DrumBeat: May 11, 2007
Posted by Leanan on May 11, 2007 - 9:01am
Topic: Miscellaneous
The Coming Explosion in Energy prices!
Oil and natural gas are finite in their supply, and should be husbanded for portable energy production, cars, planes, boats, etc. Peak oil theories are justified, China is now training 40 thousand geologists a year to confront these challenges, the US trains 500 geologists and 40,000 lawyers. What's wrong with this picture?If these supplies are used for fixed plant energy production they are irresponsibly deployed today to the detriment of future generations. Just like the deficit spending on entitlements destroys the future prospects of their children and grandchildren by sending them the bills for today's extravagant welfare programs, these same selfish people and politicians send the future cost of oil and natural gas production to future generations as well. Global warming advocates push the increased use of natural gas, rejecting nuclear power in an ideological manner. Wasting this beautiful clean portable energy source on fixed plant electrical generation. We need practical solutions to problems, not political or ideologically devised ones. They need to be balanced to consider the broad energy requirements of a modern society (who wants to go back to the Stone Age?) and preservation of the environment. Both needs can be met if the issues are thoughtfully addressed and modern technology is brought to the table.
Peak Oil Passnotes: Blair’s Legacy, Missing Oil
The U.K. was one of the world’s biggest producers of crude oil. With the emphasis on ‘was’. It produced over 3 million barrels a day in 1999; compare this to Iran’s 4 million barrels a day, Kuwait’s 2 million barrels a day and so on. This is major league work. The U.K. left it to the market to decide what the output would be; it gave huge tax breaks to private companies and allowed its precious hydrocarbon resources to be governed by the ungovernable.Now some eight years later, the U.K. produces around 1.3 million barrels a day and all of a sudden it has become a net importer of hydrocarbons. Oh dear, what happened? The market did what it does best, suck a resource dry and then move on. The U.K. government has responded with a record number of permits given out to smaller oil companies mopping up what was left. Even if decent sized fields like BG Group’s Jasmine and Buzzard can be punchy in themselves, the decline in the U.K. North Sea is unstoppable.
Gas pipeline only addresses symptoms
A gas pipeline may boost our economy and is likely worth building, but it does not resolve the more pressing issue of peak oil. Alaska needs a leader brave enough to restructure our energy supply. We need someone to lead us to sustainability. Are there any pioneers left in the Last Frontier?
Supersonic Electric Aircraft: The Potential for Electrically Powered Commercial Aviation after Peak-Oil
Platts Survey: OPEC Oil Output Rises Slightly in April After Months of Declines
The 10 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) bound by the group's output agreements produced an average 26.57 million barrels of crude oil per day in April, a Platts survey showed May 10. This is up 30,000 barrels per day (b/d) from March's 26.54 million b/d and 770,000 b/d above their 25.8 million b/d production target established last month."But these numbers have to be viewed as worrisome for consumers," said John Kingston, Platts global director of oil. "Although the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that OPEC only needs to supply the market with 29.3 million b/d in the second quarter to keep inventories balanced, from a full-year perspective it must supply about 30.4 million b/d," he explained, with the heaviest supply needs coming in the third and fourth quarters respectively, of 30.5 million b/d and more than 31 million p/d.
"So OPEC has to add a significant amount of supply in the market, just to keep inventories from declining further later this year," Kingston said. "And those estimates don't include any extra surge of OPEC oil that would be needed should the US Gulf of Mexico get hit by a significant hurricane in the coming months."
In Brunei, Shell has figured out how to extract rich but scattered deposits—a technique it plans to roll out worldwide.
Fighting for Survival - As the sea devours them, villages make plans to relocate—but who will pay?
An unprecedented crisis has struck many Alaska rural settlements—communities historically built close to navigable water so residents could easily gather food and hunt animals. In recent decades, permafrost has been warming, the land melting away. Ancient bluffs have crumbled. The tide has been advancing on schools, tank farms, roads and runways. Homes have been flooded, boat landing ramps washed out. In parts of the western Alaska tundra, the earth itself appeared to be sinking.
ConocoPhillips Seeks Venezuelan Solution
ConocoPhillips Chairman Jim Mulva said Wednesday the company continues to work toward an amicable resolution with Venezuela over its oil operations in that country, but he acknowledged negotiations are sensitive and arbitration is possible.
No fuelin' this time: Oil supply near crisis
To protect our economy, we need a coherent national energy policy.
