DrumBeat: February 17, 2007
Posted by Leanan on February 17, 2007 - 9:15am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Can OPEC and Non OPEC Stop the Oil Price Rise?
Since October 2006 world oil demand, as in previous years since 2002-2003 has fallen away from the Summer Demand Peak. During the July-August 2006 summer peak, world oil demand on a wide all liquids base probably hit at least 87.5 Mbd....we cannot be sure that net total oil supply can attain about 88 or 88.5 Mbd by Summer 2007. This may be very close to the limit set by Peak Oil. What we can be sure of, however, is that any geopolitical incident or event, tending to cut world oil production and export supply will have a price impact that is dramatically intensified - exactly as in July-August 2006, when Israel's war on Lebanon was considered, by most observers, as the sole cause of record oil prices, rather than structural undersupply.
Valero Shuts McKee Refinery In Texas After Fire
An explosion rocked a west Texas refinery Friday, injuring at least 19 people and sparking a blaze that sent a huge black cloud billowing into the sky....The refinery was shut down after the blast, as were pipelines in and out of the facility, the company said. Smoke could be seen from 60 miles away.
Fighting the New Defeatism on Climate Change
Let's be clear: This proto-conventional wisdom is wrong. There's plenty we can do about global warming.
In energy conservation, California sees the light
Today the state uses less energy per capita than any other state in the country, defying the international image of American energy gluttony. Since 1974, California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant, while energy use per person for the United States overall has jumped 50 percent.
Biofuel dynamics mix with rural economies
The tide is turning towards renewable energy, but is the government willing to put its money where its mouth is - and are we?
Bankers see busy oil and gas deal outlook for '07
Investment bankers expect brisk deal activity in the energy sector in 2007, as high oil prices stir stiff competition for production reserves and as capital from private equity and hedge funds freely flows into the group.
Chertoff plays down al Qaeda oil supply threat
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff played down a call by al Qaeda for attacks on U.S. oil supplies in the Western Hemisphere and said on Friday no special defensive measures were needed.
Arabs seek coherent Chinese strategy
Having been busy for decades in building relations with the West, Arab countries lack strategies in dealing with new world realities in which the US alone no longer holds sway over global trends, analysts say.
India's building boom fuels coal rush
Soaring demand for cement to feed India's construction boom is forcing the country's cement makers to import much more coal, driving up prices in South Africa as cheaper alternatives dry up.
Biofuel to power Indonesia's anti-poverty drive
Indonesia is embarking on an ambitious biofuel programme which has already attracted more than 17 billion dollars in foreign and domestic investment and criticism from conservationists worried about the country's forests.
Rising Price of Electricity Sets Off New Debate on Regulation
The higher rates are touching off a fresh round of national debate over unleashing competitive forces on traditionally regulated electricity markets. Opening up the markets was supposed to lead to savings for consumers. But that did not turn out as regulators predicted. The anticipated competition among energy suppliers never fully emerged as natural gas prices more than doubled in the last decade.
Mexico's Pemex faces drying field, no funds to update refineries
The company's main Cantarell oil field in southern Mexico is drying up. There is not enough money to tap deeper reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, and much of the company's machinery is out of date. Pemex can't even refine enough gasoline to meet its national demand, forcing Mexico to send its oil to foreign refineries, then re-import the finished fuel.Compounding Pemex's problems is the Mexican government's addiction to the billions of dollars generated by oil sales. Pemex accounts for 40 percent of the federal government's total income. Change has been made more difficult because of Pemex's all-encompassing social welfare system and a nationalism that keeps foreign investment out.
The aim of the reform package, Carstens announced at the annual meeting of the National Governors´ Conference (Conago), is to wean the federal government off using revenue from the state-owned Pemex oil monopoly to fund operating costs. The government´s dependence on oil revenues has been close to 40 percent of total income.
Smaller Footprints, Cooler Stuff and More Cash
If we want to build a society which is both prosperous and sustainable, we're going to need to innovate ways of delivering the material goods which underpin that prosperity at a small fraction of the ecological cost they exact today. We must learn to live large while leaving tiny ecological footprints.
Ministry: No Imminent Threat of Gas Production Halt
There is no imminent risk of a halt to production at gas wells in Argentina's Neuquen basin, which provides neighboring Chile with the fuel, the latter country's energy and mines ministry said in a statement, citing Argentine producers.The area has faced union conflicts lately and it was rumored that production activities could be halted.
