Cheap Oil Research Articles

The land grab, finance capital, and food regime restructuring: the case of Egypt

The role of Egyptian finance capital in acquiring (and attempting to acquire) agricultural land in southern neighbouring countries since the 2007–2008 food-fuel-financial crisis represents in part the southward expansion of the frontier in Egypt, or new socio-ecological spaces for heightened capital accumulation. This expansion, heralded by processes of financialisation, is the latest wave of corporate consolidation of the country's agri-food system. This paper offers an historical analysis of frontier making in modern-day Egypt and how it has been shaped by relations between Egypt and Sudan within a restructuring hegemonic state system, from the nineteenth century to present-day revolutionary times. Then, a case study of one Egyptian financial firm, Citadel Capital, is detailed to demonstrate that the ‘global land grab’ reflects food regime restructuring with the end of cheap food and oil – and greater food insecurity and political instability in Egypt and in southern neighbouring countries.

Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History by Brian C. Black (review)

Reviewed by: Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History by Brian C. Black Timothy James Lecain Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History. By Brian C. Black. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. 288 pp. $35.00 (cloth); $34.99 (e-book). Oil, Brian Black argues, is a “terribly irrational resource” (p. 67). Since humans first began to take a serious interest in the black goo in the late nineteenth century, it has always been a refractory player in the attempts of both governments and corporations to rationalize, systematize, and regularize its extraction and distribution. The complex fluid geology of oil deposits, its immense stored chemical energy, and the astonishing mutability of its long hydrocarbon molecule chains have made it a top troublemaker among global resources. Yet as Black notes in this useful synthetic history, few if any other natural resources have been so central to shaping modern global culture. Of course, Black is hardly the first to point this out, and he makes effective use of standard works like Daniel Yergin’s masterful volume The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). But Crude Reality stands out from this and many other oil books for Black’s skillful incorporation of environmental and cultural history into the more standard narratives focusing on the geopolitics of state and corporate development of global oil resources. Perhaps responding to the influence of recent thinking in science, environment, and technology studies inspired by Bruno Latour and others, Black also makes an important and highly original (albeit somewhat uneven) contribution by analyzing oil itself as a “critical actor, capable of shaping an entire way of life” (p. 1). Black divides the book into four roughly chronological sections. In “Part I: Cultural Exchange, 1750–1890” he focuses on the difficult challenges faced by early oil pioneers like the Rockefellers, Nobels, and Rothschilds in trying to streamline and control oil extraction and processing. Some, like Rockefeller, effectively ceded the unpredictable business of finding and drilling the vast American oil deposits to others, focusing instead on the more easily rationalized process of refining the black stuff into useful products like kerosene. However, [End Page 699] for European nations without huge domestic reserves, efforts to rationalize the oil business quickly bred incestuous partnerships between governments and corporations as they attempted to dominate distant oil supplies. The result was “Big Oil,” quasi-governmental corporations that combined technical know-how with diplomatic—and when necessary, military—power. Big Oil was both a rationale and a means for expanding European colonialism in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and it “emerged as an entity larger than nations and with a mandate to acquire crude regardless of any social or environmental costs” (p. 71). Big Oil succeeded in creating a reliable supply of oil for Great Britain and other industrialized nations, Black notes, but it did so at the price of huge oil spills and contaminated water supplies in the nations where the oil was actually extracted and refined. Indeed, “Part II: Going Mobile, 1890–1960,” suggests that Big Oil had succeeded all too well in increasing production. By the early twentieth century, abundant oil supplies paired with the shift from kerosene to electric illumination drove oil prices sharply down. Desperate to find new uses, oil producers saw their salvation in the internal combustion engine. In the early decades of the twentieth century, oil-powered automobiles competed with mass transit systems supplied by electricity generated primarily by coal or waterpower. The victory of gasoline and private cars was, Black argues, in part a result of the advantages conferred by cheap oil, thus firmly connecting the hugely popular culture of mass automobility to the maintenance of cheap global oil supplies. At the same time, the two world wars demonstrated that oil had become a military necessity. In World War I, a typical American division used 4,000 horsepower; by World War II, the energy use had increased to 187,000, much of it supplied by oil. Black expands on the cultural and geopolitical consequences of cheap oil in “Part III: The Globalization of Petroleum Domination, 1960–Present.” Besides making private automobility affordable, cheap oil raised the standard of...

