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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=205302501-26072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>fyi</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><!-- Converted from text/plain format -->
<P><FONT size=2>Paul Magarey<BR>p: 02 6274 7338<BR>e:
paul.magarey@dotars.gov.au<BR><BR></FONT></P>
<DIV> </DIV><BR>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> TransportAustralia@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:TransportAustralia@yahoogroups.com] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Alan
Parker<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:21 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
TransportAustralia@yahoogroups.com<BR><B>Cc:</B> Alan Parker<BR><B>Subject:</B>
Re: [TransportAustralia]<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV><!-- Converted from text/enriched format -->
<DIV>Hi all, </DIV>
<DIV>the book by Simmons "<FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#000dd0>Twilight in the
Desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy" </FONT></FONT>has been
reviewed see below. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>There is also a new DVD on oil depletion which would be useful to show DOI
personnel. </DIV>
<DIV>see below. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>bye Alan </DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><BIG>NewDVDpeakOil<B> </DIV>
<DIV>New Peak Oil / Oil Crisis documentary DVD available in UK &
Europe<BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG> </DIV>
<DIV></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></B></BIG><BIG>By James Howard Pressbox.co.uk
</DIV>
<DIV>http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Society/New_Peak_Oil_/_Oil_Crisis </DIV>
<DIV>_documentary_DVD_available_in_UK_Europe_31765.html </DIV><BR>
<DIV></BIG>In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
</DIV><BR>
<DIV></FONT><I><FONT face=Arial><BIG>Peak Oil: Imposed by
Nature</BIG></FONT></I><FONT face=Arial><BIG> is a new documentary that will be
available from Friday 15th July throughout the UK and Europe via the website
www.PowerSwitch.org.uk. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Produced by Amund Prestegard and recommended by Dr Colin Campbell, it is an
excellent introduction to the causes and consequences of the terminal decline of
global oil production as we reach Hubbert's Peak, expected in 2007. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>In the documentary, Dr Colin Campbell takes us to Stavanger in Norway,
where he has worked the last 10 years of his professional career. He explains
the different aspects of discovery and production, the increase and decline, and
the fact that this will happen very soon. Dr Campbell serves as our 'guide'
throughout the documentary, although he is just one of the many informed and
informative analysts that feature. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Richard Webb is a financial risk analyst with broad experience from some of
the world's largest investment banks. He expresses his opinion about signs that
the market is reaching an extremity, and that this endorses what Colin Campbell
and the ASPO are saying: we are near the peak. Webb underlines the importance of
understanding that the dramatic event is not when we will run out of oil, but
rather what will happen when there is less tomorrow than there is today.
</DIV><BR>
<DIV>Norwegian petroleum geologist Olve Torvanger has 30 years of worldwide
experience in seismic surveys, searching for oil. He points to the seriousness
of a situation in which our tools become ever more sophisticated, but we are
finding less and less. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Matthew Simmons is Chairman and CEO of Simmons & Co. International, one
of the world's largest energy-investment banking firms. He expresses a deep
concern for the urgent need to take measures to prevent the decline that shall
destroy our society. He refers to the word "crisis" as "A temporary problem that
has been left unattended so long that it has become permanent"! </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Aage Figenschou, Norwegian board member of Simmons & Co, expresses
worry regarding the downgrading of reserves by oil companies. He believes that
we are near the peak, but underlines that it will not make people run to fill up
their cars. What we will see, he says, is a constant pressure towards
ever-higher prices, a rather negative outcome. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Chris Skrebowski, Editor of <I>Petroleum Review</I> in London, argues the
case for a much stronger involvement from Government that could go as far as
deciding who can - and who can not - have [access to oil]. The Government, he
claims, will find themselves monitoring a war-like situation. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Investigative reporter Michael C. Ruppert expresses his views on Dr
Campbell being approached by US intelligence in his own village in Western
Ireland. Ruppert claims that what the CIA most of all wants to know is "how
close is the ASPO to penetrating the public consciousness with the issues of
PEAK OIL and how close is the public to acknowledging what it's going to mean."
