My guess is no. Anything's possible, but I've always thought "catabolic collapse" was our most likely fate, and recent events have only bolstered that view.
The decline will be slow. So slow that many won't even notice.
Leanan, I too think the evidence points to a "catabolic collapse" with disintegration occuring over an extended period with most people missing the reasons behind it and misdiagnosing the symptoms for the disease.
Hell, however, is a generic "mystical" state when an individual or society is accutely aware of the disintegration itself. The examples of past breakdowns of civilization do point to complexity returning to a sustainable level and yes, the process takes decades and centuries to complete. All that said, most people become aware that something is terrible amiss long before the breaking point.
Knowing the power of deniability (denial is indeed more than dat river in Egypt!!), 2008 may be the year when reality begins to seep in, especially if shortages and losses (in finance, in commodities, in food) begin to alter our lifestyles in a big way.
We're dancing on rim of the abyss now and, if observations about peak are right, have already descended onto the slippery slope of the maelstrom. At what point do people start to notice the pain?
From what I'm reading and seeing, the pain is apparent and for many, chronic.
The pain is apparent to some, but it's assumed to be temporary. And I think that will be the case for a very long time.
IMO, the collapse actually began in the early '70s - peak oil USA. Since then, there have been bad times (gas shortages) and good times (the dot-com boom). The pain has been very apparent to some (the blue collar workers who lost their jobs to offshoring). Some have pointed out that real wages have stagnated, and that Americans are working much longer hours than their parents did to maintain a similar lifestyle. But most people haven't noticed, or if they have, assume it's a temporary problem. We just need to elect the right politicians, pass the right laws, give people the right educations, etc., and everything will be okay.
I don't see that changing. Even in countries that are suffering far more from energy costs/shortages than we are...they don't seem to be "aware of the disintegration." At least, not as an insoluble or long-term problem. The problem is corrupt politicians or greedy oil companies or incompetent officials. Fix those problems, and they'll be on their way to the American dream.
And of course, politicians have every reason to encourage us to keep believing.
We've got a rate change coming this year. In energy prices, food availability, water availability, etc. People don't notice constant velocity, but acceleration tends to get their notice. Nothing may still happen, but then again maybe the pitchforks will come out.
If we do get accelerating rates of decline in our current lifestyle, will people look to the core causes or just the symptoms? The usual western world view is to address the symptom. The best long-term solution is usually to address the cause. I think Leanan may be right - people will continue to think that we just need some policy change and elect the right people (or some equally cosmetic change) and all will get better...
I suspect a few will look to core causes, but most of the people will be "lead" to look at symptoms and find a quick and easy way of "blaming others." As the example of the current banking crises has revealed, very few people are in to being accountable for their actions these days. John
I do think though that you will reach critical points for certain elements of the economy and then change/collapse will be rapid with unseen knock on effects.
As a case take the airline industry. There is no way the airlines can survive $100.00+ oil for very long. The last acts will consolidation and downsizing that may buy a the last limited period of time. With few exceptions there is little understading amongst the airlines of the situation we are in in respect of peak oil. The belief is current high prices will go away eventually.
With the US airlines now forcast to lose between $4 and $9 billion this year there will come a point where the majority of the system will fail and probably quite abrubtly. A lot airlines were bailed out after 9/11 with financial wizardry that will not be available this time round.
Just wait for the fuel hedges to expire and you may start to see some rapid closures if we have maintained this oil price later in the year. Then obviously knock on effects to other parts of the economy. I'm sure this will play out in other industries so we may see nothing much happening and then rapidly changing circumstances. Fits and starts down the slope.
I expect "the airlines" to survive indefinitely even if they shrink considerably. Even in very poor countries, certain things are untouchable. In the present-day USA, two sacred cows are "home" "ownership" and the tourist "industry". Congresscritters will step in as needed and loot everything else to bail them out, as they have done many times at huge expense in the past, and as they are doing again right this very minute. When it comes to feeding sacred cows, there is always more "financial wizardry" to be had, even if it opens a road to everyday banknotes running far into the quintillions.
Congresscritters are, after all, incapable of ignoring yelps from Very Important And Connected People. And heaven forbid that Very Important Business Persons, their deals already made without human intervention by computers and spreadsheets, had to seal said deals over the phone rather than by physical visits to ultra-upscale hotels and restaurants on the far side of the world. The whines would be deafening and unbearable. And imagine the inhumane deprivation suffered by Very Important Academics made to read papers on their own, rather than vacation someplace nice like Bermuda on the pretext of pretending to listen in person to the absolutely incomprehensible mumbling of the authors. Our universities would collapse to dust instantly.
