www.OilCrashMovie.com / about Peak oil

[drbubb]

MAJOR STUDIOS WON'T DISTRIBUTE it, despite being offered the chance.

So the producer has "gone guerilla" to promote it through his own website:

 

http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/film.html

 

The film includes in-depth, thought-provoking interviews with Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, Roscoe Bartlett, David Goodstein, Matt Savinar, Terry Lynn Karl, Fadhil Chalabi, Robert Ebel and many others. Shot on location at oil fields in Azerbaijan, Venezuela, the Middle East and Texas, with original music by Daniel Schnyder and Philip Glass, the film provides not only questions, but possible solutions to the most perplexing and important economic, environmental and public policy issue of our time.

 

One year ago, in a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, Robert L. Hirsch challenged the notion that the free market can solve the onrushing emergency:

 

"The world has never faced a problem like Peak Oil. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

 

MOVIE TRAILER:

Watch the trailer in various formats on green.tv : http://www.green.tv/crude_awakening

 

Blast from the Past:

Listen to President Jimmy Carter's radio adress to the nation on the energy crisis, April 18, 1977 - courtesy of www.peakoil.com :

http://www.peakoil.com/modules/zina/jec_1977_0418.mp3

 

= = =

 

FS has also picked it up, on this week's interview:

http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-0714-2.asx

(I found the interview rather boring, but was happy to see the promotional effort)

 

After the success of An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Oscar, why has hollywood found this so difficult to take on?

[drbubb]

OilCrash,

produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion – our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.

 

= =

....

 

(from the FS website):

The idea that the world’s oil supplies have peaked, or will soon, is gaining mainstream currency. Robert B. Semple, Jr., associate editor of the New York Times editorial board, writes in the paper’s March 1, 2006, online edition:

 

“The Age of Oil — 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil — could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity. At some point even the vast reservoirs of Saudi Arabia will run dry. But before that happens there will come a day when oil production ‘peaks,’ when demand overtakes supply (and never looks back), resulting in large and possibly catastrophic price increases that could make today's $60-a-barrel oil look like chump change. Unless, of course, we begin to develop substitutes for oil. Or begin to live more abstemiously. Or both. The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look — largely because it is almost certainly correct.” Semple concludes: “These [are] not doomsday scenarios from conspiracy theorists, but hard scientific facts backed by serious research.”

 

You needn’t be a conspiracy theorist to see a connection between America’s current obsessions with the Middle East and national security, and the world’s looming oil crisis. The frenzied search for alternative sources of energy now being pursued by the largest multinational energy corporations makes it clear they also believe a crisis is fast approaching. Each day’s headlines, whether the subject is Iraq or South America, sheds new light on the issue.

 

Producer:

Basil Gelpke

Lava Productions AG

Attenhoferstrasse 34

8032 Zürich

Switzerland

Tel: +41 44 261 15 15

Fax:+41 44 261 15 16

 

= =

LINKS:

Film's Festival history : http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/festival.html

[drbubb]

OTHER INTERVIEWS:

 

1/

Crude Awakening :By Bill Moore

Interview with Swiss television journalist Basil Gelpke on his new 90-minute documentary on peak oil.

Open Access Article Originally Published: June 19, 2006

 

If you think energy-conscious Europe is more aware of Peak Oil than North America, think again, says Swiss television journalist Basil Gelpke, currently in the United States debuting his new documentary "A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash" at various film festivals. EV World caught up with him by telephone in Newport, Rhode Island. He had only a few minutes to talk before driving up to Boston and eventually catching a flight back to Switzerland.

 

"A Crude Awakening looks into the question at how much fossil fuels we still have on this planet," he said, explaining that it looks primarily at oil and gas reserves.

 

Gelpke, who was worked for a decade in television news, said that he's covered a lot of stories and seen a lot of things and he isn't easily impressed...

 

"But when I came across the story of peak oil, I got really worried. I couldn't believe it at first, but then I started doing some research and I feel this is the most important story that I've come across in my lifetime as a television journalist, which is really my background."

 

While Gelpke said he is a firm believer in the power of the market, it doesn't explain everything for him.

 

"This is not an issue of whether market forces are at play or not. This is more a geological issue," he said, pausing to clear his voice. "There is no doubt oil and gas are finite resources. There's a given amount of it on the planet and we can use it up, and that's what we're doing. It's not like wheat. We're not growing it every year."