Oil Program Ad Labeled `Propaganda' From Chavez
In a TV commercial, former Rep. Joseph Kennedy stands aboard an oil tanker moving across the Boston skyline and promises that millions of gallons of discounted heating oil are on their way to poor, shivering families, courtesy of "our good friends in Venezuela."What he doesn't mention is that those "good friends" include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and staunch U.S. critic who famously called President Bush "the devil" in a speech last year at the United Nations.
Sachs warns of global warming disaster
The world faces a global warming disaster if the United States and China do not take decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a leading economist said at the U.N. Friday.
UNEP head says Europe complacent on climate change
European nations are not doing enough to fight climate change and should show more leadership before they criticize the United States and Asia, the head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said on Saturday.
Relearning how to live as voluntary peasants
Part of The Farm's original vision was to build a village for a thousand people using alternative energy systems that were economically and ecologically responsible. We believed that we could design a graceful standard of living which would be attractive to large numbers of First World people, while also being within reach of all Third World people.
A new ally in the energy crisis: Termites
Researchers at universities and private companies are scanning the DNA of the microbes that live inside the guts of termites and wood-eating beetles in an effort to decipher the processes these creatures employ for turning wood into food. The same processes and enzymes could be used, researchers believe, into transforming wood scraps into transportation fuel at human factories.
Greenhouse gases widely blamed for causing global warming have jumped to record highs in the atmosphere, apparently stoked by rising emissions from Asian industry, a researcher said on Friday.
Alberta Launches Review of Oil, Gas Royalty Regime
The province of Alberta on Friday launched a wide-ranging review of its energy royalty regime, which could result in changes in the tax structure for Canadian oil and gas producers.
Senate Democrats Ask GAO to Examine 'Royalty in Kind' Program
A pair of Senate Democrats yesterday asked the Government Accountability Office to study the Interior Department's "royalty in kind" program to assess the merits of expanding the oil and gas royalty collection system.
Sharon Astyk: Enough with the freakin' bathroom metaphor already!
Market led to shortages, not lower prices
Energy use in New England is increasing steadily, nowhere faster than in New Hampshire. Yet no major power plants are under construction in the region.The region's wholesale electric energy pool manager, ISO-New England, projects that shortages could occur by next year. It predicts that energy demand by 2015 will require 4,300 megawatts of new generation capacity, the equivalent of about nine large new power plants.
Future shock: Asia is running out of gas
When crude oil surged past US$70 a barrel in mid-2006, Southeast Asian governments were forced to confront an inconvenient truth that might almost have come from the hand of former US vice president Al Gore: income levels could not be sustained unless new energy sources were found, and quickly.
We didn’t leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones, and we won’t leave the Oil Age because we’ve run out of oil. Instead, humanity moves progressively “down” the carbon chain (wood to coal to oil to gas to nukes and hydrogen) for the sheer reason that each step we take brings us higher efficiency and less pollution — a total win-win.
Among the parties with a keen interest in the nuclear standoff between Iran and the UN Security Council are foreign investors. Iran is an energy bonanza in their eyes: Its underdeveloped oil and gas fields, the world’s second largest, need outside expertise, capital, and technology. A number of development projects are under way, but investors remain skittish over Iran’s uncertain political prospects.
Researcher Ben Anthony: Oilsands Gasification Will Help Unleash Energy Riches
According to the British-educated chemist, Canada is on the brink of transforming its lower-grade hydrocarbons into useful energy on a very large scale thanks to projects now under way in Alberta's oilsands.
North Korea Passing the Nuclear Spotlight
In return for shutting down the main nuclear reactor within 60 days, North Korea will get 50,000 tons of fuel. They will gain another 950,000 tons of fuel after taking more steps toward nuclear disarmament.But the decision by North Korea to suspend and potentially dismantle their nuclear program isn't that surprising. The eventual collapse of the program was evident. And all the signs stemmed from the country's dire energy situation.
Keeping with an Asian theme:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20070217TDY01005.htm
Japan has been greatly dependent upon only a couple of ME suppliers, Iran and KSA. Last year's energy plan called for trying to diversify sources as quickly as possible.
Examples of where the new discounted insurance is to cover:
Hello TODers,
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5247022
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"It is surreal that we've arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom," said Jose Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela's central bank, who left Chavez's government in 2004. "If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe."
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If Chavez has a brain cell in his head: he needs to raise internal petrol prices to world levels, and start building biosolar habitats so that he can continue FF exports to keep enlarging these habitats.
What is it about Peakoil Outreach: bicycles, wheelbarrows, and birth control that leaders fail to understand?
