The Oil Drum | Wednesday Open Thread

150 comments on Wednesday Open Thread

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Madman on March 15, 2006 - 7:20am

One of the problems I have been working (along with everyone else) on is: What signs and symptoms will we see as we roll over the peak. Obviously, more expensive gas at the pumps is the most obvious. (Unleaded-nymex is at $1.7480 at this moment).

What I am watching for is how other countries handle supply issues. I feel for you UK but temporary disruptions is not what I mean. What's going to happen to Guatemala, the Philipines, pretty much all of Africa when the supply doesn't meet demand? I've seen a few headlines but nothing near the flood I expect.

How will the really small countries (the Bahamas, Costa Rica, etc) handle the event?

Any thoughts?

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Nick Rouse on March 15, 2006 - 8:05am

Reading this article in the Guardian about a Chinese city of 10 million set to grow to 20 million by 2019 that I had not even heard the name of, Chongqing, brought home to me that peak oil is not the point at which the crisis will hit. The effects of 1.3 billion people in china and 1 billion people in India heading from third world to first world status at a pace many times that at which such change occurred in America or Europe means that even quite rapid growth of the oil supply will insufficient to stop it being outrun by demand and causing rocketing prices. Not even a Pauline conversion of America to fuel economy and the joys of cycling and walking will offset the effects of this Juggernaut. Nor will all the renewable energy schemes in the West prevent the environmental effects of opening the equivalent of a new 1GW coal fired power station every week.

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Nate Hagens on March 15, 2006 - 12:30pm

Mathematically, the first derivative of oil growth is still postive before we hit peak, but the second derivative (rate of increase) has already turned negative-production is increasing but at a decreasing rate - this is being outweighed by higher demand hence prices have gone up 500%+ in last 6 years. The asymptotic rise in oil prices will come when first derivative of world production goes negative (peak oil).

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Don Sailorman on March 15, 2006 - 12:52pm

Interesting. Good work. But what I want to know is: About when will the function become discontinuous?

Calculus cannot help there, and even catastrophe and complexity math do not help much to make real-world forecasts.

As an economist, I find it fascinating to see the demand for "prophets" to increase--people who write newsletters, astrologers, consultants, and authors of the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic Christian novels.

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Donal on March 15, 2006 - 12:58pm

This illustrator has to know Sailorman:

http://www.drinkatwork.com/2006/03/comic-for-wednesday-march-15-2006.html

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Don Sailorman on March 15, 2006 - 1:58pm

Arrghhhh,
Aye, that website is more fun than TOD. Thanks, we should all go there more often.

And the Wittengenstein reference has wheels within wheels to us philosophy afficianodos--about 3 levels of puns.

McDonald O'Sailorman:
I'll eat when I'm hungry,
I'll drink when I'm dry,
An the poteen don't get me,
I'll live till I die.

Did you know that (along with some help from the Arabs) the Irish saved civilization while Europe stank into its Dark Age?

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HKThom on March 15, 2006 - 12:58pm

The article you link to is indeed staggering. Chongqing used to be anglicized Chung King, which you may have heard of, at least as a brandname for frozen Chinese food.

I have always tried to think in terms of positive actions for the near and medium term as the energy situation become acute. Sometime this is difficult, obviously, and when getting even a tiny idea of the incredible monetary inertia and masses of humanity and human nature at work in a place like Chongqing, as describe in this article, even those with the sunniest dispositions would need to sit down and catch their breath. Surely no amount of windmills or reccyling or local farmer's market or organic gardening or public transportation stands a chance. Indeed, no amount of oil, coal, or globalization can handle the crushing forces swamping places like Chongqing these days for any significant amount of time. It mocks the concept of sustainibility.

But you just do what you can. I guess.

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sr on March 15, 2006 - 2:02pm

"...positive actions for the near and medium term as the energy situation become acute."

If our situation doesn't call for radical political thinking, what situation would? Luckily, I have discovered ideas which are up to the task. Of course "local action", "putting sustainable practices into one's life", and other such piety is useless -- so useless, they named a special paradox for Jevon. What would possibly be NOT useless? What is the smallest useful ambition (SUA)?
I say that the SUA is: to think myself the citizen of a surviving State which exists, say, 100 years from now, and to act as such a citizen. And if I look for an example of a man - even a "chatterer and dilettante" - who thought of a state and had a state grow from his thought, I find that there has been such a man, and that that thought was what we cal "nationalistic" - and "racialist". The SUA pushes me toward nationalism and racialism: I don't think liberal-democratic universalistic piety will work too well in the coming crisis. Now, it is not enough to be a racial nationalist in theory. One has to find a particular racial-nationalist idea. This is not difficult if one has a mirror handy.

sr
Rogers Park National Front

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Twilight on March 15, 2006 - 2:33pm

Congratulations - you've been beating around that bush for quite some time now (rather transparently), it's good to have you come out and say it. Do tell - which race have you decided will survive? And how do you plan to finish off the others? What rubbish. Read the link Nick posted above, and see how hard "the others" will work to survive - think they'll roll over so easily?