The Fossil Fuels War

Only a few years ago governments, corporations, and energy analysts were fixated on the problem of "the end of cheap oil" or "peak oil," pointing to growing shortages of conventional crude oil due to the depletion of known reserves. The International Energy Agency's 2010 report devoted a whole section to peak oil. Some climate scientists saw the peaking of conventional crude oil as a silver-lining opportunity to stabilize the climate—provided that countries did not turn to dirtier forms of energy such as coal and "unconventional fossil fuels."… Today all of this has changed radically with the advent of what some are calling a new energy revolution based on the production of unconventional fossil fuels. The emergence in North America—but increasingly elsewhere as well—of what is now termed the "Unconventionals Era" has meant that suddenly the world is awash in new and prospective fossil-fuel supplies.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The big flatline: oil and the no-growth economy

In an urgent follow-up to his best-selling Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin argues that the end of cheap oil means the end of growth. What it will be like to live in a world where growth is over?Economist and resource analyst Jeff Rubin is certain that the world's governments are getting it wrong. Instead of moving us toward economic recovery, the measures being taken around the globe right now are digging us into a deeper hole. Both politicians and economists are missing the fact that the real engine of economic growth has always been cheap, abundant fuel and resources. But that era is over. The end of cheap oil, Rubin argues, signals the end of growth--and the end of easy answers to renewing prosperity.With China and India sucking up the lion's share of the world's ever more limited resources, the rest of us will have to make do with less. But is this all bad? Rubin points out that there is no research to show that people living in countries with hard-charging economies are happier, and plenty of research to show that some of the most contented people on the planet live in places with no growth or slow growth. But bad or good, it's the new reality, and Rubin reveals how our day-to-day lives will be drastically changed.

Iraq: A Decade of Lost Opportunities

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. “Failed States Index 2012,” Fund for Peace, http://www.fundforpeace.org/global/?q = fsi2012. 2. Currency conversion according to the exchange website www.xe.com. 3. George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). 4. Anthony Shadid, “Iraq's Last Patriot, ”New York Times, February 4, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/magazine/06ALLAWI-t.html?pagewanted = all&_r = 0. 5. Translation provided by the author. Another translation can be viewed at: “Iraqi Constitution,” World Intellectual Property Organisation, October 15, 2005, http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id = 230000. 6. Human Rights Watch “Judging Dujail: The First Trial Before the Iraqi High Tribunal,” Human Rights Watch, November 20, 2006, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/11/19/judging-dujail. 7. Abbas Kadhim, “Iraq's quest for Democracy Amid Massive Corruption,” Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, March 3, 2010, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/sada/2010/03/03/iraq-s-quest-for-democracy-amid-massive-corruption/6bjj. 8. Exact figures on civilian casualties on Iraq do not exist, however Iraq Body Count is considered the most reliable source. It estimates that over 54,300 Iraqis were killed over the two years. “Iraqi deaths from violence 2003–2011,” Iraq Body Count, January 2, 2012, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2011/. 9. George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). 10. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, (New York: Norton, 2007). 11. Charless Tripp, A History of Iraq, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 12. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, (London: Clays Ltd, 2006). 13. The White House, “Promise Kept,” www.whitehouse.gov/Iraq. 14. Nigel Baggar, “The Invasion of Iraq: what are the morals of the story?” International Affairs 87 :1, (2011). 15. Julian Linden, “Iraq ride wave of support to lift Asian Cup,” Reuters, July 29, 2007, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/07/29/uk-soccer-asia-idUKSP26426720070729. 16. Patrice Hill, “Iraq's Flood of ‘Cheap Oil’ could rock world markets,” Washington Times, February 3, 2013, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/3/iraqs-flood-of-cheap-oil-could-rock-world-markets-/?page = all. 17. “The Corruption Perceptions Index 2012,” Transparency International, 2012, http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results. 18. “Iraq election turnout 62 percent, officials say,” BBC, March 9, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8556065.stm. 19. Nemir Kirdar, Saving Iraq: Rebuilding a Broken Nation, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009). Additional informationNotes on contributorsMina al-OraibiMina al-Oraibi is Assistant Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Alawsat Newspaper, a daily pan-Arab newspaper

Empowering Distributed Solar PV Energy for Malaysian Rural Housing: Towards Energy Security and Equitability of Rural Communities

