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World Oil Supply: Looming Crisis or New Abundance?

A Public Debate featuring:

Dr. Tadeusz Patzek	Chair, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
John Hofmeister	President, Citizens for Affordable Energy

image © Copyright Simon Johnston and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence

February 14, 2011, 6:00pm
Varsity Hall in Union South,
1308 West Dayton Street, Madison WI

Agenda:

5:30 PM – Doors open for registration
6:00-7:30 PM – Debate and Q&A session
7:30-8:30 PM – Discussion and networking

This event is free and open to the public.

Event Description: Does the flattening oil production in the past decade pose a serious risk that supplies of transportation fuel could fall short of demand and prices sharply increase as the world economy recovers and developing countries’ growth accelerates? “Peak Oil” is the phrase for the concern by some experts that oil production in all its forms will soon begin a permanent decline, a development that would have profound implications for our domestic economy, national security, and even world peace. Already the world is experiencing record oil prices—and market experts see much higher prices lurking on the near horizon. The severe oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 provide a preview of potential difficulties, which make this a threat too serious to ignore.

Other respected experts see hope for adequate oil production if measures are taken to turn loose new technologies for exploitation of previously inaccessible tight deposits and to open new production in under-developed areas.

Experts on both sides favor urgent measures to meet the challenges implicit in these view points, but the underlying realities have remained too complicated—or disturbing—for action in the political arena or even for serious debate. Madison now has the opportunity to participate in such a debate.

Debate Participants:

Dr. Tadeusz Patzek is Chair of the Department of Petroleum Geology at the University of Texas and is a board member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA). Dr. Patzek is an authority on the world’s oil fields and the potential of technology to break through “mother nature’s limits” on fields’ ultimate production. While spending a lifetime facilitating petroleum production, he is pessimistic about the prospects for further major increases in world oil production. Consequently, he favors urgent measures to restructure our economy and society to reduce our need for oil. Recently, Patzek served on the national commission to study the oil disaster in the Gulf. He authored a book (Drilling Down: the Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma) discussing the disaster’s technical causes and the broader risks of ever more complex oil production.Quote from Dr. Patzek for the World Oil Supply Debate:

“Our civilization is not about energy, but about power or energy expenditure per unit time. In contrast, our social discourse is framed in terms of energy. Within this framing the essential differences between accumulations of fossil fuels and uranium or thorium, and flows of solar energy (light, wind, tides, biomass) disappear. This misunderstanding is at the core of the heated but generally uniformed discussion we have in our country about what would it take to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. In the meantime, fossil fuels work ever harder in a modern society, and the weaning process will be extremely difficult. In the U.S., we haven’t even started a broad, serious conversation about how to proceed to cut our use of power by half for starters.” – Dr. Tadeusz Patzek

John Hofmeister founded and heads Citizens for Affordable Energy, a public policy education non-profit promoting U.S. energy security solutions. He was President of Houston-based Shell Oil Company from 2005-2008, previously serving as Group Human Resource Director of the Shell Group based in The Netherlands. Hofmeister serves as the Chairman of the National Urban League, and he is a member of the U.S. Energy Security Council and the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee. He also serves on the boards of the National Energy Security Council, the Foreign Policy Association, the Gas Technology Institute, and the University of Houston Energy Advisory Board. Hofmeister is the author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider.Quote from Mr. Hofmeister for the World Oil Supply Debate:

“The U.S. is headed for an unprecedented energy abyss within the next five years, including blackouts, brownouts and gasoline lines because it has failed to address its energy needs in the 21st Century over the past four decades. ‘Political time’ priorities continue to overwhelm ‘energy time’ priorities given the partisan perversity of both major parties, at the expense of the American people and our economic, energy and environmental future.” – John Hofmeister

…

Debate Moderator:

Moderator: Dr. Alan Carroll has accepted the challenge of guiding the conversation through the factors governing future fuel supply to clearly identify the basis for differing production forecasts and policy recommendations. He will assure that our discussion is both substantively focused and fair to all participants. Carroll is a Professor of Geoscience at UW-Madison, specializing in petroleum geology. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, he serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Oil Shale Technology and Research, and he is a member of the Technical Advisory Board for the American Shale Oil Company. Carroll is a member of UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute Energy and Policy Program and UW’s Energy Institute. He has contributed to carbon sequestration studies for Wisconsin and Minnesota, and his most recent book, Biofuels: A Passenger’s Guide to Energy from the Earth, will be published in 2012

Union South Location:

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Parking:
Union South underground lot (paid, very limited spaces available)
Lot 20 (paid, limited)
Lot 17 (free after 4:30 PM) – recommended
Campus Parking Map