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DrumBeat: October 18, 2006
Posted by threadbot on October 18, 2006 - 9:18am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Major Problems Of Surviving Peak Oil
Rob Hopkins says in "Why the Survivalists Have Got It Wrong" that he has very little time for the survivalist response to peak oil, and refers to "Preparing for a Crash: Nuts and Bolts" by Zachary Nowak.Rob may well be partially right but he, like Zachary Nowak and many other "community" minded people tend to miss or are just in denial with the true reality of what the effects of Peak Oil will really mean.
Has "Peak Oil" Peaked Too Soon?
Disaster struck “Peak Oil” cheerleaders this month as Chevron announced the discovery of massive new oil reserves in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. “Dang it!” one expert was overheard shouting while being shepherded from MSNBC’s greenroom. “We’ve been predicting the end of oil for a century now, and it finally looked like we were right. Why won’t people just give up looking for a better future so we can all feel prophetic and important for once?”Okay, I made up that part about MSNBC. Peak oil naysayers would never admit they were wrong or admit that the Chevron discovery is a major blow to their theory. To an optimist, the glass is half full. To a pessimist, the glass is half empty. To a peak oil theorist, the glass is hidden in the next room, but he’s sure it’s damn near empty.
Peak Oil: The Clock Is Ticking
Perhaps the most common response to the peak-oil problem is: "The oil isn't going to disappear overnight. We have a century to prepare." Unfortunately, the fact that the decline in oil is a curve, not a vertical line, makes it difficult to comprehend. What matters is that the serious damage will be done long before we get to those tiny remaining drops a century or so from now. If we look at the forecasts of Petroconsultants Corp., which produces the "bible" of oil data, we can see that in the year 2000 there were five barrels of oil per person per year, but that by 2025 there will only be about two barrels, not five. That's not an "on/off" situation, but at that point the human race should probably wave goodbye to the Oil Economy. The year 2025 is far less than a century from now.
Richard Heinberg: (post-)Hydrocarbon Aesthetics
OPEC looks to clarify oil output cuts in Doha
LONDON - OPEC members have descend on Doha for an extraordinary meeting aimed at finalizing a cut in oil output, but they must overcome divisions that damage the cartel's credibility.
SlashDot discusses that Popular Mechanics article on hydrogen: Crunching the Numbers on a Hydrogen Economy
If we ignore these trends, an energy crisis could be on the horizon for Texas. In fact, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) estimates that the current energy supply could be compromised by 2008 as reserve margins dip below acceptable levels.
Curing the World's Oil Addiction
Developing alternative energy sources now is crucial as more budding economies secure oil supplies from unsavory regimes.
EU losing faith in Russia energy charter scheme
Mexico fuel tanker blast kills 6, more feared dead
MEXICO CITY - An explosion on a fuel tanker in Mexico's Pajaritos petrochemical port complex on Tuesday killed six workers and two others were missing, feared dead, state oil monopoly Pemex said.
Mexico won't increase spending to fight poverty
Mexico must increase investment in Petroleos Mexicanos, the country's state-owned oil monopoly, in order to make existing oil reserves last as long as possible, Carstens said.Output from Mexico's largest field, Cantarell, is forecast to decline by 8 percent in 2006 to 1.86 million barrels per day from 2.03 million barrels per day in 2005, said Vinicio Suro, deputy director of planning and evaluation for Pemex's production and exploration unit, during an Aug. 2 conference call.
Japan's Kyoto gap widens as emissions rise
Statoil Increases Production from Norne
Statoil has installed a new subsea template that ensures improved recovery on the Norne field in the Norwegian Sea. A total increase of 10 million barrels of oil is expected...."Statoil's ambition is to maintain a production level of one million barrels of oil equivalent per day on the Norwegian continental shelf until 2015," says Terje Overvik, executive vice president for Exploration & Production Norway.
HECO blames 3rd turbine crash for O'ahu's blackout
Hawaiian Electric Co. had enough excess power to keep O'ahu lit after earthquakes caused two generators to fail Sunday morning, but when a third, much larger, turbine crashed minutes later, it took the entire island with it....HECO officials said the shutdown of the islandwide system was necessary once the third generator came down to avoid permanent damage to the operating generators. If one of the other generators had been damaged, it could have led to blackouts lasting days or weeks and not hours.
