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DrumBeat: October 15, 2006
Posted by threadbot on October 15, 2006 - 9:17am
OPEC consensus to one million bpd cut
ALGIERS (AFP) - OPEC is set to announce a cut in its production of one million barrels of oil a day to check the slide in global prices, Algeria's Energy Minister Chakib Khelil has said.He said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would make the announcement during a meeting in Doha from October 18 to 21.
Oil companies paying more to keep workers in Nigeria
PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA - Oil companies in Nigeria are being hit with rising costs because of kidnappings of their staff that have become so commonplace in the volatile Niger Delta one Nigerian company is selling T-shirts calling it the country's "fastest growing business!"But in the face of growing insecurity, companies are paying more for insurance, salaries, perks and housing to try to keep fearful staff from fleeing.
Gabon oil production stops declining
Steadily dropping since its peak in 1997, Gabon's oil production is finally experiencing a slight growth, new statistics reveal. In the same period, Gabon has been reduced from the third to the sixth largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
Russia's Sakhalin energy project safe for now
Russia is not considering freezing the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project, a key official said, easing fears that the world's largest privately funded energy project could be closed down for environmental violations.
Exxon, Chevron, BP Among Companies Seeking Libya Oil Permits
US reviews complaint about ethanol fuel
A US agency was reviewing a complaint on Friday by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen claiming Ford Motor Co. made vehicles capable of using ethanol-blended fuel that did not run properly.
Chavez spreads wealth to aid U.N. cause
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - As Venezuela lobbies for a U.N. Security Council seat, President Hugo Chavez has bolstered its chances by spreading petrodollars across the Americas and beyond — extending an airstrip on a Caribbean island, sending emergency food aid to Africa, fixing a rundown hospital in Uruguay.
Clinton Touts Oil Tax Measure at UCLA Rally
The former president tells a crowd of 5,000 that Prop. 87 would allow the state to do something remarkable - save the planet.
Oil and gas rights: the weapons of a new Cold War
In recent weeks, hardliners in the Kremlin have cancelled or renegotiated deals with Western firms in order to pursue Russia's national interests - but their plans may backfire.
A Call to Action to Save the RAV4-EV
A New Energy Wave for Europe in Portugal
The Portuguese coast has become Europe's latest source of renewable energy. Experts say over 300 gigawatts of electricity could be tapped from European waters in the future.
U.S. West becoming warmer faster
DURANGO, Colo. - The American West is becoming warmer faster on average than the rest of the world, a climate researcher says."The West is warming dramatically," said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona. "Things are just going to get hotter. You can bet the farm on it."
Printed Media Coverage of Peak Oil: A Crude Statistical Review [PDF]
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At least, I assume they are Chinese, from the character sets they post in.
I knew some Chinese students in graduate school and even though they were over here, they were very guarded in their conversations that could any way be misconstrued as critical of the Chinese governement. I believe they felt like they were monitored over here and it was not safe to speak freely.
I knew a guy in grad school who actually lived thought the cultural revolution. I managed to get him talking about it one day. Evidently it was a pretty horrible experience, he could look me in they eye and his voice kept trembling.
I recently spoke to a Chinese academic from Beijing while she was on a visit to Hong Kong. I kept away from politcal topics, thinking the way you do. But then she just brought up the Tiananmen Massacre herself, as she was within earshot of it at the time that it happened. She talked about it for a while and then she said that times had changed, and that the current generation of Chinese students had little political consciousness and were only interested in material advancement.
Maybe you are not seeing fear when you talk politics with your Chinese associates: you are seeing ignorance. The 'fear' shows up because they are scared of appearing dumb by having nothing of interest to use in their reply to what you say.
"The 'fear' shows up because they are scared of appearing dumb by having nothing of interest to use in their reply to what you say."
Someone please tell them that "appearing dumb" has never stopped any of us here! :-)
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
As a western visitors you can access anything you want, but the Chinese government probably was monitoring your activity. If you were a Chinese citizen, your activity might win you a knock on the door.
Would it be possible to track down who was using which computer when? Possibly, but it wouldn't be easy. At least when I was there, they didn't really take note of which computer you used. It would be like trying to keep track of which kid used which video game at an arcade here.
Did you pay with cash or credit card?
Did they scan your card and assign you a machine or password?
Also was this an establishment that catered to tourists or locals?
What year were you there?
Evidently they did a crackdown in 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2608305.stm
When do you think this site started? TOD began in March, 2005, right? And not many people were reading it for the first few months.
I have seen at least one article claiming to be on Peak Oil that was written in Simplified Chinese, although weirdly enough it seemed to orginate from New Zealand, not China.
As for the awareness of 'educated' people, it is important to remember that much of 'education' is simply advanced but narrow technical training coupled with indoctrination of various sorts. Any person who is successfully educated to high levels has already learnt very strong lessons in conformity. These tendencies are further reinforced by material or career success, and the cognitive dissonance then kicks in: 'Everything's great! What Peak Oil?'
I also think there is some level of paranoia shown here about the power and interests of the Chinese government. The PRC gov wants to thump workers, Tibet independence advocates, and Falun Gung members. They are not going to waste state security resources on people chatting in general terms about a geological fact of life.
I am writing this from Hong Kong. I've never met anyone Chinese in HK who has heard of PO. Though the politics and legal framwork differ, it is important to remember that HK and China are in many ways very similar: indeed, China is HK on speed. The indifference or ignorance re PO is due to mundane factors: the overwhelming energy devoted to career, to 'study', to shopping, and to one's personal and familial relationships (and in exactly that order). There is nothing left after that. Who cares? You're sitting in the restaurant mouthing off to your mates, you've scraped through on some exam or just scored a promotion, you've bought a new mobile phone or digital camera, you've come good on the ponies, your wife hasn't found out about your girlfriend yet. That's life. That takes your energy. Any thought you have left goes on the rubbish in the tabloids.
This is the simplest explanation for the lack of mention given to PO, at least where I live, a place culturally similar to China (except that China is actually more extreme). We don't need to worry about shadowy state bogeymen. They're not in the picture on this.
http://www.advfn.com/news_China-GDP-seen-rising-by-10-5-pct-in-2006-9-5-pct-in-2007-govt-think-tank_ 17246844.html
However if the US economy does take the expected hit from the housing implosion this may of course change.......
