IEA whistle-blower spills the beans on Peak Oil

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
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In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.

"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.

A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

Read the full story in the Guardian

Also reported in the Telegraph...

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Where have the Peplers gone?

Well, nowhere really! We are here, just not been in the wood. Mike is working hard for the Ashden Awards and I am working on the Small Woodland Owners group stuff. Mike is doing trips to London and I am off to Wales and Chester end of next week. We are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of yet another nephew/ niece!! This will make number 8. I think we will never keep track ;-) While some are being born our oldest nephew is preparing for his wedding. Makes me feel ancient. .....

We do hope to get into the wood soon to do some more coppicing soon over the weekend sometime.
Tracy

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Update for the week...

Just a few odds and ends from last week....

The coppicing is going well, though we think that we may not get the whole strip we are working on done this winter, in which case we'll go as far as we can and cut it next winter as well. One of the big things that takes time is the fact that there's so much Hazel, which takes a lot longer to process than Chestnut. Tracy's been spending a lot of time with loppers and a billhook working on it:
Looking back up the hill, there's a nice big area opening up now:
One of the Hazel stools felled last week was leaning over Francis' farmyard next door. I felled the trees into it, and left him the logs, while he kindly disposed of the brash. You can see the trees to the right of this picture:
and here they are gone:
In other parts of the wood, Tracy's been converting old milk bottles into tree guards for oak regeneration:
and the pond is filling back up with the recent rain:
The rain has also prompted ever more fungi to fruit:
Sorry I don't know their names...

That's all for now. We're working in the wood for a couple of days this week, then I have to go back to the day job full time for a few weeks...

Mike

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Sweep Wood 16 years ago...

A neighbour gave us a photo of Sweep Wood from 16 years ago, taken in the summer after it was last coppiced. Hopefully this gives us a taste of how it will look in the near future. For comparison, here's a photo of it before we started this autum:
Here's one after a couple of weeks work:
And here's the one from 1993/4:

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Satnav and woodlands....

This has to be seen to be believed...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091023/tod-satnav-blunder-this-asda-be-the-wron-870a197.html

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