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DrumBeat: July 3, 2008
Posted by Leanan on July 3, 2008 - 9:05am
Topic: Miscellaneous
OPEC's Crude Oil Production Increased 1% in June, Survey Shows
(Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increased oil production 1 percent in June, as Saudi Arabian output rose to a two-year high, a Bloomberg News survey showed.OPEC pumped an average 32.52 million barrels a day last month, up 320,000 barrels from May, according to the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. Production by the 12 members with quotas, all except Iraq, rose 380,000 barrels to 30.09 million barrels a day.
Saudi production increased 280,000 barrels to an average 9.53 million barrels a day last month, the highest since March 2006. It was the biggest gain among OPEC members last month and represented 88 percent of the overall OPEC increase.
Oil passes, settles above $145 for first time
NEW YORK - Oil prices raced above $145 a barrel for the first time Thursday as traders added to their bets on the commodity ahead of the long holiday weekend.There was little good news for Americans hitting the road for the July Fourth holiday, as gas prices set their own record near $4.10 a gallon.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery surged $1.72 to settle at a record $145.29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the trading session, the last of the week, the contract rose to $145.85 a barrel, also a new high.
The gains built on a record-shattering rally the previous day, and left prices 3.6 percent higher for the week. Crude has shot up by more than half just since the start of the year.
Worried oil chiefs fail to find consensus
MADRID (AFP) - One of the energy industry's biggest gatherings ended Thursday in the shadow of record crude prices, with concern growing about a third oil shock but with little consensus about what to do about it.
Saudi cleric warns Saudis to shun militants
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's top religious official warned on Thursday Saudis and foreigners living in the kingdom to not hide information about militants in the world's largest oil exporter.The statement from Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh follows a government announcement last week that it is holding 520 suspects, arrested since January, who planned car bomb attacks against oil and security installations.
"I warn citizens and residents from concealing them and giving them shelter, this would be a great sin," the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency said.
With politics in the air, James Rogers is racing to limit carbon emissions at Duke Energy--before the greenies beat him to it.
Tesla Plans Electric Four Door saloon
Tesla, the North American electric car maker, has announced plans to manufacture an electrically powered four door saloon. Called Model S, the mid-size, Ford Mondeo-scale car is scheduled to go into production in 2010, at a US price of $60,000, or £30,000. That price is considerably less than the $109,000 the company charges for the Tesla Roadster, which recently went on sale here in left-hand drive from for £79,000. Unlike the UK-built Roadster the Model S, also known as the White Star, will be assembled in San Francisco, California. The Roadster is built on the Lotus production line at Hethel, Norfolk.
John Michael Greer: Lessons from amateur radio
One of the major achievements of the last two hundred years, it seems to me, is the emergence of communications networks that allow news and information to move from one side of the planet to another at a faster pace than messengers on horseback or sailing ships can travel. Though there had been plenty of earlier attempts, using semaphore and other visual systems, the telegraph revolutionized communication across the industrial world, and launched a series of more complex media – telephone, radio, television, and finally the internet. Not all these were an unmixed blessing, it has to be said; every technology has its downsides, but on the whole, widespread access to long-distance communication has been much more a blessing than the opposite.There are also few dimensions of modern industrial society more vulnerable to breakdown in the age of scarcity now beginning. The internet, the crown jewel of modern communications, depends on a huge and energy-intensive infrastructure that may well prove unsustainable in the future. A single server farm can use as much electricity as a small city, and the technology that makes the internet possible in the first place requires plenty of energy, exotic raw materials, and a very high level of technology – none of which can necessarily be guaranteed in the decades to come. On a broader level, most of today’s telecommunications, including the internet, support themselves through advertising sales, and the economic model that makes this work will have a hard time surviving the collapse of the consumer economy.
The Long Descent, by John Michael Greer (book)
Americans are expressing deep concern about US dependence on petroleum, rising energy prices and the threat of climate change. Unlike the energy crisis of the 1970s, however, there is a lurking fear that, now, the times are different and the crisis may not easily be resolved.
Gazprom CEO stands firm on $250 oil, $1000 gas view
BAKU, July 3 (Reuters) - Europe's bill for Russian gas supplies will rise by a quarter by the end of 2008 and will eventually double, the head of Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Thursday, repeating his view that oil will rise at least $100.Alexei Miller told reporters during a trip to Azerbaijan he expected prices to rise to $500 per 1,000 cubic metres from the current $400 by the end of 2008. If oil prices were to hit $250 per barrel, gas prices would hit $1,000, he said.
BP Pulls Half of Its Expatriate Staff from TNK-BP
(Bloomberg) -- BP Plc will pull more than half the expatriate employees sent to work at its Russian venture TNK-BP from the country, signaling a legal battle with minority shareholders in the unit won't end soon.
Chevron's Kazakh Venture Plans Maintenance Through August
(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp.'s Kazakh venture will carry out annual maintenance through August that will leave production lower than the daily average for the year.
Gas hits fresh record ahead of July 4
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Retail gas prices rose overnight to a record high for the fourth day in a row, ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend - one of the nation's busiest weekends for travel.
Glenn Beck: Your gas money for a flat screen?
Considering the average amount of gas used per household, the rise has cost us approximately $1,690. With the average 42-inch plasma screen going for $975, just the extra cash you've forked over for gas in the last year and a half could have bought you 1.733 plasma TVs. And that number just keeps rising.
SUV Drivers Burned Twice: At the Pump, on the Car Lot
Americans' love affair with 22-inch rims, eight cylinders and four-wheel drive wrapped in an 8,000-pound package is over. And the breakup is going to cost.With $4-a-gallon gas coming between drivers and their very large vehicles, consumers are dropping their once-beloved rides, fast. But not fast enough, it seems. As the price of gas has gone up, the value of sport-utility vehicles has gone down.
American Airlines to cut 8% of staff
The airline plans to cut nearly 7,000 jobs to offset the pain of rising fuel prices, on top of previously announced capacity reductions.
Airbus And Boeing Face A Dark And Painful Future
When you google 'Airbus Boeing Peak Oil', the top result is this article that I wrote in the summer of 2006. Being a Cassandra proved right gives one all sorts of uneasy feelings, but I will carry on in that direction and offer a revised version of my prophecy, adorned with new details.In a nutshell: people are talking a lot about the difficulties for airlines with $150-a-barrel oil. But we also have to understand that it is going to be much worse for aircraft manufacturers. They probably know it; but they cannot believe what they know, and they cannot say it either. This is not just another crisis for air transportation and aerospace construction: this is the last crisis until the end of the fossil fuel era.
Satellites Help Offshore Industry Avoid Weather and Water Hazards
Hurricanes have a liquid counterpart in the waters below called ocean eddies. Offshore industries, such as oil and gas companies, have to keep a weather eye on both. Satellite altimetry is helping government and industry manage those risks.
Getting the good oil on crude oil prices
OIL and petrol prices are reaching the horror levels of the early 1980s, which then helped push the world into a serious economic slump. Today's oil price story is not a repeat of that of a generation ago, but those early rounds offer clues that can help us understand what is happening.After a long period of comfortably cheap oil, prices began rising rapidly just 35 years ago, in the Australian winter of 1973. The main cause — and a signal that world supply was not what it used to be — was then US president Richard Nixon opening his country up to foreign crude oil that April.
As costs rise, cities move to curb take-home vehicles
The take-home work vehicle. Mayors sometimes get one. Often, so do city department heads, certain members of police and fire crews, and sundry other municipal employees.But with gas at $4 and change, at least five of the North region's largest municipalities are looking to curb the use of take-home vehicles and other city-owned autos.
Republic of the Marshall Islands State of (Economic) Emergency Orders
(1) That all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies are hereby ORDERED to take immediate steps to implement energy conservation measures, to save on utility costs.(2) In addition to paragraph (1) above, and in particular:
(a) The Ministry of Finance:
(i) That the Ministry of Finance shall establish a National Energy Support Account as a measure to create capital funds (reserve) for the purchase of fuel, and to mitigate against the adverse effects of the rising cost of fuel.
Asia Fuel Oil-Pakistan seeks up to 910,000T Aug-Nov
SINGAPORE, July 3 (Reuters) - Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has tendered to buy up to 910,000 of high sulphur fuel oil for delivery during August to November amid a crippling power shortage in the country.PSO is seeking 650,000 tonnes of fuel oil in parcels of 65,000 tonnes to be delivered between August through October, the company's tender document showed on Thursday.
Thailand: Subsidised gas not the answer
Energy Minister Poonpirom Liptapanlop's backtracking on the July 1 timetable to increase the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and to eventually allow the price to float is typical of the practice common among politicians: to keep postponing an unpopular decision which may hurt their political base.
The Military Battles The Rising Price Of Oil
The U.S. Department of Defense consumes about 110 million barrels of oil a year (about two percent of all U.S. oil use). At current prices, that's over $15 billion a year just for fuel. About 8 percent of that goes for ships, giving the U.S. Navy a big incentive to find ways to move the ships using less fuel. Lots of ideas for that have been developed over the years, but there was little financial, or command, incentive to implement. Now there is, and the navy has managed to come up with ways to save about 12 percent on their fuel bills.
Pakistan: Mill owners refuse to reduce flour prices
LAHORE: Flourmill owners on Wednesday refused to sell 20-kilogramme flour sack for less than Rs 400 and threatened to shut their mills in case of any government action against them.Chief Minister’s Task Force Chairman SA Hameed has ordered all district co-ordination officers (DCOs) to control flour price and take action against those who are selling 20kg flour sacks for more than Rs 375.
Trickle-down effect turns upside down
Attorney Shawn Christopher saw the economy turn about 18 months ago when his clients stopped asking how to manage piles of money and began seeking help with mountains of debt.On Eastern Avenue, motorists passing Steve Cuccio’s Chevron station hurl insults at him as he raises the gas prices on his signboard.
John Powell specialized in handling fine art, antiques and pianos when he started his Red Carpet Moving company 2 1/2 years ago. Now he’s an expert in moving furniture out of foreclosed homes.
Long waits for diesel try tempers
TIJUANA – Hundreds of truck and bus drivers in Tijuana spent six to eight hours in line for diesel fuel yesterday after being promised by station supervisors that Pemex, the Mexican government's oil monopoly, would make deliveries.However, slow distribution frustrated drivers.
Joaquín Aviña, president of the Association of Gas Station Owners in Tijuana, said some transit drivers pushed station employees and screamed at them after they were unable to buy fuel. Diesel fuel is in high demand in Tijuana because its low price is attractive to buyers who might normally fill up in the United States.
So we can't afford to drive. But here's the upside
Can it be that stratospheric fuel prices have succeeded in doing what no government or green agitator has yet managed: getting ordinary people out of their cars and, perhaps, on to public transport? If recent plans for Britain to develop its first new railways (with the exception of the Channel rail link) for a century are a guide, perhaps we can look forward to a new age of investment in public transport.But the implications go much further than this. Unless more economical, probably non-fossil fuel, vehicles are developed soon, private cars will be something that people in rural areas reserve for local pottering and others will keep – if they can afford it – for use mostly in emergencies. Long-distance commuting by car, driving for pleasure, or even that popular move made by families from the inner city to the suburbs when the children start school, could become a thing of the past.
McCain + Obama = a valid energy plan
McCain backs a gasoline tax holiday that would save consumers virtually nothing, and Obama supports a windfall profits tax on Big Oil that is more an expression of pique than productive policy. And while both have worthwhile proposals, each rules out too many useful solutions. Getting the USA past its dependence on foreign oil will require many fixes.If you roll McCain's and Obama's proposals together, though, they add up to a credible energy plan.
America's Days Aren't Numbered
I have a simple request. As we celebrate the birth of the American Republic, can we all stop predicting its death? It's getting depressing.The last time I strolled through the local Barnes & Noble, there were so many books announcing the end of American power, wealth, influence, or just America itself, that I began to wonder whether my dollars would be worth anything by the time I hit the checkout counter.
Israel invests in clean tech as energy crunch looms
At a lab in Rehovot, the man who developed the Arrow missile is consumed with his next mission: making Israel energy independent by using cheap solar power."The issue of energy is the greatest danger to Israel, because in 30 years there will be no energy means, no oil and no gas, and the use of coal will be prohibited," said Dov Raviv, now the CEO of MST, an Israeli renewable energy company. "Without energy Israel cannot survive, and we must find a substitute and find it fast. That is what I am trying to do."
Gambling with the future of the planet in the ‘challenge of human history’
As Stone sees it, two trends are converging to force a “major, major transition in the way humankind uses energy” — the cost of energy and global warming.His speech, referring to the “third energy revolution,” includes the first two — the harnessing of fire and the Industrial Revolution, and the eventual transitioning away from the dependence on fossil fuels.
“We’re in the early stages of a truly historic transformation,” he said.
Wood supply short; Power plants, fuel cited
PORTSMOUTH — Those hoping to use wood instead of home heating oil this winter might have a problem finding any to burn.Demand, fueled by rising oil prices, is going through the roof. And, adding even more pressure, some say, Public Service of New Hampshire's new wood-fired Schiller Station is also gobbling up low-grade wood. The power company, however, says it is also being squeezed and paying more for the wood it burns in its boilers.
Oil prices neared $146 a barrel for 1st time ever
Oil prices neared $146 a barrel Thursday for the first time ever on reports of declining U.S. stockpiles and the threat of conflict with Iran.Comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister suggesting his country had no immediate plans to boost production also lifted prices.
Expectations that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates later Thursday could further weaken the U.S. dollar and drive oil prices even higher, as investors turn to commodities as a hedge against a falling greenback, traders said.
By midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for August delivery rose $2.28 to a record $145.85 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Middle East oil consumption shows strong growth
(MENAFN - Bahrain Tribune) Middle East oil consumption showed above average growth of 4.4 per cent during 2007 as regional and global production fell for the first time since 2002, according to the recently released 2008 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.The rise in Middle East oil consumption to 6.2 million barrels/day reflected the region's continued strong economic growth mirroring a worldwide trend of increasing demand from emerging markets. In percentage terms, the Middle East regional increase in oil demand was the world's third highest after Latin America and Africa. Middle East oil production fell by 1.8 per cent to 25.2 million b/d on the back of OPEC production cuts in late 2006 and early 2007. The decline was partially offset by a seven per cent increase in production from Iraq.
