Cartoon Financial Times, 23 December 2003
'Fight Smart' Update -
1 January 2004
Don't Take the
Bait - Fight Smart
ANIMATED 911 SUMMARY - CLICK HERE
Who is the enemy?
The Problem Is Cheney
War and 'America's Disastrous Energy Plan'
Financial Times Article Spells It Out
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATcheneydisastrousenergyplan.htm
Cartoon Financial Times, 23 December 2003
"Of the many factors that went into
the Bush administration's decision to attack and occupy Iraq, one of the most important
was the long-held view of Richard Cheney, the vice-president, that America's power was
threatened by the potential loss of control over Middle East oil.... This year the US will
have imported about 11m barrels of petroleum a day and mainstream forecasts project a
growth of imports to about 20m barrels a day by 2025. Moreover, global competition for
worldwide oil supplies is projected to grow markedly, especially with China's emergence as
a huge oil importer. Despite discoveries of new reserves elsewhere, petroleum supplies
from the Middle East and the nearby Caspian Sea region are expected to become even more
pivotal in the coming decades, accounting for two-thirds or more of the world's petroleum
reserves in 2025. With oil supplies and production increasingly concentrated in the Middle
East, and with growing competition from other oil importers, Mr Cheney and associates
believe the US has a long-term strategic need to secure military pre-eminence in the
region. This sentiment helped fuel the invasion of Iraq. Yet the vice-president's view of
US energy security is dead wrong, in terms of both energy economics and geopolitics....
The US is playing out Mr Cheney's fantastical vision of national security - one in which a
future struggle over scarce and vital petroleum resources must be won by force of
arms."
Professor Jeffrey Sachs - America's Disastrous Energy Plan
Financial
Times, 23 December 2003
"Remove America's dependence on
imported oil, and you remove the principal motivation behind its continual interference in
the affairs of Muslim countries. Remove that interference and most of the grievances
underpinning the existence of organisations like al Qaeda begin to wither away. In a very
real sense al Qaeda is in the first instance a creation of US energy and foreign policy,
not a creation of Osama Bin Laden. If they listen to Sachs the American people can now
trace the root cause of their current insecurity, if they are sufficiently awake to think
about it, to lack of political leadership in their own country in finding alternative
sustainable solutions to maintaining an American 'way of life' so dependent on energy
consumption.... In this respect regime change in Washington is likely to be much more
important than in Baghdad..."
War and 'America's Disastrous Energy Plan'
'Fight Smart', 1 January 2004
1 January 2004
Below is an important article published in the print edition of the Financial Times 23 December 2003, and on its web site the day before.
The author is Jeffrey Sachs and the article is entitled "America's disastrous energy plan". It charts the history of the US energy plan behind the Iraq war as devised by Vice President Cheney.
Professor Sachs is one of the world's most high profile post-Cold War economists, responsible amongst other matters for promoting radical economic reform in Bolivia, Poland and Russia. Also director of the Center for International Development and professor of international trade at Harvard University, Sachs served as the chief economic advisor to Russia's President Boris Yeltsin from 1991 to 1994, where he advocated 'shock therapy' to create market capitalism in Russia. He is currently director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University.
Professor Sachs' article sets out in some detail the key role played by America's increasingly desperate need for imported hydrocarbons (a need also increasingly shared by Britain) in fashioning the Bush administration's desire to invade Iraq. Professor Sachs calls for a fundamental shift in US energy policy.
Sachs spells out what many already knew, but which the international press and many governments around the world have usually been reluctant to openly discuss. The Financial Times is to be congratulated on its publication of this article.
Most appositely Sachs points to the role the kind of policies promoted by Cheney have played in fuelling the grievances that helped spawn al-Qaeda.
This happens to be an accusation also implicitly supported by the influential US Council on Foreign Relations whose web site carries a section on international terrorism which states that "In the 1980s, bin Laden disdained America for its alliances with Israel and moderate Muslim states, but it was the Gulf crisis that crystallized his hatred.... He saw the arrival of American troops to confront Saddam—and the continued U.S. military presence in the Gulf after the war—as a violation of the sanctity of Muslim territory." American troops were then stationed in Saudi Arabia, the country which is host to Islam's two most sacred sites - Mecca and Medina.
