 | Why oil costs over $130 per barrel: the decline of North Sea Oil | The Oil Drum | Energy Export Databrowser |  |
DrumBeat: June 10, 2008
Posted by Leanan on June 10, 2008 - 9:19am
Topic: Miscellaneous
U.S. raises oil price forecast 12 pct on tight supply
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's top energy forecaster on Tuesday raised its projections for 2008 oil prices by nearly 12 percent as oil supplies from key projects in Russia, Norway, Mexico and Brazil failed to relieve tight supplies despite a slowdown in demand growth....The agency said it is still calling for non-OPEC supply to jump 820,000 bpd later this year as big fields in Brazil and Azerbaijan come online. But given recent delays, the EIA hedged its bets on the probability of such supplies materializing as planned.
"Given recent history, EIA believes that the pace and timing of non-OPEC supply growth will continue to be subject to possible delays in key projects and accelerating production declines in some older fields," the agency said.
Watch closely, and you could see cities grow
We've all got or heard similar stories. Take a small village I know in the south of France. Thirty years ago there were no street names and just a handful of houses. Now the town has grown so much that the sign signalling the entrance had to be moved further down the hill so the "suburbs" felt included.In itself, not much to worry about. But if you add up all the expanding villages, towns and cities around the world things look a bit different. According to research in Biological Conservation, humans are building the equivalent of a city the size of Vancouver every week. Yes, every week.
U.S. expects to attend Saudi oil meeting
WASHINGTON — The United States expects to participate in a June 22 meeting on oil supply in Saudi Arabia, the White House said Tuesday.“It's a positive sign that Saudi Arabia wants to take a leadership role on this issue. As one of the world's largest producers and consumers, we expect to participate,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
Parties Point Fingers on Gas Prices Legislation
With the average price of gas in the United States now above $4, Senate Republicans today rejected a plan by Democrats to give the president the authority to declare an "energy emergency" and sue OPEC nations, prosecute price gouging, assess a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies and cut down on speculation in the energy markets.The Democratic proposal, called the "Consumer-First Energy Act," was a grab bag of measures that Democrats cobbled together a month ago as gas prices were rising. At the time, the plan was meant as a counter-measure to a Republican plan that sought to encourage domestic oil exploration. Democrats in May voted down the Republican oil exploration plan, which would have done little for gas prices in the short term.
Gas Prices Skyrocket for Most, Stay Low for Some
In the United States, the average gas price has surpassed $4 a gallon; but in Norway, the cost is more than double that price. Meanwhile, Venezuela consumers are paying just pennies at the pump. Lasse Fridstrom, the managing director of the Institute of Transport Economics in Olso and Miguel Octavia, an economic blogger in Venezuela, discuss the impact of some of the world's highest and lowest gas prices.
At $135 Oil… Are You Starting to Worry Yet?
The world keeps turning and the resources get used up. It’s really quite simple.Despite that fact, the debates rage over Peak Oil, Peak Food and peak everything else. It’s about as sensible as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. So the “experts” continue to debate whether or not resources are running low. But the evidence is pretty clear, at least to this trader.
New Zealand: Political games over energy
For some time, National Party energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee has been keen to contrive an energy crisis. It is an obvious means of further discomforting a Government that is reeling on a number of fronts. A fortnight ago, Mr Brownlee accused Energy Minister David Parker of having "his fingers firmly crossed behind his back" and ignoring the reality of emptying hydro lakes. This week, he saw the announcement of an energy-savings campaign as the chance to ram home the message. "So there is a power crisis after all," he proclaimed. Never mind that there was scant support for such a notion. Mr Brownlee's somewhat constrained view of the world meant politicking must take precedence, even if that meant panicking people unnecessarily.
Eating only what grows around you
Once the purview of foodies and hippies, 'locavorism' is going mainstream.
Poll shows that more drivers are afraid of rationing and long lines at the station than of high prices.NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As much as Americans fret over the rising price of gas, one thing worries them more: the possibility of having to wait in long lines to buy rationed gas.
A CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday shows that 55% of those surveyed are more worried about long lines at gas stations and rationing than about the high prices that drivers have paid in recent months. The poll shows 40% of the respondents are more concerned about the high prices.
Saudi to host oil-producer-consumer meeting June 22-Badri
LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will host a meeting of oil producers and consumers in Jeddah on June 22 to discuss oil prices, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri told Reuters on Tuesday.
Eni to declare force majeure on Nigeria oil-trade
LONDON (Reuters) - Italian energy firm Eni (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) is expected to declare a force majeure on Nigerian Brass River crude exports, trading sources said on Tuesday.Traders said about 45,000 barrels of Brass River production was lost at the weekend. But they did not elaborate further as to why the company is taking such action.
U.S. gasoline to peak at $4.15/gallon in August
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regular-grade gasoline in the United States is expected to peak in August at $4.15 a gallon, with the full year price averaging $3.78 a gallon, the Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.
SD: Settlements in pipeline eminent domain trials
PIERRE, S.D. - Settlements were reached in the first trials scheduled in TransCanada Keystone's use of eminent domain to gain access to private land along the route of its oil pipeline in eastern South Dakota.
Miami lawyer sues OPEC, claims price fixing
On the same day that the price of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) basket of 13 crude oils hit $130.87 a barrel, a Miami lawyer filed a lawsuit alleging the group is fixing oil prices.Attorney Larry Klayman filed a suit in Miami federal court, on behalf of nonprofit group Freedom Watch, alleging that OPEC violated American antitrust laws.
New threat to food system: pricey fertilizer
WASHINGTON/WINNIPEG (Reuters) - It powered the Green Revolution and helped save millions from starvation, but now one of the most important tools on the farm is being priced out of reach for many of the world's growers.With food prices soaring and stocks thinning, the world is in need of bumper harvests but once one of most bountiful of commodities, fertilizer, is becoming scarce and expensive.
Monbiot: These objects of contempt are now our best chance of feeding the world
Peasants are detested by both communists and capitalists - but when it comes to productivity a small farm is unbeatable.
Gas prices run Victoria's meals off their wheels
Soaring gas prices have helped to kill Meals on Wheels in Victoria, and are threatening the program in other major Canadian cities.Last week, Meals on Wheels in Victoria announced it would be shutting down after 35 years of service, citing gas prices as one of the main reasons. Yesterday, prices in Greater Victoria soared as high as $1.49.9 a litre, among the most expensive in the country.
North Anoka Meals on Wheels to fold, citing funding shortfall
North Anoka Meals on Wheels will make its last delivery June 30.Because of funding cuts, fundraising shortages and steep gas prices, the program will end after 27 years, said Maggi Novak, who heads the program.
Food banks ask gardeners to grow extra for hungry
LANGDON, N.H. (AP) — Sharon Crossman hadn't tasted fresh fruits or vegetables in a week. Since her husband had two heart attacks and stopped working, she has relied on disability checks and the free food provided by a food pantry.But lately, the only fresh produce available at the Fall Mountain Foodshelf where she volunteers has been shriveled potatoes and sprouting onions.
Pantry director Mary Lou Huffling expects that to change soon, as she has begun asking local gardeners and farmers to grow extra rows of produce to donate.
New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties
WASHINGTON -- For decades, Saudi Arabia worked with its dominant customer, the United States, to keep world oil markets stable and advance common political goals.But the surging price of oil, which soared more than $10 a barrel Friday to a record-high $138.54, has made it plain that those days are over. New forces, including a weak dollar and an oil-thirsty Asia, have blunted the United States' leverage and helped sour the two countries' relationship.
Petrobras to test Tupi oilfield in Q1 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brazilian oil company Petrobras plans to test production at the Tupi oil field in the first quarter of 2009, Chief Executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli said on Tuesday.If the tests are successful, the company plans to add a 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity early production unit to Tupi by the end of 2010.
Petrobras: oil price to stay high, fleet will grow
The head of Petroleo Brasileiro SA -- Petrobras -- suggested Tuesday that global oil prices are likely to stay high for the time being, and said the Brazilian state-run oil giant plans to significantly expand its fleet of drilling rigs and other vessels in the coming years.
Iraq Eying First Field Tenders in June or Early July
The Iraqi oil ministry is planning to announce the first round of tenders to develop its vast oil fields, which are among the world's largest, at the end of June or the beginning of July, an Iraqi oil official said Monday."Iraq is going to announce the first round of tenders to develop super giant oil fields in southern and northern Iraq either at the end of June or the beginning of July," the official told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.
Barents Sea Dispute on Agenda at Norway-Russia Talks
An almost 40-year conflict over Barents Sea borders and Arctic issues were high on the agenda Monday for talks between the foreign ministers of Norway and Russia in northern Norway, officials in Oslo said.
Oil Rises Amid a Slower-Than-Expected Non-OPEC Supply Increase
(Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose more than $1 a barrel after the International Energy Agency lowered its estimate of supply from non-OPEC producers.The IEA cut its projection by 300,000 barrels to 50.04 million barrels a day.
Oil rebounds, gas hits another record
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Crude prices rebounded Tuesday on renewed concern about global demand, particularly in earthquake-ravaged China, while gasoline reached another record high average above $4 a gallon.
As if record gasoline prices weren’t causing enough consumer pain, Americans are expected to face skyrocketing electric utility bills this summer that may force as many as six million low- and middle-income families to seek government and utility assistance, twice as many as historically seek aid. Some could even die.
Fearing $5 gas, Americans cut back
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As more Americans become resigned to the possibility of paying $5 for a gallon for gas, they are driving less and seriously considering chucking their gas guzzlers, according to a poll released Monday.
Gas taxes set to rise in some states
ATLANTA (AP) — All of the talk among political candidates about a federal gas tax holiday to offset soaring prices at the pump misses a critical fact: state taxes are, for the most part, even more costly for drivers.And in some states, gas taxes are rising even higher, with a handful set to jump at the height of the summer driving season.
Effort to tax oil profits blocked
Senate Democrats fail to overcome filibuster of a 25% windfall profits tax on the top five oil companies.
Peak & Prices As Drivers Of Change
Today it is difficult to believe that $138 a barrel oil, with $150 coming soon to a theatre near you, and the accompanying travails of the big three car makers, and the airline, and trucking industries, not to mention consumer anger, won’t be enough to focus our media and our society’s collective mind on the issue of fossil fuel depletion. Given that our original aim at PCT was to highlight the issue of peak we have in that sense become redundant. With that said there is still important work to do as it is essential that the narrative is properly framed if we are not to move from the frying pan only to land in the fire.
High fuel prices spark protests in Asia and Europe
MADRID (Reuters) - Protesters marched in India, Hong Kong and Nepal over soaring oil prices on Tuesday and Spaniards stockpiled fuel and food, fearing shortages because of a truck drivers' strike that has halted deliveries.South Korean truck drivers also threatened to strike, increasing pressure on Asian governments struggling to prevent rising prices from breaking their budgets and avoid making the burden on the public so heavy it threatens political stability.
Shortages bite in Spanish strike
A growing number of petrol stations in Spain are running out of fuel, as lorry drivers continue to blockade major cities in a protest over diesel prices.With the strike in its second day, worried motorists cleaned garages out of fuel, and some food markets have also started running out of produce.
Malaysia: Hundreds of fishing boats stranded due to fuel shortage
Hundreds of deep-sea fishing boats have been stranded in Tok Bali here for the past 10 days due to shortage of fuel for the boats.
Fuel price hike triggers protest in Nepal capital
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Student activists burned tires on roads and blocked traffic in Kathmandu on Tuesday to protest against a hefty increase in fuel prices, but many Nepalis hope the unpopular hike will at least mean smoother supplies.Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) on Monday increased petrol and diesel prices by about a 25 percent to stem losses at the state-run oil company and help overcome a domestic fuel shortage.
What will our roads and transportation infrastructure look like 2 to 5 years from now? Will there no longer be SUV’s? Will we be driving moped’s like they do in Asia? Will these prices for gasoline, heating oil, fuel and electricity cause us to make the biggest shift in consumer habits and transportation in our lifetime away from the invention of the automobile?
Gov’t warned on reopening nuclear plant
MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker Monday cautioned Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes against rushing to reopen the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), saying that the country lacks a “culture of safety.”
Oil and the 'Bad News Principle'
Let’s start this short paper by getting the peak oil issue off the table. Peak oil is not about the future – it’s about the past! It’s about a (generally unspoken) strategy formulated many years ago by the most important countries in OPEC, which features a decrease in the production of their invaluable oil (and probably also gas) when they get the opportunity. The present high oil price has given them the opportunity!
Alaska drilling is no quick fix, but it needs to happen
Surging gasoline prices have prompted renewed calls for drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, particularly Alaska's potentially oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.We supported drilling in ANWR long before gas topped $4 a gallon and continue to do so. But let's be clear about what it would and wouldn't do.
Gas prices.. just how high is too high?
ike I'll never have my wedding, it's pretty horrible."Her situation is devastating for the young couple, but not surprising to Matthew Simmons. As founder of Simmons & Company International, an energy investment banking company. He's been writing and talking about a worldwide oil shortage for years and says we could be on the cusp of a major crises. "We are right on the bubble of having the lowest amount of usable gas and diesel in the United States," he said. "All we need is the threat of shortages and everyone will top of their tanks, and we'll drain the gasoline supply."
Kunstler's lecture at the Marlboro College Graduate Center on Saturday was well-attended, mostly by people who already have a good idea that something is not right with the American way of life as we now know it.His thesis, which he has been writing about for the past few years, is simple: our economy, totally dependent on cheap energy, is unsustainable in its present form and steps must be taken now to do something about it.
Unfortunately, most Americans haven't figured this out yet.
