The Oil Drum | The Wednesday Open Thread

The Wednesday Open Thread

Posted by Heading Out on December 7, 2005 - 10:43am
Topic: Miscellaneous

This floor is yours.

71 comments on The Wednesday Open Thread

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MikeCapone on December 7, 2005 - 10:52am

More or less off-topic, but Hyundai introduced its Accent hybrid. Could be the first hybrid below $15k. Hopefully it'll be really really popular.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/hyundai_unveils.php

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Twilight on December 8, 2005 - 3:00pm

Thanks for the tip - I've owned an Accent since 1999, and I love it. If they can keep the price around $15k, that would be fantastic. I probably won't be able to justify trading my '99 in on one, but I'll want to! Hyundai is very aggressive and are making all the right moves. When you consider what they are accomplishing, compared to GM or Ford, it's really makes the domestics look pathetic. At least you can go to GM and get a Hummer. ;-)

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Donal on December 8, 2005 - 4:01pm

According to Green Car Congress:

The (Accent) design is a mild hybrid--the motor assists the engine, supports regenerative braking, and handles idle/stop functions, but is not capable of powering the vehicle in electric mode alone.

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Twilight on December 8, 2005 - 4:59pm

Yes, I read it. It's like the Honda in that regard. But the Prius is not seriously different. The design of the mechanism is different, and it can run on electric alone - but not far enough to matter. All of the designs use gasoline as their primary fuel source - the design goal was a very efficient gasoline powered car, and the entire design is optimized for that. A vehicle that was designed to be a plug in hybrid would end up rather different in design. At a minimum, the battery, charging, and electric motor portion would need to be beefed up. If the performance of the gas engine were retained, that would mean that it would simply be more expensive and heavier, as you would only be adding to what is there.

A plug in hybrid might work better as a series hybrid. It would be essentially an electric vehicle with an on-board generator with sufficient capacity to allow it to cruise indefinitely on gasoline - perhaps with reduced performance, but it does not take all that much power to cruise on the highway at a reasonable speed. It will take quite a bit of development time to produce one.

Whatever happened to flywheel storage? I always thought that sounded like a really good solution.

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Oil CEO on December 7, 2005 - 10:56am

Webcast of Peak Oil hearings in the house
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/12072005hearing1733/hearing.htm

THIS IS ON RIGHT NOW 10AM EST

!!!!!!!!!!!

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 12:04pm

Thanks Oil CEO

Listening to some back-dated parts now
CERA: Saudi oil will "moderate" by 2015 ...
11/mbd increase in liquids by 2008 ...
eventual peak = undulating plateau, no rapid decline..
risks for 2010 peak are above ground ones rather than geological ones ... (but if "unexpected extreme decline" in ME then loss of 25/mbd might happen ....

Dr. Hirsch coming in next ...

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 12:12pm

Congressman X:
... economic conversion of coal to oil
... is it a viable source other than in S. Africa?
... viability of NG to gasoline conversion questionable
... oil sands from Canada, is it a potential alternate?
... oil shale
... hydrogen fuel cells ? is it realistic?

Dresser:
... coal is after 2020 ... co.s have chosen to focus on other areas ... oil sands in Canada is the most intense oil play in the world now ... 2015 to 2020 expect 40 mbd (?) ... company R&D is intense & will overcome EROI concerns for oil sands ... LNG will come from Qatar ... Iran will export LNG ... gas t liquid is relate to "stranded gas" ... can't get it to market

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 12:17pm

Esser cont'd: Oil shale is too far out in future

Hirsch?: on hydrogen ... tech feasible but not economic .. fuel cell needs breakthru's .. on board storage needs break thru's ... don't bet on it ... coal 2 liquids makes excellent sense & can be done w existing tech, Miter tech can do at $35/b

Acker: 30 billion b per year is huge, that is big problem, no more big field ... tar sands will only give 3 billion, EROI bad ... use nukes to heat up tar sends

Congessmn Sullivan: more than I can understand ... what are national labs doing ? ... like an asteroid hitting US ...

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PhilRelig on December 7, 2005 - 12:25pm

Thanks for the timely stenography, Step Back. Based on Congressman Sullivan's comment, and also on the fact that these hearings are even being held at all, it would seem that the Peak Oil Caucus seems to be having success in raising awareness among members of the legislative branch rather rapidly.

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 12:31pm

Dr. X (european accent): ... tech improvement made North Slope declines 10% per year ... so tech is not saving the day ... just faster decline .. E Texas still declining ... US must conserve, must use less just like us Europeans doing ...

