Projects — Oil Watch — Archive
News Archive
Professor Goodstein discusses lowering oil reserves (23.11.04, ABC's Lateline)
Running out of oil (23.11.04, ABC’s Lateline)
Oil prices to remain volatile: BHP Billiton CEO (9.11.04, ABC’s PM)
Oil prices
push up the cost of dairy processing (3.11.04, ABC Rural
News)
This article is an example of the importance of oil at each
level of production of products as simple as milk.
Energy
agency urges more oil investment (29.10.04, SMH)
The [International Energy Agency’s] annual world energy
outlook report warned of a drop in oil production and
shortfalls in supplies if there is not huge investment,
totalling $US3 trillion in the next three decades, in
everything from developing new fields to building more
tankers, pipelines and refineries.
Don’t fret — oil price jump has its positives
(23.10.04, SMH)
"Is the sky-high price of oil only temporary? Sure. Will oil
prices stay high forever? Sure."
High
oil price threatens economy (18.10.04, ABC’s The
7.30 Report)
A recurring question has taken on new urgency in recent weeks
— how far can oil prices climb before the world’s
economies, Australia included, begin to buckle under the
stress? Crude oil touched new record highs in Asian trade
today — at $US55 a barrel, almost three times as
expensive as it’s been for most of the past 15 years.
Historically high oil prices have tended to tip the world
into recession in the past and already we’re paying for
this latest price surge in ways well beyond the petrol pump.
So, is oil going to spoil Australia’s economic party
this time?
The
impact of high oil prices doesn’t stop at the petrol
pump (13.10.04, ABC News)
When it comes to rising oil prices, this is only part of the
story. Plastic comes from oil -- and plastic is everywhere.
You may think of plastic as cheap, but it’s cheap no
longer… If you think above US$50 a barrel of oil is bad,
try US$120. That’s what the world could be facing, if
you believe some experts who say that production has either
peaked now or will do within 10 years. And the knock-on
effects would flow on to plastics and many chemicals. Greg
Bourne has looked at fuel from both sides now. He used to be
the regional president of the energy giant BP and he’s
now the Australian head of the World Wildlife Fund. He says
society needs to begin conserving petroleum for essential
products.
How to Transition from the Car Culture to the Bike Culture Paradigm (Curt Sommer — survivingpeakoil.com)
Oil’s not well with the world (5.10.04, The
Australian)
AS the finance ministers and central bank governors of the
G-7 sat down to dinner in Washington on Friday night, meeting
for the first time with their Chinese counterparts, the price
of oil had just closed at its highest ever level, $US50.12 a
barrel. ‘Oil prices remain high and are a risk,’
said a G-7 official. There was now ‘a recognition that
oil was scarcer than was thought a few years ago’.
These are ominous words for a G-7 official. They even tend to
corroborate the ‘alarmist’ view that the world is
running out of oil and that high prices are here to stay -- a
structural phenomenon rather than a spike… Now, belatedly
-- and despite the brave face put on it by the US and other
importing nations -- there is an encroaching acceptance that
the world’s oil reserves are in decline and we may have
a crisis on our hands.
Oil: The
World Over a Barrel (Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation)
A documentary series that explores the global oil industry in
the form of a journey through the world’s most remote
and challenging oil-producing regions.
Decline in World Oil and Gas Production (16.8.04, ABC’s Perspective)
OPEC’s liquidity trap (16.9.04, The
Economist)
OPEC’s oil output is now almost as high as it can go.
Raising quotas may thus have no discernible effect on
production… The soft patch America’s economy is
currently suffering is due ‘in large measure’ to
the steep rise in energy prices, Mr Greenspan has said. He
has also given warning that the future balance between supply
and demand in the oil market will remain
‘precarious’.
By 2070 we’ll be hotter, drier and thirstier (7.9.04, SMH)
Import
crisis as our fuel tank runs low (4.9.04, The Age)
According to the Australian Petroleum Production and
Exploration Association, on current trends, in 10 years
Australia will be producing about 230,000 barrels of
petroleum liquids per day, while consuming around 1,030,000
barrels. That would leave us 78 per cent dependent on oil
imports, compared with our current 30 per cent dependence. On
the optimistic assumption that prices fall back to $US30 a
barrel, Australia’s daily oil import bill would be
about $US24 million ($A34.4 million), or $US76.4 billion over
10 years.
The
end of cheap oil? (5.9.04, ABC Radio National’s The
National Interest)
Recent sharp rises in the price of petrol are a sign of
things to come as global demand for oil increases but global
supplies do not.
High oil prices here to stay: IEA (29.8.04, ABC Inside
Business)
ALAN KOHLER: Do you think that if more super-giant oil fields
are not discovered soon and Saudi Arabia, in particular,
invests that the world will have to get used to higher oil
prices, around the $50 level, possibly even more? ANTOINE
HALFF: Well, we’re not there yet, but there’s a
widespread sense in the market that fundamentals have
shifted, and we’re now in an era of higher oil prices
for the sustainable future. I think there’s probably a
lot to say for that theory.
Australia:
Slippery slope to recession? (8.8.04, The Age)
$US40 has become the bottom of the range price, with $US50
just around the corner.
Oil
demand will soon outstrip supply: industry planner
(9.8.04, ABC PM)
I could see easily prices of three or four dollars very, very
soon for every litre of petrol.
Oil prices
hit fresh record high (3.8.04, BBC World Service)
US oil prices have hit record highs after the president of
Opec said the producers’ cartel was unable to push any
more supplies into the market.
Pumping all they can (4.8.04, The Economist)
With this uncertainty likely to continue, OPEC likely to keep
brushing up against its capacity limits, and Yukos certain to
remain under fire, the world may just have to get used to oil
of $40 or more a barrel.
2024
Dreaming- Beyond the Gridlock: An Impossible Dream?
(21.8.04, ABC Science)
How will we travel in 2024? The cost of car crashes in this
country alone amounts to $17 billion. It is estimated that
the humble traffic jam costs America US$100 billion. And then
there’s the cost of wars to keep the oil flowing. How
much longer can we afford to continue along these lines in
future?
Plan to protect our oil supply (21.8.04, The
Australian)
Australia is particularly vulnerable to an interruption in
supply because of its declining self-sufficiency in oil
— we import 40 per cent of our oil needs — and
because it has no strategic oil stockpiles. Comment: The best
way to protect Australia is to make us less dependent on the
stuff. For example, the federal government could fund
cycleways so that children could ride safely to school.
