DrumBeat: November 8, 2007
Posted by Leanan on November 8, 2007 - 10:03am
$100 Oil: Big Oil Struggles to Tap New Energy Amid High Costs
Ten years ago, a keen futurologist imagining the effects of $100 oil might have predicted a world where major oil companies, their coffers bursting with mega profits, were pumping cash into high technology and delivering new energy sources saving the world from economic meltdown in the nick of time.Fast forward to the present and energy buzzwords like ethanol, oil sands or gas-to-liquids are certainly on everybody's lips, but they've done little to diminish the world's dependence on black gold. In fact, as oil prices edge ever closer to $100 a barrel, industry experts say the ability of the major private companies to develop new energy sources is diminishing.
As Energy Prices Soar, U.S. Industries Collide
Nearly a year ago, with his company reeling from rising energy prices, Dow Chemical Co. Chief Executive Andrew Liveris took a stand that turned heads in Washington. He called for tougher fuel-economy requirements for auto makers -- businesses that buy some $1.5 billion of goods from Dow each year.The move was as rational as it was risky. Dow figured that limiting oil usage by cars would ease price pressure on fossil fuels, which Dow must buy in vast quantities to feed its factories. Dow also reasoned that if car makers were forced to improve mileage, they might buy more of various Dow products that can make vehicles go farther on a gallon of fuel.
India’s Solution for Oil Prices: Ban Speculation by Banning Trading
As oil approaches the $100-a-barrel milestone, M. S. Srinivasan, India’s petroleum secretary, has an unorthodox recommendation for cooling overheated prices: halt trading of crude oil on commodity exchanges.
The slippery slope of rising oil prices
The next energy shock will be different than the last one, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.
Biofuel industry says oil hike driving food prices
Leaders of the biofuels industry are challenging critics who argue that converting food to fuel is driving up food prices, saying higher energy costs and other factors are more important."Energy is the blood of the world, so if oil goes up then other commodities follow," Claus Sauter, Chief Executive of German bioenergy firm Verbio said on Wednesday.
Oil Surge May Curb German Growth, Economy Minister Glos Says
Surging oil prices nudging $100 a barrel may undermine growth in Europe's biggest economy, German Economy Minister Michael Glos said.
Italy - Oil: Taxi Trade Unions, to ask for higher rates
Taxi rates will be raised due to high oil prices. The trade unions for taxi drivers are already negotiating an 18pct price increase, but, explains Loreno Bittarelli of Uritaxi, "it is clear that if oil prices keep rising it will have repercussions for our sector and we may have to revise the rate of increase, up to 20-22pct".
Since becoming independent in 1991, Azerbaijan has attracted significant international interest in its oil and natural gas reserves.
Eastern Mediterranean: Energy profile
While the countries of the eastern Mediterranean region produce and consume only modest quantities of energy, they occupy a strategic location in terms of regional security and prospective energy transit routes.
Azerbaijan: Israel's problematic energy provider
Azerbaijan is valuable to the Muslim world as for its wealth of alternative energy resources: it is a Muslim country where roughly 75% of the population is Shi'ite, the rest Sunni. For a long time considered relatively immune to the militant Islamism sweeping the region due to measures taken during the Soviet times, the collapse of the Soviet Union has left Azerbaijan as a battleground for warring religious groups, sects and radical organizations. The central government managed to keep sectarian violence at a minimum for years, but after September 11 Salafi and Wahhabi preachers started flooding the country.
Four Proposals Try to Tap One Fund of Oil Fees
In four separate pieces of legislation -- two energy bills, the farm bill and a bill that would fund rural schools and libraries -- lawmakers in the House of Representatives make use of $6 billion in payments from oil companies.Unfortunately, the same $6 billion gets spent in each bill.
Project to Improve Viability of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Cars
Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery technology shows significant promise for hybrid and electric vehicle applications in terms of its comparatively high power and energy density, and ability to retain charge for extended periods. However, commercial challenges remain in terms of both cost and weight. QinetiQ and Ricardo have embarked on a two-year collaborative project part-funded by the UK Department for Transport, which aims to dramatically reduce the costs of Lithium-Ion batteries for hybrid vehicles while protecting or further improving vehicle performance.
Harnessing the power of ocean waves for energy
Denmark generates a fifth of its electricity from wind power, Germany is a global leader in solar technology and Iceland heats huge numbers of homes with geothermal energy. Could Britain match the achievements of its neighbors in renewable energy by harnessing the power of the waves along its abundant coastline?
Global warming 'cure' found by scientists
A "technical fix" that could stop global warming by taking billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and save the coral reefs from being destroyed by acidification has been developed by scientists.The process could be used on an industrial scale to remove excess carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels from the atmosphere in "a matter of decades rather than millennia," according to researchers from Harvard and Penn State universities.
No injuries in Valero Port Arthur plant explosion
Because of the explosion and fire, the refinery is operating at about 60 percent of capacity, or 165,000 barrels of crude processing compared with normal daily capacity of 265,000 barrels.Total hydrocarbon feedstock capacity is at about 190,000 barrels compared with more than 300,000 barrels of daily processing, he said.
“Supply crunch” is not peak oil - IEA
There is no contradition between the International Energy Agency’s forecast of long term oil supply growth to 2030 and a “supply crunch” by 2015, according to its chief economist Fatih Birol. Mr Birol insisted today that the short term crisis would not be caused by a fundamental shortage of oil but by entirely man-made factors.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denied any national energy crisis and said that supplies will last until 2012.At a Wednesday business meeting at the government palace, Lula downplayed the gas shortage in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, which solution is either to find fresh reserves or import.
£4.5bn windfall for Treasury as oil soars
Gordon Brown is set for a £4.5bn tax windfall from record oil prices. As the cost of a litre of petrol broke through the £1 barrier for the first time yesterday, economists said the Treasury is raking in an extra £12m a day from the oil spike.
Nepal: Apathy stalls petroleum liberalization
Each time there is shortage of petroleum products due to rising international prices there is also talk of liberalizing petroleum imports.But once ad hoc price adjustments are made, the liberalization issue is sent to the back burner.
Petrobras' Tupi Oil Field May Hold 8 Billion Barrels
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, said its offshore Tupi deposit may contain 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. The shares rose the most in three years.
Greenspan Says World Economy Will Acclimate to Oil Above $100
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said rising oil prices will lead businesses and consumers around the world to consume less fossil fuel and increase their use of alternative energy sources.``The sooner we get the higher prices, the quicker the world economy will accommodate,'' Greenspan told a conference of executives in Sao Paulo, Brazil, via satellite. ``They can be a remedy for high oil consumption, which can result in less and less dependence.''
Is oil hitting $100 a barrel because of "supply and demand? No,it's because of greed and collusion.For the price to be based on so-called "supply and demand" it would mean that consumers are bidding the price up. I've yet to see any consumers bidding the price up. What we have are oil industry and government people secretly agreeing on prices and then ramming those prices down the consumers' throats.
Range Fuels holds groundbreaking
After nine months, the wait is finally over as Range Fuels Inc. broke ground Tuesday afternoon on the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant located in the Soperton/Treutlen County Industrial Park.Range Fuels will use wood and wood waste from Georgia’s pine forests and mills as its feedstock and will have the capacity to produce more than 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.
Palm Oil May Reach $1,000 a Ton Next Year on Shortage
Palm oil may rise as high as $1,000 a ton next year because of increasing demand and a shortfall in supplies of vegetable oils, according to Derom Bangun, the head of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association.
Porsche goes green...100 years ago
Next to its new Porsche Cayenne Hybrid SUV at the 2007 Los Angles Auto Show later this month, Porsche will show off an electric car from 1900 designed by founder Ferdinand Porsche. This is the predecessor of what Porsche Cars claims was the world's first hybrid car, which followed this one by just a few years.
'Training needed' for green car future
The success of "green technology" on Australia's roads is being jeopardised by a shortage of mechanics trained in diesel cars, says an automotive lecturer.
With more to feed, donations aren't keeping up
"It's a very challenging time for us," said Melanie Gosselin, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, which provides food to 345 agencies, primarily food pantries and soup kitchens from Berlin to the seacoast. "We usually have 700,000 pounds of food in stock and we now have 126,000. That's a half-a-million-pound shortage."Gosselin said the demand for food is up 30 to 40 percent. "It's hard to say why," she said. "Higher gasoline prices, the rise in the price of home heating oil and natural gas. . . . The working poor are feeling the pinch and so are the people who normally make donations."
Bernanke: Mortgages, oil are concerns
In testimony before Congress' joint economic committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the central bank is concerned about credit crunch and rising oil prices.
Act now to avoid an energy crunch
The annual report contains some eye-popping projections. China will overtake the US to become the world’s biggest energy consumer soon after 2010. Sales of new vehicles will exceed those in the US by 2015, almost quadrupling Chinese demand for transport fuel by 2030. By then, more than 1,300GW of new electricity generating capacity will be needed to power its economy – more than all the power stations in North America alone....There is a sharp reality check, too, for advocates of biofuels and renewable power. Fossil fuels, increasingly coal, will dominate. This poses difficult questions for western governments and energy companies. Some conclusions are inescapable.
This doorstopper opens our eyes to the energy crisis
The International Energy Agency's annual review is not for the faint of heart. Whether your principal concern is energy security, the price of oil or global warming, the 663-page World Energy Outlook doorstopper is a wake-up call.
Skepticism Greets New US Africa Command
Just a few years ago, the U.S. military was rarely seen in the oil-rich waters of West Africa's Gulf of Guinea. This year, it plans to be there every day.The strategic importance of Africa and its natural resources is on the rise, and the Defense Department last month created a new unified U.S. military command for the continent called Africom.
The Philippines: PGMA calls on nation to help avert possible energy crisis
With oil prices rising worldwide, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has called on all sectors to help averting a possible crisis, saying the nation must move quickly, especially the leaders of government and private industries to lessen the blow of rising prices of diesel, gasoline and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).
At these restaurants, 'eating green' doesn't necessarily mean ordering a salad
As more Americans seek out products with green credentials, more quick and casual restaurants are ready to serve them. Eating green no longer means just ordering from a vegetarian menu. In fact, it doesn't even have to mean eating healthy."For a restaurant to be truly green, they have to think about the lighting, the napkins, the cleaning products, the waste, the grill – everything," says Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), a national, nonprofit consultancy in Boston that helps eateries become more environmentally friendly. "But what a lot of restaurateurs don't realize is that taking the necessary steps is not only good for the environment and good for their image, it's also a way to lower costs."
Big food companies accused of risking climate catastrophe
The rush to palm oil and biofuels threatens to release 14 billion tonnes of carbon from Indonesia's peatlands.
Zip along with shared cars, bikes
Zipcar and Flexcar. They sound like a couple of cartoon characters. But last week's merger of these member-based, by-the-hour car-rental companies points to a noteworthy development in transport: car-sharing as a way to replace car-owning and to cut costs, energy use, and congestion.
General Motors begins to make full-size hybrid SUVs
General Motors has launched production of its new full-size hybrid sport utility vehicles, the automaker's boldest step yet to bring new fuel-saving technology to market and meet growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly vehicles.
In Portland, Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels
Cyclists have long revered Portland for its bicycle-friendly culture and infrastructure, including the network of bike lanes that the city began planning in the early 1970s. Now, riders are helping the city build a cycling economy.
Green IT strategies could lead to hefty ROI
Savvy and forward-thinking CIOs have recognised that ecological concerns aren't just for tree-huggers. Large enterprises, and to a lesser extent midrange companies, are starting to deploy products, and better yet, long-range green IT strategies, to reduce the carbon footprints of data centres. A number of factors are propelling this trend -- one of the biggest is the energy crisis.
Imagine waking up to the following nightmare headline "Canada Interdicts the Head Waters of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and All Water Flows From Its Territory Into the Great Lakes." One's reaction would not be passive nor that of our government to such a blatant act of resource aggression. And if you permit a glib interjection, any argumentation that , "well its water on their side of the border" would hold no water whatsoever. The deterioration of relations between the United States and Canada would be immediate, grave, and threatening....Saudi Arabia, given its enormous reserves, could readily produce significant additional quantities of oil in order to abate the steep run up of oil prices. At these price levels the fact they and OPEC are maintaining the major portion of their production cuts made at the beginning of this year (OPEC's production cut of 1.7 million barrels/day altered by a production increase of only 500,000 barrels/day starting this month) is smoking gun evidence of their extortionist intent. By holding oil off the market, oil which they clearly have in ample supply, they are gouging the world's economies, pricing their product at levels that have no market rationale whatsoever. They are preying on the world's need for oil. It is an act of resource aggression against the world's consumers much as Canada's hypothetical interference with the headwaters of our major river ways would be an act of aggression against the United States.
Higher Pump Prices Could Take $15 Billion out of U.S. Shoppers’ Wallets By Christmas Day
Americans will hit the shopping malls this holiday season with up to $15 billion less to spend due to higher gas prices compared with a year ago. That could put a real crimp in the critical holiday selling season, which in turn could put a major dent in the consumer-driven U.S. economy.
A CHANGE is in the works that could go a long way toward making alternative energy less alternative, and more attractive to consumers and businesses.It’s not a technological fix from some solar-cell laboratory in Silicon Valley or wind-turbine researcher in Colorado or the development of some superbug to turn wood waste into ethanol.
Rather, the change would come from Washington, if Congress does what it has talked about and puts a price tag on greenhouse-gas emissions. Suddenly the carbon content of fuel, or how much carbon dioxide is produced per unit of energy, would be as important as what the fuel costs. In fact, it might largely define what the fuel costs.
John Michael Greer: Waiting for the other shoe
Picking a route down the far side of Hubbert’s peak requires some of the same skills hikers use when navigating any other mountain trail, and one of those skills is a curious sort of double vision. On the one hand, you have to pay attention to the terrain around you, watching for places where the footing might prove treacherous or other hazards such as falling rocks might make the trip a little too exciting. On the other hand, you have to pay attention to the bigger picture, the way the land lies, so the trail you choose will actually take you in the direction you want to go.
Speculation Over Cambodia's Oil Fortunes 'Premature' - PM
Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday it was "highly premature" to estimate how much oil Cambodia might hold in undersea reserves, blunting earlier optimism that a petroleum windfall could pull the country out of poverty.Officials had forecast that oil production could begin as early as 2009.
Exxon pulls out of Aramco joint venture
US oil giant Exxon Mobil has sold its 30% stake in an oil lubricants joint venture with Saudi Aramco to Riyadh-based Jadwa Investment, Aramco announced on Tuesday.
Rahall Urges White House to Back House Royalty Plan
The chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee says a court decision that could jeopardize billions in Gulf of Mexico oil royalties should prompt the White House to drop its opposition to House efforts to ensure the payments.
The Peak Oil Crisis: The Washington Post
On Monday, our colleagues over at the Washington Post ran a front-page story in an effort to explain to official Washington why oil prices have soared by $25 a barrel in the last ten weeks and just what it might mean.Now anyone who follows the peak oil story knows the answer already. World Oil production stopped growing two years ago; consumption of oil in China, India, and the major oil producing countries themselves continues to grow rapidly; a gap between demand and supply is opening which for a while will be filled by drawing down world stockpiles; increasing prices are forcing the poor nations to get by with less oil.
OPEC calls for tighter regulation of oil market
OPEC's secretary-general called on Thursday for tighter regulation of oil markets to reduce the speculative investment the exporter group blames for driving prices to nearly $100 a barrel.Oil markets have spun out of control, the group says, because of financial investors, combined with the impact of a weak U.S. dollar and rising political tensions.
"Right now it is funds and speculators who invest in oil -- and financial markets interfere with the oil market," said Abdullah al-Badri, adding there was a need for more regulation.
Oil recouped early losses to resume its march towards the $100-milestone on Thursday as resurfacing worries of tight winter supplies and continuing dollar weakness put the brakes on some early profit-taking.
Crude supplies rise 2.3 mln bbls in latest week: API
Crude supplies rose by 2.3 million barrels to 313.3 million barrels in the week ending Nov. 2, the American Petroleum Institute reported on Wednesday. Distillate stocks rose by 0.5 million barrels to 136.7 million barrels in the same period, while gasoline stocks fell by 2.5 million barrels to 193.6 million barrels, API said.