Dr. Y: must be a world-wide will to address the problem ...

Congresswoman: distane to supermarket is longer in USA

Congssman Allen: ... challenge is not the "date" of peak so much but ... price ... it will be too late then to take action even as undualting plateus in 2020 (per CERA) that is ascary date ... too soon for speed at which this Congress reacts ... expect a dramatic rise in price ... US economy can't handle price rise ....

CERA guy: undulating plateua will not stop dramatic rise in price ... once mkt realizes we are on the plateu ... Saudi will not give us more that 14 mbd increase ,they say 12 mbd increase

spkr Z: othe analyst from CERA used different decline rates, this other analyst come to conclude we have problem cause decline rates higher ... we lack good data

cg man: how is US auto industry doing? ... our MBA's look only 6 months forward ... Japan engineers look long term ... Japan has hybrid mkt ... I'm disappointed that US auto private sector did not respond to challenge

europe dr. X: Sweden volvo has PO in their mind ...

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Oil CEO on December 7, 2005 - 1:10pm

I tried to record this, but only got last half hour, since I was trying to get stream-recorder working while listening to the first two hours.

Some thoughts. Hirsch's point about RISK is very important. Thank God there is one rep, Bartlett who has a clue. The Chairman, Barton(?) seems clueless. Esser from CERA seems to concur that, yes, we have a problem. Esser says CERA doesn't bet at all on Saudi above 14mbpd. Excellent stuff from the Swedish guy. This was really some excellent public discussion at a very high level.

If anybody can find a link to the whole thing in Realplayer/WMA, please post. And a super thank you to whovever put the original post on yesterday. I think that was you, step back, wasn't it?

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ericy on December 7, 2005 - 1:17pm

I was listening at the end after the hearing had adjourned. The CERA guy was talking to someone else next to an open mike, and was talking about having worked at Mobil (or was it Exxon) prior to the merger with Exxon, and then having gone on to CERA. I think he said he started out as a geologist. It was hard to tell - they weren't standing close enough to the mike.

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ericy on December 7, 2005 - 1:25pm

In the past Barton has made particularly inane comments regarding global warming. I cannot find a quote online, but it was to the effect that he would fight with every means available any attempt to treat carbon as a pollutant.

Barton also was trying to intimidate scientists studying global warming with an anal-probe type of financial investigation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071701056.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072102186.html

Barton's letters to the scientists had a peremptory, when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife tone. Mann was told that within less than three weeks, he must list "all financial support you have received related to your research," provide "the location of all data archives relating to each published study for which you were an author," "provide all agreements relating to . . . underlying grants or funding," and deliver similarly detailed information in five other categories.
The scientists' offense was that they had authored a controversial study that reported a sharp rise in global temperatures during the 20th century, based on an analysis of tree rings, glacial ice and coral layers. The study was an important source for a 2001 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that argued the 1990s had been the hottest decade in 1,000 years. A graph summarizing the sharp upturn last century after hundreds of years of flat temperatures became known as the "hockey stick," and it has been derided ever since by skeptics.

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astronomer1 on December 7, 2005 - 3:18pm

This is a very important issue. The work of Mann et al on the so-called hockey stick (a diagram which showed a fairly flat temperature for the Earth from about 1000 AD to the end of the 19th century and a strong increase in the 20th century) was publicised very strongly by the IPCC. It's a very convincing diagram with the only problem (for the IPCC) being that it is wrong. Two Canadian researchers, McIntyre & McKitrick pointed to flaws in it in a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, a prestigious journal. The AGU, published of GRL, termed critical this paper as a Journal Highlght. Other scientists have supported the Canadians. The basic point of the Canadians is that Mann's computer programs will always find a hockey stick, even if the data are random noise.
When the Canadians asked Mann et al for for the computer programs and data he used for the paper, he refused to give it to them. This is against scientific ethics, particularly in view of the enormous amount of money being spent on "global warming". Because Mann et al's research funds came from the Federal Government and because Congressman Bartlett chairs an energy subcommittee, the Congressman requested that Mann and some other researchers supply their data to people who asked for it. Details of this can be found on the web site climateaudit.org. I believe that Mann et al have supplied some of their data but not all.
The Mann data look strange to me because they do not show the Medieval warm period (a time when the Vikings lived on Greenland for many years) and the Little Ice Age, a period when extreme cold in Englad, Europe and North America meant that crop yields were very poor. It is indisputable that these unusual events occurred.
There are also problems with the warming of the earth's atmosphere due to CO2 emissions. The bulk of the warming is caused by water vapor and, at the present time, not all of the details of the spectrum of water vapor have been calculated.