Result: less parents driving kids to school, reduced
childhood obesity, and it’s a cheap solution.
BP has released its annual Statistical Review of world energy. Australian oil production for 2003 continued its decline after it peaked in 2000, this time by a whopping 15.6%. See BP Review page.
Australia
not facing up to reality of energy resources (ABC PM,
18.6.04)
Greg Bourne, who retired as regional president for BP
Australasia last year, and now Chairs the sustainable Energy
Authority in Victoria, and is on the New South Wales
Greenhouse Advisory Panel, states: “I think we will
have a [oil] price issue much quicker than people expect…
we are seeing incredibly fast growth in demand from China,
fast growth from India as well, and other parts of the world,
and supply at the moment can keep up with it, but I do not
think that’s going to last for very much longer. And as
supply and demand get closer together, we always see price
spikes.”
Warning on oil hunt slip (7.6.04, The West
Australian)
“Surging oil prices should be seen as a warning and not
a cure for declining oil and gas exploration which threatened
to leave Australia dangerously reliant on overseas supplies,
the head of the nation’s peak oil and gas body warned.
‘We just had a week in which every news service in this
country has been running stories about instability in the
Middle East, how OPEC does not have any more supply capacity
and how Chinese demand is growing. If all that is correct …
then this country has a real problem. But where is the
urgency in policy-making, and the people saying this is a
serious issue? Waiting 10 years for this to hit us is not an
answer.”
Break out the bicycles (8.6.04, George Monbiot —
Guardian Unlimited)
Oil is running out, but the west would rather wage wars than
consider other energy sources
When Oil Runs Out… (2.6.04, ABC Radio National Breakfast)
Another oil shock? (1.6.04, Buttonwood — The
Economist)
The world depends for low oil prices on an unstable country
that seems to be falling apart. No wonder they are rising…
the rise in the cost of crude oil could be inflationary or it
could be contractionary or it could be both. And if Saudi
Arabia falls apart all bets are off: for the Americans will
be damned if they step in and damned if they don’t; the
price of crude will rocket; and the world will be talking
about a fourth oil shock.
Californians want no truck with petrol prices (2.6.04, SMH — Paul McGeough, Chief Correspondent)
From Amsterdam to Beirut (28.5.04, The Economist)
These lesser players are already cheating on their quotas,
and may already be producing as much oil as they can. Their
physical limits, not the official limits set by OPEC, are
what constrains their supply. Raising or removing quotas
would simply bestow the cartel’s blessing on what these
countries are doing anyway. No matter how OPEC votes on June
3rd, it will not change the fact that the world is operating
with less spare capacity than at any time in the past 30
years: down to just a few million bpd.
The threat to Saudi oil supply (28.5.04, The
Economist)
Terrorists are now targeting Saudi Arabia’s oil
infrastructure. How bad could things get? … Typically, a
decision by OPEC to increase quotas cools prices. This time
may be different. A soaring world economy has sucked global
inventories dry. Nearly every OPEC producer, save Saudi
Arabia, is already producing about as much oil as it can.
That means that any new OPEC promise of oil will have to come
chiefly from the Saudis themselves—and that is not good
news… Today’s fast-shrinking spare capacity of about
2m bpd is less than 3% of demand—and it is entirely in
Saudi hands. And yet, ‘normal’ threats to supply
that fall far short of doomsday terrorist scenarios remain.
Venezuela and Nigeria both face political tests in coming
weeks that could cripple oil exports. The coalition in Iraq
is due to hand over power to local authorities at the end of
June, and terrorist attacks are possible. Whether the Saudis
can handle the consequences of all this is entirely
unclear… A witch’s brew of soaring oil demand,
private-sector destocking and lack of investment in new
production capacity by OPEC has left the world with an
extraordinarily tight oil market today. There is less spare
capacity than at almost any point in the past 30 years.
Amsterdamned (24.5.04, The Economist)
Not every OPEC country is as keen as Saudi Arabia to pump
more oil, because not every member is capable of doing so.
Most, including Libya and Venezuela, are already producing at
something close to full capacity. Higher quotas would be of
little use to them. Normally, when members’ quotas are
raised, higher sales make up for the impact of lower prices
on their oil revenues. This time, however, it may be only
Saudi Arabia that has any spare capacity to bring to market.
An increase in quotas would simply legitimise Saudi
over-production, leaving everyone else selling no more than
before, for a lower price… Oil prices of $50 per barrel no
longer look an immediate prospect. But, by the same token,
oil prices of $25 per barrel may, as the Venezuelans insist,
belong to a bygone era. If the Chinese economy continues to
grow and security fears continue to mount, there may be
little anyone, in New Amsterdam or Old, can do.
OPEC’s failure to boost oil output spooks markets
(24.5.04, The Australian)
In Australia, the Government is about to receive an industry
report on our oil stocks. It comes as the Government is
preparing a major energy statement that is expected to
address the looming shortage of transport fuels as
Australia’s domestic oil production declines.
Saudi
pledge tempers oil tensions (24.5.05, SMH)
The era of cheap oil may be over, Venezuela’s Energy
Minister Rafael Ramirez said.
Crude awakening (22.5.04, The Australian)
Oil — Still at its mercy (20.5.04, The
Economist)
sensitivity to oil continues to bedevil the world economy.
Incomes and jobs around the world still hinge on the price of
a commodity which comes chiefly from extremely unstable parts
of the world, supplied through a market that is rigged at
every turn. When the price does next subside, and the
opportunity again arises to use taxes to weaken OPEC by
discouraging western consumption of oil, America’s
government, especially, might bear this in mind.
Deputy PM Confirms Peak Oil Risks
The deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport, John
Anderson, acknowledged that "at some stage in the
next few short years global [oil] production may very well
peak" in an interview with the ABC’s Barrie
Cassidy from the Insiders show. The issue has also been
covered in the SMH and National Geographic.
Interview
John Anderson, Deputy Prime Minister (16.5.04, ABC
Insiders)
Deputy
PM confirms oil crisis (17.5.04, SMH, Margo Kingston)
Oils ain’t just oils, they’re to die for (16.5.04, SMH, Margo Kingston)
The End of Cheap Oil (June 04, National Geographic)
You wouldn’t know it from the hulking SUVs and
traffic-clogged freeways of the United States, but
we’re in the twilight of plentiful oil.
