235 comments on DrumBeat: May 27, 2006
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235 comments on DrumBeat: May 27, 2006
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Any idea just how high the peak will be ?
I kind of believe in an extended "Bumpy Plateau" with multi-year ups & downs and then a slide off the plateau before 2020 (probably by 2015). Unconvential will take an ever larger % of the total.
Nothing more than a bit of guess. If higher prices don't stem demand, then I think we can get to 90 million barrels a day of worldwide production as some new projects come online. While production appears to have turned back up in April (preliminary indications are that 85 million bpd was reached for the first time), rising inventories may result in slow production growth for the rest of this year.
RR
if so one has to be concerned about the NET liquids not the gross reported number
That's my point. Production may grow a bit more, but we are starting to get a preview of what the peak will be like anyway.
RR
This 'realization' will trump the facts of the remianing oil and other 'theoretical' options. A behavioral switch will occur and our chimp DNA will revert to tribal and individualistic pursuits. Those of us working/living in 'tribal' situations (small, relatively closed system communities) will likely do fine. How many of us 'working for the man' will continue if the growth bubble that started with the ascent up the energy density ladder several hundred years ago, bursts, cognitively speaking? Would you be willing to work 50 hours a week at your firm, knowing that your company and others, could not 'grow' using the markets dividend discount model?
I think capitalism only truly works in a tribal setting with 100-150 people. It is in that setting that everyone knows everyone, our kids play with their kids, we drink the same water and eat from the same garden. Strong reciprocity then really works as we literally live together and die together. People acting in the best interests of the group are respected and rewarded. People that act against the group are ostracized or punished. In our current global system, 'cheaters' can flit from tribe to tribe, community to community, stealing from the commons, then moving on. This merry-go-round is predicated on the implicit assumption of net energy gain continuing.
We might have lots of oil (albeit lower quality), coal, stranded gas, solar, ethanol, etc left. But once society 'gets it' that net energy for humankind circa 2000 AD has peaked, the rules of the current game will change.
That's one thing I have noted, though. One big difference between Peak Lite and Peak is the panic that will accompany Peak.
RR
large amounts of people basically have two modes, complacency and panic. we are in the former right now as people just accept the prices and whats going on with the government. they will switch over to panic once we reach the threshold.
as for the threshold? your guess is as good as mine.
but I think the government is already pumping the propaganda machine to condition the next generation into accepting a life withour suburbia:
It's meant for 5 year olds. The clear messages of the recently released "Over the Hedge" movie (warning plot killer --if you can call it a "plot") is that:
- Suburbia is evil
- Consumerism is evil
- The Bears will control the markets
- Listening to the conservative reptile (turtle) is better than giving an ear to a wild eyed cornucopian (the racoon)
- We will be happier sticking with "family" values rather than wanting to accumulate massive quantities of processed food for our selfish bear caves.
Am I seeing too many mixed messages in this kid's eye movie?I've looked at almost all of the peak oil books (Kunstler, Deffeyes, Goodstein, etc), and none of them convincingly discuss the usefulness (or lack thereof) of wind and solar. Kunstler clearly knows nothing about them - he just assumes they can't help because he wants things to collapse - wishful thinking. Deffeyes says right out that alternative energy is not his expertise. Goodstein simply notes that a transition to alt energies would be a very big job, and that we should get started now. So does Hirsch. Simpson is just dealing with oil.
So, why so pessimistic about the growth of alternative energy?
Wind, especially large scale, does have high net energy compared to CURRENT oil. But as of yet its not a liquid fuel, and the point of Hirschs paper is that these things take time (alot of time) and cant be shifted instantaneously. As fossil fuels suffer from DEPLETIOn, wind and solar suffer from SATURATION. Once we have the best sites taken, the marginal benefit from putting up more windmills decreases, and certainly reaches a net marginal loss some point before every street corner sports a windmill
I dont know which is worse, not finding a high net energy replacement for fossil fuels or FINDING a high net energy replacement. If we miraculously come up with something 20-30:1 EROI and it scales, that leverage will shoot through the system like cocaine to an addict. We might then turn Canada into a giant NASCAR track, create Fantasy Island where Richard Branson jets billionaires to have orgies with thousands of indentured prostitutes, lop of mountaintops to build bigger and pricier chalets: the sky is the limit (or maybe not) when it comes to relative fitness.