That's to say nothing of all the carrying on, some of which I'm already hearing, from the vast army of otherwise unemployable zero-marketable-skills persons who comprise the overwhelming bulk of the tourist "industry". The Chicago radio stations have been running unbranded ads, apparently from the hotel industry association, every now and then. These ads seem to be intended to scare people that if they aren't "being there", at $300 a night or whatever, they're toast. [And United Airlines continues to make the same point (PDF) more subtly in their print ad campaign.]
Even when there were long lines in the 1970s at the gas stations, flying somewhere for no particularly vital purpose was not a huge problem. Fares may go up, airlines may consolidate and lay off workers - but have no fear: ordinary people will forced to break their necks riding bikes to work on winter ice if that's what it takes to keep airlines going.
You could be right on the fuel priority for the airlines. They might get subsidies too like they did after 911. Even profitable Southwest Air received a hundred million or so in federal handouts back in 2001. At the very least I would see the US government giving security services for free to airlines, along with reducing or eliminating things like landing fees, fuel taxes, and ticket taxes. Maybe a $50 per airline passenger subsidy is in order, so that the flyers don't have to "feel the pain" like the rest of us.
One caveat about the airlines bailout is that as the economy heads south and people/businesses have no cash to spend (and far fewer employees), airlines may have no passengers to subsidize.
Leanan: If you compare global supply (C+C) between 1974 and 2008 it is up about 33%. So an increase in global supply to 2042 C+C of 98 would be expected to continue the long term decline in the fortunes of the average American. The conclusion is that, for the average American, the slide is quickly going to become a freefall.
I agree with Leanan that the US has been in a slow decline since our oil production began to decline (benefits decreasing from employers, more folks working 2 or 3 jobs) but I agree with BrianT that now it is turning into a freefall. By 2012, I think we will be living in a much different world.
I would agree if the reduction is evenly distributed.
But I don't think it will be. I think we'll continue to outbid most of the rest of the world for the remaining oil. Even with our funny money.
I suspect a lot of Third World nations are near the breaking point. They can't afford to keep subsidizing energy costs. They're going to be forced to reduce consumption. We're still a far way from that point.
Also, we are so profligate in our energy use that we could cut back quite a bit without serious pain. People who have two or three or four cars will drive the little Toyota instead of the big Explorer more often. My office has not (yet) returned to the energy conservation measures they took a few years ago during the last recession.
Unfortunately, we also have an unfortunate series of strategies for pain-management..
We don't always care as much about stemming the actual cause, as long as we can alleviate the symptoms.
As the 4 or 5 prescriptions for various pain-killers that my wife was just given after some gum surgery yesterday will attest, we are often just too terrified of experiencing pain at all. Besides the actual drugs, we have a broad spectrum of addictions that we use to drown out our anguish and fear, instead of letting these emotions help instruct us and inspire us to engender real healing.
Leslie just picked the Alleve.
".. It damn well hurts!
Certainly, it hurts.
What's the trick, then?
The trick, William Potter,
is not minding that it hurts. "
Trying to write and work this morning despite neck and shoulder pain, which the chiropractor tried to address by putting a rib back in place, because (all too likely) I do too much writing and not enough bricklaying or rockclimbing, so my intercaustals don't have the tone necessary to hold a few bones in their proper places..
"This calls for immediate discussion.." MontyPython's Life of Brian
The decline will be slow. So slow that many won't even notice.
That is certainly the present case. I work in the medical feild and interact with the public most of the day. It is extremely rare for someone, regardless of background, to look beyond their nose.
All the usual explanations for the run on energy costs are verbalized. And when I suggest that geology is forming the "bedrock" of price instability, I just get blank stares. Even smart people seem clueless about the limits of exponential growth.
But there's the jihadist catalyst simmering out there, with its eyes on Saudi Arabia and the global havoc that a sucessful attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure could have. They have shown patience and tenacity and, having failed in the past, will be planning more carefully in the future.
