Last year’s oil price peak, along with the recent oil price increase amidst a severe economic slowdown, have fueled worries about the future availability of oil. Some argue that concerns about peak oil or the end of oil are greatly exaggerated. Lynch (NYT 8/24/09) goes as far to say that such concerns are the domain of fear-mongering environmentalists, or of those without a proper grasp of history and geology.

Alberta Tar Sands: Podcast 2

The Government View

The second in our series on Alberta Tar Sands. We travel to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to hear the government's view on tar sands. Weighing in is Barry Rodgers with the Alberta Dept. of Energy, Preston McEachern with Alberta Environmental Management, and the honorable Robert Renner, minister of the environment for Alberta.

Will shale gas indeed be the next big thing as suggested in today's (10/10/09) article in the NYT . The numbers in this article are correct. Shale gas estimates are indeed very high. The article does not discuss any potential negative environmental impacts. Water quality, for example, is heavily debated in Pennsylvania, which is one of the major shale gas states. I would applaud a move tomorrow to shale gas from coal, whilst going full throttle on renewable development. I worry about heavy investments in shale gas and liquid gas transport as that may halt or hinder a move to cleaner electricity.

Albertan Tar Sands: Podcast 1

In terms of oil, we are more dependent on Canada than on Saudi-Arabia. 20 % of our oil imports comes from Canada, and more than half of that is produced from the oil sands in the Albertan boreal forest. We are by far the largest consumer of oil sands and it is our increasing demand for oil that is driving the oil sands developments in Alberta.

Chicago tonight recently ran a report on Canadian oil sands created by Elizabeth Brackett whom we met in Canada last month. She interviewed me too, but I did not make it in. Too bad! Perhaps in the PBS version of this story to be broadcast later this month, but despite the lack of any Dutch accents, this is a nice piece.

A bit of controversy about the numbers. Environmental group interviewed mentions a factor of 3 over conventional oil. This is for extraction and upgrading only. In a wells-to-wheels analysis (so total emissions from production to car driving) it is around 10%.

Gail, a fellow blogger on the Oil Sands tour, posted this first part of 2 on the Oil Drum website. The Oil Drum generally comes out in support of the oil and gas industry, but I like Gail as she follows her own guidelines. This article is relatively straightforward in that it reports numbers and does not offer much evaluation or criticism, and therefore it is a good background article. Also, the discussions following are rather insightful. In particular, check out the RockyMntGuy (RMG) who is member of the Grumpy Old Men of the Mountains (GOMM). I think we need to interview some of these GOMMers!

We visited the oil sands, also known as tar sands, near Ft McMurray in Alberta last week. We are still in the process of editing our footage and preparing a documentary covering the controversial production of the oil sands. As a teaser, here's the perspective of Samora Garling on this trip. Samora is a sophomore at Stanford and my, in his words, personal research assistant for the summer. We took him along. I suppose a bit as a reward for his summer long suffering under my supervision.

Samora's oil sands reflection

ConocoPhillips' Billings refinery is located close to the downtown area of the city of Billings. The plant has therefore come under intense scrutiny regarding its emissions as well as its dealings with local residents.

The American Petroleum Institute invited a group of energy bloggers (paying for hotel and airfare) to see first-hand how this facility has managed itself as a responsible member of the community. SmartEnergy joined the group to learn about the refining process and the politics surrounding the Billings plant.

If you're anything like me, your head has been scratched many times in the last year because of the price of crude oil. When I started at Stanford in 2001, both gas and oil prices (15US$/barrel) were low. Much too low to encourage rapid development of greener alternatives for transport or electricity production. My colleagues and I certainly expected (and hoped!) that the oil price would go up in the years following. Global demand was clearly increasing, with most of the demand rise caused by growing economies in China and India. But none of us had anticipated the very sharp increases between mid 2006 and mid 2008, with the extraordinary peak of $145US just this last summer.

Is global oil production peaking? The peak oil debate has been going on for a number of years. Depending on how production and exploration numbers are presented, and also depending on who you talk to (NGO, oil industry, government, economist), you may either be convinced that oil will peak soon, or that we have plenty of it.

My colleague Roland Horne recently wrote an excellent summary of this problem, which he presented at the International Forum on Higher Education and Energy at China University of Petroleum last month. You can download it here. A very highly recommended read. It will help you put this debate in perspective.