[Update by Leanan on 10/18/06 at 10:55 AM EDT]
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending October 13, 2006 Oil prices rise after the weekly inventory report shows bulging crude supplies but smaller-than-expected supplies of gas and distillates.
There is some evidence that the EIA is including biofuels such as EtOH in their values.
So to answer your question, Yes, it includes Brazilian ethanol, all other ethanol, and just about any kind of liquid fuel you can dream up. It even includes a little water as Orimulsion is 30 percent water.
Ron Patterson
A Dutch TV show, but the Carre' interview is in English.
To get this to play, check a player in the box to the right, then close the box and the screen will appear.
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/30565236/media/30728807/
I guess my question is this: Is there some kind of mathematical rule-of-thumb that relates OOIP to significant extraction lifetime, or that perhaps relates the physical dimensions of the field (in 3D, underground) to significant extraction lifetime?
The more straws in the milkshake, the sooner you hear the slurping sounds.
But if some slurpers get head-freeze and their consumption drops there will be a delay until you hear the slurping sounds. And if one person is a head-freeze recessive mutant and therefore can suck down the milkshake at a rate 10X that of everyone else...
sluuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrp!**
On the oil drum here it has already been reported that some of our ministers are trying to herald E85 as a clean, cheap and efficient solution to transition from oil to our bright future. I usually link these "out of the wild" ideas to our minister of the interior, Nicolas Sarkozy because he takes his orders directly from New York's neocons. This month Paris held a car show in which some discussions arose about gasoline, oil and alternatives. Our minister of industry, Thierry Breton, came in and showed how he switched to E85. He was shown filling his tank from the first and sole E85 pump in Paris. His face was glowing with pride, and he seemed to be very enthusiastic to tell how this was a clean and cheap energy source, priced at 0.8 euros/litre (3.8 US$/US gal).
But last week the French customs came in and simply closed this pump because the origin of the ethanol wasn't clear, it's price wasn't fair and some other minor contraventions. This shows once again that the government controls everything but its right hand just isn't informed over what does its left hand, in a kind of diagonistic apraxia. This will certainly be highlighted over the next months and years to come.
Price here in KC went from $1.93 to $2.09 at the same stations overnight.
That's a bit odd since I've been watching the wholesale price and it hasn't really breached $1.50 for a month or so now. In Kansas City, MO, retail price is about 0.50 above wholesale.
I'm just curious if other cities saw this jump last night and if anyone could explain the jump. Could it be the switchover to winter formulations?
Thanks....
Ron Patterson
I live on the other side of 70 (go cards!). Gas was sitting at $1.98 and bumped to 2.18 yesterday afternoon. I think anything within a $.25 change is pretty normal. Now that's me, but it's still flat looking at the bigger picture. It's going to gyrate around 2-2.25 in my area until Nov IMHO.
I fully expect to see $3 gas by the end of the year. It's kind of like oil right now. It's almost range bound. It's just moving sideways and not really moving up or down week to week, like I believe, until Nov. I'm not going to get into the manipulation camp, but only time will tell.
And then this morning they shot up...just wierd.
Highway 70? Then likely you live in Florissant or nearby 'burbs'. Maybe Hazelwood. Less likely Ferguson(where I went to grade school).
Still $2.04 here in Ky.
Just Gas -
-C.
Currently gasoline is very much undervalued (nationally) compared to it's historical relationship to oil prices. While it might be difficult to manipulate the global oil market in just the right direction at the right time to, say, win an election, it's alot easier to manipulate domestic gasoline prices (at least for awhile).
Prior to 2004, the price of gasoline was pretty closely linked to the price of oil (by that I mean the cost of WTI settlement price averaged over the week). In the late 1990's for a brief time, gasoline's value was much higher relative to oil prices but that was relatively short-lived.
In 2004 (specifically July 2004) gasoline prices and oil prices "de-coupled." Oil prices began to increase at the beginning of July while gasoline prices declined throughout the summer and into the third week of September when they finally began to climb back to price levels seen around Memorial Day of 2004. Oil prices, however, were at levels never seen before and 33% percent higher than they had been during the Memorial Day weekend.