At $9 per gallon, British driving habits change
Gas stations in Britain are reporting unusual changes in buying patterns, says Alex Wells of the Petrol Retailers Association. "Buying in the morning is down, but not so much in the afternoon," he says. "This is because second cars are being used less, the stay-at-home mums are driving less. They are doing the weekly shopping in one hit."Sheila Rainger, deputy director of the Royal Automobile Club Foundation, an independent motorists' association, says the effect is clear on the roads, too. "We have a perception that people have cut back on optional journeys," she remarks. "We are starting to see a fall in congestion and in traffic."
Millions of lorry drivers went on strike yesterday, furious over rising fuel prices and a lack of government support. No, not the UK (where, whatever media attention might lead one to believe, the protesting truckers in London yesterday numbered merely in the hundreds), but India. Over the past few weeks, rising fuel prices have led to haulier demonstrations in places as far apart as Australia, Bulgaria and South Korea. And while fuel is cheap in oil-rich Indonesia, even there rising prices led students to stitch their lips shut in protest.
10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas
Gas prices are near $4 per gal., as no one needs to tell you, and they are likely to stay that way. Most of us still don't have the alternatives we need to adapt with grace, which means that many will adapt just by suffering. We will run out of gas on I-80, ease our minivans over to the shoulder and tell the kids everything is O.K. We'll fall behind on Visa bills to pay for gas so we can buy food made ever more expensive by energy costs.But it's also true that Americans are finding options where there seemed to be none. They're ready to change — and waiting for their infrastructure to catch up. They are driving to commuter-rail lines only to find there are no parking spots left. They are running fewer errands and dumping their SUVs. Public-transit use is at a 50-year high. Gas purchases are down 2% to 3%. And all those changes bring secondary, hard-earned benefits.
Minister: Indonesia still secure from rocketing global oil prices
JAKARTA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia is still secure from rocketing global oil price which reached 150 U.S. dollars per barrel, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources said on Thursday."The state budget remains safe," Yusgiantoro was quoted by local Metro TV as saying. The Indonesian government is trying to balance the deficit of the state budget which has been affected by the oil prices, he said.
World oil market in fear of terror attack in Saudi Arabia
PARIS: An attack -- or even an attempted attack -- by Islamic extremists on Saudi Arabia's oil sector would have disastrous consequences on the world market and the price per barrel, analysts warn.
Medvedev Sees Oil Price at $150, Slower Global Growth
(Bloomberg) -- Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia, the world's second-biggest oil producer, expects prices to rise to $150 a barrel and retard global growth.``Oil prices will reach $150 a barrel,'' Medvedev said in a meeting with reporters in Moscow ahead of his participation in a summit of the Group of Eight industrial countries in Japan on July 7-9. ``Unfortunately, rising oil prices create problems for the world's economy.''
U.S. officials condoned Kurdish oil deal
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials condoned Hunt Oil Co. efforts to obtain an exploration deal with Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, contrary to public statements discouraging it, according to documents cited by a congressional committee.
Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet
It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.
Only in an America dumbed down by constant propaganda about our innate moral superiority will anyone any longer believe that we didn't invade Iraq for the oil, even though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to the Bush Administration from the board of directors at Chevron, where they named an oil tanker after her. Like Vice President Dick Cheney with those Halliburton contracts, Rice has stayed true to her corporate sponsors. That's what the US invasion of Iraq accomplished; for the first time in more than three decades after Iraq joined a worldwide trend of formerly colonized nations gaining control of their own resources, Big Oil is getting its black gold back. It was always about the oil--that's why "we" invaded Iraq--only "we" aren't getting any, at least not at a reasonable price. The oil companies are.
Petrobras's Tupi Viable at Third of Current Oil Price
(Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA's Tupi field is commercially viable at an oil price as low as $40 to $50 a barrel, according to the Brazilian state-controlled company's chief executive officer.
Schlumberger CEO says security costs have soared
MADRID (Reuters) - Schlumberger (SLB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Andrew Gould on Thursday said that security costs for employees in the world's biggest oil services company had risen dramatically and spread over the past 10 years."Ten years ago, I would have worried about Colombia and Yemen. Today, on a daily basis, we probably review 10 countries," Gould told a news conference in Madrid.
Petrobras Refineries to Cost More on Steel Prices, Estado Says
(Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, will have to invest more than initially planned to build two new refineries after the price of steel increased, Agencia Estado reported, citing Pedro Jose Barusco Filho, manager of engineering at Petrobras.
India, Iran to seal gas pipeline deal 'by next month': oil minister
MADRID (AFP) - India expects to finalise a deal "by next month" on a pipeline that will transport gas from Iran, Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora told AFP on Thursday.
Nigeria oil rebel wins right to appeal secret trial
LAGOS, July 3 (Reuters) - The suspected leader of Nigeria's main oil militant group has won the right to appeal to have his trial for treason and gun-running held in public, a move which could placate his well-armed supporters in the Niger Delta.
Landowners Fret Over Impact In Selling Gas-Drilling Rights
In the current economic squeeze, financial opportunity is outweighing environmental issues for people swept up in a land grab by energy companies targeting gas reserves thousands of feet beneath people's properties.
Two years from now, in 2010, a large percentage of interstate travel, shipping and air carrier service will cease to function. I will explain that in a minute. The exact percentage is unknown, but I would think it is over 50 percent. Also, a massive failure of the banking system of the United States will put most business in dire jeopardy. Furthermore, without interstate trucking there will be sporadic food shipments in the United States. In short, 2010 is the year that the US ceases to function as a nation and splinters into dozens of isolated regions without energy or food or work. The outcome is rioting, looting, murder and fear of everything. The local, state and federal governments will be helpless because they cannot respond to the scene or enforcement is overwhelmed.
Oil: Pump more—or—Use less and find other options
In the introduction to his article Simmons states “Don’t imagine that pumping more oil will get us out of our current mess. Dealing with the addiction is the only option.”
New Zealand: Transition town gets moving
The Bay of Islands transition towns initiative got off to a roaring start last week with about 110 people packing the Wharepuke hall.It was clear there will be no shortage of people willing to climb on board the community campaign to become less wasteful and more economical.
Kaitaia and Kohukohu are also making moves to join the transition town movement, which brings people together to explore how communities can respond to the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil.
Access to energy, specifically electricity on demand is the KEY to our way of life. It is what separates the "developed" world from the "third" world. If we don't focus on and discuss the most critical issue of our day, we will all lose and all be sitting in the dark.What America needs NOW are fewer Democrats, fewer Republicans, fewer politicians and more Americans who will put politics second and the future of our planet, our children and grandchildren as their first priority.
What About Free Hydrogen? Part 1
Over the next couple of Green posts I will discuss the matter of free hydrogen. Yes, just make hydrogen free by, say, 2020, and let industry, with government assistance, develop the infrastructure and systems to handle the Age of Free Hydrogen.
China faces serious challenges on grain supply: premier
SHANGHAI (AFP) - China faces serious challenges in ensuring it will have enough grain to feed its population in the decades to come, with urbanisation and climate change two major problems, Premier Wen Jiabao said.
Food Scarcity Blamed On High Oil Price
The current high prices of oil will aggravate poverty and starvation in the world's undeveloped countries, if urgent measures are not deployed to encourage private access to oil reserves, evolution of technologies and consumption efficiency.
Climate change threatens global food and water supply
‘Food and water shortages are now a dangerous reality particularly in many developing countries,’ exclaimed Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society which is the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth. This bleak situation is only going to get worse if current trends are not changed.‘In the coming years, they will be aggravated by rising populations, and climate change,’ Martin continued. ‘These threats must be properly assessed and solutions identified if we are to avoid costly mistakes from investing in technologies and infrastructure that do not take climate change into account.’
Some 1.5 Bln People May Starve Due to Land Erosion - FAO
Rising land degradation reduces crop yields and may threaten food security of about a quarter of the world' population, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Wednesday.
Climate Scorecard ranks U.S. last among largest economies
BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. has done the least among the world's eight biggest economies to address global warming, a study released Thursday found.
UK: Climate more urgent than economy, say voters
Voters think that taking action against climate change matters more than tackling the global economic downturn, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. The results, which will delight green campaigners, suggest that support for environmental action is not collapsing as feared in the face of possible recession.
Break out the party hats... It's QUAD YERGIN DAY! Woo-hoo!
At least in Asia. . . .
(One "Yergin" = $38 per barrel. Do a Google Search for Daniel Yergin Day)
A few past quotes from Mr. Yergin on this glorious occasion...
A more relevant description would be a plateau in production capacity that might be reached in the fourth or fifth decade of this century. -Daniel Yergin
But eventually it's a question of access: Getting access to fields is on top of the oil companies' agenda. We see a substantial build-up of supply occurring over the coming years. -Daniel Yergin
Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil. -Daniel Yergin
I think the producers, for the most part, don't want to see prices skyrocket because that will only create problems for them down the road and would also be a, you know, would be a very serious shock for a world economy that can't afford serious shocks right now. -Daniel Yergin
It's extraordinary how inventive one can be with ethanol right now. -Daniel Yergin
So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology. -Daniel Yergin
The other are the strategic, so-called strategic stocks that the United States and the other Western industrial countries have, which could put in as much as four million barrels a day of oil into the market pretty quickly. -Daniel Yergin
This has a lot to do with the unrest in Nigeria, but also with the production loss after the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the decline in Iraq since the 2003 war, and the decline in Venezuelan output since 2002. -Daniel Yergin
We are living in a different world now. You can see it everywhere in international relations: It was noteworthy that, after his visit to Washington, the Chinese president's next stop was Saudi Arabia. -Daniel Yergin
Within four or five years the US might be getting 10 percent of its gasoline from ethanol - that would be like creating a new Indonesia. -Daniel Yergin
You know, some of these wise quotes belong in the upper right corner... :)
Good work Gekolizard.
Print it off folks and tack it on your bulletin boards. Makes a great poster and conversation starter.
People who are not energy savvy will start by saying: "Now who did you say Daniel Yergin is?"
I know it's nitpicking, but still... Unfortunately I have heard other people, who should know better, make the same error. It just goes to show how deeply rooted gasoline == fuel is.
Now what's truly hilarious about this quote is Indonesia has peaked already... It's an IMPORTER for Pete's sake...
What he's really saying is that gas=ethanol (false), we'll be getting 10% of our our fuel from ethanol (false), and the volume we'll be replacing is the same as a country which is not a producer but an importer.
Even parts of a single sentence from this guy are wrong...
Better graphs are available from the Energy Export Databrowser:
After his old comments about oil to 120mbd and no peak until after 2040, he must be feeling like a complete idiot.
He has certainly changed his tune recently but unfortunatley there is still utter denial in that he was ever wrong. See the latest CERA frontpage details but production rates are completely left out of a 4 page synopsis of world production!!:
http://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/public1/news/articles/newsArticleDetails.as...
"Willll.........not.........be........asssimilated..............nooooooooooooooooooooooo......pe.............nooooooooo.ppeeeeeeeee...noo...ppppppp.pp.p.pppeeeeak oil" Sobs and wracks back.
Marco.
Can't wait for Cinco de Yergin. Cheladas all around.
(And considering the time of year, shouldn't it be called the 4th of Yergin.)
Could also be called one bin Laden day per late yesterdays' DB post.
With all due honor and respect to those lost and those still suffering the effects of 9-11 and nto to condone any acts of terror under any conditions - and realizing I may get royally flamed - I honestly ask the question:
Since 9/11 who has brought more to hurt the USA (or should I say the world)?
A) OBL/UBL
B) Bush-Cheney
C) None of the above
Pete
It was my understanding that OBL/UBL wanted to bankrupt us similar to what he accomplished with the USSR. Looks like it happened in the same country, same reasons........."mission accomplished" rings pretty true here in 2008.
I thought Ronald Raygun bankrupted the USSR. Did I get that wrong?
OBL had many writtings - and I'm sure someone has a collection of his 'want list' VS what has happened. Perhaps someone will post a link to such.
A thoughtful analysis of OBL's goals here: http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/al-queda%20evolve.htm
It's chilling to think that the whole 9/11 tragedy could have been about something as obscure as "withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Saudi Arabia"...
...Say who? ...From WHERE? How was that issue ever important enough to change the course of world history???
(And Bin Laden got his wish, anyway... http://www.cfr.org/publication/7739/saudi_arabia.html)
Looking at it from an oil demand perspective, as we discussed in an earlier DB the U.S. military is using the energy equivalent of about one month's worth of crude oil production from Iraq every year (82 million barrels per year of JP-8, the energy equivalent of roughly 77 million barrels of crude oil). That's 0.2 million barrels per day, or mbpd. That's not an insignificant amount of demand, about 1% of total U.S. consumption. If this sounds small, remember that T. Boone Pickens said world demand right now is 87 mbpd, world production is 85 mbpd, a 2% difference.
Iraq production has only now come back up to its pre-war levels, 2.5 mbpd, just eye-balling it it looks like average production was around 2 mbpd for most of the war. Taking the difference, maybe we've missed about 0.5 mbpd or 183 million barrels per year, 2.5% of U.S. daily consumption.
So, thus far the Iraq war has decreased the supply of oil while increasing the demand for oil. Moral questions aside, it would have been much better for the U.S. economy to buy oil from Hussein instead of invading. If the Bush administration really did have us invade Iraq to secure oil supplies, it has turned out as a damn poor tactical decision so far.
*I've been editing this a lot, but I think I'm done now. :) *
But don't you think that the Bush ad. invaded Iraq to basically funnel money to the contractors (US corporations that are often employing people who have worked for Bush ad.) Without a war they can't get the gazillions in funds they're getting now.......
War with Iraq was a terrible decision, morally and in every other way too. But the people in the top of govt and business in the US are not caring about any of that. They have very expensive lifestyles to maintain and no social safety net over there in the US. So if they don't screw others over, they'll be the ones screwed over instead. At least that is how they probably see it.
the war in iraq is just one of the ways of looting the treasury. the entire military budget is another. lowering taxes to buy votes is another. medicare combined with the fda's protection of the safety of drug company profits is another. general corporate welfare is another.
Iraq's Oil Production has been negligible since Gulf War 1.0. Since GW 1.5 its production has increased to about 2/3rds of 1990 production.