All of the (mainland) Chinese people I've met have been decent english writers, and could understand pretty much anything written (except for slang). They're very awkward speaking it, however. From what they've told me, reading and writing english is taught in school, but not how to speak it.
"As for the awareness of 'educated' people, it is important to remember that much of 'education' is simply advanced but narrow technical training coupled with indoctrination of various sorts. Any person who is successfully educated to high levels has already learnt very strong lessons in conformity. These tendencies are further reinforced by material or career success, and the cognitive dissonance then kicks in: 'Everything's great! What Peak Oil?'"
Definitely a problem with the education system in general. Jump through the hoops and get your piece of paper.
"They are not going to waste state security resources on people chatting in general terms about a geological fact of life."
The Oil Drum: Discussions About Energy and Our Future. We do a bit of philosophy around here too.
"I am writing this from Hong Kong. I've never met anyone Chinese in HK who has heard of PO."
Have you been asking around? I know I don't openly go about blabbing to every person I meet that we're about to have our nuts in a vise. They don't take kindly to it.
"...That's life. That takes your energy. Any thought you have left goes on the rubbish in the tabloids."
A lot of my PO aware friends say things like this. By the end of the day after 8 hours of working their shitty jobs they just want to relax and don't want to think about PO. Others I believe have "put up a shield" of conucopianism and believe technology will come along and whiz-bang everything. It's kind of an escape.
CHARLES T. MAXWELL is a senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co., in Greenwich, Conn. He has been working in the energy field for 36 years.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3161.html
From Charles' article above:
Our country's leaders have three main choices: Taking over someone else's oil fields; carrying on until the lights go out and Americans are freezing in the dark; or changing our life style by deep conservation while heavily investing in alternative energy sources at higher costs.
Which are we doing now, two years later?
Myself, I stayed long in crude, and bought more long crude contracts on Thursday 12 October. If that wasn't the price bottom, it was close enough for me.
(On the other hand, I smelled the blood in the water and cashed out of natural gas at the onset of the September bloodletting by JPMorgan)
Thank you for not holding me to an exact November 15th target date like some people around here (CryWolf). I swear, even if oil is at $57 on Nov. 14th, but then kicks up to $58 on Nov. 15th, that guy's never going to let me here the end of it. Anyway, doesn't, "$57 by November 15th" mean, "on or before November 15th?" I'll have to check my dictionary for the definition of the word, "by." Maybe they use the word differently in England.
I just found this super-cool feature on the right-hand sidebar called, "Your Comments" that, as the name suggests, let's you read your previously posted comments. Here's the exchange we had back on August 4th:
MicroHydro on Friday August 04, 2006 at 12:58 AM EST Comments top
Dear SelfAggrandizedTrader, I am holding oil contracts that I bought in the $40s back when Lynch, Yergin et.al. and many chartists were saying that oil would go back to the $30s. You are short, I am still long, in the great zero sum game, only one of us is going to have a Happy New Year.
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
SelfAggrandizedTrader on Friday August 04, 2006 at 1:00 AM EST Comments top
Or maybe we both will. At $57, you'll still make a killing!
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
CryWolf will probably nitpick my response by saying that it took me two whole minutes to get back to you.
Also looking at Apache, they have a wide portfolio of exhausted oil fields, some of which should be suitable for enhanced recovery at elevated prices.
Perhaps diversification with Canadian Natural Resources.
Anyway, now is a good time to buy for medium/long term holders (5+ years). A mild winter & recession will bring lower prices but that may not come to pass immediately. So I am hedging my bets and buying some now, some later.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Then, a bit later on:
This is something I have pointed out before. They may be misleading the country, but I think they really believe what they say. I made this exact point in the first story I ever wrote for TOD.
When asked which companies he would buy, he wrote:
Senior Vice President of Exxon Mobil Corporation, to be very interesting. Speaking at a CERA conference in 2001:
and
http://tinyurl.com/yh923x
Those who are analytical and smart will need enormous political skills and enormous ability to keep quiet or their careers will suffer,
Easy to guess which type is more numerous at the top of Exxon.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10406100
The path back is blocked, or at least vastly over populated and teh water table is down a thousand feet.
Interesting. LATOC is #1 in Google, but not #1 in traffic. I'm surprised ASPO's site isn't ranked higher. Though I guess they really don't update that often.
http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=www.theoildrum.com
Then again, why bother filtering? Sex is #1, followed very closely to violence, then celebrity worship. Most other issues fall off the map. Perhaps that's why most people have no idea who their congressperson is, or what party they represent. They have no idea where the water from their tap comes from, or where it goes, or what it is that comes out of the pump at the gas station, or where it disappears to. If they had to pour ten gallons of unleaded from a jerry can into their tank, they would appreciate it a lot more.
Man, I like the way you think...we should definitely propagate TOD with buzzwords that'll get TOD accidental readership. You've already got sex and violence. Now we need George Clooney, Brad Pitt, ummm...Paris Hilton video, Catherine Zeta-Jones. I can just imagine all the people looking for their fix and coming across this by accident, it'd really deflate their mood in a hurry. But really, sex and species propagation sells...all the companies have caught on, why not TOD? Just need a couple babes on the front page and PO will catch on like wildfire.
/end sarcastic babbling
I do believe that is a serious problem though.
Intellect, commitment & looks !
- Hummer, Detroit Tigers, nukes, gay congressman (Foley), North Korea, earthquake, and the coup de gras...spank me.
Wow...almost sounds like the nightly news...except for that last little bit.
A lot of people link to LATOC (which I think helps Google ranking), but it's not one of those happy-fun places that you like to go to often, and the content doesn't change excitingly often.
Alexa is currently 404 for me. (As they often are. IMO, they are one of the least reliable sites on the Web.)
The "bump" is probably because we got slashdotted this month.
Using the Barrons story above as example. What percentage of the U.S. reads Barrons regularly? However, what percentage of influencial people read Barrons regularly. I suspect that the people that can really influence my life are reading Barrons. So a story there carries infinately more weight than the identical story in say, Good Housekeeping (which is an excellent publication in its own right).
Likewise just because TOD is not garnering the same traffic as some popular site doesn't mean the information presented here isn't influential. If the message, and detailed information, presented here is accurate and important it will get picked up and distributed through popular outlets to the worlds eyeballs.
