Et nos enfants nous appelleront "barbares" Si nous ne repensons pas rapidement notre manière de vivre, nos enfants paieront lourdement les conséquences de notre comportement irréfléchi. Le Monde.fr | | Par Jean-François Mouhot, historien, chargé de recherches à l'Université de Georgetown Si les dangers du nucléaire sont largement débattus sur la place publique depuis Fukushima, ils occultent aujourd'hui l'énorme problème moral posé par le don fait à nos enfants d'un monde où la température pourrait augmenter de six degrés et rendre la vie humaine très difficile. En 2005, enseignant à l'Université de Lille, j'avais été surpris des difficultés de mes étudiants à imaginer que des êtres humains, généralement intelligents et sensibles, aient pu un jour réduire d'autres hommes et femmes en esclavage. J'ai lu peu de temps après l'essai de J.M. En lisant ce livre, je fus frappé par les intrigantes similitudes entre l'esclavage et notre mode de vie contemporain si dépendant des énergies fossiles.
Des esclaves énergétiques: Réflexions sur le changement climatique: Amazon.fr: Jean-François Mouhot, Jean-Marc Jancovici Washington envisage un déclin de la production de pétrole mondiale à partir de 2011 Le département de l'énergie américain reconnaît qu'"il existe une chance pour que nous fassions l'expérience d'un déclin" de la production mondiale de carburants liquides entre 2011 et 2015 "si les investissements font défaut", selon un entretien exclusif avec Glen Sweetnam, principal expert officiel du marché pétrolier au sein de l'administration Obama. Cette alerte sur les capacités mondiales de production pétrolière lancée depuis Washington intervient au moment où la demande mondiale de pétrole repart à la hausse, et tandis que de nombreux projets d'extraction ont été gelés à cause de la chute des cours du brut et de la crise financière. Glen Sweetnam, qui dirige la division internationale, économique et des gaz à effet de serre au sein de l'administration de l'information sur l'énergie du département de l'énergie américain (DoE), ne dit pas que les investissements nécessaires feront "défaut". M. Les extractions de l'Irak et du Koweit ne devraient connaître qu'une faible augmentation.
{sciences²} Petrole salgado «Il y a moins de pétrole à extraire de la Terre que ce que croient beaucoup de gens». Encore un géologue grincheux? Un de ces partisans du «pic de Hubbert», ce fameux point de non-retour, au-delà duquel la production pétrolière périclitera puis finira, prédit par l’américain Marion Hubbert dès les années 1950 ? Non, ces propos sont tenus par un océanographe - James Murray (université de Washington) - et par David King, un physicien qui fut conseiller de Tony Blair et Gordon Brown lorsqu’ils dirigeaient la Grande Bretagne. Production USA Une question à des millions de milliards de dollars, d’euros ou de yuans. Ls pays producteurs ? Les compagnies pétrolières ? Que reste t-il, alors, pour estimer les quantités de pétroles disponibles ? Graph-1 Prod prixIl suffit, disent-ils, de comparer évolution de la production totale et des prix du pétrole brut depuis la fin des années 1990 pour affirmer que le «pic de Hubbert» est déjà derrière nous. D’où vient cette affirmation ?
There Will Be Oil, But At What Price? - Chris Nelder and Gregor Macdonald by Chris Nelder and Gregor Macdonald | 11:26 AM October 4, 2011 Daniel Yergin’s typically sunny outlook on oil in his recent Wall Street Journal piece, “There Will Be Oil,” suggested that technology and new energy discoveries would avert any of the economic disasters portended by peak oil. We found Mr. Yergin’s dismissal of these risks premature and repetitive. After all, he has asserted since 2004 that global oil production was nothing to worry about, and that there would be few effects on the economy. We counter that managers who would see their businesses survive the next few decades of extreme economic volatility will need to develop some literacy about oil and its complex relationships with the economy. Conventional crude ended its 150-year-long growth trajectory in 2004 and flattened out around 74 million barrels per day. As Shell, Chevron, Total, the IEA, and a host of other serious observers have openly declared since 2005, the age of cheap and easy oil has ended.
Peak oil is about price, not supply Heading down to Washington to speak at the Association for Peak Oil-USA‘s Truth in Energy conference on Nov. 2, I sense a general malaise within the peak oil movement. The pequists, as they have become known, appear to be on the defensive these days as they once again roll back their dating of the dreaded supply peak, confounded by the oil industry’s never ending ability to develop new extraction technologies and discover new sources of supply. While conventional production may have peaked long ago in the lower 48 U.S. states as predicted by the father of the peak oil movement, geophysicist M. Our definition of oil has changed so much the U.S. But peak oil as it turns out isn’t about supply but rather demand. The peak in our oil consumption will be determined by our ability to pay ever rising prices for the fuel, not by the ability of those same prices to drive new sources of supply. It has taken successively higher prices to get that extra barrel of oil out of the ground.
When subsidies are not on the level Half a trillion dollars is the yearly bill governments are paying to support fossil fuels through subsidies and tax breaks, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That is a challenge for the UN's youngest agency, which promotes the adoption of renewables from its headquarters in Abu Dhabi and a research centre inaugurated this week in Bonn, Germany. Adnan Amin, the director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), spoke to The National about the world's economic troubles and how to advance clean technology from a base in the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter. Are the high oil prices we've seen this year good for renewables? Everybody talks about the end of cheap oil. We're getting to the point where oil is not a resource that we're going to see priced in the way that it has been in the past. The real issue is part of a broader global economic picture. Do renewables also need government subsidies? Page 2 of 2
Branson warns of oil crunch within five years | Business Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years. The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch. "The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," Branson will say. "Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. Other British executives who will support the warning include Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy group, and Brian Souter, chief executive of transport operator Stagecoach. The issue came up at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos where Thierry Desmarest, chief executive of the Total oil company in France, also broke ranks.
Différence entre pic géologique et économique (Anglais) The current failure of most western economies to achieve anything more than minimal growth this year (2011) is most likely because oil prices are already at levels that severely inhibit growth. Indeed, research by energy consultants Douglas-Westwood concludes that oil price spikes of the magnitude seen this year correlate one-for-one with recessions. Looking at conventional cost curves shows incremental development costs range from $45/b (Saudi) to $90/b (Canadian Tar sands and Venezuelan Orinoco heavy oil) with most of the incremental deepwater sources in the $70-80/b range. It should be noted there are wide divergences in estimates of oil development costs depending on what is included and the treatment of financial costs, profits and overheads. For most OPEC producers oil and gas revenues are their principal source of income and government revenues. The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has added a further twist to this process. Saudi Arabia dramatically illustrates this phenomenon.
Daniel Yergin: What's Wrong With Peak Oil What A Way To Go: Life at the end of Empire Tim Bennett, middle-class white guy, started waking up to the global environmental nightmare in the mid-1980s. But life was so busy with raising kids and pursuing the American dream that he never got around to acting on his concerns. Until now… Bennett journeys from complacency to consciousness in his feature-length documentary, What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire. He reviews his Midwestern roots, ruthlessly examines the stories he was raised with, and then details the grim realities humans now face: escalating climate change, resource shortages, degraded ecosystems, an exploding global population and teetering global economies. Bennett identifies and calls into question the fundamental assumption that has led to this unprecedented crisis in human history: that humans were destined to dominate the rest of the community of life with the Culture of Empire. Watch the full documentary now.
Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels: Amazon.fr: Gerald McNerney, Martin Cheek: Livres anglais et étrangers