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dp1 on December 7, 2005 - 4:59pm

Actually, the climate scientist consensus is that McIntyre & McKitrick's "rebuttal" paper was itself flawed, at least in the way it stated its conclusions. See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=121 for instance. The infamous "hockey stick" paper is by no means a conclusive bit of data on its own, but it was certainly not substantially weakened by McIntyre & Moore.

More importantly, the IPCC report of course doesn't rely on one little paper to make its point. Like any heavily studied scientific problem it's a tapestry of many, many independent arguments and contributions, just one of which is the Mann et al paper (whose results have of course been improved upon, but little changed in character, in the 7 years since then).

In that sense the whole hockey stick argument is really a tempest in a teapot. and the congressional probe of Mann really was silly and pointless (if symbolic) political grandstanding.

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markincalgary on December 7, 2005 - 5:12pm

The climate change analog of TOD is realclimate.org. It's easier to keep on top of compared to TOD, so I'd recommend it to anybody interested in the topic.

650 thousand years of data shows a pretty strong correlation between CO2 and climate. I'm not saying that water vapour isn't important, but it could be a symptom rather than a problem.

You won't get much argument from me about Mann et al's work, but it isn't exactly standing in a corner all by itself. There is an already large and quickly growing body of peer-reviewed literature that supports human-compounded climate change.

There's been some pretty serious criticism of McIntyre & McKitrick's work as well. This debate has been going back and forth for quite some time now. But it's important to put it in context: These guys are arguing about details of their simulations while Siberia is melting. Faced with that fact, I don't much care about the details of the effect of different PC normalizations used in the simulations.

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StigDK on December 7, 2005 - 6:25pm

If you don't like the temperature "hockey stick", what do you think of the CO2 "hockey stick"?

Personally, I find it alarming! We have already passed 380 ppm, rising by nearly 2 ppm/year. Looking back as long as the ice-cores go (800.000 years?), the CO2 concentration has never before been above 300 ppm.

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Stuart Staniford on December 8, 2005 - 4:22am

This is largely flat wrong, or true-but-misleading. If you are actually interested in the truth, rather than just propagating industry disinformation without regard for the facts, please read the thorough discussion of the Hockey Stick here and here. At this point, it's extremely well established science that recent decades are the warmest in a very long time. If in the slightest doubt, visit your nearest glacier. Check here for some comparative pictures.

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astronomer1 on December 8, 2005 - 9:18am

As a professional scientist, I am interested in the truth, which is why I posted my comments. I have not read any industry web sites on the issue of global warming. Staniford, why do you say that I am propagating industry disinformation?
How can you possibly believe the hockey stick when:
(a) Mann refuses to supply all of the "data" and programs he used;
(b) The hockey stick does not show that the climate was warmer when the Vikings were living in Greenland? Do you think they were never there?;
(c) the hockey stick does not show the very cold period in the Middle Ages, when crops were failing in Europe and North America.
The Web site realclimate.org does not post the arguments of its critics. Climateaudit.org does. You will learn much more from the latter site than the former.
Two distinguished econcomists, Ian Castles and David Henderson have made strong criticisms of the IPCC's economic arguments. If you Google Ian Castles you can, and should, read these arguments. Or you can read them at climateaudit.
Fred Singer is a good scientist with strong views on "global warming". Read his site. sepp.org, and you'll learn that Blair has stopped Britain's "global warming" initiatives.

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Oil CEO on December 8, 2005 - 12:25pm

As for Singer, he has been unable to publish anything in the peer-reviewed literature in the laqst 20 years except for one technical comment.
Singer's recklessness transcends his deeply flawed scientific pronouncements. It involves at least one public lie about his own funding. In early 2001, Singer was accused of having his work funded by the oil industry. In response, Singer wrote a letter to the Washington Post that he had not received any oil industry money for at least twenty years - when he had done a consulting job for the industry.
In fact, Singer received at least $10,000 and as much as $75,000 from ExxonMobil in 1998 alone, according to information on the oil giant's own website. (Shortly after that information was published in the Nation, ExxonMobil withdrew the page from its website.)
-Ross Gelbspan, Boiling Point, 2004, page 53

(more on Fred Singer on pgs 51 and 52.)
Gelbspan is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

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tom deplume on December 8, 2005 - 12:48pm

The burning of fossil fuels releases fossil hydrogen as well as fossil carbon. Hydrogen combines with oxygen to make water while carbon combines with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. Is there any way of knowing how much water vapor existed thousands of years ago. BTW 50% humidity at 20C is only 10ppm.

