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what a great presenter! Great popularizer, but still very empirical. Fantastic at boiling it down to the key convincing information and seeing the big pictures.
Takeway: Find a way to follow this guy's works. He claims there is a relationship between the economy and energy and that energy is the key input to the economy. He claims peak coal in 2030. Integrates fiat, fractional reserve money system where money is loaned into existence with Peak Oil. The money system requires continued GDP growth which it has been getting from cheap oil-based energy (whose consumption has been growing at roughly an exponential rate). He claims that bad and unexpected things are bound to happen as oil-based energy cannot continue to grow and thus the fiat money system can no longer grow. The money system will have to change. The money system is a complex non-linear system and is inherently unpredictable. Martenson answers the question: "How did we get two bubbles in one decade: Internet and Housing" when ordinarily they come at least a generation apart" with the answer: "They are really one big credit-expansion bubble which hasn't blown up yet". Financial markets do not change gradually and some kind of fundamental change is about to happen.
Takeway: I've got to get more liquid so that I can change course when the big changes hit.


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Seems to have the best overall view (and makes the best overall case) that Peak Oil is significant and what its implications are.
Takeway: Hisch makes a strong empirical case that oil consumption correlates with world GDP 1 to 1 (1% GDP growth correlates with 1% oil consumption growth) and that with Peak Oil we might very well be looking at a 4% fall in oil (and GDP) for at least a decade (that's a more than 40% drop in world GDP!!!).
Link -
http://www.worldofwallstreet.us/2010/10/us-assocation-for-the-study-of-peak-oil-...

When will Peak Oil arrive? How will it effect us? and can Green Energy save us?

I don't care, I'm gettin' solar panels (all controlled by electricity companies of course) and I'll be able to produce enough power for my electric scooter to ride to the milk bar and back once a week, if I don't need the lights on at night that is  

Too bad my place of work won't fair so well. They probably won't pay me if they can't operate, but jeez I'm glad we have the dole to save us all  

If we are trusting in the Saudi's word, then that's our fault. We'll get, or not get, what we deserve.

If we are trusting in our governments to tell us when oil has run out, then that's our fault.

May I start with a bromide: a resource which is finite is not inexhaustible. If you think that over, it should not be a revelation. That was a bromide… some people think a keynote should never rise above a bromide….

Some five years ago in Italy I concluded a talk by saying that like the inhabitants of Pompeii, who ignored the neighboring volcano, Vesuvius, until it detonated, the world ignores the possibility of peak oil at its peril.

Two years ago in addressing ASPO in Cork, Ireland, I argued that the peakists had won the intellectual argument, except for some minor details about precise timing, but that by and large everyone recognized that there were limits on our capacity to increase the production of crude oil as we have steadily since World War Two.

[I also argued] that peakists were no longer a beleaguered minority, that they had won, and that consequently they should be gracious in victory.

There’s an old spiritual that is relevant here. The walls of those who doubted the peak seemed to be impregnable. Nonetheless, you marched around the walls seven times and then blew the trumpets and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

But acceptance by knowledgeable people is not enough. The political order should respond. Nonetheless, our willingness, let alone our ability, to do anything serious about the impending inability to increase oil output is still a long way off.

The political order responds to what the public believes today, not to what it may come to believe tomorrow. It is also resistant to any action that inflicts pain or sacrifice on those who vote. The payoff in politics comes from reassurance, perhaps precluded by a rhetorical challenge.

Still, the challenge is clear in both logic and in the evidence. Let me start briefly with the logic,

If something cannot be sustained, it will eventually not be sustained… ultimately it will shrink.

Secondly, you cannot produce oil unless you first discover it (a contribution by Colin Campbell).

Third, a resource that is finite cannot continually have its production increased.

What is the evidence?

First, we remain heavily dependent on super-giant and giant oilfields discovered in the 50s and 60s of the last century… I might add, of the last millennium. Only rarely in recent decades have discoveries equaled production. Mostly, it’s been one barrel discovered for every three barrels produced.

Second, old super-giants like Burgan in Kuwait and [Cantarell] in Mexico have gone into decline earlier than had been anticipated… and going into decline have been Alaska, the North Sea, western Siberia and the like.

Third, while it is not yet “Twilight in the Desert” (as you may have read) still we are well into the afternoon, even in Saudi Arabia. Even the Ghawar oilfield is increasingly hard to sustain.

Fourth, in 2004 we experienced our first demand-driven price spike, as opposed to the previous price spikes driven by supply interruptions. We still operate at about the level of production capacity of 2004.

