Another Dmitry Orlov article on life after the Soviet economic collapse.
"There is an element to American culture that never ceases to amuse me. Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. I love the new advances in organic farming, which I find fascinating and very useful, but why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology? Thousands of years of happy composting using heaps and pits are behind us: now we need bins - and plastic, oil-based ones at that!"
"Contrary to the impositions of the whiz-bang-blinded and the gadget-addled among us, living off the land is not about projects, or systems, or organizations, but about shovels and buckets and hoes, and it is not even so much about skills or techniques, as it is about habits. Yes, you too can pick up the healthy habits of growing and gathering your own food, storing it, cooking it, eating it, excreting it, and, yes, even composting the end result. The temporary bounty of fossil fuels has allowed a lot of the former peasants to live like nobles for a time - residing in mansions, moving about in carriages, and having people serve them. Once these sources of energy are depleted, many of these former peasants will be forced to revert back. They will once more have to live in huts, travel on foot, wield their ancestral scythes and sickles to provide their sustenance, and do their own chores."
Financial Sense interviewed Kunstler over the weekend. He's the author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
I've read the info here on directional drilling and also on Wikipedia. I roughnecked in West Texas for a year in the mid 70's, so I have a little knowledge of driiling.
But I don't get how directional drilling works. It sounds like from the readings that you drill straight down a bit, then slant off. If this is so, then how do you get the pipe in/out at the bend?
Or do you not drill straight down, then angle - just angle from the start?
The angle that you take off at is quite small so that you can get the pipe around the bend, and it builds (or bends around at an increasing angle) only relatively slowly. Early bend radii were very large, and even today a 20 ft radius is fairly tight (and I'll get to how they do that fairly soon). Some of the techniques for drilling curved holes are used to put pipe under river crossings. But it has been very difficult for companies to drill relatively shallow deviated holes where they start drilling at a steep angle from the start. I once was marginally involved as a company spent a lot of money trying with very limited success to get a shallow horizontal hole, with the drilling rig tilted over to begin with. Most frequently they drill down vertically for some distance and then kick off at an angle. Some of the techniques with bent subs and the like need some space to explain (and even perhaps a sketch or two), so they'll be along.
From today's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability report:
As of October 3, there are 21 natural gas processing plants, with capacities equal to or greater than 100 million cubic feet per day, in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi that are not active. Ten of these plants with a total capacity of 5.4 billion cubic feet per day are not active owing to external factors, including lack of electric power or gas supplies. Eleven of the plants are inactive because of damage to the facilities themselves. These plants have capacity of 7.7 billion cubic feet per day.
Meanwhile, the latest MMS report shows a slight improvement in shut in energy; today 92.80% oil / 74.95% gas; Friday's numbers were 97.85% oil / 79.41% NG for comparison.
And now attention turns to the next potential storm. Early days... but some tracks taking it into the GOM near the... danger zone.
Check out this guest editorial in the NY Times today Gas Lite. The author David Bodanis seems to blame America's natural gas shortfall on historical decisions dating back the Fuel Use Act of 1978 and says the NG industry collapsed in the 1980's. I'm not buying it but I'd be interested on your take on this.
Lou, thanks for the graph, very sobering, but for the ignorant among us, how much oil and natural gas is normally shut in during the course of the year and how much has been shut in during previous storms, etc? And is there a way to compare some of this to the North Sea (in other words, has the North Sea had similar events,etc.)?
Following Ivan, which had been a significant storm causing a lot of underwater damage, production by now was 2/3's restored (oil) and even more NG was restored by then.
Except for periods following an event (Ivan took quite a while to get back to normal) there is very little shut-in.
Some thoughts on total (worldwide) nuclear + fossil fuel use, which you might find useful. Virtually all of the oil & gas professionals that I give these numbers to are shocked at their magnitude.