The important thing now is to confince the decision makers that TOD posters know what they are talking about. If we are successful in that arena the message will get out. If we are not successful, than those same influencial people will actively work to undermine our message using all the mass media at their disposal, including the internet.
My personal opinion (based on where TOD gets cited)is that TOD has been very successful to date. Much more influential than I would have predicted when first posting here. It has become more than just a place for like minded people to discuss issues. It is an active forum for debunking junk science and refining proposed solutions to the looming peak energy problem. We are just too scientific and boringly detailed to consistently garner high numbers compared to entertainment sites!
never post without Previewing!
We all get into this because we want to raise awareness or some other noble goal. But here is the reality and I know it sounds crazy but I will post links to back this up if you insist: the big time corporations, think tanks, propaganda units, etc. have computer systems that all this blogging and commentary goes into. The systems are quite sophisticated and are able to see which ideas, thought streams, etc. resonate with people. They then use this aggregated info to craft their message.
To put it in much simpler terms: let's say you are part of a corporate propagand . . . I mean "public relations" or "advertisint" unit. you get one of these programs and your run all energy related discussions throught it. You see that in the aggregate, the idea of "running out of oil" pisses people off but "getting off foregin oil" gets people excited. You then know which of these memes to incorporate into your propag . . . I mean "message."
In other words, despite our noble goals, we're really just helping "TPTB" disinform the peaseantry so they can cover their own asses!
(Hint: it means no more votes, and people not spending)
The ethanol hype in the US is the perfect example. While we babble on about EROEI, that is not "their imperative" at all. Ethanol is a means towards political power, votes and donations. And towards money, from subsidies and sales, for ADM, Shell, Khosla et al.
And who are those decision makers anyway? The frequent use of the acronym TPTB seems to serve one purpose only: not having to divulge that you have no idea who those powers are.
So I guess the German Green party was just an illusion? Strange, nobody in German politics thinks that anymore - even though they tried their best to to ignore them for years.
It seems as if the way to change things is to change them -. not talk about how other people should change.
.
The German Greens aren't peak oil aware in the sense of being part of the peak oil 'community' - they are much broader than what is, at least outside of the U.S., not considered to be such a critical concern. I may add, that a country like Australia, confronting a major shift in its agricultural resources, is also findng out that peak oil is not really the most important issue facing society.
As I have written here, peak oil is a hobby of mine - there are a lot of more major concerns facing people than the price of gasoline or whether production has peaked at 85 mpd or will peak at 91 mpd.
In this sense of dealing with the real world challenges societies face, the German Greens are much farther along in trying to implement many of the changes many people here seem to be just first grasping. One reason the Greens lost out in the later 1990s is because they advocated an additional 10 dollar a gallon tax on mineral oil - and though their normal voters thought that a good idea, a lot of other people were easily swayed into thinking that tax would be too high to live with - which was the point, of course.
The German Green anti-nuclear stance does come in for a fair bit of reasonable criticism here - though most of the people doing that don't seem to understand the linkage between why most currently operating nuclear plants were designed the way they were and nuclear weapons. The Greens are anti-nuclear power and anti-nuclear weapons - they are quite consistent, actually.
I wonder about your windfarm comment, considering that the current PhD Kanzlerin of Germany, who most certainly is not a Green, and her government on planning on the export of wind turbines to be a major export market and the source of 300,000 new jobs. Must be because Germans are world famous for being incompetent engineers and hopelessly optimistic dreamers.
As for turning off the nuclear plants - it is estimated in Germany that the output of 2 nuclear plants is wasted in heating water and standby consumption of electricity by various equipment which isn't really 'off.' Instead of keeping the two plants on-line, the Germans are moving towards requiring more efficient standards for electrical equipment. Change requires changing, not doing things the same way and talking about change.
I may add, that the major opposition in Germany about nuclear power hinges on waste disposal - if that problem can be convincingly solved, it is likely that the current consensus in Germany against nuclear power would no longer be strong enough to actually force social/economic changes, like higher efficiency appliances (though again, German technology for things like high efficiency washing machines using less water and electricity do seem to do well in the world market). Unfortunately, 'convincingly solved' waste disposal doesn't quite mean dig deep enough, and trust us, you will never see it again. Especially since formerly convincing solutions like dumping nuclear waste in steel barrels off ships in the deep, deep ocean, while fulfilling the nuclear industry's the cheap out of sight, out of mind requirement of waste disposal, the trust us, you will never see it again didn't work out like planned.
Quite honestly, it seems like too many people in Germany live too close to nuclear power plants - like in the Ukraine - to actually feel comfortable about the after effects of what is called here a GAU - 'größter anzunehmender Unfall', which means literally 'largest assumable accident' or worst case scenario. Remember, Germany is full of people who actually think engineering is a rigorous profession with quantifiable parameters, and not a Hollywood script. And quite honestly, yes, they did build their nuclear containment vessels with the idea of a plane crashing into them - unfortunately, the design parameters were for a typical F4 or Starfighter crash (from Wikipedia - 'In German service alone, 292 of the 916 Starfighters crashed...'). After what happened on 9-11, looking at the problem in a new light, confidence in nuclear safety here has not been enhanced by the current plans to enshroud such facilities in smokescreens, to at least prevent a piloted precise hit against the core. But at least the nuclear industry here worries about such things - and this in a country which still plans to turn the nukes off. Either the Germans are just being insane in their precautions, or maybe, just maybe, nuclear power isn't really a technology which is just child's play without any problems which can't be solved by ignoring them until they just go away.
Fortunately, it appears that there will be few A380s flying, and even fewer flying in US airspace.
Best Hopes,
Alan
In all fairness, the Germans tend to be a lot more worried about various chemical factories/storage areas in cities like Frankfurt since these facilities were never designed to such a high standard, but nuclear anxiety always grabs the headlines.
I heap plenty of scorn of current nuclear power practices, but actually, I have no problem supporting well designed (read fail safe - pebble bed as an example of what I mean by fail safe, not some impossible to achieve level of perfection) and well maintained nuclear power plants - it is just that essentially most, if not all nuclear power plants in operation today fail at least one of those criteria (and some of the East European/Russian reactors fail both). The waste disposal problem is not insurmountable, though it is not yet truly solved - and in this problem I include the large amount of weapon capable material which is still being created through daily reactor operation - weapons grade material poses an entirely different level of risk, as the safely bury and forget strategy will never work since this doesn't prevent a motivated organization creating bombs from material which is available - if not in this century, then maybe in the next one, or the one following, or ....