 

-Listen: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1051

[drbubb]

SNIPS / Comments on the Film:

 

 

"I sat breathless through the final minutes of the documentary "OilCrash,"

maybe the ultimate feel-bad apocalyptic film ever made and the one true knockout at SXSW this year."

@: http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/200...m/index_np.html

 

2/

"The Sheffield Docfest is currently on tour across the UK, and one of the star attractions is Ray McCormack and Basil Gelpke's A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash. A less slick version of Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth (pun intented, unfortunately), A Crude Awakening is a startling eco-documentary looking at the phenomenon of Peak Oil - the point when the non-renewable fossil fuel's production starts to decrease. And if no replacement energy source emerges, well, it's back to the horse and cart for future generations."

@: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A20788310

 

3/

"A Crude Awakening'starts off by calling oil "the excrement of the devil". That is the first and last piece of rhetoric - the rest is cold examination of evidence, which is perhaps one of the reasons it then has to work so hard to make its rather dry subject interesting . . . I was tired enough to nod off while watching it, but the cold and careful facts started seeping down my neck until I was almost in a state of shock.

. .

The present lifestyle of the West, according to the range of least-to-most optimistic figures presented in the film, is impossible to maintain. This produces some bleak options. 1) militarise oil - in other words, say to people, if you want to keep your current way of life and present civilisation, be prepared for a lot of wars to secure the oil necessary; or 2) kick oil dependence, which means developing new technology. Although some of the scientists in the film try to be upbeat about never underestimating the human capacity for technology, they mercilessly dissect the present known options to show that, even with the best outcomes, the result would be the tiniest drop in the ocean of what is required."

@: http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=5019

[drbubb]

PROMOTING THE FILM

...

But were you ever tempted to go down the route of getting a 'name' on board to narrate or present the film?

That's what everybody said we should do. When you're researching and structuring a film, and afterwards when you're cutting it, the content dictates the form of the film. The Al Gore film was very much about following him on his lecture tour, and him explaining global warming. The person who came up with the peak oil explanation, Dr MK Hubbert, is sadly no longer alive, but I think if we'd just had someone like him standing in front of a blackboard explaining it, it might not have been such an interesting film.

 

Al Gore, now that he's not in the hands of spin doctors, is a very engaging personality and he does a really good job in that film. But unlike in An Inconvenient Truth, we felt the need to back up the evidence with experts, so it just didn't lend itself to having a personality.

 

You've made the film as a wake up call but how are you going to get people to see the film?

When we set out to make the documentary, our aims were to finish the film, maybe have it shown in some festivals, and if we got lucky have it shown on a couple of TV stations. But our expectations have been hugely exceeded. The film is showing in cinemas in Canada, in Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand, and it'll be on primetime television in North America later in the year. People are responding to the film in film festivals, and distributors and broadcasters are responding to that, which is great.

 

Any UK distribution deal yet?

Not so far but we hope the publicity the film will get on this Sheffield Docfest tour will get the attention of some independent film distributors. One of the great things about going on this tour is that it exposes films like ours to audiences that want to see documentaries but somehow aren't served very well.

 

...source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A20788310

[clv101]

It's a good film.

 

See our reviews of Oil Crash and Crude Impact here:

 

Peak Oil at the Movies: Oil Crash & Crude Impact

 

Good news is that Oil Crash is getting a proper UK cinema release in the autumn.

[drbubb]

It's a good film.

See our reviews of Oil Crash and Crude Impact here:

Peak Oil at the Movies: Oil Crash & Crude Impact

Good news is that Oil Crash is getting a proper UK cinema release in the autumn.

 

That's great news!

Are you associated with Oil Drum, CLV??

 

= =

 

Here's an EXCERPT from the Oil Drum review:

"

This movie was done in a more linear and easily digestible format than The End of Suburbia or Peak Oil: Imposed by Nature. It delivered the introduction, physicality’s, and consequences of PO in that order, giving those new to the topic a grasp of each aspect before moving on to the next. Each was broken into various aspects by bold titles introducing a certain point. The introduction could possibly have been broken down, just a bit more, to open it right up to people who have never even thought about where their energy comes from never mind that it is under threat.