Is there a difference?
Just as the Bush family has always found common cause with the Saud family and the bin Laden family, it is apparent that Cheney and his gang had a common interest with Islamic militants in 2001.
In the Weimar Republic, the Nazis and Communists coordinated their riots, because even though each intended to exterminate the other, they had to first discredit the middle of the political spectrum, the barely-functioning German democracy. It was just a matter of who could act fastest against the other once democracy fell. The right-wing usually wins these contests with superior organization and greater numbers of armed bully types (Spain, Indonesia, etc). Unfortunately, in our current war both sides are right-wing.
In 2001, the middle that needed to be destroyed was cultural modernism, with its attendant international law and the UN. While many American businessmen had allied with our fascists (as happened in Germany), there were still centers of economic power that wanted a peaceful world. Bin Laden similarly needed Westernizers fully discredited in the Arab world, not that this needed much to accomplish.
More succinctly, both sides needed secular civilization replaced by holy war. Unlike any holy war in the past, this one was covertly framed as a battle over whom God intended to control the one substance that powered the world economy.
According to Michael Scheuer (bin Laden expert and author of "Imperial Hubris"), bin Laden's short-term intention was not personal conquest, but inspiring ordinary Moslems to obey their obligation to defend each other from aliens. So he was fine with helping other groups carry out attacks even if he lacked central control. Now if such a man knew that one of the groups asking him for money to attack the US might have been infiltrated by the Mossad or CIA to carry out a Reichstag fire, would he hesitate, or would he be just as confident as Cheney that his movement could prevail in the resulting World War?
You should have put this in italics.
I think that a clear understanding of 9/11 is essential to being a citizen in this country.
This film Press for Truth outlines the inconsistencies of the 9/11 Commission and the fight by the Jersey Girls and other victim's families for justice.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&fkt=1141&fsdt=4078&q=press%20f...
Its a shame we haven't invented nuclear energy yet.
That sure would have stopped us from running out of electricity for computers, phones, radio, lights and possibly fueled cars with batteries or hydrogen separated from water.
Maybe we could use the same technology that made the Nagasaki bomb into a peaceful power source.
I am going to run to Washington and file a patent.
You might have to run, if there are any shortages of transp fuels to drive with. But you won't be alone.. there will be all the runners on the highways carrying specialized parts and refined fuels to the Reactors, things which today travel by truck. I suspect Nuclear is too complex to survive without a robust Transportation base to support it.
Bob
Transportation shouldn't be a big problem if there's a rail spur built to the nuke plant. Then, a weekly train could carry most of what's needed to build the plant. Only a very few parts would be so large that special truck shipment would be required, I would guess.
E. Swanson
It depends on what you call a 'robust transportation base'
You don't need to have countless private cars on the streets for it to be robust enough, and either biofuels or fuel produced by the nuclear industry itself should provide enough.
In 3-4 years it should become clear for all to see that France has made excellent energy choices.
Andy Warhol would be proud of this piece of artwork.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOIw8nxw3h.M&refer=home
India Bans Corn Exports to Control Domestic Prices
A future July headline?
Russia Bans Oil Exports to Control Domestic Prices
Note this is a what if scenario.
More of a "When" scenario than "what if", probably.
We might have a couple of years yet.
In order to ban grain exports, the US must declare a national emergency.
The Ozzie wheat crop will be key.
"The Ozzie wheatcrop will be the key".You would have to be joking.Have you ever travelled widely in Australia or researched the climate and soils?
Thirra, talking out yer arse based on assumptions is not very useful. Australia is a grain exporter. One of the biggest in th world. At least, they have been. Drought is playing hell with their grains production.
Cheers
And will continue to do so. The Murray-Darling river system is about to be Pronounced.
Emphasis added.
We're Doomed!
Sacramento couple who let lawn die to save water face $746 fine
Then again, maybe not....
Sacramento won't fine couple who let lawn die
Yes, but I don't think Sacramento really appreciates the importance of the issue. They're just trying to save face.
Sacramento is doomed, considered to have the highest flood risk of any major metropolitan city in the United States. Add bad air quality, heavy traffic congestion, galloping sprawl, record heat waves. Was enough for my wife and I to bail out - forgoing a state pension - and move to Oregon in 2006, just as the housing market was nosing over. Best decision we've ever made.
It probably won't make you feel any better, but I think you would never have gotten most of that California state pension anyway. Pensions may be the next domino.
My wife is partially vested in CALPERS, and we're keeping a close eye on it. If CALPERS tanks, then there will be big trouble.
We loved living in Sacramento, and it was very hard to leave. We lived downtown in an 1898 Victorian within walking distance of everything, had great friends and some family nearby. We had studied Heinberg, Kunstler, etc., and understood how the psychology of "prior investment" can be a huge barrier to action.
I'm thinking the same thing, only I live in Harrisburg, PA. This area of Pennsylvania is pretty much all sprawl, with very little in the way of public transportation. I've been wanting to move to Portland, Oregon for some time now, but I'm having trouble finding a job. I can't even seem to find work around here, and I'm just looking for a temp office job. I haven't decided if I'm going to sell my car and take the train cross-country, or drive myself. Staying in a coach seat, it would be much cheaper taking the train. OTOH, my car is paid off and only has 60,000 miles on it ('97 Nissan Maxima) and it would be nice to have a car out there.
I'm in Portland and I'm selling my car - too expensive to operate. It's possible to do without one here.
I'd say this viewpoint is a bit far-fetched. Flights may become rare, but interstate travel won't dry up. Long haul truck routes may be transferred to rail, but regional trucking is still vital.
Remote towns will dry up. Ride sharing will become more common. We still have a stunning amount of waste that can be wrung out of the system. In my household, we've moved to a smaller house, bought MUCH more fuel efficient cars, and now consume about half the energy we did 2 years ago. Among all my friends, I'm leading this trend. Very few I know have taken these kinds of steps. I can cut another 50% without a radical change in lifestyle.
I'm going to put a clothesline, I'm riding a bicycle more, and am consolidating the car trips that I do make. I also am planning on a solar thermal collector for hot water.
If the nation really gives conservation an honest effort instead of having it be a talking point, I think a lot of people would be amazed at the result.
The Ouija board is never wrong-Gemini's moon is in Aquarius.
hey,, i own a ouija board.... anybody else? com'on raise yer hands..
holy macarel , better ixnay on the uijaoay oardbay eferenceray.
Hi Damac,
If we could have a nationwide concerted effort, you are right, we could have amazing results. Unfortunately, my neighbor will still want to haul his boat which I think of as a party barge to the lake every weekend, and sometimes twice a weekend, using up what you and I are conserving. He can afford to, so he does what he can. Until someone other than me gets him to change, he will keep it up. I've tried talking and charts and everything I know of, but I can't get through to him how negative an impact his actions are. And, I guess he has a point - he has a lot of other folks at the lake(s) with him.
Incidentally, if you want to get more attention, don't call that a clothesline - it is a hybrid clothes dryer. Solar and wind. I haven't used a clothes dryer in years except for long wet spells, and even then, I have a rack which will hold a small load in the kitchen to keep the "essential" laundry dry.
Sorry,
But you will never convince your neighbor or me the benefit of not using a boat/motorhome so that another Chinese driver can hit the road in a brand new Chery.
Trust me on this, the quicker we run out, the better.
I have solar panels on my roof, a Prius in my driveway, and 63 feet of diesel motorhome towing dodge sprinter at 5mpg. I spent a quarter million on the toys, and quite frankly, a dollar a mile isn't a material cost of ownership.
I also try to ride my bike to work, but there are too many cars driving too fast.
Everyone get a Hummer and let's be done with it already.
"Trust me on this, the quicker we run out, the better."
Pretty gutsy comment. Ever see a junkie go cold turkey? Got bullets? You're will need them to keep any toys.
This must be why so many of our ancestors adopted a nomadic lifestyle. Now the challenge is, how much gas will this guy have to store in his motorhome as he moves it from one secluded spot to another every few days? He might need to get with some other RVers and form a horde.
I'm surprised that after 15 months of posting people still don't get my point.
I don't really care about the motorhome. I would far prefer to bike down car-free streets 52 weeks a year to using the motorhome three weeks a year. That said, I have the motorhome so I use it and don't see a moral issue in that fact.
So here is my point one more time. This is an educational site with presumably smart people with both same and differing opinions. If I wanted a lecture I would call my Mom. I get it that Peak Oil is a probability in my lifetime, perhaps happening as we speak, and that the consequences of this event will be worse for those who can't or won't get it. So what? I don't look good in a robe so becoming a Monk is out of the question.
Now I'd be happy to be lectured by any of the following classes of people:
Those who don't own cars.
Those who do have one or more functional bicycles.
Those who have used said bicycles in the last 96 hours.
Those who haven't flown on a plane since 9/11.
Anyone who's contemplated a B.O.-free bus.
Those who donate 10% of their income to charity. The food banks are getting hammered.
Everyone who turns their computers off when they are done with them.
Anyone who knows that "Paper or Plastic" are NOT the only two choices.
The rest of you hypocrites can kiss my motorhome's diesel belching tailpipe. My BTU usage is way down over the last few years. Is yours?
"The Internet - Combining the reliability of anonymous hearsay with the excitement of typing! (Jon Stewart)"
That's funny - I don't come here to be lectured but because I enjoy the discussions. And I do fit in several of your "classes" of people. What makes you think others here don't? If you've been here for 15 months just to make that point then I'm glad you finally got that load off your shoulders.
"Everyone who turns their computers off when they are done with them."
I not only turn off mine, but I have finally convinced the hospital to not only turn off computers, but lights. They are thinking cogeneration, even.
However, it takes me 5 gallons of gas to go there and back, so no lectures.
Rat
jteehand writes:
Those who do have one or more functional bicycles.
Those who have used said bicycles in the last 96 hours.
Anyone who's contemplated a B.O.-free bus.
Anyone who knows that "Paper or Plastic" are NOT the only two choices.
I qualify for these. However I agree with you and perhaps Jay Hanson. Use it up as fast as possible. That gets everyone on the same page faster. That's what I see happening anyway. I just don't want to see our children dying for oil. That to seems unavoidable unless the sleep walkers awake.
Point taken.
He who is without sin throw the first rock, and all that stuff.
(Sorry if I mangled the line; I grew up Catholic but never studied the Bible.)
Well, I drive about 3 miles a week in a Ford Focus and my house is usually about 85 degrees. I don't know anything else that can actually save me money. And you are wrong to say I was lecturing you. I think you really will have to stockpile fuel and move your RV from one hiding place to another one day. I'm not saying it's better or worse than the things the rest of us will be doing by then.
Please, this is bullshoot. This is no more higher reasoning than, "I will if you will." There comes a point where basic morality comes into play. When our actions harm others, we are not free to act without consideration. Is this a better of two evils situation? No. Or, is it a case of using resources to protect you and your own a a point where it is recognized that all is lost? No. This is just hedonism and disregard for the rest of humanity and yourself. You have choices YOU can make regardless of what any other person does or doe not do. Tying your actions that you *know* to be wrong to what anyone else does is utterly without morality.
It also does not matter at all whether someone else is a hypocrite. The morality of the acts stand independent of anything else. If you can act to improve the chances of survival of yourself and your fellow humans, what moral stance makes it acceptable not to?
Now, if your values do not lie within the bounds of what is best for humanity - that is, you are essentially anti-social - so be it. But that is different from sloppy justification of your actions.
Cheers,
CCPO
The imperfect, sometimes hypocritical, kick in your moral compass.
I don't want it dragged out either. Otherwise, I have no advantage in being better prepared than the sheeple.
I can't hoard a lifetimes worth of commodities [maybe if I was single + a big secure house..], so I want it to be revolution underway before my wine cellar/cous-cous stash runs down.
Personally, I'd rather have it dragged out. Gives time to adjust to changing circumstances. If it went the "super fast" crash method, I don't have enough bullets. I think everything would be burned by rioters and there would be nothing left.
jteehan,
Didn't mean to lecture you, only point out the folies of such a BIG target. "mea culpa". The RV would be quite attractive in such a scenario if you can get out of the cities before the riots start, otherwise I would want a gun turrent on top. I've heard the line "if it moves, steal it otherwise burn it" somewhere.
My daughter lives in a wheelchair. The motorhome has a wheelchair lift as does the Sprinter. It's quite impressive! That's the only reason I have it. We stayed home for 6 straight years until we got it because contrary to what the ADA says, the US does not accomodate us.
But I understand it's just a piece of crap like most of my other posessions and I really don't care if someone burns it down or not.
I'm just one guy doing the best I can as you are too I'm sure.
Really, what AM I supposed to do? What are any of us supposed to do? Are you absolutely sure the end of driving is near? To the point where you'll quit your job and abandon everything else?
I'm not that sure. It still seems a bit grey to me. So I hedge with the PV and the Prius, telecommuting, and a lot of bike riding. That's a lot more than the Bubbas who live around me are doing, but it's my limit until we get to the next leg.
I know you weren't lecturing me. I was just taking the opportunity to remind my fellow TOD citizens not to pat ourselves on the back too quickly. I don't like the idea of us going from ignorance to moral superiority in 24 months or so. It's unbecoming, as my mother would say.
"Really, what AM I supposed to do? What are any of us supposed to do?"
Well, Golden Rule says "love your neighbor as yourself" -- but not more than yourself. The way I figure it, reductio ad absurdum, I could give everything I own to the poor, but it would make me unhappy. At some point, looking at some extravagance or other (whether Prius or restaurant meal), you may as well thing to yourself, "I could spend this money on me, or save the life of someone I don't care about [think the "starving child in Africa" commercials]. And then choose yourself. So you skimp on luxuries to the limits of your own tolerances, whatever those limits are. Maybe you need your luxuries.
Hey, I might rather your daughter have some fun in your motor home than keep some African jerk alive (just because they're sick doesn't mean they're all nice people either).
Maybe you give up one cross country trip, maybe you give up one restaurant meal. You do what you personally feel you can. There might be conscience involved, but I wouldn't be the one to guilt-trip you.
Personally, I just bought a case of beer. That $30 could have meant a lot to some generic unfortunate I don't actually care about. But I need my beer. They'll just have to make do on the percent I donate every year.