Impossible ?
I would point to the 737NG series aircraft. One hull loss (midair collision). ZERO design flaws that arfe likely to lead to fatalities. Over 2,000 flying making an average 7 takeoff/landing cycles/day.
The US nuclear industry was modeled after the aircraft industry. Unfortunately not perfectly modeled (culture issues IMHO).
But it is possible to design & build a perfectly safe aircraft, and a nuclear reactor.
Alan
A friend and I were invited to take a flight by another friend's father, a helicopter pilot who had also flown in Vietnam.
What impressed me beyond measure (and became part of my future motorcycle riding perspective) was how this pilot checked every single fuel tank with his own fuel gauge, to make certain that the right fuel was loaded, and that the amount was correct. He also checked a number of other things, maybe routine, but the idea that you never trust what you don't personally check was eye opening.
This pilot would have never, ever agreed with you that it is possible to design a perfectly safe aircraft, if by that you mean that human error can be designed out of the system.
This could be a matter of perspective, but it is one that I have noticed particularly among people who work with machinery on an intimate basis - after he retired, he opened a company which serviced helicopters, especially engines. I have never met someone who works with machinery who has earned my respect for their skills that has ever believed in mechanical perfection. (Could be a tautology, admittedly.)
But the lack of perfection did not stop him from flying - it just made him take the time to remove as many error chains as possible - and he certainly knew people who died while flying. As you can guess, this means he was less 'cost effective' than someone who trusted the idea that mistakes don't happen - and in these cost saving days (decades, really), who do you think would be favored?
One of the things which helped tip the nuclear debate in 2001 locally is described below - http://www.agroeco.nl/~wise/556/5325.html
'The incident concerned the containers designed to flood the reactor with boric acid if there is a loss of primary coolant. The boric acid contains boron, which absorbs neutrons and so slows down or stops the nuclear reaction. If its concentration is too low, there is a risk that the emergency shutdown system will not work properly. This system is crucial to the reactor's safety, and therefore includes four pairs of containers, of which two pairs are sufficient to flood the reactor with boric acid and stop the nuclear reaction.
On 12 August, the reactor was put online after annual maintenance. As part of the maintenance, the boric acid containers had been refilled. However, the concentration of boron was not measured at the time, and it was not until 25 August that the boron concentration was found to be too low in one of the four pairs of containers. Two days later they noticed the same problem in two more pairs of containers. On 28 August the operators took corrective action, adding boric acid to the tanks and stirring. It was not certain until 6 September that all four tanks were available for use and contained the correct concentration of boron.
The reactor's operator, Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW), assessed the problem incorrectly as one with no consequences for safety, and informed the regulator of this. As a result the reactor was kept running during the entire period of the incident. The regulatory authorities, however, made some calculations and found that the single pair of tanks with the proper boron concentration would not have been enough to stop the nuclear reaction if a loss of coolant accident had occurred. Therefore the plant should have been shut down immediately that the problem was noticed.'
Notice the pertinence of that Marine pilot checking? But it seems as if actually following procedures and ensuring that emergency systems are working is just too much to expect from a company which feels that profit is more important than theoretical safety concerns. This is what I mean by fail safe design - loss of coolant leading to disaster is moronic design, especially if no one running the plant or utility even bothers to care much about the safety systems in place to deal with loss of coolant problems.
I have no problems finding any number of real world examples to back my own perspective. Why such pragmatic criticism is so often stamped as Green idiocy escapes me - just trusting your friend the fissioning atom is not really a good long term engineering perspective.
It is my impression that most people here are early adopters and data/information junkies. This is not representative of the population as a whole. Most people, including most senior level managers can't see these new opportunities until everyone else is using them.
It takes time, and endless repition, until any new idea can be understood by the vast majority of people. I have seen this in business many times. My current employer now is having trouble grasping the sea change coming to our business due to biodiesel, ethanol and higher energy prices. This is despite numerous researchers, like myself, informing them via reports and direct verbal communication. At present they see no opportunity to enter those markets so dismiss the impacts.
The opportunities we show to them are someone elses business, not ours. And they are correct, in that historically, anything energy related was not in our business scope. But they aren't grasping the many co-product streams, support businesses, new processes, that will develop simulataneously with bio-fuels. Many of these areas are in their infancy now, and if you do a Market survey then viola' you find no large market to support capital expenditures.
I used to get upset at others inability to see where the markets were going to grow ahead of time. I now accept it. Very few organazations have the leadership, or more importantly deep pockets, to be true innovators. Too much risk. Most business people want to pull the trigger on new business after it goes mainstream but before their competitors adopt! This is a very, very, small window of time. If you don't already have established research & development platforms underway you will be late to the party. So you have to commit money before any data set supports investment. That is belief, not conventional market assessment.
So in conclusion, IMHO, more and more businesses are understanding the problem. But they are still waiting for someone else to make all the mistakes, before they spend money on the good stuff.
You get to the top of one world, one way of doing things, by excelling in that mindset. Which means in a changed environment or world, you may be no 'smarter' than anyone else, and your previous experience may be a distinct disadvantage.
Example. The US has the best armour generals in the world. No army can beat the US Army on the battlefield-- the combination of air power, mechanised force, helicopters, sophisticated technology is unbeatable. So the insurgents in Iraq redefined the 'war', and many of the US general-level officers could not adjust their mindset, tactics and operational goals.
Another example. DEC made the best minicomputers in the world. Their customers loved them, it was a great company to work for.
Along came the idea of a microcomputer. DEC couldn't see the point. They never successfully produced a cost-effective microcomputer. (IBM did, but by effectively throwing away the rest of the IBM organisation to do it, even the operating system was outsourced to a company called Microsoft).
DEC eventually declined to irrelevance and was bought for scrap by Compaq.
The people who ran DEC were Gods. Ken Olsen and that were incredibly smart, capable people. It's just they didn't understand their changed environment.
They are plenty willing to take risks, but the risks will be extremely calculated to try and ensure that they stay on top. Since most risks are more likely to upset the careful balance they've created, they will avoid taking those risks. If the situation requires taking a risk, they will analyze the pros and cons of the various risks available in order to find one that deals with the problem, while offering the best opportunity for them to stay on top.
