Oil and Gas – The Next Meltdown?
Peak Moment 130: Drawing parallels with the current financial meltdown, Matthew Simmons expresses his alarm about gasoline stocks being the lowest in several decades and refinery production down following recent hurricanes. He warns that if there were a run on the “energy bank” by everyone topping off their gasoline tanks, the US would be out of fuel in three days, and grocery shelves largely emptied in a week. In an interview plus excerpts from his presentation at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA) conference on September 22, 2008, Matt highlights the risks and vulnerabilities in the finished oil products system, and answers questions from the audience. www.simmonsco-intl.com http dvds of the entire conference can be ordered through ASPO-USA at www.regonline.com
Related Blogs
- The Redundant Subsidy By Robert Rapier :: ASPO-USA: Association …
- Review February 22, 2010 :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of …
- Mexican Oil Production Continues to Dive :: ASPO-USA: Association …
- Review January 4, 2010 :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of …
- Umbrage in the Gas Patch :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of …
- Natural Gas – Bridge to sustainability by Tom Hewett :: ASPO-USA …
- Interview with Bob Hirsch – The Stonewalling of Peak Oil :: ASPO …
- 2009 Conference Proceedings :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study …
- Notes from the 2009 ASPO-USA Peak Oil Conference – GetRealList
- Broadening the Peak Oil Conversation : discountreduction.com
- Government and gasoline « Marin Libertarian Party
- Water To Hydrogen Booster – Save 50% On Gasoline! | Jim The Trucker
- Tosa Mobile Mart ,Milwaukee – Gasoline Service Station | Wisconsin …
- Gasoline prices keep rising in Georgia — metroAtlanta.com
- How much gasoline do those refill trucks hold? | Jim The Trucker
- Credigy Receivables | Usa Gasoline price rises – 7 Tips – Quick …
- Genuine Technique for Maximizing Height | Words That Rhyme
- Increase Height 2-4 Inches | Grow Taller With Growth Flexv Pro
- Experience the Difference of a Bar Height Table
- Influence height and weight | Drama Forum
Tagged with: Economy • Energy • gas • investment • matt • matthew • natural • Oil • peak • simmons
Filed under: Offshore Oil Jobs
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
those who doesn’t beleive oil is running out just remember discovery of new oil reserve as necessary to keep us going GONNA. Yes there will be new one’s, but in 30 years, you and me not gonna have cars burning gasolines. Because gallon will be about $7-10. You may say “well we will have new technology by then”. Well what is gonna move us so cheaply as natural oil? Battery driven cars?
Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.
You cant compare stone with oil.
You’re mad. Saudis new fields aren’t isolate, both are supposed to maintain retrieval rate.
Maybe point to the fields in Central Asia. However we’re dealing with unstable, Talibanized regions that’ll likely collapse very soon. Not to mention, one that involves Chinese, Indian, Iranian, and Russian interests.
is this guy a doomer ?
Matt is an optimistic realist. He sees a lot of challenges in the future of fossil fuels — and as an Energy Investment Banker, he knows his stuff. He has done the research (and wrote Twilight in the Desert). But he’s also working to create renewable alternatives, like a wind power project off the coast of Maine.
The electric economy is a fantasy. Its not going to happen. The natural resources to replace the automobile fleet does not exist. The natural resources to create enough batteries for us to keep on ‘happy motoring’ dose not exist. The natural resources to generate the electricity to charge the batteries dose not exist. Solar, wind? Gimmie a break! They will never contribute more than a drop in the bucket compared to oil energy.
I agree — we’re not going to replace the fossil fuels with electricity not at the scale we’re using energy now. Only after we powerdown to a very significant extent.
I like how many people here point to other countries
for sources of oil. Are we going to yet another war to compete with growing populations like China and India?
I disagree. There is no shortage of renewable energy, the problem is that we really don’t have an especially efficient way of capturing it. For example, imagine the potential of fusion for electricity generation. Matt Simmons is involved in a wind project which he envisions replacing home heating oil AND creating liquid ammonia, which he says can replace motor gasoline.