Based on a Simmons & Company chart, I estimate that the world uses--from nuclear + fossil fuel sources--the BTU equivalent of one Gb of oil every five days (200 million barrels equivalent per day)
To put this in perspective, if we found an entire new Saudi Arabia (SA)--which won't happen--it would increase our daily nuclear + fossil fuel energy extraction rate by less than 5%.
We burn through the BTU equivalent of the East Texas Field every 30 days or so. In less than a year, we burn through the equivalent of the cumulative oil production to date of the Ghawar Field. In 500 days, we burn through the equivalent of the cumulative oil production to date from all of SA.
Those are staggering numbers. Thanks for summing them up. So how quickly can we make the equivilant energy up in wind and solar. Next year? Great, thanks for the reassurance. I feel so much better.
More solar energy intersects the earth daily than all the oil used in history to date. The problem is that this energy is so diffuse and hard to harness. Further, the energy and raw materials availability off planet are huge also. Our problem has been that of gaining access to such. It's neither cheap nor easy, but it's literally "raining soup" out there beyond the atmosphere. Our problem is that we've remained too savage, primitive and short-sighted to do anything about it. And now, as the noose tightens about our collective necks, we may never manage to do anything about it.
Someone pointed out a while back that all the known oil in the world constitutes 34 cubic miles of petroleum. But consider that the gassier moons of Jupiter or Saturn are thousands of miles in diameter and consist of primarily liquid or even solid (frozen) methane.
If we were an organized, disciplined, and forward looking species, we could have solved our energy problems but instead we are what we are and may well join the dinosaurs in nature's catalog of failed experiments. If we do, it's no one's fault but our own.
I like the way you publish price charts on the side bar. This is one of the most convenient places to come and see at a glance what is happening in the energy markets. I find myself checking them a few times a day to see what's happening. These prices are the best predictors available IMO for what retail prices will be in the next few weeks and months.
The message that comes loud and clear from these charts is that, despite the concern here with oil and gasoline, those commodities are not a problem. The market stubbornly refuses to care. Oil is about where it was pre-Katrina, and gasoline is pretty stable at about 15 cents up from where it was. Rather than a sign of stupidity of the markets, I take it as a sign that there is no major shortage of these commodities in the near future.
Natural gas is another matter. Katrina made the price jump from $10 to $12; Rita sent it up to $13; and last week it jumped again to $14. Those are high prices and the markets expect them to stay high all the way into spring.
This is where most of the media attention will probably be for the next few months. Peak Oil will not be the story, natural gas shortages will be what everyone is talking about. That's my guess, anyway.
Fortunately this is a commodity where it's pretty easy to conserve. It's not a matter of being warm vs freezing to death. People can easily turn down the thermostat a few degrees. Wear a sweater indoors or throw another blanket on the bed.
This weekly chart of Natural Gasreinforces the situation NG is in... late September is usually when prices are at lows, not highs, except for the impact from hurricanes of late, that would probably be true this and last year as well.
Prior to Oct 04, price had been in chop; sinec then, price has escaped the prior range (under 10$) and has been in an uptrend since the summer 05.
If you move to a high enough time frame - monthly or quarterly - we can properly say that rice has been in an uptrend since late summer 04.
When trends get parabolic, as it is now, often price will fail horribly and head much lower... and ultimately NG can and probably will do that, but it may fail from much higher prices (I can't even guess... but would not be surprised at anything ranging between 14 and 19$ /mmcf), and "failure" may mean price 'crashes'... to 14 again.
That won't seem like a crash to many, except for those still holding the bag at 15 or 16 or 19... for the rest of us, it will seem damn expensive, and then there's next year's storm season...
We lowered the thermostat and wore sweaters last winter and still paid up to $220/month, almost twice as high as the winter before. Last winter, NG cost $7.84/MCF + $2.40/MCF delivery charge. In our local paper, the headline this last Saturday was "Natural Gas Prices Go Up Today." The new price will be $12.92/MCF + 2.40/MCF delivery charge, just about a 50% increase from last year. But I wonder if that price will hold up.