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
"Oil is the excrement of the devil," warns a commentator in this downbeat documentary, a film that promises to give petrol-heads A Crude Awakening. Filmmakers Basil Glepke and Ray McCormack poll oil company consultants, OPEC officials and ex-White House advisors and discover another Inconvenient Truth: we're running out of oil. Life as we know it is doomed; yes, doomed. That may be old news, but this post-Michael Moore shock-doc paints a chilling picture of coming global crisis fuelled by our lack of fuel.
Florida Governor disses Brazilian energy giant
Gov Charlie Crist's office announced last night that he had broken off a scheduled visit to the headquarters of Brazilian energy giant Petrobras in Rio de Janeiro because of the company's "business dealings with Iran."
Valhall and Ekofisk go offline
BP and ConocoPhillips are shutting in the Valhall and Ekofisk fields - closing down output of 220,000 barrels per day - due to a looming storm but hope to restart production as soon as tomorrow.ConocoPhilips is shutting in five platforms at Ekofisk which pump a total of 140,000 bpd, adding it has already had shut two of them.
Nigeria: Oil Spill - Youths Demand N5bn From Shell
IRATE community youths have prevented Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) from assessing and conducting possible remediation at the Ibibio ell 1 in Akwa Ibom State.Besides, they are demanding a N5 billion compensation as a pre-condition.
Like it or not, $100 oil forces new energy policy on U.S.
But higher prices do have an upside. They mean that the United States finally has a national energy policy. It might not be one of its ownc hoosing. But it is having an impressive and immediate effect. The possibility of $100-a-barrel oil is forcing the nation to take energy consumption seriously after decades of slumber. This painful wake-upcall might just rouse American ingenuity to finally effect real change.
Yemen: Six government troops, six tribesmen killed as clan attacks oil installation
At least six government troops and six tribesmen were killed in a clash Thursday that followed the tribesmen's attack on an oil installation in Yemen, a local official said.The clash took place in the Shabwa province, about 220 kilometers (136 miles) southeast of the Yemeni capital, San'a, when men from the Bani Harith clan attacked a Ukrainian-run oil field installation, the province's governor, Mohammad Ali Ruwashan, said.
Peak oil will imperil planet's future if we don't take action
Among the many things that keep me awake at night - homework, super-staph, war, AIDS, global warming, genocide and homophobia - the peak oil crisis has been on my mind a lot. Petroleum is a finite, non-renewable resource which fueled the fast-moving 20th century. As in most races, we seem to be zooming to the inevitable finish line. We're not actually certain how much oil remains in Saudi Arabia; this information is carefully shrouded. In this hemisphere, the desperate urge to fuel up has us drilling in increasingly obscure, dangerous and hard-to-reach places to meet the demands of the American consumer. It looks to me like the gas gauge reads empty, and we're just hoping to make it through the winter on fumes.
Weeden & Co. LP Senior Energy Analyst, Charles Maxwell, Receives ‘M. King Hubbert E3 Award’
Weeden & Co. LP is pleased to announce that Charles T. Maxwell, Sr. Energy Analyst, has been chosen as the recipient of the M. King Hubbert E3 Award: Excellence in Energy Education at the 2007 ASPO World Oil Conference.
Why the dollar will keep falling
The IEA reckons that oil could hit $159 a barrel by 2030, with demand of 120m barrels a day far outstripping supply of 116m barrels a day. And this is assuming we can get supply that high – it’s currently just 85m barrels a day, and if you believe in the Peak Oil theory, then it’s not going to go much higher than that.
Are we running out of oil? The simple answer is yes'. As a controversial new film about our fuel crisis predicts imminent global meltdown, Ruth Campbell discovers what will happen when the last drop of black gold is spent.
The Farm's latest ambitious building project involves a new neighborhood that will be completely off the grid. The small houses will be built very close together to utilize energy as effectively as possible. New constructions have been hard to finance, since The Farm cannot get credit from the bank for construction.This new growth indicates hope for the future of a community that might otherwise seem to be dwindling. However, although their future looks positive, some members of the community are preparing for global disaster. A few have formed a Peak Oil Crisis Strategy Committee that meets twice weekly to prepare for what they believe will be the collapse of the global economy within the next 10 years.
Analysts: Profiteers, speculators behind gas price spike
Analyst Judy Dugan said it's not difficult to imagine $4 a gallon by early next year."Oil companies are reaping profits of up to $75 a barrel on $95-a-barrel oil, and now they're taking the leash off of gasoline prices as well," said Dugan, research director of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and its OilWatchdog project.
We are married to oil and the breakup will be ugly
The end of the Petroleum Age will lead to hardships, civil unrest at home and abroad and war. Limiting consumption of petroleum is the only way forward.More and more scientists and analysts are concluding that Peak Oil has occurred or will occur in the near future.
Reducing energy consumption today will help future generations
After attending the Nobel Conference, “Heating Up: The Energy Debate,” at Gustavus Adolphus College Oct. 2 and 3, I started thinking about what legacy our generation is going to leave our children and grandchildren. If the experts at the conference are correct, climate change has started and we need to make changes now to prevent global warming.
Global-warming gases set to rise by 57 percent by 2030
Emissions of greenhouse gases will rise by 57 percent by 2030 compared to current levels, which will increase the Earth's surface temperature by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.In its annual report on global energy needs, the Paris-based agency projected greenhouse-gas pollution would rise by 1.8 percent annually by 2030 on the basis of projected energy use and current efforts to mitigate emissions.
The IEA saw little chance of reducing this pollution to a stable, safer level any time soon.
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Come on folks, let’s face reality. $100 per barrel of oil is still ridiculously cheap. That’s only $2.38 per gallon. Pricing oil by the barrel makes is sound a lot more expensive than it really is. When the price of oil reaches $4 or $5 per gallons, then we can talk about oil starting to become expensive.
Yup. Price that in labor, work, effort.
Go ahead. Compare that gallon of gas in a tiller VS you, by hand, mixing dirt in your garden.
100% true.
yet the average USer is tapped out financially, so we will see where they cut back, and who suffers the economic shortfall. Self reinforcing downward spiral.
I still say that it's impossible to make $2.40
gas from $100 oil.
Cushing agrees.
Where's the incentive?
The US Gov't is susidizing this somehow.
And since the Commodus modeling POTUS is so keen on privatization i propose that we hire Mexico to do our next katrina:
800 000 evac'ed, less than a score have (regretfully)
perished, but nothing about the oil/gas industry, 70% of
Mexico's Hydrocarbons, has been
hurt.
And judging by the news, or lack thereof, everyone
is content.
What's not to like?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5279726.html
"George Baker, a Houston-based analyst and an expert on Mexico's oil industry, said that delays in moving supplies and people to and from onshore rigs could affect production. He added that Pemex will also have to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Villahermosa.
"Does it cause a problem for Pemex that some of their employees are standing on their rooftops? It probably does," he said."
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
How a 10.3% rise in the cost of imported goods caused a 1.3% drop in US inflation...or, lets just make it up as we go skipping merrily along...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IK09Dj02.html
...snip...'"Inflation was low because oil prices surged," which he says can be explained by noting that "In GDP math, sometimes one plus one equals zero."
...snip...'At first, I thought that he was insulting me by expecting me to believe such stupidity - that price inflation would fall because oil went up in price, but he holds up the actual news article from MarketWatch.com, which confirms that "As odd as it sounds, the government reported that inflation was at a four-decade low in the third quarter, primarily because import oil prices rose so much."
'but that it is all so easily explainable by Shelley Smith, who's in charge of figuring the price index for the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis, who said sometimes the mechanical formula produces some "quirky, nonintuititive relationships".
"Most of the time," it is explained, "the government's formula doesn't produce any weird numbers, because the mathematical quirks all cancel each other out. But in the just concluded third quarter, it did produce quirky numbers that don't accurately reflect reality, even though they are correct from an accounting point of view."
And from that "accounting point of view", the way it works is that prices of imported goods rose at a 10.3% annual pace in the quarter, but that import prices are subtracted from GDP, and thus somehow subtracted 1.3 percentage points from inflation, even though the prices of imports went up!'...snip...
34 dollar a month bus pass, and I can walk 25 miles in a day if need be. 500 bucks and you can buy my wrecked van.
God Grant you peace.
God Grant you Love of your fellow man.
God Grant you Faith and Trust.
Write in Candidate for President 2008.
Free Right Now party. No donations.
Term limits for congress, Min wage for them too
Charles Edward Owens Jr.
You running for President or Pope?
When the Little Rock bus system (CAT- Central Arkansas Transit) runs ANYWHERE near my house, hell will have frozen over. Not to mention the fact that it's chronically late, and so you miss your connecting bus... Nah, I'll ride a bike, a scooter, a motorcycle, a car, whatever, but to hell with Little Rock's bus system.
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
"...then we can talk about oil starting to become expensive."
No, it think it's ok to talk about it now.
It's my birthday today, and I'm:
a)renewing my driver's license (and of course, DRIVING to DMV to do so..OK, I 'could' bike there.. will let you know.)
b)building the brackets and block and tackle rig to get my first Concentrating Solar-Hot-Air panel up to the roof by Saturday.
c)getting a massage (which, to stay on topic, uses oil, but nothing crude)
Bob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--[Judith runs in, panicked.]
JUDITH
They've arrested Brian!!
PFJ
What?
JUDITH
They've dragged him off. They're going to crucify him.
REG
Right. This calls for immediate discussion!
JUDITH
What?!?
REGULAR
Immediate.
DIET
Right.
LORETTA
New motion?
REG
Completely new motion. Eh, That, ah. That there be, ah, immediate action...
FRANCIS
... ah, once the vote has been taken.
REG
Well, obviously once the vote has been taken, you can't act on a resolution
'till you've voted on it!
JUDITH
Reg, for God's sake, let's go now, please!
REG
Yeah, yeah. Right, right. In the, in the light of fresh information from,
ah, sibling Judith.
LORETTA
[taking notes] Ah, not so fast, Reg.
JUDITH
Reg, for God's sake. It's perfectly simple. All you've got to do is to go
out of that door now, and try to stop the Romans nailing him up. It's
happening, Reg! Something's actually HAPPENING, Reg! Can't you understand?
Yaaargh! [She rushes out in a rage.]
FRANCIS
Oh. Oh dear.
REG
Hello... and a little ego-trip for the feminists.
Yes, this is so very true, and I always think of it when I'm using fuel for hand labor saving devices (the chainsaw always brings it home). Somehow it is harder to notice when the amounts being used are much higher, such as while driving. I think it's because when you are hurtling down the highway at 70mph, the amount of energy you are using is so large relative to what could be done with hand labor, that it simply cannot be related.
BUT! The problem is that we've built a society that just must have these massive amounts of energy for transportation (to jobs, etc.) and food production. And if you convert the energy we use daily (and unconsciously) to human labor, then each of us is a king of unimaginable wealth with a massive army of slaves to do our bidding.
Look out the window, and they're there under your car pushing you down the highway. They're in the basement heating your water, and some more are out in the yard pumping the water. A few more are behind the TV cranking on that generator. I really feel bad for the ones turning the generator to run all those lights that were left on all night.
What if they all ran away?
And someday, what would my children give to have even a tiny amount of the energy I've just wasted in my lifetime?
Yeah, if the ave American family can't drive 40000 miles a year it will be the end of civilization. There is no pleasure that compare to the pleasure of driving my SUV at 70 mph. Pity our descendants who will not know such unbelieveable ecstacy. All the hours sitting in traffic jams is pretty cool too. Thank God for the invisible energy slaves.
Your point is well taken Brian, but to most here this is still how daily life is. Maybe it is an indication that there is still easy conservation fruit to be picked, I don't know. But still, to get to work most will still need to get into a car. They can go slower, and they can share the ride - but they won't until they absolutely have to. And how would it be enough?
You can't stop the public from throwing their money away on gasoline. It is their money to spend as they see fit. The guv is obviously clueless or ambivalent on this one so the chips will fall where they may. Hopefully you and I will be OK.
With luck! I get the feeling the previews are almost over and the feature film is about to start.
Yep, the Loony Toons cartoon that has been our oil-guzzling history up to now is ending, with Porky Pig saying:
"Th..th..th..That's all, Folks!"
"If the ave American family can't drive 40000 miles a year it will be the end of civilization."
I'm reading this article in the San Jose Mercury News about the prospect of $4 gas. Some of the comments are interesting:
Regarding the discussion of how much the per-barrel cost of crude translates into the price at the pump:
I know there was sarcanol there, but riding a motorcycle is SO much better than riding in an SUV. Well, unless it's raining, or snowing...
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
Hi Twilight,
Your image is beautiful for its truth; I hope you can use it in some way so that others see it, as well.
re: "...what would my children give to have even a tiny amount of the energy I've just wasted in my lifetime?"
The world as you know it is no more. face the facts get the programs going now or else.
God Grant you peace.
God Grant you Love of your fellow man.
God Grant you Faith and Trust.
Write in Candidate for President 2008.
Free Right Now party. No donations.
Term limits for congress, Min wage for them too
Charles Edward Owens Jr.
could you please shorten your sig?
The NYT ran this article on Nov 6 on who produces oil in the world (I apologize if it has been discussed here and I missed it).
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/06/business/20071107_WINNERSL...
It claims the U.S. produced 8.4 mbpd of oil in 2006. The EIA only shows crude production of 5.4 mbpd for 2006. Where did the additional 3 mbpd come from? Can lease condensate and NGLs account for that much?
I noticed that too...I assume it means total liquids, since that plus the 11-12mbpd of imports would add up to the ~20-21mbpd of US consumption...hopefully someone who has any idea what they're talking about could enlighten me.
Refinery gain is a big chunk of the delta.
Of course it is hard to have most of our domestic refinery gain without imported oil.
Alan
But would refinery gain if from U.S.-produced oil already be counted in U.S. production figures? Would refinery gain made here in the U.S. from imported oil be considered import or domestic? And is refinery gain considered to be oil or refined product (i.e. does a 42 gallon barrel of oil actually produce more than 42 gallons of product and is that additional product what is defined as 'refinery gain' or does it relate back to the original barrel (i.e. if you get 45 gallons of product from 42 gallons of oil, do you consider yourself to have had 45 gallons of oil and therefore for every 14 barrels used, you deem that you have actually had 15 barrels)?
The 8.4 million is on an "All Liquids" basis. Besides including refinery gain (mostly on imported oil), it also includes natural gas liquids and biofuels. The natural gas liquids are about 1.7 million barrels per day. Ethanol is approximately 0.4 million barrels per day range. Oil refinery gain is about 1.0 million barrels per day.
Putting these pieces together gets from 5.4 million barrels per day on a "crude+ condensate" basis to 8.4 million barrels per day on an "all liquids" basis.
The natural gas liquids and ethanol both have lower energy content than oil, but are included in the count on a volume basis. They add something smaller (65% to 70% ?) on a BTU basis.
Thanks, that helps explain a lot of the numbers discussed on this site.
Rick
If you(we) find out how the Dutch (Netherlands) production of 75.970 b/d ,can yield a daily US export of 174.000 b/d ..then I guess we can figure where the US number of 8.4 mbpd comes from .
My take is that the strange numbers come from a reshuffle resulted from a mix between imported and own-produced oil – filtered through refined products and so one.. Rotterdam is a huge oil and chemistry-hub-
First of all, lease condensate is included in the 5.4 mb/d figure. However that figure is a bit high. The actual US average, C+C for 2006 was 5.102 mb/d. The figure for “All Liquids is a little inflated also but not by as much. Average “All Liquids production for 2006 was 8.331 mb/d And yes, NGL, ethanol and refinery gain does make up the difference. The US produces a bit more ethanol and a lot more NGLs per barrel of oil produced than most other nations.
US C+C production can be found here.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t11c.xls
US All Liquids can be found here.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t14.xls
Ron Patterson
Hi Ron--
Thanks. The 5.1 figure seemed not to include state offshore production which was listed below the PADD listings (which specifically include federal off shore production) so I assumed the total U.S. production would actually be the sum of the two. Please let me know if the state offshore is already included in the U.S. figures or doesn't count in total U.S. production for some reason.
Rick
VT Farmer,
Yes,the US productions includes all onshore and offshore production regardless of whether it is state or federal. If you check the figures for September and October you will see the huge drop in production due to most of the Gulf of Mexico production being shutdown because of Katrina and Rita.
All crude oil plus condensate is included in these figures, regardless of where it comes from. If you check the figures for Canada, their C+C figures include the oil sands. If it's crude or condensate, it is counted under C+C.