Contrary to popular belief the first Gulf war was not an endeavour primarily to liberate Kuwait but one to protect international access to oil in Saudi Arabia.
In a broadcast in June 2002 BBC veteran Trans-Atlantic reporter Alistair Cooke stated that "To have and to hold [Kuwait] would put [Saddam] on the way to achieving something that the Soviets had yearned for right after the Second War and been denied by the intervention of the United Nations, which was to be sovereign of the Gulf - and so, as Churchill foresaw and warned about, soon to be able to conquer Europe without a war by possessing 60% of the oil Western Europe lived by and so be able to dictate to countries like Britain, France, Germany, that they should abandon their precious democratic ways and get themselves governments friendly to Iraq".
Cooke confirms that it was Margaret Thatcher who persuaded the current President's father to respond militarily to Saddam in 1991, rather than rely on UN sanctions which was his initial plan. According to Cooke "What so swiftly transformed the views and policy of the United States and the onlooking allies-to-be was the recognition, first pressed on President Bush by Mrs Thatcher and then rather late in the day realised by the King of Saudi Arabia, that once he held Kuwait there was nothing to stop Saddam from seizing the Saudi oil fields".
Remove America's dependence on imported oil, and you remove the principal motivation behind its continual interference in the affairs of Muslim countries. Remove that interference and most of the grievances underpinning the existence of organisations like al Qaeda begin to wither away. In a very real sense al Qaeda is in the first instance a creation of US energy and foreign policy, not a creation of Osama Bin Laden.
If they listen to Sachs the American people can now trace the root cause of their current insecurity, if they are sufficiently awake to think about it, to lack of political leadership in their own country in finding alternative sustainable solutions to maintaining an American 'way of life' so dependent on energy consumption.
As Sachs himself puts it "The fundamental miscalculation [by Cheney], however, is the same one that contributed to the fall of the Shah in Iran, the tottering of Saudi Arabia, the wide popularity among Arab youth of al-Qaeda and the chaos in Iraq. The US cannot secure oil supplies in the Middle East by means of a military occupation. We are in 2003, not 1903. The age of imperialism is past. Nationalism in the Middle East is as fervent as anywhere else in the world, which is understandable given the amount of meddling by the great powers in the 20th century. Each time America embraces a Middle East regime, the regime loses legitimacy".
However, what is most likely to be contested in his article is Professor Sachs' statement that "the energy needs we meet today with petroleum can be met by other hydrocarbons, including natural gas, coal, tar sands and oil shale, for which there are centuries' worth of supplies, and environmentally sound methods of production available today or within economic reach."
Whilst environmentally sound methods of energy production are being developed in the background (solar, wind, wave etc), the value of future energy production from sources such as tar sands and oil shale is challenged in some important quarters.
According to François Cupcic of the French oil company, TotalFinaElf, "So far, only limited production of these extra heavy oil and bitumen resources has occurred, based on conventional recovery methods, such as cold production and huff & puff, with reasonably low costs but limited recovery efficiency. Nevertheless, the oil industry has been studying for years some new recovery methods that could result in much higher recovery factors. Among those, one is emerging in Canada for specific application to bitumen based on an innovative steam injection process called SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage). Despite the higher recovery expected from this emerging process, the huge amount of energy required results in major drawbacks, such as much higher greenhouse gas emissions and much higher production costs, when compared to conventional recovery methods".
It is now increasingly recognised that the world is on the edge of a major energy crisis as supply and demand for oil and gas rapidly head for serious imbalance. Global production is due to 'peak' in the near future and then decline, just at the very time when demand is expected to rocket.
In a interview published in October 2002 Dr Colin Campbell, a leading geologist and international consultant to the oil industry, commented that "No doubt production from tar sands and heavy oils can be stepped up in the future but it is painfully slow and expensive, carrying also environmental costs. It will help ameliorate the decline but has minimal impact on peak [production of oil]".