We bought a St Croix pellet stove a few weeks ago. We took a demo model and saved a few hundred dollars. My stepson spent this last weekend putting down a slate base, while I cut a hole and installed the thimble and exhaust pipe. It looks great in the living room. If we can save $300/month, we will pay for it in seven or eight months, probably two winters. More importantly, I won't worry about coming home to find that my wife is a popsicle from turning down the gas.
I must admit that last winter I was married and my wife Would NOT let it get to cold in here.
This winter I am not married (if the lawyers and courts get those papers signed and stamped). The ex-wife lives in a much colder state, and can deal with it as she sees fit. (I wish her well). The cats will have to curl up together, the dog will thank me for having cats to curl next to. And I won't turn the heater on until I have to save the pipes from freezing. As to what I will wear, Shorts and a t-shirt like I do every winter, even with snow on the ground.
Charles, Wild Violets, the flowers are good sweet salad additions, and make a nice candied flower for the kids.
the NG problem is rolled up in the PO problem. Its part of the package, and it would seem to be the first part to manifest strongly as a problem, for good reason.
There is very little about the NG situation that is "fortunate", except maybe that an NG crisis this winter will get most minds primed for action on Peak Oil.
We are heading into an energy crisis and high energy costs in one segment will drive consumers towards alternative segments. A large increase in heating oil and natural gas prices relative to electricity will promote a shift toward the increased use of electricity. Unfortunately, a significant fraction of generation capacity is NG-based.
There are going to be many unusual stresses to the electrical grid this winter. Increased, unseasonal demand and a tight NG market will both increase the odds of brownouts and outages. Even if people obtain adequate heating oil, they will find that they need electricity to burn that oil.
Yes, compared to wood, soft, high ash coal is nasty. Lots of particulates go out the stack and much more ash settles under the grate.
For cleanliness and convenience, I have been considering conversion of wood and coal to producer gas, but pipes full of carbon monoxide make me nervous. We do have nifty CO monitors now, while people 100 years ago, when producer gas was common, did not.
I posted a note back in the thread about the UK being a counter-example to Hubbert linearisation but no one bit. I will try again.
It is to do with the success rate of exploratory drilling. Opponents to peak oil theory, especially those with a background in economics, often say that higher prices will prompt increased drilling with the assumption that this will automatically yield substantial discoveries. Proponents of peak oil point out that the success rate of exploration is dropping but often with only a hand waving indication of how much.
In the article in World Oil:- http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=2655
there is a graph, Fig 1, which shows the modest increase in the number of exploration and appraisal wells that have been dug in the UK continetal shelf and in Fig 3 shows the strong decline in the success rate of of this drilling, dropping from 43% or so for much of the 1980's to 20% in 2004.
I would be interested to know if anybody has comparable figures for other parts of the world.
If you plot oil production versus: oil prices, rig counts and the number of producing wells in Texas from 1972 to 1982, you could conclude that oil production is inversely proportional to oil prices, i.e., as oil prices, rig counts and the number of producing wells increase, oil production falls.
Of course, the problem was that the smaller fields that Texas oil companies were finding in 1972 to 1982 could not make up for the declines in the large, old fields, such as the East Texas Field.
Re: "counter-example to Hubbert linearisation but no one bit...."
I thought lots of people bit (including me). One conclusion seemed to be that the UK North Sea was not a "mature" oil province at the time the Hubbert linearization went "non linear" but now is, as your cited article appears to indicate. So it is expected that exploratory drilling gives diminishing returns.
I wish I could find the kind of data for other regions you are asking for but an (admittedly superficial) search turns up little information. I think it takes the kind of effort put in by the authors of the worldoil.com article to get that kind of information.
I'll see if I can find the original story about SA. The gist of the story was that SA was moving about $500 billion out of western countries and back to SA.
BCV has not approved movement of reserves
October 02, 2005
Being an independent organization, the international directorate of reserve affairs is an exclusive power of the Central bank of Venezuela (BCV), a power recently ratified in reforms of the charter of the BCV. After explaining this, the director of the institute, Domingo Zavala Mace, indicated that the director has not approved the retirement of Venezuelan reserves currently in treasury bonds of the United States.
