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26 comments on Revisiting the barrels per rig issue

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Leanan on November 4, 2005 - 9:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Don't get too excited.  Sounds to me like it's right up there with abiotic oil, or cold fusion. There may be something there, but it's not likely to be anything earth-shaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrino

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sekiyu on November 4, 2005 - 11:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, if there was something there it should have swept the media by now, as Mills has been doing his tests for years. It doesn't look good that his patents have been pulled. We should keep an open mind about stuff like this, but that doesn't mean lobotomizing yourself.

On the other hand, maybe this is the power source for those hurricane-controlling ray guns that some posters were going on about during Wilma...

By the way, speaking of lobotomies, Japan's respected Asahi newspaper ran a story today about peak oil and concerns over Saudi output constraints. They cite the USGS survey that there's oodles of oil left, so basically cast doubt on peak assertions. Still, it's a series piece with another installment tomorrow. Maybe their frontal lobes will heal overnight.

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Leanan on November 4, 2005 - 11:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Asahi Shinbun is covering peak oil?  Interesting.  Sounds like Japan is in denial, though.  I heard some other Japanese newspaper recently did a similar story, basically dismissing peak oil.  

I wonder how Japan is going to make out.  As Jared Diamond points out in Collapse, Japan has done a lot of things right; few countries as industrialized as Japan have managed to keep almost 80% of their forest intact.  And the extremely low birth rate many Japanese politicians fret over may turn out to be a good thing in the years to come.  

But they are very oil dependent now.  Oil was the reason for WWII.  Tokyo probably won't be a fun place to be in an energy crunch.

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sekiyu on November 4, 2005 - 12:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You're right about the denial. I work in an economics faculty at a good university in Tokyo. I asked a colleague what he thought about peak oil and other oil-related stuff, and he said he found it boring.
On the other hand, now that PM Koizumi has basically picked the even crazier nationalists Abe and Aso to fight over succeeding him next year, maybe some extreme tension with China and elsewhere will make oil less boring for him and many others.
Many people here still figure pissing off the Chinese is basically cost-free, because a lot of Japanese don't grasp what's at stake and how weak their position is. In the stand-off over oil deposits in NE Asia, I should think China has the better hand in the game. The US is unlikely to step in if an Abe or Aso regime provokes a determined and unilateral move by the Chinese. The issues concerning international maritime boundaries over here are too murky to sell bodybags to the US public and the Iraq debacle is likely to make people want to stay out of stuff the isolationists (in the US) could blame on the Abe-Aso-Koizumi approach. In a real stand-off, the Japanese would almost fold first, as most people wisely would not have the stomach to risk this going to a fight. Rich countries only go to war if they're sure they can wipe the floor with the enemy. So the nationalists here dream they're holding a royal flush when in fact their so-called buddies the Bushies have merely plopped their hand in a pot of lukewarm water. Waking up is so hard to do...
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wkwillis on November 4, 2005 - 1:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
China exports coal and Japan imports coal. If China wants to screw up Japan, it just has to stop exporting coal and watch the price soar.
In military terms, though, Japan can basically shut down China's infrastructure because the Japanese technology base is so much higher. They have far more fissionable materials, too.
An all out thermonuclear war between China and Japan would not cause a nuclear winter crop failure problem if it starts now, though, because it is already winter. We would just have a much colder than usual winter and a late spring. Maybe shift our farm crops a little south.
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Leanan on November 4, 2005 - 1:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Japan would probably lose.  They are basically de-militarized.  We forced it on them after they lost WWII, and in return promised to protect them.   Some credit this as one factor behind their economic success.  They had no need to spend money on defense.  

Now, we are trying to get Japan forget the pacifist stuff and take responsibility for defending themselves.  But they know a good thing when they see one, and are resisting.

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davidsmi on November 4, 2005 - 2:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Japan is far from demilitarized. They are third in total military spending ( see http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2067rank.html ), some would argue second as they believe the US numbers for China are overstated for obvious reasons. And according to this site (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_arm_for_per) they have the 20th largest standing army. In short, it is a high tech military that goes by the name of "Self Defense Force." It is one of the best militaries in the world.

I've also read elsewhere (I'd look it up, but it makes perfect sense, so I'll leave that to doubters) that given the Japanese technological infrastructure they are probably only about six weeks away from being able to produce nuclear weapons.

Just thoughts to chew on.
David

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Leanan on November 4, 2005 - 3:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Japan spends 1% of their GDP on the military.  China spends over 4% of their GDP on the military.  (We spend about 3% of our GDP, FWIW.)

I've no doubt Japan could build nukes if they wanted to. It ain't that hard (unfortunately).  Plus, Japan made lots of weapons and sold them to all sides during past conflicts, and they launch satellites and such, so they have the expertise.  And due to their nuclear power plants, they have the materials.

But Japan was on the wrong end of nuclear weapons, the only time they were ever used.  It's been 60 years, but they're still kind of squeamish about nukes.  I don't think they'll be arming themselves with nuclear weapons any time soon.

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sekiyu on November 4, 2005 - 2:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Japan has a fairly potent military, ranking among the global top 5 in total defence budget. But countries don't go straight to a shooting war, and especially a nuclear war, without lots of steps before that. So maybe it's more realistic to think of which of the two countries, China or Japan, has the stronger capability to convince the other that it's willing to fight it out. Like America, the Chinese have fought plenty of wars over the past few decades (eg, with India and Vietnam) and so can probably sell war as an extension of politics. It's also a dictatorial regime with tight control of the media. And to top it off, the population at large has a strong sense of historical grievance against Japan.

In Japan, on the other hand, war is associated with defeat, deprivation, destruction and so on. For good reason, I might add. The threat of war would almost certainly cause a lot of today's nationalists to recalculate their positions. The hard-core nationalists would try to shout down dissent (as the Bushies did in the US), but that's hard to do in a media-saturated world.

So Japan would likely blink first. Let's hope these twits in charge here have run through the scenarios themselves, and know to avoid more pointless provocations. There are times when you have to fight, but only an amoral sleaze picks a fight and then sends other people's kids to die.

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