Nation needs more engineers, scientists
It's hard to be an optimist when you're living in a nation with a crumbling infrastructure and a world on the brink of an energy crisis. But she sees those as opportunities for the nation's new scientists and engineers to tackle. "Energy security," she says, "is the space race of the new millennium.
Workers, economy can reap the benefits of green jobs
Americans are worried about the economy - prices are rising, and workers are losing their jobs. In Wisconsin, the paper industry is threatened by rising energy costs and General Motors plans to shutter the Janesville plant, resulting in the loss of 2,400 good jobs. The United States is facing an energy crisis, and global warming poses a serious threat. Now more than ever, Americans realize that building a clean energy economy is the way to put Americans back to work and to fight global warming.
Gazprom sees $250 oil next year
DEAUVILLE, France — Russia's Gazprom, the supplier of a quarter of Europe's natural gas, expects the price of crude oil to almost double within 18 months and to take gas prices higher with it."We think it will reach $250 a barrel in the foreseeable future," chief executive Alexei Miller told reporters at a presentation in France, adding high demand rather than speculation was the primary factor for high hydrocarbon prices.
A spokesman said the company, which is also one of Russia's largest crude producers, expected the price to hit the $250 (U.S.) a barrel level sometime in 2009.
Bernanke: Energy prices increase risk of inflation
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday said the danger of the economy entering a "substantial downturn" had eased in the past month or so despite last week's unexpected jump in unemployment. But he cautioned that soaring energy prices are creating new inflation risks that the Fed will "strongly resist."
A couple of heavy comments came in over the weekend expressing concern about what might be coming around the bend, not so much in the stock market but bigger pictured items that could impact the stock market--well all capital markets really.One reader questions whether the the current state of the energy market represents a paradigm shift in that "we are an oil-based economy and the supply of oil is finite."
New Zealand: Extracting people from their cars no mean feat
On any weekday cars loiter, looking for parking spaces in the main shopping streets. Supermarket carparks are invariably at capacity, their client vehicles spilling into adjacent streets. Traffic congestion, though short of gridlock, is now only an incident or accident away from a logjam on Cambridge's historic high bridge several times a day.Schools have a car parking problem. Perhaps most telling, many of these cars are second and third vehicles within the household. Every working day a stream of other vehicles can be seen leaving homes to make a daily commute to work. Few have more than one occupant. The problem that leaves Cambridge in the morning arrives somewhere, probably Hamilton, within the hour only to return to Cambridge eight hours later.
New Zealand: Peak oil strategy would help Kyoto response
The massive 9% spike in crude oil, along with the falling New Zealand dollar, has led to renewed calls from the Māori Party for a cross-party Parliamentary Commission to look sensibly and collaboratively at addressing the challenge of Peak Oil.“It’s too late to prevaricate about whether world oil production is peaking now or next year,” said Dr Sharples, Finance spokesperson for the Māori Party.“The discovery of new fields and new extraction technology is not offsetting falling production from existing fields, while the global demand for oil continues to increase” said Dr Sharples.
Australia: You should pay more for fuel
So listen up Kevin (and Anna Bligh), because here's a solution.Ditch the FuelWatch scheme, abandon Queensland's petrol subsidy, and increase – yes increase – taxes on fuel. Then hypothecate the extra revenue directly to public transport (and freight) solutions – not more roads that no one will be able to afford to drive on soon – but real, bums-on-seats bus and rail projects.
UK economy is hostage to oil, warns expert
The UK's economy cannot make a sustainable recovery until it breaks free of its dependence on oil, an expert at the University of Liverpool is warning.Simon Snowden, a lecturer in Operations Management who recently addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, believes the accelerating cost of oil heralds the beginning of a supply ‘plateau’ where oil production peaks and demand for the commodity outstrips supply to such an extent that world economies begin to fail because of their dependence on it.
Peter Botten: For the first time ever, you see a significant decline in production out of Russia for this year and you see the Middle East, frankly, struggling to maintain, let alone increase its production. Put that against the backdrop of an average decline rate across the world of the world’s oilfields of about 11 per cent and there is no doubt that the fundamentals of supply and demand will remain tight.Robert Gottliebsen: So you believe that the reason OPEC is refusing to lift production is simply that they can’t do it?
Peter Botten: I genuinely believe they have no capacity to do it.
U.S. has grown past its ability to meet its oil needs
With oil prices spiraling up into very disconcerting levels, we need to come to terms on some dire oil market fundamentals.Due mainly to excessive fuel consumption, we have grown past the ability of the system to supply us.
Peak oil is not a contrived shortage or a conspiracy. We are going deeper for smaller oil deposits. We aren’t discovering giant new fields like we did back in the 1950s and ’60s. And many of those are now starting to deplete.
COLONIE -- Clifford Wirth's view of the future in the United States is pretty grim.The retired University of New Hampshire political science professor is in the Capital Region this week talking about the impending "peak oil" crisis.
Police taking steps to save gas
WASHINGTON — Rising gas prices are prompting some police departments to curb their cruisers for parts of their daily shifts and walk the beat instead — a change that shrinks coverage areas and increases emergency response times.
The Failure of the Energy Markets
While I hate to admit it, I believe that increased supervision and regulation of the commodities market may be in order to ensure that they function properly. If nothing else, it would allow a suspicious public to sleep easier at night knowing that their suffering is not resulting in exorbitant amounts of money being made by people on Wall Street. What it comes down to I believe is making the market more transparent and eliminating many of the speculative aspects of the market.
BP chief bets 'peak oil' backer ouput will keep rising
BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward is putting money on the line to dispute the theory of peak oil, according to his counterparty in the wager Kjell Aleklett, a professor at Sweden's Uppsala University.Hayward bet Aleklett the price of one barrel of oil in 2018 that global crude production will be greater than the current daily output of 85.5 million barrels, the professor said during his speech at the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur. Total supply was 86.8 million barrels a day, including natural gas liquids such as propane.
OPEC chief appeals for calm over oil
LONDON - OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri on Tuesday appealed for calm, saying the record-high oil price was unbearable and did not reflect any shortage of supply in the market.Oil jumped over $10 on Friday to over $139 a barrel, its biggest-ever one day rise. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has blamed factors other than supply for oil's record run.
"I ask through you, through Reuters, really we need some calm. We are panicking too much," Badri told the Reuters Global Energy Summit.
"The situation is unbearable as far as we are concerned. I want to say, there is no shortage now and in the future."
Kuwait backs Saudi call for oil consumer talks
KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait said on Tuesday it supports a call by Saudi Arabia for talks with oil consuming nations but reiterated its position that high prices were not driven by market fundamentals."Yes, we do support it... and we think that the issue is related to consumers and producers as well," Oil Minister Mohammad al-Olaim told reporters.
Energy Agency cuts oil demand forecasts
PARIS - The International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for global oil demand this year amid surging prices, but said Tuesday that global hunger for oil is knocking markets out of kilter."Supply growth so far this year has been poor and higher prices are needed to choke off demand to balance the market," the Paris-based watchdog said in a monthly report.
Natural gas prices at an all-time high
In a normal year, now is the time when natural gas prices dip between seasons — and consumers lock in favorable contracts for the winter.This is not that year.
Natural gas prices posted for June are not only the highest of the year, they're the highest in history — higher even than in the record-breaking months that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Speculators caught short by crude price
Speculators lost money in last week’s oil price jump as they were forced to cover previous bets on falling prices, data from the New York Mercantile Exchange show.Traders said many speculators had been betting on falling oil prices ahead of last week’s jump of $16.24 in less than 36 hours to a record $139.12 a barrel by Friday. Caught in a wrong bet, they had to buy back their positions on Monday.
UK: Strike talk activates emergency oil plans
Ministers have activated emergency procedures with the oil industry ahead of a threatened four-day strike by tanker drivers, amid fears that filling stations across Britain could start running out of fuel from this weekend.John Hutton, business secretary, fears the strike could prompt much more widespread fuel shortages than those caused by the strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery in April, and has ordered officials to draw up contingency plans. Industry executives believe these fears are well founded and said they were working with the government to implement measures to minimise disruption.
Oil prices: Europe threatened with summer of discontent over rising cost of fuel
Concerns were growing last night over a summer of coordinated European fuel protests after tens of thousands of Spanish truckers blocked roads and the French border, sparking similar action in Portugal and France, while unions across Europe prepared fresh action over the rising price of petrol and diesel.Spanish hauliers began an indefinite strike, demanding a government aid package to offset the effect of record oil prices. Lorry drivers blocked motorways at the border with France and caused 12-mile tailbacks around Madrid and Barcelona. Long queues formed at Spanish and Portuguese supermarkets after truckers said shops could run out of fresh food in days. Even before the strike began thousands of people formed long lines outside petrol stations and supermarkets.
U.S. trade gaps widens in April to $60.9 billion
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in April as the average price for imported oil jumped to a record $96.81 per barrel and U.S. exports and imports also set records, a Commerce Department report showed on Tuesday.
Top Car Dealer Says High Gas Prices Are Good for the U.S. Auto Industry
Detroit's big auto makers are slashing jobs, closing factories and undertaking costly revamps of their product strategies to cope with $4 a gallon gas. What's the worst thing that could happen now? Gas could get cheap again, says the man who runs America's biggest auto retailer."For once we actually have viable alternatives and exciting technology that are really game changers" in the effort to wean transportation from petroleum, says Mike Jackson, chairman and chief executive officer of AutoNation Inc. "However, if the price of petroleum goes down … it undercuts the viability of new technology."
Hybrid Vehicles Fly Off Dealer Lots, Supply Challenges Mount
Toyota Motor Corp.'s (TM) popular Prius hybrid may not be known as a sports car, but it certainly has been speeding off dealership lots in the era of $4-a- gallon gasoline.Demand for gas-electric hybrids has been surging overall as consumers increasingly opt for fuel-sipping cars to combat high gasoline prices. The Prius, the first mass-market hybrid and the most iconic hybrid name, is at the vanguard of the trend, with U.S. dealerships recently measuring their Prius inventories in hours, not days.
At the end of May, a new Prius averaged just under 17 hours on a dealership lot before being sold, compared with an average 3.5 days at the end of April. For comparison, Toyota's average passenger car spends about 25 days at the dealership, according to the company.
Iran to scale down production of gasoline-powered cars
TEHRAN (Xinhua) -- Iran will scale down production of gasoline-powered vehicles and increase cars with dual-fuel and natural gas engines, Iran's English-language Press TV reported on Tuesday."Sixty percent of passenger cars produced this year will use natural gas as fuel or dual-fuel, and the remaining 40 percent will run on regular gasoline," said a statement released by the Cabinet of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
FRYER grease bandits? Have people really begun pilfering waste oil from behind restaurants around the country to use as biodiesel, as I’ve been reading? I certainly hope so. Not that I’m condoning such an act. In addition to its illegality, waste oil banditry makes my own fuel search — in my grease-powered 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon — more difficult. But at least the $4-a-gallon times are leading more drivers to find fossil fuel alternatives, just as I did when I converted my car a couple of years ago.
Nigerian gunmen attack Canadian oil facility
LAGOS -- Gunmen in southern Nigeria attacked an oil facility belonging to Canada's Addax Petroleum on Tuesday, killing at least one person, in the second such attack on the firm in as many days, the Nigerian navy said.
Nigeria's oil unions to meet Chevron to avert strike
LAGOS (AFP) — Nigeria's oil workers' unions are to hold talks on Tuesday with local senior officials of the US giant Chevron to avoid a strike that could paralyse production, a labour leader said.
Bulgaria minister wants lower power price increase
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov urged the energy regulator on Tuesday to cut a planned 18 percent hike in electricity prices for households by 7 percent due to high inflation."We are aware about the record high jump in global fuel prices but we have to find all the possibilities to reduce the planned price increase to protect the Bulgarian people and ease pressure on inflation," Dimitrov said in a statement.
China braces for leap in gas prices
The nation, which subsidizes fuel costs, is expected to boost prices as the cost of crude oil soars.
As gas costs climb, driving dwindles
Gasoline prices this week reached a new record average of $4.02 per gallon, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.Two-thirds of Americans have already changed how much they drive due to high prices at the pump, according to a poll commissioned by Access America Travel Insurance and Assistance.
Personal carbon trading goes real time
Drivers filling up with fuel will, from today, be able to participate in a trial for the world's first real-time personal carbon trading scheme. Up to 1,000 volunteers will be able to use their Nectar shopping loyalty cards at any BP garage to record how much fuel they have purchased – and, as a result, create an electronic record of how much carbon dioxide they will consequently be emitting into the atmosphere.
Finnish PM urges rich nations to take lead on climate change
TOKYO (AFP) - Finland's Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen on Monday urged developed countries to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while helping emerging economies with clean energy technologies."Competition for vital natural resources, in particular water, may further intensify in many parts of the world as a result of changing weather patterns. This is likely to lead to increasing local and regional strife," he said.
Scientists warn G8 of climate peril to food
PARIS (AFP) - Scientists from Group of Eight countries and the five biggest emerging nations urged next month's G8 summit to ratchet up action against global warming, warning that climate change threatened food and water supplies.
The new IEA Oil Market Report is out this morning. Here is what they said about world oil supply:
And they are not kidding about those extensive downward revisions because here is what they said last month:
So let’s do the math. If in April oil production had fallen by 400 kb/d to 86.8 that means that the previous month oil production averaged 87.2 mb/d. However 86.6 less 490 is 86.11. That means that in April, oil production fell by a whopping 1.09 mb/d not 400 kb/d. The EIA missed their guess by a whopping 690 kb/d.