I agree with Matt Simmons that 2008 will be the year that the media begin to take notice. I have been peppering THE WALL STREET JOURNAL with information, and they have at least responded by focusing a number of articles, commentaries, and blogs on the Peak Oil "theory." As soon as oil production declines just a little, oil prices will skyrocket, probably in 2008. The economic collapse will come slowly at first, but when the power grid fails we will experience a rapid collapse. Virtually everything depends on electric power: transportation, elevators, airports, truck stops, home heating systems, communications, etc. According to Railton Frith and Paul H. Gilbert, power failures currently have the potential of paralyzing the nation for weeks or months. What happens across the northern U.S. when there are power failures in winter for "weeks or months?" Of course, FEMA is probably working on some contingency plan, so we don't have to worry much.
I don't personally think this is inevitable, or even necessarily likely, but I think it is feasible to imagine that as shift energy from natural gas and oil to the electric grid, we might see failures proliferate. For example, heating oil in the Northeast is likely to hit a crisis point fairly soon, and I suspect conversion to electric heat will follow it. That's a very large load in a nation not spending money updating its infrastructure.
My own feeling is that grid failure is less likely that large chunks of the population being priced out of electricity altogether - until lower income families are forced to operate without electricity.
As you say, many are in grave danger from shortage of power
Almost five million people in the UK are in fuel poverty, meaning they spend more than 10 per cent of their income on energy bills, and 55,000 die each winter because of cold-related illnesses,
Apart from underlining the criminal incompetence of successive administrations, in an energy short world, that is going to climb to what level of deaths per year? 100,000? 150,000?
And this is for the UK alone.
It also perhaps puts into perspective claims that we ‘should’ be prepared to pay a heck of a lot more for relatively carbon free energy.
The ‘pay more’ for many could be with their own lives.
Any assessment of risks for different energy strategies should be set in the context of the massive mortality figures consequent on energy shortage or very expensive energy, and the possibly even greater mortality from global warming.
It also perhaps puts into perspective claims that we ‘should’ be prepared to pay a heck of a lot more for relatively carbon free energy.
The ‘pay more’ for many could be with their own lives.
The irony of Britain actually exporting oil. It makes me want to cry. How could the British government have been SO stupid ? Presumably they must have had some idea about the 1999 peak in production ??
I don't think they expected peak oil in the North Sea to occur as soon as it did. (That's the scary thing: the "experts" tend to be overly optimistic about how fast, how much, and how long an oil field can produce.) I think Simmons was the only one who thought the North Sea peak would occur when it did. An article I posted recently said the peak occurred ten years earlier than predicted. I'm not sure if everyone thought that, but the predictions I've come across expected North Sea production to still be increasing now.
However, I am surprised at how many people die of hypothermia in the UK. It's not as cold as it is in the US, and they're supposed to be a "welfare state" (at least in comparison to the US). But you rarely hear about people dying of hypothermia here.
No wonder, if you look at the quality of the buildings. Here in Switzerland you can not even imagine how really bad the quality of the buildings in the UK is. And the price, people are willing to pay for whatever house / flat is just insane.
The UK in general offers bad quality / service for an outstanding price. I think, the UK is much worse off than the US. In the US you don't get quality - never did - but at least the prices are comparable cheap.
House prices are just about to crash, as is the pound - that will likely be mitigated slightly as they are unlikely to get away with such a lax attitude to inflation as the US.
Until, I believe around 2005, we had some of the worst housing insulation standards of countries with comparable climates in Europe.
Apparently around 65% of houses built still did not meet them - the local authority officers charged with enforcing them did not consider them important.
5 million homes out of around 24 million in the UK are in the lowest category for insulation, band G.
A further 9 million are in band F.
Nuclear reactors and many of the coal plants are due to come off line in the next few years, and we have built a lot of LNG terminals which are paid for regardless of whether any ships ever use them, and the EU alone plans to import most of the projected LNG increase in world supply for the next several years - it ain't gonna happen.
Nuclear reactors could not be built to come on line with the glacial pace of approval here before around 2017.
They plan 33GW installed capacity of off-shore wind power, 10-11GW of average hourly energy output at vast cost - around twice the price of onshore, or double nuclear costs.
Even the British Wind Energy Association says that this is unrealistic.
Their other plan is to build more coal plants, whilst apparently we are still to lead the way in climate change mitigation.
Conservation has barely started, with erratic grants.
They have, however, completed terminal 5 at Heathrow, so we will have plenty of space for all the planes that will not be flying due to fuel costs.
And they introduced tabacco prohibtion.