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Liz on December 7, 2005 - 1:22pm

Dr. X is Aleklett. To expand on step back's shorthand a little, Speaker Z above was comparing CERA's est. peak date to Chris Skrebowski's (sp?), emphasizing that they were using essentially the same data but coming up with vastly different results because of, primarily, the decline rate(s) assumed.

I tuned in late, after the presentations but during the questioning, and I agree that this appears to be very significant. The committee members displayed a strong level of interest and concern. They kept asking, you're telling us we have this huge problem but what should we be doing? The point was made repeatedly that what is important is not what the peak date is but that we need to start preparing now, with conservation and efficiency (stressed by Aleklett as the first line of defense), and investment in all kinds of alternatives; the big problem is the political will. I didn't have the visuals so couldn't tell who was speaking other than Aleklett, but it sounded like the committee members were mostly getting the point. They got that if we wait till there is a crisis - which is what will get the public's attention - we are in big trouble. I look forward to reading the transcripts which were posted yesterday as being at http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/house05ch109.html

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Liz on December 7, 2005 - 1:53pm

Aleklett also warned of the threat to the climate if the response to peak is to burn lots of coal. He also said there was not enough oil and gas in the ground to threaten the climate, which I question. Some other panelist said the science behind global warming was coming in stronger every day, and no one questioned him.

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Essex Land Rover Man on December 8, 2005 - 7:45am

I remember reading a pdf document which European scientists were trying to gauge the effect of Global Warming. Aleklett's total's of oil and gas consumed were below the levels needed to threaten the climate. If you use USGS's totals of oil and gas extraction, then those totals will threaten the climate. Aleklett and the European scientists assumes that no coal will be burnt every year from now, which is of course not feasible. It is coal's additional CO2 contribution which changes Aleklett and the European scientists' calculations from not threatening the climate to overwhelming it.

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 3:11pm

Like everyone else, I only got a piece of it --and had to do life's other chores: walk the dog, go to work, ...

But here are some follow up links:

Kjell Aleklett summarizes and welcomes questions at:
http://www.peakoil.net/TheHouse.html

Bush thanks Bartlett:
http://www.postcarbon.org/node/1692

Post Carbon announcement
http://www.postcarbon.org/node/1687

CNN on the money:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/07/markets/peak_oil/

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/07/markets/oil/

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Joseph Palmer on December 7, 2005 - 1:11pm

My question for Mr. Robert Esser would hve been:

"You've told us about your field by field database, and the predictions you've talked about here include non-conventional sources. Since you have all of that data, has CERA done any projections using just the conventional oil resources in your database, and if so, what date did you find for the peak, and if you have not yet performed those calculations, why not"?

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Francois on December 7, 2005 - 11:07am

Here is the answer to peak oil.....

ExxonMobil Rolls out New Breakfast Sandwich Line at On the Run Stores; ''On the Run Cafe Breakfast Sandwiches''
Business Wire - December 07, 2005 10:00

FAIRFAX, Va., Dec 07, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ExxonMobil has introduced a new line of proprietary gourmet breakfast sandwiches at its 680-plus On the Run(R) convenience stores in the U.S. The new sandwiches are presented under the brand name On the Run Cafe(R). The five sandwiches include Sausage, Egg and Cheese Biscuit; Ham, Egg and Cheese Croissant; Bacon, Egg and Cheese English Muffin; Sausage, Egg and Cheese Bagel; and Sausage Biscuit.

"This new high-quality, gourmet breakfast food line is consistent with the underlying goal of our entire On the Run offering," said Mike Gore, U.S. convenience retail manager, ExxonMobil Fuels Marketing. "On the Run is built around fast service and fresh quality products in a friendly atmosphere. That's something our customers expect, and something we work to deliver every day."

The sandwiches are made with a premium mild white-cheddar cheese; an extra-thick smoky bacon round; a higher-profile egg; and a premium sausage patty that has a flavor unique to the On the Run Cafe brand.

The new On the Run Cafe Sausage, Egg and Cheese Biscuit breakfast sandwich was recently named "Best New Product of 2005" in the Packaged Grab 'n' Go Food Category by CSP magazine.