This paper illustrates on how Malaysia’s development landscapes has been poweredby cheap oil and gas making it dependent and addicted on using large amounts of fossil fuels. As acountry that is primarily depended on fossil fuels for generating power supply, Malaysia needs tocogitate of long-term energy security due to fossil fuel depletion and peak oil issues. Loss of theseresources could leadto thereduction of power generation capacitywhich will threaten the stabilityof the electricity supply in Malaysia. This could potentially influence in an increase in electricitycosts which lead to a phase of power scarcity and load shedding for the country. With the risk ofinterrupted power supplies, rural households, especially those of low-income groups areparticularly vulnerable to the post-effects of a power outage and an inequitable distribution to thepeople. Distributed generation of electricity by solar PVs diminishes the vulnerability of thesehouseholds and can also offer an income to them by feeding the power supply to the national gridthrough Feed-in Tariff scheme. At the moment, the deployment of solar PV installations is still inthe introductory stage in Malaysia, where roof-mounted PV panels are only available to commercialand urban residential buildings. This is due to the lack of a suitable renewable energy policy forrural households and the high cost of the solar PV technology. This paper will put forward ananalysis for incorporating solar photovoltaic on roofs of rural houses by identifying the energyconsumption of these households and the extent to which PVs can alleviate electricity insecurity.The results present significant potential for distributed PV power generation in rural areas inMalaysia which shown a considerable amount of electricity needed to be harvested from roofmountedsolar PV for rural people in Malaysia.

The times they are a‐changin’: the end of cheap oil and how it is changing our world

If we are to make wise choices for our future, we must understand how our lives have been affected by cheap oil

Cows and Forests: Swedish Environmental History

Sweden became a modern country only in the twentieth century. A major shift in silvicultural practices, plus an emphasis on dairy production, contributed to this national transformation at a time when, paradoxically, rural Sweden was being denuded of people and agriculturally and pastorally driven pursuits were replaced by urban-based industries and services. The introduction of cheap oil and of improvements in agricultural technologies and strategies had more to do with the development of forestry in Sweden during the twentieth century than any of forestry's own achievements did during the same period. The southern third of Sweden benefited more from these innovations than did the two northernmost thirds.

The effects of annealing temperature on the in-field Jc and surface pinning in silicone oil doped MgB2 bulks and wires

The effects of sintering temperature on the lattice parameters, full width at half maximum (FWHM), strain, critical temperature (Tc), critical current density (Jc), irreversibility field (Hirr), upper critical field (Hc2), and resistivity (ρ) of 10wt.% silicone oil doped MgB2 bulk and wire samples are investigated in state of the art by this article. The a-lattice parameter of the silicone oil doped samples which were sintered at different temperatures was drastically reduced from 3.0864Å to 3.0745Å, compared to the un-doped samples, which indicates the substitution of the carbon (C) into the boron sites. It was found that sintered samples at the low temperature of 600°C shows more lattice distortion by more C-substitution and higher strain, lower Tc, higher impurity scattering, and enhancement of both magnetic Jc and Hc2, compared to those sintered samples at high temperatures. The flux pinning mechanism has been analyzed based on the extended normalized pinning force density fp=Fp/Fp,max scaled with b=B/Bmax. Results show that surface pinning is the dominant pinning mechanism for the doped sample sintered at the low temperature of 600°C, while point pinning is dominant for the un-doped sample. The powder in tube (PIT) MgB2 wire was also fabricated by using of this liquid doping and found that both transport Jc and n-factor increased which proves this cheap and abundant silicone oil doping can be a good candidate for industrial application.

Energetic-environmental assessment of a scenario for Brazilian cellulosic ethanol

Abstract The end of the age of cheap oil and global warming are causing worldwide concerns about energy security and climate change mitigation. Recognizing that the continuous growth paradigm will not change at short to medium time periods, alternative energy sources to fossil fuels are being sought, in which a promising source seems to be that obtained from vegetal biomass. Specifically in Brazil, there are Conventional Ethanol Plants (CEP) using sugarcane, but due to the energy versus food debate and an increasing demand for ethanol, cellulosic ethanol produced by Biorefineries seems to be a viable option. The question is whether the Biorefinery is more sustainable than CEP. This work aims to assess the energetic-environmental performance of a Biorefinery scenario in Brazil, comparing its results against CEP and another alternative small-scale system. For this, a multi-criteria approach was considered through the following methodologies: Embodied Energy Analysis, Ecological Rucksack, Emergy Accounting and Gas Emission Inventory. Results show that Biorefinery scenario has better rating than CEP for the most indicators when the functional unit is mass of ethanol produced, but when dealing with overall system performance, the Biorefinery performance worse. Neither the Biorefinery nor CEP was superior for all indicators, showing the existence of a trade-off. On the other hand, the small-scale system suggests being the best alternative if the aim is to get higher energetic-environmental performance.