Oil Price Not as Simple as Demand and Supply
Crude market prices are continuing to seesaw - rather heavily. From a price approaching $70 a barrel last week, it is currently hovering at around $65. Who is controlling the oil market prices and who is pushing it?
China: Energy Market Of The Future
It seems like a weekly occurrence that another deal is struck between China and another key energy producing country. However, Americas once solid position as most oil exporters No. 1 customer has changed dramatically. Now the US is seen as a third-rate customer that is taking a back seat to China and others. The United States as a power is going down and China is going up, Hugo Chavez said. China is the market of the future....
Nigeria: Militants promise a month of 'mayhem' in oil delta
Nigerian militant group MEND who have staged 10 attacks on Western oil facilities in the delta in the last nine days, kidnapping dozens of foreign workers and curbing output from the world's eighth largest oil exporter, said on Wednesday it had instructed armed groups in the Niger Delta to unleash a month of "mayhem" to press its case for more autonomy in the oil-producing region.
Weekly Offshore Rig Review: More Day Rates & Durations
This week, we will continue our examination of the correlation (or lack thereof) between contract lengths and day rates by looking at the worldwide fleet of competitive semisubmersibles and drillships. Based on the findings from last week's rig review, we expect to see a similar pattern among the deeper water rigs whereby longer contracts command higher day rates, given that largely the same supply and demand factors are at play among these rigs as well.
Will NYMEX Futures Boost Uranium Stocks Even Higher?
The world's soaring thirst for energy will be the biggest issue over the next few decades--not global warming, overpopulation or even the death and devastation of war (which will most likely start over the energy crisis).And the catalyst of the energy crisis will be Peak Oil.
If you don't believe me, I understand. But I would urge you to look at the news coming out every day. You'll see a fossil-fuel driven world gasping for breath.
Religion and peak oil: The next spirituality
It may be prophetic that science fiction, that cracked but not always clouded mirror of our imagined futures, so often makes religion central to narratives about a world after industrial civilization. That fashion was set in a big way by Walter M. Miller’s 1959 bestseller A Canticle for Leibowitz, which leapt past the then-popular genre of nuclear holocaust novels to envision a centuries-long reprise of the Dark Ages, complete with Catholic monks guarding the knowledge of the past. Miller’s book covered a lot of philosophical and theological ground, but among its core themes was the argument that religion — specifically, of course, Catholic Christianity — was the wellspring of humanity’s better possibilities, and would be more important than ever when progress betrayed the hopes of its votaries.In the hothouse environment of mid-20th century science fiction, a retort from the other side was not long in arriving. It came from Edgar Pangborn, whose award-winning 1965 novel Davy was in large part a counterblast aimed at Miller’s vision. In Pangborn’s future history, the collapse of industrial society was followed by the slow rise of a neomedieval society shackled to superstition and ignorance by the Holy Murcan Church. Like A Canticle for Leibowitz, Davy covered quite a bit of intellectual ground, and Pangborn’s invented Murcan religion was at least as much a scathing satire on the American Protestant religiosity of his own time as it was an attempt to imagine a religion of the future. Central to Pangborn’s vision, though, was the argument that religion was the zenith of human folly, an arrogant claim to privileged knowledge about the unknowable that inevitably lashed out violently against those too sane to accept its pretensions.
Aviation boom doesn't bode well for climate
Air travel is the preserve of a mere 5 per cent of the world's population, but this tiny minority's behaviour affects the poorest- who will probably never fly. Aviation has enormous repercussions on climate change. Let's look at a few figures. An Air France/KLM report of 2005-2006 reckons it takes 3.1 litres of kerosene to fly one person for 100 km. This means 10 kg of co2 emissions, as per accepted calculations.So, a person flying a distance of 10,000 km (two ways) ends up adding more than a tonne of co2.
Glimpse into a fuel free future
With the prospect of substantial urban sprawl in New Zealand cities and increasing car usage, Dr Andre Dantas (Civil Engineering), Dr Susan Krumdieck (Mechanical Engineering) and mechanical engineering PhD student Shannon Page have developed a software system to measure the impact of potential fuel shortages for a variety of future scenarios.
IEA trims 2007 oil demand forecast slightly but warns market is tightening
The International Energy Agency lowered its 2007 oil product demand forecast marginally but warned the global oil market is tightening and said the situation will not improve unless OPEC ups its output before the summer.