So
why wouldn’t oil prices rocket? (19.5.04, SMH, Alan
Kohler)
One of the most important assumptions underlying the oil
market is that the Saudis can act as almost swing producers
in the event of a supply disruption. That is far from clear.
But as Americans prepare their SUVs for the driving season,
OPEC is running at full capacity and the non-OPEC producers
are in decline. There may well be a short-term correction
back to below $US40 a barrel if OPEC quotas are raised and
Saudi Arabia maintains its over-production but it is far from
clear that the successors of M. King Hubbert are wrong about
the big picture. No one’s making oil any more.
A
Crude Shock (New York Times — Op Ed By PAUL
KRUGMAN, 14.5.04)
So far, the current world oil crunch doesn’t look at
all like the crises of 1973 or 1979. That’s why
it’s so scary.
Hubbert’s Peak goes global — Commentary: Why the coming oil crisis will be structural (13.5.04, By Paul Erdman, CBS.MarketWatch.com)
The Oil Crunch (7.5.04, New York Times — Op Ed By PAUL KRUGMAN)
Incentive for intrepid oil drillers (12.5.04, SMH)
Budget cash to shore up oil reserves (11.5.04, The
Age)
The Federal Government will launch a major push to find
another Bass Strait-type oil reserve to combat concerns over
Australia’s looming oil supply crisis as part of a wide
range of giveaways in today’s federal budget.
Oil crisis looming: Greens (10.5.04, SMH)
Spiralling oil prices would force an economic crisis in
Australia within 15 years if authorities failed to act now,
the Australian Greens said. Senate candidate Drew Hutton said
if Australia had any chance of weathering the shockwave
caused by the ballooning oil prices, it had to stop building
bigger road systems, switch to hybrid electric cars and
upgrade its woeful public transport systems as soon as
possible… He said experts predicted the world had now
reached its peak oil reserves with all major wells now tapped
and nowhere else to look for another substantial find.
Oil Price Hits $40 per Barrel: Oil Crisis Looms (Drew Hutton Blogg)
Dollar
slump adds to pressure at pump (11.5.04, SMH)
The dollar’s plunge, coupled with a 13-year high in the
oil price, could see motorists paying up to $1.10 a litre for
petrol in the weeks ahead, some analysts say.
Dancing
with oil prices and rates (11.5.04, Alan
Kohler-SMH)
we are now in a fully fledged oil shock. The benchmark price
has risen 120 per cent in two years and 55 per cent in a
year. It’s now back to where it was after the oil
shocks of the 1970s and the first Iraq war.
Rising oil prices pose a threat (10.5.04, SMH)
Asia’s oil wars (The Economist, 29.4.04)
China and Japan are locked in a fierce diplomatic and
economic struggle to win access to Russian oil
World oil crisis looms (Jane’s Defense Weekly, 21.4.04)
Greenspan
calls for increased global trade in natural gas (SMH,
28.4.04)
The United States needs to expand the global trade in natural
gas as a way to prevent future sharp price increases from
harming its economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
said.
When the
last oil well runs dry (BBC Online, 21.4.04)
Just as certain as death and taxes is the knowledge that we
shall one day be forced to learn to live without oil. Exactly
when that day will dawn nobody knows, but people in middle
age today can probably expect to be here for it.
Houston analyst upsets Saudis in squabble over oil reservoirs (Houston Business Journal, 9/4/04)
Oil market tightness is likely long term (15.3.04,
JEFFREY RUBIN, Globe and Mail Newspaper)
"Has the world already seen the peak in conventional crude
production? Not only has conventional production not grown
over the past four years, but there is virtually no spare
capacity left among producers belonging to the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries… You can call it
just-in-time inventories or you can call it what it really is
-- Saudi Arabia running out of reserves."
Crude Arguments (The Economist — Buttonwood Column,
23.3.04)
"Goldman Sachs now thinks that the world economy will grow by
3.8% this year, not the 4.6% it had originally forecast. The
main reason for this sharp reduction is the sustained rise in
the price of a commodity long dismissed by most economists as
having little impact on mature economies: oil."
Crude Calculations — Barron’s (Smartmoney.com, 15.3.04)
Petrol
price heading above $1 a litre (SMH, 19.3.03)
reduced refining capacity in the Asia region, and rising
demand for petrol in China and India, meant Australian
motorists would have to get used to regularly paying more
than $1 a litre.
US oil surges to 13-year high (ABC Online, 18.3.04)
Oil Prices — Painful for some, but hardly a crisis (The Economist, 18.3.04)
The only thing certain is that the world’s oil reserves won’t last forever (Mark Lawson, Online Opinion, 5.1.04)
There’s been a new book on Peak Oil by another
respected scientific authority:
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, by David
Goodstein. Goodstein is a professor of physics and vice
provost of the California Institute of Technology, one of
America’s headiest institutions. He’s been
interviewed about it:
Dried Up? Are We Running Out of Oil? Scientist Warns of
Looming Crisis (Special to ABCNEWS.com, )
Crude
Awakening (Newsweek, 17.2.04)
A prominent physicist warns in a new book that the world is
running out of oil and we’re not doing anything to
stave off the coming crisis.
Let’s see them stick to this one — OPEC’s
Surprise Production Cut (The Economist, 11.2.04)
American and Chinese demand is part of the reason why the oil
price has remained so high for so long after the end of the
war in Iraq (see chart). Many thought the combination of
Iraq’s newly liberated, newly productive oilfields and
a ramping-up of production by Russia—the world’s
second-biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, though not a
member of OPEC—would be enough to bring oil prices
down, perhaps to below $20 a barrel. But this was not to be.
Why? Quite simply, the oil supply has not flown as easily as
oil-hungry consumers had hoped… [Shell’s cut in its
proved reserves estimate] has highlighted a problem that all
the big oil companies face: working out how they are going to
replace the oil that they lift every year. Oil companies must
look increasingly to less and less stable regimes and
trickier geology to bolster their reserves… There are also
rumours in the market that the Saudis are finding it more
difficult to lift oil out of the ground.