None of this should be surprising, since all of us do some form of this all the time. TPTB have just been more successful at it than the rest of us, or at least they had one or more ancestors that were successful.
Explain to me how a computer can make sense of the ramblings and bad grammer on these blogs when computerised language translators can't correctly recognize an idiom?
"We all get into this because we want to raise awareness or some other noble goal."
haven't you repeatedly stated you are in it for the money?
http://odograph.com/?p=9
A year ago these guys did not have the ability to search their own databases for more than one key at a time. I really doubt they are now ahead of the public nerd-driven web watchers.
Too much institutional weight stuck in the old world.
And we all have different reasons for being here. Some are so foolish to believe that they can change the world, that they can make a difference in the grand scheme of things. A very few perhaps hope to better understand what is happening in order to make money. As for myself, I hope to gain from it, but not in the way you might think. I simply hope to better understand people and their motives. Plus I find a lot of it entertaining.
And this type of message is both entertaining, (it is a real hoot), and helps me understand people better:
Understand what I mean?
Ron Patterson
Yes they're stupid clumsy inefficient have no ability to interpret data bureaucratically hidebound.
Persistent as hell. Well funded. And they never forget.
Jump ahead over 20 something years, and I have a nephew who has a world class brain. Designs nasty things for electric boat. Well he arrived at his office one day, only to find his boss waiting for him. It seems there were 2 gentlemen waiting to see him. The very first question was, how often do you speak with your uncle? His routine security screening had kicked out the fact that he was my nephew. That triggered dispatch of team.
Like I said, smart kid, so he waited until lunch and called me from a pay phone. I got a "way kewl uncle Don".
They never forget.
And Ron, the Echelon and PROMIS software works, even if there is not enough manpower to follow all leads.Much less anyone bright enough to understand a lead. I had a lover who was a software developer on Echelon until Echelon picked up her connection to me. Her career very odd since then.
Some other time I'll tell the story about the sequential (as in one immediately after the other) visits from KGB and CIA. I believe the Marx-Engels Institute in Praha is mildewed and gone, but it was a very bad mistake to discover Chicago documents from the 1880's (in Bohemian!) shelved there. They track anarchists who've been dead a hundred years.
Oh yeah, KGB asks much better questions.
If the pentagon is willing to admit they are developing software to monitor overseas news coverage then you can bet your bottom dollar corporations are already using software to monitor blogs. If you were them, wouldn't you do the same?
MONITORING OF BLOGS AND MEDIA COVERAGE:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003219732
"The New York Times reported Wednesday that over the next three years several major universities will develop software to help the U.S. government monitor negative coverage in newspapers and other publications overseas. The project will be funded by a $2.4 million grant from Department of Homeland Security."
http://www.carma.com/services/syndicated_analysis/
This is an example of a corporate PR firm offering to monitor blogs for you.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/39227/
[quote]The Defense Department is seeking to create a powerful and sophisticated new weapon to help win the Global War on Terror -- a blog search engine. "We're out to make a machine that will analyze blogs in real time," says Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, a senior scientist for the defense contractor charged with development of the new terror-fighting tool.[/quote]
This all took me 5 minutes to find on google. I'm sure 15 minutes of searching would come up with a whole lot more.
Who are "TPTB"? I believe it was the "Original Prophet of Doom", Jay Hanson himself, who said on his yahoo list the Forbes 400 would be a good place to go looking for who TPTB are.
Now we have confirmation that AT LEAST one of the Forbes 400 reads both LATOC and TOD: Richard Rainwater. We know another member reads TOD at the least: Vinond Khosla. I don't think it unreasonable to suspect some others read these sites do.
Twilight in the Desert was one of the top books read among executives last year. (don't have the link handy but it was discussed here on TOD)
Bill Clinton (not a member of TPTB, but definietly one of their servants) has read The Party's Over.
Now let's pretend your Archer Daniels Midland (or some other mega company). You want people to support ethanol and toss their money at it. In order to do so you need to know what buzzwords, thought streams etc. resonate with people. Why would you not, at the very least, have a few of your minions monitor the blogs that discuss these matters?
I'm not sure why thinking TPTB or their servants read these blogs is such a nutty proposition.
The levels go deeper than most of us usally think. Re: my post to oldhippie. I got very disillusioned when I realized
I was getting very large checks, drawn on a Miami bank, to rent those buses. I never could track the source of the funding. It was my name on the rental receipt.
Yeah, I sort of remember that convo. No offense but you were a dumbass to accept that money. (you were young but still) Heck even the Fortune article had me strappin on my tinfoil hat asking, "okay what's REALLY going on here?" Now if a big fat check came out of nowhwere I'd really be suspicious.
Not saying I wouldn't spend it. F-k yeah I would. I'd just be suspicious thats all.
Don took some money for buses. BFD. I left 'The Revolution' when all my friends who couldn't scrape together 5 for a bag of weed suddenly had C4, Claymores, M-60s, BARs, RPG7s and training camps in the North Woods where they could play with these toys. And millions of rounds of ammo, And spooky Maximum Leaders without vitae but with great raps flew into town. Nobody was suspicious.
And the organizations started from the demise of SDS are still with us. Read Richard Cobb, Police and The People (about French Revolution) to learn standard police MO for running fronts, securing permanent funding, maintaining job security. For job security alone, the files the police keep grow endlessly.
Why should anyone take you seriously? You have gone on and on about the connection between BTU's and $'s right? Now you state you got into this to help the environment. You follow that with you are trying to make money like everyone else. Then you throw out what peakoil sites you own and how many hits they get. You are a Profiteer of Doom at best. LATOC is boring anyway why should anybody pay for free information?
You are not a doomer you just pretend to be to sell stuff.
matt
another thing I forgot to mention. Colin Campbell was paid a visit by U.S. Naval Intelligence. He talks about it in a PO documentary, forget which one.
Pick your favorite PO author. Now ask yourself, do you really think this person would be talking, writing about PO as much as they are if they weren't earning money?
Do you think the posters at TOD (who do not get paid) would be posting so prolificlly if TOD got 50 visits a day instead of 10,000?
My guess, in both cases, the answer is no. If what you're doing is not earning you money or friends (financial or social capital) most people stop doing it.
there's nothing wrong with realizing this. it's just the way we're wired. some people like to convinice themselves they would do what they do even if they were getting no money and no recognition but that is simply not how the brain is wired to work.