The most likely path is to use the bridge to get us closest to the energy quantity and quality we have now, and that would be coal, which means energy increases come directly from the environmental commons.
New TBM technology and better grid control makes more run-of-river power planrs possible.
We do get an almost free energy dividend every year from our established hydroelectric power plants. This dividend is lost in the larger noise.
No question. But, that's a far cry from economic doom - you seemed to be saying that people would see certain doom ahead and panic, causing economic collapse. Hirch's scenario is very different: transitional economic problems, which in a worst case scenario COULD be very bad if there was little warning and very steep oil output decline. It seems that the consensus of the most informed members of this website is that peak oil will cause a bumpy plateau starting 0-5 years out and lasting roughly 5-10 years. That's a fairly wide range (5-15 years of plateau), but it doesn't look much like Hirsch's worst case scenario (HWCS). This argument doesn't rule out HWCS, but it does suggest that it's far from certain, or even likely. And even the HWCS is not long-term decline which puts an end to a growth paradigm (LTDWPAETGP!)- it's just a painful transition, with a possible economic destabilization if things are handled badly (PEDITAHB!!). I think that's what your talking about with hedge funds, and positive feedback, but again, PEDITAHB is very different from LTDWPAETGP.
"wind and solar suffer from SATURATION"
Do you have a source for this? My understanding is that wind in the US has a potential for 2.9 TB capacity, which would generate twice the power currently used, and that solar has the potential for very roughly 100x that. Now, wind may have intermittency and transmission problems, and solar is currently too expensive, but those are engineering problems which are very solvable (see the latest issue of the Electrical Engineering journal for a discussion of wind's intermittency and the solutions for it), not theoretical limits.
"I dont know which is worse, not finding a high net energy replacement for fossil fuels or FINDING a high net energy replacement."
hmmm. Are you kind of rooting for economic collapse?
"that would be coal, which means energy increases come directly from the environmental commons."
And that would certainly be bad. But not an economic collapse. Not good, but different. GW would be very bad, but it would probably be good for the economy - just look what war, and disaster rebuilding, do for economies. Again, I'm not rooting for GW, just trying to peer into our economic future...
"corn ethanol truly has an EROI of 1.34:1"
I agree that corn ethanol is not very helpful. I view it as an agricultural subsidy, and a way of converting natural gas (and a bit of sunlight) into ethanol. OTOH, congress would find a different way to provide agricultural subsidies if it didn't exist, so I don't think it's particularly harmful. A bit of a distraction, perhaps. I don't include it in my analysis of likely solutions to peak oil.
are you making up new acronyms as you go along? (AYMUNAAYGA)
I was partly doing it for convenience, and partly for fun, but I think the last two might actually be useful:
LTDWPAETGP (long-term decline which puts an end to a growth paradigm) and
(PEDITAHB)possible economic destabilization if things are handled badly.
These two ideas seem to come up often.
1) I just mean that once people get it in their craws that growth might not be forever (a seed that planted and has grown in my own brain in the past 18 months), that behavior will change - I dont know what it will be, other than something different than today. I rely on examples of human history to give me clues. When population exceeds carrying capacity (in the past) humans moved, or went to war. There is no where else to move to. We will be in new territory. Powerdown is the most LOGICAL path, but our neurochemical drives may dictate otherwise - I will post a referenced story on that soon - trying to finish up phd.
2)In theory, we could have a windmill on every house on the planet. Clearly, there is not enough steel, nor high quality wind sites that would make that possible. Too, as Cutler Clevelands study which can be viewed here, large scale turbines do better than small scale (due to cube function of wind speed at higher levels, etc). The reason there is saturation isnt space (but might be materials) but is EROI. The country is divided into different wind regime rating systems between 1 and 7. If we put windmills on low wind areas, it may not be worth the energy to do so. I am a huge fan of wind, but its not omnipotent
3)Im not rooting for economic collapse, but when would you like to see things enter a sustainable steady state system? When we have 6 billion people, or 20 billion? I was just pointing out that we can use renewables unwisely as well as fossil fuels.
By some measures growth hasn't been positive in the US since the 1970's (when only one member of the household needed to work to make ends meet etc.), and people still work, possibly harder than ever.