Mucking about with foreign reserves is serious business; if Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or any significant country suddenly went on a withdrawal binge, it would be front page news in the financial press, and we'd see evidence of this in currency charts (there certainly has been no weakening of the USD of late, although I do expect it).
Just goes to show... one has to check up on what anyone says in public or on the Internet, even presidents of countries.. especially presidents of countries!
Clearly Chavez is interested in stirring up as much muck as he can right now.
In November 2000, Iraq started accepting Euros for oil. They are the only member of OPEC (not counting Iran yet, as while it's on its way, it hasn't happened yet) to have done so. Iraq got invaded on trumped up WMD claims. Right now, the US is trying to trump up a nuclear issue with Iran's non-weaponry nuclear plans. As "they" say, it should be an interesting year.
I'd like to invite people here to think about molecular manufacturing as a possible wild-card factor in energy supply and sustainability.
Today's tech is mostly human-scale. When we develop the ability to build machines at molecular scale, they will have several key advantages over today's machines. Far higher power density and functional density (means they use less material). Higher operating efficiency (less friction). Stronger materials (again, you need less).
For manufacturing systems, you get several advantages: Rapid prototyping, meaning it's a lot easier to develop new products. General-purpose manufacturing, meaning you can build a wide range of products with one manufaturing system.
Perhaps most importantly, fast and inexpensive construction--including construction of the manufacturing systems. A manufacturing system should be able to build products of its own weight and complexity in a few hours from cheap feedstock. (If this sounds impossible, remember that bacteria can do it.) That implies you could scale production from kilograms to megatons in a week, if you had enough feedstock prepared.
Now, if these capabilities are used to produce solar collectors and a few other energy-related technologies, our energy problems would be solved almost overnight. Think again about the ability to double manufacturing capacity in hours instead of years. Develop a solar concentrator, built a million overnight, at a cost of pennies per square meter.
Of course, if molecular manufacturing is used to produce vast quantities of unwise products, or fuels a breakneck arms race, we could face worse problems than peak oil.
I expect this to be developed within the next 10-15 years, maybe sooner. Others expect it to take a few decades. A few loud skeptics who haven't studied it claim that it's impossible. Unless the loud ignorant people are right, we should probably add it to peak oil scenario-making.
See http://crnano.org for more information. (Disclaimer: I'm co-founder and director of research of that site).
You're asking us to believe in a huge amount of progress in a very short period of time.
Right now, nanotechnology mostly consists of a few substrates with interesting properties, a few demos where IBM writes the corporate logo using atoms as pixels, and the occasional pair of gears.
That's a loooooong way from building nano-scale robotics. We're going to do great things on nano-scales, but we aren't going to be building solar cells using nanobots within fifteen years.
Nanotechnology is a science fiction technology that it more fiction than science still. Someday, maybe, but not soon enough to bring the Diamond Age about in our lifespan. It's a lot like Artificial Intelligence -- it's likely to be 10-15 years away for the next century or so.
When I first Studied AI computer programs, and the basics for some of the Nano-Scale machines WAS 10 to 15 years ago. They are just now making it out into the main stream, Bucky-Balls and all that Carbon-fiber stuff are about the same time frame.
"Rome was not built in a day" you say! Well Long before we get to the next big thing, we will have hit several big nasty pot holes in the road. China Is going to get as Much of Canadas Oil and NG as it can over the next several years, Saudi Arabia will peak and go into terminal decline. We will certainly have several nasty hurricanes in the GOM. And our DEBT ridden heavily science (fiction) answers will fail us.
Do not Count the chickens Till after you have awaken in the morning to see if the fox has not stolen a few in the dead of night.
Charles,
Large Silver Maple seeds, wings off, roasted, make a nice snack in the middle spring. can be eaten raw.
Check out a company called Nanosys. They are using self aligning molecules which are applied like ink to a flexible substrate. It promises to cut PV costs by 90%.