After the 2004 election, oil prices and gasoline prices both fell AND began to track one another again (though with an interesting offset or undervaluing of gasoline relative to historical oil/gasoline price trends).
In this election cycle, beginning in early 2006, there seems to be a similar (but smaller) decoupling of gasoline prices compared to oil price. My guess is that there is only so much cost shifting that can be done for other oil-derived products before you have to raise gasoline prices. But if you can decrease gasoline prices in the short term (masked by decreased oil prices) then you might be able to influence another election cycle.
Based upon historical data, the national weighted-average gasoline price for the week of October 2-6 should have been $2.49/gallon. Based upon the relationship since 2002, it should have been $2.425/gallon. It was $2.31/gallon. When the numbers are released this afternoon, I will update me spreadsheet. However, the oil prices have largely stabilized while the (national) gasoline prices continue to fall.
My guess is that the oil companies don't want to be the source of voter revenge. But watch out for gasoline prices after the election.
We're still paying $2.50 here in CT ..
Triff ..
Do I really want to get involved in this thread? No, not really...
I should imaging the new song for the LSE goes something like this:
[FRAULEIN KOST (spoken)]
Herr Ludwig! You are not leaving so early?
[ERNST]
I do not find this party amusing.
[FRAULEIN KOST]
Ah- but it is just beginning. Come, we will make it
amusing- you and I- Ja?
Herr Ludwig- this is for you:
The sun on the meadow is summery warm.
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The branch of the linden is leafy and
Green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Herr Ludwig! Sing with me!
[FRAULEIN KOST AND ERNST]
The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee.
But soon, says a whisper;
"Arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to me"
[FRAULEIN KOST]
Everybody!
[ALL (except FRAULEIN SCHNEIDER, SCHULTZ, CLIFF and SALLY, who stand watching)]
Oh Fatherland, Fatherland,
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come
When the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me!
MIT has Lindzen.
If this is it, then its time to call time.
It's sexual, not adaptive selection. We have bigger dicks because women want us to have bigger dicks, not because they help us dig clams or something.
So if dick size is relative to testicle size, (though I don't know if they are or not), then we have gorillas beat by a country mile but lag way behind chimps.
By the way, it all has to do with mating habits. It is all explained in Ridley's book but I won't go into it here.
Ron Patterson
You would have to have read the two pages leading up to the above paragraph to fully understand the "why" of the whole matter. But basically male gorillas use the harem method of procreation. The females only mate with the one male who owns the harem, and they mate only when they are they are capable of conceiving. Chimps on the other hand, mate try to mate with every female in the tribe and the one with the most sperm and the most sexual stamina produce the most offspring. In physical body size, male gorillas are about twice the size of the female but the chimp is only slightly larger than the female.
Humans evolved from the same common ancestor as the chimp, about 5 million years ago. The gorilla linage split from our common ancestor many millions of years earlier. We are obviously much closer to chimps than to gorillas.
In our hunter-gatherer days, when our genitalia evolved, we behaved much more like chimps. But it was during this time that monogamy evolved as well. But then it was much like it is now. Men tried to keep one woman as his own, but mate with as many others as possible. Our genitalia is much larger, per body weight, than the gorilla but still smaller than the chimp. And the male human, like the chimp, is only slightly larger than the female.
Ron Patterson
But I do think penis size is likely a result of female sexual selection. The chimpanzee penis is twice the size of a gorilla's - not 16 times as large. And the human penis is larger than any other primate's, both in absolute size and in proportion to body size.
He didn't discuss human genetalia.
Ron Patterson
I have thought about this a bit more, and now I am not even sure that human male does have a large penis. Horses have big 'uns, as in "hung like a horse", dogs seem about proportionately hung wrt to humans, you can make a golf caddy from an elephants dick (i have heard).
Is it even true that humans have big dicks?
And on the subject of chimpanzees (actually possibly bonobos), I've seen them doing "it" on tv and they have willies like a little carrot - quite small.
Are we drifting off topic?
*Men tried to keep one woman as his own, but mate with as many others as possible* - indeed, and without much success, the world is truly full of blokes looking for casual sex and women who are not offering it. To father many children the best tactic is to be powerful (king is best), rather than have a big dick.