BP: To Shut in Four North Sea Oil, Gas Fields June 17-27
A spokesman for the company confirmed the Ula, Tambar, Valhall and Hod fields on the Norwegian continental shelf will be shut in for maintenance to coincide with installation of a new bypassing gas export line.
UK Drivers Undeterred By High Gasoline Prices
U.K. motorists appear undeterred by record-high U.K. gasoline prices, with fresh government data out Thursday showing an increase in traffic.New Department for Transport data shows traffic on British roads increased 1.2% in the first quarter of this year compared with a year previously, led by rising traffic on country and minor urban roads.
Cabinet endorses new fuel pricing parameters
Fiji's high cost of fuel will see revised fuel pricing template parameters from June.
European Parliament to hold conference on Caspian's hydrocarbons
"Caspian's hydrocarbons are of great importance from this aspect. 233bn cu m gas and 50mln tons oil is planned to be transported through newly-commissioned Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Oil and gas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan will possibly to have an access to western markets."
Alaska village suffers fuel shortage
The village of Newtok is suffering a fuel shortage hardship, having run out of both heating fuel and gasoline last month. The community has a population of over 300.Gas was flown in by air carrier last week – 8-55 gallon drums and is being sold for $11.83 a gallon at the Newtok Native Corporation, said residents. The local electric company, Ungusraq Power Co. bought stove oil from the school to run the generators to provide the community with electricity. Stove oil was selling for $5.10 a gallon as of last week.
As New Yorkers recently discovered, when crude oil prices jump, gasoline prices can jump even more. But though oil sheiks in the Middle East and President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, are convenient scapegoats, the real problem lies closer to home — our shortage of oil refining capacity.
Gas remains a hot topic for callers
"Back in 1977, when we were gas rationing, I was on the debate team and I debated the oil shortage. We weren't supposed to have gas by the year 2000. I don't drive to the north end unless I have more than one errand to run. After Memorial Day, the prices are going to drop back down to a lousy $3.19 because that will be a good price to us once it hits $4 a gallon. This has absolutely nothing to do with an oil shortage. This is complete and total corporate greed."
Bad Climate “Science”: The ideology goes in before the science goes on.
In other words, we should worry about the risks of climate change; we should worry about the risks of geoengineering; and we should apply our most meticulous and careful scientific thought to characterizing these risks. But we should not consider — indeed we should remain utterly unaware of — the risks of forcing wealthier people to stop using, and preventing poorer people from starting to use, the fossil-fuel energy that played a leading and essential role in the vast improvements in human health, prosperity, and life expectancy during the last hundred years.
CALIFORNIA'S groundbreaking global warming law, AB32, along with executive orders signed by the governor, requires California to cut its greenhouse gas emissions about 35 percent below current levels by 2020 and a staggering 90 percent below current levels by the year 2050. How in the world will California meet those aggressive goals?
Toyota expects to cut costs for hybrid cars enough to be able to make as much money on them as it does on conventional gasoline cars by around 2010, a top executive said on Thursday.
World oil production has maxed out: Talisman
Talisman chief executive Jim Buckee has never been one to shy away from controversy.....So when Buckee suggests, as he did at Talisman's annual meeting Wednesday, that Peak Oil has arrived, we are not completely surprised -- even if that observation is likely to again land him in the eye of a storm.
Hit by petro crisis, Nepal sends SOS to India
The spectre of the worst fuel crisis ever loomed large over Nepal after the Indian company, the lone one exporting oil to Nepal, reduced petroleum supplies by 40 percent in a bid to pressure the importer, state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), to clear old dues.
IEA says Iran gasoline rationing is a clever move
Iran's plans to ration gasoline and increase the price should help curb imports and raise fuel efficiency but may provoke considerable domestic opposition, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.
'Project Big Green,' will target corporate data centres and includes a new global 'green team' of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM....'The data centre energy crisis is inhibiting our clients’ business growth as they seek to access computing power,' said Mike Daniels, senior vice president, IBM Global Technology Services.
Argentina confronts biofuels craze
Argentina's government is hopping on the biofuels bandwagon by offering tax incentives for new initiatives and saying 5 percent of the nation's fuel supply must be biodiesel- or ethanol-based in three years.But many Argentines are worried that diverting farmland for biofuels — made from corn, sugarcane, palm oil and other agricultural products — will drive up food prices even higher.