Do you think a suicide bomber does what he does to make friends and make money? I don't. People do what they do to fulfill their self image. For some, that may be to be popular and wealthy, but self images run a much wider gamut than that. some of us want affection, some respect, some power, some peace.
If you understand the selfish gene theory you understand why suicide bombers do what they do. Humans are wired to promote their own genes AND the genes of the tribe. The subconscous of the suicde bomber percieves blowing himself up as conveying an advantage to the genes of his tribe visavi the OTHER tribal members.
Obviously, things have to be pretty desperate for the subconscious to make this calculation.
Ultimately money or social power are sought to promote the genes.
The quality of the information is important (and I never even bother to surf with graphics on, unless the content is worth it, and I don't use Flash at all) - but then, this is one of my strange hobbies. groklaw.net being another, for example - you all use Linux and Mozilla/Firefox, right, with browser ID changed? I mean, the TPTB - hard to type that one the first time - are just thrilled when you don't. Referrer header setting for example - anyone interested in cutting down on the TPTB learning useful information needs to turn that off - forget cookies, which are easy to manipulate anyways. Referrer information is gold - where do you think sites know the search terms used to find them? Except people like me don't even bother to give you that information.
Info mining is only as good as the ore - and people are pretty low grade ore. On the other hand, I can believe that a lot of people do mine TOD - the ore here is not low grade in comparison. But it is of very limited value in the end - neither ExxonMobil nor any member of the Saudi royal family cares in the least what is written here - they deal with the reality of what comes out of the pipeline, after all, not words.
On the other hand if only 25 people are going to see it are you likely to make the same investment in time, energy, etc? Of course you aren't. (999 out of 1,000 times)
In the past, I have worked in television - behind a camera or in master control, among various people with various skills.
One of the things I never understood was the need for the talent to have their name appear in the credits - it never interested me in the least. I have also written for money - and having my name on what I wrote was also meaningless, as long as the check cashed. (But having my name there under what someone else wrote enrages me - unknown is fine, but representing someone else's work as mine is something that really causes problems. This is not the same as editing - generally, editing doesn't bother me either.)
As noted, I have strange hobbies, and my broad assumption is that the people who write here are not motivated so much by recognition in terms of audience numbers, but recognition in terms of respect. Generally, respect is not measured by numbers. And sure, a number of people read, and some post, here hoping to make money - to not notice the undercurrent of investment interest would be ignorant.
This is an open discussion, of course, and the fact that I don't understand what motivates people and many people don't seem to understand what motivates me is just a simple fact.
Sometimes an audience of ONE is enough.
Computers are still fantastic tools for collecting/collating huge masses of structured data - this is not the same as extracting useful information beyond what can be considered the statistical - term x appears y times on z sites. Consider breast - how does the software tell the difference between a chicken's and a man's and a woman's? Or cancer, swimming, or meat?
And if you answered 'context,' do remember that the context was provided by a person when the software was written, and is not developed dynamically by the software itself over time.
That mundane human trick of learning independently within changing circumstances is still beyond all known current technology - you may want to read the fascinating discussions stretching back to, oh, around WWII, to see whether it will always be beyond reach or not. Considering the amount of effort and investment till now, it doesn't look like a trivial challenge at all.
But hey, the brochures probably look very nice, and the promises well written to ensure that the company can't be sued for fraud after you buy their product. Software marketing is not for amateurs - the buyers are the amateurs, after all.
However, I am not disputing that by having their own sandbox, a company like Myspace (owned by Murdoch) can't deliver all sorts of useful information in a marketing/political level. It is just that marketing information isn't quite the same as geopolitical power in terms of Iran cutting the Straights of Hormuz because the Bush League decides that the polls will be favorable in domestic terms, so they lob a few bunker busters at Iran to show North Korea who the top dog really is.
To use a stupid but not irrelevant cliche - the map is not the terrain.
As far as Alexa, perhaps PG can chime in here as he/she (we don't know if PG is male, female, or some permutation so I use "he/she") can expalin better than I how alexa works. I've plugged in the various PO sites into systems that claim to rank traffic and get wildy different results.
I do know that Alexa's traffic rank is different then reach rank. Reach is an indicator of how many people are visiting the site, while traffic is a combination of how many people show up and how many pages they view.
For the year LATOC is averaging 5,900 visits a day and 10,000 page views. The last month or two it's been 5,000 and 9,000 respectively.
One problem is what consitutes a "visit." If somebody logs onto LATOC at 9 am, logs off and comes back later I don't know if that is one visit or two. Each system seems to have a different way of classifying a visit.
In my own mind, there are different types of visits. If I get a link from "CornucopiansAreUS.com" I might get an influx of traffic but most will be there to mock me. On the other hand a favorable link from a mainstream paper might send traffic that is there to see "what does this guy have to say?"
BTW, I own peakoil.org I have pointing to savinarsolar.com whihc is dormant at this point. It is #3 in google even though neither I or the previous owner have done much with it. (BTW, I plan on selling it as I haven't found a good use for it myself. It gets 150 visits a day for anybody interested.)
I visit your site on a daily basis, mostly at work. Everytime my superior gets near I close it and join later. I'm at least good for 8 visits a day. I also check your site from home, but it is still the same me.
My first PO book was downloading " the oil age is over"
How is your article on environmental polution coming tohether?
I update it once a day. monday through friday. Once that update is done (usually by 1:00 pm pacific time), there is nothing till the next day. Just letting you know so you don't have to burn out your mouse once that day's update is published.
Are these absolute numbers, as in all websites that exist on the planet?
.
Traffic Rank for theoildrum.com: 53,526
1 Year Traffic
3 Month Traffic
Today: 57,254
1 Week Avg: 28,715
3 Month Avg: 53,526
Also, seriously...wherever you post, add your website URL to your signature and you should at least pick up a few curious clickers.
Best,
Name
clicky click
The pics I have up of Ken Deffeyes will no doubt keep them coming back for more.
Best,
Matt
Hot Sex Here Now for Free
Dieoff.com
and
Dieoff.org
I understand that this site gets a lot of hits but I have no idea where it ranks.
Ron Patterson
I think there is a certain percentage of the population who will potentially accept these ideas. Let's say, for the sake of discussion it is 5%. (probably much lower) Well I suspect 20-50% of that 5% was onboard since the 1970s. The other 50% or so "come on board" between April 2003 when we invaded Iraq and September 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit. If those two events didn't get you on line looking for answers, nothing will.
