japanese firm Inpex say they are close to finalising a joint project to develop a big new Iranian oil field.

Both sides say they are less than two weeks away from final agreement over the Azadegan field, which is one of the world's largest untapped oil reserves.

Any deal will no doubt raise eyebrows in the US which wants sanctions against Iran due to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

While Japan is totally reliant upon oil imports, Iran is the world's fourth largest crude producer.

Extensive oil reserves

The Iranian government and Inpex first signed an outline agreement over the Azadegan field in 2004, but they subsequently failed to reach a final agreement due to a dispute over the exact financial structure of the deal.

This impasse now appears to have finally been broken.

"An understanding has been reached and we can almost say that no dispute has remained on pricing," said Iran's representative to global oil producers group Opec, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili.

Analysts expect it will take $2bn (£1bn) to bring the field on stream.

Located in the south west of Iran, Azadegan is estimated to have reserves of 26 billion barrels of crude, and production could start in 2008.

The Japanese government is a major shareholder in Inpex.

Iran's ongoing dispute with the West over its nuclear ambitions have been a main factor in high global oil prices this year.

While Iran insists its simply wishes to develop nuclear power stations, the US and other nations fear Tehran wishes to build nuclear weapons.

Hopkins: la Risposta ai Survivalisti

Rob Hopkins, fondatore di "Transition Culture" in Irlanda, risponde al recente articolo di Zachary Novak apparso su "energybulletin" dove si suggerisce di prepararsi al picco del petrolio rifugiandosi in un luogo isolato con abbondanti scorte di cibo e tutto il resto.

Hopkins critica il ragionamento di Novak sia da un punto di vista etico, paragonando chi si rifugia nei boschi a quelli che sono scappati per primi dal Titanic con le scialuppe semivuote, sia da un punto di vista pratico: se la società collassa non c'è veramente un posto dove nascondersi.

Che ci sia un dibattito del genere, la dice lunga, comunque, su dove siamo arrivati. Fra Lovelock che parla di duecento milioni di persone in tutto che sopravviveranno alla catastrofe climatica, quelli che dicono di rifugiarsi nei boschi armati e con riserve di cibo, insomma, aria frizzantina.

Non tutti saranno daccordo, ma in Toscana c'è un vecchio detto: "Gl'anderà anche bene, diss'i'rrospo, ma i'ccontadin gl'affil'i'ppalo". Meglio pensarci un attimo prima di comprarsi la SUV

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http://www.energybulletin.net/20051.html

Why the Survivalists Have Got It Wrong.

by Rob Hopkins

I have very little time for the survivalist response to peak oil, and on the back of a new article about it, Preparing for a Crash: Nuts and Bolts by Zachary Nowak, posted recently on the ever indispensible Energy Bulletin, perhaps it is time to deconstruct the whole survivalist argument, which is still a strong theme in the peak oil movement.

Imagine you and a number of other people are in a house and the house catches fire. Do you look around the house for other people and help those out that you can, or do you bolt out of the house at the first sniff of smoke? The survivalists are like the latter, like those who were first off the Titanic in the first lifeboats that were launched half empty. I deeply question the morality of responding to a crisis by running in the opposite direction and leaving everyone else to stew. For me, peak oil and climate change, and the challenge that they present, are a call to return to society, to rebuild society, and to engage society in a process that can offer an oil free world as a step forward and an improved quality of life.

According to the survivalist philosophy we are about to witness the inevitable and horrible disintegration of society, where the rising price of oil will lead to us all rushing out and bashing each over the head. In order to avoid this, they argue, we need to get away from everyone else and sort ourselves out in such a way that we will be able to see out these perilous times. We will, they argue, be able to get by, in utter isolation, up a dirt track somewhere, seeing no-one, with no external stimulus, eating borage and 3 year old baked beans, and attempting to be entirely self sufficient, despite having little previous background in the way of gardening, farming and homesteading.

The first question that springs to mind is where exactly are we supposed to go? Where is this rustic utopia? Nowak offers a checklist of what the aspiring survivalist should be looking for in what he calls a “place to retreat to”. It is “relatively isolated, out of view from roads, with large woods and a swamp, land for gardening and an existing structure”. Sounds like exactly the kind of place that many a wealthy suburbanite with the dream to keep a pony is also seeking out as a second home. How many such places remain? How many existing communities in such places are going to be delighted to see the aspiring survivalist? In the US such places might exist, but in the UK, such places are at a premium. Nowak also doesn’t address the issue that financially the buying of a second home and the equipping of it is financially outside the realm of possibility for most of us, who struggle to even afford one home.