If you think that racism will save you, you may consider me your enemy.

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sr on March 15, 2006 - 3:34pm

Twilight, do you think Theodore Herzl was a racist and would-be genocideur? That is what you imply. Did he "plan to finish off the others"? If not, then why am I those things for wanting to emulate him? [I know why. Will you say it?]

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 6:32pm

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't think you really mean all that stuff about WNEF. Your probably an ok guy underneath it all. You know that kind of thing is really not the anwer to our problems. Not Peak Oil and not the population question. The world is just too complicated and hard to control to believe in such ideological simplicity. And please don't think I'm attempting to patronize you, I not. I'm just trying to understand you.

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Twilight on March 15, 2006 - 8:17pm

writerman, people have always used times of major upheaval to further whatever agendas they already had. The idea of having the constraints of society's limitations loosened has all sorts of bats flying out of the belfry.

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wkwillis on March 17, 2006 - 6:33am

You pushed one of my buttons. Herzl was not a racist, he was not into genocide, and more specifically, he was not the kind of real estate developer that stole the Palestinian's land and marked it up to sell to Jewish immigrants.
Herzl believed and advocated a Jewish state that was urban and that did not steal land from Arabs, and didn't steal their water, either. He was intent on letting the Arabs have the land, the water, the pasture, the fishing industry, and any minerals that turned up. He wanted to build a Singapore, not an Israel.
Which is why he and the rest of the German Zionists were purged by the Russian Na-Zionichki in 1904 or sometime, and lost control to the steal the land and run off the natives fruitcakes running Israel now.
He wrote "Altneustadt" (literally "oldnewstate") about what he thought Israel should be like. Read it sometime, if you can find it.

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sr on March 15, 2006 - 3:38pm

By the way, I fail to understand how I have beating around the bush -- is it possible that you haven't read my posts? I think that the phrase "white nationalist ecofascism" is not all that subtle. And yes, I do consider you my enemy, and I am happy to have matters between us so refreshingly clear.

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 6:13pm

White Nationalist Ecofascism, somehow I think not. I'd prefer to put my bet on Brown Internatinalist Socialism. That is of course if I had to choose.

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sr on March 15, 2006 - 3:39pm

... have BEEN beating ...

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 16, 2006 - 12:18am

I disagree.

China just committed to a $22 billion high speed rail line from Beijing to Shanghai.

Annual oil consumption ?

Several hundred barrals of lubricants for many billions of passenger-kms.

China has the capability to develop in a high efficiency/low oil use way given their massive capital investments (~50% of GNP). They certainly seem to be hedging their bets (massive subway programs, railroad improvements, new hydro, HSR above) as well as following the path of the EU & US.

I could see a Chinese electric grid that was 90% nuke + hydro + wind with gasified coal making up the balance. I could see a per capita GNP five times that of today with annual oil consumption slightly lower than todays level. Pollution levels much lower than today. A sustainable (sort of) China.

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Twilight on March 15, 2006 - 1:53pm

Nick, the article is humbling - it's almost incomprehensible, like reading about a city on some other planet in a sci-fi novel. It's hard to imagine what we can do in the face of such things.

I guess in the end, like the bang bang man and his wife, who gave away their children and work like slaves to support them, you do whatever you have to.

The horizons for people who live like that must be very short - not a lot of time for big-picture thinking. It bodes ill for the ability of the human race to make the kind of rational, reasoned decisions that are needed. After reading that I'm thinking about the humans vs. yeast question again, and I don't like the answer much.

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 4:31pm

Yeah, Nick, what can one say? It's almost like a socio/economic version of tectonic plate theory. Huge, enormous and unstopable forces are moving inexorably in one direction. After a couple of centuries of decline China is on its way back to the position it occupied before the ascent of the Europeans to world domination.

"Capitalism" and so-called "Free market enterprise" goes where the profits are and that place is called China. "Capitalism" almost seems to have a life of its own. The "market" appears to be a system above and beyond our understanding and probably control. It reminds me of Frankenstein's Monster in many ways.

"Capitalism" has no master and no home. It has no country and no language anymore. What's happening in China is of historic proportions and importance. The great golden scales are tipping away from us and towards China and they may nevr tip back again. A true giant has awoken with all that it implies for the rest of us and the environment.