A Brief History of Oil (Profits)
It seems almost quaint now, but just seven years ago, Bill Richardson, then the Clinton Administration's Energy Secretary, was quoted by Reuters World Report as calling oil prices "dangerously high," and saying the White House would use all options to fight soaring energy costs. The same story reported that farmers in Spain were taking their tractors on the roads to protest the cost of fuel. Saddam Hussein was threatening Kuwait again for stealing Iraqi crude. Soon, oil analysts were saying that if Hussein decided to quit shipping Iraq's oil, it could upset the world's petroleum market, possibly causing another severe hike in the price of crude. Yikes!Of course, when these stories crossed the newswires in September, 2000, things were very different. The soaring energy costs Secretary Richardson was complaining about were $38 per barrel for oil and $1.58 per gallon for gas.
Vermont could clear way for new emissions rules
A Vermont judge could soon clear the way for nearly a dozen states to surmount auto industry protests and limit emissions from cars and light trucks to protect the environment, legal experts said.
Blueprint for greenhouse gases
Buy a fluorescent bulb and stop a hurricane? It's not that easy. A new climate-change report finds voluntary conservation and the use of clean energies together won't be enough to slow global warming. Rather, strict rules on greenhouse gases will need to pinch lifestyles. And the biggest price? A crimp on world economic growth.
Risky Business: The Outlook for Investing in Nuclear Power
A new report scrutinizes the nuclear industry from an investor’s perspective and finds a rotting fantasy of cheap energy and huge returns.
Positive results reported at the Kootenay Climate Change Conference
Businesses and town administrations both prosper when they switch to less energy-intensive methods.
The case for raising gasoline taxes
Prices cannot be brought down because market tolerance determines the price, no matter who charges it.
Also in the news today...
IEA calls for OPEC to raise output
and
Choke point for oil sands may be water shortage
Wasn't the time for OPEC to boost production for the summer season about eight weeks ago?
The headline I'd like to see is "Greenpeace calls on OPEC to cut output, save some for later".
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
Yes, Opec should cut output at least 4% per year for the next 20 years. All the other major oil producers, including the U.S. should do likewise. Of course, we can just burn it all now, which seems like the preferred approach.
If Monbiot is even close to correct, we need to start the downward path of fossil fuels burning yesterday.
But nooooo. OPEC would prefer to play hide and peak, or peak-a-boo if you will. Here you see it, here you don't. And, if you decide to be prudent by seeking alternatives, including conservation, we will punish you by refusing to raise our outputs. We need to call their bluff. The irony, however, is that they may be embarking on this policy not by choice, but out of necessity. But they still want to maintain the illusion that they are in control of their and our destiny.
More of than not, people use the word "fear" when they are projecting supply and prices over the coming summer and beyond. My fear is that prices will just spike temporarily as usual and settle down to a new slightly higher price which people have learned to tolerate. If we went to $5 per gallon tomorrown and then settled down at $4, we would be consuming like it was under $3.
Absolutely. An environment of consistently rising prices is required in order to create a sense of urgency. Hopefully another year or two of September prices spikes will cause the penny to drop in Detroit. (Well, maybe not Detroit. Tokyo?)
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
Actually, what we really need is a steady 7% a year rise in prices for the next twenty years. And for people to realise that it is happening, and expect it to continue - an "oil inflation" environment. People might make different decisions when buying (or designing) a car if they thought of the price they were likely to pay at the pump ten years down the track.
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
Actually, that started already 5 years ago. Remember oil was 25$ / barrel?
This is only an issue because we keep hoping the market will save us, rather than making rational but difficult choices.
Instead of our acting like an enlightened democracy, we place our faith in Kings to make the wise move for everyone. I guess the world has not really changed as much as I thought.
Hi gTrout,
Thanks for your comment.
When I've talked to people (commuters) many of them believe that they *are* being rational in their decision to go by "what the market says". They say they'll start to ride-share when the price of gasoline goes higher. In fact, they say, if there was a problem, either "the market" or "the media" or "someone" (presumably, someone other than yours truly) - would have told them.
In other words, they believe "the market" is "rational". As though "the market" exists as something more alive than descriptive.
Now, some things have changed. (People voluntarily cutting back; people questioning; the largest anti-war protest in the history of the world, prior to a an invasion, more than 5 million "green" and "human rights" organizations around the world; etc.) The question is, how do we use those changes to help us?