Many of the people I have met who push this argument are urban people with no background or experience in self sufficiency. Nowak suggests spending a few thousand dollars on books on everything from canning to waste water treatment. The list of books and publishers he puts forward are excellent, but he doesn’t mention anything about other ways of learning. You might be stuck up in the wilderness with lots of books, but really they are no substitute for learning from other people. I might have John Seymour’s Complete Book of Self Sufficiency, but I couldn’t slaughter a pig with a copy of it open in front of me, or can my own produce just from the book. You need to learn from people who already know how to do things, books are useful as a reference, but are never a substitute for a teacher. The impression the article gives that you could head to your place in the hills as the world starts to collapse, and slip into a self reliant life, with your library at your side is fantasy.

Complete article is at

www.energybulletin.net/20051.html

lunedì, settembre 04, 2006

Lovelock: siamo fritti, 1 su 10 sopravviverà

Dal "Washington Post" di Sabato 2 Settembre, intervista a James Lovelock, l'ideatore del concetto di "Gaia", il sistema di autoregolazione dell'ecosfera.

Dice Lovelock che ci siamo spinti troppo in la. Ormai è troppo tardi, l'ecosistema è completamente sbilanciato, entro una decina di anni il termostato planetario salirà di una decina di gradi. Siamo fritti: non potranno sopravvivere più di qualche centinaio di milioni di persone, meno di uno su 10.

Sconsigliato alle persone impressionabili, per il super-catastrofista, di quelli veramente duri e puri

_________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101800.html

The End of Eden
James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 2, 2006; Page C01

ST. GILES-ON-THE-HEATH, England


Through a deep and tangled wood lies a glade so lovely and wet and lush as to call to mind a hobbit's sanctuary. A lichen-covered statue rises in a garden of native grasses, and a misting rain drips off a slate roof. At the yard's edge a plump muskrat waddles into the brush.

"Hello!"

A lean, white-haired gentleman in a blue wool sweater and khakis beckons you inside his whitewashed cottage. We sit beside a stone hearth as his wife, Sandy, an elegant blonde, sets out scones and tea. James Lovelock fixes his mind's eye on what's to come.

"It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn."

Why is that?

"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return."

Sulfurous musings are not Lovelock's characteristic style; he's no Book of Revelation apocalyptic. In his 88th year, he remains one of the world's most inventive scientists, an Englishman of humor and erudition, with an oenophile's taste for delicious controversy. Four decades ago, his discovery that ozone-destroying chemicals were piling up in the atmosphere started the world's governments down a path toward repair. Not long after that, Lovelock proposed the theory known as Gaia, which holds that Earth acts like a living organism, a self-regulating system balanced to allow life to flourish.

Biologists dismissed this as heresy, running counter to Darwin's theory of evolution. Today one could reasonably argue that Gaia theory has transformed scientific understanding of the Earth.

Now Lovelock has turned his attention to global warming, writing "The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity." Already a big seller in the United Kingdom, the book was released in the United States last month. (He will speak in Washington, at the Carnegie Institution, Friday at 7 p.m.) Lovelock's conclusion is straightforward.

To wit, we are poached.

Read the whole article at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101800.html

domenica, settembre 03, 2006

"Der Spiegel" sul Picco del Petrolio

La stampa "mainstream" si sta interessando sempre di più alla questione del Picco del Petrolio. Questo articolo di Der Spiegel del 24 Agosto racconta nuovamente tutta la storia citando uno dei membri tedeschi di ASPO, Peter Gerling.

Per chi si interessa di picco del petrolio da un pezzo, sono tutte cose risapute, ma è comunque interessante vedere come la storia si stia diffondendo sempre di più. Notare anche come citi il "Picco dell'Uranio" subito nel primo paragrafo; anche questa è una storia che si sta diffondendo sempre di più.


Originale a:


http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,426728,00.html



HOW MUCH LONGER?

The End of the Oil Era Looms

By Alexander Jung

Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today. The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on these natural resources -- and some will soon disappear forever.


Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking, someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation.

He was urged not to present his forecast, Hubbert later revealed. But the scientist with his little Clark-Gable-style beard stuck to his guns, as he has often been known to do. When he appeared at the spring 1956 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, he presented exactly what he had prepared -- a theory as simple as its implications are dramatic.

Hubbert claimed that the exploitation of oil resources always follows the pattern of a bell curve: first it rises, then it flattens out, and finally it declines -- irreversibly. According to his calculations, the United States would soon reach the peak of the curve -- around about 1970, according to his estimate.

His prediction could hardly have been more accurate: In fact, it was in 1971 that the US's oil extraction reached its maximum level. Ever since then, oil production in the US has declined.

Hubbert's curve was discovered exactly 50 years ago and is still considered part of the basic knowledge of every geologist. The rise and fall of the curve presents a scientifically precise description of something everyone knows, just as everyone wants to deny it. Petroleum is a finite resource. The supply shrinks every day, every hour, every minute. Once the supply is used up, it's gone for good.