On the Run convenience stores offer a wide range of brand-name products and food offerings, including its own proprietary Bengal Traders gourmet coffee and teas. Most sites have state-of-the-art car washes, inside ATMs, as well as ample store-side parking and clean, indoor restrooms.

Each On the Run store accepts Speedpass(TM), the cashless payment system that is linked to a customer's existing credit or check card, helping get customers in and out quickly and conveniently. Speedpass can be used both at the pump to buy gas and inside the On the Run store.

Information about On the Run stores, including a store locator, can be found at www.ontherun.com.

ExxonMobil, On the Run, On the Run Cafe, Speedpass and Bengal Traders are trademarks of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)or one of its subsidiaries.

SOURCE: Exxon Mobil Corporation

ExxonMobil
Media Line, 703-846-4467

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joule on December 7, 2005 - 1:18pm

Well, it sure looks like Exxon/Mobil is putting its R&D money to good use!

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GreyZone on December 7, 2005 - 11:49am

"XTO Energy reports the addition of price hedges for future sales of natural gas and oil production in 2006. The hedge volumes for natural gas include 200 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d) at a NYMEX price of $14.08 per Mcf for the first quarter and 250 Mmcf/d at a NYMEX price of $11.19 per Mcf for all of 2006. Hedge volumes for oil production include 15,000 barrels per day (BOPD) at a NYMEX price of $59.53 per barrel for all of 2006."

Apparently XTO finds the current pricing good enough for their tastes. Anyone buying into the hedge has guaranteed XTO revenue while guaranteeing themselves to avoid any price volatility in 2006. It would be interesting to see how fast their daily allocations are bought up, which would tell us more about what businesses are expecting about future energy prices.

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 11:51am

Couple of business stories of interest:

Ford seen cutting up to 30,000 jobs

Report: Restructuring could close up to 10 plants, cutting far deeper than earlier reports.

The petro-euro cometh

Oil has always been bought with dollars, but with two-thirds of Russia's oil and gas exports going to the EU, the first euro deals are imminent.

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 12:16pm

CERA changes its tune

An energy consultant warned Tuesday that "sudden extremely cold weather" could cause power outages in New England this winter.

The warning from Cambridge Energy Research Associates is based on forecasts of electricity demand, or load, made by the region's grid monitoring agency and the possibility that New England power generators may not be able to secure enough natural gas to run their plants.

And they used to be so optimistic...

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Oil CEO on December 7, 2005 - 1:24pm

CERA is really changing their tune. You should have heard Esser this morning in front of House Energy and Commerce Committee. Yergin will be joining Deffeyes' "Cornucopian Cemetery" before we know it.

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html
(see bottom of page on this link)

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ericy on December 7, 2005 - 1:28pm

It didn't sound like much of a change in tune to me. He was predicting a peak in the year 2030 or some such.

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Oil CEO on December 7, 2005 - 1:31pm

Did you notice he changed their prediction of 16mbpd added capacity by 2010 to 15? Every little bit counts.

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 1:36pm

Then again, maybe not:

CERA: Oil supplies won't run out soon

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sneakpeak on December 7, 2005 - 12:38pm

Al-Qaida Deputy Urges Oil-Plant Attacks

just got this off of yahoo, heres the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051207/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_qaida

great. looks like it's gonna get a litter colder here in the U S of A.

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TJ on December 7, 2005 - 1:56pm

Hard to figure why they've waited so long as it is. A couple of RPGs in the right places and any refinery is down for months. Maybe another indication that the Middle East has actually peaked and the bad guys know there's no replacement for anything they destroy.

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TJ on December 7, 2005 - 1:13pm

More good news:

especially the part about the southern fields being damaged.

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Stuart Staniford on December 8, 2005 - 4:30am

I found this quote very interesting from the Financial Times (which is basically the UK analogue of the Wall St Journal):

With few - or perhaps even no - large oilfields left to find, the world needs Iraq's oil more now than it did two years ago.

Sounds like a pretty pessimistic, peak-oily thing to write...

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shez on December 8, 2005 - 11:20pm

The UK is looking down the nose of an early peak oil and gas crisis due to North Sea decline and the lack of adequate import and storage infrastructure for gas especially.

See for instance this article on the gas crisis from the scottish Energy magazine (produced in Aberdeen - UK equivalent of Houston):
http://adserver1.harvestadsdepot.com/nscotland/ss/039425/001/001.shtml#

This probably makes the whole peak oil think seem a lot more real from the UK POV.