JT - I have seen the talk before about how it is better if we run out faster, and it completely baffles me. Since this board is way too overloaded right now, can you direct me to the links which show why increased human suffering, incurred faster, is of any benefit to the world? I can see the advantage if you are in the solar energy business, but not if you are already below a subsistence level in caloric intake, which generally means from a nutritional standpoint as well. Suffer faster, suffer longer, maybe?
I mean, I don't have a compound and all, but I think I have pretty well started adapting to a quick demise of our systems right now. Nobody is going to dig up Einstein and get him to change the laws of Thermodynamics, so why run out now, versus a decline which may be fast or slow, but in any case, less of a cliff and more of a curve?
if he's always been an energy guzzler than between the 3 of you you still are using less energy. more than likely it's someone in the developing world that's using "our" energy.
Hey damac, see my post downthread.
Also when faced with saving money, gas and the environment, many would rather save their time.
Apparently its too inconvenient to be concerned about the others.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080703/METRO05/80703...
I hear that. I'm a network admin by trade. I just picked up a few clients 2 miles away. I rode my bicycle there yesterday for the first time. It took 15 minutes (a couple of big hills in the way). So, round trip, at my billing rate, that time could have filled the tank of my Prius. In my case, as well, my time is worth a LOT more than the fuel it takes to get there.
But, I'll keep riding anyway.
1. It's the right thing to do.
2. If my life is so dependent upon squeaking out an extra 15-20 minutes of my day, something is VERY wrong.
3. I need to lose 20 pounds. :-/
Ultimately, I'm working on doing as much remote access as possible. My commute will consist of walking from the bedroom down the hall to my office. I'll have to lose the 20 on my own time.
You obviously meet the qualifications to criticize me.
Keep up the good work and you'll be well past Peak Fat in no time.
and have your life changed for the worse for consuming less energy? no! in fact your sound happier and you probably have more money. lots of people can do that and peak oil doesn't have to be a disaster.
probably the simplest way to save energy. using energy is more of a choice than we think.
good use of energy that is mostly wasted. think of all the energy that falls on our properties that we don't use. how many solar hot water heaters could fit on the average suburban lot? how many panels could we fit on the roof. most roofs are just sitting there doing nothing. how many yards could use the sun to grow food instead of grass you just need to use gasoline to mow every week or so?
Solar thermal collectors are something that should get more attention. Here's the best around:
http://www.thermomax.com/e_comm.htm
These are rather amazing. They have a "solar diode" which will heat water even in low sunlight and cold ambient temps. You can also use them for room heating, even in below-freezing temperatures.
I have a 20 gallon electric water heater. This is a small unit, barely enough for two very quick showers. 50% of the US uses electric water heaters, probably a 40-60 gal unit on average. Even with my low use, I figure I spend about $400 per year on electricity for heating water. It is probably half my total electricity usage. At a discount rate of (a relatively stiff) 10%, that's a $4,000 budget you could justify on financial grounds alone. At a 5% discount rate, you could justify $8,000. Those discount rates don't take into account likely higher prices for electricity going forward. Plus, I bet you could get all sorts of subsidies, tax exemptions etc. This is a solar product after all.
Even for water heaters fired with gas or oil, this is a way to liberate yourself from gas or oil completely.
Unfortunately, I'm in a rental, so that dissuades me from swapping out the electric heater right away. However, if I did, I could cut my electric usage in half right there. That's interesting.
Hi Econoguy,
If your hot water needs are relatively modest -- e.g., 20 gallons/day -- it may not be quite as bad as you think. If your average cold water inlet temperature is 50F and your tank is set at 120F, your DHW demand is a little less than 3.5 kW/day (i.e. 20 gallons x 8.33 lbs/gallon x 70F delta = 11,662 BTUs or 3.42 kWh/day). The standby losses of a 20-gallon tank are likely to be in the range of 40-watts and that would bring your total to about 4.4 kWh/day; that's 1,612 kWh per year and if you pay $0.15 per kWh, say, your costs are $242.00. You can play with the numbers to better reflect your own usage patterns, cost per kWh, etc., but hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
As one point of reference, our low-flow showerhead has a flow rate of approximately 2.7 litres per minute (at its normal setting, it takes about 45 seconds to fill a two-litre ice cream container), so a 5-minute shower totals 13.5 litres, with the split between hot and cold water being roughly 90/10. I purge about 5 litres of water that has cooled sitting in the line, so I'm estimating a single 5-minute shower consumes about 17 litres of hot water and two back-to-back showers some 30 litres in total. Inlet temperatures vary by season, but I'm guessing an average temperature rise of 40C, so two daily showers represents about 1.4 kWh in demand (~ 510 kWh/year).
Cheers,
Paul
I figured on 40 gals per day. That is below typical US household use of about 60-70 gals per day. I have a low-flow showerhead, but it was so miserable in winter that we went back to the normal-flow one. Maybe I should try it again in warm weather. To use a low-flow showerhead in winter, it is important to have a toasty warm room or at least a toasty warm small enclosed shower. Plus, there is use for the kitchen, laundry etc. Lastly, my electricity price went up from about $0.145 to $0.17 recently, and it will likely head higher from there. That's where I got the $400/year estimate from.
By the way, I forgot to include depreciation in my capitalization estimate.
Hi econguy,
Thanks for the added info. I believe the DOE estimate is 62 gallons/235 litres a day and, frankly, this number amazes me because our two-person household uses an average of 75 litres a day for everything, including toilet flushing (i.e., 14 m3 over 188 days = 74.5 litres/day). I'm guessing our hot water consumption is roughly half that and it would be even less if I washed our clothes in cold water. There may be some potential to trim your hot water demand and these savings, in turn, could be applied to your space heating requirements; with room temperatures at 20F or below, I take it a little additional warmth would be welcome. :-)
Cheers,
Paul
This is long-ish, personal, and kinda ranty. But, it was all inspired in part by my personal realizations of Peak Oil. Some of the consequences are unintended, but quite nice, indeed.
In a million years, I never would have dreamed that leaving my old house would make me happier.
I bought it in '98, and spent the next two years restoring it. (it was a real dump) I was lucky in the fact that a whole bunch of $1M+ houses went in on my road. I met my to-be wife and she and her kids moved in. After a couple of expansions, we looked at each other and realized we'd one too much. Even though it was beautiful, and everyone oohed and ahhed at it, the place was a LOT of work. Cleaning, mowing, painting, fixing, etc. It was also a bunch to heat, cool, pay taxes on, etc. Also, at that point, I was a real gearhead. Four cars and five motorcycles. THAT was a lot to keep up with, too.
I was a slave to stuff.
So, after some soul searching, the desire for a simpler, more sustainable life, and the dawning of the awareness of PO, The Change happened.
I pared it back to one car and one bike. The Explorer and Audi went away and were replaced by a Scion xB and a Prius. The house went on the market. Friends and family thought I was certifiable. Who on Earth goes down market>!? (waves hand, "Hello!")
We found our new place. It was only about a mile away. Much closer to the middle of town. Half the size, a quarter the land. Close to a bus stop. A nice roof with a perfect southern exposure. We took a real leap of faith and bought it before selling the old place. (This was just before the mortgage market tanked last summer.) We held two mortgages for 7 months. We got stretched really thin, and I'd thought we were financially ruined. Finally, we got a contract on the old place, only 7% off asking price. The buyers, a childless couple were downsizing from their 5K square foot place. (!)
Now the possessions had to be gone through. Only half of it would make the cut. This was hard. I was a real pack rat. Not one of those loony hoarders, but I hate throwing away stuff that's still useful. Goodwill, needy friends, Craigslist, garage sale - it was going out the door. I buried myself in work I needed to get done on the new place. I left my wife in charge of making the stuff go away. We'd had some really good, door slamming arguments over the whole process. I kept telling myself "I'm not making a mistake."
Settlement arrived, and the plan was falling into place. Eight signatures later, I was off the treadmill. I'd paid off my old mortgage, and the one on the new place, too. Debt free at 38.
(OK, maybe not quite. We ran up a modest balance on a credit card while carrying the two mortgages. So, let's say debt free 3 months from now.)
Damn, that felt good. Not as impressive, but all mine.
We moved. Things didn't fit where we'd thought it might, so we spent a month shuffling things around. We're settling in now.
I can say, with a hand on a stack of Bibles, downsizing was the best thing I've ever done. Expenses have fallen off a cliff. Stress is way down. I don't miss my stuff. Hell, I can't even picture it, anymore. I don't have to work nearly as hard- for money, on the house, supporting the house of cards, showing off.
I've given myself the gift of time. If you're thinking about scaling back, or going 'down market', don't be afraid. It's tremendously liberating. You may not have the luck I did, but to me, it's well worth it.
Even if another 3 Ghawars are discovered tomorrow and the price of oil plummets, I have no regrets.
I know how this all feels. I moved in with my fiancee last year, and we recently sold my house. The proceeds will be almost enough to pay off her mortgage. I have no car payment - she made her last car payment a few weeks ago (both VW diesels that get good fuel economy). No credit card debt between the two of us.
I too had a lot of stuff to throw out. Goodwill, Craigslist, or trash were the general options, plus I sold a bunch of old furniture to the guy I hired to do some painting. After I moved in, my fiancee started to get rid of stuff too (mainly to make room for the stuff that I was keeping).
I still have some more stuff to get rid of, however.
If I weren't out of town visiting family, I would go out for a bike ride to celebrate!
Reminds me of the George Carlin bit on "STUFF".
Also this quote:
"Man must choose whether to be rich in things or the freedom to use them." - Ivan Illich.
You hit the nail on the head there. Home energy production has little or no opportunity cost as in most cases the roof / wall is doing nothing. Likewise utlising garden space to grow fruit and veg has little or no OC.
In contrast growing biofuels have big OC's as we are all too aware.
Best hopes for water harvesting, home energy and food production.
That's one hell of a big "if"...
Be still my beating heart.
Hold on to your hats boys and girls. The startling revelations are coming fast and furious.
And this on QUAD YERGIN Day. Truly this is the end of the world as we know it!
But I'm feeling fine! (sorry, it had to be said) :-P
You can sing along at:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zeo0_3gN190&feature=PlayList&p=A1B70D5D86E622...
Words provided.
CNBC just reported some discussions of some US refiners shutting down operations because of very weak refining margins, which is something I have been expecting. With the possible exception of heavy/sour capable refineries, our problem is not too little refining capacity, but too much. Basically, I think that we are beginning to be outbid for crude oil cargoes.
Yes, I heard that. They they were talking about the crack spread. They said refineries were losing money on gasoline so they might just shut down. It makes no sense to make a product that you are losing money on.
This is caused by the high demand for diesel. To get enough diesel they must make more gasoline than they need. They get a shortage of diesel and a glut of gasoline, driving gasoline prices lower and diesel higher. As a result they are losing money on gasoline and only making a little on diesel.
They have been talking about this for days on CNBC. That is, the dramatic shortage of the "middle of the barrel products" such as diesel, kerosene and other middle of the barrel products.
Ron Patterson
Which is also going to cause even more consolidation in the airline industry (kerosene prices etc..):
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transpor...
Marco.
The estimates job cut requirement for this year was already calculated at 22 000 people (US airline industry). That was with the price of oil at $120/barrel.
Things have changed since. It's going to be really ugly 2008/2009 for US aviation especially.
So, with a glut in one area, the rest of the fuel market suffers.
I wish you guys in the west would drive your SUVs again, so they don't stop making my heating oil.
westexas and Ron,
From what you understand about refining capacities and international oil bidding, is the US likely to face petroleum shortages (middle barrel products, etc.) in the near future?
I'm aware there are many variables at work - no one has a crystal ball. I'm asking for your best reasoned opinions. Thanks.
No shortages per se, as long as market forces are allowed to work, but lots of forced energy conservation.
Can someone explain to me again in layman terms why refineries are losing money? What exactly is the crack spread. I ahve definitions here in front of me, but I'm not connecting the dots quite right I think.
This is an important question for all the other lay-people out there who are pissed at the oil companies for gouging them at the pump even though the oil companies don't necessarily have anything to do with it.
($1.50 at the pump here in BC in places today... $0.02 fuel Carbon Tax took effect July 1, some places went down, some places went up... in all, price effect was nil)
Let's assume that because of declining net oil exports, refiners have to bid the price of crude oil up, and let's assume that it follows a geometric progression: $50, $100, $200, $400, etc. Then, let's assume that the minimum wholesale price per gallon that refiners can charge, and still stay in business, shows a similar geometric progression: $2, $4, $8, $16, etc.
At each doubling in the price of refined product, what happens to the volume of refined product that consumers in a given market can and will buy? It would presumably go down. Assuming minimal product exports, this would result in refineries curtailing their refinery runs, which we are seeing, and it would ultimately result in some refineries shutting down.
Now a possible wrinkle in this is the question of exported petroleum products, i.e., US consumers may not be able to buy all of the refined product, but others might, especially in oil exporting countries. However, it would be more efficient for the exporters to just refine the stuff at home, which we are increasingly seeing.
Wasn't sure where in this thread to put this question... A VLCC gets loaded with oil in the Middle East, Africa, etc. It then plows across the big pond and unloads on the east coast (USA) or in Houston maybe. Does it generally go back empty (only ballast water) or does a lot of gasoline get shipped back? It seems several of the major exporters have refinery bottlenecks, wouldn't that be a place to unload all the extra gasoline? It seems the shipping should be discounted vs going back empty.
The gasoline is going in the other direction. The rest of the world uses proportionately more diesel than the US. That means they have more gasoline than they need. Because the US uses more gasoline proportionately, it means we don't have enough gasoline after we've made enough diesel for domestic domand. The rest of the world sells us their "excess" gasoline, presumably at a discount. Since refiners lose money on gasoline (or at least don't make much), it pays for them to import it.
If we had excess diesel, the world would probably take it. But the EIA reports don't show much going out, while they show a lot of oil & gasoline coming in.
Here is a very good article I obtained from someone here on TOD re: Crack Spreads:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/81720-tracking-crack-spreads
The crack spread is the difference between the price of oil and the price of refined products. When the crack spread gets too low, refineries lose money refining oil. You can get an update on the crack spread at http://zmansenergybrain.com/. Just scan down to a chart of the "Weekly Stat Wrap" and look for the entry titled "3-2-1 Crack."