"You're asking us to believe in a huge amount of progress in a very short period of time."
I'm only asking you to consider the possibility. After all, Peak Oil is asking us to believe in a huge amount of change in a very short period of time.
Molecular manufacturing vs. other nanoscale technologies is like digital vs. analog electronics. Molecular manufacturing can't do much with just a few "transistors" (un-integrated nanomachines). But when it gets to the point of "integrated circuits" (nanoscale manufacturing systems) then it becomes general-purpose, and useful for a whole lot of new applications.
And it could easily develop quite a lot faster than PC's have. A PC can't build a better PC, but a nanofactory can build a better nanofactory.
It will happen. The only question is when and how fast. Many nanoscale people say it'll be a few decades out, and happen slowly, and other technology will blunt the impact. These people are speaking from a combination of politics and ignorance. The few of us who have studied it in depth say it is coming a lot sooner and faster than that, and the impact will overshadow everything else.
Earlier today I wrote a list of questions that we should be asking about proposed solutions. If these questions could be answered for the various energy-replacement technologies (including energy-transforming technologies like GTL and CTL and (ugh) hydrogen), then we would be well on our way to understanding what level of oil decline we could cope with without going into a crash.
What does it cost, in terms of money, oil/gas, non-agricultural land, and agricultural land, to set up?
Once it's running, what does it require, in terms of labor, oil/gas, other forms of energy, and other costs, to produce a certain amount of energy in usable form?
Can it produce transportation fuels?
How far up does it scale: How much energy is available from this source?
How far down does it scale: Can it be installed a bit at a time, or does it require large infrastructure investment?
How much development (time) will it take to become ready for large-scale investment?
How long does it take to install capacity? (Perhaps permitting time and funding delay should be included in this.)
What does it do to atmospheric CO2?
Does it have any other significant environmental benefits or problems?
Does it require "pre-crash" resources to build and maintain?
Is it a political favorite, or could it be made one? Conversely, will it be politically opposed? (Recognizing that politics includes many different interest groups.)
"There is an element to American culture that never ceases to amuse me. Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. I love the new advances in organic farming, which I find fascinating and very useful, but why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology? Thousands of years of happy composting using heaps and pits are behind us: now we need bins - and plastic, oil-based ones at that!"
"Contrary to the impositions of the whiz-bang-blinded and the gadget-addled among us, living off the land is not about projects, or systems, or organizations, but about shovels and buckets and hoes, and it is not even so much about skills or techniques, as it is about habits. Yes, you too can pick up the healthy habits of growing and gathering your own food, storing it, cooking it, eating it, excreting it, and, yes, even composting the end result. The temporary bounty of fossil fuels has allowed a lot of the former peasants to live like nobles for a time - residing in mansions, moving about in carriages, and having people serve them. Once these sources of energy are depleted, many of these former peasants will be forced to revert back. They will once more have to live in huts, travel on foot, wield their ancestral scythes and sickles to provide their sustenance, and do their own chores."
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/LATOC/OurVillage.html
http://www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/Kuntsler.html
Link goes to transcription, but there's a link on page goes to audio.
I've read the info here on directional drilling and also on Wikipedia. I roughnecked in West Texas for a year in the mid 70's, so I have a little knowledge of driiling.
But I don't get how directional drilling works. It sounds like from the readings that you drill straight down a bit, then slant off. If this is so, then how do you get the pipe in/out at the bend?
Or do you not drill straight down, then angle - just angle from the start?
As of October 3, there are 21 natural gas processing plants, with capacities equal to or greater than 100 million cubic feet per day, in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi that are not active. Ten of these plants with a total capacity of 5.4 billion cubic feet per day are not active owing to external factors, including lack of electric power or gas supplies. Eleven of the plants are inactive because of damage to the facilities themselves. These plants have capacity of 7.7 billion cubic feet per day.
Meanwhile, the latest MMS report shows a slight improvement in shut in energy; today 92.80% oil / 74.95% gas; Friday's numbers were 97.85% oil / 79.41% NG for comparison.