 

What was particularly good was the emphasis the film makers placed on oil field exhaustion, and that there are actually (many) currently depleted, and hence now disused, oil fields the world over; a point many new comers to peak oil don’t realise because it is not widely publicised, for obvious reasons. The examples used were in Texas, Azerbaijan, and Venezuela. Along with this was stunning cinematography of rusting pumps, polluted water, and the physical degradation of the land at each site.

 

Although a major section of the movie concentrated on the American dimension of peak oil, it was altogether a much less American-centric view than The End of Suburbia. Indeed, it raised the point well, pointing out that the American way of life will be that much more vulnerable due to the majority of their towns and cities being built on a car-facilitated design, in contrast to most European cities developed long before the car’s inception. "

 

- -

That last part:

"the American way of life will be that much more vulnerable due to the majority of their towns and cities being built on a car-facilitated design"

is critical.

 

The Coming depression will be US-centered IMHO

[clv101]

That's great news!

Are you associated with Oil Drum, CLV??

Editor of TOD:Europe.

[Bubble Pricker]

Unlike global warming, peak oil remains disputed by the majority in the oil industry. The industry has no incentive to cover up peak oil, if it believed in it. Why sell the stuff cheaply at today's prices, when peak oil realisiation could send prices to $200 and beyond.

 

Don't want to start a peak oil debate in here, but what the peak oilers overlook is the incredible flexibility in demand to any serious price increases. People could easily drive only half as much, if they really planned their trips more carefully or walked to the grocery shops rather than driving there. Once forced to do so by high prices, demand will just shrink enormously, and equilibrium sets in again, at much higher prices. Oil is not suddenly going to run out overnight. It has already tripled in price in a few years, with no real effect on the economy. People and business will adjust. They always do.

[clv101]

Unlike global warming, peak oil remains disputed by the majority in the oil industry.

Virtually no one disputes peak oil, the only debate is whether it's around about now or 2030.

 

...but what the peak oilers overlook is the incredible flexibility in demand to any serious price increases.

Sure, peak oil is a supply phenomena. It's nothing do with demand.

 

People could easily drive only half as much, if they really planned their trips more carefully or walked to the grocery shops rather than driving there. Once forced to do so by high prices, demand will just shrink enormously, and equilibrium sets in again, at much higher prices.

So why didn't this happen so smoothly in '73 and '79? That was only around 5% of global supply lost. Peak oil could be a few percent lost per year, every year. This issue is not one of price. Economic growth has historically been linked to energy supply growth. Peak oil represents the end of energy supply growth. It is very cavalier to suggest the relationship that has been so solid in the past is simply going to break down and everything carry on as normal.

 

Oil is not suddenly going to run out overnight.

No one ever said it would, certainly no peak oiler.

 

It has already tripled in price in a few years, with no real effect on the economy.

The price has increased but the amount of oil, the total energy supply hasn't fallen. The problem happens when the there is less net energy available, not when the price triples.

 

People and business will adjust. They always do.

Sure, the universe won't cease to exist. Everyone/thing will simply adjust.

[Bubble Pricker]

Virtually no one disputes peak oil, the only debate is whether it's around about now or 2030.

 

OK, what I was trying to say is that the majority view has it down for 2030.

[frizzers]

IMO we have already seen peak cheap oil.

[drbubb]

Editor of TOD:Europe.

 

Feel free to post OilDrum articles here, or start discussions

[drbubb]

Sure, peak oil is a supply phenomena. It's nothing do with demand.

 

I'm not sure why you say this.

US demand has not changed much as prices rose- and it was not rising US demand that

pushed prices up

 

...but while this was happening, demand in China and India has skyrocketed.

So their rising demand had something to do with higher prices IMHO

[drbubb]

(from my similar thread on HPC:

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=51263 ) :

If you follow links in my post #6 higher up this thread you'll note it's not just the decline in global production which will influence how much oil US, UK etc can obtain, and at what cost but it's also how quickly export capacity of the world's key oil exporters declines. The combination of flat / falling output and rising internal consumption in key exporters such as Russia and Saudi will prove a lethal mix for 'growth economies' of OECD nations which import oil. The North Sea is not going to save us - UK is just less than self sufficient today but with extremely aggressive decline rates which will halve N Sea output in barely 7 years (IEA report UK will need to import 700k bopd by 2012).