Here is a 2008 Merrill Lynch analysis that explains the diesel shortage and refinery dilemna well: http://cfcr.ml.com/GetDoc.aspx?e=96GFIIQ37YRpmuDyDABTCKh0FYQdMVM60nzs%2f...
Here is a decent explanation of how much diesel you can get from a barrel of crude: http://www.cheaperpetrolparty.com/Oil_Price.php (Note the differences for different types of refineries.)
Here's another good explanation of the problem caused by simultaneous diesel shortages and shortages of light sweet crude: http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=19968&t=1&c=33&cg=4
Chrisale...
Crack Spread is basically the margin that the refineries get. If the refinery buys a barrel at $150 and sell the end products from that barrel of oil (gasoline, propane, heating oil, tar, etc) for a total of $160, they have a $10 spread. If, on the other hand, they buy the oil for $150 and can only get $140 for the refined end products, then its a -$10 spread and they'll go belly up really quick.
An analogy I can make is if McDonalds buys lettuce, tomatoes, catsup, oinions, buns and a beef patty for a burger, and the total cost of all of these is $1. Then, they sell the burger for $1.50. They have a margin of $.50... That's the same idea as crack spread to refineries.
The refineries are losing money because it costs more to buy oil than what they are getting paid for the end products (Gas, heating oil, diesel, tar, etc.)
BINGO! It's supply and demand. If there's not enough supply, the price will go up. The supply is set by geology and to some extent the producing countires/oil field owners. Since we can't change geology (i.e. move to Titan), and it's socially unacceptable (mostly) to 'steal' other's fields, we're stuck with what we have. And as for demand... That's going through the roof. Double whammy.
Hope this helps...
And a quote from Mr. Yergin...
"I think the producers, for the most part, don't want to see prices skyrocket because that will only create problems for them down the road and would also be a, you know, would be a very serious shock for a world economy that can't afford serious shocks right now." -Daniel Yergin
OK. I think GeckoLizard wins for best explanation, but thanks to everyone for all the info! That clears it up a lot for me.
Is it safe to say, then, that if the crack spread does not grow, ie... if refined products like petrol, diesel and the rest do not rise *faster* in price along with crude, then we will see refiners start to shut down.
It's very much analogous to the problem that the airlines have. If they can't make a profit in a given market (because of the rising cost of jet fuel versus the demand for tickets at a price that will pay for the fuel), they are going to curtail flights in that market, which they are doing.
So, we have a smaller number of consumers paying a higher unit price for a smaller volume of both refined petroleum product and airline tickets.
Since a variety of refined products come from a barrel of crude is there some threshhold where some of the crack spreads on the refined products go "negative" or is it an aggregate bottom line thing?
I mean, theoretcially, I think you coudl take a loss on refined gasoline if you were overall making money on some if not most of the rest of the products?
Pete
While you're on the topic of airlines, I came across this rather interesting article written in Oct 2005 on the precarious situation that airlines would find themselves in soon.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=81
Some excerpts
"Interestingly, very few people know that world oil production is nearing its all-time peak, and today’s $60 barrel may seem like a bargain a few years from now".
"The traditional view of economists that the ever-insightful market will solve all problems is a fallacy. The supreme goal in all countries to raise incomes, living standards, and the GDP as much as possible, constantly and without any notion of a limit, is unattainable. On current trends, a country like China will be requiring 99 million barrels of oil per day by 2031, while total world production today is only 84 million barrels".
BTW, the airline industry in India which was growing at rates of 35-40% in the last few years is in danger of going belly up.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/airline-begins-laying-off-jobs-to-cut-costs/...
Meanwhile companies that entered the airport business on projecting these fantastic numbers into the future are now finding the going tough.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/oil-hike-leaves-airlines-airport-operators-b...
Srivathsa (from India)
I think the simplest explanation for a layman is simply that a refinery is a factory. It buys raw materials (crude oil) and manufactures and sells products (diesel and gasoline). No matter how much you get for your products, you can still go broke if your raw materials cost too much. Refineries have been unable to pass along enough of their increased costs to their consumers, so they are facing hard times like many other businesses.
The impact of a small or negative spread is lesser for a integrated company that both produces and refines oil. It has been suggested here on TOD that when BP or similar companies lose money on refining operations, this makes the large revenue on the production side a bit smaller, shielding them (somewhat) from additional cries for a windfall tax.
Smaller refineries that do not have "in house" sources of oil are likely to either shut down or sell to the integrated companies. In the long run, consolidation and reduced competition may not be a great thing.
wisco -
You've touched upon something which I don't think gets enough consideration in these discussions about prices, profits, profitability, etc.
As I understand it, most of these large integrated oil companies are organized along the lines of divisions or subsidiaries that operate as quasi-independent profit centers. If for example, Exxon's production division extracts oil from one of its fields for a total cost of$30/bbl and then 'sells' that oil to its refining and marketing division for a price of $140/bbl, then gross revenues of $110 goes to the production division.
If the refining division can maintain a crack spread of $25/bbl, then $25/bbl goes to the refining division.
In the above example Exxon may cry that it isn't making much money refining crude oil, which though technically true, conveniently ignores the fact that some of the oil which their refining division uses is not the $140/bbl market price oil, but rather $30/bbl oil coming from its own wells.
Now, the counter argument no doubt goes like this: Exxon's production division has a responsibility to get the highest price for its oil. It can do this by selling it on the open market or by making it's refining division buy it at or near the market price. But this is really six of one or a half dozen of the other. Exxon could just as easily have the production division 'give' the oil to the refining division, in which case the refining division would be enormously profitable but the production division would be doing poorly. In either case the total corporate revenues would be the same.
However, I think my general point is still valid: not all the oil that is refined by an integrated oil company is oil that cost the company anywhere near the going market price.
A corollary to a low refining margin/crack spread is that less refined product would likely be produced, if its less profitable. This would increase the price of refined product compared to crude, thus restoring the crack spread. The increase in gasoline pump prices has not kept pace with the increase in crude prices and some of this slack was taken up by the decrease in refining margins, this slack is now gone. Yet another piece of good news.
The situation is more or less the same with ethanol which many think is a debacle because of the high price of corn. "Debacle" does not seem to apply to oil refining for some reason although the situations are very similar. There is an energy loss in oil refining just as their is in ethanol production. Someone has posted that it is 20 percent of the energy in crude oil.
The publicly and some privately owned ethanol producers are similar to the oil refiners who do not have an in house oil supply and must purchase oil for refining. They may have a more difficult time surviving unless they are very clever at hedging their corn needs and ethanol sales.
Ethanol producers which are co-ops have a de facto in house supply of corn in that farmers that own the ethanol plants have in many cases agreed to sell a fixed amount of corn to the plant. These ethanol producers can stand a lot of red ink since the farmers who own them are making a gain on the corn they sell to the plant that offsets losses incurred in ethanol refining.
Geckolizard writes:
I was wondering why gasoline prices in the deep south (Florida and Georgia) were stuck at $4.00. With the talk of supply shortages for the gulf our prices here seem too low. Maybe with the reduction in refinery production caused by the crack spread we'll see higher prices in Atlanta.
Most of us in other business environments would probably use the term "gross margin" to describe that.
Chris, the crack spread is basically the difference in crude oil and the products refined from crude oil. That is, difference between crude oil and products "cracked" from crude oil. (Although simple refining does not require cracking, but that is another story.)
If crude oil futures are going for a given price, then gasoline and heating oil futures should be priced at a given point above that in order to give refineries a decent profit. Futures traders watch this spread and when it is too low or narrow, they will sell oil futures and buy gasoline and heating oil futures. If it is too wide or high they will do the opposite. Lately however crack spread traders have been burned. The crack spread was way too narrow and traders expected it to widen, it did not, it just got narrower. Well, at least the gasoline half got narrower, heating oil futures have have preformed somewhat better.
The problem is diesel. There are no diesel futures. There is a shortage of refined diesel fuel. The reason is that there are only so many gallons of diesel in a barrel of oil. And when you refine enough crude oil to supply the needed diesel, you wind up with too much gasoline. And they must mark the gasoline lower to get of that excess gasoline, driving down profit.
You must understand market forces here. If they price gasoline higher, in order to make a profit, they wind up with a glut of gasoline, driving down prices. If they refine less, the diesel shortage becomes even more acute. So what to do? If they shut down, they are just saying "screw it, we are not going to lose money just to keep the trucks running". What to do, what to do????
Ron Patterson
Perilous news for truckers. Think I'll go to the grocery store to stock up the root cellar. Who's up for hoarding?
Thanks Ron for your insights, too.
At PeakOil.com, someone who works as a grocery stocker was talking about this. He thinks people are hoarding. They can't keep canned stuff like Spam, gravy, and tuna on the shelves. Some of it might be the bad economy (fresh foods like steaks, that usually sell well at this time of year, aren't selling). But he says some people are hoarding. One customer of his buys seven cans each of Spam, tuna, and catfood every week. The Spam for himself, the catfood for his cat, the tuna for both of them. He's building an emergency store. Not necessarily because he thinks the shelves will go bare, but in case he doesn't have money to buy food for some reason. He's putting his money in canned goods, rather than in the bank.
Leanan, the story makes one wonder. I think the Peak.Oil grocery clerk may be right by noting changing behaviours. Hoarding is, after all, a survival instinct. Trouble is, those who get there first will have an advantage over late comers.
Really who can blame people? Particularly, the disadvantaged.
In my part of the world, food banks began in the 1980s as a temporary relief measure. They've continued ever since and are now part of the accepted social safety net. Meanwhile, the 1990s were viewed as prosperous times. Only problem now, demand is going up, and to no one's real surprise, supplies are going down. Even our communities cannot hoard enough.
As the Depression era songster sang so eloquently: "Happy days are here again."
My wife does that yearly during the hurricane season.
Takes us most of the offseason to get through all the "hoarded" peanut butter.
Pete
Spam. I can't help but recall the Spam Haiku's in this context:
Grotesque pinkish mass
In a blue can on a shelf
Quivering alone
I love spam
Ah, the old spam haiku!
http://web.mit.edu/jync/www/spam/archive.html
I was responsible for #s 9992 and 9993:
http://stuff.mit.edu/people/jync/spam/9901-10000.html
</shameless-self-promotion>
Its not hoarding, its a smart investment!
With the bleak market, low interest savings rates and rising inflation there is no good place to put your money!
Food is going up in price right? Buying food now and locking in a lower price will provide a better return on investment than about anything else.
"Its not hoarding, its a smart investment!
With the bleak market, low interest savings rates and rising inflation there is no good place to put your money!
Food is going up in price right? Buying food now and locking in a lower price will provide a better return on investment than about anything else."
+1 Very good investment at 20% inflation even if its a "survivalist" strategy.
"Buying food now and locking in a lower price will provide a better return on investment than about anything else."
calling food an investment is a stretch. the only way i can imagine to invest in food is to buy land.
on the other hand, i dont know what to invest in. resourse plays dont seem to be performing up to their potential. the best i can come up with is diversification.
I agree, just not very flashy.
Consider that your "profits" (savings actually) are not taxed it looks even better.
Buying ahead on all consumable items make entirely too much sense. Tires, TP, PT, soaps, clothes, motor oil, etc. etc.
I stock @ 10 cases of Chevron Delo 400 motor oil(diesel use) mark the price to $35.00, $38.00, $45.00, $56.00. My "savings" are not taxed.
You won't get rich but hey its better than the market right now.
D
He's putting his money in canned goods, rather than in the bank.
Reminds me of a quote from attributed to the Mogumbo Guru
Gold is for Optimists, I'm Diversifying into Can Goods
I encourage people to build up their pantry. The more people who are ready for the inevitable run on the supermarket shelves the better. This is especially true because no area of the country is immune from natural disasters. (To see a map of the counties and their natural disaster frequency, see http://www.postpeakliving.com/guide-to-post-peak-living/disaster-prepara...)
Here is a note I wrote on my Costco fieldtrip:
-André
If the problem is diesel, then putting all of our biofuel eggs in the ethanol basket instead of the biodiesel basket was really, really stupid.
To err is human, but to really screw things up you need a federal government program.
With the surplus of sour crude and this sort of demand for diesel, why isn't there more of a rush to build appropriate refineries (like the one in Indonesia discussed recently on DB)?
RE crack spread
An additional twist driving down the crack spread is the fact that Europe uses proportionally more diesel and thus has extra gasoline that it ships to the US (among other places I assume) tending to keep the price of gasoline lower. Complicated marketing subject.
Ironic though, that various economic forces are actually keeping the price of gasoline *down* contrary to popular opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_spread
westexas, your reply is much appreciated.
By "forced energy conservation" do you mean by public regulation? Or will the high price facilitate enough demand destruction to bring consumption in line with refinery output? Or would the US release some of its SPR in the event of a looming shortage?
I'm trying to get my head around this.
Let's break all consumers in all oil importing countries into five groups, ranked by income. At the bottom, a poor Third World consumer. At the top, Bill Gates. Let's assume an accelerating net oil export decline rate, with the oil going to the high bidders, and with the low bidders being forced to conserve.
As forced energy conservation moves up the food chain, each of the higher income groups has vastly more income than the group below it, and a much greater ability to shift discretionary spending to non-discretionary food & energy costs, i.e., the bidding gets tougher as forced energy conservation moves up the food chain.
Presumably these two factors interact to produce a rapid--and probably accelerating--rate of increase in oil prices.
Offsetting this is an accelerating rate of decline (or more accurately crash) in the discretionary side of the economy, and so it goes--thus my long standing ELP advice to "Cut thy spending and get thee to the non-discretionary side of the economy."
westexas, it's starting to make a little more sense but in a bizarre way. Bear with me, I'm a slow learner at times.
In my own words, forced conservation means there will be no shortage of oil for those who can afford it. And for those who cannot afford it, it means they'll do without other things (i.e., the discretionary side of the economy) in order to purchase it. And if they are no longer able to afford to do this, they simply drop out of the equation.
As supply shrinks, the price rises. As the price rises, demand slows. As demands slows, supply and demand will find equalibrium. In other words, Economics 101.
Technically no shortage b/c people will not be able to afford the stuff.
Hardly a comforting thought for those at the lower end of the global and national economic food chain. Then again, this is not good news for anybody.
Hope I'm clearer on this. Thanks again for your input. This site is definitely an education.