BTW: the most common first name in the UK for young children is Mohammed. Immigration seems to be one of most important points of this socialist /labour gouvernment.
Are they really cold-related? I thought the idea that temperature caused respiratory disease was an old wives' tale.
If they're basing it just on higher death rates in winter, they may be barking up the wrong tree. Winter is flu season, and the elderly are the most vulnerable population. However, there's no proof that keeping your home warmer prevents the flu.
I can't vouch for the illness figures, Leanan, but I can confirm that very many people have to stay in bed and so on as it is too cold out of bed, and they have great difficulty affording the heat.
However, looking into it the 50,000 figure appears poorly substantiated, it is not however made up by the Times, but appear to be based on the work of Professor Keating:
The BBC wording quoted is: "Up to 50,000 more people die in the UK during the winter months than in the summer, according to new research."
During the last particularly bad flu season about 50,000 extra people did die over the winter. The Times financial reporter may have misread or incorrectly recalled that extreme figure as the average.
Of course in the worst imaginable case you could say that "up to 60 million people die in the UK during the winter months"...
"That's the scary thing: the "experts" tend to be overly optimistic about how fast, how much, and how long an oil field can produce."
I have to wonder if being optimistic is an unspoken, even subconscious requirement for gaining the title of 'Expert'? At least in these circumstances..
"Today a Knox engineer will tell you that he might need a little time, but he’ll get the oil. He knows that a little time is all we have left. " - Local Hero d. Bill Forsyth
It's another fine example of Britain's Third World policy, to join it as fast as possible.
Here is the rest of the bit I quoted:
55,000 die each winter because of cold-related illnesses, a far greater number than in countries such as Finland and Russia that have much harsher climates.
Have you seen the way the British government looses data files? It puts uncoded data into the post on CD's.
They make US politicians seem competent models of rectitude.
the "experts" tend to be overly optimistic about how fast, how much, and how long an oil field can produce.
It is not politically correct to be pessimistic. So called 'doomers' catch all kinds of flack for expressing pessimism about what the future will bring. Look at the flack caught by the LTG studies. Try bringing up peak oil or population crash issues at a cocktail party. You will likely get dismissed as a party pooper and people will quickly seek out another conversation.
It didn't say that they were dying from hypothermia. The cold somehow weakens some people's immune systems and they die from infection. That we don't hear about people dying because of the cold is because the US news media turns a blind eye toward what happens to poor people. The right wingers believe people are poor because of the choices they make and deserve to die from bad choices. To say otherwise sends the wrong message.
We in the industry reckoned peak in the UKCS around 1995, but steerable assemblies and horizontal drilling techniques developed and enabled access to margins.
What puzzles me is why everbody is puzzled that ' production falls even though we are spending on exploration...' This is especially true of the RBS annual comment on the Industry.
The 2003 DTI graph shows a trickle of oil by 2020.
What puzzles me further are th £300 k McMansions sprouting up all over the place. They will never get paid off. All built on prime farmland that once grew tatties and neeps, all 20 miles from job source, all with SUVs parked outside.
Madness, complete madness.
My plan is ELP This year. If all here take nothing away from this site other than Westexas's 'ELP' Then it may save your life, certainly your sanity. I thought ELP could wait a couple more years. After this week, I think ELP could be vital this summer at the latest.
As for cold deaths in the UK: Expect them to get worse. It becomes a choice of food or heat for many poorer pensioners. As things now stand with food inflation being up to 15% per annum and fuel cost inflation at the same rate, then I think will only get progressively worse. National pensions are low and rarely keep up with true inflation. They keep up with the scandalous measure of inflation peddaled by the government (2.1%)
If we ever have a 1 in 10 winter, It will become a pensioner cull.
I Googled ELP-
European Left Party
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerging Leaders Party
English Language Programs
El Paso International Airport
The list goes on-Please inform Google you have an addition.
My guess is no. Anything's possible, but I've always thought "catabolic collapse" was our most likely fate, and recent events have only bolstered that view.
The decline will be slow. So slow that many won't even notice.
Leanan, I too think the evidence points to a "catabolic collapse" with disintegration occuring over an extended period with most people missing the reasons behind it and misdiagnosing the symptoms for the disease.
Hell, however, is a generic "mystical" state when an individual or society is accutely aware of the disintegration itself. The examples of past breakdowns of civilization do point to complexity returning to a sustainable level and yes, the process takes decades and centuries to complete. All that said, most people become aware that something is terrible amiss long before the breaking point.