Who says we are going to be around in 100,000 years, much less in a state of what is called advanced evolution.
Personally, I think that we will evolve into a race of midgets as a response to the lack of resources available. Big, tall people just take up too much damn space and resources. Part of the reason for all those SUVs is a response to what is apparently evolved obesity. Cut the weight and the size of vehicles will come down too.
Hell this is already happening:
This is of course, largely due to malnutrition. But the hand of natural selection can be felt here also. Those whose metabolism demands less food, because they are naturally smaller, have a much better chance of survival. After only a few generations the people will just naturally be smaller. And after only a hundred generations or so of such environmental pressure, people could easily average only four feet tall.
But this would cause other very undesirable side effects. As our cranium gets smaller, we will lose brainpower. That is, as our brains get smaller we will just get dumber. Now there is not a one to one ratio here, but almost so. The smaller the body the smaller the brain needs to be to manage things. But it does not take a lot of brain size to manage the body. Ever see a pig's brain?
Ron Patterson
Where is the evidence that short people have smaller heads? I have not noticed a correlation, but that is anecdotal.
We would still need the big heads to cope. Also, we could have a scenario as in the Dune series where heads are basically maintained in a vessel with life supporing fluid. Or, perhaps, we could also have just heads attached to machines.
Come to think of it, if we are talking 100,000 years, it is more likely we will have mentats not what we think of as human beings. The machines will likely have pretty much taken over the planet by then. Those human beings left will largely be genetically modified and cloned, with natural evolution having very little relevance. There will be a form of evolution, but it will be human or, perhaps, even computer directed.
Because smaller women cannot give birth to babies with huge heads.
Haven't you noticed that midgets' heads are out of proportion to their body?
And this is why many were born (if they were born naturally) to women of usual size, not midgets.
Would it be conceivable that those with smaller brains might be somehow better suited to slip through a Taintorian Collapse! with their minimal adherence to our many complexities?
There are certainly populations that are growing differently, more or less robust or 'busty', as the author seemed somehow concerned about.. due to countless social, political and economic disparities. I think the crux is still that we are all essentially able to interbreed, so there is always the potential to remix the gene pool. Indeed, as the Walrus told us.. "I am certain that it happens all the time."
His comments about the 'beautiful people' led me to suspect that his research might be getting compromised by any number of social assumptions that don't necessarily tie directly to 'success' in a darwinian sense.
Bob
Hey.. maybe the Markets and Technology will solve nature's shortcomings!
Or as Phillip K Dick might have put it..
'Do electric babies dream of Silicon Implants?'
Kin you say China? Sure, I knew ya cud.
But hell, his notion of the way evolution proceeds is telling, isn't it?
So post us your idea of how evolution works. And please post a reference because I know you are not a biologists or an academic who might know anything about evolution. So just post a URL or even a book with page number would do. If you do then I probably have the book in my library. If not I can find it.
I have read perhaps a hundred books on the subject and my ideas are absolutely mainstream. But if you wish to refute what virtually every neo-Darwinist says about evolution, then please tell them off. Because my ideas match theirs. I know because that is exactly where I got them, from the experts themselves.
But my idea (and therefore theirs also) of how evolution is telling. Well hell Oldhippie; by all means tell us how it really works.
Put up or shut up!
Ron Patterson
I'll bet it is due to nutrition as well as mal-nutrition and that the South Koreans now are much taller and heavier than those of a few generations back.
Now I will only laugh at you. You are what I thought you were.
Your words. The experiment you project has been done over and over. It's the history of man. It has been rare for anyone to enjoy the nutrition or the height we enjoy today. The experiment does not produce the result you predict.
You read a hundred books. So what. You can't guess what environmental pressure means. You ignore the obvious. You value your little canon more than common sense or apparent fact.
There's a characteristic that gets called 'cussedness' in Maine, which makes 'good girls' go out with boys from the 'wrong side of the tracks' which could interfere with Horatio's Philosophy, here. We both reflect and deflect the image our parents put out there for us, in varying degrees.
And apologies to Jack in advance, but I have to really work to determine which group our venal (venerable..) Leader might belong, and how that plays into the hypothesis, too.