Edit:changed comma to colon
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
bicycles & wheelbarrows:
no one likes to work. since we need to learn to live within the means of the diffuse energy output of the sun(sorry thatitimout diffuse energy sources cannot replace concentrated ones) that means one must replace all the work that is done by machines that run on the concentrated energy of hundreds of millions of years(the oil we use now comes from life that lived in the permain era up to a few million years ago) of sunlight with man power of hard dirty labor. though we have been too successful and have grown past the population levels that can be sustained on such a lower power source.
birth control:
aside from political can of worms of insults and comparabilities one would be subject to by the media if one suggested it publicly, simply put less people means less power to them.
Hello TrueKaiser,
Thxs for responding. I wonder if "Jose Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela's central bank, who left Chavez's government in 2004" has been reading my TOD postings on the 'Zimbabwe Syndrome'. I would be willing to bet that coming from a big FF exporter that he is acutely Peakoil aware--maybe he is a silent lurker here on TOD. Who knows?
Regarding the birth control component of Peakoil Outreach--don't forget Leanan's recent Drumbeat toplink on Rwanda's govt making preliminary moves towards readjusting birth rate social norms. We maybe greatly surprised how quickly this might grow globally as Peakoil Outreach spreads.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Only fat, stupid people don't like to work.
Nothing. They understand very well that these three measures would empower the people, create an economic vector of democracy and give them the ability to tend their own business. And that would make this kind of leaders obsolete.
I bet Mother Nature got a good chuckle from that line. I think she reads this site while sitting up late at night sharpening her Nails and Teeth.
Our poor little politicians! Even in the smallest burgs the political parasites have nested. What will the poor politicians do as Homo Sap Twitches from oil and gas to electricity ????
I wonder if the city dwellers with their fantasies of Extreme HomeTown MakeOvers - "green" cities - ever think beyond their childishly naive assumptions.
I wonder what kind of Currency Twitching we will see in the world over the next couple years as Russia cuts gas exports to Europe and the Euro turns back into a paper pumpkin along with the dollar?
Fast Times at Homo Sap High are coming to an end.
Time to grow up kidz. The Fire Drills are over and the Real Thing is upon us... this is not - I repeat NOT - an "academic" drill.
No place to run, no place to hide (no, not even in the ivory towers - sorry). Mama Nature is not on "our side."
No gas = no life?
Yes, it's a miracle we ever managed to get out of the stone ages!
Yes, some 'miracle."
It's a good thing we had thousands of years the people of those times had the knowledge and skills and open space and resources to survive... good thing there were no cities with multi-millions who were dependent on technology and fossil fuels...
I think "childishly naive" applies to your statement. Try questioning your assumptions - all of them. Including the value of the "currency" you currently still have CONfidence in.
Your argument might have better if we were all completely dependent on OIL for our survival. Oil is presently the cheapest way to power our lives, but with various breakthroughs in Solar technology, and real discussion of massive wind farms off our coasts, the entire relevance of OIL is called into question.
And what is wrong with having cities with millions of people in them? Isn't that EXACTLY what the wheelbarrow advocate want? The more condensed we are, the less ecological impact we have overall. And there you go about your anti-technology rant. Technology is not some human construct designed to put an end to our species. Even Chimpanzees have been found to have been using tools since at least 4500 BC.
You may have better luck coning other ignorant and depressed people, but your confidence on this matter is hardly going to sway any reasonable human being.
Good luck with your godz of technology, science, markets and politicians. They make for good theater but they won't be able to pull a rabbit out of Ma Nature's Hat This TimezUP.
Question your assumptions hothgar. Look to history. Look to biology. Look at the current "geopoliTics" (not to mention the local poliTICs - they all wait in line for the one before them to make a decision... heads in the asses in front of them, just like a childs paper chain but this one made of foolz).
It's too late to avoid the Pain of Birth of whatever is coming next. Hopefully you survive to see the next equilibrium and your Optimism can be used to fuel our next form of civilization.
In the meantime, batten the hatches ;)
("ALL" is not lost, just the Delusion of eternal growth and a few billion excess bipedal carbon-based life forms with Big Brainz and Grand Delusions of themselves and their place in this Universe.)
Your argument might have better if we were all completely dependent on OIL for our survival.
Lets see:
6 billion + people
Various economies based on oil production/consuption
Use of oil for making stuff and providing watts for food, heat, cooking.
Please show that you are not just blowing hot air and show how 6+ billion people can continue to function without OIL.