And I say guess because that is all it really is. The IEA comes out with their estimate way before the vast majority of countries report their production. So they can do nothing but guess. And like the EIA their guesses are, far more often than not, too high.
All that being said, let’s not overlook, what is in my opinion, the most important part of that report: extensive downward revisions to 1Q08 non-OPEC production… Non-OPEC production reached its current plateau in November of 2003, 4.5 years ago. (Though we only have EIA data thru March 2008.) But for the last 52 months, thru March, non-OPEC production has averaged 40.98 mb/d. In march non-OPEC production was 40.99 mb/d, almost right on top of that 52 month average.
It has been dramatic increases from Russia, Azerbaijan that has kept non-OPEC on this very long plateau. Their combined increase in production, since November 2003, has been about 1.5 mb/d. But now Azerbaijan’s increase has been dramatically slowed and Russia is actually in decline. With these two crutches now removed it looks like non-OPEC production is about to fall off that over 4 year plateau, big time.
Note: The really big gainer in production, during that 52 month period, was been OPEC’s Angola. Their production increased by 1.08 mb/d during that period.
Ron Patterson
I don't know why anyone pays attention to the preliminary IEA numbers. Why not just wait until the EIA data come out and then at least compare apples to apples?
What's really rich about this kind of reporting & revision cycle is that it leads the mainstream media to headlines such as "Global Oil Production Up 490,000 Barrels per Day in May" instead of "Despite May Increases, Global Oil Supply Still 200,000 Barrels Per Day Less Than Previously Thought." I wonder which of those two will get more coverage?
The EIA data for March is out, too.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/supply.html
-801K total revisions to previous months, March 08 at 85,730kbpd, Feb08 still top month at 85,827kbpd (revised down from 85,921).
The plateau continues with a slight step up for 2008.
Query: (to any and all)
Is Feb 08 still the top month if the data is averaged over 6 months?
I ask because I recall that a 6 month average was part of the recognition criteria for peak oil by one geologist (Perhaps Deffeyes?)
J.
Peak total liquids month is also forecast to be Feb 2008 at 87.3 mbd (IEA includes biofuels, which will probably be revised downwards once the full IEA OMR June Report is released later this month). Peak total liquids year is also forecast to be 2008 at 86.6 mbd.
Colin Campbell has also revised his forecast peak total liquids year to 2008 at 85.3 mbd (excludes biofuels) in his June newsletter.
http://www.aspo-ireland.org/index.cfm?page=viewNewsletterArticle&id=49
Peak crude and condensate (C&C) month is forecast to be Feb 2008 at 74.6 mbd (EIA). Peak C&C year is forecast to be 2008 at 74.2 mbd. However, if there are any supply shortages this year then the peak C&C year might be 2005 at 73.8 mbd.
The charts below have been updated for the recent IEA and EIA data releases.
Supply, Demand and Price to 2012 - click to enlarge
Crude and Condensate Production to 2100 - click to enlarge
Crude and Condensate Production to 2012 - click to enlarge
Thank you.
As per EIA, the world Crude and other liquids production is estimated at 82.5 MBD in the year 2007 as compared to current figure of 74.3 MBD projected in the graph. Isn't the gap between the two figures too high and why?
An example might help to answer your question.
For 2007, total world oil supply was 84.5 mbd
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t14.xls
2007 world crude & condensate production was 73.2 mbd.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t11d.xls
2007 world natural gas liquids production was 7.9 mbd
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t13.xls
That gives 2007 total world C&C&NGL of 81.1 mbd.
World biofuels production for 2007 was about 1.2 mbd.
World coal to liquids and gas to liquids for 2007 was about 0.2 mbd.
That gives a total of 82.5 mbd for 2007 which is still less than 84.5 mbd. The difference of 2 mbd is assumed to be refinery processing gains - "Processing gain: The volumetric amount by which total output is greater than input for a given period of time. This difference is due to the processing of crude oil into products which, in total, have a lower specific gravity than the crude oil processed."
http://www.eia.doe.gov/glossary/glossary_p.htm
Must be the fog.
Europe's deep rift exposed over ECB's interest rate policy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/10/cnecb1...
Interesting that Madrid is included when it appears that Spain is about to go bust.
That's why everyone is ganging up on Germany to substitute funny money...
They must miss their deutschmark ....
Hmm...It appears the only financially strong country of the three is France. How likely is it for the Eurozone to breaak up and return to individual state currencies? Or would a political crisis strong enough to atomize the EU have to happen first? And could the energy crisis be strong enough to do so?
I think that given the specter of the euro turning into a currency with high inflation, especially when remembering the high price paid by Germany as a result of the hyperinflation of the Weimar republic, Germany just might return to the mark if need be to control inflation.
The same conditions have been experienced recently by USA and UK ;
In the US, last august/september, the Federal Reserve decided between two broad approaches to deal with the crisis. Interestingly, the UK seems to be going somewhat in the opposite direction.
The choices available are roughly:
The ECB wants to avoid inflation at all costs (that is it's sole raison d'etre).
Spain and Italy OTOH want to avoid mass bank failures and want to follow the american route to currency devaluation and inflation.
Note that neoliberal economists and american commercial interests both would prefer the american approach, as this tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, at the expense of the many.
Any Eurozone country secceding from the eurozone would only do so because it wanted to lower rates; this would risk hyperinflation --
keynsian economists think that this would cause a political crisis followed by a lurch to some form of populist extremism.
Basically secceding from the eurozone risks argentina-style collapse,
and the taking of this position by politicians is likely just some posturing to help their overall bargaining position.
Finally, note that the UK is also talking up thier rates.
Re the bet: what really matters will be the demand in 2018. Even so, I'd take the BP bet.
Has global warming research misinterpreted cloud behavior?
http://www.physorg.com/news132251958.html
Oh dear. Here we go (yet again). I could attack Spencer for his qualifications (meteorology, not climatology), his funding/interest groups from which he draws legitimacy (take a guess) etc etc... But I'm not a fan of ad hominem attacks. You know, you should smell a rat when a "climatologist" claims that the climatologists are getting it wrong because they are not thinking about "cause and effect" properly. If it wasn't so sad, I might laugh.
The question I'd put to his basic premise is whether the Anthro- contribution to these Climate Equations are working cooperatively with these inherent 'Negative Feedbacks', or are adamantly 'Positive' in their effect.
We have a justly-earned reputation for defying and defeating the natural flows of the world, to satisfy our own notions.
Just to even the scales a bit: Regardless of the validity of the findings of this paper, there have also been a number of papers recently showing that some of the climate models are underestimating climate change. Just off the top of my head, there this one on the capacity of the southern ocean to absorb CO2. Short answer is that the models called for the southern ocean to keep absorbing CO2 for the next 40 years and it's not. Yes, climate models ARE wrong, anyone who spends any significant amount of time with them knows this. BUT, they are the best predictor we have right now and they are getting better as time goes on. It's very easy to poke holes in someone else's model, it's less easy to build your own.
In any case, you can tell this guy has an agenda because he's extrapolating his findings on cloud-sea surface temperature relationships to the climate system as a whole. This is a pretty stupid thing to do, the climate system is a complicated beast and different parts respond differently.
I was just looking at his wikipedia page and I found this interesting tidbit:
Wow! If he thinks that evolution and intelligent design are the same level of science then I'm beginning to wonder why he's got such trouble with the climate models since it's obvious he has such low standards for what constitutes good science. Grade "A" crackpot!
More importantly, if there's an Intelligent Designer, surely we can rest assured that He(?) will not allow His creations to screw up Creation. Otherwise, not much point worshipping Him is there?
Praise the Lord and pass the consumption.
Or if we do screw up then God steps in with the Rapture, Armageddon, End-Times, First Coming, Second Coming etc (pick your variant). So lets rush towards it. And yes, I do believe that some of the "global elite" genuinely think this way.
See http://www.raptureready.com/ for your daily countdown.
Let's hope GWB does not think he is - also - the Designer.
I am pretty sure the self proclaimed Decider believes he communicates with the Designer though and, after all, he figuratively if not in reality, has his finger on the button - that would make him - also - the Destroyer.
Pete
I have enjoyed reading this site over the last few months. Thank you all for your contributions.
I do have one suggestion. If you want this site to be about peak oil, a site to educate others on your peak oil views, then leave the political ideas and religious ideas for another site. Being a Christian or a republican does not automatically mean that you do not and will not consider peak oil. It actually fits in very nicely with the end times as laid out in the bible. What better reason for army after army to invade the Middle East?
The tribulation will be seven years. Seven years of death and destruction. Sadly most Americans believe the rapture will come before this. I hope they are right, but I don’t believe it. Hopefully they stay true during this time. Almost all other Christians, and all Americans, until about 1890 believed it would come at the end of the seven years. Only time will tell. Peak oil could easily be the catalyst for this.
That will be the extent of my political and religious postings on this site. If anyone wishes to talk more; post your email and I will talk with you in private.
If you truly want to reach a wide audience, it will be yours as well.
Realclimate tackled Spencer recently "How to cook a graph in three easy lessons"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-grap...
When you want lessons in how to cook a graph go to the experts.
Thanks for the interesting tidbit on Climate Change Dave.
Yet another example demonstrating We Do NOT Understand the Climate well enough to make any reliable models or predictions for any future timeframe at this time.
It's a good thing the article included the sentence "the paper's two peer reviewers, both climate model experts, agreed that the issue is a legitimate one." Otherwise the AlGorians on board who are "not a fan of ad hominem attacks" would post nothing but ad homs and ignore the content of the article completely.
And others so worried about the author's "agenda" would add to the ad homs but inadvertently compliment the author's point by admiting the mdels can error grossly in any direction.
It is really pretty simple guys. As the author says, "We really won't know until much more work is done...Unfortunately, in the process it also makes the whole global warming problem much more difficult to figure out."
I think that is why people like Matt Simmons and Ken Deffeyes get so frustrated with the AlGorian Climate Changerz and their Agenda (heart's are in the right place but heads up azz).
Yeah yeah, we've heard it all before. Let's apply your reasoning to the peak oil situation, eh? I think most people here agree that if you sit around and wait for the peak, it'll be ten years past by the time you can determine where the peak was without uncertainty. Does that stop us from trying to make informed decisions right now? NO. Does that stop us from trying to predict when the peak will be (was)? NO. So quite crying that we need more research. Of course we do.
The problem is that we only get one world and can't run time backwards and forwards and repeat the experiments and refine our model so we're stuck with the imperfect ones we have. Climate change is real, and there's a substantial probability that there will be a significant cost and degradation of quality of both human life and ecosystem health associated with it. The sooner that we adhere to a reasonable policy to deal with it, the greater our chances of avoiding further catastrophic consequences.
Read the item I refenced above from Realclimate, a dissection of how Spencer distorts the facts to give the results he is after.
I don' care about Spencer-the-goof. I care about the data. As long as it is published in a peer reviewed journal.
The data says the Earth is warming. The data says the sea-ice is melting at an alarming rate. The data says Australia and the SE U.S. had seriously bad droughts last year and California is in a drought this summer. The U.S. temperature data has shown record extremes, including some yesterday along the Atlantic Coast. Do you really care about the data? Then, maybe you should be worried about Climate Change.
BTW, peer review is no guarantee of accuracy, especially when models are concerned. Notice the comments from the article:
E. Swanson
I remember we had a problem with the definition of the word IS. We also have a problem with the use of IS. There are two ways to approach a topic like Global Warming. One could start with the premise "CO2 is causing Global Warming", or "Is CO2 causing Global Warming".
Unfortunately Al Gore and Michael Moore prefer the later.
The real problem is our education system. We are taught to believe not to question.
We were taught relentlessly since the late 1970s to believe that the greed of American businessmen can never cause harm. Anything that didn't fit that premise was ignored or stigmatized, just as it was before the Great Depression. Well here we are.
In the vid below science historian Naomi Oreskes talks about the links between the campaign to plant doubt about whether cigarettes cause cancer, and the campaign to plant doubts about global warming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzKprnW0WM
Please take the climate-change denialism to another forum where magical thinking dominates. Like ClimateAudit...or the Discovery Institute.
Hear, hear! Well said!
Debate on CNBC Regarding Oil Prices Between Two Clueless Politicians, Senators Dodd & Shelby
Of course, I have an explanation for rising oil prices: importers bidding for declining net oil exports. It’s not like the reporters and politicians have look that hard. The recent WSJ story was not exactly subtle: “Net oil exporters unable to keep with demand.” What we need to be doing is implementing Alan Drake's Electrification of Transportation (EOT) plans, combined with a crash wind/solar/nuclear power program and with multifamily housing, more flexible zoning and tiny houses along electric mass transit lines.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/athome/366118_small07.html
Empty nesters, greens and first-time buyers are finding tiny houses a good fit
By CECELIA GOODNOW P-I REPORTER
Frankly, I wouldn't mind if both Dodd and Shelby were put out on a drill-rig for awhile. I think it would be doing the country a service to get these clueless people out of the government.
Down here in Georgia, no one particularly likes Senator Shelby because he blocked a renegotiation of the water distribution rights during drought conditions in Lake Lanier last year. (Lake Lanier is Atlanta's main water supply has rights to only "incidental" access to the water in it. This came about partly through some colossal misgovernance by the state of Georgia that allowed growth with no secure water rights and a continuing failure to secure those rights through legal action. Shelby is doing his best to protect the current water rights distribution in Lanier, which favors Alabama.)
I agree completely with the crash course. Let's hope that with the election this fall, there will be a change in priorities in congress' budget.
Simple rule: business as usual will not save us.
Some more "wow" numbers:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121304736426558641.html?mod=hps_us_insid...