Basically what was happening in some parts of Africa in 2006 and 2007, more and more people forced to reduce their energy consumption, is now happening in the US.
Scary stuff. Our indifference to their plight leaves little outside sympathy for our own.
As Shakespeare said, "What fools these mortals be!"
With continuing apologies. . . Ask not for whom forced energy conservation comes, it comes for thee.
I believe there are only three ways to allocate a scarce commodity:
a) by price, so that the poor and lower-added-value businesses are shut out, but some rational allocation occurs.
b) by formal rationing, with bureaucrats deciding how many stamps you are alloted in your ration book. Prices may be acceptable (except on the inevitable black market), and the poor may be alloted a share, but allocation is unlikely to be very good.
c) by scarcity. Price controls say that gasoline is $1 per barrel, you can buy as much as you want, but there is none to buy.
The poorest people on Earth use all their money to buy food and build shelter from packing crates. The next rung up buy food and fuel. The next rung up buy food, fuel, and health care. Then there is a big gap, then the rung that fly their private jets from one palace to the next.
When fuel and food are cheap, there is budget for the other things that give us a middle class existence. When they are no longer cheap, those things get squeezed out.
"As forced energy conservation moves up the food chain, each of the higher income groups has vastly more income than the group below it, and a much greater ability to shift discretionary spending to non-discretionary food & energy costs, i.e., the bidding gets tougher as forced energy conservation moves up the food chain."
Just so this discussion doesn’t become another academic thought exercise I feel compelled to point out that its LIFE energy we may as well be referring to here.
Please excuse me for pointing out the obvious but this is the socially accepted method for deciding who lives and who dies.
Just saying…
Hey, I got an idea lets come up with a better way!
Two comments: (1) Most Americans have not shown much concern about people "down the food chain" in places like Africa that have been priced out of the energy markets, and now forced energy conservation is knocking on their door and (2) I have been suggesting, begging and pleading for people to implement something like the ELP Plan.
"Please excuse me for pointing out the obvious but this is the socially accepted method for deciding who lives and who dies."
Shhh...! You're not supposed to say that, it makes people uncomfortable.
"Please excuse me for pointing out the obvious but this is the socially accepted method for deciding who lives and who dies."
Excuse me for pointing out that in the woods where I live this is a fact of life itself. Trees compete with each other for sunlight/water/nutrients, animals for food, this is nothing new.
Somehow we humans have decided that things should be different for us. I guess that is because we have (had) the luxury of thinking this way. I suspect the future will return us to this reality.
D
shouldn't that drive up gas prices and drive down oil prices?
Only if someone was willing to sell oil to them cheaper, and someone else willing to buy gas from them at a higher price.
If I understand correctly, the crack spread is the distance between the rock and a hard place (at least for the refiners).
with refineries closing that should bring down demand for crude and hence the price.
Maybe, but it would certainly reduce available quantities of the end product - refined fuel - causing dramatic price rises in the stuff people and businesses rely on.
I don't think it can be said either way without looking at the numbers - details. It could simply adjust the refinery utilization and/or make more use of gasoline imports. Cutting costs by closing refineries and improving utilization could improve the spread for them potentially without changes in retail price.
Might this possibly be the answer to my question yesterday about why propane has recently been the outlier on the weekly inventory reports? Since propane comes partially from NGLs and partially as a fraction from crude oil refining, maybe the NG fraction has been keeping propane up relative to the other petroleum fractions?
If these US refiners shut down does this mean that there will be signs on some pumps saying "No Gas" soon?? If so, how soon and where?
Unless they are able to import enough gasoline (blending components). Further drops in gasoline inventories should be enough to drive up the price of gasoline, preserving the spread. Between reduced driving and imports, inventories are holding at a low level even though this is peak usage season. I'm beginning to think we will get though the summer (barring hurricane damage) without incident. I'm less sure about being able to build enough inventories for winter heating oil.
For those of you in the Northeast USA, please consider learning about Permaculture. It's whole purpose addresses "energy descent".
http://northeasternpermaculture.wikispaces.com/Calendar+of+Events
The two week intensive is more expensive, but still less expensive than what many spend for a vacation. The weekend series has it's own advantages. There will be a great weekend series offered in NYC at the Open Center with Andrew Faust. Toby Hemenway, Larry Santoyo, and Dave Jacke will be at a course in the Catskills. Maine is hopping with PDC courses, as well (Yelton's up there). There are way more courses so check out the calendar page or the Permaculture Activist website for more details.
http://www.permacultureactivist.net/
I'm not saying it will save your life, but it sure makes the transition to low energy much more doable, fun, and abundant. Not all of the courses need to be expensive. Talk to the organizers of the courses to see what can be arranged, if you need help.
For what it's worth, the Maine "Peak Oil Awareness" Meetup gets a showing of maybe 4-5 people, while the 'Permaculture' meetup apparently has some 150-200 people in its active membership.
Lesson gleaned.. it REALLY helps to serve food if you want people to show up at a meeting. (Oh, and focusing on the solutions instead of the problems seems to have some PR advantage, too)
Bob
That's an important observation - focus on what people can do now on a local level. That gives them something productive to do now that will help later.
It's the other way around down here in NYC. However, I get more than 4-5 people in my Permaculture "meetups", but the Peek Oil group, in NYC, has more than twice as many overall members. The Portland ME Permaculture Meetup has a stunning membership. I can hardly believe my eyes.
http://permaculture.meetup.com/
1. NYC Peak Oil Meetup Group
497 Members
2. The Portland Maine Permaculture Meetup Group
310 Members
3. Wildlife and Environmental Activist Network
246 Members
4. The New York Permaculture Meetup Group
214 Members
5. The Houston Organic Meetup Group
164 Members
6. Going GREEN in Orange County, CA
161 Members
7. SD Community Farms and Gardens Meetup Group
160 Members
8. The Montreal Environment Meetup Group
142 Members
9. Chicago Permaculture Meetup Group
117 Members
10. The Stockholm Oil Awareness Meetup Group
99 Members
Might have something to do with the lack of farming opportunities in the Big Apple. Yes, there are some community gardens, and some people have access to rooftops for gardening, but many don't even have space to park a car, let alone plant a garden.
I'm interested in permaculture, but as a renter who is not planning to stay here permanently, there doesn't seem to be any point.
There's lots of excess NPK floating around somewhere in the waterways and deltas of NYC. But the land will be really, really expensive :)
Who's up for $499.99/kg urban cucumbers? :)
I've just completed a permaculture design course in the UK. My girlfriend and I are currently renting in a city, and have no intentions of buying a house for at least a few years if ever (depending on the market).
We are hopefully in the process of buying a small two acre piece of agricultural land though to grow some of our own food on, and maybe a little bit of wood as fuel. This is within a couple of miles of my parents house (in a more rural setting), and we're expecting to move in with them at some point in the next 12 months. I think they're slowly coming to terms with the idea ;)
I think it's worth learning a bit about permaculture even if you can't put it into practice straight away, there's plenty of theoretical stuff to take in. We've been using our allotment for practice.
It sounds like you feel Permaculture is about gardening, but it isn't. The term did start as a contraction of the words "Permanent Agriculture". However, it may be more accurate to call it "Permanent Culture", especially for urban permies. There are things you could be doing that have nothing to do with gardening and still call it "permaculture". The idea is to be a part of an ecology, or at least to start thinking about the world in this way, both physically and metaphorically.
Organizing with your neighbors can be a part of a permaculture "design" or solution. Think about the "energy" transactions with your community: social, monetary, food coming in, "waste" going out, etc. If you can model it, you can start thinking about how to make it more "sustainable" through design modifications. In this case, a system that is "sustainable" is one that produces enough of it's own energy/needs to maintain itself, plus at least a comfortable margin of surplus for emergencies.
This isn't to say gardening isn't important to practicing permaculture. However, Permaculture still has something to offer an urban setting. FWIW, I'm in Manhattan, so can understand the perceived lack of gardening space. I found some, 1/4 acre, but it isn't very convenient to get to (developers never got the dynamite to it).
I am sure that as soon as the depths to which the economy is about to sink becomes more widely known, that particular opinion will change.
Let's face it, most people think from one paycheck to the next
If folks want to get a preview of what their community will look like post-peak, take a gander at this link.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080703/OPINION01/80703...
Everybody is on the take, everybody is looking out for themselves and there is apathy at the end.
While I view both Republicans and Democrats as equal and opposite evils, what is happening in this city is all Democrat action.
They occupy ALL levels of government and what makes this more repugnant is the Dems are supposed to be the Party of the People.
Instead what we have are a bunch of jackals tearing at a dying carcass for what scraps they can take.
IMHO the whole idea of putting down multi-generational roots in a community is totally overrated. Once you determine that Detroit is finished, you can't fix it, the best you can do is leave. North America is filled with immigrants who left losing deals behind.
Hi BrianT, thanks for the reply.
My hometown indeed has seen better days but I wonder how mobile we will be post-peak?
If ever their was a time to establish a viable, close knit community i.e. friends, family now's the time.
Of course name recognition in voting and family influence is largely to blame for the current mess, so it can cut both ways.
Looks like the Chimp has got it right, we're scewed.
Dmitry Orlov has some interesting thoughts about that in 'Reinventing Collapse.'
He observes that Russians were long forced into multi-generational living arrangements against their will because of a lack of housing, but this turned out to be a good thing during the collapse as larger family units were able to help each other survive.
In the US our families are scattered all over the place, and families that can't get along often just split up or avoid each other, so our society is unlikely to get as much benefit from family structures. However, Orlov thinks that we are much better than Russians at forming new living arrangements with roommates and friends, and that our natural American gregariousness will help get us through.
I have thought about this myself with regards to whether I should stay here in LA, go back to Nebraska, or move somewhere else. I do think one's social networks (not the virtual kind!) and community ties will be crucial in surviving the next phase, and I have a very strong network here in LA already.
I think many of us will end up depending on our friends a lot more than in the past to get through...look at who is around you now, who you can trust and who you can count on in a pinch, and who YOU would be willing to help out if they came to you. As the news gets crazier and crazier and the social fabric begins to fray, our friends and family are all we have...
I agree. Mike Ruppert ended up going home to Los Angeles, and I think he made a good choice. Unsustainable as LA is, if that's where he has roots, that's where he should be.
It's also why I'm considering returning to Hawai`i, even though I fear the Easter Island possibility is very real. My family is there. I'd rather convince them to join me somewhere on the mainland, but I don't see that happening. Like many kama'aina, they are very tied to the land and the culture there. The idea of leaving is just beyond the realm of possibility.
Leanan-
Maui and the Big Island actually have smaller populations than pre western contact. Of course, some ecosystems were much healthier then, especially the ocean, and upcountry was not as settled. But the lowlands of Maui and the Big Island had huge populations, and self sustaining.
I have mulled over the possibility of moving back also, as Hawaii is where I feel most comfortable, and I do have friends and still own a house in Kula. My brother lives in Guam, which is also a possibility, but my spouse would object. She loves Hawaii.
According to the papers I've read, the Big Island's current population is twice what it was when they were up against Malthusian limits in Kamehameha's day. They've done some fascinating research on the soils there (comparing the soils under ancient walls, and soils that were presumably cultivated). They found the soil was basically exhausted, trying to feed a population estimated to be half the size of the current one.
Maui had over 200,000 people pre contact. See : "Stannard's (1989, Before the Horror) contention that the pre-contact population of the archipelago, as estimated by the accounts of early European voyagers and missionary census reports, has been vastly underestimated. Rather than a maximal population of ca. 250,000, Stannard suggests that a figure of as many as 800,000 is supportable on a re-evaluation of the ethnohistoric evidence"
The Big Island may have had similiar population numbers.
As to how long this was sustainable, it is up for analysis.
Stannard's work is, well, controversial at best. I think he's way off.
You might find this article of interest.
They found that despite the large amount of real estate on the Big Island, relatively little of it was suitable for farming. It was too dry for taro, and much of it was too dry even for sweet potatoes, which were the staple there.
I am a bit skeptical of Stannard's numbers also. The evidence on Maui does support large population numbers. I think the future will tell. I have several anthropologist friends (as you know, development has to consider Hawaiian Artifacts, so it is a good gig for them)--
Anyway, it appears the population numbers have been underestimated in some areas.
With minimal population on Lanai and Molokai, I would bet they are at historical pre contact numbers (probably less for Lanai).
Kaho'olawe has no one, and historically was well populated.
Oahu is obviously overpopulated, and a wreck waiting to happen.
Here in Toronto, everything we eat is grown within 100 miles of the place. Post-peak, we can just live on the herds of Caribou, all 5.5 million of us. When the zombie cannibals are overrunning Hawaii, we will be fighting off the zombie cannibals pouring over the border from Motown.
Yes, but you can bring open pollenated corn seeds with you, and know that old native american trick about putting a dead fish under each hill. That one thing would probably increase carrying capacity substantially.
I can't find the link - but the counter-claim is that the fish story was a lie and told as a way to promote moving across the sea to a place where there was SO much excess meat you could use it to grow corn.
Not to mention how every preditor would dig up your corn to get at the fish.
I have been discussing the future of Hawai'i recently with two friends, one who lives there now but is relatively unaware of peak energy issues, and another friend who used to live there and is thinking about moving back.
My first friend, a curator at an art museum in Honolulu, seems like he'll be broadsided blind by the changes about to ensue.
My second friend lived off the land before and ended up buying a small off-the-grid property on the Big Island for cheap, so he is thinking about going back there. He doesn't seem too upset that the flow of rich tourists is set to decrease and looks forward to getting back to a greater degree of self-sufficiency if he moves back.
Leanan I'd be interested to know what you think of the wisdom of the latter choice. If you moved back yourself how would you live, have you thought about it?
My dad in an agronomist, and we have farmers and farms in our family. So if worst comes to worse, showing up on a relative's doorstep and offering to work for food is an option. But frankly, I don't like it. I think living in Hawaii will be like living in those isolated rural towns being killed by high gas prices, writ large. Assuming it doesn't go Easter Island.
I guess it comes down to community ties. If your friend has family there and is in good health, going back may be a reasonable choice. If he doesn't, he might want to reconsider.
For me, it's more about worrying about my parents, who aren't getting any younger, than trying to find a post-peak hideaway.