A copy the interview with Dr Campbell is also reproduced below as well as other material related to tar sands and heavy oils.
Meanwhile Professor Sachs currently estimates that the cost of US military operations in the Middle East attributable to policing its energy flows represents a hidden subsidy to oil use of $10 or more per barrel exported from the region.
The question therefore remains as to why a large part of the $1 billion a day currently spent on the US military is not being diverted into the development of renewable energy systems, as a much more effective way of ensuring the long term economic and physical security of the American people.
In this respect regime change in Washington is likely to be much more important than in Baghdad - but only if someone willing to implement the ideas of people like Dennis Kucinich makes it into the White House. If Kucinich doesn't make it himself, will whoever does be willing to take him on as Vice President?
After all it is the current Vice President, according to Professor Sachs, who has got us into this mess. Perhaps it would be appropriate if another Vice President got us out of it.
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The
price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is
import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of
supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential
Library
10
Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002
"At a NATO conference in Prague last
November, [former CIA Director James] Woolsey declared 'Iraq can be seen as the first
battle of the fourth world war,' in rhetoric that he has practiced and honed virtually
since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. 'After two hot world wars and one
cold one that all began and were centered in Europe,' he said, 'the fourth world war is
going to be for the Middle East.' ....."
Woolsey's Role Crucial to Impact of Occupation
'Foreign
Policy in Focus', 8 April 2003
|
"The
crucial question regarding Iraq is not whether the motives for war were disguised, but
why. The argument that Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat was absurd to anybody not
under the spell of round-the-clock White House and 10 Downing Street spin.... Two truths
have long governed US energy security. The first is that Saudi Arabia is the key to world
oil stability, the accommodating supplier when markets get too tight. It would be a
potential threat to the world economy if Saudi oil flows were disrupted. In 1973-74, with
the Arab oil embargo, the Ford presidency was brought down by the disruption of the US
economy, a point not lost on two young senior officials at the time, Donald Rumsfeld and
Richard Cheney, respectively Gerald Ford's defence secretary and White House chief of
staff. Pentagon and academic planners began making contingency plans for the military
seizure of the Middle East oilfields.... The only quantitatively significant alternative
to Saudi oil was Iraqi oil, but that option was barred as long as Saddam Hussein remained
in power. The long-standing contingency plans to seize Middle Eastern oil were probably
rolled out within days of September 11..... But if the Iraq war was an opportunistic
response to September 11, it is crucially important that we know it. Thousands of lives
and perhaps $100bn have gone into this war, with little to show for it except an enraged
Iraqi public and enormous costs of occupation extending into the future. The US media have
so far shown little interest in connecting the dots".
Professor Jeffrey Sachs - Saudi Arabia Was
Real Target in Iraq War
Financial
Times, 12 August 2003
"Our
industry can certainly be proud of its past achievements. Yet the challenges we will face
in the coming years will be every bit as great as those encountered in the past, due in
part to ever-increasing global energy use. For example, we estimate that world oil and gas
production from existing fields is declining at an average rate of about 4 to 6 percent a
year. To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million
oil-equivalent barrels a day of new production. That's equal to about 80 percent of
today's production level. In other words, by 2015,
we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to
eight out of every 10 barrels being produced today."
John Thompson, President of ExonnMobil, the world's
largest oil company
The Lamp (published for ExonnMobil shareholders), 2003, Vol. 85 No.1
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html
Colin Campbell on Oil
Perhaps
the World's Foremost Expert on Oil and the Oil Business Confirms the Ever More Apparent
Reality of the Post-9-11 World
by Michael C. Ruppert
[© COPYRIGHT 2002, Michael C. Ruppert and FTW Publications, www.copvcia.com all rights reserved. May be reprinted or distributed for non-profit purposes only.]