There is no crude or condensate produced anywhere that is not included in these EIA figures.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/supply.html
Sometimes it is a little confusing as some areas are listed twice, but are never counted twice in the total. For instance all the North Sea producing nations are counted under "World" but not "North Sea". That would be counting twice. The same case applies with "OPEC".
Ron Patterson
regarding Georgia.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2826196.ece
From your article:
"The US has poured huge sums into supporting Mr Saakashvili. He has made considerable progress in stamping out state corruption and attracting foreign investment, but many Georgians complain that they have yet to see any tangible improvement in their daily lives."
So where's the money going now that "corruption"'s
been stamped out?
;}
Message to Georgia from the Kremlin:
"Energy or weapons. You choose."
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
What do you think of the bizzare gas masks in the photo?
Straight out of a nightmare, being attacked by Micky Mouse Clones.
And where has the money gone?
Probably Swiss Banks
Star Wars was the first thing I thought of.
Bizarre.
I expect our microwave trucks will be used in
places like Georgia first.
Watch out for the fillings in your teeth!
Ouch.
Swiss Banks and Offshore Pirate Coves.
;}
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
"What do you think of the bizzare gas masks in the photo?"
That the people running the department that orders Georgia's security equipment have played Half Life 2 waaaay too much.
How much of our deteriorating infrastructure could be repaired for the money spent on giving guns to Georgia.
How much alternative energy could be paid for for the cost of giving fighter jets to Pakistan.
Yeah, how many solar panels could be bought with the money spent on the Iraq war? I'll have to calculate that...
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
I posted this in another drumbeat recently:
------------------------
What could we do with 2.4 trillion dollars?
*We could manufacture 9.6 BILLION bicycles (assuming a cost of $250 per bicycle). That's more than a bicycle for every person on the face of the earth.
*We could manufacture 4.8 BILLION laptop computers (assuming a cost of $500 per laptop computer). That's more than a laptop for every literate person on the face of the Earth. Want to foster security for our country? Give every single person in the world a laptop computer (you could even use those models that have the hand-powered crank for charging in the wilderness). Those will be some appreciative individuals.
*We could install 640 gigawatts of clean, reliable solar thermal power generating capacity, which would amount to about 1/6th of the entire electricity consumption in the U.S. If all of this was used to replace coal powered plants, we could cut our use of coal by 40%. That would single-handedly decrease global CO2 emissions by 7%.
*We could put 30 comprehensive rapid transit rail systems in the 30 largest cities in the U.S. (those that don't already have such systems), and connect them all together with a speedy long-distance passenger rail network (assuming $80 billion per rail network including regional links).
*We could just give (back) $8000 to every American citizen, or $360 to every human on the face of the Earth (which is more than many people earn in an entire year).
These are all my own calculations. For more calculations, visit costofwar.com .
This Grand Dame knows what she's talkin' about.
Notice the Yen stengthened v the $ yesterday?
Bad news for the Carry Trade.
http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/money_matters/2007/11/elaine-meine...
"Namely, both Japan and the US used interest rates to manipulate relative value of currencies and since then, the world currency markets have been flipping out. It is all flying apart at he seams and now that the dollar is on fire and tearing through the sky downwards like some Kamikazi pilot, aimed for the Chinese aircraft carriers...we have a serious monetary war raging. The Japanese Kamikazi pilots told the Nikkei News that they plan to destroy China the same way the US destroyed Japan: create a huge bubble by flooding China with investment funds and liquidity and put the Chinese into Japanese-level debts. But the Chinese have figured this out since some of the leaders probably read my news service [yes, they know who I am} and because the Japanese boasted about this and the Chinese read the Nikkei News just as carefully as I."
And this guy likes Greenspan (other than that, he's solid-;}):
http://suddendebt.blogspot.com/
"Real money investors (e.g. pension funds) who bought into this AAA sub-prime trap are now in a bind. They thought they were buying gold-plated bonds but are now stuck with securities whose value is melting away with no bid underneath.
P.S. The ABX/CMBX situation is now quite well understood - if not by the populace at large, at least by the more informed. But the CDX, iTraxx and LCDX indeces tracking corporate bonds and high-yield loans are not yet discussed as much. I believe the market is still underestimating the extent of the trouble in the corporate sector."
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
I think one of these links is dangerous
I got something trying to install on my computer
[Edit] maybe not I tryed it again and nothing happened.
Sorry
Ed
Off Grid, Off Mainland, current profession:Beach Bum
Do the Chinese have aircraft carriers now?
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
No. But who needs 'em when you've got:
China's ramjet-powered C-301 anti-ship cruise missile: Mach 2; 80-110-mile range -- depending on variant -- 1,130-pound warhead; inertial navigation with active radar terminal guidance; operational since about 1995.
China's Russian-built Sovremenny-class destroyers carry sea-skimming Mach 2.5 carrier-busting SS-N-22 Sunburn anti-ship ramjet cruise missiles. Range: 100 miles with 660-pound conventional or 200-kiloton nuclear warheads.
Russia? SS-N-12 Sandbox, conventional or nuclear, 300-plus mile range, Mach 2.5; SS-N-19 Shipwreck, conventional or nuclear, 300-plus mile range, Mach 2.5, deployed for decades on Russian carriers, cruisers and Oscar-class nuclear submarines.
Operational since 1984 and offered for sale to countries in addition to China, Russia's SS-N-22 Sunburn equips Sovremenny destroyers and various patrol boats. Guidance: initially inertial, with mid-course updates via aircraft or satellite; during terminal phase it employs a multi-channel seeker and 15G evasive 'S' maneuvers. Combat Fleets of the World describes it as a "very sophisticated weapon against which other navies have yet to develop an effective countermeasure," including the United States."
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Cruise_Missile_Sector_Facing_Supersonic_...
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
Good on -- it will be a merry blaze
Ice Age Coming
Frost is my favorite! I like what he said when questioned about the 'new poetry'...'Writing poetry that doesnt rhyme is like playing tennis without a net.'
China's military, including their navy, is modernizing. However, they don't have the blue water fleet that would provide a realistic threat to invade Taiwan. It will be interesting to see if they work on that in the years ahead.
Like the battleships of the past, the aircraft carrier has great symbolic value until its comeuppance in an actual battle. There were heralds of Pearl Harbor, and there were heralds in the Falklands War and the USS Stark incident of a coming age of missile dominance.
But we don't know quite how the missiles will be packaged. Even a torpedo is a kind of guided missile, after all. Maybe we should think of a submarine as a sort of robot aircraft carrier: cruise missiles, drones, even the ability to launch its own communications satellites into orbit (rumored capability). I've seen a strong argument that submarines are most deadly as minelayers.
However, all this could be wrong, and the new intelligent weapons coming will also relentlessly hunt down the subs. There's torpedoes now with underwater rocket engines, and torpedoes that fire off missiles, and missiles that fire off torpedoes. Why shouldn't robots also lay mines, or mines move around on little crab legs occasionally, or mines fire off missiles?
Note that all these systems could be made to use far less oil than current surface navies. Which torpedoes the imperialist argument that seizing overseas oil, coal and refueling facilities is necessary for a strong navy.
With so few sailors and civilian bystanders around, the oceans might be the ideal way for a robot proxy war to occur between the Anglo-American empire and its challengers. That is not good news.
Mines are vastly underestimated and most do not understand how sophisticated todays mines are. Modern mines have capabilities that can render a 'blue water' navy into scrap metal.
To become "scrap metal", one must be able to salvage the wreck for scrap.
Difficult indeed for the smaller ships of the US Navy with the unexploded munitions lying about. But a nuke powered cruiser or carrier ?
Even in easy to access shallow water, I doubt many would be interested.
Best Hopes for Peaceful Decommissioning,
Alan
I doubt many would be interested.
http://eaglespeak.blogspot.com/2007/07/sunday-ship-history-glomar-explor...
For you who can understand German,
German automobile CEOs about the reason of high oil prices...
Spiegel Online Video
In short a summary: At a german automobile festival a reporter asks famous (german) people and some car industry CEOs (Daimler and Porsche) why the oil price is currently so high.
Most of them answer they have no idea, Zetsche (Daimler) and Wiedeking (Porsche which is now on the way to own the majority of Volkswagen) say, the only reason is speculative money in the market!
I hope this is not their true opinion.
Every day I hope that Porsche will abandon its python-vs-cow plan to swallow bloated Volkswagen, and instead buy up Loremo and its half-ton mini-Porsche. If it were badged as a Porsche at $20,000 and 100 mpg for the 50 horsepower version (134 mph), it would give the firm a CAFE average beyond any current proposal, and the same for its Euro CO2 emissions. Why battle BMW's Mini and Mercedes' Smart with yet another box?
Yes, but the body language says "I know nothing". Sgt Schulz was a smart man, he knew what side of the bread was buttered.
Nice moderators though.
Well, when Porsche aren't blaming oil prices on speculators, they are helping Think Global (producer of EVs) improve the efficiency of their manufacturing.
Source only in Norwegian: http://www.rb.no/lokale_nyheter/article3019750.ece
Whether they do it out of the kindness of their hearts, or they want to eventually convert their own vehicles to electric, is beyond me. It seems the Think CEO, Jan-Olaf Willums, is really good at the networking stuff. Hopefully he will manage to produce some EVs soon (the first are scheduled for beginning of 2008).
Reguarding the story "Raymond J. Learsy: As Oil Approaches $100 is Saudi Arabia Waging Resource Aggression Against The American People And The World Economy?!"
I am surprised i figured oil would have to be about $150 or above before the 'lets blame the saudi's' mentality started.
Based on pronouncements from ExxonMobil, CERA and OPEC, et al there is actually a certain logic to Learsy's position. If the worst case is that we peak in a few decades, then it is plausible to assume that high oil prices are the result of a conspiracy to deny Americans the cheap energy that they are entitled to.
As reality intrudes, and debt burdened Americans increasingly realize that we do live in a finite world after all, their reaction is going to be all the more extreme, because of the prior Peak Oil pronouncements by ExxonMobil, et al.
"Hell hath no fury like a Formerly Well Off suburbanite."
The KSA isn't the threat:
"As I said in July, the flow of liquidity changed on 7/17/7 and today, 11/7/7, proves this. I enjoy harmonic magic numbers and money is very tied to this force so it pleases me to see the Chinese select this day to echo their threats from July."
"The housing CDOs were frosting on the Cheap Japanese Carry Loan cake. Of course, the big banking houses make their bonuses this way and this is why it is seeming to have such a huge effect. But we can see that all the housing loans written in Europe and America in the last decade are a small fraction of the new $300 trillion [????] created out of thin air. Actually, no one human, not even the Chinese dragon, knows how much was created. There is no way of figuring this out. Too much is occulted and buried deep on a host of small islands scattered about the planet in the footsteps of the British Empire."
-Elaine Supkis
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
One of these days the sheep that like to play wolf will realize that out of sheer greed they killed the sheepdog.
From the $100 oil is BS article up top:
Note that this primal scream response to $100 oil is from a guy who appears to be dependent on auto related advertising. People in the auto/housing/finance sector tend not to react well to suggestions that we live in a finite world. To be fair, the guy did go on to push for more windpower.
In any case, I have previously speculated that as Bush tiptoes out of the oil closet, and increasingly admits that the US is in Iraq because of oil, his approval ratings may actually go up (it's hard for them to do down from here).
Wow. I've often used the sarcastic comment of "it's our oil, it's just under their land", but now here it is, no sarcasm at all. It's not that I'm surprised to see it this, on the contrary it is expected - it's just that it's so damned ugly now that it's here. Gonna be a whole lot uglier for those who get to meet it in person.
I do agree with your concern - I think at some point they can come out of the PO closet and say what they're really doing, and it will be supported.
These threats of the return of the Anglo-American Empire to the Arabian Peninsula to take back what's "ours" will resonate from the websites of al-Qaeda. If those boys could analyze theories of property as cleverly as they quote the Koran, they would note the similarity to the Israeli non-mythical argument against the Palestinians: only us Europeanized whites can give resources value, so it doesn't belong to the people who live on top of it. Of course, John Locke, the "father of liberalism", made exactly the same argument to justify the theft of land from Native Americans over 300 years ago.
I am not surprised that it was going to happen. i am just surprised that in my view how early it is happening. Then again i was not expecting it to get so close to $100 around my birthday too.
Heh...I just posted a comment yesterday about scapegoating oil producers as supply starts to get squeezed, and today we have Learsy's screed. I wonder if OPEC foresaw anything like this when they were lying about reserves back in the 80s (and continuously since then)?
From KSA's position - what ya gonna do when its found out that they have lied?
What has happened to other liars who are States/Large Businesses - what is their risk?
I'd say there is little downside for them.
Eric, the Saudi's don't think of themselves as lying. This is just how they talk. They exaggerate and don't really expect people to take them literally.
Here is the New York Times article Learsy referrs to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/05oil1.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slog...
Check the sidebar on Saudi Reserves titled "Scratching the Surface. Articles like this keep telling everyone that the world has almost unlimited reserves and there is nothing to worry about.
The pressure will soon be on Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations, to either produce or admit their true production capacity. I find it astonishing that the cat is not out of the bag already. With oil prices pushing 100 dollars a barrel everyone should know that OPEC nations are now pumping flat out. Yet a lot of people still believe that OPEC has from two to four million barrels per day of spare capacity.
Incidently, the latest estimates of OPEC October production is that OPEC 10 production was up abour 180,000 bp/d from September.
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL0250869320071102
September OPEC 10 production was not up at all from August.
Ron Patterson
And don't forget this revealing sentiment as well:
Saudi oil executive Sadad Al-Husseini, June 2007: "There has been a paradigm shift in the energy world whereby oil producers are no longer inclined to rapidly exhaust their resource for the sake of accelerating the misuse of a precious and finite commodity. This sentiment prevails inside and outside of OPEC countries, but has yet to be appreciated among the major energy-consuming countries of the world." ..
Bingo!
Using the Japan Land Prices graph
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/ww2010/g070219b.gif
"New Paradigm" gets mentioned just at the peak.
There are a lot of parallels between oil production and land prices. (OK, there are lots of differences too, but the overall pattern is similar)
AKH
In his example of Canada cutting off water flows to the Great lakes, he of course doesn't mention that is exactly what we've done to Mexico regarding the Colorado. So, using his rationale, Mexico has the right to invade an punish the USA for its agressive "Resource Nationalism."
So, using his rationale, Mexico has the right to invade an punish the USA for its agressive "Resource Nationalism."
I believe said invasion from Mexico has been largely successful!
LOL !!
It also doesn't sound like he realizes that the Mississippi starts in Minnesota and not in Canada.
Let your views be known: www.cafepress.com/crashdummy
'Waging Resource Aggression Against The American People And The World Economy?!'
Cheney will solve this problem quickly, like Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan, Turkey, et al, ...He will add Saudia Arabia to the list of 'Axis Of Evil' nations and hurl hollow threats at them every day for the remainder of his term. That'll fix 'em!
Wow! Learsy's article is just scary; is this what the American people are going to believe? It is so full of misrepresentations and misinterpretations, it brings to mind Goebbel's theory that if you tell a big enough lie, people will believe it. But articles of this type are not a good sign.
That whole 'your resources are our resources' sort of attitude coming from the States scares the bejeesus out of me (I'm a northerner) and smacks of the sort of PNAC rhetoric that I would not expect to find on the Huffington Post...although, it is home to a lot of uninformed nonsense.
Learsy is a long-time peak oil denier, and he's not going to let $100 oil change his mind.
The terms "peak oil" and "peak oil denier" have taken on religious overtones that in my mind anyway, have become counterproductive to a rational discussion of what is going on in the world.
I propose they be abandoned in favor of something less apocalyptic.
Learsy sounds like a fool -- he doesn't produce anything but opinion to bolster his claim of oil reserves of a trillion barrels in Saudi Arabia
Tough noogies. I calls 'em as I sees 'em, and Learsy is a peak oil denier. As in, yes, having a nearly religious resistance to the idea that oil might actually be in tight supply. When he's not blaming Big Oil, he's blaming the Arabs.
Unfortunately if his readers are as foolish as Learsy they will now have the idea that we Canadians can actually cut off the flow of the rivers. Not without annexing a lot of your territory first! I can see new militias springing up to guard the border, perhaps stopping a hoard of Canadian beaver from going south to build the dams. Maybe the good thing is this would stop our cross border shopping spree.
I wish we could afford the life we are living.
I know someone who is in the canadian national guard, and who has trained both his own people and come down here to work with the americans. from his own words the canadian guard is much better trained and a better force then the american one. in other words we spent too much on high tech flying weaponary and too little on good boots on the ground people to be a decent fighting force.