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dex3703 on December 7, 2005 - 1:34pm

Gas in Seattle is now down to 2.17 in some places. WTF?
Does anyone have any ideas why the stock market is booming ahead? None of the underlying fundamentals have changed or at all improved. Is it the big pump and dump before the new year, as some more conspiracy-minded think?

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Francois on December 7, 2005 - 2:40pm

Google "Plunge Protection Team"

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patents on December 7, 2005 - 6:23pm

I believe that it is not technically the PPT. Nevertheless, it is the Fed pumping money into the markets through the gang of 22 primary dealers that are also the major program traders. Another technique the Fed uses is an individual (natural person or business) can loan their portfolio to the Fed thereby getting the "loan proceeds." I would imagine that they can then put the proceeds in their margin accounts and buy more. They can then loan the new portfolio again, getting more money and continuing the cycle. I would imagine that there is some sort of outright sale restriction on the securities in the loan portfolio, but according to Goldman Sachs' web site, the person extending the portfolio subject to the loan can fully trade the portfolio like nothing has happened. Pretty slick.

What this means is that there are now plenty of ways to put money into the markets, but there are likely restrictions against selling (versus swapping one stock for another).

So, with money coming into the market; restrictions on outright selling; and no reason to sell (huricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, corporate fraud, governmental lying, etc. does not seem to matter anymore).

It has been shown countless times recently that our government is propagandizing everything. Likely the economic statistics are more examples of the progaganda, which may account for the difference in how people feel compared to the statistics. But Wall Street has to go with how they are directed to act, or they will no longer be part of the chosen few.

The fix is in.

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joule on December 7, 2005 - 9:35pm

You are quite correct. For a long time I have looked upon government statistics with a skeptical eye. But now I don't even bother to look at government statistics, because I believe they are either partly fictional or outright lies.

The government never wants to make itself look bad, and it will provide 'funny' statistics to keep from looking bad. Always has; always will.

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Oil CEO on December 8, 2005 - 6:20am

1)$2.17 is exactly where gas should be at $60/barrel of oil.

2)The stock market is hardly booming ahead. Depending on what index you are looking at or even if you average a bunch together, you are looking at at most +%5 year-to-date. That could easily be gone in a month. It is only booming relative to its lows.

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TJ on December 7, 2005 - 2:07pm

Of course, there are advantages to completely running out of oil and gas:

The End

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joule on December 7, 2005 - 9:37pm

Yeah? How is it advantageous to you not to be able to move from one place to another and not be able to keep warm?

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Everett on December 7, 2005 - 2:19pm

This article states that a third of the Earth's landscape is dominated by agricultural activity:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051207110626.htm

A third is a surprisingly large fraction to me. Maybe Peak Food will be here/ has arrived before Peak Oil?

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Agric on December 7, 2005 - 10:06pm

Per capita oil and food production peaked a while back, over 20 years ago. Lots of people have got more hungry. Quite a few have starved to death. But still the lemming-monkeys breed in readiness to fight over the scraps.

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Luis de Sousa on December 7, 2005 - 2:19pm

A fellow peakoiler sent me this.

Old but new to me (please forgive me if it had been here before).

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Donal on December 7, 2005 - 3:06pm

Easter Island from USA Today:

But anthropologist Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii at Manoa first blames the Polynesian rat. The rats probably deforested the 66-square-mile island's 16 million palm trees. "Palm tree seeds are filet mignon to rats," Hunt says.

Working with colleagues at the island's anthropology museum and elsewhere since 2001, Hunt's team has undertaken an extensive archaeological survey of the island:

* Charcoal remains show that Polynesians settled the island in 1200, much later than supposed from earlier, inaccurate dates of such deposits.

* Pollen and ash deposits show that the number of palm trees declined swiftly in the years before fires, the signature of human occupation, appeared on the island.

* Rat remains indicate that the rodent population spiked at 20 million from 1200 to 1300 and then dropped off to a mere 1 million after the trees were gone.

* Skeletal remains and digs of old homes show little or no evidence of early warfare.

Instead, the disappearance of Easter Islanders probably was caused by visiting Dutch traders in the 1700s, who brought diseases and, later, slave raiding, says Hunt, who presented his findings at an American Anthropological Association meeting last week.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-12-05-easter-island_x.htm

But abstract #4 from this recent conference seems fairly consistent with the scenarios put forth by Diamond and Wright in their respective books.
http://www.islandheritage.org/conferenceV.html

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Sam Foucher on December 7, 2005 - 3:27pm

Interesting, I guess just the Rats experienced a massive die-off due to ressource depletion!