According to Ruppert, the so-called "war on terrorism" is nothing but a war to
control the last remaining oil reserves on the planet. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>US president George W. Bush frets over the fact that the US now imports
over half of their crude oil, and that very often they import that from
countries that "don't particularly like us" and "that it could jeopardize the
national security to be dependent on sources of energy from countries that don't
care for America - what we stand for, what we love." </DIV><BR>
<DIV>The Producer/Director/Cameraman is Norwegian Amund Prestegard, 52,
experienced in all facets of filmmaking since 1972. Prestegard has run his own
production company, Tropos Dokumentar, since 1995. <I>Peak Oil: Imposed by
Nature</I> was nominated 'Best Professional Documentary' at the Norwegian
Documentary Film Festival 2005. The idea for this film came about when
Prestegard, during research for another project, became aware of the global oil
depletion situation when reading the works of Campbell, Laherrere and Simmons
during Autumn 2002. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>With a running time of approximately 30 minutes, this documentary quickly
absorbs, and delivers a much-needed wake-up call to anyone new to the subject of
peak oil. With the need for a worldwide understanding of the causes,
consequences and solutions, this documentary is a very useful tool in raising
awareness. Shorter than <I>End of Suburbia</I> but with a strong UK focus, this
is a documentary that everyone should see. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>For a quick link to order visit <FONT
color=#000ee0>http://tinyurl.com/82flu</FONT></BIG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>=======================================================================
</DIV><BR>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><BIG>ReviewSimmonsBook<B> </DIV>
<DIV>Twilight in the Desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy by
Matthew R Simmons<BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG> </DIV>
<DIV></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG></B></BIG><BIG>Reviewed by John Gray </DIV>
<DIV>http://www.newstatesman.com/Bookshop/300000101087 </DIV><BR>
<DIV></BIG>In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
</DIV><BR>
<DIV></FONT><FONT face=Arial><BIG>During the 1990s it was fashionable to scoff
at the notion of limits to growth. A knowledge-based economy was coming into
being in which natural resources didn't matter. The future would be driven by a
search for new ideas rather than the struggle for control of the planet's
assets. We were entering an era defined by information technology, in which
rapid economic growth could continue for ever. It was never easy to square this
fanciful philosophy with historical reality: the 1990s began with the first Gulf
war, which was fought solely to secure oil supplies, and cheap oil was the basis
of the prosperity of that feckless decade. Yet somehow or other these facts were
forgotten, until Iraq. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>With the launching of the second Gulf war, the crucial role of oil in the
world economy was exposed. From statements made by a number of its American
supporters, it seems clear that the strategic objective of the Iraq war was to
enable the United States to withdraw from Saudi Arabia, which had come to be
seen as an unreliable ally. According to the game plan, Saddam Hussein would be
toppled, Iraq would be pacified in a few months and oil would fall to $10 a
barrel. The global economy would then take off in another boom with the US in
firm control of the world's second-largest oil reserves. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>This was always a far-fetched scenario, and things have not worked out as
envisaged. Iraq is a failed state in the grip of an intractable insurgency, and
the price of oil is roughly $60 a barrel. The scramble to secure energy supplies
is more frenzied than ever. The Great Game has been resumed, not only in central
Asia but also in the Gulf. If Iran is attacked by the US in the course of the
coming year or so, one reason for this will be to stymie energy supply
agreements that Tehran may be planning with America's competitors, notably China
and India. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>The limits to growth have not gone away. They have re-emerged as classical
geopolitics - a condition of continuous rivalry among the great powers for
control of the world's most valuable natural resources. In this intensifying
struggle, no country is more important than Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is the
world's pivotal oil producer. Any disruption in supplies of its oil would be
hugely destabilising to global markets. Even more crucially, it is the most
important resource base for the oil that will be tapped to meet growing world
demand. As emerging countries industrialise, their energy use increases
exponentially. Saudi Arabia is the site of the planet's largest low-cost oil
reserves, and in effect acts as the energy bank of worldwide industrialisation.