“Peak Oil” is part of the lexicon just like “Global Warming”. I find it very useful and descriptive. It is far better and more accurate than other terms that may replace it like “running out of oil.” And “Peak Oil Denier” is a very useful and descriptive term, just as is “Global Warming Denier.” I propose that we keep these terms.
But of course my proposals are worth exactly as much as your proposals NeverLNG, they have about the same value as a bucket of warm spit. The world will continue to use terms and continue to behave as it is currently behaving until actual events force the people of the world to behave differently.
Words are very useful as they help inform us as to what is actually happening in the world. But only actual events ever change anything. Of course sometimes words (speeches, admissions, etc.) are events. I expect such an event within the next three months that will shock the Learsy’s and all other Peak Oil Deniers of the world out of their slumber and plunge them directly into the world of reality.
Ron Patterson
Well, I agree. "Global Warming" is another of those memes that have become useful as weapons in the war of words.
And since human beings are such language dependent creatures, we are all at the mercy of those who get to define them and create the frame in which they are used.
"...only actual events change anything." True enough, if we agree on what the "event" is. "Global Warming" and "Peak Oil" seem to be actual events -- but what do they mean, who is responsible for them, and who will ultimately profit from the "event?"
Casting them in quasi-religious terms helps one group that hopes to profit; casting them in "rationalist" terms helps a different group to profit. And if the terms have been co-opted by the anti-rationalists, we shouldn't use them, because they become weapons against us.
Just my opinion, of course. Everyone has one.
And if the terms have been co-opted by the anti-rationalists, we shouldn't use them, because they become weapons against us.
The problem with this approach is, it's inherently reactive, and the anti-rationalists will be quick to spot and attack the replacement term.
Witness the extreme right co-opting the term "Liberal" over the past 30 years and turning it into a four-letter word, synonymous with extreme Left-wing ideology and/or communism. Now social liberals (including many Libertarians, moderate Republicans, fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, many third-party & independent voters, etc.) instinctively recoil from the word. As a reaction, some have adopted the term "progressive", and of course, the extreme-right demagogues are already on top of that one too, "exposing" it as Liberal word shenanigans.
Instead of reactively caving into "peak oil" deniers, why not just co-opt it right back, and wear the term proudly as a badge of membership in the "reality-based community"?
I must admit that since I seldom want people to think they know what I'm going to say, I never use the common phrase. I also confess to liking Kunstler's description, and except in impressionable company use the phrase "the coming clusterf**k". A lot of people THINK they know what I'm talking about, so it's easy to throw peak oil and export land, etc, into the mix.
Try it, you'll see. Just mention "the coming CF" and then be coy, they'll wheedle it out of you little by little and believe it all the more for having to pry it out of you...
ymmv
The Ultimate Reserves could be 100 trillion billion billionty11111one barrels.
See I can do it too!
Too bad all our base belong to them...
And China
*cringes at bad internet fad refrence*
Thats one thing i won't miss post peak.
You probably don't need to worry about seeing that one anymore. I've noticed TOD is where internet fads/memes come to die. I remember seeing the "not so much" fad for about 6 months all over the internets (that one will die now too) and then Leanan used it a couple of times and I never saw it again ( I'm sure you understand this isn't an insult Leanan. (: ).
Well then let me offer this, in hopes it too will die.
I was not trying to speak of a fad. I was being serious.
How are you gentlemen!!
All your base are belong to us.
You are on the way to destruction.
You have no chance to survive make your time.
Very telling of peak oil in itself. The fact that people are past the phase of how are you gentlemen right now. We are on the phase of All your base are belong to us "China, Middle East". We will soon be on our way to destruction if we continue this path. If we do not heed that warning we will have no chance IE: Dieoff
I do not see how its taken out of context. I thought it was a injection of humor into a horrible thing that seems to want to spew itself on this world due to greed. However I am not one to set idle. I am doing sustainable agriculture through aquaponics. I will be learning how to rear bees soon. I will be getting fruit trees and most likely chickens. I live in a desert yes. I do think I can survive without too many hardships.
Next time please dont be so mean to me for spewing garbage at garbage.
Are you trying to pad your resume so you can get hired at the USGS?
LOL!!! now that is comedic gold there !
Israel is demanding the head IAEA should be fired for helping iran hide their nuclear eapons program by lieing about not finding imidiate threat.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7085213.stm
Your link tells me I don't need to follow it. If it is about the Middle East and from the BBC, it isn't true. Now I'm going to have 10 crazies tell me the BBC is an objective paper and Bezerkley does top quality science.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
You should, it might be the start of a effort to discredit the orginization since it has not played along to the liking of U.S. and Isriali interests.
The BBC "lost" it's 911 Archive footage.
How good can it be?
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
Would that be the piece were they reported the destruction of Building 7, 20 minutes before it happened and is clearly visible in the background during the live report. Outstanding journalism :)
911 and the BBC:
The Mask is ripped off for all to see.
"Press releases and scripts are irrelevant. If nobody fed BBC World the news about a collapsed WTC7, where did the news come from before the event happened? Who came up with the idea of announcing a building that was still standing had collapsed? Jane Standley? A BBC World source? Another news wire? Where was the notion born prior to the event happening? Is the ridiculousness of a BBC World reporter describing an event that hadn't happened somehow lost on Mr Porter? Was it a guess? A premonition? A bit of avant-garde reporting from 23 minutes into the future, going three minutes better than the favoured technique of Network 23's Edison Carter? Was it a first hand account? From a blind man, maybe?
Simply: What was the source for the BBC World News report that WTC7 had collapsed?"
http://www.theoildrum.com/comment/reply/3218/261073
When someone profits from a mistake, you can expect that mistake to happen again.
Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens
BBC - British BROADCASTING Company - it's TV and Radio, not a "paper" of any description.
Dispite the name, the bbc is a news media service, just because it has broadcasting in the name doesn't mean it can't have a online newspaper.
Except that it doesn't have an online newspaper. Almost by definition, an online newspaper implies a paper one also exists. A news media service is, well, a news media service.
AKH
the BBC are liars and the world masters of manipulation and spin. Very cleverly done.
You may be right. As a Brit, I usually look at the BBC first. I find them incompetent - but it could be manipulation too.
Interesting that all the replies to this so far are attacking or supporting the messenger. No discussion of the message yet, while it's a salient issue. It seems sometimes like the Knesset sees how the US Congress operates, blinded by fear, defensive to a fault, resorting to namecalling and scapegoating.. and is trying the same tactic.
Anybody know how the Debka site is regarded?
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4754
" DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that American nuclear and intelligence experts agree on the timetable after poring over the new intelligence input. This includes materials gathered in the Israel attack of Syria’s nuclear installation on Sept. 6. They have reached three key conclusions:
"1. That Iran is engaged in the secret production of plutonium for nuclear weapons as well as radioactive materials for a dirty bomb, in parallel to its uranium enrichment projects. Israeli intelligence has believed this for three years, but until the operation in Syria there was no concrete evidence. This discovery is at the center of the current US-Israeli controversy with the International Atomic Energy Agency- IAEA, Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei.
"If he accepts the evidence, it will be an admission that his vast inspection apparatus in Vienna, whose job it is to watch out for nuclear misdemeanors across the world, missed out twice – in Iran and then in Syria. Dr. ElBaradei might then face the suspicion that his work is governed by political rather than professional motivations.
"Up until now, the nuclear watchdog’s chief has not sent inspectors to examine Israel’s findings at the two Syrian sites targeted. He evidently fears they will come back with evidence of plutonium-related nuclear activity..."
Bob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you knew all that I knew, Poor Jerusalem.
You seek the truth, yet you close your eyes, yet you close your eyes.
"While you sleep your troubles are many, Poor Jerusalem;
To conquor death you only have to die.. you only have to die."
Weber/Rice
(And no, this doesn't mean that I want Jerusalem to die.. just to think differently about life, death, fear)
It is a good day to die!
Debka even among the "woo woo's" as you would call them is not regarded as a "factual" site. Propaganda arm is how its regarded. Woo Woo's have standards too ;)
THOUGH on August 10-11 the city of NY put out a full alert for possible dirty bombs in vehicles. They put up road blocks at tunnels and started checking trucks, etc. Homeland Security said that NY city was doing it on their own.
Ny City quoted a Debka article as a reason for the alert. When the conspiracy boards read that,.. a HUGE laugh went up by all (so to speak) in their posts. lots of WTF, DEBKA!!!!!!. They did though follow it to see what was, or might happen.
I view the constant insistance that iran has or is making nukes exactly the same as the claims before the iraq war that iraq has wmd's and are making wmd's.
the other posibility on the Syrian issue is that it was so obviously not a nuclear site that he doesn't want o spend resources chasing phantoms and giving legitamacy to wild claims. For example i have read that the plant that isrial bombed was a potassium processing one for making fertilizer and potassium is naturally slightly radioactive.
This is the most telling bit regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions. They may or may not have acquired the warheads that go with their fancy long range cruise missiles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4361505.stm
I agree with you that the current Bush administration's posturing is just crap - the only reason Iran cares at all is that we've invaded countries on either side of them and our incompetent jackass of a president constantly menaces them.
Well from what i understand it's a romur that they may have aquired those launcher and also may have russian sun-burn missles. Untill actual evidence of such comes to light then i reguard it as mainly a 'if' used to scare people into thinking they do.
Though i also do not blame them if they are doing what others are claiming they are doing.
It seems to me it would be irresponsible for any Iranian leader not to try to get nuclear weapons. Consider their situation:
1. Iraq on their western border is in turmoil and has attacked them in the past. It has now been invaded by a super power with nuclear weapons.
2. Afganistan on their eastern border is in turmoil and also has been invaded by the same super power.
3. Next over east is Pakistan which has nuclear weapons and is in turmoil.
4. To the north is Russia who has nuclear weapons and had invaded neighboring Afganistan in the past.
5. To the west is Israel with nuclear weapons and a friend of the invader of Iraq.
6. To the south is the American fleet with nuclear weapons and whose president is constantly putting on sanctions and making threats against Iran.
7. Iran sits on a large reserve of oil even though it is past peak. The world is past peak oil and and the U.S. has demonstrated that it is unwilling to take any steps to reduce oil consumption. The only conclusion an objective observer could make is that it intends to take the oil it needs from whoever has it.
Any Iranian leader who did not try to get nuclear weapons to protect itself in this situation would be derelict in performing his duties. What would an American President do in a similar situation?
The Project for a New American Century declared the goal of the neocon movement to be the conquest of Iran as surely as Mein Kampf and other Nazi writings declared the goal of the Nazi movement to be the conquest of Russia. The Hitler-Stalin pact could not stop Hitler from lusting for Russia because he'd built his entire movement around the promise of limitless resources for his followers.
The difference is, the amount of land in Russia does not change, but the amount of oil in Iran is declining. So I guess Iran can deter us until it no longer has enough oil to accomplish the dreams of the neocons.
The point you make about a nuclear defence is pertinent.
I am at a loss though to understand the reasoning for Iran having anything to do with a nuclear arsenal.
Could it be an attempt at procuring their own nuclear deterrent? If so who do they think they are deterring? If a major nuclear power decided to attach with nukes, what would be expected to be left to deter with. The USA has B2 Stealth bombers which can be launched from within the USA, the bombs would be exploding before Iran knew who launched them.
The same could be said if a conventional attack was launched against them and they retaliated with nukes. One Trident submarine would cripple them.
If they expect them to be a first strike weapon, then they are truly in dreamland. They would be back in the stone age not long after their attack.
They may think they chest thumping material but really all they could bring them is grief.
Similar to WW1 and 2 when alliances start getting signed or declared, that is the time to worry.
First, the US would have to destroy all launch capabilities completely without paying the cost in a major US city. Unless it can assure that (not bloodly likely) deterance has worked.
Second, its not just the US the Iranians have to play against.
Here's a link to the Port Arthur Valero refinery explosion this morning. Not much in it, but it can't be considered good news.
http://www.kfdm.com/news/fire_23338___article.html/explosion_police.html
Local Update (Kansas City Metro - Missouri side):
Unleaded Regular Gasoline - Up another $0.12 today to $2.99
That's about $0.30 increase in the last two weeks.
Guess we are catching up to the national average.
California has gas at up to $5 a gallon.
My stomach is starting to hurt.
http://www.theksbwchannel.com/news/14536489/detail.html
Some Drudge Report Headlines:
$5 GAS IN CA
Oil Prices Climb Toward $100...
New 'disaster' movie warns world of oil apocalypse...
Gross exaggeration. The station used as reference is a special case. There are a few stations, some other examples are along I40 between NM and CA, where because of the very remote locations gas is always at least $1 more then anywhere else. Some of the stations in national or state parks also fall into this category due to the very high concession fees.
Always has been.
Average probably isn't even $4 yet.
Just mentioning it for people not familiar with the specific locations, not that I argue that it will go there not too far down the road.
I happened to gas up at that station last June on a drive up the California coast on Highway 1. The price at the pump then was extremely high as well. It is very remote and not near any town of any size. Beautiful Pacific Ocean view, however.
Average price for unleaded regular in LA area is about $3.25 to $3.30 and rising daily.
Are there any regulatory limits on the pace of its rise? I'm curious how steep this can get, and what other problems could arise if it hit an artificial limit...
Ya...I saw that and my jaw dropped. The reason I am reporting what I see on the streets instead of consulting Gas Buddy is that I would like to hear more "on the streets" reporting from the folks here at TOD.
We have representatives from all over the world here in our community. We read all this scary stuff on the web, but it does not truly "hit the gut" until you see it in your every day lives.
I would like to hear more personal stories like the guy that works in the truck stop in the Midwest.
I would also like to see something arranged to keep TOD communications flowing if this website goes down for whatever reason. SacredCow got my wheels spinning here with the proposed Conference Call. Let's face it here folks. TOD is not popular with some people. What could we do to keep up the amazing info-flow and exchange of ideas if the website was inaccessible? It is time to make such plans!!
Okay, here's an on the streets report on retail, the beginning of the holiday shopping season, just south of the Canadian border. The department store where I work has been pretty quiet in spite of the facts that all the Christmas pretties are on display and the local newspaper has run two or three headlines about Canadian shoppers coming to the rescue. A guy on the bus commented that the Canadians would have to be idiots to come down and shop because, wtih the price of gas, it wouldn't be worth it. Last month in an all-store meeting our director said that Wall Street has stopped looking at dollars, they're looking instead at customer satisfaction surveys as indicators of future growth.
Yesterday I got a call from a woman who was raising funds to send local needy children on $100 shopping sprees for the holidays.
With that $100 they could buy themselves lottas Aqua Dots. Then the holidays wouldn't seem so bad.
I have a small shop in Oregon.
Two years ago, sales were 80% cash
Last year about 50/50
Now, 75% credit card, some days 85%
Are you serious? People are buying soup with credit cards?
How much is credit card and how much is debit card?
A large portion of debit card purchases are made through the VISA network. The last time I looked into this, they still wern't breaking this debit card usage out of the credit card statistics.
Garth
Average sale is $8.00, soup, salad, bread, drink.
about 10 to 15% of card use processes thru my pos as debit.
Many students have CCs instead of debit.
Some CCs are actually Check card so similar to debit.
but still.....
How much do transaction fees eat your profit?
Leanan have you been in a supermarket lately? People using cash to buy groceries is rarer now than people using the CC. I think some of those CC purchases are actually debit cards, but there are a TON of people using credit to buy soup.
Let's see ...... let's put it at 2/3 of the people using some kind of card. Let's say half of those are using a debit card or a food stamp card like I am these days. That leaves 1/3 of the purchasers are using their credit card. That's my very conservative estimate.
Heck, I use my credit card at the grocery store. It's just more convenient than cash. (And a good thing, too. I'm currently cashless for the month. My bank screwed up, and sent out new ATM cards a month after the old ones expired. I could go to the bank and get them to cash a check, but there's really no need. Everyone takes plastic these days.)
But I still find it odd when people charge small amounts, like one fast food meal. I've heard that it's becoming more common, and some merchants are very distressed about it. Gas station owners complain that they'd be better off if a customer shoplifted a pack of gum than if they charged it, due to the transaction fees.
Heck, I even use my credit card for purchases less that $1!!! It's all in the "points" (frequent flyer miles, or my favorite, Cabelas Points - to purchase post-PO gear ;-))
Using a CC also has the added benefit of being able to TRACK where all your money was spent - if you download it into Quicken or Money.