Oct. 23, 2002, 17:30 PDT (FTW) -- Colin Campbell is both an academic and a businessman. Educated at Oxford and holding a Masters degree he has served as a geologist for Oxford University, Texaco, British Petroleum and Amoco (prior to the BP Amoco merger). He has served in executive positions with Shenandoah Oil, Amoco, Fina and was Chairman of the Nordic American Oil Company. He has served as a consultant on oil for the Bulgarian government as well as for Statoil, Mobil, Amerada, Total, Shell, Esso and for the firm Petroconsultants in Geneva. He is the Convener and Editor of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and a Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Center in London.
As a member of The American Society of Petroleum Geologists, The Geological Society of London, and the Petroleum Institute of London he has delivered more than 35 lectures on oil depletion on three continents. His hosts have included universities, governments, and auto manufacturers. He has been published more than 150 times in the field including the 1997 book "The Coming Oil Crisis" (Multi-Science Publishing Co. & Petroconsultants).
Before beginning this interview it is necessary for the reader to understand several critical factors about oil and oil production. All of these factors affect how much you or industry pays for oil, how much is available, and what this life-essential commodity can do. Almost every current human endeavor from transportation, to manufacturing, to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies. Commercial food production is oil powered. All pesticides are petroleum based, and all commercial fertilizers are ammonia based. Ammonia is produced from natural gas.
All oil production follows a bell curve, whether in an individual field or on the planet as a whole. On the upslope of the curve production costs are significantly lower than on the downslope when extra effort (expense) is required to extract oil from reservoirs that are emptying out. The best and easiest to produce oil is always extracted first to maximize profits. In 100 years mankind has used half of all the oil on the planet, oil that took billions of years to produce and is the result of climactic conditions that have existed at only one time in the earth's 4.5 billion- year history. Oil is a non-renewable resource.
The key event in the Petroleum Era is not when the oil runs out, but when oil production peaks, especially as demand and population are rising. World per capita oil production peaked in 1979 and has been in decline since. The peak in volume of total world oil production is upon us right now, even as the demand or better said -- the need -- for oil is increasing rapidly.
Several things are a given. First the total remaining conventional oil on the planet is estimated to be around 1 trillion barrels. Second, at present rates (not those of five or 10 years from now), the world is using close to 80 million barrels per day. At the current rate there would be only enough oil to sustain the planet for another 35 years under the best of scenarios. But the oil that remains is going to be increasingly expensive to produce and it will tend to be of a lesser quality, necessitating higher refining costs, than what has already been used. All of those costs will have to be passed on in the form of price hikes or -- in some cases -- spikes. Oil price spikes invariably lead to recession. The world's economy is based upon the sale of products that are either made from oil or which need hydrocarbon energy (including natural gas) to operate, either via internal combustion or via electricity.
Different regions of the world peak in oil production at different times. The U.S. peaked in the early-1970s. Europe, Russia and the North Sea have also peaked. However the OPEC nations of the Middle East peak last. Within a few years they -- or whoever controls them -- will be in effective control of the world oil economy, and, in essence, of human civilization as a whole. Two of the nations that will peak last are Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both of which will not peak until the middle of the next decade. Saudi Arabia contains 25 percent of all the oil on the planet. Iraq contains 11 percent of all the oil on the planet.
Science and the oil industry have confirmed that there is very little oil left to be found, certainly not enough to make a difference in this grim picture, a picture which goes a long way toward explaining the events of 9-11 and since.
----------------------------
FTW: What will be the likely effects of hitting the downslope of production?
Campbell: Big question. Simply stated: war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens, insofar as the evolution of life on earth has always been accomplished by the extinction of over-adapted species (when their environmental niche changed for geologic or climatic reasons) leaving simpler forms to continue, and eventually giving rise new more adapted species. If Homo sapiens figures out how to move back to simplicity, he will be the first to do so.
FTW: How soon before we start to feel the effects of dwindling oil supplies?