Wildfire areas get influx of residents
Seems like there are a lot of stories like this in the news lately. The villages in Alaska, located by the government with little local knowledge or concern for the future. The floods in the midwest, in the same areas that flooded in 1992. New levees were supposed to "fix" that problem, and of course the residents are blaming the government, the engineers, etc.
It's unsustainable, and it's going to be even more unsustainable when peak oil really starts to bite.
The craze, building in forest hillside, fragments the forest. And unlike harvest operations, there's no regrowth, just roads and homes and shrubberies. The homes are a liability in fighting wildfires by draining resources, and also by igniting them. These houses are "springing up like wildfire"-couldn't resist. Two years back we had a racing 350 ac blaze that hit 5 homes, started by one of the new residents burning their household garbage in a barrel. In late July.
I don't know enough about the property insurance business, so I'm not sure about this, I could be entirely wrong on this one. However, to me it looks like a market failure -- if insurance companies were to rate these properties according to the real site-specific risks, my guess is that insurance would be either unobtainable or so expensive as to prohibit the vast majority of these homes from being built.
I cannot understand why the insurance industry is so anxious to underwrite health insurance on the basis of the individual insured's health, but when it comes to property is perfectly happy with pooled risk. Individuals often cannot help it if they have health problems, but no one HAS to live in a high-risk location. Why should those of us that choose to live in lower-risk locations have to subsidize the riskier with our insurance premiums?
One more example of a US economy that has things bass-ackwards.
We're heading that way. I think eventually, market forces will rule. Right now, governments are stepping in to insure the uninsurable (see Florida). And there's always FEMA, in case of major disaster.
But they won't be able to afford to keep doing that.
The problem may be that people build homes appropriate for Cleveland in California. If the state building codes required adobe walls and metal roofs then wildfires wouldn't be a big deal. Using flammable materials out west is insane especially when adobe is dirt cheap.
It's not design, its placement. And tho adobe may work in parts of southwest, it's not for all the west. Expensive in many parts. Cheapest is trailer, or woodframe, maybe a metal roof. But it's massive earth moving to site it-sorry, toto no wheelbarrows here-a four by four to get there, drilling to china for water and commuting 50 miles to stay. When the fire does roll thru, you need an air tactical command to fight it. Along with a couple firefighters in a box canyon.
Actually, solid stone or slipform walls (using stones collected onsite or nearby) under that metal or a tile roof would be the ideal building envelope for those mountainside sites - pretty much 100% fireproof. People have put such up with their own labor, but it would be pretty expensive to pay builders to do it.
I don't care if Helen and Scot Nearing built it themselves-its placement. And at least the early slipformers sited their home near water, on moderate ground, with the idea of producing some food.
doug, one of the things that I've noted on my (too) infrequent trips to MT is that the old homesteads tend to be located in draws, near a water source and a few shade trees. In contrast, you see many modern homes plopped down out in the open with no shade and no water. As I understand it, having a water tanker deliver water to the house is not that uncommon -- particulary in the case of vacation homes. As you point, it takes a whole lot of "outside support" to maintain one of these places. If Jim Kunstler thinks the suburbs of the humid East and Midwest have no future, he ought to see these places that you are talking about.
That is something Lester Brown notes. He recommends buying property in the center of old cities. People settled the best areas first, as far as water, shelter, soil, etc. go. Now these areas are often low-income neighborhoods in fading cities. Property is relatively cheap, and if you get together with like-minded friends and family, you can create your own eco-minded neighborhood.
In contrast, modern homes are often built in areas with not enough water or shelter (build on top of hilltops, say, for the "view," when in the old days, the house would be built in the lee of the hill, not on top of it). The topsoil is scraped off and sold to farmers or Home Depot before building starts. Never mind the transportation issues...
I'm in an 1830 Cape, set into the landscape exactly as you've described, the lee side of the hill, which also happens to face due south for maximum solar exposure. The cold winds out of the north west and storms from the Nor'east are lessened this way too.
They also built their chimneys in the center of the house, which with our wood stove provides a large mass of retained heat. In so many ways and respects this old home is a thing of beauty compared to the cheap but expensive junk built of late.
As for good soil, our bottom land here between two long ridges is amazingly fine compared to most of the sandy soil out here on the Cape. I go to sleep each night offering thanks to my blessings here.
But the mosquitoes can be a real bitch for a spell.
you tellin' me that these three car garage liet motif suburban hovels are not classic design ?
I would definately wait.These places are going to get nastier first. At some point you'll be able to buy the whole place before/if it becomes desirable.