In other words we've picked the low hanging fruit in regards to PO awareness. Even gas at $10 is just going to drive traffic to "LetsKillThemA-rabs.com". "ItsAllTheFaultOfBush.net", and "HereIsAnotherBoneheadedSchemeToBoycottGas.org
"We've got the cream, all that's left is the shaft" as the saying goes!
Do any Fords actually run properly?
There were a few recalls, but they were for minor stuff.
But don't even get me started on Chrysler...
I have no problem pushing their vehicles because their service is excellent and they are putting out products that meet my needs instead of other car manufacturers that put out cars they "think" I need and then trying to convince me I need them.
Currently, my wife drives a 2003 Prius. It has 70,000 miles on it, no problems so far, and still getting close to 49 mpg.
I'm driving a 2006 RAV4 and even though I'm not proud to have an SUV, I feel better that it's the best mpg in its class. When the RAV4-EV goes public, I'll switch.
They had hoped to appeal to young hipsters, anyway. But as happened with the Honda Element (another car aimed at young hipsters), it's the 40-year-olds who are buying them. Horrors! Is there anything less cool than driving the same car your mom does?
The thing is, the cars aimed at young people tend to be very good values. The car companies are willing to take a loss on a sale to a young person, with the idea that they may be getting a customer for life. So of course older people jump on them.
It's pretty funny, how the car companies try to hide their "hip" models from the middle aged masses. For example, they try things like not advertising on TV, where older people may see the ads. Instead, they hire students to drive the cars around college campuses.
What's funny is I'm seeing more and more of the Scion vans running around being used by delivery people.
They are cheap and on the whole get very good mileage.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/19515.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/19901.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/19678.shtml
2004 Scion xA
Fuel Economy
MPG (city) 32
MPG (highway) 38
MPG (combined)34
----
2004 Scion xB
MPG (city) 30
MPG (highway) 34
MPG (combined) 32
----
2004 Toyota Echo
MPG (city) 35
MPG (highway) 43
MPG (combined) 38
-------------------------
xB's are definitely being used as delivery vans and roving sign boards.
I figure one way or the other, the Corolla will be my last car. I'll drive it until I retire, or until the gas stations go dry. (And if the latter happens next year, at least I didn't spend too much. ;-)
Safety might be taken two ways:
Even big, strapping men have reported being mugged while biking. To avoid being mugged, they often recommend that you vary your routine, not traveling the same route at the same time of day every day. But that's kind of hard to avoid when you're biking to work.
But I worry more about the traffic. It's a city with extremely steep hills and extremely brutal winters. There are days when I don't feel safe driving the car, the roads are so slick, snowy, or icy. The sidewalks (which are the official bike lanes here) get covered by 5' plowdrifts, and may not be passable until spring. Meanwhile, huge SUVs are skidding all over the road. They think they're invulnerable, because hey, they have four-wheel drive.
I hope that she is well and remember her fondly.She was smart, pretty and lots of fun !
And that is how I became a wharf rat. Loved that Ripple she used to give me.
Rat
Have you checked your PCV lately?
Leanan: At the Chrysler dealership I saw a transmission fail at 190 miles and an engine fail at 9 miles. I won't say anymore about them but I think I share your view.
Yipes! That's definitely a few miles. It's really weird the things that wear out on a high mileage car. You'd think that by the time any other part of the car got worn down like that the engine would be worn to the nub, but sitting there in its bath of lubrication it keeps going with hardly a sign of wear.
"My username has nothing to do with energy sources. I am well-versed in automotive wiring and spend some of my free time wiring street rods and lowriders for friends."
Would that "Rex" be CRX, then?
It's amazing how long an engine will last when someone takes good care of it from day one. There's nothing better a person can do for their vehicle other than giving it fresh, clean oil.
"Would that "Rex" be CRX, then?"
Rex is actually my first name. Most all of the rods and lowriders I've been involved with are domestics but years ranging from the 1920's to current. I've only helped modify a few imports.
First off, it confirms WesTexas' export model, in that Australia is suffering from a drought, so its wheat production is declining from 24 MT to 11, but its own use is static at 7 MT. Therefore, its exports should plummet from 17 MT to 4MT.
Ukraine grain exports are also being squeezed off.
US corn declined slightly, but the interesting thing is the skyrocketing percentage going to ethanol.
If 25% of US corn is going to ethanol now, and 35% next year (soon to be 50% plus), then it would appear that we are past "Peak Food," and into "Food Descent."
For some time now grain production has been at the "bumpy plateau," but because of FTF (Food to Fuel), it appears we are past the peak.
This makes sense in another way. Before the invention of the internal combusion engine, half of all cultivated lands went to support draft animals. With the power of ancient sunlight, we were able to use ALL cultivated lands -- turbocharged with fossil fuel based fertilizers, etc -- to feed a huge increase of human mouths.
Now, as oil peaks, we are reverting to using cultivated lands for transport, but instead of feeding draft animals, the bounty of the land is going to feed our engines.
P.S., if 25% of US corn is going to ethanol, and if the IEA is tracking it as liquid fuel production (but the EIA is not), that would explain why the two measurements are diverging.
The increase of the IEA is driven by ethanol and other biofuels, while the decline shown by the EIA is showing that Deffeyes was correct.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/curren t/pdf/glossary.pdf
Field Production. Represents crude oil production on leases, natural gas liquids production at natural gas processing plants, new supply of other hydrocarbons/ oxygenates and motor gasoline blending components, and fuel ethanol blended into finished motor gasoline.
Ron Patterson
Here are some of my concerns vis-a-vis its viability regarding large-scale operation:
- Covered or uncovered? It is no trick to grow high-lipid algae in a sterile enclosed bioreactor, but what about its viability in open uncovered ponds, where all manner of competing microorganisms have a whack at those carefully-selected strains algae that you've planted?
- If one goes with a covered pond, then one automatically has to face the cold hard facts of capital costs. Covering the equivalent of even a single acre with a greenhouse type structure is hardly cheap. Hell, I'd bet that even $3 per sq ft is quite low for the installed cost. So, a single acre of covered algae pond is probably going to cost you a very minimum of about $150,000. As far as I can tell, the very best you are going to do in the real world is to produce a barrel of biodiesel per acre of algae pond. At an average price of say $60/bbl, you are only going to generate about $22,000 per year in revenues. So, even excluding the not-insignificant operating costs, it's a very dubious proposition from a purely economic standpoint.