People are very adaptable, and have short memories. As long as we gradually move to a world with much higher oil prices, I don't many people will ever do more than complain. For an example of complacency, despite all the hype about bio-diesel and ethanol, very few people ask whether there's a problem with oil supply. They accept it, assume the the market/government/etc. will solve the problem, and continue living in their Panglossian state.
The problem with "peak" is that the change maybe somewhat too abrupt for us to bring new coal and nuclear stations online quickly enough, introduce eletric vehicles etc. There might be some sort of break point - which could trigger the "panic" phase mentioned earlier.
We have Shell etc. are working on GTL, CTL, tar sands, deep water etc. to dampen the effects. And new nuclear stations are quietly entering the planning stages etc.
I think the shape of the "crisis" depends entirely on timing. I'm very bullish on nuclear, and have yet to see a convincing factual argument against it. The question is whether oil production can be kept at a sufficiently high level for the next 5-15 years to allow time for a gentle transition, to a coal/nuclear/wind electricity based transport economy. I'm moderately optimistic, and think it will be a great period for engineers like GE, Siemens etc.
The scary think will be if permanently high oil prices start to cause a recession - with the amount of leverage in the economy at the moment the government will likely feel compelled to step in with large scale spending or money printing to prevent a downward economic spiral.
Not only could that under some circumstances smack of fascism, (or corperatism etc.) but its also likely to be quite inflationary.
A 1930s bungalow should last at least 300 years with relatively minor repairs (shutters for example, new roof every 30 to 40 years). (I own half of a rental house built in 1930).
A new McMansion will be in need of a LOT of TLC within 50 or 60 years. Teardown is an option by then. And they do not have functional shutters.
I have seen the "added features" and they are all surface glitz over particleboard. I much prefer simple quality and fewer sq ft to heat, cool and keep clean.
It will be interesting in the future after PO, if vinyl flooring and carpeting are seen as more "luxious" that hardwood floors. :-)
Quality where it can be seen.
They also have particle board underneath the granite countertops & in the cabinets & structurally, goldplated but cheap (troublesome already) plumbing fixtures, marginal electrical systems with 49¢ switches & outlets, plumbing where one dares not flush while another is showering, 1/2" drywall. I suspect three and not 5 or 6 tacks/roofing shingle. I do not know about stud centers but the interior walls feel "weak".
Cheap as code allows where one cannot see it.
One of the neighbors for one brother (same builder) is having slab problems.
Also, you forgot about "lot size" shaving. My family is in the building business and say that local governments have driven up the cost of development with set-asides and regulations. There are a lot of farmers out there who get very disappointed when they find out how much of their land has effectively been expropriated by their local government.
Junk that wouldn't pass homebuyer or bank inspector (much less building code inspection) 30 years ago is now all the rage, primarily because there are no other choices, and most buyers shrug their shoulders and say "hey, I'm only going to be living here for a few years anyway, so who cares?" and then run out and get an interest-only jumbo loan to cover it.
But where did you get this idea? Who or what's the source? None of the peak oil books I have read gave a credible reason why new energy sources couldn't replace oil (see my earlier post). Is this based on non-peak oil problems?
"When population exceeds carrying capacity"
Is this based on peak-oil? If so, why?
"Clearly, there is not enough steel, nor high quality wind sites that would make that possible."
Why do you say this? Do you have a source? The AWEA says that wind could supply at least 300% of US electrical demand - see http://www.awea.org/faq/tutorial/wwt_potential.html. That's based just on reasonably high quality wind sites - it doesn't assume turbines on every house.
"If we put windmills on low wind areas, it may not be worth the energy to do so.".
No question the return is less - that's a problem in Europe, though they still find it worth while. High quality wind has an E-ROI of 80:1, so low quality might be as low as 10 or 20:1. Still as good as oil.
OTOH, this is not a problem in the US. We truly are the Saudi Arabia of wind. Further, we're also the SA of solar...
" I was just pointing out that we can use renewables unwisely "
Well, sure. I'd love to see people on a higher level of emotional development, but if they're using renewables, that's a different problem. Not a crisis, just a loss of potential.
How long does it take for people to "get it in their craws"? -- If they haven't realized it already, they are 30 years out of touch!
Thanks.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may06/3544
As I understand it, they think that a reasonable limit to wind market share (in the reasonably near future, with relatively minor modifications to the grid) is 20% of peak capacity, or about 180 GW.