Flying Stinks -- Especially for the Airlines
Travelers' Mounting Woes
Reflect Carriers' Attempts
To Deal With High Fuel Costs
June 10, 2008
IATA Price Analysis has a time lag of one week, and shows the world average at 382.6 cents/gallon, up 90%Y/Y.
If only the airlines would stop bleeding like stuck pigs and raise prices enough to cover fuel! It's just like the blooming truckers who complain about fuel prices. Raise your rates! I know, it's "not that simple" because then they'll lose customers to companies who don't raise their rates. Rates will have to rise eventually, otherwise all profits will bleed out through the fuel. In business just like nature, you must adapt or die! (Or just kill off all of your competitors. haha)
This is precisely what is happening. It's a waiting game and only the most financially savvy will survive. Raise your rates now, loose business and income falls to zero - you're out of business. Keep your rates low enough to keep business and you bleed slowly. Wait until enough of your competitors go out of business so that raising rates does not equate to a lose of business and you just might see a profit again.
Same's happening with truckers.
And who will be next?
I understand that it is now cheaper to rent an SUV than an economy car.
Of course, this basic model has defined industrial agriculture for decades (with the proviso that if you're connected you can get the government to subsidize some of your losses).
This is not yet the case with Hertz. The weekday daily rate for a Ford Explorer is still 25% more than a Prius and 35% more than a Corolla/Focus.
"...Wait until enough of your competitors go out of business so that raising rates does not equate to a lose of business and you just might see a profit again."
Whether it is a conscious decision or not, I think this is exactly the way many industryies will go... bleeding slowly - enough to stay alive and slowly enough to out-live competitors...
You can bleed slowly for only so long before the body abruptly shuts down, the system collapses, and dies.
Many Truckers have long term contracts with fixed pricing. They are stuck. They should have used good contract lawyer to include terms for rising fuel prices.
As soon as they can no longer make a profit, they simply go bankrupt. Consumers are going to be cutting back on consumption so demand for trucking will fall anyway.
Like the Airlines, it time that Truckers look for new careers. But because consumers are spending less and construction is tanking, there is little opportunity for new jobs.
Its highly probable that the US will be in a bad recession by the late fall. Just in time for the election. The candidate that promises the most Gov't handouts will almost certainly win.
Not only may it be hard for the truckers to find new jobs, but many are stuck with debt on their trucks. Yet another example of how the widespread acceptance of rosy price forcasts from CERA, and IEA, have led to zillions of dollars in "stranded" investment. I can imagine that trucking can be made more fuel efficient, by a combination of slowing down, adding aerodynamic farings, and pulling double (rather than single) trailers. But with fewer good to be trucked, and more capacity per truck (asuming we do the double trailering bit), we won't need as many truckers. Depending upon how deep consumption has to be cut (perhaps as measured by years since peak), a certain amount of economic traige will have to be performed. The best way to do this, is to eliminate the jobs that require the greatest amount of oil per job.
legally actionable? CERA predictions I mean?
"i listened to the experts and got this loan and now i am bust and i want someone to pay" kinda actionable?
Not to mention the megamillions that are still being budgeted to build and expand more soon-to-be empty highways, instead of on electrified rail transport.
Can you say "Trans Texas Corridor?" Shure you can.
And my hometown's response to this is to spend $600 million on aviation...
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA.060608.METROCouncil....
'Man-made' Water Has Different Chemistry
http://www.physorg.com/news132247694.html
When it comes to nitrogen, the 'fix' is in
http://www.physorg.com/news132244251.html
Stumbling Blocks Still Exist for Wind Energy but the Future Looks Bright
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=52707
Racing principles' role in cutting emissions
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm
Toyota-Hybrid, A New Car With Zero Pollution
http://www.econewz.info/index.php/2008/06/toyota-hybrid-a-new-car-with-z...
New Washing Machine uses a single cup of water to clean clothes
http://dvice.com/archives/2008/06/new_washing_mac.php
How are the beavers doing?
Damn fine, I would think...
They're 7.8% less eager due to a perceived decline in living standards (relative to beavers in 1960).
I love the way the US didn't have a oil crisis yesterday on CNBC,
but today we do.
In orange at top of screen.
...oh, come on now...I don't think the commentators on CNBC can spell 'oil', and they would be sent to the green room to cool down if they used the words 'peak' and 'oil' in the same paragraph. There are lies, damn lies, and CNBC...
I am tired of everyone blaming the speculators for oil prices so I thought I would share some thoughts on it. comments will be appreciated.
Check the CFTC report on oil Speculators we have addressed before but here is more
http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/deanymesf.htm
go down this and see Crude oil Light Sweet. Figures change every week. For the current week
216,388 long contracts for speculators and 188,092 short contracts for speculators. That is a net long position of about 28,300 contracts. That is the amount the world uses in 8 hours. Do you really believe we can influence prices with that?
Also that is about the least the Speculators have been long in recent history and we have the highest oil prices ever.
A few more examples
Trivia qt number 1: Which market has the largest net short position of Speculators in 2008?
Answer:Natural gas
What happened to natural Gas prices?
Went up by 70%. Outperformed even oil
Largest short position and went up 70%. How do you explain that?
Trivia qt number 2:
Since 2006 which commodity has had a very large net long speculator position and gone down by 40%?
Sugar. you know why? Because production always trumps speculation. World production increased creaming the speculators who were long.
Not convinced?
Trivia qt number 3.
which commodity has outperformed all others since 2002?
rhodium...up 2400%... and guess what no commodity futures market for Rhodium.
Till a year back Uranium was outperforming oil with a price increase of 2000% or 20 fold from $7 to as high as $150 a pound and they did not even have a futures market for it till recently. In fact the price peaked about 4 weeks after the futures were introduced by Nymex!
I wish you would quit trying to confuse us with facts.
Of course, to a large degree, ExxonMobil is reaping what they have sowed, i.e., if they are correct about Peak Oil being--worst case--decades away, high oil prices must be a result of some sort of conspiracy.
LOL. I'm gonna start using that one. Thanks.
LOL. Jeffery what do you make of this Saudi meeting of consumers and producers?
I am somehow reminded of a Council Of Bacteria getting together and trying to decide what to do about their food supply.
I think that it is Al Bartlett that used the petri dish example. If it took 32 doublings for a bacteria colony to consume all of the food in a petri dish, and if the bacteria suddenly had an "Oh Crap!" revelation after the 31st doubling, that they were running out of space, let's assume that the Council of Bacteria found another petri dish and doubled their food supply, it would only increase the number of doublings by 3%, from 32 to 33.
As noted down the thread, I think that we are basically seeing widespread examples of CPSR--Corncucopian Primal Scream Response, that there must be some way, somehow that we can maintain an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite energy resource base.
Consumer countries: Is this water getting HOT? Should we jump out of this pot?
OPEC: No everything is just fine. It's your imagination.
I "speculate" that oil goes to $250 by 2010. oops someone knocking on my door. Sounds like a politician. I swear I thought my speculations weren't 'excessive".
I just want to hear the justifications the Council of Bacteria give for invading the other petri dish.
"We will be greeted as liberators!"
Paul Weyrich makes the case for rail transit instead of Bus Rapid Transit. Here's the part that's relevant to energy:
N.B. Alan - Ed Tennyson even gets a mention.
Situation: Drivers deserting their cars in droves to public transit where no rail line exists or are planned. Does the local transit board say "Sorry, but you'll have to wait for us to build a rail line" or do they rapidly expand and electrify their bus fleet in order to meet ridership demand and deal with the rapid rise in diesel cost? Are cities/transit authorities going to be allowed to issue the bonds needed to finance rail in the current and likely future financial/economic environment and will voters approve them when they see their future income prospects as dismal?
For those cities and regions that haven't started or have a very limited rail system, it makes more sense to meet the rapidly rising demand through electrified bus lines. For intra- and interstate travel, rail would be the better solution as the state(s) plus feds have greater resources and powers of implementation to facilitate their build out.
What I most see here is the need for timely response to citizen's needs for public transit to be met in the fastest most efficient manner.
The French plan to build 1,500 km of new tram (Light Rail) lines in the next decade. Adjust for population and workweek and that is more than 5,000 miles for the USA.
When road wear is included (per New Orleans Public Works, city streets with bus lines wear out MUCH faster), electric trolley buses life cycle costs (they use x3 to x5 the electricity per pax-mile, wear out in 12 to 15 years, require two wires and not one trolley wire) are not cheaper than rail.
The proper use of buses is short buses, running as feeders to Urban Rail and as light duty connectors. And special cases where rail cannot be installed.
Best Hopes for Urban Rail,
Alan
Cities might be able to issue municipal bonds but the interest rates at this time are very high and if Bernanke/Paulson actually raise interest rates to strengthen the dollar ( I doubt they will) interest rates will go much higher. Rates on munis are going higher anyway because credit is tightening daily.
Meanwhile municipal tax revenues are falling in many areas due to job losses, taxes on homes are dropping because of falling home values, taxes from businesses are falling because of falling retail sales, etc.
I have been trying to get this point across for a long time. Where are the cities, counties, states going to see an increase in their tax revenue streams? Where will the money come from to fund new projects?
Alan and River--I don't quibble about the need for rail, but as River shows, how is the traditional method of financing going to function in a future of declining revenues? That and the issue of response time to rapid increase in ridership demand. I know how we can lay our hands on hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for a rapid expansion of electrified bus fleets and rail construction, and we wouldn't need to raise taxes, just shift monetary allocation.
Here in the UK most public transport is only subsidised in a very limited way. Of course it is nowhere near as good as continental systems, and we live much more densely than in the US, but perhaps in the likely financial situation of the US shortly that would provide a more realistic model of likely events in the US.
A critical parameter for light rail would appear to me to be whether ridership is likely to increase or decrease.
The upshot of this would be that further out regions would be even more abandoned, as a light rail system nearby in the event of high fuel prices would be a real draw, whilst the less dense regions already suffering from substantial population loss would have another strike against them.
In those areas I would see electric or biofuel bikes, with a shared truck for the occasional shopping trip to town, as the likely outcome.
Traditional methods of financing where ?
The USA system is designed to "Ration by Queue", not to build anything.
The French system (local payroll taxes on employers with more than 9 employees with national matching) seems to work well. So does the Swiss systems (it varies by canton), etc. etc.
Alan
One of the things I am seeing here down South FL is new and and increased business fees, licenses, etc.
The family owns a small car service and now Port of Miami wants to charge for permits and backgound checks on drivers. Gotta pay for that tunnel boondoggle from I-95 to the Port of Miami.
We already pay dearly to go to MIA - and get nothign for it.
Pete
"Cities might be able to issue municipal bonds but the interest rates at this time are very high "
really? like double-digit highs?
"I have been trying to get this point across for a long time. Where are the cities, counties, states going to see an increase in their tax revenue streams? Where will the money come from to fund new projects?"
not every municipality is broke. some will raise taxes. some will just offer debt which will probably be purchased. the bus riders themselves will eventually pay.
'really? like double-digit highs?'
Yes, like double digit highs in some cases:
'Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Interest rates on $100 million of bonds issued by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were set at 8 percent in a weekly auction after surging to 20 PERCENT on Feb. 12.
Rates had soared from 4.3 percent when too few buyers bid for the so-called auction-rate debt and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which handled the auction, refused to put up its own capital to buy unwanted securities. That caused the yield to be set at a level predetermined in bond documents. Rates fell yesterday as the prospect of high yields enticed investors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.'
'Yesterday, a Citigroup-run auction of $25 million of federally taxable debt issued by Vermont's student loan agency failed, causing the rate to remain at 18 percent for the second week in a row.'
'Drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike may face higher tolls after the state was forced to delay refinancing $126.7 million of bonds because of the turmoil in the auction-rate market, according to state officials. The turnpike, whose debt is rated BBB+ by Fitch Ratings, the third-lowest investment grade, is now trying to buy a letter of credit from State Street Bank and Trust Co. and KBC Group NV so it can sell variable-rate demand obligations by mid-March instead of auction-rate securities, an advisor for the Turnpike told the agency's board yesterday.'
'Rising Average
The average rate for seven-day municipal auction bonds rose to a record 6.59 percent on Feb. 13 from 4.03 percent the previous week, according to indexes compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.'
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aopTME3wiZlg&refer=home
100 Muni-Bond Auctions Fail
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/RATE-retail-bonds-auction-securities...
'not every municipality is broke. some will raise taxes. some will just offer debt which will probably be purchased. the bus riders themselves will eventually pay.'
As West Texas said, there are a lot of cornucopian primal screams issuing from posts on TOD. I see not a shred of evidence to back up your claims that not every municipality is broke. Of course they are not all broke but a lot of them are in dire financial straits...and your comment' some will just offer debt which will probably be purchased.' is quite a display of economic ignorance. What sort of debt will be offered? What rate of interest will the cities have to pay to sell the (debt) bonds? Really, too much...and 'the bus riders themselves will eventually pay.' ...In the meantime who is going to purchase the buses, maintain them, drive them, schedule routes, and cut paychecks for the workers?
It matters not if we like capitalisim, it is what we have as an economic system to work with at the present time. All US Governments, excepting the Federal Gov, raise revenue from taxes, fees, etc. All state and local Govs must have balanced budgets. Try to recall that before posting nonsensical blather. BTW, I doubt that many bus riders will be in the market to purchase municipal bonds.
"Yes, like double digit highs in some cases:"
if I am not mistaken that is a different segment of the market than muni bond. those are auction rate securities which are different than muni bonds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_rate_security
"All state and local Govs must have balanced budgets."
and you call what I said nosensical blather? as for you paragraph about that one, I have no idea what you're talking about and please quite with this new primal scream meme.