 

According to Dr Bhaktiari's report, linked in post #6, global oil output will fall to 55m bopd by 2020 by which time demand (IEA and other estimates) will be around 113m bopd. Looking at it another way for each 10 litres drivers might require in 2020 only around 5 litres would be forthcoming at the pumps. On this basis whether fuel is £2/litre or not is somewhat secondary to how long one has to wait in line to receive fuel (and what percentage of what one might expect would actually be available). Business as usual is not going to be an option.

 

 

Such a big potential gap Demand of 113mn vs. Supply of 55mn, implies a huge jump in price,

to put S/D back into equilibrium

[clv101]

I'm not sure why you say this.

What I mean by that is "peak oil" itself is purely about the business of discovering and extracting oil. Demand, certainly these days, has very little do with that. Similarly neither does price, if the price increased by $20 tomorrow or decreased by $20 tomorrow if would have minimal impact on the timing and magnitude of peak oil.

 

I guess you could say the broader subject and impacts of peak oil (and energy depletion in general) has everything to with demand and prices, I was just making the point that the actual peaking of oil supplies doesn't depend on whether we outlaw SUVs tomorrow and all start driving Smart cars - it might lessen the impact of peak oil but won't effect the peaking.

 

zceb90's point about export capacity is vitally important, for an oil importer (like the OECD) the total global extraction rate is irrelevant, all the matters is the volume of oil on the export market. What the simple model described on The Oil Drum last week shows is that as existing major exporter's production starts to decline but their own internal consumption continues to increase their export volumes can decline very rapidly indeed. Just considering aggregate global extraction rate declines, as bad a picture as that is, could be optimistic.

[drbubb]

What I mean by that is "peak oil" itself is purely about the business of discovering and extracting oil.

 

OK. I get the point.

But the peak may come a bit sooner, if extraction increases due to higher demand.

 

zceb90's point about export capacity is vitally important, for an oil importer (like the OECD) the total global extraction rate is irrelevant, all the matters is the volume of oil on the export market. ...existing major exporter's production starts to decline but their own internal consumption continues to increase their export volumes can decline very rapidly indeed. Just considering aggregate global extraction rate declines, as bad a picture as that is, could be optimistic.

 

Yes, I see.

That is important. The Oil exporters do little to dampen down internal consumption, IMO

[clv101]

The Oil exporters do little to dampen down internal consumption, IMO

I think this is one of the key points as we pass peak, what are the top 5 exporters going to do with their internal markets. I expect they may pull in more of the hydrocarbon value chain - build refineries, build petrochemical plants etc... instead of exporting large volumes of crude, export smaller volumes of crude in the from of refined products and petrochemicals - this allows the same money to be made by the exporting country from less crude. This is more bad news for the OECD oil majors who own refineries in countries which today are already net importers of crude (also petrochemical companies etc). It also gives oil exporting countries more control over the market. Strategic gasoline reserves aren’t as viable as strategic petroleum reserves.

 

I think we’ll see more value add within traditional oil exporting countries in coming years.

[drbubb]

I think we’ll see more value add within traditional oil exporting countries in coming years.

 

RIGHT.

And that would leave the US more dependent on foreign refineries, and imported gasoline & products.

Meaning even more expensive petrol for US motorists- a further squeeze on US suburbia (how do I short it?)

 

= = =

 

(Comment from clone thread on HPC):

BarrelShifter

 

I watched it this morning, after downloading it from my regular torrent site http://www.bitsoup.org

I must say, it's quite a thought provoking and slightly chilling film. I didn't realise that oil production had peaked long ago in the US and former soviet union. If the middle east (Iraq/Iran) are the last big reserves of oil, it's no suprise to me that the US (and the UK) found any pretext they could to justify invading. This is the future of our way of life that we are defending, and the politicians, as usual, can't be honest about it. Instead, they prefer to go along with the fabricated "global warming" nonsense in order to curtail our over-reliance on fossil fuels.

[malco]

I'm not sure why you say this.

US demand has not changed much as prices rose- and it was not rising US demand that

pushed prices up

 

...but while this was happening, demand in China and India has skyrocketed.