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 4:13pm

I don't buy it. Rats typically arrived with the Polynesians throughout the Pacific, but didn't cause the problems Easter Island had. Perhaps Rapa Nui was environmentally more precarious, but that doesn't explain why all trees went extinct. Hard to blame rats for that.

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 4:21pm

Hmmm. That "Abstract #4" sounds interesting.

The first stage seems to have lasted no longer than a generation or two, perhaps 50 years, during which the Islanders themselves knew they were in short supply of resources, in particular, trees. The traditional culture tenuously held on to the previous habits but knew they were going to have to prepare for a new order. Culturally unable to reforest, priorities redefined statue form, statue moving, ahu construction, and disposal of the dead. At least two major ahu illustrate large scale cooperation in their new constructions though the workmanship is very poor and incomplete. Several others show a similar reduction in workmanship but maintain large scale cooperation.

The second stage seems characterized by a free-fall collapse in cultural organization, dominated by conflict, the formation of discrete districts, territorial to the family level, warfare, and ultimately cannibalism. It is proposed that this change reduced population to a level commensurate with the carrying capacity of the defoliated island, slowly leaching and eroding soils.

Even on Easter Island, collapse took several generations. And it sounds like they began losing their technology before their social cohesion. Perhaps that is to be expected; technology depends on resources more directly than social structure.

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Donal on December 7, 2005 - 5:49pm

The Love scenario is actually worse than the Diamond or Wright scenario. Diamond and Wright describe the Rapa Nui as unaware of slowly undermining themselves, with additional damage from the rats.

Love says the Rapa Nui knew that they were low on trees yet still used precious timber (on religious idols, etc) as if it would last forever.

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Leanan on December 7, 2005 - 7:57pm

Yes, but I have to say...it sounds all too probable to me. They knew what was happening, but were "culturally unable" to change. Doesn't that describe us? Even the most optimistic of us admits oil will run out in a few decades at most. We got an unmistakable warning in the '70s. Yet we are "culturally unable" to change.

FWIW, though...I suspect they used their trees not on religious idols, but to burn for heat and cooking. Even small woody shrubs were wiped out. They would not have provided timber that was useful for construction purposes, but would have made good fuel for cooking fires.

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ericy on December 8, 2005 - 7:10pm

I think this is comparable to the current situation in Haiti.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31057

Essentially people are out there scrounging for any scrap of wood they can find to make cooking fires.

With help from the World Bank, "we developed a programme to introduce more and better gas stoves, to alleviate pressure on the forests that provide firewood and charcoal, and to prepare food in a more clean and efficient way," Haiti's environment minister, Yves-André Wainright, explained in a Tierramérica interview.
But with prices hovering around 60 dollars a barrel on the international petroleum market, "it is very difficult for people to believe that gas is more beneficial, and so they return to firewood, and especially charcoal," lamented the minister.
In recent decades, logging as a source of firewood and plant-based charcoal has practically converted into a desert this Caribbean country of 28,000 square km, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.
"It is a very acute problem: the forest cover in Haiti is less than two percent of the territory," said Wainright during a break at the forum of Latin American and Caribbean environment ministers held earlier this month in Caracas.

There have been programs over the years to reforest parts of Haiti, but as long as people go out and scrounge for firewood, these efforts are doomed.

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Peatey on December 7, 2005 - 3:36pm

A quick question for you NG experts. Why does this graph and underlying data from EIA's NG page show higher residential gas price during summer than winter? I thoght it was the other way around...

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TJ on December 7, 2005 - 3:54pm

I'm guessing but I would imagine that it's power plant demand for the summer. Most of the peak power plants are NG.

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howleyj on December 7, 2005 - 5:35pm

BP's Lord Browne spoke recently at the Brookings Institution in D.C. Here's link to transcript: http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20051129.pdf.

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step back on December 7, 2005 - 6:05pm

Thanks, if PDF doesn't work directly in your browser, start here:
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20051129.htm#TRANSCRIPT
then click open "read full transcript"

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porsena on December 7, 2005 - 6:08pm

A little here about where China expects to satisfy some of its future oil demand.

"-- China's largest offshore oil producer, CNOOC Ltd., says its unlisted parent company plans to start deep-water oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea with Canada's Husky Energy Inc. next year.

"If the scheduled exploration finds large reserves in a bloc in the South China Sea about 300 kilometres south of Hong Kong, it will be China's first deep-water oil and gas field....