We both have named limitations for renewables right NOW: scaling them up to the level needed (since they are much less efficient than fossil fuels), capturing, storing, distributing, creating infrastructures for all of these, and modifying or building new equipment to use them. Thinkers like Michael Klare suggest that renewables can do what we need on a far more efficient usage scale, but we lack the investment, etc. in time to make a smooth transition.
I agree with you here. But we still need to work on it. Bad times are coming if we don’t get a good replacement to the oil we are going to lose to peak oil.
Absolutely we need to keep working on it. But serious peak oil scholars like Richard Heinberg & Michael Klare don’t see any way we can fully replace the energy-density of oil. Looks pretty clear we can’t keep up these consumption levels…not just of oil, but many other resources. Ocean fisheries~ Fresh water~ Topsoil~
We have lots of free electricity, so long as it’s at night. The generators take a long time to come up to speed and so if we charge our cars at night, we won’t need to add capacity or upgrade the grid for decades. Obviously battery material and the diesel machines that mine it are a problem… Yes, soil depletion, fish depletion, copper… It goes on and on, and mining them is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. People don’t understand how important FF really are.
We have quite a bit of excess electricity generation capacity at night. Electricity usage drops greatly at night but they can’t lower the generation at night because it takes days to bring the generators up to speed. We could add millions of cars to the grid as long as it’s at night. Cities are a huge problem for electric cars because so few people have a garage or even an available spot outside of their house. The batteries might be a problem. Simmons says we can use ammonia instead of gasoline
Even if true, human caused climate change is irrelevant. Peak oil is the real challenge facing the human race. Sky high oil price will do more for the environment than emmisions cuts will ever do.
@Flagstaff12 I agree- the find it increasingly frustrating that climate change is sucking all the oxygen out of the space to really get across the implication around peak oil. I hope the hell matt is wrong about the potential for how quickly this could all unravel. this is scary stuff cheers
thid stuff is so much more compelling that climate change- it is coming from a man who you can trust and he is well respected within the business community and his numbers are transparent— i keep banging on about how climate change is sucking all the oxygen from the very serious threats we face from the nature Matt is talking about here….. Even though he is going on about the worst case scenario – it is wise to understand that these scenarios are on the table! just wild!!!!
Peak oil may make climate change worse. We could run low on oil and then fire up coal liquification and use more tar sands . . . both more CO2 intensive. :-/
We need to move transportation to electricity and go nuclear, wind, and solar.
Efficiency of renewable energy is becoming a luxury. If we don’t mass produce these things NOW…it’ll be too late.
Compare it to WW2 …the germans made the very first jet engine fighter, a truelly magnificent piece of engineering and aviation, and it would dominate the skies. However it was near the end of the war, and too late to make a difference.
Even with an all out, WW2 style effort (putting every resource the country has into the problem), it will take decades for a transition and cost trillions of dollars. America simply doesn’t have that kind of money and we are borrowing beyond control for other thins right now. NOTHING is going to even begin until a major shock hits the country,
Priority one is clean water, if that business is self sufficiently powered, then the worst part is over. Otherwise people will have to move away from their homes in search of it. Second would be food. Having national announcements to make your own garden that can feed and sustain your family. De-urbanisation, breaking down parts of the city not used and make it a local food plantation for gardenless housing. Then heating for the housing. The rest is just luxury.
DE-urbanization? Urban centers are the most efficient way of living we know of, it’s the suburbs that are so bad. City life requires far less energy per capita. Food can be grown just outside of the city I think re urbanization will be the trend for this century if we don’t blow ourselves up.
Anyone notice how long it has been?
this guy needs to realize not all work (in fact not any real significant work) is done from a computer moving decimals around trying to fuck people out of money. the work done that keeps this country and economy moving is industrial work, manufacturing, farming, etc. – show me how to stay home and do this from my fucking house!