Geisinger Health Systems: What Are The Gas Drilling Health Facts? PITTSBURGH -- Some people are absolutely sure gas drilling threatens public health, while others are absolutely sure it doesn't. Geisinger Health Systems is looking for more facts on the debate. "Our concern is getting reliable data so we know what to do for our patients," said David Carey, director of Geisinger's Weis Center for Research in Danville, Pa. Geisinger serves many patients who live in areas that have seen a recent boom in Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The gas-rich formation thousands of feet underground has generated jobs, billions of dollars and concerns about possible environmental and public health impacts from thousands of new wells.
"There's a real need for reliable information for policymakers," Carey said, yet some of the debate on the issue has been more emotion-driven than science-driven. "Lack of data has not led to a lack of opinion," Carey noted. "Our position is, let's collect the data and find out," he said. It may fall to private companies to do some of the work.
Deep-water drilling remains a risky business. Two years after the blowout of the BP oil well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the United States is largely failing to act on the lessons learned from that experience to ensure that deep-water drilling and production is safe and environmentally compatible. In particular, the US Congress has not enacted any legislation to improve safety and protect the environment. Meanwhile, high oil prices are stimulating the expansion of drilling into ever deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as off Brazil, Africa and Europe.
Drilling is also proceeding in shallower, but ice-prone, regions of the Arctic, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska. I am one of two scientists who served on the US president's commission that produced the report Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling — the other was Cherry Murray of Harvard University. There have been some positive responses to the Deepwater Horizon experience.
The End of Cheap Oil, by Colin J. Campbell, Jean Laherrere. Why is the global economy constrained by the energy cost of energy? In 1973 and 1979 a pair of sudden price increases rudely awakened the industrial world to its dependence on cheap crude oil. Prices first tripled in response to an Arab embargo and then nearly doubled again when Iran dethroned its Shah, sending the major economies sputtering into recession.
Many analysts warned that these crises proved that the world would soon run out of oil. Yet they were wrong. Their dire predictions were emotional and political reactions; even at the time, oil experts knew that they had no scientific basis. Just a few years earlier oil explorers had discovered enormous new oil provinces on the north slope of Alaska and below the North Sea off the coast of Europe. The next oil crunch will not be so temporary. Unfortunately, this appraisal makes three critical errors. FLOW OF OIL starts to fall from any large region when about half the crude is gone.
Such growth is an illusion. The Authors COLIN J. Thomas Homer-Dixon. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, And the Renewal of Civilization - Thomas F. Homer-Dixon. Michael Klare. PAWSS Professor Michael Klare, Five College professor of peace and world security studies, and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), holds a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute. He has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics.
His books include American Arms Supermarket (1984), Low-Intensity Warfare (1988), Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide (Fifth Edition, 1989; Sixth Edition, 1994), World Security: Challenges for a New Century (First Edition, 1991; Second Edition, 1994; Third Edition, 1998), Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws (1995), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict (1999), Resource Wars (2001), Blood and Oil (2004), and The Race for What’s Left (2012). He serves on the board of the Arms Control Association and advises other organizations in the field. Blood And Oil: The Dangers And Consequences of America's Growing Dependency ... - Michael T. Klare. Michael Klare, Energy Wars 2012. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy - Michael T. Klare.
Energy Bulletin. IEA acknowledges peak oil. If you go to the executive summary of the 2009 International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, and search for "peak oil", your browser will come up empty. The whole subject was so beneath the dignity of a serious energy agency that they didn't even bother mentioning it. However, yesterday, the 2010 IEA World Energy Outlook became available. And if you repeat the exercise in that executive summary, you will come upon a section titled: Will peak oil be a guest or the spectre at the feast? Followed by an explicit discussion of the whole question.
The IEA's position is summarized in the graph above - conventional crude oil production has already peaked in 2006! However, all is not lost: in their projections natural gas liquids and unconventional oil production (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, etc) will cause the total liquid production to continue to gradually increase out to 2035. All this is in their "New Policies" central scenario. Although there is still this: So there you have it. Discussions about Energy and Our Future. Blog | Jeff Rubin. The End of Growth - Jeff Rubin. Why Your World Is about to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of ... - Jeff Rubin. R. Hirsch PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION: IMPACTS, MITIGATION, & RISK MANAGEMENT.
Reserves of oil and gaz. Les réserves de pétrole. Le pétrole est le premier contributeur de nos besoins énergétiques. C'est une source d'énergie non renouvelable, dont le stock diminue au fur et à mesure que nous le consommons. Or, nous en avons encore besoin car les énergies alternatives ne sont pas prêtes pour le remplacer massivement. Alors la fin du pétrole, c'est pour quand ? Entretien avec Roland Vially, géologue à IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN).
Où en est-on des réserves de pétrole ? R. Mais la date du peak oil n'est pas figée car le chiffre des réserves prouvées évolue. Y a-t-il des incertitudes sur les chiffres de réserves ? R. >> La notion de réserves Peut-on faire de nouvelles découvertes ? R. Et les pétroles non conventionnels ? R. Faut-il se préparer au déclin du pétrole ? R. Le saviez-vous ? Oil around the World. Norway Looks North for Oil and Gas Oil and Politics in Iraq Squabbles over the South China Sea Putting India on the World’s Petroleum Map Oil Rushes Back to Libya Norway’s economy depends on the sea. Many tons of cod, herring, mackerel and other fish hauled in from Norwegian waters land on dinner plates around the world each year, making Norway the world’s second-largest fish exporter. Fifty years ago, no one would have predicted that another offshore resource — hydrocarbons — would one day supersede fish as Norway’s most valuable asset. “The chances of finding coal, oil or sulfur on the continental shelf off the Norwegian coast can be discounted,” an official from the Norwegian Geological Survey wrote in a letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1958.
The following year, however, a large gas field was discovered in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands, prompting speculation that similar deposits might lie a bit farther north. Erin Wayman Back to top. Shell CEO Presents Two Scenarios For the Future of Energy. The chief executive of Shell has posted this article on Shell's new energy scenarios. I was made aware of it by The Oil Drum, who first posted it at and I thought it was worth repeating for your comments. They had a large number, 153, of mostly very insightful comments at the time of this posting. The article supports the peak oil theory, as I envision it. They defined it as the time that easy accessible oil will no longer be able to keep up with demand, their estimate being 2015. I interpret that as meaning that heavy oil, as in the tar sands of Canada and the heavy oil in Venezuela, and oil shale are not significant sources of oil by 2015 and that their addition will cause significant increases in the price of oil which will have an effect on demand.
The exact date is not that important, but it is meaningful that they predict a relatively near date, within the next 10 years. Two Energy Futures * By Jeroen van der Veer Blueprints will not be easy. The South China Sea Oil Card | China Power. Over the weekend, the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) quietly announced that nine new blocks in the South China Sea were now open to foreign oil companies for exploration and development. This move reflects one of the starkest efforts by China to assert its maritime rights in these disputed waters – and constitutes a direct challenge to Vietnam’s own claims.
Unlike the blocks that CNOOC offered in 2010 and 2011, the new ones are located entirely within disputed waters in the South China Sea. As this map shows, the new blocks lie off Vietnam’s central coast and comprise of more than 160,000 square kilometers. The western edge of some blocks appear to be less than 80 nautical miles from Vietnam’s coast, well within that country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. All the blocks overlap at least partially with PetroVietnam’s, including potentially ones where foreign oil companies have ongoing exploration activities. Enjoying this article? The timing of the announcement is curious.
Peaked Oil | Flickr.