"The two companies explored the other bloc in the western part of the South China Sea in 2004, but the reserves discovered were too small to justify commercial drilling....

"According to CNOOC's website, the company had net oil reserves of 357.7-million barrels of oil equivalent and a net natural gas reserve of 3,215.6-billion cubic feet in the South China Sea as at the end of 2004. The figures represent about 25 per cent of CNOOC's total oil and 70 per cent of its gas reserves."

That doesn't sound like a lot for a country consuming about 7.5 mbpd.

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patents on December 7, 2005 - 6:29pm

Let me understand this, today's "This Week in Petroleum" report shows that (1) the demand for the past week is higher than last year (also the 4 week average); (2) the gasoline stocks are less this week than a year ago; (3) gasoline imports were less this week than a year ago; (4) gasoline production is less this week than a year ago. (And let's not forget that production out of the GoM is still shut in.) BUT everything is good. Prices should go down. Swell!

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mw on December 7, 2005 - 6:49pm

Hello all - been busy, a little sick, and swamped with stuff. Here's something noted on-line today, you folks may have run across it already.

Iraqi oil industry in crisis

Iraqi oil exports fell to their lowest level in two years in November 2005. Bad management of the reconstruction effort, widespread corruption among government figures, and sabotage by insurgents are the reasons for the decline. Experts say that the US strategy of military intervention in oil-rich regions can only diminish, rather than increase, the supply to world markets.

By Heiko Flottau in Cairo for ISN Security Watch (7/12/2005)

Two-and-a-half years after the US invasion of Iraq, the country's oil industry is still in disarray. An official of the Oil Ministry in Baghdad told ISN Security Watch, on condition of anonymity: "We do not know the exact quantity of oil we are exporting, we do not exactly know the prices we are selling it for, and we do not know where the oil revenue is going to."

MORE:
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13770

Cheers
Mike

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geewiz on December 7, 2005 - 11:07pm

Only 15 of over 70 known fields have been developed properly.

that being said, there are 55 fields not developed YET. But, what are the reserve estimates of those 55 fields?

World reserves posted here

Who made those estimates? The Iraqi Oil Minister? Baghdad Bob? Could these estimates be ficticious or fudged?

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mikeB on December 10, 2005 - 8:57am

The list has C A N A D A as second, with this tiny footnote:

1. Includes 174.5 billion barrels of oil sands reserves.

Are my howls of laughter indiscreet?

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geewiz on December 8, 2005 - 12:43am

as mentioned earlier about the audio version of peak oil as being discussed by the Subcommitte of Energy.

it can be found here

It will require realplayer to hear. it's about 2hrs and 20mins long.

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Donal on December 8, 2005 - 9:27am

From the Skeptic's Dictionary newsletter:

>>>
Environmental Evangelism

Sarlo writes

I have recently learned there is another interesting class of believer who ... believe that since God made the world, they should take care of it rather than trash it so that they will be Raptured up faster. Their movement is called Creation Care and is championed by some of the leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals...

Sarlo is right. The group has even issued a statement: an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." "The environment is a values issue," said the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals. "There are significant and compelling theological reasons why it should be a banner issue for the Christian right."

According to the group, it's every Christian's duty to care for the planet.

"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," said the statement, which, according to the Washington Post, has been distributed to 50,000 member churches. "Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

Signatories included Haggard, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

As my mother used to say: "Will wonders never cease?"
>>>

Paging PhilRelig ...

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step back on December 8, 2005 - 12:45pm

The Jesus-come-lately's to the Environmental cause are just hearing the Tom Tom of changing public perception (and the Oil Drum on same) and making appropriate mid-course corrections to their unbending dogma (unbending huh?) so as to stay in dance step with the sentiments of the oral majority (yes the "m" was left out intentionally).

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tommy on December 8, 2005 - 10:48am

Size of the world economy: ~ $56,000,000 milion (source)

Oil production: 72 milion barrels/day

Cost of oil world wide: 72 x 60 (light sweet = highest) x 365 = $1,576,000 milion

According to this oil cost is about 2,8% of world spending.

Economic growth for the world is estimated at 4,5% (source)

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Secret Rapture on February 6, 2006 - 8:56am

My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!

At: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman/

Your jaw will drop!
I have the solution to the 'peak oil' problem!
eschatology,End Times,second coming,rapture,secret rapture,Second Resurrection,Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead,
End of Days,Day of the Lord,Endtime,Judgment Day

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