I have read that the 2005 Federal energy bill mandated time of day metering for residential electrical users. That would certainly facilitate the kind of demand management that would help wind integration. I know that California's big tutility PG&E is installing them. I haven't really heard much about other utilities, for whom this is a new requirement, though an Exelon (big midwest power company) rep didn't seem to be aware of it. Anybody heard details about that - actual implementation timetables?
wind and solar rely on the oil economy a great deal for their manufacture and maintenance.
Sure. But it's peak is 50 years further out, which gives lots of time for transitioning to something else.
"wind and solar rely on the oil economy a great deal for their manufacture and maintenance."
Do you have a source for this? My understanding is that wind has an E-ROI of about 80:1. That means that if energy prices tripled, wind turbine prices would maybe go up 5%. Lot's of other uses of oil & gas would go away first, and free them up for wind turbines. I also understand that wind turbines require almost no maintenance.
Now, solar does require relatively more energy than wind: I believe solar's E-ROI is about 10:1, so solar would work. Again, I'd estimate that that means that energy is only 5% of it's price, so rationing of energy through increased energy prices won't make much difference to solar.
The supply of coal is 250 years at current rates of consumption
100 years when you account for demand growth
That means a peak would be in 50 years. But a massive coal-to-liquids would bring that down to less than 10-15 years or less.
Major problem is we already have (some) trouble generating enough electriticy and we get about 40% of that from coal.
Best,
Matt
If CTL technology needs 10 years to come online how could that possibly cause us to run out in 10-15 years?
The interesting thing is that the progression from 250, to 100, to 50, to 10-15 assumes a few things:
we are not just facing a energy problem but a energy & raw material problem here.
If corn ethanol truly has an EROI of 1.34:1 (I doubt this, if we widen the boundaries and fully account for all replacable inputs), this net energy gain of .34 would represent an energy bonanza to people just 500-1000 years ago that would have allowed them to collectively live like kings.
Unfortunately, 1.34:1 is 60 times lower than 20:1 of oil. Enter the absolute vs relative game on a large scale.
IF society could restructure and prove they could live and live happily at an EROI of 3 or 4:1 (and I believe this is in theory completely possible), then we could probably come up with this energy using the flows of the sun, with energy to spare. Our 'fixed' infrastructure is orders of magnitude higher than this currently though. Hospitals, racetracks, and shopping centers do not properly run on distilled corn...
Unfortunately, I see almost no sign of it happening. The bad joke that we call our "political leadership" isn't even interested. Which makes me think that we our civilization is indeed doomed.
I don't think Kunstler wants things to collapse. He knows that, being a middle age man with a hip replacement, his goose is cooked in a collapse situation.
Best,
Matt
I is not a logical thought to want things to collapse but some people do regardless. Sometimes people analyze a situation and estimate the worst then afterwards hope for it only so they will be right. Some of your posts seem anticipant at times. If there truly is a collapse it will suck for everyone, not equally, but it will suck.
Matt
If person A's perceived relative fitness in the current neo-classical growth world is an 18 on a scale of 1 to 100, and he/she cant afford a car but does grow alot of vegetables,etc, peak oil tide goes out and all boats are lower in the water. This persons relative fitness might now be a 9 out of a maximum 25. Still below average and kind of sucky on an absolute level, but higher on a relative fitness metric than before. His/her fitness (or desirability, status, etc) got cut in half whereas most people got cut by 3/4. Schadenfreude at its finest.
Peak Oil, Y2K, etc have these sorts of denizens. It is unavoidable. Of course, a whole other subgroup is those that ACT like they're in the above camp but when peak oil does come, lifes really gonna suck and they will pine for the days when they could plunk their thoughts down willynilly on internet blog sites. (translation: the real dopamine crash of harder living will trump their apriori expectations of higher relative status)
Exactly. I think many people who gravitate towards this information do so because they percieve a major shake up in the status quo will convey upon themselves (relative) benefits in social status.
For some people, this MIGHT be the case. But for 99% of us on this list, attending peak oil conferences, etc. our social status is as tied up in the petroluem-banking system as anybody else. So our status is going to tank when the system tanks.
The person who teaches permaculture may be under the impression they will be better off in the future but when nobody can afford $2,000 for a permaculture intensive, where does that leave the permacultue teacher? Where are they going to get all the things like prescription medication, toilet paper, etc that they depend on to live as they do?