Now you were asked to clarify in the past.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2282#comment-160383
Is there a reason you are unwilling to actually respond to a question directly asked of you?
umm you have to realize to the people in the article, compared to our early ancestor's have long since forgotten the knowledge they spent many generation compiling. mainly how to adapt to a region's climate using only the natural renewable resources available.
they do not know how to start a fire without matches or a lighter, how to keep it going and alive to a point where it would keep them warm but not eat up too much fuel. how to cloth themselves with hand made cloths out of the fur from the animals they eat. etc.
And, more importantly, there weren't 6.6E9 of those people, either.
RE: Market led to shortages, not lower prices
Leanan, I don't recall market economists ever mentioning the option that the invisible hand would end up in our pockets. What's up with that?
That's not supposed to happen, right? I mean, Kenny-Boy wasn't a Vermonter, after all.
New England has only one hope left: Hydro Québec. But while through another finely tuned democratic decision making process, the dictate was finally finely rammed through to sacrifice another pristine river (the last) to outdoor Christmas decorations, the blackouts will start way before Rupert River is finished off and left to die (at least 10 more years).
The article talks about building natural gas plants, that kind of gives away the level of understanding of the problem that exists today. By the time any such plant would be constructed, there'll be no more natural gas. You'd think that with New England's newly built power plants, in the past 2 decades, all being gas-powered, someone would ask questions. Not.
Oh wait, even the conservative Canadian government have had their fill, they refuse to let two Maine LNG terminals have tankers sail through Canadian waters.
It'll get better before it gets better. But if you're in New England, do get a wood stove, and a wind turbine, and some solar.
What? Why, those darned Canucks. They're just asking for regime change, I tell ya...
(Edited your post to fix the link.)
We have only one "natural" enemy and that is the USA. We realise we have no military solution to that so we tend to buy protection with resource exports and now a couple of thousand troops in Afganistan. I don't know what our defence strategy will be when our resources get lower but it will probably involve becoming states 51 to 61. However the world economy will likely crash before then and who knows where that chaos willlead.
During the Clinton years, continentalism was on the rise in Canada and some talked openly about seeking to join the Union.
I can't see the republicans ever going for it, though, since practically the entire Canadian political spectrum would fit comfortably into the Democratic party.
Even my contacts among the Canadian religious right who follow US politics get cold feet about the Republican party.
Wow, really?
Maybe the U.S. will split into Red America and Blue America. Then Blue America could join Canada.
I love B.C. myself. If I were independently wealthy, I think I'd move to Vancouver.
Maybe the U.S. will split into Red America and Blue America. Then Blue America could join Canada.
Culturally, it would make complete sense. Though we might lose Alberta to the Reds.
However, since red and blue have the opposite connotation up here, I'm sure they could be tricked into keeping the oil with the good guys. :-)
I'm very fond of BC and Vancouver myself. Shame what those storms did to Stanley Park.
BC is very pretty, and drive north - wow! Lake Louise!! The provincial parks are absolutly spotless not even a gum wrapper or cigggy butt, when we were there last.
I like thier $2,000.oo fine for littering and well placed garbage cans along the road.
Kudo's to the Canadians, a very nice place to visit, imo.
Did have some fun with the young border gaurdwoman about the gun I was carrying to Alaska. Asked me if I was going to shoot anyone with it?
ummm no! Maybe a bear...
;)
The bears sure love the garbage bins. I was driving through BC and our kids and I watched a young bear empty a garbage bin in case there was any food in it. It made a mess but I'm not clear how it would pay a $2000 fine.
Leanan wrote:
I would add that the religious right up here, in addition to simply being far too few to make a difference, are distinct in other respects from their US brethren.
Many have a pacifist streak and others have it as a point of doctrine that the faithful should not get involved in politics. "In the world but not of it"
All love their universal health care.
But our evangelicals, like yours, love to proselytize. And they find it tough going to sell Jesus and bible believin' when the brand has been tainted by the US religious right, Bush and the war.
I've personally recently seen an evangelical leader I know twisted in knots over this, ranting (in private) using quite unChristian language. I suppressed the urge to ask him who he hated most, GWB or Darwin. :-)
"In the world but not of it" used to be the way it was in the States too. Since Reagan the born agin participate but rigorously maintain deep ignorancee of the outside world.
Leanan,
JHK wrote about a trip there. He said they've ruined it with sprawl and cars. He was particularly saddened about it too. From Clusterwhat on June 19th...