Campbell: We already are -- in the form of the threatened U.S. invasion of the Middle East. The U.S. would be importing 90 percent of its oil by 2020 to hold even current demand and access to foreign oil has long been officially declared a vital national interest justifying military intervention. Probable actual physical shortage of all liquid hydrocarbons worldwide won't appear for about 20 years, especially if deepening recession holds down demand. But people are coming to appreciate that peak is imminent and what it means. Some places like the U.S. will face shortage sooner than others. The price is likely to soar as shortage looms, which itself may delay peak.
If the U.S. does invade there will likely be a repeat of Vietnam with many years of fruitless struggle in which the U.S. will be seen as a tyrant and an oppressor, killing all those Arabs. It can't hope to subjugate the place in perpetuity as the people don't surrender easily -- as the Palestinians have shown. So when the U.S. has finally gone, Russia and China will likely be welcomed there to produce whatever is left in the ruins.
FTW: Are the major oil companies currently downsizing? If so why?
Campbell: The majors are merging and downsizing and outsourcing and not investing in new refineries because they know full well that production is set to decline and that the exploration opportunities are getting less and less. Who would drill in 10,000 feet of water if there were anywhere else easier left? But the companies have to sing to the stock market, and merger hides the collapse of the weaker brethren. The staff is purged on merger and the combined budget ends up much less than the sum of the previous components. Besides, a lot of the executives and bankers make a lot of money from the merger.
FTW: How much oil is really left?
Campbell: You have to think of different categories of oil. Speaking of conventional, which is the easy cheap stuff that has supplied most uses to date and will dominate all supply far into the future, there is about 1 trillion barrels left. To this you have to add:
A) Oil from coal, "shale," tar sands, heavy oil -- the resource is very large, but extraction rate is low and costly, sometimes giving negative net energy.
B) Deepwater oil -- (from a depth of greater than 500 meters) about 60 billion barrels
C) Polar -- about 30 billion, maybe.
D) Natural gas liquids -- about 300 billion barrels
FTW: I take it that it is a given that in any particular oil field, or globally, costs of extraction increase as one progresses down the curve. What is the usual nature of these increased costs? Do they usually require additional investment of capital for infrastructure? Is there a chart which shows how costs increase as production declines?
Campbell: Yes of course costs go up and every situation is different. In Texas they can still profitably use wells producing 5 b/d. But offshore the threshold is higher. It is more complex because they have the sunk costs of the platform and also face substantial abandonment costs. Furthermore tax distorts the picture, with most operating cost being written off against taxable income either in the host or home country or both. But reserves are defined as recoverable under current or foreseen economics, so non-economic tail-end theoretical production is not included anyway. I think the key issue is not so much the economic cut off but when production of even highly profitable oil heads into decline. The tail end, which is susceptible to economic constraints, is small and not very relevant. Oil has a polarity being either there in profitable abundance or not there at all -- mainly because it is a liquid that flows to accumulate somewhere, unlike coal where extraction is a matter of concentration in seam thickness and access.
FTW: Is all oil in the ground recoverable? If not, why not?
Campbell: Only a fraction of the oil in the reservoir is recoverable because it does not sit in one big cavern down there but in the very small pore spaces between the grains of sand. These grains are coated in water and when it coalesces, it blocks the pore spaces preventing the further movement of oil. Also there are many nooks and crannies in the rocks that are not in communication. Obviously light oil is easier to extract than heavy. You can pump in steam etc. to try and move it, which is now routinely done where feasible.
It is said that recovery has increased from 30 percent to 40 percent thanks to technology and is set to rise from more technology in the future. But most of this improvement has nothing to do with technology. It is an artifact of reporting. The industry has always made conservative initial estimates (liking to build an inventory of unreported reserves to tide them over bad years and also reduce taxes) so reserves naturally grow over time.
Besides, extracting a bit more has a minimal impact on peak, which is the critical turning point, much more important than eventually running [completely] out, which we may never do as the tail end can drag on.
FTW: What would you say to the people who insist that oil is created from magma, or that there's really so much that we don't have to worry?