Knowing the power of deniability (denial is indeed more than dat river in Egypt!!), 2008 may be the year when reality begins to seep in, especially if shortages and losses (in finance, in commodities, in food) begin to alter our lifestyles in a big way.
We're dancing on rim of the abyss now and, if observations about peak are right, have already descended onto the slippery slope of the maelstrom. At what point do people start to notice the pain?
From what I'm reading and seeing, the pain is apparent and for many, chronic.
The pain is apparent to some, but it's assumed to be temporary. And I think that will be the case for a very long time.
IMO, the collapse actually began in the early '70s - peak oil USA. Since then, there have been bad times (gas shortages) and good times (the dot-com boom). The pain has been very apparent to some (the blue collar workers who lost their jobs to offshoring). Some have pointed out that real wages have stagnated, and that Americans are working much longer hours than their parents did to maintain a similar lifestyle. But most people haven't noticed, or if they have, assume it's a temporary problem. We just need to elect the right politicians, pass the right laws, give people the right educations, etc., and everything will be okay.
I don't see that changing. Even in countries that are suffering far more from energy costs/shortages than we are...they don't seem to be "aware of the disintegration." At least, not as an insoluble or long-term problem. The problem is corrupt politicians or greedy oil companies or incompetent officials. Fix those problems, and they'll be on their way to the American dream.
And of course, politicians have every reason to encourage us to keep believing.
We've got a rate change coming this year. In energy prices, food availability, water availability, etc. People don't notice constant velocity, but acceleration tends to get their notice. Nothing may still happen, but then again maybe the pitchforks will come out.
If we do get accelerating rates of decline in our current lifestyle, will people look to the core causes or just the symptoms? The usual western world view is to address the symptom. The best long-term solution is usually to address the cause. I think Leanan may be right - people will continue to think that we just need some policy change and elect the right people (or some equally cosmetic change) and all will get better...
I suspect a few will look to core causes, but most of the people will be "lead" to look at symptoms and find a quick and easy way of "blaming others." As the example of the current banking crises has revealed, very few people are in to being accountable for their actions these days. John
I do think though that you will reach critical points for certain elements of the economy and then change/collapse will be rapid with unseen knock on effects.
As a case take the airline industry. There is no way the airlines can survive $100.00+ oil for very long. The last acts will consolidation and downsizing that may buy a the last limited period of time. With few exceptions there is little understading amongst the airlines of the situation we are in in respect of peak oil. The belief is current high prices will go away eventually.
With the US airlines now forcast to lose between $4 and $9 billion this year there will come a point where the majority of the system will fail and probably quite abrubtly. A lot airlines were bailed out after 9/11 with financial wizardry that will not be available this time round.
Just wait for the fuel hedges to expire and you may start to see some rapid closures if we have maintained this oil price later in the year. Then obviously knock on effects to other parts of the economy. I'm sure this will play out in other industries so we may see nothing much happening and then rapidly changing circumstances. Fits and starts down the slope.
Naah.
I expect "the airlines" to survive indefinitely even if they shrink considerably. Even in very poor countries, certain things are untouchable. In the present-day USA, two sacred cows are "home" "ownership" and the tourist "industry". Congresscritters will step in as needed and loot everything else to bail them out, as they have done many times at huge expense in the past, and as they are doing again right this very minute. When it comes to feeding sacred cows, there is always more "financial wizardry" to be had, even if it opens a road to everyday banknotes running far into the quintillions.
Congresscritters are, after all, incapable of ignoring yelps from Very Important And Connected People. And heaven forbid that Very Important Business Persons, their deals already made without human intervention by computers and spreadsheets, had to seal said deals over the phone rather than by physical visits to ultra-upscale hotels and restaurants on the far side of the world. The whines would be deafening and unbearable. And imagine the inhumane deprivation suffered by Very Important Academics made to read papers on their own, rather than vacation someplace nice like Bermuda on the pretext of pretending to listen in person to the absolutely incomprehensible mumbling of the authors. Our universities would collapse to dust instantly.
That's to say nothing of all the carrying on, some of which I'm already hearing, from the vast army of otherwise unemployable zero-marketable-skills persons who comprise the overwhelming bulk of the tourist "industry". The Chicago radio stations have been running unbranded ads, apparently from the hotel industry association, every now and then. These ads seem to be intended to scare people that if they aren't "being there", at $300 a night or whatever, they're toast. [And United Airlines continues to make the same point (PDF) more subtly in their print ad campaign.]
