The Oil Drum: Europe

Early Registration Savings End July 21st--and this time they're not going to extend the breaks after the deadline from what I hear. For Conference Agenda and Registration, go to
http://www.aspo-usa.com/aspousa4/

Don't miss the chance to join us in Sacramento in September and be a part of defining our energy future. Early Registration ends July 21st, Sunday sessions are likely to sell out and our two core days of plenary sessions always have limited seating capacity. Register today!

Under the fold, find the agenda and other highlights from the program. Come to Sacramento!

In 2007, there were two conferences by Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) groups:

ASPO 6 - World ASPO Groups - Cork, Ireland - September 2007
ASPO-USA - Houston, Texas - October 2007

DVD's for both of these conferences are now available. The DVDs are especially good for schools and libraries, and for people who were not able to attend the conferences.

The ASPO-USA Houston Conference DVDs are available at this link. The ASPO 6 Conference DVDs are available at this link.

Register Today!

Conference Website — http://www.aspo-usa.com/aspousa3/

Direct to Registration — http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=136392

Peak & Decline of World Oil Production

ASPO Week in Houston (Oct. 17-20) will consist of four days of high-level energy discussions,
including a pre-conference day and post-conference day, daytime and evening presentations, and
mix & meet receptions with speakers and sponsors. In addition, we've planned field trips to an
oil well drilling rig and Refinery Row, our nation's largest, on the Houston Ship Channel.

Under the fold, the conference newsletter.

“Houston ... we have an Opportunity: Smart Steps for Another Giant Leap.”

http://www.aspousa.org/aspousa3

ASPO Week in Houston will consist of four days of high-level energy discussions, day and evening presentations, and mix & greet receptions with speakers and sponsors. In addition, we've planned field trips to an oil well drilling site and Refinery Row on the Houston Ship Channel, our nation's largest refining and petrochemical center. It is a $15 billion complex that stretches 50 miles from the Port of Houston, past the NASA Space Flight Center, and ends at Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico. We adapt our Conference theme from the historic words transmitted by U.S. astronauts from space to Mission Control in Houston. (A list of speakers and much more under the fold...)

--Matthew Simmons, ASPO-USA conference, Boston, MA, October 26, 2006

One of the breakout session working groups at the ASPO-USA conference focused on the need to have greater understanding of all Energy Flows within and between countries on a Global scale and to have greater understanding of Net Energy within all energy production systems. Within the limited time available at the breakout meeting the focus was on the Net Energy topic and it is therefore Net Energy that is the focus of this short post. ASPO-USA directors Dick Lawrence and Ron Swenson led the session.

This is not a full conference report but rather gives some of my impressions of the ASPO-USA conference held this week at Boston University.

About 450 people attended but I thought the absence of journalists was notable. There were a few but a protest got more attention in the press than anything else. For the mainstream media, peak oil is, temporarily, off the table. This is understandable due to the negative publicity blitz we've experienced over the last few months, combined with the steep fall of the oil price. Nevertheless, the fundamental issues are still there, a point the conference brought home to its attendees. The crowd is quite diverse, although ASPO-USA tends to focus on the troublesome details in oil & natural gas production, the problems with bringing substitutes onstream and geopolitical concerns.

At this kind of conference, you can sit at your table all day and listen to all the presentations—this is like a rewarding endurance contest. But what I like to do is talk to people informally out in the hallway. So, sometimes I missed talks (sometimes unintentionally). However, I count on the presentation slides being up on the ASPO-USA website next week. Greg Geyer of Terrachord will perform this great service for all of us.

Discuss.