As a temporary measure they could legalize jitney services using Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. Question is, can those operate safely in the bus lane?
Assuming you have a dedicated right-of-way, a very long bus would give similar economies of scale:
Electric trams are efficient, but so is electric Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). The city of Quito, Ecuador, installed a trolleybus rapid transit system in 1995. There is a dedicated right-of-way with fixed stations and overhead wires along the route. Network maps are displayed clearly at all stations. The articulated buses (accordion-style) have rubber tires and a backup diesel engine. This flexibility makes fleet management easier: buses can drive around the depot or to the cleaning area because they aren't tied to fixed rails or wires. When one bus breaks down, it doesn't block the entire line - buses behind can pass just like regular buses. Rubber tires can accelerate and brake faster than steel wheels, and of course they offer a smoother ride. The buses are significantly cheaper than light rail vehicles too (not sure about lifespan or TCO).
The system in Quito has been so popular that they are now considering upgrading to tram. This solution could be applied in many places, using trolley-buses as a first step and upgrading to trams later. Don't let the perfect (tram) be the enemy of the good (BRT).
Rubber tires can accelerate and brake faster than steel wheels, and of course they offer a smoother ride
Steel rails do not have potholes. With welded rail, smoothness goes to rail.
Rubber tires CANNOT "accelerate and brake faster". There are safety limits (basically how much jerk (rate of increasing acceleration) will NOT knock an elderly person off their feet) and steel wheels reach that limit easily. No need for faster acceleration.
For emergency braking, our new streetcars drop sand automatically as needed and have four 1 meter electromagnetic bars covered with high friction material that drops and clamps (with electromagnetic force) to the steel rails. Plus regenerative braking, disk brakes and sand. Beats rubber tires (I have been aboard "unofficially" during tests) with the possible exception of Formula 1 race cars.
Best Hopes for Urban Rail,
Alan
I think rubber tires have a rolling resistance of around 1%, which is pretty substantial. Of course, since virtually noone has been planning for the era of expensive oil to begin as early as it has, the ability to respond quickly to a changed environment (oil price) may trump long term efficiency.
My opinion on it, which I must confess isn't terribly educated, is that urban rail works great in high population density areas and is a misallocation of scarce resources in low density areas.
France today is building tram lines in towns down to population 100,000. I often use Mulhouse as an example, pop 110,900 (metro 237,000) got their first tram in 2005/6 and will have 58 km by 2012 (along with a High Speed Rail stop).
The USA in 1920s had a interurbans all over and streetcars in towns as small as 25,000.
Not terribly dense urban areas are required.
Best Hopes,
Alan
The reason this is unfeasible in the U.S. is our safety regulations which require slow, overweight rail transit equipment. Change the regulations and rail transit will be a better option.
Sure, once no one is able to afford to drive...
obvious path for development:
existing bus line => right of way with overhead wire, to be shared by buses and trolley buses => add tram rails (buses can still drive there, rail are in the pavement
This system would have optimal flexibility and speed of implementation (adding an overhead wire is fast and easy)
The LRT (Light Rail Transit) system runs through downtown Calgary. LRT tracks are embedded in the pavement and the streets are also shared by buses (cars are excluded). Outside of the downtown, LRT tracks look like ordinary railroad tracks.
Seattle tried to do just that for their downtown trolley bus tunnel.
They built in rails when they built the tunnel decades before Light Rail came in. Unfortunately, they did not electrically isolate the rails (electric trolley buses use a second trolley wire, rail uses the rails), the switches were all in the wrong place, Seattle Light Rail is going to operate on a different voltage (long story there, unsure of resolution), etc. SNAFU !! Two year retrofit.
http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/tunnel/tunnel.html
Best Hopes for getting the details right,
Alan
The problem with rail and buses is that they carry groups of people, not individuals. This puts a whole series of limitations on their ability to take people out of their cars.
In short. The replacement for the car will be some sort of individual transport system, group based transport systems will remain marginal even after oil has peaked. The deficiencies are simply too great.
Our town will not have light rail (prohibitively expensive and many, many people live in rural areas and must commute in to work) but the bus routes are seeing more riders and there are many, many more bicycles around.
Here, where rain is infrequent but heat is a worry for about half the year, a bicycle beats standing at a bus stop for many people. They make pretty good individual transport systems. Won't necessarily help folks that have to drive thirty miles (or more) to work now; maybe they can work from home most days?
Clearly we need better accomodations for people who want/need to do a mixed commute, bicycle for a short distance of one or both ends, but take a bus/trolley/train inbetween.
I disagree about the ride quality.
This morning I rode from Upland (in the inland empire) to downtown Los Angeles on Metrolink, which uses bi-level rail cars from Bombardier. The line is very well maintained, and except for going over switches it was very smooth, sometimes so smooth you could barely even feel the movement.
However, I did the return trip on the Foothill Transit Silver Streak, which uses NABI BRT60 60' CNG powered articulated buses mostly running down the 10 freeway. Granted, road conditions varied along the route, but even on the newer sections of pavement, the ride was much rougher and louder versus the train.
I could imagine hybrid buses that have little recharge stations at each bus stop using two wires above the bus stop, similar to what rail cars use. The wires are energized after the bus is in front of the stop using a radio transponder. Each time the bus stops, the batteries are topped off, or at least charged a bit. The bus would have regenerative braking (lots of starts and stops in city driving) and have a diesel powered generator that would kick on if the batteries got too low.
Even so, rail will always have an advantage over buses in regards to personel efficiency and energy efficiency.
Lab drives car to 100 mpg
Can Joe Blow afford one? If not, this is an academic excercise.
Kunstler has pointed out that the whole driving thing has been supported by the working classes because they could afford to participate. If driving becomes unaffordable for the masses, the entire model falls apart.
I don't see why the support of the working classes is held to be essential.
In Britain substantial working class ownership of cars did not start until around 1960, but that did not stop the middle classes buying plenty of cars or building roads.
It was very different in America of course, with the Model T.
What America needs is an electric 'Hog!'
Us Europeans have never understood American cars, as the handling etc have traditionally been lousy!
They did have a certain sense of style though, and the only thing which is cooler than the pick-up truck is a Harley.
I can see a lot who can't afford gas feeling pretty good about a Harley-style bike.
Since the Harley doesn't actually perform very well, I believe, neither would the electric version have to.
No need for fancy, expensive lithium batteries, any more than American cars bothered with fancy suspension that allowed you to corner or absorbed bumps.
Just load up the cheapest, heavy batteries, and get lousy range, but with chutzpah.
Providing you can cruise in to work, plug in and cruise back, then the Rebel Without a Car look might catch on!
What do you think? :-)
Are you going to include loudspeakers to make noise?
I ride a VFR750. I don't get the Harley thing either.
Have you ever owned a Harley? Have you ever ridden a Harley?
How do you know that a Harley 'doesn't really perform very well'?
'What do you think?'... I think you don't know what you are rambling on about. But that doesn't surprise me for many of your posts strike me that way.
Now it's your turn. Become petulant and defensive...as you usually do when someone points out that you don't have a clue about the subject that you are commenting on. After you put a few hundred thousand miles on Harleys then you will be qualified to comment on their capabilities...or, their weaknesses.
If you want to discuss Triumphs I have had three of them...also, a Norton Commando. None of them would make a patch on a Harley. Of course you must know that because it took Japan only a couple of years to bankrupt all the Brit bike manufacturers.
I am still riding Harleys and still averaging 45 mpg. Not the greatest mileage but far from the worst.
I think you missed the smileys, River.
A lead-acid battery Harley?
I wouldn't have credited that anyone would take it seriously, but there is always one....
:-)
And in other news: DaveMart has sense of humour. Video after the break.
:-) :-) :-)
No intended offence honest!
A Harley from the factory is well tuned and performs well.
Unfortunately just about every a-hole on a Hog takes off the muffler and replaces it with straight pipes. The result is a very badly tuned bike that performs horribly.
The problem isn't the motorcycle, its the idiots that ride them.
Dave, it's different here. As Kunstler has pointed out, America was built around the automobile and we have an enormous system of roads, bridges, etc. to maintain -- some of them by federal dollars, some with state and local funds. Effectively deny a large segment of the population use of the road system and see how long it takes for the system to start collapsing at the margins.
The car of the future will have wings. And only the well-heeled will "drive."
Presumably with much lighter traffic economies on expenditure on roads could be made, with 8 lanes becoming 2 lanes and so on.
Of course, the system is very much underfunded, but that is perhaps a different issue, and down to the vagaries of the financial system.
I would see the roads of America as remaining relatively well populated anyway, as electric bikes and trikes would likely be affordable and needed precisely because of the larger distances and more spread out lifestyle in America compared to Europe - the suburbs will contract, but surely not totally.
As far as I can see hybrid and EV cars, although not likely to be produced in anything like the quantities of present day ICE cars for sometime, will likely have a substantial and growing presence.
One of the great challenges that we in the US will face is the systematic dismantling of road network that was built for 39 cent gasoline (or even $1.00 gasoline but never $5.00 gasoline). This will be a huge political challenge as the pain will not be spread evenly.
Personally, I would like to see the entire road system auctioned off to private companies who would manage them for profit -- no profit, no road. It sounds heartless, I know. I'm no Reaganite/Thatcherite ideologue, but I can't see any way in which sufficent public funds are going to be available to keep the entire US road system going.
Can you explain a little more what the "challenge" will be? I would guess that if someone can figure out how to make a buck digging up the tar and recycling it somehow, then they will. Otherwise, roads not maintained will just be left to deteriorate. Do you see something different?
One example - bridges.
Just last summer an interstate bridge fell in Minneapolis, killing and wounding many.
In the year since then, just about every local TV news station has run some kind of "are our bridges safe? Who's checking them?" type of story, and in a lot of cases there are problems of some kind.
It isn't as easy to replace a failed (or failing) bridge as it is to repave a section of road that is weathered or worn. Are we going to pay for it by suspending the fuel tax?
Well, I'm just trying to imagine what will ensue when someone shows up on your road (or my road) and just starts peeling up the pavement. We understand that what we have is unsustainable. So how do we get to something more manageable? Do we simply let things fall apart with all the choas (and possible violence) that this will spawn or do we try to manage a dismantling of that portion of the road system that is not "paying for itself?"
I'm imagining that our road system will shrink through attrition.
First, funding for new roads is cut back. Eventually maintenance schedules are modified (instead of patching potholes every month, it's every six months, or every two years, etc) If roads get really bad, private groups may try and get them repaired - business associations or town groups.
This would take years, but it isn't too much of a stretch to think that somebody would come up with the idea of "recycling" the asphalt from a road that isn't essential to patch one that is.
I don't think it will be a willful "let's let our roads fall apart" as much as everyone will be focused on other things - keeping the schools and hospitals funded, for instance - and the road system will start to suffer from neglect. You can see that in any "older" section of town, where businesses have moved out but there are still lots of residents, there isn't the tax base or the screaming from employers to patch roads, maintain street signs, pavement striping, etc.
If these assumptions are right and the economy deteriorates so much that the roads cannot be kept up, and it should be pointed out that if asphalt grows too expensive concrete can be used, then I would have thought that they would have more utility as the remains of a road than in any other alternative use.
In such a scenario the ability to re-use it would be limited to whatever processes could be set up locally, by definition.
Just like the Roman roads a few bits might be pinched, but much of it would likely stay right where it was.
I think we agree on this; all I'm saying is that roads (bridges, stoplights, etc) can be neglected and gradually fall into disrepair, and eventually some roads may be abandoned. Out of necessity, the powers that be will have to focus their resources on only high priority projects.
I'm trying to imagine twenty or thirty years down the road, I don't imagine municipal budgets will be much better off than they are now. I predict many more potholes in our future.
Here in Texas, about the only highways being built are toll roads, so there will be future income to help pay for the road. Of course, here in Texas, they love to build frontage roads on all highways, which makes them more expensive and take longer to build, but give us poor folks an alternative to paying the toll (just have to hit all the intersections and have a lower speed limit)
FWIW, we use concrete a lot, because we don't have the frost problems (I think that's part of it) that other parts of the country have.
This all depends on what you mean by "roads". There is the interstate system of limited access highways, and then there is the network of just about everything else.
We will need the network of just about everything else to remain passable, even if just for horse-pulled wagons and bicycles. That does not mean that it will all be very well maintained. Much of it will gradually have to revert back to gravel or macadam. When vehicles are only going <35mph, solid paved surfaces will not matter as much.
The interstates are another matter. All of them are doomed. What will happen is that repairs that used to take a few days or weeks will stretch out longer and longer, meaning that more and more stretches will be down to single lane, lower traffic. As governments come under more fiscal stress, some of the repairs will simply remain undone. Eventually the bridges and over/underpasses will have to be closed off too, and traffic detoured. These detors also will become more or less permanent. It will gradually come to the point where there is no advantage in even trying to take the interstates, so most traffic will prefer to take the paralel US highways. Governments will prioritize their very limited funds to maintaining these. Ultimately, the interstates will have to just be shut down completely. It is at this point that someone will get the bright idea that they could be an ideal location for erecting massive solar and wind farms.
In the situation you suggest where the transport infrastructure had declined to that degree it would not be possible to mine, transport the raw materials, manufacture the wind or solar equipment, transport them to the site or connect them.
Either a substantial fraction, but not necessarily all, of the transport infrastructure would have to be maintained or a high-tech renewables future is impossible.
Concrete is very energy intensive to produce. Cement plants burn just about every imaginable fuel (including things like ground up tires) to drive the carbon dioxide from the lime.