</DIV><BR>
<DIV>Matthew R Simmons is convinced that Saudi oil production is near its peak,
or indeed may have passed it, a development with awesome implications. Simmons,
a veteran oil finance insider who has been an important adviser to the Bush
administration, has done a huge amount of research and bases his conclusions on
carefully sifted evidence, not large theories. Yet his view is consistent with
the theory of M King Hubbert, a Shell geophysicist who argued in 1956 that
production rates for oil and other fossil fuels exhibit a bell curve: when
roughly half the oil has been extracted, production declines. No one took much
notice of Hubbert at the time, but he predicted that oil production in the
continental United States would peak and start declining in the late 1960s or
early 1970s - as it did. Since then a number of large oilfields have also
peaked, including the North Sea in 1999. When oil peaks it does not run out -
there is usually a slow decline that can be spun out by new technologies - but
the unavoidable result is falling production. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Could we be near a global oil peak? Simmons believes that point may already
have passed and warns that the idea that technology can arrest the decline may
be a delusion. In his view, Saudi oil production has been boosted by the use of
technologies which actually reduce the future supply of recoverable oil. The
implication is that Saudi production has peaked, and with it global oil
production, at a time when demand is rising inexorably. </DIV><BR>
<DIV><I>Twilight in the Desert</I> is not always easy to read. It largely
consists of highly technical discussion of the history and condition of Saudi
oilfields. Yet its impact is to transform our view of the world. Many in the oil
industry - and particularly Aramco, the Saudi oil company - will dispute
Simmons's claim that Saudi production is near its peak sustainable volume. For
most readers the question will be whether Simmons can be trusted. I am certain
that he can. He is not the only oil expert to say that a peak in global
production may be near (Dr Colin Campbell of the London-based Oil Depletion
Analysis Centre is another) and, unlike many in the oil industry, Simmons has no
axe to grind. This is a ground-breaking book by an analyst of unimpeachable
authority. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Simmons's analysis suggests that the current phase of worldwide
industrialisation is crucially dependent on the uncertain reserves of a single
Gulf kingdom facing vast and potentially insuperable challenges. As he shows in
a superb digression, the most formidable of these is population growth. The
kingdom's current population of roughly 22 million is expected to rise to
roughly 50 million by 2030, and unless there is a large and sustained rise in
the oil price, living standards are bound to fall steeply - as they have been
doing since the early 1980s. The Saudi rentier economy is facing a Malthusian
crunch, and against a background of already high unemployment the result so can
only be a condition of chronic instability. If the most obvious effect of our
dependency on oil is a series of resource wars, another could be an upsurge of
revolutionary movements in oil-producing countries. While it would be an error
to think that the Saudi regime is on the brink of collapse, in a few decades the
kingdom could well be an Islamist republic - or, perhaps more likely given its
origin as an artefact of the colonial era, another failed state. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Simmons makes a formidable case for the pivotal importance of Saudi Arabia,
but he may actually have understated the impact of peak oil. One reason is the
central role of oil in intensive farming. Contemporary agriculture relies
heavily on oil-based fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. At bottom, the
green revolution was about the extraction of food from petroleum, and a peak in
world oil production could trigger a peak in world food production. A second is
climate change. As oil supplies are becoming scarcer and less secure, many
countries are looking to other fossil fuels such as coal. New technologies can
make coal much cleaner, but a large increase in coal use alongside continuing
dependency on oil could magnify the greenhouse effect. In other words, peak oil
could accelerate global warming. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>The conjunction of peaking global oil production with quickening climate
change poses fundamental challenges that no section of opinion has adequately
confronted - including the Greens. The energy-intensive lifestyle which is now
spreading throughout the world cannot be sustained with non-renewable and
polluting fossil fuels, but it is sheer fantasy to imagine that a human
population of between six and eight billion can be supported on a combination of
windfarms, solar power and organic agriculture. As Simmons notes, we may be
approaching the limits of growth that the Club of Rome identified more than 30
years ago, and we are no better prepared to adjust to them now than we were
then. </DIV><BR>
<DIV></BIG><I>John Gray's latest book is Heresies: Against Progress and Other
Illusions (Granta) </DIV><BR>
<DIV></I></FONT></DIV><BR>
<DIV>On 22/07/2005, at 5:58 PM, Kate Colvin wrote: </DIV><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Dear friend, </DIV><BR>
<DIV>Please find attached the minutes of the transport meeting on Thursday
21st July. .Next meeting of the Coalition will be on August 25 at 12.30pm.
Next meeting of the disability transport sub-committee is not yet scheduled.
</DIV><BR>
<DIV>In addition to the minutes I have been advised by the Office of the
Public Advocate that the investigation of the Governemnt's progress in
relation to the Coroners Inquiry recommendations about level crossings is
almost complete and a meeting will be held to consult on their findings with
interested parties. If you would like to participate in that meeting (date not
yet confirmed) please email Phil Grano at the OPA on
<phil.grano@justice.vic.gov.au>. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>A separate email follows with a paper on peak oil by Alan Parker. Please
contact Alan direct if you need a copy in word format
</DIV><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>