The Island of Hawaii is a very active volcano and the new vent at the Halemaumau Crater that is gassing sulpher dioxide in the air is expected to continue for the unseeable future. These emissions make it very difficult to breathe and can be destuctive on vegtable and flower farms.
With southernly winds all of the Islands are affected making air conditioners essential for anyone with lung disease (asthma,MCS). There is also discussions about the expansion of the geothermal plant in Puna that will also emit serious air contaminants. Homework is a necessary ingredient to make wise choices. Air quality is basic.
dpete
And don't forget that big crack that's a giant run-out landslide waiting to happen.
I would agree that Kona side is disagreeable from the vog. But usually Hilo side, Hamakua, Kamuela, etc have some of the purest air you'll find. Occasionally it'll blow the wrong way but not usually. I've never even smelled sulphur from my Fern Forest property in the times I've been there, even though it's just a few miles uphill from the Pu'u O'o vent. It's such a point source that it takes a fairly rare wind direction to blow it that way. There was an evacuation earlier in the year, but people live well in the shadow of volcanoes all over the world.
The geothermal plant in Puna may not emit much of anything; it's that misconception which has the local "greens" opposing it in favor of tanked-in oil. And even if it did emit a little, as you point out it's adjacent to the world's largest active volcano, a flea-fart at an elephant-pooping contest.
I worry a lot more about the fact there aren't any doctors there.
Leanan, it'd be good to have you out here; I'll gift you your first 50-lb bag of rice for hoarding. (hightrekker, one for you too!)
It's family that's keeping me here; my elderly mom needs care and I'm not enough of a cad to abandon her. Moreover, I think the element of luck may play a larger role than many think, in terms of how things roll out. And a truly intelligent effort (I'm thinking more along the lines of Machiavelli than grassroots) could possibly get a reasonable minority of people pushing for some resilience here. Maybe. Though I haven't made myself care yet.
In terms of carrying capacity and bad soil, you can still buy a BUNCH of NPK fairly cheap, and one would probably get into a lot less trouble hoarding that somewhere in nondescript fashion than food. I recently got 20 50-lb bags of 10-20-20 for $25 each delivered. That's really dirt cheap, so to speak. Treasure.
Also, while I know the polynesians had breadfruit and stuff, there would be an opportunity now to use fossil fuels to terrace farmlands and drastically decrease runoff, while planting a LOT of breadfruit trees, etc. I have been astonished at the amount of food my oahu backyard produces even when I ignore it, I never fertilize or do anything aside from initial tree-planting. The dang yard produces literal tons of coconut, avocado, mango and stuff which currently largely goes to waste, and if I cut down the junk fiddlewood trees and try to optimize it, there would be a lot more. I've been impressed.
Though a hint: if you've bought any oil options, the state of Hawaii takes a large cut of your capital gains, might want to have your legal residence be in some tax-free state. A $1000 crude call option bought a year ago will now buy a huge amount of NPK.
cheers.
In the long run, I think cities like Detroit might do okay. Older cities were situated where they were for a reason.
Getting there from here might be difficult, however.
"While I view both Republicans and Democrats as equal and opposite evils, what is happening in this city is all Democrat action."
What do Detroit, Chicago, DC and Bush/Cheney have in common?
Each is a classic example of why the political parties need each other simply to counter balance their ambitions. Anytime a political faction doesn't have any opposition they get drunk with power and corruption.
I much prefer the Republicans and Democrats focusing on fighting each other, otherwise they'll focus on the rest of us. Let's hope we have divided a government for next 50 years. Neither party is trustworthy.
As Dmitri Orlov said, in the USA we have the Capitalist Party, and the OTHER Capitalist Party.
Blame the French.
They were lousy city pickers.
According to some history I've read Detroit has always been a pretty miserable place, swampy, prone to flooding; kinda like another city the French founded, New Orleans.
I'm sure Alan concurs. :)
This is where the power of the paradigm comes into play.
We are so immersed in the reality of today that envisioning another life is a miraculous, revolutionary act.
It brings to mind a Zen koan I once heard "The future does not come forward to meet us, it streams from behind us, from over our heads."
Turning ones head to face the flow, even briefly, seems to be a gargantuan task.
"Oil prices neared $146 a barrel..."
is neared a word?
Ummm....yes. At least in English. ;-)
No, but that's never stopped an American.
Unless you think "to near" is a verb.
Let's see. "I near the gas station." That almost works. "I near you"--awful. "Near" is more properly and adverb so:
It should properly be "Oil prices drew near to $146 a barrel..."
--
JimFive
(N.B. I am American.)
It has pulled back after the opening bell, but watch the action fly in the last hour of trading today!!
Ah...short session today. No huge "last 1/2 hour" move as has been typical. Still WTI closes at 144.42 and Brent pulls out by a nose at 145.60.
And the evil twins of high-priced crude ended:
Tapis 153.07
Minas 154.02
Nope, WTI for August settled at $145.29, up $1.72.
NYMEX Crude Oil (Light)
Ya...noticed there was a "late kick" after all. Man...someone is running it up right before they shut the door in the last few days.
Here's an article with a carefully veiled reference to Peak oil by a Chevron executive.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={E63FC52C-3BED-4793-86F0-13D112A549C9}&siteid=yhoof2
Cs,
He may have not used the term PO but he's well aware of the concept. The last numbers I saw showed both Chevron and ExxonMobil unable to replace produced reserves for the last two years. Thus they are both at PO. Their situation is much the same as most major oil producing countries: their production base is so big that even a relative low decline rate is impossible to offset with new discoveries.
More evidence of decreasing demand:
Soaring fuel prices prompt consumers to reconsider overseas travel
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20080703TDY08307.htm
Surely demand for recreational international air travel has to be among the most sensitive items to increases in oil prices.
North Queensland tourism operators are screaming blue murder about Qantas/Jetstar cutting flights direct from Osaka (?) in November (and in a typical knee-jerk reaction, State and Federal Governments have hastily released a 'rescue package'), but that's what you get when you focus an entire regions earnings off a fickle industry.
This comment on Todd Benjamin's blog has been 'awaiting moderation' for several days:
http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/30/the-worst-of-possible-worlds-fo...
I am not usually very paranoid, but a couple of 'doomerish' comments to mass media outlets seem to have gone missing recently, and moderation has never taken this long before.
A 'bad news' filter?
Of course there is a filter. Who wants to know all this? Sounds like a terrible future. Would depress all the readers, who wouldn't come back to read again...... No tooth fairy to the rescue. How awful.
Oh, and you left out the "millions will die from starvation" part.
My post is up now, so my suspicions were unfounded - now if only that car would stop shadowing me! ;-)
I doubt that millions dying from starvation will make much of a spot on the news, if there are queues at petrol stations and power cuts to claim attention.
Darfur has struggled to make the news for years.
Dave:
The INS,CIA,FBI,Secret Service,Interpol,TSA,NKVD,
Mossad, etc etc etc are all real.
The chances of me knowing which tooth I had a root
canal done on 5 years ago is as remote as me remembering what I had for lunch last Thursday.
Yet any of these agencies could produce my entire
dental records as fast as a mouse click.
And why is it the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wears those lousy cheap nylon blue wind
breakers?
Why do FBI agents wear polyester pants?
Why do CIA agents wear Victoria Secrets panties?
Bush #1 was CIA just like Putin was KGB.
The odds of you not being watched is remote.
Hell...Iam even reading every thing you type.
See how easy it is?
And the CIA panty jibe was a joke...we know you guys
wear fish net stockings.
Now that we are on the doom tip, anybody care to play a game of guessing which Cities will be toast first (let's try to rule out the Matt Savinar nuke scenario for now) :)
Hi, could you source that? I can't find the link.
Thanks.
Click on it.
Thanks. Apologies for the 'senior' moment! :-)
Within the USA, an easy pick, Las Vegas.
Phoenix/Tuscon ranks high, as well as any retirement and tourism orientated city, such as Honolulu or St. Petersburg.
Some depressed Rust Belt city that has been hanging on will also collapse. Perhaps Youngstown or Flint. Even Detroit (although they will likely have a rebirth).
Not such great hopes,
Alan
Alan: "Collapse" is pretty arbitrary. The Big Easy has a murder rate 20X that of Honolulu, and you love the place-you think it is a paradise. One man's dump is another man's Nirvana.
Quite true. But this is a forecast of the future. New Orleans has already collapsed. Been there, done that :-(
From what I know, the major economic supports are tourism, retirees and military. Assuming a collapse of tourism, very few new retirees and many of the existing ones becoming impoverished and a reduction in the military, adding increased cost of transport of goods to the islands, and I can see a collapse.
One very strong counterweight against collapse is a strong social network, which will probably be enough. Far fewer, and perhaps dispersed more, revived agriculture, but not collapse would be my guess.
Alan
I predict the military will be a booming business for quite awhile to come.
Ever visited Central America? Seen the guys hanging around with their sawed-off shotguns in front of banks, etc.? There's a growth industry for you. Paramilitary organizations will be a big supplier of jobs. Hey, how about "concentration camp guard", etc. for a new source of jobs? Who says capitalism doesn't work?
How about the underground economy: hiring people to go steal stuff for you? Or "Help out a vet. Will dig graves for food."
Easy pick. A city that is below sea level which relies on energy gulping pumps to stay dry.
Robert a Tucson
You mean Boston ?
Actually, it take very little energy to lift water 2 meters or so. Much more is required to lift water from the Colorado River to Phoenix, Tuscon and Las Vegas.
Alan
Alan,
I think the concern is the quantity (and constancy) of water you have to lift, not the distance.
--
JimFive
I thought that Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tuscon were downhill from Colorado. In fact, I even thought that the dams generated power. Silly me.
When I was visiting family in Phoenix, I was astonished to hear that 20% of the their electricity is used to pump water. Less than 1% in New Orleans (including potable water).
Click on the map and count the pumping stations
http://www.cap-az.com/static/index.cfm?contentID=35
Alan
http://books.google.com/books?id=u2RHhUXhh1kC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193&dq=CAP+...
Read page 193. Tucson doesn't use any CAP water. We don't care if that hose breaks down. Phoenix I dunno about. Phoenix has sprawled out like Kunstler's worse nightmare.
When we need more electricity, we hang out another solar panel. What do you do in New Orleans?
Phoenix uses primarily Salt River Project water. Water is a huge issue in Phoenix (and the SouthWest in general), but there is also quite a bit of low hanging fruit.
The map I linked to above shows 6 pumping stations in Pima County, and the canal goes just west of Tuscon. I do not know if Twin Peaks, Sandario, Brawley, San Xavier, Synder Hill and Black Mountain are local landmarks, but those are the names of the pumping stations very close to Tuscon.
CAP water is injected underground at Pima Mine Road, Avra Valley, and Lower Santa Cruz.
If Tuscon does not depend on CAP water, then your suburbs do. And your CAP water is most energy intensive, being pumped the furthest and highest uphill.
Alan
PS: Your link states that you now use a mixture of CAP water and groundwater, after some initial problems with CAP water. Injecting CAP water underground also mixes the two types and allows for a slow adaptation..
Does that include swimming pool pumps? Just kidding (I think).
Boston? We have a dam on the Charles to keep the river level UP, so as to keep the water table in the Back Bay up and keep a bunch of wood pilings submerged. If that failed, we'd lose seriously beautiful neighborhoods, and Jim Kunstler would likely die of hearbreak, but it would not be that big an economic hit. The people made homeless would be our elite. They can deal.
You running A/C today?
What can your garden grow out there without help from pumped water?
Security Issues in Tucson might be considerable in a downtown downturn.
The Bell tolls for all of us in different ways..
"Slimy Mudhole? My HOME this is!" -Yoda
>You running A/C today?
Yep. Solar panels work great in Tucson.
>What can your garden grow out there without help from pumped water?
Cactus. What can your garden grow without pumped water?
I'm not optimistic about the future of Arizona agriculture. Actually, I'm surprised about how much agriculture there is around here. But we have solar power and copper to trade 4 food. It really doesn't take a lot of water to run a household. Lawns and agriculture are the biggest water hogs.
Actually, it's quite possible to grow a vibrant garden using only rainwater in Tucson. See Brad Lancaster's guest post on Rainwater Harvesting at TOD:Local.
Cooling is also a concern in Tucson (and the rest of the Southwest), but, then, heating isn't really a problem--somewhat a case of pick your problem. Arizona's energy requirements for cooling are largely a result of architecture that assumed cheap energy, much as the Northeast's energy requirements for heating come from the same assumption. Arizona's cooling requirement can fairly easily be solved through improved architecture.
Jeff, can you give some idea of what you mean by 'fairly easily' solving the cooling requirements by adapting architecture?
Coming from a cool climate I have little idea of the various options and costs involved.
Is there a cheap temporary fix alternative equivalent to just insulating one room in cold climates available?
Thanks.
Cooling in the desert is easy. It's so dry that the body's natural sweat mechanism works very well. If you stay in the shade, you can be cool even in 110F heat. Drink lots of water, and stay in a breeze, natural or artificial.
There's no cheap, temporary fix to existing "standard" suburban architecture. When I lived in Tucson, I lived in a small adobe home, and it worked remarkably well with no A/C except for about 2 months a year, when it was uncomfortable. A few architects today are working with very thick rammed earth or straw bale in the area with good results. Also planting shade trees is one part of an effective solution (both via shade and evaporative cooling of the entire area) but isn't quick.
I have seen one house in Tucson where the owner wrapped a standard home in straw bale--unconventional, but it seemed to work fairly well.
I think the best solutions are really only workable with new construction, or at least major renovation. Cooling towers, as have been used in Yazd in Iran (similar climate) for centuries, work very well. A new approach that I'm personally excited about is using a solar chimney to store "cold" underground by directing cold winter night air through a large, insulated thermal mass, and then using that cold mass to cool air being drawn in to ventilate the house in the summer (annualized geothermal storage).
The more conventional approach is combining highly insulating material on the outside of a building's shell with high-thermal-mass material on the inside (e.g. Straw bale with adobe interior walls and cement floor, or Rastra blocks, etc.).
