I guess we won't see the regulars here poking fun at Kunstler for a while will we?

In short, the kinds of predictions they're talking about are so completely at the mercy of things beyond the scope of the model that the prices they arrive at are useless.

The worst scenario they came up with, the $262/barrel one, was related to the fall of the House of Saud.  Trying to map that kind of geopolitical event to a precise price level is beyond silly.  Anyone here could easily cook up a sets circumstances under which that same central event results in a price substantially higher or lower than $262.

But golly gee, it sure makes for some nifty headlines, doesn't it?  I'm beginning to think that this kind of prediction and the resulting breathless articles are nothing more than the econometric and media equivalents of the movie SAW--a cheap thrill that no one uses as a basis for real action, and that makes you feel good that it hasn't happened (at least not yet).

Rainwater is worth about $2.5 billion, and he is putting in greenhouses, storing diesel fuel and drilling water wells in his farm in the Carolinas.  The article is at:  http://www.energybulletin.net/11695.html

Richard Rainwater has an uncanny knack for accurately picking future trends.  He took the Bass Family's fortune of about $50 million and turned it into $5 billion.  He said that making money off Peak Oil is a no-brainer, but he is deeply concerned about the survival of the human race.   BTW, one of his favorite websites is TOD.

From the article:

<<"This is a nonrecurring event," he says. "The 100-year flood in Houston real estate was one, the ability to buy oil and gas really cheap was another, and now there's the opportunity to do something based on a shortage of natural resources. Can you make money? Well, yeah. One way is to just stay long domestic oil. But there may be something more important than making money. This is the first scenario I've seen where I question the survivability of mankind. I don't want the world to wake up one day and say, 'How come some doofus billionaire in Texas made all this money by being aware of this, and why didn't someone tell us?'" >>

Can anyone comment on the source of this article. Obviously it came out of Davos. But what is the context? Was this reporter simply asking the opinion of high-fliers in the crowd and chose Browder and Soros as the focus, due to their "numbers" ?

Soros doesn't give a figure and Browder's are obviously extremely high.

What is the news? Simply the $262 figure. What the hell is that? If I were in Davos and said 263, would you be reading my name now in place of Browder's?

Was this a joint statement? Was this a joint speech? What is this? The article doesn't give any clues. The obvious conclusion would be that it was neither - but I'm not going to draw that conclusion. I await further input.

Was this the consensus of some round table and Soros and Browder were chosen as the spokespeople? Who knows.

No mention of peak oil.

This is the best Soros can do. That is what this is. This is all about Soros.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
==================

Also, no one tracks crude oil inventories on the basis of quality.  I suspect that the increase in crude oil inventories year over year consists largely of heavy, sour crude which is obscuring a growing shortfall in light, sweet crude supplies.

"Perfect Storm" is an overused term, but it nevertheless is a pretty good description for what is probably going to happen this year.  

Without putting too fine a point on it, my answer is NO!

What don't I simply choose a quick painless death now rather than a slow suffering decline later?

Seriously, these doomsday scenarios coming out of Soros and Browder are not just some kind of fearmongering. What they seem to actually represent is the high level of anxiety out their in the financial community about peak oil and natural gas issues.

For some stock traders, this is a signal that a short term top may be at hand. There is no certainty that oil prices will not retrench back to lower levels in the short term (6 mos to a year). A short duration price spike to let's say $130 a bbl of oil may lower overall worldwide demand in the ensuing months that returns to its long term advance after many have exploded financially.

Remaining long in oil takes a lot of nerve especially if you have a lot of money on the line and may need access to it. Being long oil can be a significant cash flow problem for some if severe downward price movements take hold. There are a lot of businesses with excellent potential that failed due to cash flow. If one can weather the changes then being long oil is an overall good bet. I would wager many investors would not take the short term pain if prices tanked for a year or so. They would panic and lose out.  

Iraq aims to boost crude oil exports by about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.5 million bpd within six weeks, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said.

"We will make it up to 1.5 million bpd within six weeks," Chalabi told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Link below

http://smh.com.au/news/World/Iraq-aims-to-boost-oil-exports/2006/01/29/1138469593918.html

Opec says it won't increase quotas to cover for production shutdown

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1697136,00.html

Re:  Blindingly Obvious Idea for Testing the Validity of Hubbert Linearization (HL)

mcgowanjm had a post on "Backward Induction" that gave me an idea that is, in retrospect, blindingly obvious.  FYI--mcgowanjm also posted a link to a FSU oil shock analysis:  http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2005/11/fsu-oil-shock-model.html

We have data on several large regions that are well past the 50% of Qt.  Examples are:  Texas; Lower 48; Total US; North Sea and Russia.

I propose that the HL gurus take the data through the 50% of Qt mark--AND ONLY THOSE DATA POINTS (i.e., pretending that the data after the 50% mark don't exist)--and estimate what Q (cumulative production to date) should have been through 2004, and then compare those  predictions to the actual data.  This would be especially useful for testing the validity of the HL model as applied to Russia.

This seems so obvious that it would seem that someone should have tried this before.  Anyone know if it has been done?

If as I suspect, this analysis confirms that we are at the threshold of a severe net export capacity crisis, I think that someone needs to hold a press conference.  

I used to say that the suburbs are dead;  the suburbanites just don't know it yet.  

It's probably more accurate to say that the suburban commutes are dead; the suburban commuters just don't know it yet.

This is probably a pipe dream, but in my opinion an excellent proposal is to abolish the payroll tax (Social Security + Medicare) and replace it with a liquid transportation fuel tax.  We can take the assets in the "Trust Funds" and use them to pay off the liabilities that the Treasury Department has.  Of keep them--it doesn't matter, there is no real value there either way.