Running Out of Oil — and Time (LA Times, 7.3.04)
If…the
lights go out (BBC Documentary)
Will power cuts be a way of life in the future? Could Britain
be facing a widespread, catastrophic power cut in the future?
The short answer is yes. "Unless we make decisions now our
electricity will start to run out within five years,"
Professor Ian Fells, World Energy Council. In our scenario,
set in the winter of 2010, Britain is struggling to generate
enough electricity to cope with demand.
Controil (5.3.03, Jack Robertson on SMH’s Webdiary)
North Sea exploration a loser, say oil experts (Times
Online, 26.1.04)
As the North Sea continues to deplete after peaking in 99,
companies are getting out: "OIL GROUPS face growing pressure
to quit the North Sea amid evidence of global failure to find
big new oil deposits. The world’s top ten energy
companies are failing to find enough new crude to replenish
their reserves, according to Wood Mackenzie, the oil
consultancy, which sees exploration in the UK North Sea as
the industry’s biggest waste of money over the past
five years. "
OPEC to cut oil output by 10 per cent (SMH,
11.2.04)
In a surprise move, OPEC will cut excess production of crude
at once and lower output quotas by 1 million barrels a day
effective April 1, several oil ministers said… The combined
cuts, if effective, would curb OPEC’s production by
about 10 per cent, or 2.5 million barrels a day.
Plan
Now for a World Without Oil (MICHAEL MEACHER — UK
environment minister 1997-2003, Financial Times-London,
4.1.04)
It is hard to envisage the effects of a radically reduced oil
supply on a modern economy or society. Yet just such a
radical reduction is staring us in the face..The conclusion
is clear: if we do not immediately plan to make the switch to
renewable energy — faster, and backed by far greater
investment than currently envisaged — then civilisation
faces the sharpest and perhaps most violent dislocation in
recent history.
What
price for the last drops? (Platinum Asset Management,
June 2003)
Even fund managers are now covering Peak Oil. Their blurb:
"It is not so much that we are about to imminently run out of
oil more that man’s ingenuity has ensured that we
have probably discovered nearly all the readily exploitable
reserves, that depletion is occurring much faster than new
additions to reserves and all this is happening just as the
great populations of China and India climb aboard the
energy-consuming treadmill".
Has global oil production peaked? (Christian Science Monitor, David R. Francis, )
The
Bottom of the Barrel (George Monbiot, 2.12.03)
“Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that
the resource upon which our lives have been built is
running out. We don’t talk about it because we
cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial… Oil
itself won’t disappear, but extracting what remains is
becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of
new reserves peaked in the 1960s. Every year, we use
four times as much oil as we find. All the big
strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400 million
barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered
piffling in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the
discovery of small new deposits and the better exploitation
of big old ones. No one with expertise in the field
is in any doubt that the global production of oil will peak
before long”.
David Holmgren, co-originator of the Permaculture concept, has written a book on Permaculture and its role in ‘energy descent’, titled Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. In an article based on his lectures, Permaculture and the Third Wave of Environmental Solutions, he refers to oil production peaking and the role that permaculture can play in ‘energy descent’.
Hopes of $50bn gas sale (The Age, 14.1.04)
Australia is confident it can win liquified natural gas
contracts with the United States worth up to $50 billion,
amid warnings that America is facing a looming energy
crisis… The Bush Administration has admitted that
America’s capacity to meet its voracious hunger for
energy through domestic production is limited. Mr Macfarlane
warned that the US could face an energy crisis that would
rival the 1973 and 1980 oil price shocks. Both events
triggered a combination of soaring inflation and economic
stagnation in the major economies of the world. ‘The US
have only very recently become open about their energy
requirements, and some say it’s as big a crisis, or
potential crisis, as during the oil shocks,’ he
said.
Shell’s shocking news (The Economist,
15.1.04)
“A dramatic cut in Shell’s reserves has the oil
world buzzing… the firm’s rate of
replacement of reserves—which are inevitably depleted
as firms pump hydrocarbons out of the ground—was not
105% as previously thought, but an abysmal 57%, significantly
below that of both BP and Exxon Mobil (see chart).
Recalculated, Shell’s ‘finding and
development’ costs in that period jump from an already
relatively high $4.27 per barrel to $7.90 per barrel.”
Gore
Vidal Interview (ABC Sunday Profile, 15.1.04)
“Gore Vidal: It [the US Bush administration] has no aims
other than more oil and gas because Cheney had a study done
about a year ago that by the year 2020 the entire
world would be practically out of fossil fuels,
they‘re going to grab all of it and the biggest supply
is in the Caspian area and all those countries whose names
end in ‘stan’. That’s what our eye is
on.”
Natural Gas Exports (ABC’s RN The Business Report,
13.12.03)
By 2020 the Bush Administration has documented it will need
fifty per cent more natural gas to fuel America. Its own
source of natural gas, the Rocky Mountains, is running out;
so it’s looking to other sources. So we’re trying
to sell them our own gas, from WA.
CSIRO
Sustainability Network Newsletter — 9 September
2003 (PDF, 512Kb)
This newsletter has a couple of very interesting articles.
‘The myth of the efficient car’
looks at the vast inefficiencies of our car based
cultures.
In ‘What Is Sustainability?’,
David Holmgren, co-originator with Bill Mollison of the
Permaculture concept, looks at the broader picture of
sustainability in the context of ‘energy
descent’. His latest book,
Permaculture:Principles & Pathways Beyond
Sustainability, is the distillation of a life lived
by the principles of permaculture:
“I want to emphasise how an understanding of the
global energy peak and resultant energy
descent defines and reshapes both environmental
concepts and strategies. I use the term ‘descent’
as the least loaded word that honestly conveys the
inevitable, radical reduction of material consumption and/or
human numbers that will characterise the declining decades
and centuries of fossil fuel abundance and availability. I
believe the third wave of environmental solutions will be
seen as a response to both the realisation of the limits to
consumption (first wave) and the limits to pollution and
global warming (second wave). Permaculture is the
whole-hearted engagement with energy descent as the
opportunity for a better world where less is better…
With a global oil peak now unfolding all around us,
the failure to recognise and understand its signs and
symptoms pervades not only the anti-environmental
reactionaries, but also much of the vanguard of
sustainability.”