Permission to Transition: Zoning and the Transition Movement

Communities are taking responsibility for their own economic futures. In response to a growing consensus that the days of cheap oil are numbered due to any combination of declining production, environmental constraints, political instability, or increasing demand, these communities are seeking to buffer themselves from economic shocks by strengthening local economic ties and reducing costs of living. Much of their work is focused on unlocking the existing value of yards, homes, and rooftops by using them more efficiently. As part of that effort, these communities are generating efficiencies by allowing residents to share anything from cars to kitchens. However, these innovative projects can be blocked by existing local regulations, primarily zoning. We explore below ways in which these codes can be carefully pared back to allow greater choice and flexibility in transportation, housing, food, and economic opportunity.

The end of cheap oil: Bottom-up economic and geologic modeling of aggregate oil production curves

There is a lively debate between ‘concerned’ and ‘unconcerned’ analysts regarding the future availability and affordability of oil. We critically examine two interrelated and seemingly plausible arguments for an unconcerned view: (1) there is a growing amount of remaining reserves; (2) there is a large amount of oil with a relatively low average production cost. These statements are unconvincing on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Oil availability is about flows rather than stocks, and average cost is not relevant in the determination of price and output. We subsequently implement a bottom-up model of regional oil production with micro-foundations in both natural science and economics. An oil producer optimizes net present value under the constraints of reservoir dynamics, technological capacity and economic circumstances. Optimal production profiles for different reservoir drives and economic scenarios are derived. The field model is then combined with a discovery model of random sampling from a lognormal field size-frequency distribution. Regional discovery and production scenarios are generated. Our approach does not rely on the simple assumptions of top-down models such as the Hubbert curve – however it leads to the same qualitative result that production peaks when a substantial fraction of the recoverable resource remains in-ground.

Household work and energy consumption: a degrowth perspective. Catalonia’s case study

The present work contributes to bringing visibility to the part of social work that is referred to as unpaid work. This part of social work remains outside the market, but it is necessary to structure and maintain households, human relationships and communities and providing sustenance and care. It represents a flow of hidden subsidies to the economy mostly shaped, structured and experienced by women. Through an explorative case study in Catalonia, we relate the use of time in Catalan society with the relative consumption of energy. This research strategy allows us to see the dangers of substituting labour and skills from household-based production to the commodity-based economy in terms of an increase in energy demand in a context of the end of cheap oil. On the contrary, from a degrowth perspective we argue that the future adaptability might require policies reallocating resources towards the unpaid and the community.

Predicting the Psychological Response of the American People to Oil Depletion and Declining Energy Return on Investment (EROI)

Oil has played a crucial role in the United States’ continued but increasingly tenuous economic prosperity. The continued availability of cheap, high energy return on investment (EROI) oil, however, is increasingly in doubt. If cheap oil is increasingly constrained, how might that impact the American psychological sense of personal and national well-being? We employ general systems theory and certain key paradigms from psychology and sociology to predict the possible societal response to global peak oil and the declining EROI of whatever oil is produced. Based on these frameworks, the following three defense mechanisms seem likely to be employed by individuals and groups within society if and when confronted with stresses associated with declining oil availability. These are: denial of one’s passive helpless state, desire to establish a scapegoat, and arousal of affiliative needs and increased subgrouping. A group’s “survival” is a function of its unified sense of direction and the stability of necessary interdependencies and linkages. We suggest that the ability of the U.S. society, taken as a whole, to adapt to the stresses derived from the declining EROI of oil will increase during periods of moderate stress, and then decline after reaching its maximum ability to cope with stress. The integrity of interdependencies and linkages—power, communication, affect, and goals—must be preserved for continued social unity. Americans will need to acknowledge the reality of biophysical constraints if they are to adapt to the coming energy crisis.

Assessing the vulnerability of Stellenbosch's food system and possibilities for a local food economy

Food insecurity is high in Stellenbosch, despite a strong agricultural context. While the causes are complex, it is clear that the situation will be worsened by the effects of climate change and the end of cheap oil on the unstable global food system. This research compiled existing statistical information to present an overview of the current status of food production, distribution and consumption in Stellenbosch to determine key vulnerabilities and opportunities to strengthen resilience. The region produces predominantly wine grapes and fruit for export, while relying on imported produce for consumption. Key vulnerabilities of the food system were identified as: focus on wine production for export, dominance of large-scale commercial agriculture, proliferation of conventional farming methods, long value chains, dominance of national retailers, food insecurity and poor nutrition. Suggestions are made for increasing the localisation of the food system to address inequities and increase resilience to the polycrisis.