Well, its useful in that cement kilns are efficient industrial incinerators. Someday we may find cement kilns very useful not only as industrial incinerators but also as feedstock for CO2 for synthetic fuels.
Sounds a lot like Leanan's catabolic collapse.
I think you mean John Michael Greer's catabolic collapse: http://www.xs4all.nl/~wtv/powerdown/greer.htm
Can roads ever be mined as a source of oil? They seem about like oil shale to me.
Last time i checked you would get more oil out of the roads then the oil shale.
Estonia has been mining oil shale by open pit or shaft-adit mining since the 1920's. Oil shale was crushed and put through floatation tanks in order to enrich the mixture. The enriched oil shale was retorted to obtain fuel oil or burned directly to produce electric power. The process continues to this day.
http://www.kirj.ee/public/oilshale/Est-OS.htm
Estonia was far enough north as to not have a problem with global warming. The bitter Arctic winters were more of a problem.
it still is that far north :-)
Estonia borders the Baltic Sea and will have big problems with global warming induced sea level rise and its inundation.
I pity those fools. Sorry, wrong one.
"Kunstler has pointed out"
and we know he's always right.
You're right. He's always wrong. America was not built around the automobile. We do not have an enormous system of roads. I'm glad you're always there to point out how worthless Kunstler is.
"America was not built around the automobile. We do not have an enormous system of roads."
well not really. first of all, america was built on ships. that's how the first european americans got here. the rivers and then canals really built american. we then moved to rail and finally to the highway system. so was america built by road? no. is part of america built on roads today? absolutely. but we also have shipping and rail and etc.
EDIT: you could probably say the horse and the airplane also built america.
Why are so many here wrong about their history?
The first national public works project was the Cumberland Pike, beating out the Erie Canal by 2 years. Yes, the continent was explored and settled by extensive use of water craft--primarily canoes and flat boats, not ships. Yes, ship-bourne commerce consisting of platation grown slavery fueled monocrops was vital to the growth of the Colonies. Yes, there was a Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War that consisted mostly of Privateers, with the Continental Congress authorizing the building of 50 odd ships. This contracting for naval ship building might be considered the first national public works act, but the nation wasn't yet a nation. The great majority of Standard US History textbooks recognize the building of the Cumberland Pike as the first national public works project, and the first step toward the formation of Henry Clay's American System, which still lives today as the Military Industrial Complex.
Those wishing further enlightenment will greatly enjoy Bernard DeVoto's The Course of Empire, a riviting, entertaining and highly informative book. It can be found in every library in the US and probably in those of major cities worldwide.
Whenever someone says that, I just know that my library isn't going to have it. So, I just checked the online catelog. My public library does not have a copy of that book. The certainly can get it through interlibrary loan. But it isn't correct to say every library. (And yes, the local library here is pretty lousy)
--
JimFive
"Kunstler has pointed out"
and we know he's always right.
Com'on John15, You're slipping, where's the Y2K reference?
don't tell theantidoomer but over 70% of stuff made in a lab, never makes it out of the lab.
CNBC says..
Oil falls after CNBC says Saudis hike output
except for the fact that it's up $2 in the last hour.
I estimate that the Saudis would have to boost their C+C production rate to the vicinity of 10 mbpd (average annual production) in 2008, if they wanted to just match their 2005 net export rate.
Oops. Got their cause and effect messages reversed again and issued at the wrong time.
This is happening more often as of late. THey really should pay more attention to this creating reality thing.
Francois.
Gas price spike threatens fresh rise in energy bills
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_...
Britain has squandered its North Sea inheritance. Now we are paying the price
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/jeremy-warner/jeremy-...
British Energy auction plunged into doubt as EDF refuses to increase offer
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/british-energy-auction-p...
Britain's climate target 'impossible'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/08/climatechange.greenpol...
Climate change: Carbon capture from power stations must start soon, say scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/10/carboncapturestorage.c...
Stephen King: The mounting dangers of central banks' high-wire act
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/stephen-king/stephen-...
Is it just me, or does Stephen King somehow sound a weirdly appropriate name for an economics correspondent at the moment? :-)
UK economy: Recession fears grow as house buyers vanish
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/10/economics.houseprices
Inflation flashes red for the Bank
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/09/inflation.economics
In the US, the feds have been fibbing about the inflation rate for years: it's often been higher than officially reported. Does the UK have the same inflation rate data problem?
To placate economists: I'm talking about consumer price index/retail price index, which is about price increases not the monetary inflation.
I understand it's a bit stranger than a straightforward "they're lying". Apparently there are "volatile" things like mortgages [1] and fuel are deliberately excluded from various inflation measures on the ground that they make the numbers very volatile, and economists would rather have a stable number that they can argue about the effect of government policies upon than something that accurately represents what people need to spend. So there's a tendency to include only items with slowly varying price, including many one-off purchases.
So my understanding is not so much lying as sleight-of-hand: everything is as defined but the definition isn't particularly related to what people think it is.
[1] Edit: apparently mortgages are in the RPI but not included in the RPIX and CPI, which are most commonly used.
Yeah, in Britain it's called a 'fiddling Gordon' issue, and means that all the data which impoverishes normal people, like wage earners, pensioners, parents and so on is excluded, whilst all the things important to the elite like more toys on their BMW and better flat screen TV's are shown as reducing the inflation rate.
This reduces inflation linked government payouts on pensions and social security and gives a lower base to argue about wage increases from.
So if you used to eat meat but now eat bread your standard of living has not fallen as the basket is re-normalised, I believe - I find the subject so irritating and depressing that I do not follow the details.
Likewise rising house prices did not count as inflation.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/CP_Brief_Guide_2004...
Frequently just believing and repeating the social mantra is even more depressing.
Believing and repeating the Government mantra is far more depressing.
Back in the real world:
Also:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=440527&in_p...
So if you don't eat, drive, cook, heat your house or indeed live in one Government statistics are fine.
Otherwise they have blatantly been adjusted in accordance with the pressures on the government to hold down payments and wage increases.
I will charitably assume that you are resident elsewhere and so have no idea that your statements and the government figures do not connect with reality.
[sigh]
EDIT: The housing cost component is about 20% of the Retail Price Index btw.
Just like the peak oil message, people are prone to stick with the beliefs that appeal to their world-view, regardless of evidence. Feel free to have the last word...
Just out of interest, do you live in the UK, or are you basing your statements on some government document you have read?
If you live in the UK, you are the first person I have met who gives any credence to these government cost of living figures.
This WILL be my final post on this - as you asked:
I was born in the UK and have lived in the UK for the past decade, several of which spent working alongside the civil service. I understand well the difference between 'government' (ie: politicians with an agenda) and 'government' (ie: a bureaucracy from hell) - something the generalised UK public seems to willfully miscontrue.
In many circles, it would be hard to find people who give credence to peak oil. Your straw-man argument about me being the 'first person' proves nothing - except that the people you talk to about things like this either (a) share and reinforce your world-view; or (b) conform to the common norms of choosing ignorance over being well informed.
Also, FWIW, I'm neither a fan of GB, nor of UK government (of both descriptions). I'm fairly socialist-leaning in my beliefs about ideal economic politics. I just care about getting my facts from reasonably factual sources - and this is an excellent example of what most people believe, being bollocks.
The economist you quote is no more or less reliable a source than one from CERA, but one can always find a quotable economist to back up and reassure ones perspective, no matter the validity.
Right, I'm done - final last word is yours for the taking.
I have no idea what you are so offended about.
My straw man argument, as you choose to call it, that you are the first person I have met who believes government cost of living statistics, is not an argument but a statement of fact.
You have not actually addressed the substantial points raised, such as the low weight given to food and dubious treatment of housing.
Your reply boils down to not fancying one of the economists who challenges the government stats.
Since you have actually just linked to one document from the very people who have turned out the dodgy figures and have not provided any actual argument, I am duly grateful that you say that is the last we will hear of on the matter from you.
Hmmm. As they say everyone has one. Yes, the CPI is correct in that the methods it uses add upp 2 and 2 to make 5. It's just that they aren't counting the same things that 90% of us do.
So the 'factual sources' must be goverment massaged statistics ? Why not just take a walk around with a notebook and pen and then go to the library and pick out a local paper from 2, 5 and 10 years ago and compare prices ?
Or is that too in-yer-face ? Or ignorant or self-reinforcing ? Oh, and my shopping basket 10 years ago wasn't overly stuffed with Plasma TVs, iPods or memory chips either, if I recall.
2% pay rise for you, then.
Technology is what makes calculating inflation so difficult.
1. Is an Walkman in 1990 (lets say $40) a Walkman now ($10) or an Ipod ($150)
2. Is the New York Times in 1995 ($1)? the NYT now, or NYT.com (free).
3. Is a 1985 Honda Civic a 2008 Honda Civic (larger, more powerful) or a Honda Fit (probably still larger, more features) or a Kia (cheapest car on the market).
Housing is the other difficulty. It is so different for everyone. I think they do it by assuming that everyone rents at current rental rates. Of course this overstates inflation for many people.
Let's "Join The Dots":
http://www.megatrends2020.com/Peak_Oil__Joining_The_Dots.doc
Nick.
You missed this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025204/Life-Mars-Back-70s-stand...
Were going back to the Seventies already...
Thanks, Mudlogger.
I hope of course that you are aware that you do not exist, nor does that article in the Daily Mail online, nor does TOD and that, hopefully in the near future, I will open my eyes and see those kindly brain surgeons looking down and me and telling me it was all the result of that frightful accident I had four years ago just after reading some newspaper scare story about oil depletion … typical instantiation of the Cassandra Syndrome, doom and gloom psychosis, TEOTWAWKI delusion, can happen to the nicest people, don't forget to take your medication ...
Phew! Do I look forward to waking up.
:-)
"Britain has squandered its North Sea inheritance. Now we are paying the price"
We all squandered our inheritance, for an entire century, and around the world. Only now are the biggest surviving producers beginning to wake up and say, "Wait a minute..."
could you expand on this? how did we squander it? how could we have not squandered it? how did china, who consumes much less oil, squander their oil as opposed to the US who consumes much more.
Simple -- the UK squandered their oil inheritance by selling it off at bargain basement rates at little gain -- and now that the crisis is hitting there is little left.
"the UK squandered their oil inheritance"
and the rest of us?
Nuclear energy down 1.9 percent in 2007 (compared to 2006): World Nuclear News
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91342960
I heard this interview this morning on NPR. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Agriculture is dismissing ethanol as a cause of the food crisis. And he's pushing 'increased yields' in third world countries as the answer to the global food crisis.
The increased yields of the past are a direct result of more fossil fuel inputs. Aren't those same third world countries being priced out of the oil market? Can you say shill for the Big Agra and Big Fertilizer corporations? @#$%^&*!!!!
here's a peak oil peripheral(pop):
"bush says strong dollar in us interest"
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0945218720080609
this after running up the debt by over $ 4,000,000,000,000
Couple of hopes regarding the election of a new US President:
1) I hope we elect one that that can string words together to make comprehensible sentences.
2) I hope we elect one that understands that strengthening the dollar is not as difficult as rocket science.
3) I hope we elect one that realizes that the foreign policy goals of Israel and US are not necessarily the same.
4) I hope we elect one that understands that FFs are finite resources.
5) I hope we elect one that does not choose Cheney for a vice president.
I realize that I am hoping for a lot...best hopes for a president with a brain.
The election cycle;
2 years of HOPE for change with the new prez
Then,
2 years of disillusionment/anger
Then,
2 years of HOPE…
Rinse & repeat.
Best hopes for hopelessness leading to realization then real change!
Hope has always been the palliative, the content-free substitute, for thinking and feeling and then using thoughts and feelings to inform action.
Best hopes for becoming completely hopeless -- it's our only hope.
I am hoping that after I move to my new land this summer, I can become involved in local politics to make changes on a local level. That's the only level it seems that any positive change can be made.
Best Hopes for change on a local level.
"I don't have to change the world, I just have to change my world"
I'm one of those who believe that you can also make a difference if you create useful technology/expertise that you can persuade people to take up. Indeed, I believe that technology will have a much bigger impact than anything done by politicians, whether for good or ill depends on the type and aims (efficient adaptive building heating: good, pointlessly big urban SUV: bad). My disagreement with most technofix people is that you've got to actually create the technology (to the point that it's working at the necessary scale), not just enthusiastically point at press releases or present to graphs of exponential growth that other people are apparently preordained to produce.
i have come to a realization.
Douglas's adam's was right, for recent history the president's job was not one with power. his job is to distract the populace from those with the power.
It appears that the notion that America's oil supply problem can be solved simply by opening up heretofore restricted domestic areas such as ANWR to exploration and production has been steadily gaining traction to the point where it is becoming a full-blown meme.
Over the last two weeks there have been no less than six letters to the editor in our local newspaper to that effect, and just this morning I saw a Chevy Suburban SUV with a bumper sticker: DRILL HERE DRILL NOW!
I fear that this widespread denial is so deeply embedded that the majority of Åmericans will blame anyone else, e.g., those liberals, those pinko enviro-nazis, those rotten Ay-rabs, those greedy speculators, you name it, rather than face the reality staring us right in the face.
I started the day in a moderately bad mood, but seeing that DRILL HERE DRILL NOW bumper sticker has really bummed me out.
Just watched Senate Democrats oil briefing.
To sum it up. All speculators will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay no matter where they attempt to trade oil. Extradition will be used. This will reduce oil to below $100/barrel.
That's roughly it.
CPSR--Cornucopian Primal Scream Response, i.e., they are basically screaming that there must be some way, somehow, that we can maintain an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite energy resource base.
