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To: RetiredNow who wrote (18319)	3/11/2010 7:17:56 AM
From: RetiredNow	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Time to diversify our energy sources? Kuwait Researchers Forecast Global Conventional Crude Oil Production Will Peak in 2014; New Multicyclic Hubbert Model 10 March 2010 World crude oil production model. Credit: ACS, Nashawi et al. Click to enlarge. Scientists from Kuwait University and Kuwait Oil Company are forecasting that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014—almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. Their study is in published the ACS journal Energy & Fuels. Ibrahim Nashawi and colleagues point out that rapid growth in global oil consumption has sparked a growing interest in predicting “peak oil”—the point at which oil production reaches a maximum and then declines. Scientists have developed several models to forecast this point, and some put the date at 2020 or later. The Hubbert forecast model—one of the most famous—accurately predicted that oil production would peak in the United States in 1970. The model has since gained in popularity and has been used to forecast oil production worldwide. However, recent studies show that the model is insufficient to account for more complex oil production cycles of some countries. Those cycles can be heavily influenced by technology changes, politics, and other factors, the scientists say. The new study describes the development of a new version of the Hubbert model that accounts for these individual production trends to provide a more realistic and accurate oil production forecast. Even though forecasting should be handled with extreme caution, it is always desirable to look ahead as far as possible to make an intellectual judgment on the future supplies of crude oil. Over the years, accurate prediction of oil production was confronted by fluctuating ecological, economical, and political factors, which imposed many restrictions on its exploration, transportation, and supply and demand. The objective of this study is to develop a forecasting model to predict world crude oil supply with better accuracy than the existing models. Even though our approach originates from Hubbert model, it overcomes the limitations and restrictions associated with the original Hubbert model. As opposed to Hubbert single-cycle model, our model has more than one cycle depending on the historical oil production trend and known oil reserves. The presented method is a viable tool to predict the peak oil production rate and time. The model is simple, accurate, and totally data driven, which allows a continuous updating once new data are available. —Nashawi et al. Using the new model, the scientists evaluated the oil production trends of 47 major oil-producing countries, which supply most of the world’s conventional crude oil—essentially, every country around the globe that has a proven oil reserves higher than 0.468 BSTB (billion stock tank barrels). They also classified the countries into OPEC and non-OPEC countries. Among their findings: The world’s ultimate crude oil reserve is estimated to be 2,140 BSTB Remaining recoverable oil is 1,161 BSTB World production is estimated to peak in 2014 at a rate of 79 MMSTB/D. OPEC has remaining reserve of 909 BSTB, which is about 78% of the world reserves. OPEC production is expected to peak in 2026 at a rate of 53 MMSTB/D. Non-OPEC countries have already reached their peak production of 39.6 MMSTB/D in 2006. According to the analysis, the ultimate reserve of these countries is 819 BSTB and their future recoverable oil is 252 BSTB. Non-OPEC countries hold 22% of the world crude oil reserves, which are being depleted at an annual rate of 5.6%. On the basis of 2005 world crude oil production and current recovery techniques, the world oil reserves are being depleted at an annual rate of 2.1%. Despite the current world economical crisis, the authors speculate that OPEC will remain the main world supplier of crude oil up to the end of this century. sources: pubs.acs.org greencarcongress.com

To: RetiredNow who wrote (18319)	3/11/2010 9:35:49 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

his life's work of lying

To: RetiredNow who wrote (18319)	3/12/2010 11:58:57 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

USA Today Lends Helping Hand to Battered "ClimateGate" Scientist By: Rich Noyes March 11, 2010 16:54 ET Four months after “ClimateGate” exposed top climate scientists trying to manipulate data and suppress dissent, USA Today has brought forth a front-page feature article that seems aimed at rehabilitating one of those exposed by the scandal, Penn State professor Michael Mann (pictured at right). Reporter Brian Winter fretted how “the setbacks have contributed to a growing skepticism of climate science in the USA,” and noted a “fundamental shift” by the environmental left (Winter refers to them merely as “environmentalists”) in an effort to “try to win back an increasingly skeptical American public.” And in its Thursday, March 11 “Cover Story,” USA Today aided that PR effort, repeatedly quoting Mann and a bevy of other climate alarmists at length, all insisting that there should be no doubts about the merits of their scientific claims: EXAMPLE 1: “In a rare extended interview, Mann acknowledges ‘minor’ errors but says he has been bewildered by the criticism — including a deluge of correspondence sent to his Pennsylvania State University office that, he says, occasionally has turned ugly. “‘I've developed a thick skin,’ Mann says. ‘Frankly, I’m more worried that these people are succeeding in creating doubt in the minds of the public, when there really shouldn't be any.’” EXAMPLE 2: “Despite the mistakes, Mann says the core argument — that the Earth is warming, humans are at least partly responsible, and disaster may wait unless action is taken — remains intact. “‘I look at it like this: Let’s say that you're in your car, you open up the owner's manual, and you discover a typo on page 225. Does that mean you stop driving the car? Of course not. Those are the kind of errors we're talking about here,’ Mann says. ‘Nothing has fundamentally changed.’” EXAMPLE 3: “Carol Browner, the White House's director on climate and energy policy, says there are ‘thousands and thousands’ of scientists whose work provides evidence of global warming. She told USA TODAY that, based on her frequent visits to Capitol Hill, recent questions over science have not changed a single vote in Congress on climate change legislation. “‘It's easy to misuse these isolated reports of problems to suggest that the science behind global warming is somehow wrong,’ Browner says.” EXAMPLE 4: “Tim Wirth, a former U.S. senator who is now president of the United Nations Foundation, defends the IPCC, stating it has an annual budget of ‘only’ about $3 million and relies almost entirely on volunteers to produce and fact-check its content.... “‘It's not a fair fight,’ Wirth says. ‘The IPCC is just a tiny secretariat next to this giant denier machine.’” EXAMPLE 5: “[Mann] says he has been exasperated by the way some politicians, including Inhofe, have portrayed this winter's snowstorms on the East Coast as undermining the case for global warming, while largely ignoring a recent announcement from NASA that the previous decade was the warmest on record. Citing climate data, Mann says ‘there's a better than 50-50 chance’ that 2010 will be the hottest year ever. That, more than any political statement, could refocus the debate, he says. “‘If we don't act on this, it's not a failure of science,’ Mann says. ‘It's our failure as a civilization to deal with the problem.’” Overall, Winter devoted 23 paragraphs to the views of Mann and his allies, vs. just six paragraphs quoting those from the other side of the debate, a nearly four-to-one disparity. And, in spite of the fact that Mann was one of the principal authors of “ClimateGate” e-mails that revealed a conniving attitude toward silencing critics and massaging the data, Winter played Mann as a victim"who suddenly found himelf in the middle of 'ClimateGate'” — his e-mails “obtained illegally by hackers” and leading to “violent threats” against the climate scientist: “The violent threats are not what bother Michael Mann the most. He's used to them. “Instead, it's the fact that his life's work — the effort to stop global warming — has been under siege since last fall. That's when Mann suddenly found himself in the middle of the so-called ‘climategate’ scandal, in which more than 1,000 e-mails among top climate scientists — including Mann — were obtained illegally by hackers and published on the Internet.” For much more detail on USA Today’s helping hand to the environmental fringe, check out Noel Sheppard’s article on the same subject at the MRC’s blog, NewsBusters.org. — Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center. mrc.org newsbusters.org