Campbell: Oil sometimes does occur in fractured or weathered crystalline rocks, which may have led people to accept this theory, but in all cases there is an easy explanation of lateral migration from normal sources. Isotopic evidence provides a clear link to the organic origins. No one in the industry gives the slightest credence to these theories: after drilling for 150 years they know a bit about it. Another misleading idea is about oilfields being refilled. Some are, but the oil simply is leaking in from a deeper accumulation.
FTW: Will Central Asian-Caspian pipelines have an impact on the crisis? How long will it take them to come on line?
Campbell: There was talk of the place holding over 200 Gb [billion barrels] (I think emanating from the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey]), but the results after 10 years of work have been disappointing. The West came in with high hopes. The Soviets found Tengiz onshore in 1979 with about 6 Gb of very deep, high sulfur oil in a reef. Chevron took over and is now producing it with difficulty. But offshore they found a huge prospect called Kashagan in a similar geological setting to Tengiz. If it had been full, it could have contained 200 Gb, but they have now drilled three deep wells at huge cost, finding that instead of being a single reservoir it, like Tengiz, is made up of reefs. Reserves are now quoted at between 9 Gb and 13 Gb. BP-Statoil has pulled out. Caspian production won't make any material difference to world supply. There is however a lot of gas in the vicinity.
To put it in perspective this would supply the world for a little over a year, but it is broadly the same as U.S. potential
It is quite possible that the Afghan war was about securing a strong point in this area. But interest in it has now dwindled along with Caspian prospects as the U.S. turns to Iraq, which does have some oil. It is curious that these two U.S. military exercises had different pretexts
A) Afghanistan was to find the supposed architect of Sept. 11 -- in which it failed; and
B) Iraq is about a sudden and unexplained fear that it might develop some objectionable weapons that might pose a threat to someone in the future. North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons and long range missiles -- and isn't exactly a friendly place -- is not deemed a threat. The cynic can be forgiven for thinking there is some other motive for these military moves: could it be oil?
FTW: When and how was it discovered that the Central Asian reserves were much smaller than anticipated?
Campbell: I guess you could say over the past 24 months as the different pieces in the jigsaw fell into place. There is no single event or date, but rather an evolving picture
FTW: What about replacement sources and alternative energy? Tar sands?
Campbell: Of course there is a range of alternatives from wind, sun, tide, nuclear, etc. but today they contribute only a very small percentage, and do not come close to matching the oil of the past in terms of cost or convenience. No doubt production from tar sands and heavy oils can be stepped up in the future but it is painfully slow and expensive, carrying also environmental costs. It will help ameliorate the decline but has minimal impact on peak. The simple solution is to use less. We are extremely wasteful energy users. But it involves a fundamental change of attitude and the rejection of classical economic principles, which were built on endless growth in a world of limitless resources. Those days are over, exacerbated by the soaring population, itself now set to decline partly from energy shortage.
FTW: Has anyone determined what percentage of oil is used for military purposes worldwide? If so, how much?
Campbell: I don't know how much is used for military purposes, but it must be considerable. The U.S. has built a huge stockpile in the Middle East for the war.
FTW: Is China the end game of competition for oil?
Campbell: Yes, China is in desperate need of imports as its own supply depletes. It has been very thoroughly explored. It will be vying with the U.S. for access to foreign oil. It is already well established in Iraq.
That is about how I see it.
Colin Campbell on BBC Money Programme - Click Here
"Petro-Canada's
review of its multibillion-dollar oilsands strategy is the latest setback for Canada's
unconventional oil sector, a pattern that holds implications for the U.S. politicians and
consumers.... As so many other companies operating in northern Alberta have discovered,
there's a huge difference between a pretty presentation in a conference hall and
bulldozers churning in the mud.... Besides pausing on the oilsands, Petro-Canada is also
looking at international investment opportunities, including Iraq.... Petro-Canada's
decision, while not final, marks the latest in a series of setbacks for Alberta's
oilsands, a trend which should concern U.S. policy-makers and residents. TrueNorth Energy
Corp., a subsidiary of Wichita-based Koch Industries, delayed its Fort Hills project
earlier this year indefinitely after capital costs rose by C$1 billion to C$3.3 billion...