I was chatting with a couple living in Detroit a couple of weeks ago. He is a senior petrochemical executive, and I gathered that they had a McMansion in a Detroit suburb. I advised them to sell now, take their losses, and rent. The wife almost screamed (I am not exaggerating) that "House prices will recover!" Selling is a twofold problem: (1) They would have to take a loss and probably more importantly (2) They would be moving into housing that would be below what their peers have.
We're going to have to go through the Cornucopian Primal Scream Response phase, there is simply no avoiding it. Everything possible will be done to maintain BAU, all hints of oil will be exploited. Even if serious economic hard times hit (like very soon), it may only delay it. We will still ultimately drill ANWR and everywhere else that we can. There is simply too much energy in oil, and energy = political power.
Given how far into the process we are without having prepared at all, and the looming climate change consequences of having burned all the fossil fuels we already have, this is going to be one very rough ride. I am very sad for all the environmental damage that we will do in desperation, but suffering, angry people will not be stopped.
I think you're trying to set up a straw man with the infinite stuff I just think people don't want to spend $4 gallon.
You are probably correct. To be more accurate, people want an infinite supply of cheap energy.
Then they and their peers will suffer together. Misery loves company.
I agree, unfortunately that "suburban driver" is probably one of the least informed people on the subject, it's sad that s/he feels that s/he should be educating every one else, when the majority of the educated already know s/he's wrong
If you live in an area with a lot of Republican voters, you hear them blaming environmentalists and liberals for the nation's energy woes. "They blocked the drilling in Alaska, they blocked the building of nuclear power plants, they blocked the building of more oil refineries" etc etc. They get their news from TV infotainers and right wing pundits who also blame muslims for our problems. My extended family is full of these so-ill-informed folks. When you try to explain the geological and consumption reasons behind the problem they resort to personal attacks on the messenger.
Things don't look good for a peaceful transition out of the fossil fuel era.
The way Americans are casting about for scapegoats right now is definitely alarming. When our electricity generating capacity hits a wall, this quest for people to blame will intensify and, yes, the environmentalists will take even more heat for our "failure" to build new coal-fired generating capacity quickly enough.
You two mean to say that environmentalists are NOT blocking new nuclear and coal power plants, or drilling in ANWR?
If this is the case I'd like to see some evidence, because all I have seen shows exactly the opposite.
If these guys that call themselves environmentalists, are up to defend that cause of theirs, they must take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. A system where one has only rights, but without responsibility for the consequences of exercising them will lead us to anarchy. It would be like driving with immunity against lawsuits in case you cause an accident... where is such system going to lead us?
Back to the environmentalists - once shortages start they will be blamed and people will be right to blame them. If they didn't want nukes, coal, oil (now even wind is falling out out favor), then they had to propose sensible alternatives, not pies-in-the-sky. I wish that at least they had the guts to admit that what they really want is no energy at all, and this has been the plan all along - to bring us "back to the land". I have a suggestion - why not start now with "going back to the land", and send them to some isolated island to taste it first hand?
So what you are saying is that pesky environmentalists have had the ability through Bush I, Clinton I & II, Bush 2 I & II - many of those years with Republican majorities in Congress, managed to block new Nukes?
wow - I had NO idea they were so powerful! perhaps you could point out to me all the anti-nuke legislation that these enviros were able to pass? could you show me all those new nuke plants that were denied permits to begin building?
you LOVE to talk about environmentalists as being the ones to blame - I have yet to see anything that could remotely considered "evidence" to support this view of yours
I don't suppose you would consider the reason that new nukes haven't been built being something as simple as (gasp!) - cost? Electricity generated from coal and natural gas has been very very cheap for many years - as was oil since the end of the last price shock - you don't suppose nobody wanted to build new nukes (especially after 3 mile Island and Chernobyl) simply because it wasn't profitable?
and if you are looking for scapegoats, you wouldn't want to throw Oil company execs who have been telling us that oil will never go away? or economists telling us the same? or the Fed creating a (largely suburban) housing bubble by offering such low rates and no oversight on loans? Seems like there is plenty of blame to go around if you want to point fingers - how about those that lied to get us into Iraq and wasted 3 trillion $? that $ could have built a lot of infrastructure.....
but no, it's environmentalists I'm sure - I mean, they can't even get anybody elected in this country, but somehow they are to blame for this mess....
Tool
MacDuff,
What you don't seem to understand about LevinK's point of view is really quite simple - it is based on a belief that all can be just as it was (which is unquestionably accepted as "good")if only ....
I am not concerned of changes. I am more concerned of self-proclaimed demiurges that claim to know what it should be.
Enough of revolutions.
And by declaring that change (or revolution) should not occur, have you not yourself claimed to know what should be?
If you want to defend the growth based economic system, that's fine, you can make all sorts of arguments for that arrangement. Just don't pretend that it's the "natural order."
What's so bad about growth? Growth means that people are generally living better. What we are lacking is sensible growth that does not deplete our resources and ruin our environment... among other things.
It is a false dichotomy to suggest that growth always causes these problems. It's just a matter of how we organize society and what are its priorities. I predict certain societies are going to grow and do fairly well even as FFs deplete. Not so sure once GW hits in.
Nothing, except that it has to end eventually.
That, or we need to start spreading to other petri dishes.
This has always made me laugh. Not all growth depends on expanding the use of natural resources, and far from all natural resources are non-renewable, or at worst some of them could last hundreds or thousands of years.
But even if growth one day is to end, so what? Everyone's life will also end, but that's not a reason to jump off the bridge right now. It's a menaingless discussion looking at the Earth from 1mln.miles distance... a perspective which we don't have. I prefer to accept the fact as long as humans exist they will strive for growth, and concentrate on preventing/mitigating the negative consequences from it.
What do you mean by "growth"? What resources, even renewable ones, are not right now at the breaking point? Is the planet not finite?
What, we'll all die, so f**k it? Is that your "philosophy"?
Don't we have any responsibility to generations to come?
The discussion is about looking at Earth from a distance of 10 years.
You can prefer to accept whatever you want. You are entitled to your beliefs, but not the facts. Fact is, it's a finite planet.
So, what do we do?
Strive for "growth" as an abstract good in itself - what's that? The ideology of a cancer.
Solar (we use less than 1/1000th even including biomass)
Wind (global capacity of near 100 terawatts, some 10 times what civilization is using)
Nuclear (120 trillion tons of uranium and thorium in the crust)
Iron, Steel, Nickel, Titanium, etc...
Wrong question. We aren't even close to the limit of its resources and there are other planets.
Sure if it was just more of the same homogenous civilization around in a stagnant fasion forever. Growth brings change, knowledge, and power to understand more of the universe.
Other planets, yes. And hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.
You think its a clever snark, do you?
When we're actually using the 10^16 watts of solar energy per day and are pushing the heat dissapation envelope of the earth for nuclear power, one might very well assume that a significant fraction of the economy would support interplanetary economies. After all it would be at least 10000 times bigger than the economy today.
Clever snark indeed - yes, I like that hydrogen line a lot! It sums up what some people think in a nice little trope.
But OK, interplanetary economies if you say so. It sounds like madness to me, but OK. 10,000 times bigger than the economy today sounds fine. This is based on what? Fusion power?
But we're already challenging the heat dissipation envelope of the Earth, in case you haven't noticed.
Meanwhile, we have the next decade or 10 to make it through in some semblance of civility.
Alas, I must head off to work now, so I can't discuss this further...
No it doesn't. Its a trite strawman.
Oh I'm sure we'll do controlled fusion someday, just not this century. In the meantime there are 120 trillion tons of thorium and uranium in the crust and 10^16 watts of solar power hitting the earth.
No we're not. Industrial civilization consumes 1.5 x 10^13 watts. The solar constant (and the equivelant heat dissapation capacity of earth) is some 10^17 watts. We're not even within 1/1000th of the heat dissapation capacity.
Dezakin, human society is not a machine. Its a messy, increasingly unmanageable cat fight. We'll never begin to even approach the theoretical limits of "available" energy that you are tossing around. Not even close.
As for colonizing other planets -- hey, maybe someone will someday do it. But it won't be possible in my lifetime (nor in yours) and if I had to venture a guess, I'd wager that the human chapter will be largely over by century's end.
A fine assertion. And entirely unsupportable opinion, especially given with the context of avaliable nuclear fuel. We probably wont burn 120 trillion tons over the next 16 million years, or build solar collectors over every inch of the earths surface. But then, we don't have to.
Obviously not. We'll need a global economy at least ten times larger than it is today, and I'll be lucky to see it get three times larger, especially since much of the global economic growth may be curtailed by inflationary infrastructure adjustment from fossil fuels to nuclear, wind, and solar.
But I think its obvious thats where we're heading.
You have some mysterious new definition of "growth" if it doesn't depend on expending ever more resources.
Perhaps it's video-game growth in which the points count up eternally, measuring nothing?
The problem with growth ending is it tends to be absolutely horrid times to live in for most people involved.
If I read a book or go to a movie I am consuming negligible amounts of natural resources. Does a movie make my life better? I guess so (if it's not some Holywood crp). A person really can eat or dress only that much... Aside from population growth there is no fundamental reason to consume more natural resources with time, and even then some of the resources are renewable and others are virtually limitless. There is no fundamental problem with growth, there is a fundamental problem with our growth.
When it comes to growth we are a classic predator species.
Wolf populations grow until they outstrip the deer and rabbits, then they collapse.
Our population will grow until we cannot spare the energy to rescue people from natural disasters or other causes of mortality. Consider the Katrina disaster a model of post-peak disaster response: lots of pointed fingers and a definite lack of big, no-holds barred rescue and recovery efforts. Years later I'm hearing about finger pointing efforts getting in the way of local recovery projects.
As such, the consequences of growth past locally sustainable levels are human suffering in various degrees.
Entertainment consumption, especially passive entertainment, is exactly what I was referring to as "video game growth". Time and energy are spent, and nothing is accomplished. I fail to see what it has to do with real growth.
My whole point is that most of the growth in developed countries is what you call "entertainment" growth - one that does not consume a lot of additional natural resources.
And it makes sense - a person in the 1970s and a person in the 2000s need the same amount of food, clothes, shelter; the basic, most resource consuming things.
However GDP per capita now is times higher than it was back then, adjusted for inflation. At the same time oil and other resource consumption per capita was even higher in the 1970s than it is now.
How to explain all of that? Mostly because of additional low-resource consuming, discretionary products that become available to people in the meantime. Increased productivity in the production of basic goods allowed more economic activity to be transferred to entertainment parks and iPods - things of value but consuming negligible amounts of resources. Another process that allowed this to go further is globalisation and outsourcing, but this is another topic.
You can argue that population growth is stressing resources regardless, but just take a look - where does our population growth come from? Undeveloped countries. Developed countries with the notable exception of US have effectively zero population growth.
The bottom line - if you want to save the world and the resources, give everybody on this planet the decent standard of living we have in the West. It's not necessary to give them our excesses, just the basics.
This thesis is popular for the soylent green dystopian vision, but theres no evidence that it will be any different than any of the vast majority of human history where growth was curtailed by simple increased mortality.
You don't say? Gee, how about you lead the way on that increased mortality thing and demonstrate how it's not so bad, eh?
You normally don't write such stupid stuff. I'm surprised to see it now.
Its bad, but its no different than the vast majority of history.
Right, no different than the times in history when we were shrinking. Absolutely horrid times to be alive. People lived through those times, obviously, and barring catastrophe on a scale like that which killed the dinosaurs people will live through the future bad times.
That doesn't mean that it will be pleasant.
But this is not true. There have been sustainable - that is, no-growth - societies that lasted thousands of years.
In terms of world population, the trend has always been upward:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.html
Some countries decline ... others expand. but in the end, the human race overall expands
I think that's misleading. We are currently in a massive population spike - the greatest we have ever experienced as a species. So, looking at the big picture, it looks like "the trend has always been upward." It couldn't look any other way, given the current population.
But if you look at shorter periods, before the fossil-fueled spike, population has been stable, and even decreased at times. (Dieoff, if you will.)
And if you look at specific areas, some have been stable or falling in population, even now.
Is stabilizing population worldwide a far more difficult issue? Of course. But individual societies have done it in the past, and are doing it now. So the idea that growth is inevitable is simply incorrect.
Jared Diamond's Collapse is not just about collapse. It's also about societies that have successfully avoided collapse. Such societies value zero population the way we value life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
"It couldn't look any other way, given the current population."
Well, it could look another way if the growth rate (2nd graph) were to drop below zero. Unfortunately, it doesn't which means we are still striving to grow - albeit at a slower rate.
I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that it's not inevitable.
Bah, somehow I failed to read that. I read that successful societies dont mismanage resources, not that they dont grow.
The fact that some societies did not grow does not prove that they did not 'strive for growth', it just shows that if they did they weren't very good at it.
If your theory is true, they must have differed very much from other animal populations which grow as much as they can when they can, or they would die out.
What you are defining as a society also appears to be one which it's members would not recognise - the 'primitive' societies with which we are familiar suffered endemic warfare and such stasis as was attained was through a balance of power rather than some harmony with nature.
Perhaps you are talking about the wider society, say the polynesian society rather than the constituent several parts of it, but this is an anachronistic reading.
The appearance of stasis is mainly a result of poor records and distant perspective.
Wrong. But we're so entrenched in the growth paradigm, we have a hard time seeing outside of it.
In Collapse, Diamond describes several societies that were stable for thousands of years. Population control was their number #1 priority. And no, it wasn't just killing each other off or dying of starvation to stay within Malthusian limits. It was a conscious choice. In one society, the king set a pre-determined limit to the population, and any surplus had to leave. Voluntarily or not. They also used suicide, infanticide, late marriage, and many other such strategies to prevent population growth.