Other important energy sources -- natural gas, coal and uranium -- are subject to the same relentless process. They are constantly consumed, but never replaced.

The supply of metals and minerals isn't unlimited either, just as it isn't replaceable. Iron ore doesn't reproduce itself, and neither does gold -- none of these resources replace themselves. But how many people really think about how unique these resources are?


Enormous quantities are consumed, processed or often simply burned up by citizens and by industry. Every second, an average of about a thousand barrels of oil turns into smoke across the world. The average German consumes about 225 tons of coal in his life, along with 116 tons of petroleum, 40 tons of steel, 1.1 tons of copper and 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of sulphur. It's clear this can't go on forever -- even though it has already been going on for what seems like an eternity.

Human beings have made use of natural resources since prehistoric times. They produce tools from iron and copper, heat their living quarters with coal and natural waste, build houses from sand, plaster and stone. But it was only industrialization that caused demand to increase dramatically -- trade in metals, minerals and fuels became a global business phenomenon. Humanity has consumed more resources since the end of the Second World War than during its entire previous history.

Now China has entered the international market -- a country with an unusually rich supply of natural resources. But it consumes even more than it has, as the price changes of recent years reveal: gold now costs almost twice as much as it did four years ago, and platinum is more expensive than it has ever been. Even junk metal has now become a good source of revenue.


Resources, of all things -- commodities that investors paid little attention to not so long ago. The word "resources" evoked images of mine workers, dust and sweat. It sounded like the 19th century -- economically irrelevant and anything but glamorous. Bits and bytes were considered the modern resource -- immaterial and in abundant supply.

It's only since the "classic" resources have become so expensive that people are becoming aware of their importance again. No computer chip can be produced without silicon, no plastic product without petroleum, no catalytic converter without platinum or palladium. Digital technology and the information economy are both well and good -- but the economy still fundamentally depends on steel and cement, and it's driven by oil, gas and coal. But for how much longer?

The future of many industries depends on the answer to this question, as does the development of the world economy itself. Rising prices are usually an indicator that a commodity is growing scarce and that demand for it is rising. So does the rise of resource prices mean that supplies are running out? And if the answer is yes, then how much time remains before the supply will run out?

If the predictions made by Dennis Meadows in his 1972 report for the Club of Rome think tank had been correct, then humanity ought to have reached the limits of growth by now. Meadows was a young scientist at the time, not yet 30. He and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fed a supercomputer with vast amounts of data. The results shocked the world.


The resources contained in the earth's crust would soon be used up and the scarcity of resources and foodstuffs would paralyze global economic growth -- that was the conclusion the scientists arrived at, and it was a bitter pill to swallow. An economy constantly oriented towards growth was bound to collapse as a result of natural resource supplies being exhausted, the scientists argued. Their report, published in book-form, sold more than 10 million copies and was translated into 29 languages -- but the economic collapse they predicted never happened. Nonetheless, there is an audience for apocalyptic predictions again. According to American journalist James Howard Kunstler, a fierce struggle over resources and foodstuffs will break out and the leading industrial nations will whither away. Kunstler paints a panorama of horrors whose dimensions are almost Malthusian, predicting that the entire world faces a historical era of negative growth, unrest and conflict.

Then there are the notorious optimists. They claim that the world's resources are still far from exhausted and that enormous reserves still exist -- around the North Pole, for example. What's more, they argue, industry has always succeeded in extracting more than expected thanks to innovative methods.

The calculation presented by these optimists is simple. They divide the quantity of known resources by the annual consumption of resources. According to this calculation, conventional petroleum will last another 40 years. Natural gas will last for more than 60 years, and coal will last for a full two centuries.

The figures sound reassuring. The only thing strange about them is that they've hardly changed during the past 50 years.

The reason is that the calculation has more to do with economic logic than with geology. When the price of gold rises, the extraction of smaller or less easily accessed deposits becomes profitable. Resource deposits that were previously ignored suddenly enter into the calculation and the quantity of resources automatically rises.

There is another variable in the calculation: New technologies such as those of multidimensional seismology, which allow for locating even small pockets of petroleum or minor ore deposits, and changes in consumer habits. For example, the demand for copper has declined substantially in the field of transmission technology, since copper has largely been replaced by fiber glass. Now the demand for quartz is declining, because fiber glass technology is being displaced by satellite technology. Such unpredictable influences strongly qualify the validity of the consumption-supply relation; the formula is inadequate as an instrument for predicting future developments.

And yet there are serious answers to the central question: "How much longer?" They aren't easy or simple answers - they vary from one resource to another -- and they are far from conclusive. How long a resource will last isn't decided by fate. It depends on human action.