And now attention turns to the next potential storm. Early days... but some tracks taking it into the GOM near the... danger zone.
http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/atlantic/early1.png
Latest Tropical Weather Outlook:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWOAT+shtml/032112.shtml
http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/atlantic/ and then select the early[0-9].png file that is posted.
http://euler.atmos.colostate.edu/~vigh/guidance/index.htm
The images "disappear" from time to time, while they are being updated, or perhaps its because of the phase of the moon...
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/graphics/shutin_10x3.jpg
Check out this guest editorial in the NY Times today Gas Lite. The author David Bodanis seems to blame America's natural gas shortfall on historical decisions dating back the Fuel Use Act of 1978 and says the NG industry collapsed in the 1980's. I'm not buying it but I'd be interested on your take on this.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/special/eia1_katrina.html
Following Ivan, which had been a significant storm causing a lot of underwater damage, production by now was 2/3's restored (oil) and even more NG was restored by then.
Except for periods following an event (Ivan took quite a while to get back to normal) there is very little shut-in.
Based on a Simmons & Company chart, I estimate that the world uses--from nuclear + fossil fuel sources--the BTU equivalent of one Gb of oil every five days (200 million barrels equivalent per day)
To put this in perspective, if we found an entire new Saudi Arabia (SA)--which won't happen--it would increase our daily nuclear + fossil fuel energy extraction rate by less than 5%.
We burn through the BTU equivalent of the East Texas Field every 30 days or so. In less than a year, we burn through the equivalent of the cumulative oil production to date of the Ghawar Field. In 500 days, we burn through the equivalent of the cumulative oil production to date from all of SA.
Someone pointed out a while back that all the known oil in the world constitutes 34 cubic miles of petroleum. But consider that the gassier moons of Jupiter or Saturn are thousands of miles in diameter and consist of primarily liquid or even solid (frozen) methane.
If we were an organized, disciplined, and forward looking species, we could have solved our energy problems but instead we are what we are and may well join the dinosaurs in nature's catalog of failed experiments. If we do, it's no one's fault but our own.
The message that comes loud and clear from these charts is that, despite the concern here with oil and gasoline, those commodities are not a problem. The market stubbornly refuses to care. Oil is about where it was pre-Katrina, and gasoline is pretty stable at about 15 cents up from where it was. Rather than a sign of stupidity of the markets, I take it as a sign that there is no major shortage of these commodities in the near future.
Natural gas is another matter. Katrina made the price jump from $10 to $12; Rita sent it up to $13; and last week it jumped again to $14. Those are high prices and the markets expect them to stay high all the way into spring.
This is where most of the media attention will probably be for the next few months. Peak Oil will not be the story, natural gas shortages will be what everyone is talking about. That's my guess, anyway.
Fortunately this is a commodity where it's pretty easy to conserve. It's not a matter of being warm vs freezing to death. People can easily turn down the thermostat a few degrees. Wear a sweater indoors or throw another blanket on the bed.
I'll second that on NG. What about when home heating oil gears up? What about the GOMEX oil shut-ins? Not worried?
Prior to Oct 04, price had been in chop; sinec then, price has escaped the prior range (under 10$) and has been in an uptrend since the summer 05.
If you move to a high enough time frame - monthly or quarterly - we can properly say that rice has been in an uptrend since late summer 04.
When trends get parabolic, as it is now, often price will fail horribly and head much lower... and ultimately NG can and probably will do that, but it may fail from much higher prices (I can't even guess... but would not be surprised at anything ranging between 14 and 19$ /mmcf), and "failure" may mean price 'crashes'... to 14 again.
That won't seem like a crash to many, except for those still holding the bag at 15 or 16 or 19... for the rest of us, it will seem damn expensive, and then there's next year's storm season...