One example I found striking was an island where the people decided to eliminate domestic pigs. Pigs eat food people can eat (probably why they are considered "unclean" by Jews and Muslims - they're too expensive). Only a few rich people benefited from keeping pigs, so they decided the cost to the society outweighed the benefits. And they killed every pig on the island.
Serious question...Is this society you speak of still in existence? If not, what was the cause of their demise?
You will get no argument from me that population control (through education rather than killing/starvation/governance/etc...) is NOT a good thing.
Yes, I believe they are still in existence. Most of them were, IIRC. Some had since industrialized, like Japan, but most were still living more or less as their ancestors had.
I think you have misread the statement you say is wrong:
It was that 'IF they did they weren't very good at it' which is hardly contestable.
Since the written records from these ancient societies are so sparse I find it difficult to determine how Diamond has determined that population control was their number 1 priority for thousands of years.
If the discussion is confined to the more easily checkable societies which are current or have been recently current, a far less pastoral picture emerges, where the limitations of the environment are indeed recognised, as they live to close to losing their lives to it, but one of endemic conflict and a far more human desire to take advantage of opportunity whilst not getting caught out - in essence the same greed and fear that motivates the stockbroker.
Margaret Meade went to Polynesia, and used it as a kind of Rosarch test, finding her idyll's there, in her interpretations of the joking responses of the interviewees, which painted a sexually liberated Eden.
The reality of the society was rather different.
If the records are poor and the distance in time great then all sorts of interpretations become less falsifiable.
Some societies some of the time were doubtless static, but my guess would be that the situation was inherently more dynamic than that sounds.
After all, one good drought and the whole society was in danger of oblivion - and countless of them no doubt vanished.
They aren't all ancient societies. Most were societies that currently exist.
I recommend that you read the book, if you haven't. It's rather long for me to explain it all to you. Things have come a long way since Coming of Age in Samoa, and Diamond certainly understands that. Indeed, he starts the book out by arguing, in great detail, that "primitive" societies are neither worse nor better than we are when it comes to the environment, but exactly the same.
Diamond is the one who has chronicled the collapse of Polynesian societies like Easter Island and Pitcairn Island, as well as those that have proved sustainable for thousands of years. He's hardly the type to succumb to "noble savage" fantasies.
What I found most interesting about the book was his description of research on which societies can successfully transition to sustainability, and which cannot. (In some circumstances, it is simply impossible.)
You have piqued my interest Leanan, and I will try to have a look at it - it sounds like an good read - you argue it's case well.
Absolutely! Indeed, the development of growth oriented societies is relegated to the last 6000 or so years of human history - and even at that, the growth ethic didn't go global until about 400 years ago - and probably didn't include the majority of the planets population until even more recently.
Not by choice.
Well what happened to those "sustainable" societies? AFAIK there were two options: they disappered (a sustainable society that disappeared... makes you pause, doesn't it? :), or they turned into pro-growth societies.
It is natural for any living organism to try to live better and expand... the fact these societies didn't do it means they couldn't, not that they didn't want to. Of course there are limits, and society has imposed certain limits in the forms of law or moral codes. What we should be doing in TOD is indeed discussing the limits we should self-impose to prevent ourselves from crashing; the growth issue is misplaced - we will always at least try to grow. We just have to think carefully how to do it.
In all cases they were conquered by "pro-growth" societies, meaning the West. Either by its brutal armies or by its lying dogmas. But might does not make right, or even sustainable. If the West leads mankind over a cliff worse than the Roman collapse, what makes it better than the societies it conquered?
That's like claiming the Green Revolution would save a billion lives, only to cause population to rise by 3 billion, who all die when the fertilizer runs out. Did our system save a billion, or kill 3 billion?
You're seriously worried about fertilizer running out?
Dezakin, it simply does not matter, modern agriculture will run out, or run down. Modern agriculture simply cannot survive the demise of fossil fuels. And yes, if our population increases by three billion then that will simply increase the die-off by three billion.
Ron Patterson
Thats silly. We've got enough coal to supply agriculture for at least seventy-five years. Get you're ammonia from hydrogen from coal. Get your ag equipment fuel from coal.
And you can do the same thing with hydrogen produced from nuclear power plants.
That is short-term thinking.
75 years? I hope my kids are visiting with their great-grandkids in 75 years.
I don't want my progeny suffering because people didn't want to plan that far ahead.
Thats not short term. You need that time buffer to rebuild infrastructure because it doesn't build itself overnight.
In seventy five years I'd hope the world has at least 2000 gigawatts of high temperature liquid fluoride reactors operating for hydrogen production to replace the coal and oil based infrastructure, and another several terawatts of increased electric production as an increased percentage of the global economy.
My point was simply that agriculture wont collapse anytime over the next century.
You don't read much do ya? Agriculture is already in the first phases of collapse due to soil infertility and climate change induced flooding and droughts, not to mention the growing inability of farmers to obtain the credit they need to finance their operations, and it's happening on a planetary scale.
No, most of them still exist.
No doubt they would have been conquered, if they were living on top of Ghawar or something, but since they aren't, they've been left alone.
Care to list some?
New Guinea highlands, Tikopia, Iceland.
And the biggie: 17th Century Japan
I'm not sure that counts. Since Japan has been conquered.
However, I do think Edo-period Japan is probably the best model we have for non-disastrous future.
Yeah. An oppressive state which ground the last grain of rice from the peasants and would torture their families if they failed to come up with enough whatever the harvest had been like.
This was to support a ritual edifice designed to keep the Samurai in check by ceremonial duties such that they lived entirely pointless lives.
Check out the Christian rebellion there, which was suppressed with massacre.
I'll take my chances with a more dynamic societal model thanks.
You might just as well cut straight to the glorious People's Democratic Republic of North Korea or whatever it calls itself and save yourself the time travel.
I think that's going to be the least of our worries.
Who was it who said 'Give me Liberty or give me Death'?
Somehow all these ideas of stasis and perpetual harmony, not to mention Millenialism, always seem to end up as particularly nasty tyranies.
There is always an enforcer.
I'll stick with Blake and Henry, and be freer in Hell than in some tyranic heaven.
in reality given the options DEATH or life in a far more restrictive society than exists in the West today, people aren't going to be choosing death... it sounds good to say but it just doesn't fit reality... people kinda like the whole life thing, regardless of restrictions
We are not talking about 'far more restrictive societies' - we are talking about a brutal fascism - read about some of these wonderful Polynesian societies charming little rituals of human sacrifice of enslaved lower castes, which were used as a method of total control and to instil fear.
And actually, people often make choices which are against some social Darwinist sense of rationality.
I think many here, for instance, would much sooner die than use nuclear power to provide energy - on the ostensible rationale that it is too dangerous!
So a few billion people die - 'we should not go above the [alleged] carrying capacity of the planet, and a die-off is inevitable anyway' rather than take any risk!
People are weird.
Yup. Some historians actually doubt even Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Since they would've given him death.
I always favored the Trobriand Islanders. Much of Melanesia remains unchanged too, along with those parts of Oceania thankfully neglected by tourism.
Iceland?
Otherwise I agree - if all of us agree to Guinea highland lifestyle, we could achieve "sustainability". But somehow I doubt many of us would volunteer. Oh, I forgot, it will happen regardless what we do... what can I tell to that? I guess it's my personal choice not to accept it.
«Over one hundred tribes around the world choose to reject contact with outsiders. They are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet.
Many of them are living on the run, fleeing invasions of their land by colonists, loggers, oil crews and cattle ranchers. They have often seen their friends and families die at the hands of outsiders, in unreported massacres or epidemics.
This is their story.»
http://www.survival-international.org/campaigns/uncontactedtribes
Sure we do:
Actually this photo was taken from 34 million miles by Mars "Rover", but I think it makes the same "point", or in this case pixel. (right click and "view image" for full size)
i think a sense of perspective is definitely worthwhile
as a Physicist by training you get a completely different feel bred into you, deep down, of the sheer scale of the universe and our place in it... it lets you appreciate just how fragile things really are
but it reminds me of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy and the Total Perspective Vortex...
the TPV is the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected. It shows its victim the entire unimaginable scale of the universe with a very tiny marker that says "You Are Here" which points to a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot... it literally blows the mind of the victim who sees their significance in relation to the vastness of the universe... of course it didn't work on Zaphod Beeblebrox whose supreme ego meant he came out the other side realizing he's a pretty cool dude... but that's why you read the book...
Good. Now that you have that perspective, I'll let you worry about the long-term prospect of the Universe collapsing into the primary egg.
I'll stick to worrying about my chances to survive on that tiny piece of space dust called Earth. I know I'm just an insignificant piece of carbon based chemicals, but I still can have my own worries, right? Thanks for the understanding.
As I said, you can make that argument - just don't assume that it is somehow the "natural order."
As for me, the problem with "growth" has to do not with the concept, but with the form of economic growth that we currently have. Their are physical limits to growth in consumption of resources. Perhaps we will change our idea of "growth," but an economic system based on consuming more and more has no long term future. (We can argue when that limit will be reached, but you can't argue that the limit exists).
I predict that your prediction will not come true. The current economic system is global and the idea that some "societies" (slippery, isn't it, you meant "economies") can continue to grow while the whole system is shrinking is suspect. Maybe some can do it short term, but eventually the overall shrinkage will catch up to them.
It is true that our economies are growth oriented. And so what?
The economy is set to grow, and they are trying to tune it to grow, but it can very well adapt to less growth conditions if needed - this has been demonstrated multiple times through history. It's a matter of political will if we need to restrict growth because of some other issue (say climate change or resource depletion). The problem is there is no political will to do it, it is not the economic system which is at fault. The fact is that it has always been politico-economical system, with the political system taking care of the common good independently - by restricting/regulating the economy as needed. However our political system has become so corrupt that it is indeed just economy which is driving our daily lives. You can argue that a capitalistic system always corrupts, but well then, we don't know any better, so we have to do with what we have.
We do know better, and have plenty of examples of alternative ways of living which provide community and mutual support.
What we consider to be "growth" is actually appropriation, and the appropriation is always temporary. Growth ends at complex collapse, when the system cannot support itself. This model is followed by every living thing, including human societies.
Growth, the creation of something from nothing, does not exist.
As opposed to the market, whose definition of change always concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, who then use that wealth to control and corrupt the media, the elections, the church, and our very perception of reality in order to concentrate even more wealth, regardless of the damage.
That is the natural order of property systems, and proceeds until enough resources are exhausted to bring about collapse. The evil of the environmentalists was that they tried to get us to notice. Which would mean revolution.
You are ascribing environmentalists credits that very few deserve. With the exception of Club of Rome and few others, the rest on this board are just NIMBYsts undercover or simply political opportunists. Most of them have no idea what they are fighting for, they are just fighting it for the fight itself.
Otherwise I completely agree with you about the problem you stated. The solution is a different story, and if the idea of the ones we are refering as "environmentalists" is to bring the crash faster I have to completely disagree. A crash does not bring necessarily any good, and a change is not necessarily for good either - collapse of the Roman empire brought the dark ages, and the Great Depression brought us Hitler. If they want to make things better, let them work within the system and try to make it better, not just hope that is collapses altogether... besides how inhuman it is, I think that it grossly miscalculates what will follow. Hint - it won't be an ecoutpoia, you can take that for granted.
Hitler was not brought by the Great Depression. He was brought by the manner of Germany's WW1 defeat and the Versailles Treaty, along with several other allied variables.
True, these were some of the reasons for his support. But the real enabler was the economic crisis and the failure of the Weimar republic, which added injury to the insult.
If the ordinary people of Germany were living well, they would have never elected a chauvinistic and militaristic nationalist, that promises them to rule the world. If you live OK you would never support to send your own people to die for somebody else's resources. Likewise I fear that if US ever fails economically, something similar will happen here.
The Versailles Treaty enabled the economic crisis, and the Great Depression. Your second paragraph fails also as Bush was re-elected and Blair's government never was put to a vote of confidence, while both populaces's "were living well."
Come on... Bush is not Hitler. He's not even qualified to do this job. Bush is just a normal US president who, like all US presidents wanted his war. What he did has been going on and off the whole 20th century. And he never neither wanted nor needed to start WWIII, it's in noone's interest.
I'm not concerned by Bush and the neocons, I'm far more concerned into what all they started will evolve once the going gets tough.
In this country a handful of people have the power to stop the construction of say a nuclear power plant, or protract it for years if they can persuade some county court that it is not in the public interest. Either way this would costs billions, because while someone is complaining that he's worried about the vapour that comes out of the cooling tower or about that wind turbine blocking his view, there will be interest on those loans, the people that were hired have to get salaries or they will leave etc.etc. And even if somehow you manage to build it there is still no guarantee - they can shut it down later for whatever reason they think of. All of this has already happened numerous times, do you need a list?
And yes - the reason comes down to cost - an equal nuke is costing $4 bln. in Japan and is projected for up to $7bln in USA. Care to know the reason why there is such difference? How about (gasp!) NIMBY? NIMBY masked as environmentalism... that's what our "environmental" movement really is.
Yeah, all those NIMBYs in Alaska living on the edge of ANWR are blocking drilling there.
There are good reasons for slowing down the construction of new coal-burning power plants. It does no good to deal with peak oil by roasting the earth and acidifying the oceans.
Nuclear plants were largely blocked as a result of movements that existed decades ago. I think people in the 70s could be cut some slack about peak oil. But that old movement has little influence any more, and we're seeing new nuclear permits requested for the first time in many years, and they are likely to be approved.
As for ANWR, we should not drill there now, period. Only an idiot opens up his last good reserve of oil when people are still wastin