- Harvesting the algae - I have yet to get a good feel for how this would be done on a large scale. Yes, there are various filtration techniques, but if one must move around several hundred thousand gallons per day of a algae-laden water, it can get expensive very fast. Furthermore, most algae is very gelatinous and sticky and not the easiest material to dewater on a large scale.This may look simple, but it is probably not.
- Extraction of the algae - This is where things appear to get a little dicey. From the sketchy literature I've looked at, it appears that your options include solvent extraction, enzymatic extraction, pressing of dried algae, osmotic shock to break down cell walls, supercritcal CO2 extraction (a variation of solvent extraction), and ultra-sonic assist followed by whatever. All incur substantial costs, and all entail many technical problems.
Not the least of which is energy consumption. Solvent extraction implies the recylcing of the solvent, and that implies distillation, which implies energy usage.It's the old problem of trying to process a large volume of material that is mostly water. Not cheap.
- Nutrient supply - As a microorganism, algae has a certain nitrogen and phosphorus content (as well as certain micronutrients). How do you suppy sufficient N and P to the algae? Linking an algae operation with a livestock feedlot seems to make sense from a purely conceptual point of view, but then there are the problems of 'load matching' , etc.
- Final disposition of the residue after oil extraction - After the lipids are extracted, one is left with a residue at least 4 time greater in volume than the oil extracted. What to do with this muck? It is highly biodgradable, which is both good and bad. It is good in that one could perhaps use it as a soil amendment, but bad in the sense that it could easily become a stinking messy waste problem.
In conclusion, while biodiesel from algae might look promising from the standpoint of quantity of biomass produced per acre under 'cultivation', the downside is that one is inherently constrained by the amount of wet material that must be handled, plus the high capital costs of building covered ponds.I'm sorry, but from what I've read so far, biodiesel from algae does not look like a winner to me.
Having said that, I readily admit that I am not an expert on this subject. I also like to think that I have a somewhat open mind. So, if any of you out therer think I am off base, please take a constructive whack at what I've just said. I really want this to work, but I just don't see much there to be all that enthused about.
The lab is one thing; the real world is something else again.
It is possible to envision 1 cm thick bioreactors with the interior coated with some nano material to keep the algae from adhering spread over hundreds of square miles of former desert. The volume of water is nill and the extracted soilds can be composted to feed the new algae.
This assumes there is a functioning society - which I doubt.
I think we need a closed system, but cheap.
How about something like giant plastic "waterbeds"? With hoses and swimming-pool level technology?
Stuff that can be just plain laid out and piped together in the desert without big capital costs, and done incrementally?
A little on the Insight
::Six Million Dollar Man intro voice:: We have the technology.
Now, take the body form shown in the post by Substrate, a very usable suburban sedan, and combine it with the wheel hub 4 wheel drive electric hybrid developed by PML Flightlink:
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html
Your are now talking a sedan with more than acceptable interior room and performance, and an easy 100 plus miles per gallon, and if the batteries improve only slightly in the next 5 years the change downward in fuel consumption becomes stunning! Want to make it even better?
Forget this alcohol idiocy, and convert the fossil fuel range extending engine to compressed natural gas. It would be using so little as to be easily replaced by wind and the rapidly advancing thin film solar and a bit of conservation, and it would be North American produced fuel for the strategic advantage.
As you said, we have the technology. The truth is, if we decide, we could break OPEC's back in less than a decade with just plain good engineering.
But, so sadly, even those who know the need we face, will continue to shoot down every single alternative, leaving the public to fall into complacency and feel that "nothing can be done", which is just as destructive as the CERA line that "nothing needs to be done". Both lead to exactly the same place:
Nothing WILL be done.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/702.html
1921 Rumpler 2.6-litre saloon. Deutsches Museum, Munich. The 1921 Rumpler Wagon had a drag coefficient of only 0.27, lower than the 0.40 average of 1984 cars.
http://velomobiling.net/
They run on donuts or your favorite health food or drink.
Active transportation is healthy transportation.
One can design velos and trailers for load-hauling.
Add electric assist for hills or sometimes added speed, and you can get a pretty efficient vehicle.
Also it seems as if hybrid car sales have topped out?
Without some significant government action, its hard to see them taking a lot more market share. Not that many people are going to buy a car just because it's 'green'.
since they have both a i.c.e. and a electric motor+battery system they are mechanically more complex then a straight i.c.e. car. for me at least this means i would not trust just about any mechanic to work on it. you don't want to take your hybrid into a garage to have brake work done only to find out they while replacing the brakes they did not know any better and broke the break regeneration system.
In brief: the total drag is equal to the coefficient of drag multiplied by the two-dimensional cross-sectional area.
So that even though some larger luxury cars have a fairly good coefficient of drag, they can still have more drag than a smaller car with a worse Cd.
The real number is never reported, because it can't be easily used to sell big expensive cars.
Hence a Hummers 0.57 is multiplied by a huge additional number; it is really egregiously bad.
NEW YORK: Oil may fall on speculation the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will fail to cut production enough to stem a 27% slide in prices.
Failing to cut production? Perhaps this is code for can't keep up with world demand
How could we (the US admininstration) hurt the "bad" OPEC members that keep threatening us (i.e., Iran, Venezuela)? Cut their profits. To some extent, dropping the price of crude acts a type of sanction to those exporters that need the dinero at this point in time.
Of course this would take vast amounts of money and inside manipulation, so highly unlikely.
I was just ruminating on it this Sunday evening.
Quake hits Hawaii
The epicenter was just off the Kona coast. Jay Hanson's stomping grounds.
Nothing has changed since. And this is a country that actually has a place to dump their carbon.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/thermite.html
By the way Thermite can be made at home. Ask anyone that has ever read the Anarchists Handbook, Which is available in several book stores again.
As my dad and I discussed, several chemicals used in Oil Tank clean up, are highly reactive and fun for Pyros.
Just don't try any Pyro-technics at home.
No stop that, not even those cancer sticks!
When the paperwork arrived at his door, he went out and caused a thermite reaction on the camera supprt column and brought it down, thinking this would remove the evidence of him speeding.
Marco.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/5320092.stm