The Economist marked the 30th anniversary
of the 1973 Oil Crisis in October with two
articles highlighting growing energy risks and problems,
including the the production peak of key non-OPEC
fields, the growing power of OPEC, the risks in our
over-dependence on a shaky Saudi regime, the huge and hidden
costs of oil in transport, and increasing costs and risks
over the next two decades. It recommends demand side
measures, such as energy/carbon taxes.
The end of the Oil Age (The Economist, 24.10.03)
The article stresses our risky addiction to Saudi oil, and
considers the response: “If treating the West’s
addiction to oil will be costly, is it really worth doing? To
be sure. Petro-addiction imposes mighty costs of its
own…Oil still has a near-monopoly hold on
transport. If the supply is cut off even for a few
days, modern economies come to a halt, as Britain discovered
when tax protestors blockaded some domestic oil depots two
years ago… The final disguised cost of oil [after OPEC
inflated prices] is the damage it does to the environment and
human health… The best way to curb the demand for oil and
promote innovation in oil alternatives is to tell the
world’s energy markets that the
“externalities” of oil consumption—security
considerations and environmental issues alike—really
will influence policy from now on. And the way to do that is
to impose a gradually rising gasoline
tax.”
OPEC — Still holding customers over a barrel (The
Economist, 24.10.03)
It makes some very important points:
— OPEC is once again gaining power: "Once again there
is talk of scarcity and crisis. The Middle East is again on
the brink of chaos, not only because of Arab countries’
resentment over America’s support for Israel, but also
because of its military occupation of Iraq. And, after years
of weakness in the 1990s, OPEC has sprung back to
life".
— As non-OPEC fields pass their production peak:
"Unfortunately for consumers, however, [non-OPEC fields in
Alaska and North Sea] are about to enter a period of
dramatic and irreversible decline. This poses an
enormous challenge for the big oil companies, which must
somehow replace their lost reserves or see their share prices
punished by Wall Street… In a forthcoming study, the
International Energy Agency (IEA), a quasi-governmental group
of oil-consuming nations, estimates that the oil industry
needs to invest as much as $2.2 trillion over the next 30
years in exploration and production. Much has been made about
the soon-to-soar energy needs of fast-developing giants like
China and India, but only a quarter of that $2.2 trillion is
required to meet growth in oil demand; the rest is
needed, the boffins say, merely to replace production that is
already in decline or soon to decline. Daniel Yergin
of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an industry
consultancy, says: “Every day the head of every major
oil company wakes up focusing on how he is going to replace
his reserves. The pressure is relentless.” If western
oil companies do not manage to find new sources of supply,
OPEC’s market share can only increase—and with
increasing market share comes more power".
— There are no quick and easy alternatives to cheap to
produce Saudi oil: "the market share held by countries in the
Middle East—especially Saudi Arabia—can only
increase over the next two decades… the harsh reality of
today’s oil market: it is Saudi Arabia’s
willingness to be the swing producer that now insures the
world’s economy against oil shocks".
— Which means energy risks will increase: "As the
centre of gravity of the world’s oil production shifts
inexorably closer to Riyadh over the next two decades, this
risk can only grow".
The International Energy Agency has released its World Energy Investment Outlook, which highlights the huge amounts of money they think is required to make up production for the increased future demands, a huge chunk needed just to maintain current production, due to depletion and old infrastructure (assuming that more money will equal more energy, of course, which it may not). In their words, “The total investment requirement for energy-supply infrastructure worldwide over the period 2001-2030 is $16 trillion…A substantial proportion of all this energy investment is required simply to maintain the present level of supply. Oil and gas wells are depleting, power stations are becoming obsolescent and transmission and distribution lines need replacing…The bulk of the $4 trillion of upstream investment [required] in the oil and gas sectors will be needed simply to maintain production capacity at current levels.” Who will pay for this? How will this affect energy prices?
Pipeline Cowboys: Rustling for oil (New Internationalist, 10.03)
Oil
Futures (ABC The National Interest, 2.11.03)
Argument is intensifying about the future of oil and gas. The
question is not when oil will run out, but when global
production will peak and begin its long decline. An
influential group of retired oil industry geologists who have
formed the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas
(ASPO) believe that the crisis is almost upon us.
2030:
The Dangerous Decade (ABC Radio National’s The
National Interest, 19.10.03)
Former Democrat Senator Colin Mason says we should be worried
about the decade 2030 because this is when our environmental
chickens will come home to roost. Terry Lane speaks to former
Australian Democrat Senator Colin Mason about his new book
“The 2030 Spike”, which predicts a catastrophic
future for the globe through the convergence of six driving
forces — depleted oil supplies, water shortages,
population growth, climate change, nuclear proliferation and
poverty. See the 2030
Spike site.
The US must follow Europe’s lead and turn its back on
oil (Guardian, 10.10.02)
The world is moving into the sunset era of the great
fossil-fuel culture… once global oil production does peak,
two-thirds of the remaining oil reserves will be in the
Middle East, the most politically unstable and volatile
region of the world. What this means is that countries still
dependent on oil will be locked into a fierce geopolitical
struggle to maintain access to the remaining oil fields of
the Middle East, with all of the grave risks and consequences
that accompany that sober reality.
Energy at the Crossroads (The Guardian, 30.10.01)
Grim
picture painted for 2020 (BBC, Nov 03)
All our lives in the year 2020 could be startlingly different
from today, the UK’s Environment Agency believes. Using
a fictional family called the Dumills, the agency describes a
Britain where solar power dominates and every loo has a robot
to analyse excrement. We can look forward to cleaner air,
better public transport and an end to infuriating traffic
jams, it suggests. EA’s Vision of Life in 2020:
- High oil prices mean imported foods are no longer
affordable — local produce dominates
- A household windmill and solar panels generate surplus
electricity which is pumped back to the grid, earning the
family money
- Homes have their own purification plants”
Bass
still cooking with gas (SMH, 22.10.03)
Esso and BHP Billiton have signalled they intend to stay in
the gas market in south-eastern Australia. "The joint
venture’s enthusiasm for Bass Strait gas comes as oil
production from the fields continues its natural decline".
Australia’s oil production is predicted to decline
steeply over the next decade, after having peaked in
2000.
This war on terrorism is bogus (The Guardian, 6.9.03)
WA Minister Acknowledges Oil Depletion and initiates
Transport Energy Strategy.