The toppling dominoes deserve some attention from the administration of President George
W. Bush. Each delayed or cancelled oilsands project here means more dependence on Russia,
Mexico, or OPEC members, increasing the possibility of disruptions because of political
unrest or terrorist activity... With the House and Senate trying to hammer out a new
energy policy, the assumption of growing crude production from Canada needs to be
questioned. It's no longer a slam-dunk, and a reduction in oilsands output could have
long-term impacts on U.S. foreign policy."
Petro-Canada Reviewing Oilsands Strategy
Rigzone, 2 May
2003
"Oil may be extracted from
coal by the use of the Fischer Tropff process, invented in Germany during the War, and it
may be retorted from immature oil source rocks, termed 'oil shales'. Much interest was
devoted to the latter method after the oil shocks of the 1970s, but all projects came to
nought. The residue is a fine toxic powder carrying environmental hazards and costs, and
the net energy return is very poor.... In Canada, the so-called tar-sands, containing the
bitumen, are mined at the surface after the removal of up to 75m of overburden. The ore,
for that is what it is, is centrifuged and processed in plants fuelled by cheap local
stranded gas to yield a light high quality synthetic oil. In Venezuela, the deposits lie
at 500 to 1500m depth and are produced with the help of steam injection from closely
spaced wells. The Extra-Heavy oil grades into Heavy oil, which is here arbitrarily defined
as that denser that 17.5o API. There are other deposits around the world, but those of
Canada and Venezuela are the most important. The resources are enormous, but the
extraction rate is low and costly. No doubt, production will be stepped up from the
current level of about 2 Mb/d after the peak of Conventional oil, but it is difficult to
imagine it exceeding about 5 Mb/d by 2020, even with superhuman effort and every financial
incentive. It is also worth remembering that the deposits are not homogenous: even a small
addition in the thickness of overburden adds greatly to the cost of tar-sand extraction.
Processing also uses fuel, which will become increasingly expensive once the stranded gas
deposits, currently used, have been exhausted."
THE ASSESSMENT AND IMPORTANCE OF OIL DEPLETION
C.J Campbell - International
Workshop on Oil Depletion, Uppsala Univeristy, Sweden, May 23-24, 2002
"For all these many
reasons and more, tar sands and other unconventional forms of hydrocarbons should be
considered separately from conventional oil. Once conventional oil production begins to
decline worldwide, non-conventional production will be constrained by the rising price of
energy input. Furthermore, even if unconstrained, non-conventional sources will not
replace conventional oil, they will only help to ease the decline. The following
graph, based upon the most current of data, incorporates non-conventional sources into
the energy picture."
DEBUNKING MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S LIES ABOUT OIL
'From The
Wilderness Publications', 2003
Graph From the ASPO Newsletter; graph developed by
Colin Campbell
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
Click here for
more awesome details
"We
believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting
merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for
the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the
power, the wealth and the resources of other nations."
Thomas Jefferson
President of the United
States of America, 1801 - 1809
Including
Iraq: British Government admits to 'Operation Mass Appeal' - 28 December 2003
Iraqgate
2003 - Dr Kelly and 'Operation Rockingham' - 19 Oct 2003
A Vision For Transforming America - 24 March 2003
This Is Our Prime Minister - 23 Feb 2003
What Is Happening To Britain
And America? - 9 Feb 2003
The 911 Omar Sheikh Files - 2 Jan
2003
'October Surprise 2002' - Life After The US Constitutional Coup - 31 Oct 2002
What Did Britain Know About 911? - 28 Aug 2002
Why Did Bush Not Act On Sept 11? - 9 May 2002
World Peace Offered From Hiroshima - 22 April 2002
Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron? - 8 March 2002
CIA provided funds to financiers of Sept 11 bomber - 18
Nov 2001
A Vision For Transforming America - click here
NATURAL
LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
