Natural Gas

In this edition of The Reality Report host Jason Bradford interviews Nate Hagens. Topics in this program highlight how the current financial melt down and impact the timing and severity of peak oil and natural gas--including the dreaded "natural gas cliff" as rigs go idle due to low prices. We discuss whether this means economic growth now over, and if so, how should societies adjust?

Drawing parallels with the current financial meltdown, Matthew Simmons, the CEO of Simmons & Company International, expresses his alarm about gasoline stocks being the lowest in several decades and refinery production down following recent hurricanes. He warns that if there were a run on the "energy bank" by everyone topping off their gasoline tanks, the U.S. would be out of fuel in three days, and grocery shelves largely emptied in a week. In an interview plus excerpts from his presentation at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA) conference on September 22, 2008, Matt highlights the risks and vulnerabilities in the finished oil products system, and answers audience questions. Episode 130.

As the European gas market tightens over the next decade, Norwegian supplies will be allocated on a strictly commercial basis, according to Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy Liv Monica Stubholt.

"In terms of resolving these two problems of peak fossil fuels and climate change... mitigation policies for peak oil, peak coal and peak gas should be done in tandem with mitigation policies for climate change. And I think there's no reason that that shouldn't happen. In fact it makes the most sense to me." NASA research scientist Dr. Pushker Kharecha speaks with David Room about "Implications of 'peak oil' for atmospheric CO₂ and climate," a paper Kharecha co-wrote with one of the world's foremost climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen. The paper, which has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal, is one of few that consider both climate instability and oil depletion.

Legendary Texas oilman and chair of BP Capital, T. Boone Pickens, holds an impromptu video question and answer session at ASPO Houston with Global Public Media's Julian Darley and other journalists. Pickens talks about the peaking of world oil production, which he says occurred in 2006.

This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; several existing volumes serve that function (including my own The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies). Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which the event is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas in order to better navigate this perilous time.

Former BBC journalist David Strahan talks to GPM's Julian Darley about the sudden attention to peak oil in the UK and elsewhere from the media, the NPC, the IEA, Goldman Sachs and CIBC. Strahan also recounts his experience with the UK's new All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO).

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How many farmers will it take to feed America as oil and natural gas supplies decline? Sharon Astyk is head farmer at a CSA in central New York, currently working on a pair of books with New Society Publishers titled “Depletion and Abundance: The New Home Front, Families and the Coming Crisis” and “A Nation of Farmers.” Sharon also frequently writes essays that appear on her website and elsewhere, check out http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/

Post Carbon Institute founder Julian Darley appears on The Ecocentric with host Matt Lowe on CJLY Kootenay co-op radio in advance of his July 11 visit to Nelson, BC, Candada to discuss resource depletion and relocalization.