Even when there were long lines in the 1970s at the gas stations, flying somewhere for no particularly vital purpose was not a huge problem. Fares may go up, airlines may consolidate and lay off workers - but have no fear: ordinary people will forced to break their necks riding bikes to work on winter ice if that's what it takes to keep airlines going.
You could be right on the fuel priority for the airlines. They might get subsidies too like they did after 911. Even profitable Southwest Air received a hundred million or so in federal handouts back in 2001. At the very least I would see the US government giving security services for free to airlines, along with reducing or eliminating things like landing fees, fuel taxes, and ticket taxes. Maybe a $50 per airline passenger subsidy is in order, so that the flyers don't have to "feel the pain" like the rest of us.
One caveat about the airlines bailout is that as the economy heads south and people/businesses have no cash to spend (and far fewer employees), airlines may have no passengers to subsidize.
I don't really see the airlines as being immune. Their volume business comes from the masses, and discretionary spending is going to take a real hit.
This time around it seems that finances, at least in the US and UK, will be so dire that the ability to subsidise will be limited.
I think that they will loose a huge amount of volume, and that will creep up and hit the business market too.
Leanan: If you compare global supply (C+C) between 1974 and 2008 it is up about 33%. So an increase in global supply to 2042 C+C of 98 would be expected to continue the long term decline in the fortunes of the average American. The conclusion is that, for the average American, the slide is quickly going to become a freefall.
I agree with Leanan that the US has been in a slow decline since our oil production began to decline (benefits decreasing from employers, more folks working 2 or 3 jobs) but I agree with BrianT that now it is turning into a freefall. By 2012, I think we will be living in a much different world.
I would agree if the reduction is evenly distributed.
But I don't think it will be. I think we'll continue to outbid most of the rest of the world for the remaining oil. Even with our funny money.
I suspect a lot of Third World nations are near the breaking point. They can't afford to keep subsidizing energy costs. They're going to be forced to reduce consumption. We're still a far way from that point.
Also, we are so profligate in our energy use that we could cut back quite a bit without serious pain. People who have two or three or four cars will drive the little Toyota instead of the big Explorer more often. My office has not (yet) returned to the energy conservation measures they took a few years ago during the last recession.
RE: noticing the pain.
Unfortunately, we also have an unfortunate series of strategies for pain-management..
We don't always care as much about stemming the actual cause, as long as we can alleviate the symptoms.
As the 4 or 5 prescriptions for various pain-killers that my wife was just given after some gum surgery yesterday will attest, we are often just too terrified of experiencing pain at all. Besides the actual drugs, we have a broad spectrum of addictions that we use to drown out our anguish and fear, instead of letting these emotions help instruct us and inspire us to engender real healing.
Leslie just picked the Alleve.
".. It damn well hurts!
Certainly, it hurts.
What's the trick, then?
The trick, William Potter,
is not minding that it hurts. "
-Lawrence of Arabia screenplay, Robert Bolt
People may care about the actual cause, but often they don't have the tools to either discover the cause or address the cause.
And discussing only in the linear terms of "cause" and "effect" will miss a whole host of contributing systemic interactions.
Fair enough.
Trying to write and work this morning despite neck and shoulder pain, which the chiropractor tried to address by putting a rib back in place, because (all too likely) I do too much writing and not enough bricklaying or rockclimbing, so my intercaustals don't have the tone necessary to hold a few bones in their proper places..
"This calls for immediate discussion.." MontyPython's Life of Brian
Bob
I really ought to read further down thread before posting...
That is certainly the present case. I work in the medical feild and interact with the public most of the day. It is extremely rare for someone, regardless of background, to look beyond their nose.
All the usual explanations for the run on energy costs are verbalized. And when I suggest that geology is forming the "bedrock" of price instability, I just get blank stares. Even smart people seem clueless about the limits of exponential growth.
But there's the jihadist catalyst simmering out there, with its eyes on Saudi Arabia and the global havoc that a sucessful attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure could have. They have shown patience and tenacity and, having failed in the past, will be planning more carefully in the future.
What I would give for a good energy policy!
Excuse me, time for some fiddle practice.