Next, given projected decline curves running from 4 to 6 percent, and the projected increase in demand during the next quarter century, we shall require the new capacity equivalence of five Saudi Arabias.

Note that it is conventional oil: that is all that Hubbert talked about. Somewhat disingenuously, the debate has been turned on him by talking about fuel liquids in general, throwing in tar sands, heavy oil, coal liquids, oil shale and so on.

But clearly, large conventional oil production is increasingly no longer part of the future unless there is a technological breakthrough, which Mr. Gilbert talked about just a few moments ago, raising the ultimate recovery rate from existing fields, which at this moment we cannot expect.

Of course, there are uncertainties which make timing predictions with regard to the peak risky. Iraq, which has been held back for a variety of reasons, may come along as one of those five new needed Saudi Arabias.

Offshore Brazil and offshore oil elsewhere are promising. Shale gas, which is apparently coming in abundance (but is not, of course, oil) may somewhat alleviate the pressures on liquid fuels.

But in general we must expect to get along without what has been our critical energy source in expanding the world’s economy for more than half a century.

Can the political order face up to the challenge? There is no reason for optimism.

We are likely to see pseudo-solutions, misleading alternatives and sheer sloganeering: “energy independence,” “getting off foreign oil” and the like. All of that sheer sloganeering we have seen to this point.

The political order (which abhors political risk) tends to rely on the Biblical prescription, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Link -
http://energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-30/peak-oil-debate-over
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For those who may not be aware, Dr. James Schlesinger served as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (1971-73), Secretary of Defense (1973-75), Director of the CIA and was the first Secretary of Energy (1977-79), in the USA. His experience therefore, comes at the highest relevant levels.

Whilst he is not one of the worlds great speakers, you would think given his background that he comes from a position of insider knowledge, that some of his points are, indeed, salient!

The coming liquid fuel crisis

We face a liquid fuel crisis in two to five years. That was the stark message from an international conference on peak oil in Washington DC that I attended last month.

It will be far worse than the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks that induced panic, disorientation and insecurity. Back then stock market declines followed big hikes in fuel prices. This time we can expect ever-rising fuel prices accompanied by annually deepening recession, increasing inflation and unemployment, and a decline in world trade.

Last time, the crises resolved themselves as oil production and trade were resumed. This time, there will not be enough oil to resume business as usual. Despite a decrease in demand from OECD countries, overall demand continues to rise as global population climbs inexorably from 6.8 towards 9.2 billion and newly emerging economies expect their share of the global resource pie. Come 2015, however, we can anticipate a significant increase in the price of oil as global production starts its inevitable decline. Production of regular or conventional oil has already peaked while supplies of unconventional oil - heavy, deepwater and Arctic oil - will peak within a few years.

"We're drillin' three miles down in the Gulf of Mexico because of peak oil," drawled Jim Baldauf, former Texan oilman and organiser of the conference. "We're scrapin' the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. We have to drill twice as deep at twice the cost to get half what we're used to."

The recent Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf was a rude awakening to those who thought drilling for unconventional oil was going to be easy. And it's not cheap to produce oil from unconventional sources - the price needs to be $100 a barrel to make it worthwhile. But as Chris Skrebowski , a leading expert on global oil supply, asked: "Can we afford this price? Where is the price that allows everyone to be employed? Europe already has 10 per cent unemployment."

Like it or not, $100 a barrel is what we can expect, or worse. Another leading oil analyst Jeff Rubin laid it on the line: "We can expect triple-digit oil next year."

A peak in oil production does not mean the end of oil, nor indeed of energy supplies. But oil is the energy source that all others are measured against. The coming oil crisis is largely a crisis in transportation since oil products power 95 per cent of land transport. Skrebowski felt that only when we take oil out of transport could we hope to see a solution. Otherwise, as Rubin notes: "We have to get off the road".

Anthony Perl, author of Transport Revolutions, said we will see a major redesign of our transport within 10 years. In order to survive this "mother of all energy crises", we need to fast track mobility systems that can perform without oil. The most promising developments are electric motors replacing the internal combustion engine; greater use of rail and water replacing road and air; and greater use of collectively managed travel.

A lot of solutions are already out there, according to Perl, for example, high speed rail (HSR) for up to 500 miles (800 kms) though this will soon increase to 1000 miles (1600kms). China is currently building 12,000 miles of HSR that will double the world's capacity and in turn reduce the price by 50per cent. "Sky sail" technology can reduce a ship's oil use by 50-80 per cent. Electric railways are already a proven technology - the Trans-Siberian is a case in point.