OPEC and political considerations when deciding on oil extraction

Two oil price shocks changed the pattern of cheap oil. The first was the Arab embargo on oil exports in 1973. Oil prices rose five fold. In 1978, the second was the fall of Shah Iran. Prices soared to $80–$100 a barrel in today’s prices. In 1960, OPEC was established and since then it has been a considerable political and economic force in the oil market. Two thirds of the world’s oil reserves belong to OPEC members. OPEC is accused of being responsible for most of the price increases due to their production cuts and market power. This paper provides a general framework to examine the role of OPEC in affecting oil prices through the extracted quantities. A mathematical model is developed to explore the objective function of OPEC, which includes economic and political considerations. The idea is that OPEC members consider both the political support of their citizens and profits when determining oil extraction rates. This support is represented by a “harm function” which was added to the objective function of OPEC. The solution of the model lends some support for inclusion of this harm function, through which OPEC benefits from the cuts in production aimed at harming the western countries. For this harm function to be meaningful empirically, OPEC members should have a high harm indicator, αt. With high harm indicator values, OPEC harms itself financially. The results suggest that OPEC appears to be accepting considerable monetary setbacks to appease its citizens’ taste for harming the West. At different discount rates, the monetary losses range from about 10–20%. Solving the mathematical model required estimation of the residual demand that OPEC faces plus the cost function that applies to OPEC production. This paper reports the results of these estimations.

América Latina y la tercera revolución industrial

We are currently witnessing a global transition towards a new technological paradigm based on micro-electronics and information, which replaces the previous paradigm structured around cheap oil and other energy-intensive materials. The opportunities that new technologies open up for developing countries are truly manifold. We argue that the configuration of a new industrial structure freed from the insufficiencies of the historical model requires the implementation of a coherent industrial policy. However, none of the countries in the region is in a position to face the challenges of technological modernization with any possibility of success, so an organization that follows the example of the European Economic Community proves essential.

PCR-CE-SSCP applied to detect cheap oil blended in olive oil

Olive oil adulteration with other cheap oil species has long been upsetting the industry, consumer, and authority around the world. In this article, we first reported the application of PCR-CE-SSCP method to detect other oil species in olive oil. The method was proved to be fast, accurate, reproducible, and interpretation easy. SSCP profiles of 7 oil species were all characterized by single amplicon peak which differentiate olive and the other plants distinctly. The method detection limit was less than 10% of other plant DNA blended with olive DNA. The practical limit for oil was 30–50% refined soybean oil in olive oil.

Krieg gegen einen Integrationsunwilligen?

The article contextualizes the current NATO intervention into the Libyan civil war in the debates about the new imperialism and the crisis of global capitalism. It poses the question as to whether it can be interpreted as an act of militarily locking up an oil state which is immune to IMF/World Bank types of structural adjustment. Based on an analysis of the political economy of Libya from decolonization to the contemporary Gadhafi regime, it argues that the integration of Libya into the world order of global capitalism had already occurred as an act of free will. Therefore other reasons must have led to the hesitant decision to go to war. Denouncing the idea of humanitarian interventions, the article argues that in the context of the global crisis mainly three goals are being pursued: Guaranteeing the free flow of cheap oil; reestablishing control over a geopolitically essential region that as a result of the toppling of friendly dictators has been at the verge of slipping away; and reconstructing the indispensable ideology of „humanitarian interventions“ after their seeming demise in the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Worldwide cheap and heavy oil productions: A long-term energy model

Crude oil, natural gas liquids, heavy oils, deepwater oils, and polar oils are non-renewable energy resources with increasing extraction costs. Two major definitions emerge: regular or ‘cheap’ oil and non-conventional or ‘heavy’ oil. Peaking time in conventional oil production has been a recent focus of debate. For two decades, non-conventional oils have been mixed with regular crude oil. Peaking time estimation and the rate at which production may be expected to decline, following the peak, are more difficult to determine. We propose a two-wave model for world oil production pattern and forecasting, based on the diffusion of innovation theories: a sequential multi-Bass model. Historical well-known shocks are confirmed, and new peaking times for crude oil and mixed oil are determined with corresponding depletion rates. In the final section, possible ties between the dynamics of oil extraction and refining capacities are discussed as a predictive symptom of an imminent mixed oil peak in 2016.