So their rising demand had something to do with higher prices IMHO

 

I have answered this point on another thread:

 

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=1966

 

[see post #37]

 

The chart shows consumption per household, not overall. Also, you have to appreciate that the oil price is strongly influenced by the "Export Land" model. That is, the availability of oil for export is the critical issue, not oil production overall. US oil imports have increased by 5-6 mb/d over the last ten years, more than the increases of China and India put together. This has certainly been a strong driver on price. The collapse of North Sea production was another strong driver. But one barrel less out of the North Sea is no more or less influential than one barrel more imported by the US, or by China, it is all part of the global balance of supply and demand. Do not forget that internal consumption by the Saudis and the Russians is increasing, reducing what they have left to export.

 

The bottom line is that fewer and fewer countries can export because more and more countries have peaked and gone into decline, without their internal consumption also declining. Mexico and the UK have seen especially steep declines.

 

I doubt that anyone genuinely aware of the full issue would put Peak Oil at 2030. Even the IEA is now admitting that the peak will probably happen before 2010, if you read between the lines of their report.

[malco]

[From link to HPC thread post #20 by zceb90:

 

"According to Dr Bhaktiari's report, linked in post #6, global oil output will fall to 55m bopd by 2020 by which time demand (IEA and other estimates) will be around 113m bopd."

 

This reveals a common ignorance about supply and demand. You refer to desire, not demand. Definition:

 

Demand = Supply + change in inventory.

 

That's basic arithmetic. If Bhaktiari is right, then demand will be around 55mb/d too. The figure of 113mb/d can only happen if supply meets such a level at prices that allow that level of consumption. That is a completely different world, bearing no comparison to the Bhaktiari world [which is more likely to happen, since I have little doubt Bhaktiari knows the truth about Middle East oil fields].

 

It helps if you view a market as an auction [which of course is exactly what it is]. There is a crowd of people at the auction, but maybe only 20% have the money to buy the goods before stocks run out. That leaves 80% who go without. Supply = Demand = the 20%. Desire = 100%. Frustration = 80%.

 

In this case, the frustrated greatly outnumbered the satisfied. The satisfied can only keep what they have if they are safe enough todo so. Then the 80% will be angry, but too intimidated to do anything about it. That is like the world today. But if the safety of the 20% should lack credibility, then the 80% will have a go at them. That's revolution. Revolution does not change the level of frustration, in fact, it will probably increase it because the violence will reduce supply. Revolution merely transfers the supply to a new group that can demonstrate its safety.

[drbubb]

Then the 80% will be angry, but too intimidated to do anything about it. That is like the world today.

But if the safety of the 20% should lack credibility, then the 80% will have a go at them. That's revolution. Revolution does not change the level of frustration, in fact, it will probably increase it because the violence will reduce supply. Revolution merely transfers the supply to a new group that can demonstrate its safety.

 

The anger will make them susceptible to rash promises of demogogs.

And then we have a risk that a leader like Hitler may come to power, tapping into that anger.

Rationality may be left behind.

 

It is a pity that we have not done a better job at educating the masses in western countries

[drbubb]

US oil imports have increased by 5-6 mb/d over the last ten years, more than the increases of China and India put together. This has certainly been a strong driver on price. The collapse of North Sea production was another strong driver. But one barrel less out of the North Sea is no more or less influential than one barrel more imported by the US, or by China, it is all part of the global balance of supply and demand.

 

Thanks for those figures. That makes sense, and is a bit hopeful in a strange way.

A US depression (after oil shoots up to $200-250 in a dollar collapse), might succeed in balancing the market for a few years.

That might buy some time for the US to begin to restructure its economy

[drbubb]

(from the clone HPC thread):

studdymx ::

another good video on this topic is: The Oil Factor; Behind the War on Terror

 

http://tv-links.co.uk/show.do/9/1463

[malco]

Peak Oil finally gets a mention in the MSM:

 

http://money.uk.msn.com/Specials/Your_Car/...umentid=5579494

 

Very succinct summary of the subject, and no mention of actual peak in the USA, which was the Saudi Arabia of its day. They imply that only second tier areas like the North Sea can go into decline. Still, the words are actually getting explicit mention.

 

The recent IEA report has made a big impact in how seriously the MSM take Peak Oil. It's a pity how controlled by authority and how lacking in independent insight the MSM is. It is cowardice, on the whole.