Planes and trucks, however, which cannot run at scale without oil will see the most radical changes. New priorities, new skills and new priorities are needed. We need a Transportation Redevelopment Agency, according to Perl, that will anticipate future technologies and modes of transport; develop strategies for deploying those modes; and determine how to fund them.

What then is the future of air transport? Charles Schlumberger, principal air transport specialist at the World Bank, noted that oil is already the biggest cost for airlines. Nevertheless, the air industry is looking at significant fleet replacement, especially in the Asia-Pacific. Air transport has been a catalyst for world economic development and is a crucial part of trade, globalization and foreign investment. Thus if air transport shrinks because of oil prices, it will have a significant impact and accelerate recession.

Australia imports 40 per cent of its oil.

We are not immune from the coming oil crunch. Perhaps it was apocryphal, but the story goes that

Opposition leader Tony Abbott was overheard saying to an adviser at the beginning of the year: "Peak Oil? Do we know about Peak Oil?"

Let's hope our new Prime Minister does know and acts accordingly.

Link -
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11171
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There is always hope, but I wouldn't bank on either of the major party's, they both blocked a parliamentry enquiry!

Nicole “Stoneleigh” Foss: “Expect Next Phase Of Market Crash And A Large One For That Matter…” (Cont)

AA: What about alternatives or nuclear energy? People often say that if oil gets more expensive, alternatives are to be deployed. Is this flawed logic?

Stoneleigh: Alternatives to oil typically have a much lower energy returned on energy invested (EROEI), and are expensive, at a time when money will be very scarce. They also depend on the availability of cheap oil to produce them. These problems mean that it will be very difficult to provide anything like the energy we get from fossil fuels. Alternatives can help in small-scale niche applications, but they cannot solve the problem of running a society, especially an energy-intensive industrial society.

Alternatives generally do not scale up, for reasons of net energy, money and time. We do not even have the capacity to produce things like solar panels on a massive scale, and we have neither the time nor the money to build that capacity before our oil supplies decline, let alone build all the panels we would need as well. We have also allowed our grid infrastructure to age, to the point where much of it will need to be replaced.

As most alternatives produce electricity, we are very dependent on the grid. Unfortunately there is a large mismatch between renewable energy resource intensity, energy demand and grid capacity. That means far more grid investment would be required. We would also have t covert energy demand away from liquid fuels to electricity, and that will take a huge amount of time and money at a time when both will be in very short supply.

AA: Financial system seems to complicate the whole issue? In which way?

Stoneleigh: Financial crisis will make everything very much harder. We will have very little money in a deflationary world, and people will be highly risk averse. No one (individuals, companies and governments) will be wanting to spend at a time when future earnings are so uncertain, which will make it almost impossible to invest in the infrastructure changes we need to make in order to address energy crisis. With not enough to go around, people are unfortunately likely to waste efforts and resources fighting over what there is, rather than pooling scarce resources for the good of all. Financial crisis leads to social instability at a time when we most need to keep our heads and work together.

AA: Do you expect crash in stock markets? How serious it will be and what will be the main consequences?

Stoneleigh: Yes, I do expect a crash, and a very large one at that. I expect the larger trend to be down for several years. A lot of investments will fall a very long way in value, and where these investments have been used as collateral for borrowing, there will be knock-on consequences. We will see margin calls as values decline, and outstanding debt is now too high compared to the value of the asset, so that additional debt repayments have to be made. We are going to see a very large number of bankruptcies and many debt defaults. This will be a factor in crashing the money supply, leaving too little lubricant to run the engine of the economy.

AA: Debt seems to be large part of the problem. How large?

Stoneleigh: A massive debt bubble is the at the heart of the problem. It has been building for decades and is now far larger than any previous debt bubble in human history. Humanity periodically rediscovers leverage on a grand scale, after the lessons of the previous episode have mostly passed out of living memory. Expansions of credit and debt create the appearance of great wealth, but it is illusory (virtual). The obligations created are real though. People have expectations of being repaid, and they will not be, which will set up a grab for the underlying real wealth (collateral) which is nowhere near enough to go around. This is deflation, and its effects are very significant. Money will be scarce for a very long time.

AA: Still, some people say we should leave the solution of peak oil to the free market…?

Stoneleigh: The free market has a very short time horizon, while energy investments are long-term. In fact the time horizon of the free market is likely to shrink in the times of high risk that we are facing. No one will be making investments where there is no economic visibility, so returns are completely uncertain. Financing projects will be almost impossible. We are going to have to depend on public financing, but governments will have very little money and many more calls on their resources, so they will not be in a position to make many investments either.