The majority of American households pay more in the payroll tax than in the income tax.  This would be a tax cut for most households and it would a massive tax increase on those who are profligate in their use of energy.  No matter where you live, your cost of goods would go up, but if you lived close to where you work, your effective tax rate would go down. Of course, those who persisted in long commutes would pay the price.

There would of course be very powerful forces opposed to this idea--the housing industry; auto industry; airlines; trucking--the list goes on.  But the fates of these industries are sealed.  It's not a question of if they will contract/collapse; it's just a question of when.  The sooner it happens, the better off we all will be.  This idea would cause an immediate across the board push for greater energy efficiency.  As energy consumption falls, we keep jacking up the tax rate to keep the money flowing for Social Security and Medicare, which causes an even greater push for energy efficiency, and the cycle goes on.

BTW, a high gasoline gas does not necessarily equate to a lower standard of living.  Norway, with the highest gasoline tax in the world, has the highest standard of living in the world, perhaps partly because their care ownership per 1,000 people is about half of what it is in the US.  

There would be some other benefits.  As we turned to walking, biking and mass transit, our health would improve.  There is pretty much a linear correlation between obesity rates and total miles driven (here in the US, we are the world champs in both categories).  

LUKoil Cuts Exports

 LUKoil said on Friday that it would cut fuel oil exports by a quarter in February to meet local demand at a time of extreme cold. Traders said other firms might follow suit. A LUKoil official said the firm would cut exports by around 118,000 tons in February from the 435,000 tons it intended to send abroad in January.

 "LUKoil confirms it is ready to deliver fuel oil to [power monopoly] UES, and the housing sector as electricity demand has peaked because of the cold snap," the official said.

 Private major LUKoil has always tried to maintain good relations with the Kremlin and has often been among the first to react to state requests, such as a call for a cut in gasoline prices or a reduction in fuel oil exports. (Reuters)

There are three companies pursuing hydrogen-boron plasma toroid fusion, a form of aneutronic fusion , Paul Koloc, Prometheus II, Eric Lerner, Focus Fusion and Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems http://www.electronpowersystems.com/ . A resent DOD review of EPS technology reads as follows:

"MIT considers these plasmas a revolutionary breakthrough, with Delphi's
chief scientist and senior manager for advanced technology both agreeing
that EST/SPT physics are repeatable and theoretically explainable. MIT and
EPS have jointly authored numerous professional papers describing their
work. (Delphi is a $33B company, the spun off Delco Division of General
Motors)."

Vincent Page (a technology officer at GE!!) gave a presentation  at the 05 6th symposium on current trends in international fusion research , which high lights the need to fully fund three different approaches to P-B11 fusion (Below Is an excerpt).  
He quotes costs and time to development of P-B11 Fusion as tens of million $, and years verses the many decades and ten Billion plus $ projected for ITER and other "Big" science efforts:

"for larger plant sizes
Time to small-scale Cost to achieve net if the small-scale
Concept Description net energy production energy concept works:
Koloc Spherical Plasma: 10 years(time frame), $25 million (cost), 80%(chance of success)
Field Reversed Configuration: 8 years $75 million 60%
Plasma Focus: 6 years $18 million 80%

Desirable Fusion Reactor Qualities
* Research & development is also needed in
the area of computing power.
* Many fusion researchers of necessity still
use MHD theory to validate their designs.
* MHD theory assumes perfect diamagnetism
and perfect conductance.
* These qualities may not always exist in the
real world, particularly during continuous operation.
* More computing power is needed to allow use of a more realistic validation theory
such as the Vlasov equations.

• ORNL is in the process of adding some impressive computing power.
  
• Researchers now need to develop more realistic validation methods up to the
  

I feel in light of the recent findings of neutrons, x-rays, and gamma rays in lightening, that these threads need to be brought together in an article.

You may  see my efforts with my "A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy" article:

http://www.scienceforums.com/earth-science/3665-a-new-manhattan-project-clean-energy.html

which got published on Sci-Scoop and the Open Source Energy Network but rejected on Slashdot. The New Energy News will soon run an article on these companies efforts toward aneutronic fusion.

About a year ago, I came across EPS while researching nano-tech and efficient home design. I started a correspondence Clint Seward, Eric Learner, and Paul Kolac, sending them science news links which I felt were either supportive or contradictory to their work. I also asked them to critique each other's approaches. I have posted these emails to numerous physics and science forums. Discussion groups, science journalists, and other academics, trying to foster discussion, attention, and hopefully some concessus on the validity of these proposed technologies.
My efforts have born some fruit. Clint and Joe Dwyer at FIT have been in consultation on Clint's current charge transport theory for cloud to ground lightening.
I have had several replies from editors, producers, and journalists expressing interest. From organizations as varied as PBS, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, New Energy News, the Guardian (U.K), and the San Francisco Chronicle. However, none of this professional interest has resulted in a story yet.

I have been responding to all of the articles that filter in via my Google alerts on "fusion power". The most recent was the "Happy News" article by Kris Metaverso.
http://www.happynews.com/news/112220...ependently.htm

This post is a plea to the science writers among you to craft a story covering aneutronic fusion, the P-B11 efforts, Eric's Billion degree temperatures and x-ray source project, Clint's lightening theories, and DOD review, and Paul's review by GE. The minimal cost and time frame for even the possibility of this leap forward seems criminal not to pursue. If you read my Manhattan article, you may have noticed that I am not a writer. I am a landscape designer and technology gadfly wondering why this technology has never been put in the public eye.
My hope is that someone, more skilled, would step up to give a shout out about these technologies. Please contact me for copies of my correspondence with the principles, interesting replies and criticisms from physics discussion forums and academic physicists who have replied to my queries.

Thanks for any help

Erich J. Knight
shengar@aol.com