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MUDLOGGER on March 15, 2006 - 5:07pm

Do you think China will make it to full FMC?
1.3+ billion People, Agriculture now dependent upon Hydrocarbon Inputs, Serious issues with Water resources,
A growth economy reliant on increasing Hydrocarbon inputs and export of goods. Who will she sell to deep into post peak?
I dont think it will make it. I dont think she has enough time.

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 6:05pm

Granted a lot of what you say is true. There are lots of constraints on China's development. You're correct. Lots of stuff can happen in the future. The question is what? I'm just assuming for the sake of the argument that the bottom doesn't fall out of the world economy, that we avert environmental disaster and that Peak Oil and economic meltdown aren't just around the corner! That is if the end of civilization doesn't materialize anytime soon, China will become the the giant it wants to become. There is amazing capacity/potential for growth and profit in China. More than anywhere else in history. Given the system we have now - "capitalism" I can't see how China won't come to dominate the world. There are of course those who say, now way. They will slow down soon for various reasons, just like Japan did. Only Japan grew for about four decades before they slowed down. Of course things are different now. The one that comes up all the time is they need us as much as we need them. We buy all their stuff don't we and they are kind enought to lend us the money to do it! It's mutually beneficial reciprocal arangement. Which is true, but for how long? Soon China will have an enormous and realatively wealthy domestic market. It will begin to move away from exporting goods to us and provide for its home market instead. Their are enormous pressures to raise living standards in China already. A positive feedback will start to kick in. Then the loans to the U.S. will begin to dry up and we will have to go through a painful period of economic transition. Who knows how that will pan out? I fully expect to be slaughtered by the economists around here for these speculations and ideas. But what do they know. Economics is mostly ideology anyway as the Marxists would say.

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ericy on March 15, 2006 - 5:27pm

I am not so sure about China. They have resource depletion issues just as bad or worse than the rest of us. On top of that they have a huge population.

There was a program on public radio the other day where they were talking about increasing desertification around the world and in China in particular. Of the land area in China about 27% is now desert, and it is increasing every year. Over-grazing and other such agricultural practices are the primary cause.

One thing that that they mentioned which I hadn't considered before was that when you see a disproportionate increase in the goat population, then you have an indication that the land is under stress. The reason is that goats can survive on lower-quality plants that other animals cannot eat.

Podcast here:

http://audio.aworldofpossibilities.com/audio/brown_maathai24kb0830.m3u

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 6:22pm

Yeah, I'm not sure about China either. I'm just speculating about the future and who knows what happens there. If I was a real seer I'd be very, very rich. I'm just kicking around some ideas. I write fiction so I have a tendancy to "go off on one" as we sometimes say. It's also know as a flight of fancy and one just follows the Muse. Sorry about all the typos. I've been writing stuff with different heads for almost sixteen hours today!

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 16, 2006 - 12:25am

China is also the home of the largest current tree planting plan to reclaim desert. Worked to reclaim the US "Dust Bowl", parts of the Soviet Union, etc.

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writerman on March 15, 2006 - 10:05am

Small countries are going to be in big trouble if they don't adjust quickly. At least that's how I feel this will play out. I hate sounding pessimistic about these places. We're talking about real people here, who are going to really start hurting bad.

I see these countries gradually being "peeled off of civilasation." If I was them I would be looking at, and trying to emulate Cuba. Cuba is a small country which has gone through a sharp energy transition after the fall of the Soviet Union and come out the other side without falling apart. I know lots of Americans have problems with the Cuban model, but I just think, looking at it neutrally, there may be a lot to learn for third world countries.

Africa is, of course, another Big problem as oil prices rise towards heaven. I think it's here we'll really see some societies begin to disintegrate before our eyes. Not a pleasant thought. They got enough problems already.

The really big question is India and China. Their rates of economic growth are staggering. How on earth are we going to feed their growing appetites for energy? It's of course not only energy, but nearly all other raw materials. It's a real conundrum.

So one the one hand we've got lots of small countries and on the other India and China. We are going to be living in very interesting times.

Napoleon once said, China is a sleeping giant, when she wakes the world will tremble.

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Donal on March 15, 2006 - 11:20am

Many months ago there were Energy Bulletin posts, like this one: http://www.energybulletin.net/8416.html, media articles like this one: http://www.fcnp.com/529/peakoil.htm and many comments here about third world countries "falling out of the game" when they could no longer afford to buy or subsidize oil.

Lately, we've been talking more about problems in Nigeria and the industrialized world, but I'm sure Eritrea, etc. are still in deep trouble.

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