Of course, the trick is to pay it off each month, which we usually do.
Yep. Not only do I hate carrying change around in my all-purpose beach shorts, but I get 1-5% rebate for everything charged on my card. Or 20k American FF miles for the next $750 I charge on a new mastercard. Plus, if I buy anything that turns out unsatisfactory, I can have the card company deny payment for it.
Plus, people who don't use charge cards probably get entered into the Blackwater "detain first" database, on general principles.
Sell a bit of info about what you buy, get cash back.
My girlfriend actually sat with me last night and look at a few articles on here. The catalyst for this willingness? All of her co-workers were chattering about the spike in gas prices here on the Iowa/Minnesota border. I got a slightly amazed "You knew it was going up".
The upshot of all this? The insurance money from her husband's death that she wasn't going to touch for a year goes into action now. Blazer payoff and then swap for something small, a safe deposit box to be filled with old silver, and whats left should pay off the house.
So ... that would be one friend/family member amongst all of us, for whom the light has come on. Be persistent and patient with them ... but I fear that time grows short for any sensible changes. I shudder to think of putting that Blazer on the market in the face of $3.00+/gallon gas.
My "Hollywood" friends (female half attended ASPO-Houston & charmed Prof G & Kunstler) traded in their only car, a Scion A (small one, not the rolling box) for a new Prius yesterday.
Another friend who attended ASPO will be test driving a used Civic hybrid that I located this afternoon between her shifts. She is also (TIME AVAILABLE) interested in improving her home energy efficiency.
Hollywood friends are actively working on ideas for media.
Best Hopes for Influencing People,
Alan
All this talk about the Pious, uh, Prius, here may be a little misguided: Greensumption
(Probably was posted some time or another before now.)
Actually, the bit about the nickel used in the Prius is a lot of BS that has been debunked elsewhere. The rest of the video is filled with sarcasm and not much useful information.
That's a pretty well done and FUNNY video.
And you can tell it's a spoof right off, when the lady says her name is Li Hing Mui lol
As always, one's mileage may vary. Since I first saw it, I've joined the free international silkworm movement. FISM is my ism.
care to back up that opinion?
the point still stands that the batterys for one hybrid have already traversed the globe at least once to get to you.
Yeah, but Kaiser, pretty much EVERYTHING has traversed the globe to get to you in the current system. It doesn't mean that it has to, or that it condemns products that are created to at least make the best use of their running costs as possible.. Snarkium gratia Snarkus
I bought a Postcard in a small coastal Maine village, and the postcard of the dock I was standing on as I looked at it was Photographed by a German Company, Distro'd in England and Printed I think in Australia.. The bloody card had traveled more than the travelers who would be buying it!
Bob
I believe the Prius vs. Hummer argument may have been debunked. But when you get car people together debunking one another (or car companies), it's not much different to me than the Ford vs. Chevy arguments I grew up with, and didn't participate in very well.
However, I don't think the damage nickel mining does can be debunked. That doesn't mean I think it will be stopped, you understand.
If cars were bibles, the Prius would still be something translated from ancient texts when bushes burned and droughts and famines occurred... oops. The sun is still shining above nothing new.
It's only debunked if you ignore the increased damage atributed to it due to the large amount of Nmih batterys in the machine. A quick google search shows how damaging to the enviroment it can be. it's a heavy toxic metal, a known carcinogen(cancer causeing substance). Not to mention the source of the nickel is most likely third world countrys like Guatemala where polution control is lax rather then canada.
OK, I meant the hummer folks weren't exactly unbiased in trying to promote their version of "the dream" as something good or better. I'm not in disagreement with you about nickel.
I wouldn't argue that the manufacture of everything is dependent upon the belief it's there for our taking.
I view both machines as just as damaging to the enviroment. The only differnce is that one does most of the damage while it's being run, the other does most of the damage while being made.
"I shudder to think of putting that Blazer on the market in the face of $3.00+/gallon gas."
"Invest" in some Armorall and some Nu Finish and just spend a few hours making it pretty (unless it looks like complete hell anyway). Just go through it with a vaccuum and get the carpets clean, Armorall all of the plastic bits and especially the dash, use Q-tips to get in all the vents, wash and Nu Finish the paint, throw in a "tree", etc ad nauseum. For a days work and a couple bucks of supplies to make it look as pretty and shiny and clean as possible, it'll sell faster than you think. Winter is probably the best time to sell a 4WD too.
The Blazer is what we up here would call "lady driven" - it just needs a good dusting and its ready to go - looks two years old rather than almost eight.
"The reason I am reporting what I see on the streets instead of consulting Gas Buddy is that I would like to hear more "on the streets" reporting from the folks here at TOD."
There's a Citgo I pass on my way to work that put in an electronic sign at the beginning of the year (which means they can change it fast and easy). It's usually the most expensive station around by about 5 cents...about a week and a half ago regular was around $2.93/gal, over the course of the week it creeped up to $2.99/gal. A couple of days ago in the morning it was $2.99/gal and by the time I was heading home in the afternoon it was $3.12/gal. 13 cent rise in 8 hours. Shapow.
I would like to hear more "on the streets; reporting from the folks here at TOD"
Here in Switz. it has been figured that gas in dollars will have to go to 130 / gal. *at least* before the Swiss feel any pain or for the economy to ‘react’.. And even then it will be possible to alleviate the (high) tax on gas (or exempt some from it somehow), to keep the prices ‘reasonable’, and gather the missing tax with a hike in VAT (at present 2 to 6 % in CH, low) or some such scheme. Or not. Maybe not. It is all fine. Business as usual, just a bit or twitching of the accounts.
And que sera, sera. The conscription army is available. Communal kitchens all over. Many are preparing.
on edit: added italics
Oh sure...rub it in our noses. So...are we all invited over to Switzerland when TSHTF?
Truly...I would love to live there (and so would Alan).
:) You can become a tram spotter! And yes, immigration is set to rise. Come and visit.
It has gone up very quick here over the last few days (outside of Phoenix), it's up to 2.89 now. Last time I filled up a couple of weeks ago it was 2.45 I think.
Diesel has been very high for some time, about 3.49 now.
Only other thing I can add is that a few of the guys I know are union truck drivers and LTL freight is way down compared to last year, more then 50%
The super market where I go every couple of weeks seems way empty as far as shoppers also, lots of employees just standing around doing nothing.
$3.25 here in Rochester, NY, for the past few days.
From the ground, some images:
In the image above, especially note the diesel price. What a difference six months can make! Looks like diesel and regular fuels have gone through a flip-flop in prices.
A look back at the "glory days" when gas prices were $1.49/gal even in California. Mt. Shasta, in the background, offers a glimpse at a "peak." Like many things in nature, including Peak Oil, the view is breathtaking and humbling.
-best,
graywulffe in CVO, OR
Hello SCT,
WOWSA!!! Was that sign and prices put up as a 'serious joke' by the station owner to help wake people up to Peakoil, or was he serious? Did the MSM cover this? Do you know the place and timing of this photo [checking the FLICKR website & properties did not help me]?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Its either an employee prank or more likely a photoshop job. I saw it, squirreled it away, and waited for the moment to pull it out here :-)
This one is real, from 2004 in the summer (San Francisco Arco at Market/Castro/17th Streets).
They said they were having a problem (or fight) with their supplier right then.
Here's one I took in San Francisco, 06 Jun 2007:
This station was among the highest priced at the time. Most were in the range of $3.65/gal to $3.75/gal for regular.
-best,
graywulffe, in CVO OR
We've lost a lot of gas stations the past five or so years. It's more profitable to build new condos or houses for the influx of people who are, um, finding their suburban dreams to not fulfill their fantasies.
Unfortunately, some of them have not only brought their big bucks to buy property, but their minimall mindset along.
And their children. Hell, I remember when San Francisco was almost child-free. Idyllic times indeed. Now, double wide baby carriages (a real bugaboo on narrow sidewalks) are pushed by drivers who think they own the whole width of it. I played chicken with one yesterday and she didn't swerve to miss me till the last possible instant.
It doesn't bode well for when they get their horses and buggies back after the impending(?) car crash.
LOL! Yeah, I have a few Photoshopped signs, too. That one's pretty good. :o)
-best
The buses I ride in Houston are getting stuck more often at our notorious at-grade crossings by rail traffic. Maybe it's just because of the holiday season. Who keeps track of rail freight volumes around here?
Eureka, California:
regular 3.499
diesel 3.799!
Highest I saw last year was 3.69. Expect to be there again soon.
What time of the year did you see $3.69? That's the difference this time around. We are getting these prices going into winter and the big US holiday season. This is NOT what retail companies want to see right now.
I think it was summer '06. May or June. Can't remember exactly. It was only for a few days.
Broome County upstate New York $3.17 paid today
I drive across New Jersey yesterday from the river to the shore. The lowest price I saw was $2.71. The highest was $2.89. For whatever reason, gas in NJ is pretty cheap, especially for a state that is almost entirely suburbia.
In SE PA (where I live) the prices I saw ranged from $2.85 to $3.03. That's up about 20 cents in 2 or 3 weeks.
From the Everything Is Peachy-Keen Dept:
They both have graduate degrees and two young daughters.
Wow.
Say a Prayer for the people of Maine this winter!
(I usually pray to the Great Pumpkin, but had to make him into a pie last week..here in Maine we eat pie for Breakfast!)
OK, OK, I'm biking to the damn DMV.. and I'm getting offline!
Bob
"I am sorry to say this, but we are headed toward really bad days," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol told TIME this week. "Lots of targets have been set but very little has been done. There is a lot of talk and no action."
But he wimped out almost immediately.
[Mr Birol insisted today that the short term crisis would not be caused by a fundamental shortage of oil but by entirely man-made factors.]
[Speaking at the launch of the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook in London, Mr Birol reiterated both the Agency’s long term forecast that oil production will reach 116 million barrels per day in 2030 - up from around 86 mb/d today - and the evidence that supply will fail to to meet demand much sooner. The IEA’s reference case demand forecast requires an additional 37.5 mb/d in gross production capacity by the middle of the next decade, but new projects announced so far by oil companies will add only 25 mb/d, leaving a shortfall of 12.5 mb/d.]
http://www.energybulletin.net/36874.html
Yikes. What are they ordering from you? Are you a farmer?
Interesting discussion on CNBC about a "Flight To Safety." Apparently two year Treasuries have been bid up from 80 to 120, causing yields to fall to the 3.5% range (assuming I heard everything correctly).
As several people have pointed out, it looks like the mortgage implosion is sucking money out of the system faster than the Fed can inflate. I wonder if this will change. Incoming helicopters?
We all belong to a food coop together. I am a farmer, but a subsistence farmer, and I work for a local organic farm. It is only a four-acre piece, however.
Luckily, we have surplus foods that I was JUST contemplating putting in the compost!!!
BTW (jokuhl esp): We burn solid fuels and have been having a hell of a time getting coal here in Maine this year. Two suppliers have refused to return our phonecalls over the past two months, so we are resorting to buying pallets of bagged coal through our local hardware store -- for a price, of course.
Here it is, mid-November, and we still don't have a full coal bin. Next year's firewood sits in the dooryard, and as a last resort we could start burning some in February. We're supposed to get our pallets tomorrow -- barring unforeseen "problems" with supply.
Folks, I've run out of hope.
God, my poor friends. And my sister just bought her first house at 43 years old, and she is decidedly not on the "non-discretionary" side of the economy.
For people who accept the reality of a finite world, you might want to be making some contingency plans. Take a look at your list of family and friends, and make a list of those people that you have to let sleep on our couch or spare bedroom.
Another way to approach it is to evaluate which family member has the best house/location to congregate in, especially one that has the best gardening potential. Also, you might want to make a tally of the various skills that family members have. Start thinking in terms of an old TV series, "The Waltons."
CNBC is reporting extensive buying in call options for $200 oil in December, 2008.
WT--
When I bought my place 2 years ago, my concern was that some day I might have to provide shelter for brothers, sister, and their families so ended up getting 80 acres instead of the 30 I had planned on. 60 acres of woods should at least provide us the ability to build some form of shelter for everyone and 15 usable acres of fields hopefully can feed us and some neighbors. Things are getting ugly out there very quickly.
Ran Prieur has some especially good observations on what the Downfall will really be like on his page, at www.ranprieur.com
I'm essentially couch-surfing myself - it's a little nicer than that, and another "hand" is useful around here, but in essence I'd be camping out in bushes if it weren't for this place.
Ran Prieur rocks! We should all be so clear-headed...
As I noted over on the MSM thread, I am probably going to write a summary article which has links to the export theory, ELM, my recommendations, ELP, and my MSM theory, the IT ("Iron Triangle"). It's my own "triangle" of sorts.
The ELP and the IT are presenting two radically different views of the future. Take your pick.
For old and new readers, following is my ELP link:
ELP Plan (April, 2007)
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2007/04/elp-plan-economize-localize-prod...
It's pretty interesting to read this now and reflect on how things have changed in only seven months. What will the next seven months bring?
ELP is based on the ELM, i.e., an expectation for an accelerating rate of decline in net oil exports.
my recommendations, ELP, and my MSM theory, the IT ("Iron Triangle"). It's my own "triangle" of sorts.
WT make sure to include stuff like on this link as to Who Really Owns the Media
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php
John
And in related export news today out of the North Sea:
Brent Crude Oil Exports May Plunge 17% Next Year
By Alexander Kwiatkowski
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Exports of Brent crude, the North Sea's benchmark grade, may decline 17 percent next year, cutting U.K. petroleum revenue as exploration companies turn to more promising regions to boost oil supply.
--C
Jeff, first of all thanks for the ELM work and your ELP concept. I use them both when talking to my reluctant victims. I have made it known to my family, my kids and my siblings and cousins that when TSHTF we must be ready to talk. Most of them think I am nuts but they will learn. I am afraid the lesson is sooner than later. All the best.
I wish we could afford the life we are living.
John Michael Greer (referenced above by Leanan) this week speculates that there are ominous signs that a first "major discontinuity" of post-peak oil decline may be fairly imminent, i.e. some sort of partial collapse within months rather than years. He advises avoidance of financial risk, stocking up on food, fuel, etc. - basically ELP on a semi-emergency basis. He's not usually one to spread panic as his basic premise is that a post-peak decline will be slow and stepwise rather than a sudden crash. But he sees the first step as possibly very close.
Jim Willie, an extremely credible source, has never sounded so much like a "doomer" as in his latest missive- http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2007/1108.html
BrianT, it's always nice to read someone promoting the value of his investment portfolio. My guess is that he holds a lot of gold. Every gold bug I've ever read always sees doom and gloom everywhere.
James Gervais
James: The guy runs an investment newsletter. If I operated an investment newsletter, I would be telling my customers to buy whatever I was buying. That is called integrity. Try finding that on Wall Street nowadays. I guess you are used to your financial advisor telling you to buy whatever crap his superiors need to unload-maybe your investment whiz can sell you a little piece of Citi's "conduit" sludge. Can't be all bad- it has your Treasury's stamp of approval. How's that for reputable?
Brian, my main point was that he paints a picture of extreme catastrophe, and maybe he really believes that gold is the answer to keeping wealth. But the reality is likely to be nowhere near as bleak as he paints it. And I believe he does this to spook readers into buying gold so that he can profit.
While it my be true that he is honestly practicing what he preaches, we can't discern what his true purpose is, and the extreme tones awake my scepticism about his intentions. I very much doubt that the scenario outlined [which I can believe will happen within the next two decades], will occur soon and therefore the price of gold will hit a peak and retreat at least once in that time period.
The world's events should be seen as a wave; currently, they appear to be ebbing in a down trending channel, but they will soon bounce back to the top of the channel, as will the price of gold.
James Gervais
Discount an entire article because you "Think" he's selling something. Do you use that same criteria when watching CNBC,newspapers, and the rest of MSM.
I've been reading Jim Willie for a few years now, Caustic? Yes, Outlandish? Yes. Facts? solid.
I read the Facts, Dates, and Quotes from everything I read, while being amused/annoyed by the slant at times.
I have noted his predictions and checked up on them after time. Good stuff. Is he selling a newsletter? Yes to make a living. Are his facts and insight correct.
I would have to say yes after a few years of reading.
I know JW from Silicon Investor. He got me into buying gold when it was $307, and silver was $4.25.