Alannah MacTiernan, WA Planning and Infrastructure
Minister, has recently acknowledged that "oil will be
in increasingly short supply in the coming 10 to 20
years" and has as a result launched a Transport
Energy Strategy. This strategy will seek to shift Perth away
from its high car dependence towards more sustainable modes,
such as rail, cycling, and walking. See Transport
Energy Strategy home, which states that “It is widely
recognised throughout Government, industry and the community
at large that … Oil is finite and cheap
commercially exploitable oil will be increasingly in
short supply in the next one to two decades.”
The committee has released an interim
report, which states “… We do believe that there is a
problem coming, and the best course of action for the
community, is to:
- Understand the issue;
- prepare for the problem; and
- plan, as far as possible, for a smooth course through the coming events.”
In a media release launching the report, Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said “We must start reducing our dependence on oil, so that we are not vulnerable to the great price increases expected over the next decade as demand outstrips production.”
Dwindling
Oil (ABC Radio National Breakfast, 7.8.03)
“The world is running out of oil and it’s running out
fast… Even pumping the 1.1 trillion barrels of oil that
remain becomes harder and harder as time goes by… This
means we’re likely to reach a peak in production well
before we run out of oil altogether.
“Once demand outstrips supply, we can expect oil prices to
skyrocket, dragging the global economy into a recession of
apocalyptic proportions.”
CSIRO Energy and Transport Sector Outlook to 2020 (PDF,
3MB)
One of the two key drivers for change in the next
decades is a “significant decline in oil production”, the other
being greenhouse gas emissions:
“Global oil production is
anticipated to peak about 2020 and production
will become increasingly concentrated in the Middle East, Former
Soviet Union and West Africa. Demand is forecast to continue to
increase at about 2% p.a. The timing for production peaking is
debatable and will depend heavily on the ability of the Middle
East to attract capital and develop the very large amount of new
production infrastructure required.
Australia is facing a similar outlook. Oil has been
consumed in Australia three times faster than it has been
discovered here for the past 7 years. The petroleum
industry forecasts that the need to import oil will increase
rapidly from the traditional 15% up to 60% of annual needs by
2010. This will have a negative balance of trade impact of
$7–8 billion p.a.”
The Western Australia government has released its Sustainability Strategy — Hope for the Future.
The International Energy Agency has launched a dedicated site to cover oil issues and news.
The 2003 BP Statistical Review of World Energy has been published, including an Energy Charting Tool and detailed world production data. Australian production has decreased since 2000, as predicted by industry. So has world production overall.
George
Monbiot Discusses Oil Depletion with Phillip Adams
(ABC’s Late Night Live, 24/07/2003)
(Real Audio file)
ASPO
Newsletter — July — Russia
Includes a brief article by Brian Fleay, an Australian oil
commentator.
Natural Gas Crisis (From The Wilderness, 23/6/03)
A paper by Dale Allen Pfeiffer on the worsening situation in
North America. “Fertilizer Prices Up 55%; US Chemical
Industry Suffering — Jobs at Risk; Cities Facing
Brownouts; The Shape of Things to Come”
The
Petroleum Plateau (MuseLetter, No. 135 — May
2003)
by Richard Heinberg
Interview with James Howard Kunstler (Global Public
Media, 7.3.03)
Discussing suburbia as an endangered species
(in the light of oil peak & human social needs). Kunstler
is a trenchant critic of the US suburban disaster, author of
Geography of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, & most
recently The City In Mind, which considered examples of
both fine & failed cities across the planet.
“…the fabric of our daily life, the suburban cul-de-sacs,
the strip malls, the parking lagoons, the commercial highway
strips, you know, all the stuff that Americans are familiar
with as the daily setting of their lives, really does not
lend itself to retro-fitting for a different kind of future,
for a more energy efficient future, or a different
kind of energy future.
“I think that the story of the 21st century is going
to be about the re-localization of American life, a
tremendous need to reconstruct local networks of economic
interdependence, including the occupational niches and social
roles that went with them, which were systematically
destroyed by the kind of cheap oil behavior that spawned
activities like Wal-Mart and all of its imitators.”
The yawning heights — looking out from the great oil
peak (Letter From Earth, Jan 2003)
A series of Internet radio talks by Julian Darley for general
distribution and syndication.
General Knowledge in the Post-Carbon Age (Lecture by Julian Darley to MENSA, Vancouver, Canada, 10.11.02)
Why America Is Running Out of Gas (Time Magazine, 21 July 2003)
ASPO, ODAC see conventional oil producton peaking by 2010 (Oil and Gas Journal Online, 16 June 2003)
The worldwide oil and natural gas industry faces increasing challenges in replacing reserves and growing production, according to 2002 statistics from the Merrill Lynch Global Securities Research & Economics Group. Recently, companies have announced missed production targets and have slashed 2003 production forecasts. Merrill Lynch publishes views on worldwide oil and natural gas industry (36321, http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex32823.htm)
Let‘s turn world fuel crisis around (Douglas Low, Edinburgh Evening News, 24 May 2003)
Taming the Oil Beast (John Carey, Business Week, 24 February 2003)
The Oil Endgame (Mark Sardella, Research Director, Southwest Energy Institute, 15 October 2002)
The Future of the Oil and Gas Industry: Past Approaches, New Challenges (Harry J. Longwell, Director & Executive Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corporation, )
End of the Fossil-Fuel Era (Jeremy Rifkin, The Washington Post, 26 September 2002)
Analysts claim early peak in world oil production (Oil & Gas Journal, 12 August 2002)
ASPO, ODAC see conventional oil producton peaking by 2010 (Oil and Gas Journal Online, 16 June 2003)
Why Societies Collapse: Jared Diamond at Princeton University (ABC’s Background Briefing, 12.1.03)
Oil and the politics of war (ABC’s Lateline, 5/2/2003)
Bush
Energy Adviser Discusses Oil Production Peak at Conference
(ASPO website, 12.6.03)
Matthew Simmons,
an investment banker, energy analyst, and energy advisor to the
Bush Administration, discussed the peak of world oil production
at a recent conference by ASPO (Association for
the Study of Peak Oil & Gas): “the worry that
peaking is at hand; not years away”.