The most reliable predictions are those about petroleum supplies -- thanks to the discoveries of geologist Hubbert. The picture that is emerging is worrying even to the sober-minded observers at Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), which is based in Hanover. "We're closer to the peak of resource extraction than we would like," warns geologists Peter Gerling, an expert on fossil fuels.

The so-called "depletion mid-point" will be reached within the next 10 to 20 years, according to Gerling's most recent study. The depletion mid-point is the point at which half of the total quantity of petroleum has been used up.

Gerling is confident the results of his research are accurate. "The Earth has been explored in detail," he says, adding that the layer of the planet's crust that contains its roughly 600 petroleum sediments is known in some detail: "There won't be any major surprises." Gerling's matter-of-fact statement has dramatic implications. Once the depletion mid-point has been reached, the end of the petroleum age will begin.

From that point on, when global resource extraction reaches its maximum, a physical supply gap opens up for the first time in history. From then on, petroleum production declines, whereas demand is likely to continue to rise. There's no return to yesterday's heights, and what's worse: The peak is reached without warning.

venerdì, settembre 01, 2006

Da Bloomberg sul Peak Oil e ASPO-5

L'editorialista di Bloomberg, Deepak Gopinah ha pubblicato ieri un lungo articolo sulla questione del picco del petrolio.

Comicia raccontando la conferenza ASPO-5, definita come un "raduno di catastrofisti straccioni" ma nel complesso è un articolo abbastanza equilibrato, sia pure troppo lungo e che si muove da un'opinione all'altra come se fosse uno sciatore che scansa le bandierine dello slalom.

Non arriva a una conclusione precisa, ma cita ampiamente Campbell e Laherrere, come pure Deffeyes e Simmons. In sostanza, siamo "Mainstream"; ma ancora non l'opinione prevalente.

Segue l'articolo a:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arur.i7moHMs&refer=home

Peak Oil Forecasters Win Converts on Wall Street to $200 Crude

By Deepak Gopinath

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- On a sweltering Tuesday in mid-July, in the fields outside Pisa, Italy, Willem Kadijk scribbles notes as a ragtag troupe of doomsayers predict the end of the Oil Age.

With his shaved head, jeans and sandals, Kadijk, 48, blends into a crowd gathered under a white tent to hear of the coming calamity. The death of cheap, abundant crude, the forecasters warn, might unleash war and plunge the world into a second Great Depression.

That's not the prophecy of some apocalyptic cult. Kadijk, a hedge fund adviser, had flown from Amsterdam to attend a conference on a geologic theory known as peak oil.

Proponents of this controversial idea say global oil production is now at or near its zenith. Once the flow crests and starts to decline -- and some geologists say it already has -- oil will no longer be able to slake the world's growing thirst for energy. The result will be the oil shock to end all oil shocks. The price of a barrel of crude will spiral to $200 -- and keep rising. To the peaksters, today's energy crunch is nothing next to the pain that will follow.

``Peak oil is a reality,'' says Kadijk, a senior equity salesman at Kepler Equities, an Amsterdam-based brokerage. He plans to start a fund to capitalize on what he sees as a looming crisis for the world's fossil fuel-based economy and the ultimate bull market in oil.

As energy prices soar and violence convulses the Middle East, the peak-oil movement -- an unlikely alliance of geologists, physicists, oil industry consultants and environmental activists -- is winning converts. Peak-oil ideas are bubbling up from scientific journals and offbeat Web sites, much the way warnings of global warming did a decade ago. For the first time, the peaksters have begun to grab the attention of Washington and Wall Street.

Congressional Caucus

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, former boss of Boston- based Cabot Corp., an oil and chemicals company, has asked the National Petroleum Council, which advises him, to investigate whether oil supplies can keep pace with demand. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog, is due to release a study on peak oil this November. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Maryland Republican, has formed the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus to sound the alarm.

``The world has never faced a problem like this,'' Bartlett says.

Everyone agrees we'll run out of crude eventually. Oil, after all, is a finite resource: The Earth holds only so much of it. The controversial issue is when a global peak will occur -- and what will happen then.

Colin Campbell, a British geologist who popularized the peak- oil theory in his book ``The Coming Oil Crisis'' (Multi-Science Publishing Co. and Petroconsultants SA, 1997, 210 pages) says world production of conventional oil, the kind that comes from gushing wells, is reaching its apex.

End of Oil Age

Society isn't prepared for the consequences, Campbell, 75, says. It's too late to develop alternative sources of power, such as solar cells, nuclear reactors and windmills, to fill the oil gap before energy prices soar, says Campbell, who has a doctorate in geology from the University of Oxford and more than 40 years of experience in the oil industry.

``We have come to the end of the first half of the Oil Age,'' Campbell says.

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Read the complete article at

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arur.i7moHMs&refer=home