We bought a St Croix pellet stove a few weeks ago. We took a demo model and saved a few hundred dollars. My stepson spent this last weekend putting down a slate base, while I cut a hole and installed the thimble and exhaust pipe. It looks great in the living room. If we can save $300/month, we will pay for it in seven or eight months, probably two winters. More importantly, I won't worry about coming home to find that my wife is a popsicle from turning down the gas.
This winter I am not married (if the lawyers and courts get those papers signed and stamped). The ex-wife lives in a much colder state, and can deal with it as she sees fit. (I wish her well). The cats will have to curl up together, the dog will thank me for having cats to curl next to. And I won't turn the heater on until I have to save the pipes from freezing. As to what I will wear, Shorts and a t-shirt like I do every winter, even with snow on the ground.
Charles, Wild Violets, the flowers are good sweet salad additions, and make a nice candied flower for the kids.
We are heading into an energy crisis and high energy costs in one segment will drive consumers towards alternative segments. A large increase in heating oil and natural gas prices relative to electricity will promote a shift toward the increased use of electricity. Unfortunately, a significant fraction of generation capacity is NG-based.
There are going to be many unusual stresses to the electrical grid this winter. Increased, unseasonal demand and a tight NG market will both increase the odds of brownouts and outages. Even if people obtain adequate heating oil, they will find that they need electricity to burn that oil.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.environment/browse_frm/thread/ab73b124e42d469a/da9af4c4b104e45b?l nk=st&q=&rnum=7&hl=en#da9af4c4b104e45b
For cleanliness and convenience, I have been considering conversion of wood and coal to producer gas, but pipes full of carbon monoxide make me nervous. We do have nifty CO monitors now, while people 100 years ago, when producer gas was common, did not.
It is to do with the success rate of exploratory drilling. Opponents to peak oil theory, especially those with a background in economics, often say that higher prices will prompt increased drilling with the assumption that this will automatically yield substantial discoveries. Proponents of peak oil point out that the success rate of exploration is dropping but often with only a hand waving indication of how much.
In the article in World Oil:-
http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=2655
there is a graph, Fig 1, which shows the modest increase in the number of exploration and appraisal wells that have been dug in the UK continetal shelf and in Fig 3 shows the strong decline in the success rate of of this drilling, dropping from 43% or so for much of the 1980's to 20% in 2004.
I would be interested to know if anybody has comparable figures for other parts of the world.
Of course, the problem was that the smaller fields that Texas oil companies were finding in 1972 to 1982 could not make up for the declines in the large, old fields, such as the East Texas Field.
I thought lots of people bit (including me). One conclusion seemed to be that the UK North Sea was not a "mature" oil province at the time the Hubbert linearization went "non linear" but now is, as your cited article appears to indicate. So it is expected that exploratory drilling gives diminishing returns.
I wish I could find the kind of data for other regions you are asking for but an (admittedly superficial) search turns up little information. I think it takes the kind of effort put in by the authors of the worldoil.com article to get that kind of information.
Venezuela is pulling their money out of the U.S.; this follows a similar move by Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago.
I wonder what they know, that most Americans don't know--at least not yet.
Do you have a link?
Venezuela pulling its cash out of the US is going to be small potatoes compared to Saudi Arabia... I'm surprised I can find nothing readily on this.
http://www.eluniversal.com/2005/10/02/eco_art_02204C.shtml
en anglais:
Mucking about with foreign reserves is serious business; if Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or any significant country suddenly went on a withdrawal binge, it would be front page news in the financial press, and we'd see evidence of this in currency charts (there certainly has been no weakening of the USD of late, although I do expect it).
Just goes to show... one has to check up on what anyone says in public or on the Internet, even presidents of countries.. especially presidents of countries!
Clearly Chavez is interested in stirring up as much muck as he can right now.
Today's tech is mostly human-scale. When we develop the ability to build machines at molecular scale, they will have several key advantages over today's machines. Far higher power density and functional density (means they use less material). Higher operating efficiency (less friction). Stronger materials (again, you need less).
For manufacturing systems, you get several advantages: Rapid prototyping, meaning it's a lot easier to develop new products. General-purpose manufacturing, meaning you can build a wide range of products with one manufaturing system.