Alan Greenspan Raises Energy at Testimony
US Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, has raised
energy prices as a concern for the US (and therefore the
world) economy at a recent testimony to a congress
committee:
‘Although forward-looking indicators are mostly
positive, downside risks to the business outlook are also
apparent, including the partial rebound in energy
costs and some recent signs that aggregate demand
may be flagging among some of our important trading partners.
Oil prices, after dropping sharply in March on news that the
Iraqi oil fields had been secured, have climbed back
above $30 per barrel as market expectations for a
quick return of Iraqi production appear to have been overly
optimistic given the current security situation.
‘Also worrisome is the rise in natural gas
prices. Natural gas accounts for a substantial
portion of total unit energy costs of production among
nonfinancial, non-energy-producing firms. And as I noted in
testimony last week, futures markets anticipate that
the current shortage in natural gas will persist well
into the future. Although they project a near-term
modest decline from highly elevated levels, contracts written
for delivery in 2009 in excess of $4.50 per million Btu are
still at double the levels that had been contemplated when
much of our existing gas-using capital stock was put in
place.’
US backs down on representative council for Iraq (SMH, 10.7.03)
BBC Looks at Iraq in Light of Oil Depletion (BBC2,
36244)
The advocates of war insist it’s not about oil. But
global oil production is on the brink of terminal decline and
when the West begins to run short of supplies — Iraq
could be a lifeline.
Energy Crisis Will Hit Transport (Sustainable Transport Coalition, 36319)
The Iraq factor (The Economist, 13.6.03)
“The
first contracts for the sale of Iraqi oil since the end of the
war have been concluded. Will exports from Iraq complicate
OPEC’s efforts to control the price of oil?”
Reconstructing the Middle East — But it all depends on Iraq (The Economist, 26.6.03)
Paris Peak Oil
Conference Reveals Deepening Crisis (ASPO)
May 30, 2003, PARIS – Research presented on May 26th
and 27th at the French Institute for Petroleum (IFP) by a
wide variety of experts from varying and often competitive
perspectives disclosed that, in the year since the first
conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil
(ASPO) supply, constraints have worsened and the
realities of energy depletion are becoming more
apparent. A year of violent political history
centered on oil and ever-more unforgiving production results
have begun to force reluctant political and economic
acknowledgement of Peak Oil’s threat to civilization.
Yet ASPO’s founder, Professor Colin Campbell, and his
colleagues, retired TotalFinaElf Exploration Manager, Jean
Laherrère, and Physics Professor, Kjell Aleklett, have
good reason to be pleased with the second-ever ASPO
conference. Hundred and fifty people from more than twenty
countries attended this year, doubling attendance for the
inaugural event held last May in Uppsala, Sweden. In an
acknowledgement of Peak Oil’s penetration of
official consciousness, the event was partially
subsidized by the French Institute for Petroleum, the oil
services firm Schlumberger, and the French oil giant, Total.
The fact that it was held at a government institution was,
according to Campbell, evidence of the fact that Peak
Oil can no longer be completely ignored, even by
politicians.
See Conference
Procedeedings
Hydrogen Use Conference Held in Broome (ABC Radio
National — Business Report)
“The car manufacturers I think have understood that they
depend to 99% on petrol. That petrol probably will
not be as cheaply available in the future as it has
been in the past, due to very simple facts. It looks
like we go to the maximum of cheap oil production
world-wide, and secondly we have a lot of emerging
countries like China, India, Indonesia, Latin America; who
get motorised, and it’s not very likely that they will
get motorised on existing cheap available petrol fuel to be
made available in a timely manner.
“So those car companies over the last five, six years, have
realised that hydrogen can be a way out, and simply due to
the fact hydrogen has the maximum feedstock flexibility. You
can produce it from fossil sources, but you also can produce
it from all renewable sources.”
Western
Australia: Beyond Oil?
Government, business and community groups meet to examine how
to deal with shrinking world oil supplies. “The WA Government
is leading Australia, and possibly the world, in
acknowledging world oil vulnerability and our role in
contributing to growing oil consumption.” Beyond Oil will
include discussion by WA State Government ministers and
bureaucrats about practical policies to begin reducing
our oil dependency. Companies such as BP and Wesfarmers
EnergyLtd will look at how business can lead the
development and adoption of alternative energies.
The unrepentant oilman (The Economist, 13/3/03)
"Unlike many of his rivals, Exxon’s Lee Raymond thinks
oil is unambiguously good"
The oil industry — A convenient war, perhaps (The Economist, 6.3.03)
The
evil empire of oil addicts — A Nick Possum
Adventure
This adventurous investigator looks at Iraq and oil.
Western
Australia: Beyond Oil?
Government, business and community groups meet to examine how
to deal with shrinking world oil supplies. “The WA Government
is leading Australia, and possibly the world, in
acknowledging world oil vulnerability and our role in
contributing to growing oil consumption.” Beyond Oil will
include discussion by WA State Government ministers and
bureaucrats about practical policies to begin reducing
our oil dependency. Companies such as BP and Wesfarmers
EnergyLtd will look at how business can lead the
development and adoption of alternative energies.
Oil becomes prime battle target (SMH, 4.3.03)
Robert Fisk Interview (Late Night Live — ABC Radio National, 28.2.03)
Hydrogen power (The Economist, 13.2.03)
Energy and the environment — A greener Bush (The Economist, 13.2.03)
War ‘would mean biggest oil shock ever’ (The Observer, 2.2.03)
War on Iraq: The USA-Europe split (Late Night Live, ABC Radio National, 27/1/03)
SUVs:
Weapons of Mass Destruction? — The Detroit
Project
An American group that is challenging drivers to reflect on
the relationship between their 4WDs (SUVs) and funding of
terrorism. They’ve created “a campaign to create a
series of TV ads designed to win the hearts and minds -- and
change the driving habits -- of American consumers by asking
them to connect the dots and think about the effect energy
wastefulness is having not just on the environment, but on
our foreign policy.”
They have an interesting
FAQ.
Oil
behind annihilation plan, warns ex-UN official (SMH,
27.1.03)
“A former UN official warned in Baghdad today that the US and
UK were ready to "annihilate" Iraqi society in order to
control the country’s oil wealth. Meanwhile, a Pentagon
adviser claimed the French were trying to undermine the US to
protect their own oil interests in Iraq.”
How oil corrupts (The Economist, 23.1.03)
São Tomé is about to strike oil. Bad luck,
perhaps.