Wharf rat, the first coule of hundred dollars of appreciation occurred because several central banks stopped dumping gold, so the market for it became more realistic. The recent upsurge is at least partially due to the falling dollar. I'm not convinced that this is not just a raid by some of the big boys in the FX business; when they have made enough money from this direction, they will switch and the price of gold will retreat again. See post above, second reply to Brian.
James Gervais
I once fell for some financial newsletter flimflam and subscribed, for a year, to John Desseaur's newsletter ( http://www.dessauerinvestorsworld.com/ ). I quit using his service when he started insisting (about a year ago) that the housing market was NOT a bubble, but rapidly-appreciating oil prices WERE a bubble. He had it so exactly wrong that I lost all confidence in his solemn pronouncements of what was worth buying or selling.
- Dick L
ASPO-USA
Sorry you're down, bro.
You know how to reach me, if there's anything I can do. Like Pie?
Do you know about the cordwood availability at this point? My Mom said it's been getting pretty hard to buy firewood. If you've got any greenhouses or coldframes going, consider setting up a HotHouse to dry out some of your firewood.
As I've said once or twice here at TOD, I hope people are hanging onto some glass, mirrors and construction (framing) materials. There's a lot you can do with those simple items.
Best,
Bob
Firewood up here in Bar Harbor area is $175 a cord. That's fitted, dry, hardwood. The folks I know who do it can't keep up with the orders. There is now an additional delivery fee for anyone farther out then 5 miles.
As I've said once or twice here at TOD, I hope people are hanging onto some glass, mirrors and construction (framing) materials. There's a lot you can do with those simple items.
Mirrors?
Get a few rolls of this stuff. for $50, for a roll.
Mylar Mirror film.
http://www.nielsensenterprises.com/snomo/mylar.htm
AND here's what you can do with it.
with a scrap 8 ft diameter satalite dish.
Melt Lead and aluminium!!
http://www.junkyardsolar.com/page1.html
Put a boiler on it and you get FREE steam Power !!
John
Thanks for the links!
That was what I have been looking for. Both the scrap satalite dish and metalized film sources. I agree that both will be great survival tools.
:) I've been wanting to do something like that for a while...have an old fiberglass dish sitting out back. These satellite dishes are all getting scrapped because they're analog and every thing's going to digital now.
I highly doubt thats aluminium.
aluminium's melting temp from the periodic table of elements is 1,220.666 F, the themp reading he shows only is in the 200's range. he is using one peice of unplished lead for the lead part and a polished peice of lead for the aluminium part.
I'm been trying to plan for the future of expensive energy. This summer I withdrew our savings from our money market savings account and purchased new windows, insulation, and siding for our 40 year old home. I thought energy efficinecy was a better investment than the 4.88% on the savings account.
Three weeks ago my wife lost her job as an accountant at a home builder. DOH! I could really use that savings account now!!
Damage being assessed in massive oil spill
This morning's lead "news" story in San Francisco is about an oil spill after a tanker ran into a tower of the Bay Bridge yesterday.
The talking heads on my cheap teevee sounded pretty calm, so I'm sure everything is going to be ok. :)
The bridge is safe, we're assured (property first!). However, not so sure about the water or those little critters there. Beaches are closed, but it's foggy and chilly anyway, so no sunbathers are likely to suffer from the inconvenience today.
Think I'll head to the water later on to get a look at the problem up close, I've never got to see a spill, or know if I'll be able to even (I suppose they won't let me close enough to get a permanent, poisonous, memento).
This is bound to make our crabs taste particularly yummy this winter. Crude delicacy!
Seems like its pretty juicy - 58,000 gallons of bunker oil on the loose in the San Francisco Bay ...
http://www.ktvu.com/news/14541458/detail.html
I went down to the Marina early afternoon but except for the police tape and some unusual motorboat activity, couldn't really see anything. Thought if any had washed onshore there, I'd risk life and limb to try to collect a little for the next peak oil meeting show-and-tell session, but instead the few birds on the beach seemed mostly interested in what I had to offer them in the way of human handouts. A sea lion was bobbing up and down fishing out about 30 feet from the shore. A guy came up to me and we talked about it some. He said up nearer the GG Bridge the smell was still noticeable, I guess the most of it had its eyes already set on an ocean voyage and had gone west with the afternoon tide.
Hello,
I have some questions about the Law of Receding Horizons.
I found this definition in the archives: “As the cost of energy rises, the cost of everything else made with energy (like building materials) also rises. So an energy project which was expected to be profitable when energy costs were x amount higher than today, turns out to still be uneconomical when you get there.”
It is not clear to me how the conclusion “turns out to still be uneconomical” follows from the rising energy costs. Consider some hypothetical alternative energy project. It is true that as the cost of conventional (i.e., currently used) energy rises, the component of the cost of the alternative energy source that depends on conventional energy also rises. However, it does not appear to necessarily follow that that alternative energy source would become uneconomical, for two reasons. First, conventional energy is only one component of the cost of the alternative energy project. So, as conventional energy goes up by, say, 20%, the cost of the alternative energy should go up by less than 20%. Second, as conventional energy cost goes up, then of course the price that the alternative energy company can charge for its product can increase correspondingly.
In fact, based in these two points, one could argue for a Law of Advancing Horizons, according to which alternative energy sources will become progressively more profitable as conventional energy price goes up (in other words, what to most people would be common sense). What is the counter-argument?
Its not just the energy! - Its all of the hardware that dependent upon cheap energy system to get the parts in place, the employees who use cars to get to the work place, the water transportation costs if the solution uses water, ect.. The entire system costs rise up at the same time. The cost overruns of 20% would also multiple the costs of vendors shipping parts and the parts them selfs.
>Its not just the [direct] energy!
Of course. But there are components whose cost will not necessarily increase with increasing conventional energy costs. Consider raw materials (forest or mining products). There is value to these even before any energy is put into extracting them. There is no reason to believe that their price (their value before extraction) will necessarily increase as conventional energy prices increase. Indeed, if increasing energy costs result in recession and hence less demand for raw resources, then their price may even decrease. As another example, real wages may also decrease during recession.
The key issue seems to be whether the cost of the alternative energy extraction must increase at the same rate as the increase in conventional energy costs, and I just don't see how that is necessarily the case...
I can't put the math to it off the top of my head, but I would have to think there is a large difference between "alternatives" such as wind or PV, where an initial outlay yields long term returns for nominal additional cost (bit of maintenance) vs. such "alternatives" as tar sands or oil shales, where the energy intense process is always chasing itself. This is why oil shale will never happen on any meaningful scale, IMHO, and thank goodness, climatologically speaking. But I think you have a point regarding use of renewables, where we are past the crossover point for wind, and fast approaching it for PV.
Bob and clifman, you're thinking: If oil costs = 20% of the price of a solar unit, and the price of oil goes up 10%, the price of the solar unit should go up .10x.20= 2%. So, you're thinking that while oil is going up 10%, solar units will go up only 2%, and thus become cheaper relative to oil.
You aren't alone in thinking this. This is what virtually everyone has been thinking. But we haven't been seeing this happening.
The problem is that energy isn't really only 20% of the value of the unit. Forest or mining products really don't have any value whatsoever if they can't be extracted. (I know forests have aesthetic and environmental value, but bear with me.) Their value is realizable only through the expenditure of energy. We don't realize that--we assign the value to the tree or iron ore itself--because the price of energy has always been so cheap. But we've been wrong.
If there's no energy, raw ore in the ground will have virtually zero value because we won't be able to use it.
So, the higher energy costs get, the more important a factor they become in the price of an alternative energy device, until they are equal to virtually the entire cost of the device. See what I mean?
You can get the price of alternative energy devices down through other factors like mass production or moving production to somewhere with cheap labor, because these are essentially ways of using the energy input in the device more efficiently. But these gains will not be sufficient to make alternative devices competitive with fossil fuels in the normal way of thinking about competitive.
As another poster suggested, let's limit discussion to the case of positive net energy alternatives (EROEI > 1; gawd, that's awkard). One need not invoke LRH to explain why a project with negative net energy will fail.
I agree that the cost of energy input as a proportion of total costs will increase. But, so what? If the company is making more energy that it uses, it can still potentially make a profit. In fact, as the cost of energy relative to other things increases, the company is actually progressively better off, holding its net energy return level constant. Its surplus energy is in effect worth progressively more. In the limit, any company with positive net energy would be profitable. By your argument, economic factors that make an alternative energy project non-profitable now will become progressively less relevant as energy as a proportion of total cots increases. A Law of Advancing Horizons, as far I can see.
I have a simple back of the envelope formula to illustrate the non-linear nature of LRH by modelling the energy component.
An example. With an oil price of $40/bbl, I estimate that my tar-sand syncrude costs $80/bbl to produce. At what oil price do I break-even? A simplistic assumption would be that break-even price is the cost price, after all, profit = selling price - costs right?
But the answer is not the current cost price of $80/bbl.
Of my costs, let's say $20 is direct energy cost, and $60 are other costs (equipment, labour etc). Therefore
P = $60 / (1-0.5) = $120
So when the general oil price gets to $80, which was my original cost, I find that the syncrude still does not make a profit. In this way the profitable horizon has moved. I have to wait for the original oil price to go up 3 times, not 2 times as I expected.
In this case, I assume that the non-energy costs are fixed, so I do reach the horizon at some price. In practice, non-energy costs also experience inflation.
You also have to factor in demand and volume. All business plans are based on achieving a certain volume of sales, because costs reduce with volume. If my syncrude has a break even of $200, will people still buy it? I may not be able sell enough to keep the unit costs down and make a profit.
You might say at this point businessmen are smart, surely they factor in rising costs? Well, they don't. Invariably I see projections with a little caveat at the bottom "at today's costs". To be fair, you would need a mighty good crystal ball to predict how costs will change as they depend on the general economy. It would be misleading to investors to attempt to guess, so they assume what they know for sure which is the current cost.
>So when the general oil price gets to $80, which was my original cost, I find >that the syncrude still does not make a profit. In this way the profitable >horizon has moved. I have to wait for the original oil price to go up 3 times, not >2 times as I expected.
One possible source of miscommunication here is the inferred meaning of the term “receding horizons.” I took it to mean that as conventional energy costs increase, the alternatives will not become progressively closer to being profitable (the horizon distance stays to same or moves further away). By my reckoning, if the alternatives do become progressively closer to being profitable, which is consistent with your equation, then we have a case of advancing horizons.
Ok, perhaps just a difference of terminology then.
I know you wanted to exclude the case where EROEI < 1, but bear in mind that some things can be profitable even if EROEI<1, where you have a cheap energy source which is used to make a product that can be sold for a higher price. e.g coal to liquid, or using stranded gas to process tar sands.
Calculating EROEI is not straightforward, and even then may not reflect $ROI. Business cases are always evaluated on $ROI.
I suspect that many of the cases we see of receding horizons are where the EROEI is near or below 1, and are effectively relying on the subsidy of a cheaper fuel to make the $ case. The problem is as energy costs rise, end users are more likely to switch to the cheaper fuel, pushing up its cost. If you now have to pay the true cost of energy, the poor EROEI bites.
In the case of the tar sands, using stranded NG can make it economic, but if they have to build a nuclear plant to power the process that changes the $ROI.
You are missing the point, findrbob. It is very much not a matter of the cost of energy input rising as a proportion of total costs. That's exactly what I dispute. Post-peak, it will become clear that there effectively is no other cost but energy.
Conventional electricity is still about 1/4 the price per watt of, for example, solar energy. I know, because I've been pricing solar systems.
Let's say we are past peak, and declining supply relative to demand causes the price of oil to double by next summer. The price of solar panels will double as well (or rather, come very close to doubling).
Because the price of both oil and solar panels double, solar remains 4x as expensive as conventional electricity. It will not in any meaningful sense get cheaper to make new solar energy devices relative to the price of fossil fuels.
The true price of a solar panel is the price of energy, and the true price of every component is the price of energy. All components are worthless without the energy, so their cost will be the cost of energy. They always have been worthless without the energy, but nobody realized it when energy was cheap and effectively unlimited in supply.
A society can benefit from solar power, because the solar power increases the energy efficiency of the society. This is why governments are subsidizing the price of solar panels. But the price of new solar power devices themselves do not get cheaper relative to the price of fossil fuels unless you increase the energy efficiency of society radically. We won't have radical increases in efficiency by next summer, so that factor won't matter.
The only way to get the price of alternative energy cheaper relative to fossil fuels is with increased energy efficiency in the manufacture of the solar panels.
I basically agree with BobCousins' post, except that non-energy costs are really energy costs to a greater degree than he may be suggesting.
The reason I really want to make this point is because it has important real-life implications.
People have to make decisions right now about whether to go ahead and install solar or wind or other efficiency measures, or whether to wait in the hopes that this technology will become cheaper.
The correct answer is that it will be cheaper to go ahead and install now (unless you assume that government incentives will significantly improve over what they are now).
Even though solar panel efficiency will continue to incrementally improve over the next few years, and even though solar companies will continue to improve the efficiency of manufacture, the overall efficiency improvement isn't likely to keep pace with the decrease in efficiency in fossil fuel production.
RE: receding horizons....
This point may have been made better by others before, or I may be out to lunch... it has been a long day...
but I think one cause/aspect of receding horizons is related to the Tainteresque "investment in complexity". It is the nature of such investment to suffer eventual declining returns ANYway, even with all else equal, which is a 'receding horizon' for production by the complex system. When you throw in a declining energy input, this is compounded.
In this case, the 'receding horizons' would be more stark for those things which require more complex systems and infrastructure to create: PV panels which require gallium or indium, for instance, would see their horizons recede faster than the production of wheelbarrows, which only require steel, paint, and some kind of tire.
Another aspect of it is absolute availability which brings supply and demand into play. Once there are too few PV panels for everyone who wants one to get one at ANY price, the price will tend to "recede" towards unavailability quite quickly.
To the extent that a manufactured item, or a project, depends on everything going right in a complex system with far-flung inputs, it is subject to collapses within that system.
With regard to PV, my own feeling is that buying a few high-grade panels now is a good idea, and then buying a bunch more cheap ones if they ever exist.
The biggest benefit is the difference between no electricity and "some" electricity. Thus, for the first 100 watts or so, it's actually worth more.
My 2 cents...
Greenish: Another receding horizon- when oil was $20 the projection was for CTL to boom at $100. It isn't happening.
You checked SASOL lately? They're hardly doing poor.
Another point: These plants take years to build, and are very capital intensive. Investors want to hear that the price is driven by short supply and high demand rather than something that can collapse overnight when the pundits are talking up speculation, geopolitical tensions, and currancy fluctuation.
Let’s consider two cases Moe_Gamble.
Case 1: At some point after peak, there is no other cost but energy (your claim). If so (if energy is money) then is it not true that ANY alternative energy project that has EROEI > 1 will be profitable? If so, then LRH, or at least the implication of it that is interesting, is false.
Take shale oil for example. Assume Shell is right and their technique has EROEI>1. Let’s say it is 3.0. Let’s say they spend 1 bn on extracting x amount of shale oil. Under case 1, all of the 1 bn dollars is energy input, so they end up making a profit of 2 bn.
Case 2: There are and will continue to be non energy costs. If so, then LRH is false based on the reasoning of my original post.
There have been several TOD top posts dealing with Hubbert-like analysis of resource extraction. Along with rising energy costs, the cost of extracting aluminum, steel, etc. rises because of both the the cost of energy used to extract it and because the 'easy stuff' has been extracted and the difficulty of extraction is rising. It's a double-whammy.
As far as the alternative energy price rising, you end up with an asymptotic curve situation in which capital and production costs, as described above, rise faster than the profits of the alternative energy can cover, hence receding horizons.
This hypothesis, it might be noted, is in direct contradiction to many alternative-energy enthusiasts' insistence that 'economies of scale' will bring down the cost of PV, wind etc.
Time will tell.
All that is intrinsicaly related to EROEI. If an alternative energy has an EROEI bigger than 1, horizon will reced just a finite amount and there is some oil price that will make it lucrative. If, otherwise, the alternative energy has an EROEI lower than 1, your horizon will reced forever, and that source will never be lucrative.
All the above is obvious just looking at EROEI, but the law of receding horizons is useful because it lets you quantify how expensive energy must become for some source be lucrative.
I've been hearing that solar photovoltiac will be cost competitive any year now since the late 70's. Sounds like a receding horizon to me.
I think maybe you are confusing two cases. If an alternative scheme is economical now, then it will likely stay economical as you observe. LRH does not suggest that a currently economical scheme will become uneconomic in the future.