Somebody emailed me to congratulate me over appearing in the "Oil Crash" film. I replied "what's there to be happy about?" That a film like this is gaining in popularity just means we are even closer to the edge of the cliff. I guess it's good for my relative social status in the short term but that's not much comfort given the collosal nature of the catastrophes we're facing.
Something that greatly disturbed me at meetings and conferences I've attended is people who say they are looking forward to this mess because they think that it will "force" people to live a certain way. Oh boy, where does one even begin deconstructing such thinking?
Best,
Matt
I think it might qualify as irrational to choose a low-probabiliy event, outside of your own control, as your path to "fitness."
It is obviously better to plan for success in the real world, and hedge for possible futures that loom.
I think what people do is project. You are projecting an "anticipation" into my posts as a way of being able to dismiss what I say with greater ease.
In a collapse scenario, I'm dead-meat and I know it. So I'm not looking forward to it at all.
Best,
Matt
compared, agree in regarding some future event as
about to take place. Expect is the stringer. It
supposes some ground or reason in the mind for
considering the event as likely to happen. Anticipate
is, literally, to take beforehand, and here denotes
simply to take into the mind as conception of the
future. Hence, to say, "I did not anticipate a
refusal," expresses something less definite and strong
than to say, " did not expect it." Still, anticipate
is a convenient word to be interchanged with expect in
cases where the thought will allow.
[1913 Webster]
(Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil.")
I am "projecting" something you openly declare. You clearly believe the end drweth nigh, and make money off the prospect. How you make money is your business, if it prepares you for PO or whatever the future may hold then good. If you assume you are dead meat, why all this preparation, why not party and enjoy the present? Your words contradict your actions.
Matt
Let's say your spending $5 for every $1 you have in income, your savings is depleting rapidly, and you have no significant alternative income streams coming online in the foreseeable future.
I "anticipate" you will go bankrupt soon. That is simple logic. It doesn't mean I "want" you to go bankrupt.
However, if you need a bankruptcy attorney I'm perfectly willing to bill you at $400/hour to point out that you're going to go bankrupt soon. =)
Best,
Matt
---------------
Actually, they don't. You simply don't know my actions. Or at least at this point planned actions.
I'm in the process of outsourcing the commercial aspect of my site with the hope that I will be able to pay somebody/people to add content. This will free me from 85%-to-90% of my current responsibilities but maintain the revenue generated from my business endeavors.
This will free me up to do two things:
- Have fun, enjoy my relative youth (27 going on 28 but still young and spry like a 21 year old) in case we have a rapidly catastrophic collapse. I hope to move somewhere near the beach for obvious reasons.
- Take classes with an eye to become what WT calls a "primary producer of essential services." Bike repair, organic gardening, alternatgive medicine etc. This will be prepare me for a slower collapse.
So, if my "plan" works out, I will soon be spending my 112 waking hours per week as follows:45% partying in case of a rapid and catastrophic collapse in which my days are numbered.
45% preparing in case of a slower collapse in which case I might get to live a relatively long life.
10% making money in order to fianance what I do with the other 90% of my time.
Best,
Matt
A true defeatist would not even bother to post on TOD.
There would be no point in it, after all.
Just to comment on the terminology, that's not capitalism, but some kind of steady-state market economy, which predates capitalism. Capitalism is inherently based on exploitation of the work force by the owners of the means of production, which is not a steady-state order in the long term, since it accumulates the generated wealth to the capitalists. Capitalism has prevailed in the last three centuries or so just because there have been enough human and natural resources to exploit to maintain growth.
I suppose we'll go back to some kind of feudal order (actually we already have gone, to some degree, by externalising the production to third-world countries), when there's absolutely no room for further growth.
Where do you think the net 5 mbd increase will come from, geographically?
USA? OPEC? Former USSR? Rest of world? Because when you break it down like that, I can't see which it would be reasonable to expect that from.
from EIA site (open top spreadsheet)
(from above EIA links)
1 "Oil Supply" is defined as the production of crude oil (including lease condensate), natural gas plant liquids, and other liquids*.
*Other Liquids: Ethanol, liquids produced from coal and oil shale, non-oil inputs to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), Orimulsion, and other hydrocarbons.
This is so illogical that I had assumed it was not the case without checking, never a good idea.
RR