I agree with Matt Simmons that 2008 will be the year that the media begin to take notice. I have been peppering THE WALL STREET JOURNAL with information, and they have at least responded by focusing a number of articles, commentaries, and blogs on the Peak Oil "theory." As soon as oil production declines just a little, oil prices will skyrocket, probably in 2008. The economic collapse will come slowly at first, but when the power grid fails we will experience a rapid collapse. Virtually everything depends on electric power: transportation, elevators, airports, truck stops, home heating systems, communications, etc. According to Railton Frith and Paul H. Gilbert, power failures currently have the potential of paralyzing the nation for weeks or months. What happens across the northern U.S. when there are power failures in winter for "weeks or months?" Of course, FEMA is probably working on some contingency plan, so we don't have to worry much.
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Blackouts_America_Cyber...
http://sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125...
Why would the power grid in the US fail due to high oil costs?
My understanding is that very little of it runs on oil.
I don't personally think this is inevitable, or even necessarily likely, but I think it is feasible to imagine that as shift energy from natural gas and oil to the electric grid, we might see failures proliferate. For example, heating oil in the Northeast is likely to hit a crisis point fairly soon, and I suspect conversion to electric heat will follow it. That's a very large load in a nation not spending money updating its infrastructure.
My own feeling is that grid failure is less likely that large chunks of the population being priced out of electricity altogether - until lower income families are forced to operate without electricity.
Sharon
As you say, many are in grave danger from shortage of power
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/budget_2008/art...
That is BEFORE things get tough!
Apart from underlining the criminal incompetence of successive administrations, in an energy short world, that is going to climb to what level of deaths per year? 100,000? 150,000?
And this is for the UK alone.
It also perhaps puts into perspective claims that we ‘should’ be prepared to pay a heck of a lot more for relatively carbon free energy.
The ‘pay more’ for many could be with their own lives.
Any assessment of risks for different energy strategies should be set in the context of the massive mortality figures consequent on energy shortage or very expensive energy, and the possibly even greater mortality from global warming.
The irony of Britain actually exporting oil. It makes me want to cry. How could the British government have been SO stupid ? Presumably they must have had some idea about the 1999 peak in production ??
These are the guys who sold most of our gold in 1999-2000, so stupidity comes naturally.
These are the guys who are allowing the the energy utilities to put up prices vastly more for low users, so that you pay a lot more if you conserve.
They are also the ones who invaded Iraq for oil.
I don't think they expected peak oil in the North Sea to occur as soon as it did. (That's the scary thing: the "experts" tend to be overly optimistic about how fast, how much, and how long an oil field can produce.) I think Simmons was the only one who thought the North Sea peak would occur when it did. An article I posted recently said the peak occurred ten years earlier than predicted. I'm not sure if everyone thought that, but the predictions I've come across expected North Sea production to still be increasing now.
However, I am surprised at how many people die of hypothermia in the UK. It's not as cold as it is in the US, and they're supposed to be a "welfare state" (at least in comparison to the US). But you rarely hear about people dying of hypothermia here.
Very, few of the deaths are from hypothermia. They are "cold-related illnesses"
http://www.helptheaged.org.uk/en-gb/Campaigns/WinterDeaths/WhatWeWant/de...
No wonder, if you look at the quality of the buildings. Here in Switzerland you can not even imagine how really bad the quality of the buildings in the UK is. And the price, people are willing to pay for whatever house / flat is just insane.
The UK in general offers bad quality / service for an outstanding price. I think, the UK is much worse off than the US. In the US you don't get quality - never did - but at least the prices are comparable cheap.
House prices are just about to crash, as is the pound - that will likely be mitigated slightly as they are unlikely to get away with such a lax attitude to inflation as the US.
Until, I believe around 2005, we had some of the worst housing insulation standards of countries with comparable climates in Europe.
Apparently around 65% of houses built still did not meet them - the local authority officers charged with enforcing them did not consider them important.
5 million homes out of around 24 million in the UK are in the lowest category for insulation, band G.
A further 9 million are in band F.
Nuclear reactors and many of the coal plants are due to come off line in the next few years, and we have built a lot of LNG terminals which are paid for regardless of whether any ships ever use them, and the EU alone plans to import most of the projected LNG increase in world supply for the next several years - it ain't gonna happen.
Nuclear reactors could not be built to come on line with the glacial pace of approval here before around 2017.