In the case where a scheme is uneconomic now, what the LRH says is that the point to break-even is farther away than you think, because of the effect of escalating costs. In addition from the effect of rising direct energy costs, another key component of LRH is that the very demand for supplies increases their cost. There is also requirements creep, where costs you didn't expect are incurred.
A case example is thermal depolymerization - oil from waste turkey offal. It was based on cooking free organic waste to produce oil. It turned out that they have to pay for the offal, and also need to purchase more expensive pig fat. A further blow came when the plant was forced to install scrubbers to address complaint over bad smells. The impact of these was the break even point kept creeping up, and last I heard they were only barely in profit because of the biofuel subsidy they get.
The US is showing an increased interest in Africa (as it did a generation ago in the Indian Ocean). See formation of Africom military command.
Back then the UK gave/sold the island of Diego Garcia in the southern Indian Ocean to the USA.
Today, the USAF operates an airbase on British Ascension Island (and has since WW II, used to ferry a/c to Europe). But it is closer to Brazil than Africa.
St. Helena is almost directly south of London and west of Nambia, slightly south of the equator. Good, almost ideal location, but no airfield for the 5,000 or so inhabitants.
GUESS WHAT !?
Her Majesties Gov't has agreed to FINALLY (after decades of begging) to build an airfield on St. Helena to "improve access to the island".
Best Hopes for Tourism on St. Helena,
Alan
St. Helena? This will make it much more convenient to exile Dick "Bonaparte" Cheney there. We just have to surround the island with microwave ovens to prevent his escape.
The British Overseas Territory of St Helena is a series of small Islands from Ascension, to Tristan da Cuna further south. Tristran da Cuna is a group comprising of the smallest Islands and is the most remote group of Islands in the World.
Ascension was of strategic importance for the US Airforce, looks like St Helena could be good for West Africa, and all of these Islands will be vital if The Falklands exploration campaign succeeds.
Some possible reasons why.
Summary Abstracts of the South Atlantic Petroleum Conference.
The Geological Society.
London
7th November 2007:
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/shared/pdfs/events/abstracts/S...
All manner of nonsense in today's Drum Beat. GM building full sized hybrids? Stupid. IEA predicts we'll only have 116mbbl of the 120mbbl demand in 2030? That whole organization has no value in a reality based world view. Greenhouse gases will rise 57% by 2030? Another stupid pronouncement from IEA. Greed and collusion rather than supply and demand? People get paid to write that stuff ...
I want a job as an energy industry pundit! Where do I apply?
Sorry. Not qualified. You keep saying things that are not stupid.
The Boston Globe's lead story today, Wide worries over oil prices, mainly concerns itself about $100 oil on the economy. And as is so typical of these mainstream media reports, it contains no mention of Peak Oil as a factor of relevance, instead citing the following:
Certainly these above ground factors matter, but they are reflections of a simple fact: there is less and less oil below ground to be had.
It's too bad the Boston Globe has failed to follow thru on their March 26th, 2007 "Green and growing" editorial acknowledgment of "peak oil production already behind us" as a matter of supreme relevance to why oil will oneday soon cost us more than $100 a barrel.
Still, the Massachusetts' legislature is promoting a wide-ranging bill aimed to promote alternative power, energy efficiency improvements, and curb CO2.
It could prove beneficial. At least they are trying to do something.
Oil prices from US DOE:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_fut_s1_d.htm
Exchange rate data from the Bank of Canada:
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/exchform.html
Notes:
1) The Canadian dollar's rise provides a substantial buffer against rising oil prices.
2) Although it's not easy to see, oil prices in October had still not breached the 2006 high in Canada.
3) Early indications for November show the effect persisting.
EDIT: Removed 2nd graph which needs a little more work.
Americans Take It on the Chin, Canucks Spared (Somewhat)
Here's an eye popper of a chart:
(data current to oct '07)
The NYT doing somebody's dirtywork again:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/russians-accused-of-poisonin...
This non-story is hearsay of a rumor, but it paints the Russians as absent any moral compunction, implying that the blame goes straight to the top for this "poisoning." Who knows, it may even be true, but that hardly 'splains why it's running at the top of their homepage today.
Sure are a lot of smoking guns out there these days - poisoned Russian dissidents, blown up Lebanese lawmakers, Iranian shaped charges, and all of them with a convenient, follow-the-dots trail of blame that the perps somehow neglected to disguise.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_recycling_as_ne...
Holy Kabole, Batman, check the solar stocks at 12:45 pm:
Sym____Price____Change____%Change
FSLR___221.23___54.11______32.38
ESLR____16.69____3.04______22.27
SPWR___151.98____6.98______4.81
Bucking the Dow and S&P, I'd say.
I'm really kicking myself. I spent a whole week last month looking at ESLR in the low 9s and deicded not to pull the trigger. Grrrr. I bought oil instead though.
I bought in the mid-10s figuring it might go up a few more percent. Lucky me, usually my timing sucks. Unloaded most of it yesterday, just keeping a token amount; I'll wait till it subsides a bit before jumping in again.
Good company though, it was mentioned in a recent keypost on silicon and solar technology. Of course their EPS could be better than -$0.30 but it's better than most financial houses right now.
The folks over at iTulip have predicted that the next bubble would be in alternative energy.
The hot money is going where ever they think a killing is to be made in the market that is otherwise falling down.
Hello Godraz,
Yep, alternative energy investing is the new 'financial cargoism' if the ERoEI doesn't pan out as solidly positive enough to be replicatively self-sustainable. I am not expert-enough to determine for myself what potential 'silver bbs' will turn into long-term, ERoEI-positive 'biosolar howitzers'. But I can easily see how little 'green bbs' or atoms of the elements NPK, can help plants replicate.
Will Ethanol plants be our high-tech version of the Easter Island stoneheads? Will future generations see abandoned solar mirror and PV genplants as our version of holding a mirror skyward so the gods could amuse themselves by admiring their own reflections instead of constantly attacking us?
IMO, if super-careful and very extensive embedded energy analysis is not undertaken: a great deal of this money would be better spent on radical FF-conservation such as Alan Drake's RR & TOD proposals, and the hundreds of other excellent ideas posted on the many Peak Websites to help stretch the remaining FF reserves. Let's hope we are reaching the point were Peak Outreach can start solidly driving this needed expert analysis, then truly solid biosolar mission-critical investing can predominate at every level, at every scale, to relentlessly propel the paradigm shift.
That is partially why I have been pounding the POT message board: I can't conceive of any scenario whereby we don't need FF-generated NPK to help the topsoil-to-harvest latency effect and avoiding inefficient Liebig Minimums. Neither do I see any concerted effort for building bird & bat guano shelters, humanure recycling, massive local composting of urban and suburban refuse, and harvesting graveyard bones for topsoil rejuvenation as additional mitigative measures. But obviously, topsoil vitality is the timeless, proven biosolar concept long before anyone figured out that FFs could further leverage the 'Green Revolution'.
As posted before: We should easily accept the postPeak nightly occurring darkness in exchange for relocalized permaculture lifestyles. A misplaced, and/or badly designed alternative energy investment, with a negative net energy return to the entire habitat, will easily lead to a violent machete' moshpit if the population level can't decrease as fast as the decreasing energy. If FF-MPP is postPeak diminishing due to the Law of Receding Horizons, we better get serious about ramping sound Biosolar-MPP to harvest the sunlight.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Personal message to Bob Shaw: there's another peaker in the Phoenix area wanting to meet you. Reply to newsletter at vtpeakoil.net to find out how to get in touch.
Closed out my SPWR position two weeks ago (a bit early!) and my FSLR today, thank you very much! And I will probably wonder later why I sold either of them...
Take a look at CSIQ, ASTI, WWAT, OEGY as well...still plenty of room to run for them.
-C
Energy consultant, writer, blogger www.getreallist.com
The guy complaining that $100 oil is BS sounds like an All-American redneck idiot whose pickup truck is running on E.
Expect to see a lot more of that kind of thing.
agreed. .. Learsay's source, Nansen Saleri, is a government mouthpiece, and the government of Saudi Arabia for whatever reason wants the world to believe it has more oil than is really there. For the truth, a better source is Saddad al Husseini, who recently retired as chief of exploration and development for ARAMCO, and has no reason to lie. http://www.energybulletin.net/36767.html
He says oil production has plateaued. I wish I could put this on the Huffington Post instead of preaching to the converted here, but they keep rejecting my efforts to register.
The water analogy is pure BS. There is a body of international law for rivers shared by two nations, but this oil belongs entirely to Saudi Arabia. Of course, we could conceivably find that it is in our essential national interest to kill them all and take their oil, but we should have no illusions about who is the aggressor.
Hello TODers,
As usual, a look at poor Zimbabwe may be instructive for what lies ahead for the global Overshoot community as the Thermo/Gene Collision and Olduvai Gorge Theory continue their trajectory:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200711080802.html
--------------------------------------
Zimbabwe: Rural Folk Cut Off From 'Civilisation'
------------------------------
Rural communities have been cut off the mainstream economic system owing to inadequate electricity and fuel, blamed on foreign currency shortages.
The effects of the erratic energy supplies have been catastrophic across the mining, tourism and manufacturing sectors. The rural transport system has been paralysed as well, leaving commuters stranded.
Commercial cargo carriers, for example, have replaced conventional buses on the 204-kilometre stretch between Harare and Karoi. It is the same story along other major highways.
Only recently, a commercial transport vehicle ferrying fuel caught fire along the Harare-Mutare Road, burning passengers on board beyond recognition.
---------------------------------------------
Please read the entire article.
Just imagine that here in the postPeak US: picture fuel and mobile transport so precious that a shiny, chrome tanker-rig could potentially be topcovered with passengers trying to maintain a slippery grip to avoid walking miles into town. Somehow, my bicycle peloton hitch-hiking idea alongside slow-moving, narrow gauge minitrains seems magnitudes SAFER.
Another example: Telling your little kids to hurry up and catch the yellow schoolbus, but warning them not to sit on the numerous five gallon jerry cans of FFs that are covering the passenger floor. Shudder!
From the above link: Zim is burning 3.0-3.5 million liters per day which converts to 18,869-22,014 barrel of fuel per day. From the CIA Factbook on ZIM [last updated on 1 November, 2007]:
-----------------------------
Oil - production:-------0 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - consumption:.....22,500 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - exports:---0 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - imports:....13,370 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - proved reserves:------0 bbl
Natural gas - production:-----0 cu m (2004 est.)
Natural gas - consumption:.....0 cu m (2004 est.)
Population: 12,311,143
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2007 est.)
--------------------------------
The barrels per day listed above in the first link converts to 792,516 to 924,602 gallons imported per day. So, gallons per day divided by pop. is approx. 0.06-0.08 gallon/capita, or 0.48-0.64 pints/day--> roughly one cup of fuel/day if Zim went to rationing. What would you do with your single cup?!?
Obviously, a large porportion of this fuel must be going to the Zim topdogs to power their home generators, pump & purify their water, and import, then transport the goods they need to live a luxurious life with a full compliment of politicized, privatized security.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jirq4xYPCFWLvuljqdAdoDUlMYLAD8SB3S2O0
-----------------------------
Zimbabwe: Meltdown in Slow Motion
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Around dawn, Susan lights a fire of wood and garbage in the yard to boil tea. There's no sugar, and sometimes no tea either — just mugs of tepid water for her two boys to drink before they head to school.
On a good day, Susan earns 300,000 Zimbabwe dollars (60 cents at black market exchange rates). Now that the central bank has struck three zeros off the inflated bank notes, Susan no longer has to wrestle with armfuls of banknotes.
As power and water outages worsen, linked to shortages of coal, spare parts and hard currency, sales of generators and water storage tanks in affluent suburbs of Zimbabwe have soared. But a water tank would cost Susan seven years of her highest earnings as a street vendor.
In her district, Some water is drawn from streams and drains. But there isn't enough for regular bathing and laundry.
--------------------------
I would prefer that you read this link in its entirety too.
In my Asphalt Wonderland: many super-expensive homes are clustered around the slopes of Camelback Mountain:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/30517241/in/set-316414/
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/788891/2/istockphoto_...
I wonder how many people look at the 'Praying Monk', then imaginatively seeing an absolutely shocked person finally comprehending the ramifications of Hubbert's Peak.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Energy Decline and the Growth of Destitution
I've just posted the second part of my unfolding series of articles on what I think the near future is going to look like and why.
The first part was a global energy scenario developed over the last few months. It was substantially revised following the critique of my "Trends to 2100" article here. That baseline article is here: World Energy to 2050.
The new article looks at the impacts of energy decline on national economies. I link the calculated GDP changes with national demographic projections to look at the effect on per capita GDP out to 2050. The latest article is here: National Energy Decline and the Growth of Destitution.
Here's a short excerpt:
Paul Chefurka
From Bloomberg:
Ah, the law of unintended consequences. The American banking industry
bribeddonated to the US congress to get a punitive bankruptcy law passed a couple years ago that makes it nearly impossible to get credit card debt removed. So now people are letting their houses fall into foreclosure to keep up on their credit cards.Indeed - I'm in default and we're talking citi, chase, all the biggies yes and wamu, and they're just not gonna get it. Raising the interest rates to 30% and one's at 34%, I say screw 'em. The earlier BK law may have been too lenient, but right now the banksters are trying everything they can to "prime the pump" and get money flowing again. Example: I'm getting offers to borrow a few thou even though my credit rating is rapidly heading towards that of a dead mackaral. I'm almost tempted to take one of the offers to buy a cheap lil' motorcycle to buzz around here on, but the bigger part of me wants to simply raise the money and buy it when the money's in hand and let the banksters "go fish".
The CC credit crunch is at least as bad as the housing one, the amounts of trillions of dollars are not that different, really.
Do it the right way.
Some may think they can get away with it, but if they can show the timing of taking a bulk cash advance, the purchase of the vehicle, and the immediate default with no means to even attempt token payment for a while, then they can show fraud.
Next thing you know you lose the food stamp card.
I think they will prosecute even small stuff just to cut the trend.
If I took one of those loans, I'd make sure I could pay it back.
This is why I think I'm best off just saving up the money for a vehicle that's cheap enough that it can't be siezed as an asset. A small, 200 or 250cc motorcycle would be below the radar, so would a small Jap car that's old enough that I'm only paying a thou or so for it.
Part of the ELP plan is to live "below the radar" and to help "starve the system" by not contributing to it.
That means even when they beg you to borrow money from them, you don't do it.
I hear you.
Both my bikes are old, one is a 1968 and worth nothing on paper, but everything in them is almost brand new and ready to go cross country. Zero assets in your own name is a very good thing.
Starve the beast indeed!
I was thinking about a setting up a web site that would be a clearing house of information for free or low energy urban input culture.
My letter to the editor of the Prospect magazine, in reference to the review of "A Crude Awakening" film:
Mr Derek Brower makes many crucial mistakes in his review of the film "A Crude Awakening." He brings up the issues of Net versus Gross depletion without providing any satisfactory explanation to the layman what these terms really mean. In so doing, he sidesteps the fact that none of the vaunted technology that he is counting on has actually improved the percentage of oil recovered - all of that reserve growth is in the accounting domain, and the technology itself has only increased the flow rates of fields on the growth side of the peak. Once basins are past peak flow rates, production declines precipitously: you need look no further than what is happening today in two of the largest basins in the world, the North Sea and Mexico's Cantarell. Both are in irreversible and serious decline and no currently existing technology is expected to do anything to mitigate that. Mr Brower also points to the vast deposits of Canada's tar sands as proof that Peak Oil is invalid or not imminent; this is a false argument, because water availability, environmental damage, and simple "energy return on energy invested" considerations will prove quite conclusively that the tar sands production cannot be scaled much beyond current flow rates. There's that phrase flow rates again: apparently Mr Brower doesn't understand that the size of the resource, be it tar sands, bio-fuels, oil or whatever, doesn't matter if one can't show how it is going to be immediately available and reasonably scalable going forward. In the case of oil, the world extraction rate of crude plus condensate has fallen from a demonstrated peak in November of 2005. At this point, to argue about whether Peak Oil is real takes the most egregious type of denial, and you should be ashamed to publish this review.
Seems Conoco CEO says the World won't ever produce over 100mb/d and supply won't meet demand. Also BP CEO says that the "era of cheap energy is behind us" and only 40 years oil left at current usage rate. No links yet, just coming over the wire.
Nothing new, but coming from such people is new.