I would go for a more regional approach as was suggested recently in the breakdown of America into regions. I would propose the Great Lakes Coalition which would control one great resource - Water.
I agree with Leann, I too would live in BC - Home of Blunt Bros and my two favorite parks; Hastings and Stanley.
If I had the dough and gumption, I'd go to Toronto or Montreal.
You mean like this?
http://jesuspolitics.typepad.com/jesus_politics/images/jesusland.jpg
LOL!
Assbias, your musing are of course completely anecdotal and reflect your own blowhard opinions.
Almost every Province has an official or unofficial separatist polticial Party. TrendLines and other research firms have polled periodically and while secession from Canada has been as high as 39% at the Provincial level, we cannot recall a single poll in three decades that revealed anything but Independence or an association of several provinces (the West).
The only american inference may have been that Yukon & BC would join in with Alaska it they left jointly. Last decade there was a movement for the Maritimes to have a closer alliance with the NorthEast, but any polls indicating more than that received no exposure.
The inference of any Canadian Province having more than 5% of its population that would wish or has wished to join the USA is preposterous and misleading.
Assbias, Please don't give our american members any false hopes.
Being a good Canadian, I'm sure your French polling was as good as your English - because Quebec is a very strange case, and there seemed to be more than a naive 5% that would accept American meddling to be able to leave the Dominion.
Of course, most of this PR was related to American interests gaining hydroelectric supplies and fresh water, which is still not allowed to be exported from Canada in massive amounts, I believe.
And Alberta is also a very strange case - considering how they feel they support the Maritimes, for example, while being hobbled in plundering 'their' land (though recently, that hobbling seems less a problem), the major commercial interests just might have accepted the idea of an American association, before they discovered what having a Texas oilman in charge of the U.S. really meant.
These days, unlike the Clinton era, I'm fairly certain that Canada would rather join the EU than having anything to do with the U.S.
Luckily for Canada, American ignorance of their northern neighbor is almost absolute, otherwise the U.S. would have invaded decades ago, to prevent socialism from threatening the freedom of Canadians.
Jografy, do NOT join the United Titbabies of America!
Try to hold out and wait until the Northern States Secede from the Union. Once the the desert SW and plains move to take Profoundly Local resources like the Great Lakes there will be Hades to Pay.
Take no prisoners (we can't feed 'em) and leave no quarry ;)
Please stop insulting titbabies.
Please stop insulting tits, too.
Please stop insulting babies, bottle-fed or breast-fed.
Tits and babies are nice, and certainly more than nice -- they are wonderful.
Please come up with a better term to describe whatever it is you think you are describing when you say "Titbabies."
Our language surely has more creative and precise possibilities to get at what you are trying to say.
I've been helping one of my clients take care of a 9 month old baby who is wonderful. Reminds me of when my two adopted children were babies. Reminds me of about 7 years of being "Daycare Daddy" to a number of children, including a number of babies -- my favorite part of that very challenging work.
We really do know how to put down women and children, don't we? not by intention, but just by habitual expressions.
If americans are overly-dependent on the Fascist Elite, the Corporatist Killers who sit in High Places and Pray Loud Lies, then let's talk about that. Surely that relationship has nothing to do with "titbabies?"
(Yes, thereis plenty of room for humour here. I say all of this in a good-natured, friendly way. I think I know what you mean, but I'll bet there are nuances i'm not picking up -- feel free to elaborate!)
I love your humor and agree both tits and babies are nice.
Titbabies = blind, helpless newborn pups or kittens or whatever mammal you choose.
It probably applies to most of us First Worlders to some degree - not just Americans. Most of us have grown up in a culture of extreme specialization with severe dependency on "the system" (whatever form of mommy government we hail from).
I don't think it's a put-down for women, or for actual blind and helpless babies though ;)
Ah, now I'm clear on that. :)
Thanks! :)
I expect economic collapse to make the whole idea moot. There is always an underlying push to join even now but it would be a bitter fight if it ever came to the top of the agenda here in Canada. At least in my grand childrens' life times I think we might see all of the imperial countries (federations like the USA and Canada) split up and they may see more rational units like the Republic of the Great Lakes involving Ontario and the Great Lakes States. Something the Mohawks were working toward at one time. Watersheds as political units would make more ecological sense in any event.
I like the "Republic of the Great Lakes" idea.
I think you might be right about a collapse making the fear moot. We may not have the energy left for warfare. Hopefully we follow the Former Soviet Union's path of peaceful dissolution - IF it happens at all.