Matt
Don't forget the wind. Those draw locations afford other types of shelter. X years ago, I watched a well to do local perch his McMansion on the very edge of a large coule. He lasted 2 years, before selling out and building a large home in town. The wind drove him, and esp his wife, bonkers. You just don't realize it from initial site visits. It's all view and upfront cost.
Water hauling is a thriving business.
Thinking of ol Helen and Scot in my post above-we're about same. Their objective after the depression was not working all day every day. They wanted 4 hours for themselves, would only spend 4 hours in work-build house, grow food, cut firewood, etc. Modern folks live on about 4 hours-four for yourself, about 4 for fed, local, SS, state, property, sales tax. Times I think they cut a better deal.
"September is like a quiet day after a whole week of wind. I mean real wind that blows dirt into your eyes and hair and between your teeth and roars in your ears long after you've gone inside."
Milred Walker, Winter Wheat.
Gee whiz, you can't do that. It wouldn't be FAIR!
You already know the deal. People in this country have a right to live under water, next to rivers, on cliffs, on top of faultlines, and surrounded by Duraflame logs. And of course, it's the government and insurance company's responsibility to pay for it all.
After all, what's the alternative? Admit we're stupid? That might work, but as I always tell my friends, "Idiots don't know their idiots."
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go get a couple barrels of diesel for my motorhome while there are still barrels to get. (See previous paragraph)
What a great visual... I think my next fence will be a Duraflame split-rail.
Thanks for the laugh!
Duraflame split rail fence around a straw bale house with split wood shingle roof. Sounds like the perfect choice for a semi-arid mountainside woodland!
I appreciate the humor, but I have one quibble.
This, according to the Australian government.
So the moral is, don't forget the render.
Incidentally, I grew up in a Southern Californian neighborhood with wood-shingled houses. I've spent more than one afternoon on the roof with a hose, watching the flames get closer. How stupid can a developer be?
The developer wasnt stupid enough to actually live in it though. He just made a buck since no one seemed to perform due diligence.
Fine Homebuilding carried an article on sprinkler systems, and also discussed installing them on roofs, with a standpipe at groundlevel. In case of threat the garden hose goes from faucet to standpipe. With no standing water in the sprinkler system no danger of freezin breakage either.
New York apparently requires sprinklers in new residential construction.
Insurance companies should do some research. They are clever enough when it comes to anything involving health coverage. Clever in how to get out of paying or keeping rates high.
One way to bypass that is to pay off the mortgage (for those who can) and cancel your hazard insurance.
And All-State is bailing out:
Allstate to stop insuring Calif. homes
In Southern California urban and suburban sprawl of this sort continues to be subsidized by State and local government through maintenance of fire/flood protection (and typically utility and road inftrastructure too -special districts and fees not withstanding). Money, in the form of personnel and equipment, always seems to be available to fight wildlfire - no matter how costly such efforts become. I suspect that these subsidies help keep insurance costs down (or simply available) in areas that otherwise would likely be avoided by the insurance industry. So we continue to see development snake its way into remote canyons and ridge-tops surrounded by chaparral. I suppose at some point our fearless leaders will find that tax-base growth no longer pays for the spiraling costs of supporting such sprawl. What with energy and materiel costs going through the roof (and higher interest rates) maybe that time is approaching. But I've been watching this mess unfold for 40 years so I'm not holding my breath.
As far as those Alaskan villages go, there used to be very little if any infrastructure, and the people moved around to different sites anyway, so changes in sea level would not have been a big deal. Now, using the same traditional sites, but built up with fixed infrastructure, there is a problem.
The IEA's summary of the Oil Market Report is out today.
http://omrpublic.iea.org/
According to them not much is happening to world oil supply. Here are their reports for the last few months:
Dec +110 kb/d to 85.4 mb/d
Jan +175 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
Feb - 65 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
Mar -265 kb/d to 85.3 mb/d
Apr - 55 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
We have been down three months in a row by a total of 385 kb/d yet we wind up exactly where we started in January at 85.5 mb/d. (That is all liquids of course.)
Ron Patterson
Dec +110 kb/d to 85.4 mb/d
Jan +175 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
Feb - 65 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
Mar -265 kb/d to 85.3 mb/d
Apr - 55 kb/d to 85.5 mb/d
The numbers don't add up. Mar is 85.3, then we lose a bit more but APr is 85.5. Should that be 85.2?
Peter.