They plan 33GW installed capacity of off-shore wind power, 10-11GW of average hourly energy output at vast cost - around twice the price of onshore, or double nuclear costs.
Even the British Wind Energy Association says that this is unrealistic.
Their other plan is to build more coal plants, whilst apparently we are still to lead the way in climate change mitigation.
Conservation has barely started, with erratic grants.
They have, however, completed terminal 5 at Heathrow, so we will have plenty of space for all the planes that will not be flying due to fuel costs.
And they introduced tabacco prohibtion.
BTW: the most common first name in the UK for young children is Mohammed. Immigration seems to be one of most important points of this socialist /labour gouvernment.
Are they really cold-related? I thought the idea that temperature caused respiratory disease was an old wives' tale.
If they're basing it just on higher death rates in winter, they may be barking up the wrong tree. Winter is flu season, and the elderly are the most vulnerable population. However, there's no proof that keeping your home warmer prevents the flu.
I can't vouch for the illness figures, Leanan, but I can confirm that very many people have to stay in bed and so on as it is too cold out of bed, and they have great difficulty affording the heat.
However, looking into it the 50,000 figure appears poorly substantiated, it is not however made up by the Times, but appear to be based on the work of Professor Keating:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1754561.stm
Many of the deaths though are due to poor practises such as poor shelter at bus stops.
This seems a fairly definitive study:
http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/64/2/93
Heat is also a large cause of mortality in the UK, as there is little air conditioning in homes.
The BBC wording quoted is: "Up to 50,000 more people die in the UK during the winter months than in the summer, according to new research."
During the last particularly bad flu season about 50,000 extra people did die over the winter. The Times financial reporter may have misread or incorrectly recalled that extreme figure as the average.
Of course in the worst imaginable case you could say that "up to 60 million people die in the UK during the winter months"...
"That's the scary thing: the "experts" tend to be overly optimistic about how fast, how much, and how long an oil field can produce."
I have to wonder if being optimistic is an unspoken, even subconscious requirement for gaining the title of 'Expert'? At least in these circumstances..
"Today a Knox engineer will tell you that he might need a little time, but he’ll get the oil. He knows that a little time is all we have left. " - Local Hero d. Bill Forsyth
It's another fine example of Britain's Third World policy, to join it as fast as possible.
Here is the rest of the bit I quoted:
Have you seen the way the British government looses data files? It puts uncoded data into the post on CD's.
They make US politicians seem competent models of rectitude.
It is not politically correct to be pessimistic. So called 'doomers' catch all kinds of flack for expressing pessimism about what the future will bring. Look at the flack caught by the LTG studies. Try bringing up peak oil or population crash issues at a cocktail party. You will likely get dismissed as a party pooper and people will quickly seek out another conversation.
So-called pessimists and doomers don't have the "can do" attitude that society likes to see. (slight sarcasm)
It didn't say that they were dying from hypothermia. The cold somehow weakens some people's immune systems and they die from infection. That we don't hear about people dying because of the cold is because the US news media turns a blind eye toward what happens to poor people. The right wingers believe people are poor because of the choices they make and deserve to die from bad choices. To say otherwise sends the wrong message.
We in the industry reckoned peak in the UKCS around 1995, but steerable assemblies and horizontal drilling techniques developed and enabled access to margins.
What puzzles me is why everbody is puzzled that ' production falls even though we are spending on exploration...' This is especially true of the RBS annual comment on the Industry.
The 2003 DTI graph shows a trickle of oil by 2020.
What puzzles me further are th £300 k McMansions sprouting up all over the place. They will never get paid off. All built on prime farmland that once grew tatties and neeps, all 20 miles from job source, all with SUVs parked outside.
Madness, complete madness.
My plan is ELP This year. If all here take nothing away from this site other than Westexas's 'ELP' Then it may save your life, certainly your sanity. I thought ELP could wait a couple more years. After this week, I think ELP could be vital this summer at the latest.
As for cold deaths in the UK: Expect them to get worse. It becomes a choice of food or heat for many poorer pensioners. As things now stand with food inflation being up to 15% per annum and fuel cost inflation at the same rate, then I think will only get progressively worse. National pensions are low and rarely keep up with true inflation. They keep up with the scandalous measure of inflation peddaled by the government (2.1%)
If we ever have a 1 in 10 winter, It will become a pensioner cull.
ELP - While you can
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Emerging Leaders Party
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The list goes on-Please inform Google you have an addition.