You can listen to it here:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/01/04/PM200601046.html

his book is here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400065275/qid=1136425769/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1958057-4691151?n =507846&s=books&v=glance

which I haven't read yet.  Hadn't even heard of the guy until I heard him on the radio, actually.

THE END of the GRID

I can't read the whole article, as I do not subscribe.  What do others think of this issue?  I do find the prospect of consolodation into a few large companies to be disturbing - it has not been a benefit most other places it's happened.

nat gas futures down 60 cents to 9.40 - multi month lows. interestingly though - 2008 and 2009 gas futures are still sitting at all time highs.

Synapsis: The worry about running out due to cold weather this year was overdone - the structural problem however is being recognized as a long term one.

Trading thought: I may buy october/november futures in for next few years out - odds are that there will be steep hurricane premium at some point approaching expiration...

Can anyone have a case (other than employees of IEA and EIA) for nat gas going sub $6 in next 5 years or so?

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2005/12/01/153497.html

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushabdullahman.htm

People don't dispute we have reached peak oil production in Saudi Arabia. But they disagree that it is a crisis because advances in technology and other countries' reserves will offset any decline there.

I was pondering the recent Russian-Ukraine Natgas Crisis when a sudden 'Eureka' moment slowly crawled across my beer-addled synaptic structures.

What if Putin was given a covert blessing by the G8 leadership to temporarily yank the Ukrainians into the short-lived crisis?

The short-lived natgas shutoff sure got the attention of the Media and the general public across Europe. Could this be a 'stealthy' way to get people aware of Peakoil and maybe Dieoff? Then the politicians can more widely discuss required Thermo-Gene mitigation changes without fear of being voted out for re-election. Recall that Putin's
theme is ENERGY for his next year as the G8 conference chairperson.  Could he just be preparing the unwashed masses for some harsh, but true news in the near future? Maybe with all these world leaders gathered in one spot is when they will announce that we are Hubbert Downslope bound!

Increasing Peakoil awareness has historically been a grassroots effort and overcoming public denial our biggest barrier to rapid Peaknik growth because they have seen us as 'nutcases'. Politicians have been historically reluctant to take the Peakoil lead because of worries that the voters still in denial would see them as nutcases too, and not re-elect them. Purposely creating a temporary energy crisis and public alarm will allow the politicians to safely endorse the experts adding public-perceived legitimacy to Peakoil-- it is a subtle way to quickly increase the required public 'critical mass' for positive change to occur. In summary, it bridges the public-to-politician gap.

Does this make sense, or was it just my beer talking?

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

http://newjerseyblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/yes-virginia-democrats-will-tax.html

The problem I have with Hubbert linearization as applied to the whole world is that the economic situation is fundamentally different when the world oil supply is declining than when an individual field is declining.

When an individual field declines, its decline does not in and of itself drive oil prices up. One field is not producing all the oil in the world. There are many other fields in all stages of their lifetimes, some well advanced and others just coming into production. The decline in production from one field, even a large field, is only going to have a relatively small impact on world oil supply.

However this consideration is completely different when we turn our attention to the world as a whole and try to apply the same model. When one field's oil supply declines 10% it just means the owner gets 10% less revenue. But when world oil supply declines 10% the entire world gets turned upside down! Oil price goes crazy, economies undergo wild shifts, wars may be fought. The consequences are enormous.

Hence it is highly implausible IMO that the motivations and forces that control the amount of oil production will be equivalent in the two situations. And therefore we cannot extrapolate from the success of the logistic curve model for individual fields or even whole countries, to conclude that this is how it will go for the entire world.

I don't know how it will go, but at a minimum I suspect that the worldwide decline will be much more chaotic than the decline of individual fields. Economically we would expect that the fall in world supply would be met with intensive efforts to improve the situation, much more so than the decline of an individual field (where the option exists to go get oil from somewhere else). Whether such efforts will actually produce significantly more oil is unknown, but it is clear that the situation will be very different from the situations in the past where Hubbert linearization has been successful.

I wonder of any here can give the amount of coke and extraneous substances by weight/volume lost due to the cracking process of heavier crudes. In the advanced cracking must the energy input last longer/be greater than in the standard evaporitave separation technique?

I understand that 'Sour' is an expression of the percentage of sulfur. Is this a signicant amount percentage wise of the oil?

What is the variation range of oils being processed with respect to the ratio of processed output to input, in other words, what percentage of a barrel produces distillates and has this changed as the make-up of light to heavy, sweet to sour has changed?

It seems to me a few points either way may in fact significantly affect the demand/supply aspect we currently face. If what I suspect is true then we may be increasing supply input and lessening output simply by the type of oil we are currently processing.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Gary  

The nation's merchants, waving deep discounts in the final days before Christmas, drummed up enough last-minute sales to deliver a decent, if unspectacular, 3.4 percent gain for December.

"Not bad. Kind of average," was the verdict from John D. Morris, a retailing industry analyst at Harris Nesbitt.

Sales at stores open for at least a year in fact exceeded an industry forecast for a 3.1 percent increase, but an unexpected slowdown at the nation's largest retailer overshadowed those gains.

