A: “Who knows?” and “It doesn’t really matter.” Much higher gasoline prices that are sustained for a long, long time are now inevitable.
The fundamentals in the oil market are that we are in the beginning stages of peak oil. Supply can no longer keep up with demand, which has kept soaring even in the face of record prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has the surprising statistics:
Preliminary data indicates that global consumption rose by roughly 500,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) during the first half of 2008 compared with year-earlier levels, as a 1.3-million bbl/d rise in consumption outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was partially countered by an 800,000 bbl/d drop in U.S. consumption compared with year-earlier levels…. Total world oil consumption is expected to grow by a little over 1 million bbl/d during the second half of 2008 and by almost 1 million bbl/d in 2009 compared with year-earlier levels.
That’s right, even after “the largest half-year consumption decline in volume terms in the last 26 years” in this country, global demand continues to grow 1 million bbl/d each year. Why?
Making a Solar Cell Component without Using Fossil Fuels - Scientific American. Cleaner than clean energy: BioSolar creates new plastic backing for photovoltaic cells out of cotton and castor beans rather than petroleum products
Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California - New York Times.
Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.
Southern California Edison Signs 900MW Wind Deal - Earth2Tech
Southern California Edison announced it has signed a 20-year contract for 909 megawatts of wind power from DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy.
The National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas opened with Bill Clinton (see here) and wrapped up with consensus recommendations: The federal government should:
Provide long-term tax incentives for renewable energy production and energy efficiency, including clean renewable energy bonds. Modify other tax policies to reward clean energy investments
Initiate electrification of our entire transportation sector so it uses only clean domestic energy soon Read the rest of this entry »
Late last year, after his campaign tanked, no one was paying much attention to McCain. As a result, some of the amazing things that he believes didn’t get a lot of attention, such as this Cheney-esque stunner:
JOHN MCCAIN: “When you say wind solar and tide, most every expert that I know says that, if you maximize that in every possible way, the contribution that that would make given the present state of technology is very small, is very small. It’s not a large contribution. It’s wonderful, it’s great to have it, I encourage it everywhere. I hope everyone will, for Christmas, buy their family a solar panel. But, that would be exciting. But they, but, I’d be glad to send you the figures that there’s the amount of–even if we gave it the absolute maximum, uh, wind, solar and tide, uh, etc. The clean tech - the truly clean technologies don’t work.”
(Town Hall Meeting; Portsmouth, NH 12/04/07)
Yes, John McCain is the candidate from the 19th century. He has a Luddite mentality that not even the Bush energy Department believes (see “Wind Power — A core climate solution“).
This quote reveals what a narrow circle of experts McCain relies on. Just what we need, a President in a bubble. And one that he is completely unable to hear the truth, even when it is presented to him by a hard core conservative, like T. Boone Pickens, as we learned from these amazing remarks last month:
As deforestation accelerates and grows ever more concentrated the consequences on climate change are even greater than previously thought. As reported in New Scientist:
Pristine temperate forest stores three times more carbon than currently estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and 60% more than plantation forests, according to research in Australia.
Part 2 began an analysis of the bipartisan compromise proposed by the Gang-of-10 Senators, suggesting that deal isn’t so bad. The other evidence the deal isn’t so bad is that the House GOP is threatening to refuse to vote for it (see “Part 2.5“).
The good of the 5-year extension of the renewable tax credits certainly beats the “bad” of doubly de minimis drilling. But what about the rest of the deal?
MORE GOOD
Offsets
The $84 billion in investments in conservation and efficiency in the New Era bill will be fully offset with loophole closers and other revenues. Approximately $30 billion will come from new revenues from the oil and gas industry through such measures as modifying the Section 199 manufacturing deduction for oil and natural gas production and other appropriate measures to ensure that the federal government receives its fair share of revenue from Gulf of Mexico leases. Remaining offsets will be finalized in consultation with the Finance Committee after accounting for interaction effects with other pending legislation.
The National Clean Energy Summit at the University of Nevada Las Vegas began on Monday afternoon with an inspiring speech by former President Bill Clinton [pictured above with Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) President John Podesta]. The Summit is sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), CAPAF, and UNLV. Clinton spoke before 900 Summit attendees.
President Clinton’s speech included a new and important idea: create energy independent areas. These places would rely on renewables, efficiency, and home grown energy. These places would then prove to the rest of the world that energy independence built on clean energy can occur, and would lead to economic growth. He touted the strong economic potential of renewable energy, citing an example from nearby California “Recently the state of California commissioned a study…which showed that building a 100 megawatt solar thermal plant would provide ten times the economic benefit of a comparable coal-fired power plant. It would create 4000 person-years of employment, and a net, NET, $628 million of economic benefit.” In pursuing clean energy projects worldwide, he suggested the following places:
That is, the death of SUVs isn’t like, say, Martha Stewart going to jail. What has happened to SUVs — “Sales of S.U.V.’s are down 32 percent so far this year, and were off 43 percent for July” — was inevitable.
Well, in July, General Motors dealers had a 174-day supply of the Yukon XL/Suburban on hand, on average, up from a 92-day supply a year earlier. Inventory of the Chevrolet C/K Suburban nearly doubled over the same period, to 116 days from 63 days.
Just like hapless homeowners, countless car owners are now “underwater,” driving vehicles that are worth less than the balance on their car loans. And just like desperate homeowners, the sellers of S.U.V.’s are having to painfully cut asking prices.
The fundamentals in the oil market are that we are in the beginning stages of peak oil. Supply can no longer keep up with demand, which has kept soaring even in the face of record prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has the surprising statistics:
I am participating in an online debate sponsored by the Economist on the “Global energy crisis.” The proposition being debated Oxford-style is:
I am not sure this post qualifies as schadenfreude — since that has been defined as “