Bottom line: Tucson's cooling and water problems are very solvable, just like heating problems are solvable in the Northeast, etc. That doesn't mean that there's an easy and cheap way to adapt existing sunk capital cost in current architecture, or to keep the current inventory of golf courses green. I personally think projections of doom for Tucson and Phoenix are overblown--I think there will be significant economic problems as snowbird/tourist economy dries up, and as current iterations of suburbia become less tenable, but I'm not sure they will be any worse than problems facing places like Boston (heating oil costs and huge sunk cost in poorly insulated buildings), Florida (the kind of cooling that works in Tucson largely fails in Florida because of water tables and humidity issues), and everywhere in between...
Hi jeffvail,
I think you are wrong about insulating older homes, adding 4 inch suds on inside walls with insulation is easy, same for adding 12 inches insulation in roof. Also evaporative air-conditioning in a well insulated house is low energy use, AC.
Another positive for SW states is that baby boom generation is about to retire, bones getting cold, a hot dry climate, where you can sit around, in retirement beats shoveling wet cold snow every time. A recession is not going to affect retired people provided economy doesn't completely collapse. If we have gasoline rationing? , could be a good source of income for the retired.
Agriculture is the big user of water and cities always can always out-bid irrigated agriculture.
As a confirmed bodger, I would go along with Neil!
Even simple things like painting a house bright white would help.
Attic fans are also economical and a good bet:
http://www.solarnet.org/AtticFan.htm
Since many of the hottest areas are water-stressed, then putting a rainwater tank underground would provide a handy source for a heat pump.
Reflective blinds should do wonders too.
Here is some cheap insulation they are developing for the third world:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-insulation-0701.html
For more humid climates, work has started on desiccants which use a lot less power than traditional dehumidifiers:
http://www.nrel.gov/dtet/thermal_air_cond.html
NREL: Distributed Thermal Energy Technologies - Thermally Driven Air Conditioning
In tropical or sub-tropical climates,dry or humid,the cheapest way to build a livable structure is to use light construction(to avoid heat retention),plenty of windows and doors for ventilation,avoid windows on East and West sides to prevent direct sunlight into the building and verandahs or wide eaves on the North and South sides for the same reason and to allow windows to remain open in the rain.
Getting the floor off the ground on stilts is also helpful and if they are high enough you get a lot of useable space under the house.Insect screens are essential.Ceiling fans are not essential but are appreciated in humid conditions.
Insulation of ceiling and walls is adviseable.This type of construction in various materials has been used for a long time around the world and mostly without airconditioning.
Like a lot of solutions,low tech but effective.
In many hot climates, light and ventilated structures work best, but they're not universally the best choice. The key question is temperature swing between night and day, and between winter and summer. In the humid tropics, where it doesn't get cold at any point, thing walls with high ventilation are often best. However, especially in interior deserts where the nights can get quite cool, massive walls (e.g. adobe, rammed earth) are preferable because they moderate temperature swings. They can also be quite cheap and use locally available materials. In situations (like Tucson) where there are several months in the summer where it doesn't get cold enough at night to cool a massive structure, a different approach is preferable--either combine passive cooling (such as a cooling tower) or use a hybrid structure (highly insulated shell, thermally massive interior) that can capture cold from the coldest point of the night (or, in annual thermal storage, the coldest point of the winter) to moderate high temperatures. Still low-tech and inexpensive (though often more labor intensive in construction, such as manufacturing adobe on site). In some desert environments (like Tucson), keeping the house on the ground (slab-type foundation), but WITH some kind of foundation insulation, can be beneficial in expanding the available thermal mass. Of course, in hot/humid areas, that might be exactly the wrong advice--a good example of how hot/dry deserts and hot/humid tropics may require quite different architecture.
My 2¢ : New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in the U.S., it was first settled in 1718. Periodic inundation is a problem along with malaria, but I guess its location on the Mississippi ensures people will keep coming back and rebuilding after a fashion. With diesel prices continuing to increase, the trucking industry will be finished. River and rail transport will have to make up the bulk of the proportion of transport again.
Tucson has no such draw. Once the groundwater goes, Tucson goes.
Old in the US isn't very old at all.
I don't think the Mississippi will stay where it is in the post-carbon age. I think the end of cheap energy will prove Mark Twain correct:
In the end, the Mississippi will move west, despite our attempts to hold it where it is. And we'll build a new port city to accommodate it.
Good point. Actually the Mississippi should have moved long ago but the Army Core of Engineers has kept it where it is. A good read about that is "The Control of Nature" by John McPhee
No longer true. The Corps of Engineers has been diverting 30% of the Mississippi River down the Atchafalaya Basin since the 1930s. The water spreads out over a 25 mile wide (it varies) basin, slows down and deposits silt for a couple of hundred miles to the sea.
The Atchafalaya Delta has grown out to sea and the basin has risen from silt deposits. The natural path is again by New Orleans.
The same strategy can protect New Orleans from sea level rise with minimal energy input. Just use mainly spring flood waters (every year) to deposit hundreds of millions of tons of silt.
Alan
Yeah, Tucson is dependent on our groundwater. So we keep a close eye on our groundwater. And use treated wastewater to recharge the aquifers. Tucson gets 12 inches of rain a year. Compared to 15 inches for LA. We aren't any worse off than southern california which doesn't prove they are going to make it either.
A lot of the country is mining their groundwater for agriculture. At some point the water will go and the crops will dry up. That's not a problem unique to Arizona. We got a million people keeping an eye on the water level. The family ranches are disappearing. The amazing thing is that people raised cattle in Arizona ever.
As linked above, see recent Rainwater Harvesting post on TOD:Local. Tucson's current pattern of water usage is quite dependent on groundwater, but Tucson can easily meet its water demands (for locally-appropriate food and other necessities, not golf courses) through rainwater alone. Will Tucson's draw as a tourist/snowbird location go away without golf courses? Probably, though I personally am drawn to the desert, not to the faux-lush golf courses...
I agree, I think that using what could end up being the most precious resource you have out there to make the desert look as lush as an english lawn just to hit little white balls around with sticks is one of the more bizarre things you could do on the face of it.
To tell the truth, most of my specific knowledge of municipal water strategies in arid climates comes from Albuquerque and the Ogallala. I have been to Tucson a few times but the groundwater comment was mostly a knee-jerk response to any question about the future of the west. I was pretty interested to read your posts about the specifics further up in the thread.
The other driver for that comment was that one problem with long-term sustainability out west, as I'm sure you guys know, there is a history of prolonged droughts that have a bad tendency to do in entire civilizations. Europeans are relatively recent additions. Beware climate change!
Rust belt cities may have their problems, but they are still close to agricultural areas (i.e. supplies of food and water). Yes, the manufacturing core may be lost, but currently housing is cheap. If you were retired, these cities could be good places to ride it all out.
Compare that to a place like Las Vegas. Without tourism, tons of jobs will be lost, and there are inadequate quantities of food and water anywhere nearby.
A lot of boomers are "boomeranging." They move to Florida or Arizona in the early part of their retirements, then move back to the northern cities they came from as they age. They need the family support as they get older and sicker, and they don't want to drive long distances to see medical specialists and the like.
And yes, rust belt cities are well-located. Good soil, water for agriculture as well as transportation, along railways or canals, etc. The manufacturing core may return, as globalization unwinds. It won't be the glory days of old, but it might be a lot better than Las Vegas or Phoenix.
I don't think that globalization will unwind I think it'll just correct. globaliziation is really all about costs. we moved too much manufacturing to asia from america. now that costs are crimping globalization we're moving back to something more sustainable. if that means we make products here and ship them to china that doesn't necessarily mean globalization is done.
It’s costs that you claim that are crimping globalization. And what costs are these? Probably shipping! So, if after we relocate industries locally how the hell are we going to keep things cheap to global consumers by adding back the costs by shipping them back to China?
Shipping is but one cost and Cramer had an interesting monologue where he said we were in the shortage period of what he called the shipping cycle. costs are going up in more than just shipping. china is experiencing increasing costs and wages are going up. the dollar going down is making US goods cheaper just about everywhere.
Deleted. Screw it.
You're fighting a form of religion, you know.
That is why I have decided never to respond again to his posts. I'm guessing others will too. At least in college these guys disappear in a semester or two.
I decided the same thing a while back, but have lapsed a couple of times. Sometimes he just comes out with the most ridiculous pollyannish nonsense that I just can't help it.
Unrelenting Cornucopians, for whatever reason (belief, underlying fear, lack of knowledge, etc.) don't seem very likely to rapture up into a singularity soon enough, so the best course of action, whether replying or not, is certainly not to let unsubstantiated and unprovable claims get your blood pressure up too far. A little dramatic disbelief is nice (I like some drama now and then), but you gotta let it fade fast and free up for worrying about the things that ultimately do matter to you. I'm quite sure we've only begun to experience this religion.
Great work you're doing on your farm, by the way.
I guess I’m more sensitive to it because I was once a member of that religion. But the hypnotize that never lies wore off from life experience and observation. It’s kind of funny that Communists and Capitalists make the same error - thinking that each of their systems is an inevitable outcome of human behavior, when in fact it is a dogmatic belief system. Capitalists have yet to realize there “victory” over communists was a Pyrrhic one.
Committed cornucopians have a lot in common with committed doomers.
They both imagine that they can see the future perfectly - and far into the future at that.
Now it is reasonable to see oil shortages coming, but the response to them was unpredictable, and still is.
At one stage I would have deemed the unremitting stupidity of the American and British governments unlikely, but it has proved to be the case.
On the flip of the medal, there are a lot of very smart guys working on things as diverse as fuel from algae, polywell fusion and high altitude wind, any of which would be game-changers.
Apparently doomers are so smart that they know what none of these smart people who are expert in their fields know, that they are wasting their time.
Some of the predictions even go out 70 years, so for instance we will run out of uranium as although we know how to do a much more efficient burn that will not happen, and apparently none of the other technological possibilities will work now or in the future.
It is usually justified with some sort of quasi-religious appeal to alleged first principles, that we are out of balance with the planet, or the population is 'too high' or whatever.
It is equally absurd to claim that people will overcome every difficulty by the pure force of will, and the counter-God of technology.
All of these folk have difficulty reconciling themselves to the few things we do know about the future - that we are mortal and we don't know what the future holds.
Tell me what the result of the 3.30 race will be, and then I will be a believer.
Since they can't do that their longer term certainties don't work.
We all form our guesses, but they get hazier the further out you go, and the first stage of knowledge is to know what you do not know.
Does anyone who marked the argument down, thereby proving that they are incapable of understanding what the rating system is for, wish to actually argue their point?
Obviously not.
So you listen to Cramer, eh? That explains a lot.
I think most rust belt cities will do fine (Cleveland and Pittsburgh come to mind), but those whose infrastructure, social network, economic base and demographics have been worn down, may not be able to stand another strain. Flint and Youngstown come to mind.
Alan
Alan:
I Live here in Cleveland right now and moved here
from Lake Norman in North Carolina.
I believe the proximity to fresh water of rivers and
great lakes, rail roads, coal, natural gas, fertile
agricultural lands, lack of high pop density like LA,
NY, Chicago, abundance of hard woods, nuclear plants
like Perry Nuclear, RTA (rapid transit) public transport, Erie canal, access to ocean thru St Lawrence seaway, and many reasons more lead me to think its a good place P.O.
I was born here over 50 yrs ago.
The people here are ethnic diverse salt of the earth.
They have a toughness thats generational.
Plus I can be in Canada by boat in an hour or 20 min
by air.
and they have lakes, rivers, the erie canal and railroads.
I'd go along with the port cities - transport by water is still going to be cheaper than on land.
Those with good access to the railroad system would seem to have the advantage.
Providing insulation is, in the end, much easier than making up for water shortage or isolation.
The 'old' folks own all the assets ..
Best to hang out/provide services to the
aging affluent ..
Resort and college towns with rail and water access ..
Triff ..
Tucson is a college town with good rail infrastructure. Water we have to be careful with. At one time, Southern Pacific was the town's leading employer and we have a marshalling center here. We got Amtrak service west to LA and east to NOLA. Then you can catch the pacific coast liner or the Spirit of New Orleans to Chicago. The Amtrak service sucks as it does everywhere but someday it might be important.
Ah, sorry. Here it is again (the image itself should be clickable):
http://edro.wordpress.com/collapsing-cities/
The image was meant to stimulate conversation, I doubt the data itself is more than guessing.
With little information on how they have weighted their criteria, this is rather like the prospectus for the South Sea bubble:
'a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".' (Wiki)
What a load of cobblers!
(But thanks for the interesting link!)
I'm a subsistence farmer and an ecologist; I find their evidence concerning water, climate and topsoil pretty compelling.
http://edro.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/drying-aquifers-sinking-cities/
http://edro.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/topsoil/
The Nevada History books say there were about 3000 indians in the Reno, Carson, Tahoe area before they were discovered by a white guy. This large area can support 3000 after most of the million or so people leave. Where? They are all going back to California where the weather is nicer, the soil is better and the crops grow longer. Most everything important in this area is shipped in by rail and truck. There will be mass Nevada migrations in the years ahead but for different reasons than the past fifty to one hundred years.
That was one of the reasons I left the Reno/Carson City area. Donner Pass closes for three days and the stores are empty.
Notes from Rural Ontario
So I went in to my fav boookstore in the local Burg fairly late yesterday. The evening shift was on. Two teenage girls, one of them looking very glum, and the other bored. I asked if they had Demitri Orlov's new book. After some munging around they found it in the back of the store filed in political history, beside 'History of the Persian Empire'. Seemed appropriate.
Walking back up to the front, I said 'He's in favour of boondoggles'. She looked quizzical. 'Oh you know, big expense silly projects that do nothing like The Hydrogen Economy, Star Wars, Iraq, ethanol. Stuff that has to fail in some big costly way. You should put it right up front on display. It's an important book.'
We get back to the counter. The two have a short chat and the other asks "So what's it about?'
I say 'Well how to help the collapse of the US.'
She says "I'm not sure sure they need any help. They're collapsing just fine as it is."
I say ''Well Demetri thinks they could collapse so much better with a little help.'
They burst out laughing and said ''Up front it goes.'
Just so you know,
Paul
Re: Free Hydrogen.
We seemed to have learned nothing from the corn ethanol debacle. Government is OK at identifying problems, but pretty crappy at mandating solutions. I would rather see coal, oil and nat gas priced appropriately, taking into account their externalities, and then let the market find the proper energy replacement.
"Govern