Wal-Mart Stores - which accounts for 10 percent of all retail sales excluding autos - dragged down the entire industry with its worst December performance in five years. Sales at stores open for at least a year crept up 2.2 percent, barely landing within its forecast for a gain of 2 percent to 4 percent.

Excluding Wal-Mart, overall retail sales rose 4.3 percent in December, according to Retail Metrics, a research firm.

Wal-Mart's performance struck Wall Street as sluggish, given the chain's considerable marketing campaign: television commercials with Garth Brooks, rock-bottom $400 laptops and pledge to match competitors door-buster prices on the day after Thanksgiving.

Analysts attributed Wal-Mart's sluggish sales to higher energy prices, which pinched the retailer's low-income shopping base; an early advertising blitz that tapered off in December, leaving Wal-Mart vulnerable to competition for procrastinating shoppers; and negative publicity, including organized holiday protests in front of the chain's stores.

"The 2004 holiday season revealed that Wal-Mart was no longer invincible," said Bernard Sosnick, an analyst at Oppenheimer Securities. "The 2005 holiday season did not erase that."

But Wal-Mart was not the only midpriced retailer that disappointed analysts. Khohl's and J.C. Penney both missed forecasts, indicating that lower-income consumers held back spending.

"I don't think it's a Wal-Mart problem," said Bill Dreher, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities. "It's a demographic problem. If you were focused on the moderate-income sector, you were disappointed."

We certainly held back spending, and hardly went out between Xmas and New Years, but there seemed to be a lot of traffic when we drove to the mall to see Kong.  Family members told us that the post-holiday shopping was brisk.

So some people were shopping as usual while others huddled in the living room for warmth.  

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_vakoch_react_060105.html

This talks about what would happen if an asteroid were to hit Earth. Apparently groupthink and mass denial would make defecting it in time, difficult.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, will probably cut oil output at its next meeting in January, Iran Daily reported, citing the country's oil minister, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh.

``OPEC will probably reduce the production ceiling and consider Iran's proposal to reduce one million barrels of oil from OPEC's quota,'' Vaziri-Hamaneh said at an official ceremony in Tehran yesterday, according to Iran Daily.

The group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, will meet on Jan. 31 to discuss whether members need to reduce production. Oil prices have tripled since 2001.

The peak of Texas oil production, at 54% of Qt (based on the Hubbert/Deffeyes method), was in 1972, just before a 1,000% increase in oil prices from 1973 to 1980.  As a result of the oil price explosion, the rig count in Texas reached an all time record high in 1980, and by 1982 the number of producing wells increased by 14%.  In response to 14% more producing wells, Texas oil production dropped by almost 30% from 1972 to 1982, and despite every technological advance known to the industry, production has dropped steadily for 33 years.  

In my opinion, the Hubbert/Deffeyes P/Q versus Q method works because we are primarily plotting the decline of the billion barrel plus oil fields.   The oil industry is very good at finding large oil fields, and the smaller fields that we subsequently find can't make up for the decline from the big fields.  

Every country/region that I have looked at--that has decades of serious production--has shown Hubbert Linearization.  In the absence of political problems (e.g., Iran), production peaks at around 50% of Qt.  

The argument that fields, regions and countries show Hubbert Linearization--but the world won't--doesn't hold water.  This is exactly analogous to saying that individual oil wells will decline, but the field--which is the sum of individual wells--will not decline.  

I don't think that it is a coincidence that the same year that we hit 50% of Qt worldwide, we saw:  (1)  record high nominal oil prices and (2)  flat production year over year.

It was more than a little unsettling to read the book and then go outside and find a thin layer of dust ever morning on my car in Dallas.    Presumably, it's the result of the fires and/or dust storms to the west of Dallas.

It's possible--and perhaps likely--that the drought in Texas, the active Hurricane season and the cold winter in Europe are all related to the slowing of the Gulf Stream.   The Fortune article last year on the slowing of the Gulf Stream predicted all of the above.  

So anyway...keep up the great work! As soon as I feel I have anything to add I'll be sure to post more.

http://www.german-renewable-energy.com/www/main.php?tplid=6&setlang=2&tplid=6&setlang2=0 &tplid=6&aktuell_id=62&PHPSESSID=7ad5427943d81dd9f8d8fbf80c9d449a

Greetings from Berlin

Anyway I live in a coastal town with lots of wind and sunshine in The Netherlands, and I'm planning to get me some "home grown" electricity. I'll get some solar power but also would like to utilise the ever-blowing winds here. That is a problem as I would never get the permit for a small windturbine in a residential area due to the noise and sight. And the danger of blades being blown through my neighbours window.

In my search for a viable windturbine I found an excellent product! http://www.windside.com/

These things are promising as they do not make any noise. I went to a testside to see it in action and their claim is true: no sound or whatsoever. This was with Beaufort 7. These are also more efficient than traditional windturbines and are more durable. Tested from the Sahara desert to the North of Finland. Starts making power with very little wind, no need for any precautions with severe storms; you can just let it run wild. And I think I can get a permit to put  1 or 2 on the roof.

Another tip for 82 miles/gallon http://www.smart.com/

So we are told Iraq's reserves are 112.5 bbl. Now this figure date's during Saddam's regime, and we all know is over estimated.

What happens to this figure once foreign companies re-evaluate the fields?