(edit)
BP CEO also sees "real tightness driving oil prices" and not driven by speculators.
And the port of Rotterdam has been closed due to the storm.
BP CEO: In Medium-Term, 'Era Of Cheap Energy Is Behind Us'
Help needed!
I'm shopping around for some thermal insulating curtains. Any recommendations on brands, dealers, etc? I'm in the NW part of Oregon and want a simple/relatively cheap way to cut back on my heating bills.
I live in Wisconsin and have friends who have an older home with window quilts on every window. They seal using magnetic strips. Google on Window Quilts or try making your own:
http://www.solar-components.com/quilts.htm
I use something simpler and cheaper. There is a type of insulation that is basically heavy duty bubble wrap with aluminum coating on one side. Cut to size, affix upper corners with good quality duct tape or masking tape (I have used both). Put up and take down as needed.
New Orleans has a MUCH milder climate than most areas so your mileage may vary.
Best Hopes,
Alan.
Dude;
Both my Mom's and my house have curtains on pretty much all windows. Some have material as backing that was made to be for insulated curtains, others don't, but you can feel the difference with a covered window, even if it's just bedsheet. (I'd recommend more, I'm just saying) It seems that even just the radiant heat sucked up by dark glass is considerable, while you will certainly want to try to cut off the convective and conductive losses as well, by making more of a sealed envelope.
We have found various Insulated Window Backings at bigger fabric stores in Maine.. I just scored a bunch of silver-faced material for $2/yd(!!) a few wks ago. Sorry I don't have any product names.
I would tend to back up any advice for sealing the bottom, whether you sew a light chain into the hem and let it sit on the sill, or you have magnetic strips, as in the above post.. but the cold air from the glass will just 'drizzle' down out of the bottom there, and draw more warm room air in from above somewhere.
Another thing I hope to try will be Insulated Shutters from outside, using Foil-faced PolyIsoCyanurate Foamboard, tho' to do it, I'll have to devise a way to open and close them from the inside, or I fear they'd never be used.
Best,
Bob Fiske
Bob , we've used the poly 1/2 inch foam for years. We have andersen casements (better seal than any window) Wife covered the foam with fabric, and they set right inside the window itself. When the sun goes down windows are a real detriment and you just walk around the house and pop the panels in. Our cheap foam panels work great.
THE reference book on the subject is:
Thermal Shutters and Shades, by William Shurcliff
OOP, unfortunately, but used copies can be found.
Glad to see this discussed here. Insulating shutters and shades have become the forgotten energy conservation tool, seldom mentioned these days.
Thanks for all this! Having a bit of a PC SNAFU at the moment and wasn't sure I could reply in a timely fashion.
I ordered Shurcliff's book too, thanks for pointing me in that direction WNC. Available quite cheap. What do you all think of GILA film, also?
WIRED weighs in. Another audience reached.
The End of Oil is Upon Us. We Must Move On - Quickly.
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/the-age-of-oil-.html
And those guys were definitely in the cornucopian camp.
super--
You mean to tell me that a 16 year old adolescent writing code and riding to work on her electric skateboard is not going to save us?
Wired adores this delusional fools, along with the CEO's who pay them.
Wired has been as wrong as IEA, and for just as long. Looks like they've both gotten religion this year. I have opined that MSM officially came around to the peak oil story on Oct 25, 2007, the day that oil passed $90/bbl.
--C
Energy consultant, writer, blogger www.getreallist.com
Wired were doing well until they got to "Hydrogen can save USA".
Oops.
And I like the "they are engineering issues, not scientific ones, which means they can be overcome with enough money". Just print money then.
" Global warming 'cure' found by scientists"
As a scientist, I'm afraid I couldn't make head or tail of this article in the UK Daily Telegraph, as there was no intelligible explanation of what would actually be done. However it said that:
"Researchers estimate that it would take a cube of volcanic rock 10 kilometres across to return the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere to pre-industrial levels."
That's 10 x 10 x 10km, or 10,000m on each side, unless the "cube" description is wrong as well which is quite possible given the fact the article was obviously written by someone with no knowledge of science or maths. However, assuming it is correct the mass of this (whether it is to be created, or used in some way), would be 1,000,000,000,000 tonnes multiplied by the density of the "volcanic rock", so maybe 2,000,000,000,000 tonnes. Two trillion tonnes. Er, yes. Or rather, no, I don't think so.
I am starting to think that the most humane way for us to deal with the global warming is to let it happen and adapt to the changes. rather then opening the geo-enginering box out of hope.
I think the writer is confused by the term 10 cubic kilometers. It is not (10 km)^3 but (2.15 km)^3. Pinatubo released about 7 cubic kilometers of ash, which is around 10 gigatons of volcanic rock. It also released about 20 million tons of SO_2.
OPEC is not shipping the extra barrels they promised.
Courtesy of Dante at PeakOil.com...
From Reuters
From Dow Jones Newswire (no link yet)
I guess it's time for the foaming at the mouth neocon legions to attack. There is no spare capacity and from now on things are going down hill, even if slowly.
Oh no! Whatever will Party Guy do now? I mean, it was a sure bet, they SAID they were gonna - that's like money in the bank right? (may need to rethink the meaning of that expression soon...)
I have been expecting something like this. Looking at the charts, it looks like everyone, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia, has been producing flat out all along. I thought Saudi would increase a little and perhaps Kuwait a few extra barrels.
This will hit the oil market really hard, and will likely spill over into the stock market.
Ron Patterson
Well, well, well...
To all the posters who were counting on OPEC:
Pun intended.
Leanan,
You are the Queen of Understatement.
Wasn't the OPEC promise simply to add 500 kbpd to the quota (i.e. reinstate the 500k dropped in Feb)? Production was already running over quota quite a bit. I don't think they promised to increase existing production by another 500k.
OPEC is not shipping the extra barrels they promised.
That story says OPEC exports rose marginally. But then later, it said "the extra 500,000 bpd pledged by Opec this month had been offset by oil maintenance field outages in the United Arab Emirates." Given that the UAE maintenance took 600,000 bpd offline, then the other members of OPEC had to have stepped up production by more than 600,000 barrels in order to see a moderate rise. This had been discussed here at length; that the OPEC increase would be wiped out by the UAE maintenance. But what then happens when the UAE field comes back online? If the other members are in fact pumping enough to make up for it, when that field comes back we should see those 600,000 barrels.
I agree, though, that this is not what OPEC said. They said that total production would ramp up by 500,000 barrels starting November 1. But we also have the Petrologistics reports that say barrels actually ramped up ahead of the November 1 date. I think people are again only reading what they want to see: Accept the Oil Movements report that says movements are up marginally in November, ignore the Petrologistics report that says the most of the rise happened in October:
http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view_article.php?article...
The above articles are about shipments, not production.
How much of the UAE shortfall is made up from storage and how much from increased production?
UAE warned about this plenty in advance. I seem to recall you saying that they would build up storage to compensate.
We'll have to wait for prodcution numbers for a clearer picture.
Why does it have to be either or?
I'm looking at both and seea pretty dismal performance from OPEC that's not going to relieve the pressure on oil prices.
Indeed, he did:
As far as the imports go, all refiners have to make those sorts of moves during extended outages. You have to do the maintenance, but you still have to supply your customers. Sometimes that means you have to secure product elsewhere.
The quote in question was regarding your comment "they're making up for the lost production from the refinery by buying refined product on the open market." So, I would appreciate it if you do not misrepresent me. The quote simply means that when producers have to go down, they often still have commitments to customers. But do you really think they have the storage for 600,000 bpd of lost production? Not for long, they won't. Undoubtedly they built up storage, but there are limits. Certainly they had to have someone else pick up production.
How can I "misrepresent" you, when I provided a link to your comments?
I think you're splitting hairs. The increase in production was supposed to be a net increase, not an offset to the UAE's lost production. That's not what's happening, at least according to the people who count the ships.
How can I "misrepresent" you, when I provided a link to your comments?
Um, when the link doesn't say what you said it did? Your "indeed he did" was in response to the claim "I seem to recall you saying that they would build up storage to compensate." Yet that's not what I said at the link, hence misrepresenation.
The increase in production was supposed to be a net increase, not an offset to the UAE's lost production.
And I have already said as much. My understanding was that the total would come up by 500,000 bpd, but there was always the open question of the UAE maintenance.
Hi Robert,
I'm glad to see you're here.
re: "If the other members are in fact pumping enough to make up for it, when that field comes back we should see those 600,000 barrels."
What is the time frame for "UAE maintenance"? (ie., How long of a time period would you want to give for the 600K barrels to show up, as you hypothesize?)
Is it really necessary to make that kind of remark? Isn't it possible that people have legitimate reasons for finding Oil Movements more compelling than Petrologistics? Why make gratuitous comments about people's motivations, when you can't possibly know?
Since most people really have no idea whether Oil Movements or Petrologistics is more likely to be correct, always choosing the pessimistic opinion, or reading a story and only pulling out the negative portions, indicates a lack of objectivity. That is, unless you have some inside knowledge, other than "Dante says..." I see it all the time. People are choosing their authorities based on the message they are delivering, and they omit big pieces of the puzzle.
So, yeah, I think it is necessary to make that kind of remark. A little introspection might be useful.
You may not have noticed, but I posted the Petrologistics story, too. Far more prominently than the Oil Movements one, even.
I entirely agree.
But attacking people rather than their ideas rarely accomplishes that.
You may not have noticed, but I posted the Petrologistics story, too. Far more prominently than the Oil Movements one, even.
Yet you have consistently used the Oil Movements story for support. Not once have I seen you write "On the other hand, the Petrologistics story indicated that some of the increase happened in October." You simply leave that part out, which presents a misleading picture.
But attacking people rather than their ideas rarely accomplishes that.
Nobody is attacking anyone. I am pointing out a tendency to see things that people want to see. That's not an attack, it is an observation. My hope is that people will ask themselves "Why do I believe this? Why is it credible? Why is it more credible than X?" Objectivity is what I am looking for.
Actually, I have. Why do you think I asked Dante what the difference between the two is? (And I had to ask him, because I don't have subscriptions myself, and aren't likely to any time soon.)
And the Oil Movements story is new, while the Petrologistics story is not. It's last month's news now.
If so, you would be better off asking, "Do you know about this story, that contradicts the one you referenced? If so, why do you discount it?" That is far more likely to get the response you want.
Hi Leanan,
re: "If so, you would be better off asking..."
Just to focus on one small part of this exchange, I support your making a concrete suggestion to Robert.
It's funny/interesting how just a slight change of emotional tone can change the meaning of something.
This one is pretty funny (and pretty accurate)- http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/zentay/2007/1108.html
Interesting question and answer during a George Bush interview by a European journalist yesterday. Sounds like Bush is a "peak oiler."
Question: "Mr. President, with oil approaching $100 a barrel, are you concerned that your hard words for Iran on its nuclear program are helping drive up oil prices, which can end up hurting the U.S. economy?"
Bush: "No. I believe oil prices are going up because the demand for oil outstrips the supply for oil. Oil is going up because developing countries still use a lot of oil. Oil is going up because we use too much oil, and the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling. That's why the price of oil is going up."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/08/BL200711080...
GLT: The problem is that at this point (as unbelieveable as it would have seemed 10 years ago) a large majority of the USA public (and the world) literally ignore everything the President of the United States says. He has been talking jibberish so consistently for so long that when he says something half intelligent it won't register with anyone.
Agreed. And on top off that, this interview received virtually zero coverage in the MSM, as far as I can tell.
Is this a Bushism, or does it reveal a secret neocon plan to decimate non-OECD demand ?
Seriously though, I just came across the following argument in support of the view that $100 / barrel isn't actually that expensive in historical terms:
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/casey/casey110907.html
Mr Casey appears to have a good grasp of both the supply situation and its economic implications.
You know I was just thinking the DOW is still at 3.25 Kunstlers (DOW 4,000 Prediction-2005-2006) :P
LOL!!!
But people still give him credence! He was completely off the beam with Y2K, too. No matter. They still lap him up.
It's my little contribution to the world of satire. Point is there are ridiculous predictions across the spectrum of believers, deniers, etc. Just remember nonone on this site, no matter how much they tell you they think they know, has any idea of what exactly and in most cases even remotely know what the future brings.
We're all going to die.
Ha, got that right. :) At least something is sure in life and death.
My body's already tried to pull that one on me and I just up and said no.
And pay taxes.
Leanan...I posted something from Financial Sense twice tonight and both times they were deleted after I confirmed they had posted. Do you know what's going on here?
I deleted them. One, you quoted way too much of the article. Two, the link had already been posted to the thread...by the person you were replying to.
Leanan...it was a different article...sigh!! Thought I was going nutty (more than usual).
No, it was not a different article. Look upthread. He posted the very same article (much higher in the thread).
Brazil announced the discovery of an 8 billion barrel light oil discovery:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/09/america/LA-FIN-Brazil-Oil.php
The trend is a subsalt play below existing oil producing areas and more than 23,000 feet below sea level. Wells in such an environment might cost 100 million dollars a piece with today's prices.
Brazilian oil production is supposed to grow beyond 2010.
I thought Deffeyes said that below 15000 feet the pressures are great enough that only methane results. Both Jack II and this discovery apparently disprove my understanding. Did I misinterpret/misremember what Deffeyes said?
Geology is not consistent. Jack 2 dropped quickly and did not have time to cook properly into methane & tar, per my understanding.
Also water on top is not like rock overburden.
Alan
Thanks Alan--
I figured water made some difference, but Jack II was still under 21000 feet of rock. The time it took to get to that depth having an effect makes sense, but I would think, since it is still sitting at that depth, it is still cooking the longer chains down to methane. So maybe in a few million years, Jack II and this other new find will turn to methane.
I think the lower boundary of the "petroleum window" is less a matter of pressure than temperature. When the organic goo gets hot enough, it disproportionates into coal and methane.
Perhaps the Jack II geology is not as hot as other areas at 15000 feet. Or perhaps as Alan said, the goo hasn't had long enough at that depth to cook out.
Here's my understanding:
Source rocks are buried, through various kinds of geological movement, to a depth of at least 7,500 feet, but not more than 15,000 feet—what is called the “oil window.” At those depths and pressures, the rock encounters the right amount of heat—about 175F—to cook the organic matter and break down its long organic molecules into smaller chains of hydrocarbons that can make oil.
Kerogen that is buried deeper than the oil window enters the “gas window” of 120 °C to 220 °C, at which temperatures it will be broken down into smaller molecules to make natural gas. (At higher temperatures than that, the gas would be destroyed.)
So 10,000 ft of rock, as we apparently have at Tuli, is still in the oil window. Although after the oil has formed, it may migrate into higher or lower formations and stay there under the cap rock.
--C
Energy consultant, writer, blogger www.getreallist.com
Hello TODers,
I hope every TODer reads the following info. IMO, this is quite a news-scoop for Eugene Duran, Bart & EB.
Evidently, Yergin was a hardcore Peakoiler at one time, but I guess the lure of money and fame turned him into a techno-cornucopian. IMO, this is a stunning read:
http://energybulletin.net/36930.html
-----------------------------------------
Young Daniel Yergin as peak oil activist (book review)
by Eugene Duran
...What is most astounding to me is one of the writers of this chapter is none other that Daniel Yergin himself. Yes, that’s right, Daniel Yergin of CERA- Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the same organization that dismisses Peak Oil as “garbage.”
----------------------------------------------
Please read the entire EnergyBulletin link, it is quite a revelation, and IMO, exposes Yergin as a flip-flopping hypocrite [but in all fairness: I need to get a copy of this old book by Yergin & Stobaugh].
It is never pretty to see an author receiving ten-thousand papercuts from pages printed with his own earlier words.
Will the MSM read EB, do some more follow up research, then interview Yergin to ask why the Peakoil flip-flop? Now that will be interesting to see!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I really don't understand why people get off on the fact someone changed their mind once. Is someone who stubbornly sticks to their belief more likely to be right? It may impress the other chimps, but it is not scientific.
We should concentrate on making the arguments on current merit, not looking for ancient dirt.
You can also find early writings of Alan Greenspan advocating for a return to a gold standard.
Funny what power and money does to people.
It is 2:08 in the morning and I could not sleep. I don't posit a cause/effect between my not sleeping and the arrest of Benazir Bhutto, but I do believe news like this might just keep me up :-(
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR200711...
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/9/0238/07537
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0754940420071108
That last one is a real knee slapper:
Holy water stress, hydrology man!