Car wars (The Guardian, 18.1.03)
The US economy needs oil like a junkie needs heroin —
and Iraq will supply its next fix.
Occupying The Iraqi Oil Fields, Or How America Restores Its International Credit Rating, by by Marshall Auerback (PrudentBear.com, 14/1/2003)
Crude gesture (The Economist, 13.1.03)
Our Options on Iraq — A SMH Cartoon (SMH, 13.1.03)
Iraqi oil may be taken as ‘spoil of war’ (SMH, 11.1.03)
Fields of dreams — On Caspian Oil and Politics (The Economist, 9.1.03)
Weapons of Mass Consumption (SMH Moir Cartoon,
9.1.03)
A visual commentary on war on Iraq.
UK
signals push to secure Iraqi oilfields (SMH,
8/1/03)
“In London, the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw,
told a meeting of 150 British ambassadors that security of
energy sources was a key priority of current British foreign
policy… some British ministers and officials say privately
that oil is more important in the calculation than weapons of
mass destruction.”
There’s
no denying the obvious, but look at the possibilities
(SMH, 7/1/03)
"An occupation of Iraq which served merely to fuel 4WDs would
be immoral"
Missing strategy a ‘black hole’ (SMH,
6/1/03)
"The push is on for a long-term plan to ensure that western
Sydney can flourish in population and lifestyle."
Pumping up the price (The Economist, 3/1/03)
"The oil price began 2003 at a two-year high thanks to moves
by OPEC, a strike in Venezuela and impending war with Iraq.
Will the black stuff grow even more expensive over the next
few months?"
Defence redefined means securing cheap energy (SMH,
26.12.02)
“Behind George Bush’s high-minded rhetoric on why
America may go to war with Iraq is a long history of weighing
the price of securing its oil supplies.”
Defence redefined means securing cheap energy (SMH,
26.12.02)
“Behind George Bush’s high-minded rhetoric on why
America may go to war with Iraq is a long history of weighing
the price of securing its oil supplies.”
It’s
time we got back in the saddle (The Herald,
18/12/02)
An opinion piece calling Scots to get on their bikes.
Iraq,
Venezuela spark oil shock fears (ABC’s The World
Today — 17/12/2002)
"some fear we could be heading for a new, contemporary
energy crisis"
Gridlocked Britain (The Economist, 12/12/02)
“Within a year of the M25 being widened, traffic nearly
doubled between Junctions 9 and 10, wiping out any
benefits….a big road-building programme without road
pricing is as ludicrous as giving a heroin addict a last
fix… Transport pundits pretty much all agree that
charging is the way to go. Now even the road lobby has come
round to the view that demand for scarce road space has to be
managed”.
Hydrogen Economy (ABC Radio National Breakfast, 31/10/02)
Mobile
Metropolis Forum (ABC’s Comfort Zone,
1/12/01)
“Car dependence is oil dependence, and when fuel goes up the
value of fringe properties immediately goes down. The
onset of the world peak in oil production, which is now quite
clear, is with us, and increased dependence on Middle Eastern
oil is there. Suburbia therefore has a long-term
question mark over it, and particularly after September
11.”
Why Blair is an appeaser (George Monbiot column on The
Guardian, 5.11.02)
“Britain plays poodle partly because the US is stitching up
the world’s oil supplies”
Energy Prices (SMH, 4/12/02)
An example of the price elasticity of energy (meaning that a
small change in the supply of energy causes a huge change in
its price). Recently, due to the bushfires in the Transgrid
easements the supply of electricity fell below demand. The
wholesale spot price rose from $35 per MWhr to $3895. The
price of oil is famously elastic: yet another reason to
reduce our dependence on the sticky stuff.
CSIRO
warns of drastic curbs on the good life (SMH,
4/11/02)
Warns of oil shortages from 2015 and natural gas shortages
from 2030.
Saudi Arabia and the US: Deadly Contradictions (ABC Background Briefing, 20/10/02)
Why Societies Collapse: Jared Diamond at Princeton University (ABC Background Briefing, 27/10/02)
Oiling or spoiling the recovery? (The Economist, 8.4.02)
All blowing over? (The Economist, 11.4.02)
America and the Arabs (The Economist, 21/Mar/2002)
Survey: The Gulf (The Economist, 21/Mar/2002)
What Americans have learnt — and not learnt — since 9/11 (The Age Opinion, 7/9/02)
BP
head issues warning over Iraq (ABC The World Today,
1/11/02)
“The head of Britain’s most powerful oil company, BP,
has just issued a warning to the Bush administration not to
carve up Iraqi oil interests for its own companies after any
war there.” It reflects “anxiety that the Bush administration
really intends to use the occupation of Iraq to turn Iraq
into an American oil supply enterprise.”
Don’t
mention the O-word (The Economist, 12/9/02)
“Sheikh Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister during
the shocks of the 1970s, gave warning last week that if
America invades Iraq, Mr Hussein could attack Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait and so send oil prices to $100 a barrel.”
Saudi Arabia and the US: Deadly Contradictions (ABC Background Briefing, 20/10/02)
Why Societies Collapse: Jared Diamond at Princeton University (ABC Background Briefing, 27/10/02)
Do We Still Need the Saudis? (Time Magazine, Sunday, Jul.
28, 2002)
“Oil has sustained the alliance between the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia for decades. But extremism in the kingdom is putting
those ties to the test”
Oil — Depletion and Denial (ABC’s Late Night Live with Phillip Adams, 5/11/2001)
Fossil-fuelled boom times are close to running out of steam (SMH, 24.9.01)
Transport
(ABC Earthbeat,12/09/98)
“What I think we have to realise is that the world is
entering a new era in the next century we are sort of leaving
what’s called the golden age of oil and we’re
entering a period where world oil production is going to peak
and world oil production will then be in decline.
And what is going to happen is the price of oil is going to
escalate. There will be manoeuvering at a political level
between countries to secure oil supplies and it is the
potential actual conflict in the Middle East as this
manoeuvering takes place. What is going to happen is China,
being a large country, is going to come head on in
competition with all the other big oil consumers around the
world to try and get their share of oil. It simply will
prove, I believe, just far too expensive and far too
problematic to secure that level of oil just to run
automobiles around cities very wastefully.”