Perhaps most importantly, fast and inexpensive construction--including construction of the manufacturing systems. A manufacturing system should be able to build products of its own weight and complexity in a few hours from cheap feedstock. (If this sounds impossible, remember that bacteria can do it.) That implies you could scale production from kilograms to megatons in a week, if you had enough feedstock prepared.
Now, if these capabilities are used to produce solar collectors and a few other energy-related technologies, our energy problems would be solved almost overnight. Think again about the ability to double manufacturing capacity in hours instead of years. Develop a solar concentrator, built a million overnight, at a cost of pennies per square meter.
Of course, if molecular manufacturing is used to produce vast quantities of unwise products, or fuels a breakneck arms race, we could face worse problems than peak oil.
I expect this to be developed within the next 10-15 years, maybe sooner. Others expect it to take a few decades. A few loud skeptics who haven't studied it claim that it's impossible. Unless the loud ignorant people are right, we should probably add it to peak oil scenario-making.
See http://crnano.org for more information. (Disclaimer: I'm co-founder and director of research of that site).
Chris
Right now, nanotechnology mostly consists of a few substrates with interesting properties, a few demos where IBM writes the corporate logo using atoms as pixels, and the occasional pair of gears.
That's a loooooong way from building nano-scale robotics. We're going to do great things on nano-scales, but we aren't going to be building solar cells using nanobots within fifteen years.
Nanotechnology is a science fiction technology that it more fiction than science still. Someday, maybe, but not soon enough to bring the Diamond Age about in our lifespan. It's a lot like Artificial Intelligence -- it's likely to be 10-15 years away for the next century or so.
"Rome was not built in a day" you say! Well Long before we get to the next big thing, we will have hit several big nasty pot holes in the road. China Is going to get as Much of Canadas Oil and NG as it can over the next several years, Saudi Arabia will peak and go into terminal decline. We will certainly have several nasty hurricanes in the GOM. And our DEBT ridden heavily science (fiction) answers will fail us.
Do not Count the chickens Till after you have awaken in the morning to see if the fox has not stolen a few in the dead of night.
Charles,
Large Silver Maple seeds, wings off, roasted, make a nice snack in the middle spring. can be eaten raw.
I'm only asking you to consider the possibility. After all, Peak Oil is asking us to believe in a huge amount of change in a very short period of time.
Molecular manufacturing vs. other nanoscale technologies is like digital vs. analog electronics. Molecular manufacturing can't do much with just a few "transistors" (un-integrated nanomachines). But when it gets to the point of "integrated circuits" (nanoscale manufacturing systems) then it becomes general-purpose, and useful for a whole lot of new applications.
And it could easily develop quite a lot faster than PC's have. A PC can't build a better PC, but a nanofactory can build a better nanofactory.
It will happen. The only question is when and how fast. Many nanoscale people say it'll be a few decades out, and happen slowly, and other technology will blunt the impact. These people are speaking from a combination of politics and ignorance. The few of us who have studied it in depth say it is coming a lot sooner and faster than that, and the impact will overshadow everything else.
Sound familiar?
What does it cost, in terms of money, oil/gas, non-agricultural land, and agricultural land, to set up?
Once it's running, what does it require, in terms of labor, oil/gas, other forms of energy, and other costs, to produce a certain amount of energy in usable form?
Can it produce transportation fuels?
How far up does it scale: How much energy is available from this source?
How far down does it scale: Can it be installed a bit at a time, or does it require large infrastructure investment?
How much development (time) will it take to become ready for large-scale investment?
How long does it take to install capacity? (Perhaps permitting time and funding delay should be included in this.)
What does it do to atmospheric CO2?
Does it have any other significant environmental benefits or problems?
Does it require "pre-crash" resources to build and maintain?
Is it a political favorite, or could it be made one? Conversely, will it be politically opposed? (Recognizing that politics includes many different interest groups.)
(I posted an earlier version of this at the end