Bob
When I hear great sweeping successes of the 'beautiful people', I also wonder where their 'Dorian Gray' portraits are hanging.
Bob
'It is as if the Pharaohs have returned'
Sallah, 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'
Pet Shop Boys, circa 1986
There are some here that have expressed concern over the disposal issue of compact fluorescent light bulbs, specifically the mercury involved...but, how might that fluorescent bulb offset mercury emissions at the power plant which just releases it into the air to land anywhere (rather than going to a landfill)?
EPA estimates Hg emissions from power plants in 2004 at 48.5 tonnes, nearly all of which came from coal-fired plants.
Coal-fired power generation in 2004 was 1979 TWh (including CHP).
On average, then, assigning all power plant Hg emissions to coal fired plants, an average of 0.02 mg of Hg is emitted per kWh generated from coal.
If you have a 15W CFL replacing a 60W incandescent, then over the 8000 hr average life of a CFL, a total of 360 kWh is saved. That reduces related emissions by about 9 mg Hg.
In 1997, the average fluorescent lamp (including T8 and T12) had about 22 mg Hg. Current CFLs are available at 5-10 mg Hg (and the EU Code of Conduct-compliant CFLs are 5 mg max; Energy Star is considering the 5mg limit as well). However, only 0.2% of the Hg in a CFL is in the vapor phase at the time of disposal, so breakage would release only that into the atmosphere. EPA estimates an average of 19% of total fluorescent mercury goes back into the atmosphere because of combustion and other processes in landfills that release the non-vapor Hg. Not all CFL Hg is leachable, however.
In contrast, all power plant Hg is released into the atmosphere, and much falls as methyl mercury onto land and into the water. As a result, even though an absolute comparison between CFL Hg and power plant Hg shows only marginal potential savings, CFL disposal results in far less Hg into the atmosphere for dispersal compared to power plants. Nonetheless, all types of fluorescents should be taken for recycling, which is easier to do in some places than others.
The new EPA cap and trade rule for Hg is supposed to reduce US emissions from power plants from to 34.5 tonnes in 2010, and 13.6 tonnes in 2018.
One of its attractions.
TXU has rejected using IGCC technology, as 'too unproven': American Electric Power has a different view, that Carbon Sequestration is coming, and they had better be ready for it.
Texas will blast away building 10 more maximally CO2 emitting power plants. Good thing there's no such thing as global warming.
Methinks the author has a lot to learn about human nature. True, we will not just sit around and wait to die. We will fight for the very last morsel of food or the last fire log. But that is not where he misses so bad. The author, having lived in a world where technology has produced miracles, or so it seems. Technology can produce miracles so we will simply come up with another miracle. We will simply find something else. Hell that's only human nature.
Yeah Right!
Ron Patterson
Ron,
In what time frame do you expect real energy shortages to start?
I ask because I see these articles, and they always act like peak oil is the end of energy. It's actually the exact opposite, it's the peak of energy! I'm expecting a pretty good plateau (~10 years), and then a relatively slow decline in total energy (1-2%). Coal, nuclear, solar, and advanced oil recovery techniques should keep us from plunging off a cliff.
If peak is in 2011, then say we start declining in 2021, what do we have 30 years from that point till things get really tight? So 2050?
Certainly there are tremendous oppurtunities for conservation here in the US...
Peak oil or even the end of oil doesn't even mean the end of the industrial revolution. 100 years ago things ran on coal (steam engines, ocean liners like the Titanic, etc) and we still have plenty of coal available. The worst case scenario looks a lot better than totally running out of all electricity.
I believe a sort of bare bones muddle through is a more likely worst case scenario. We'll have less, and we'll have problems, but we won't all be starving down to 1% of our current population and running around the woods in a loin cloth.
When I first started reading about it, the 'guess' was that 550ppm would contain the damage of global warming to acceptable levels. Scientists are now talking about 450ppm-- and we are at 380ppm now and rising by nearly 2 ppm each year.
Peak Oil will mean very high oil prices. As production falls, the way demand will disappear is by being priced out of the market. The economy will need to change its fixed capital (cars, and anything else dependent on oil) very quickly-- that is what produced stagflation in the mid to late 70s, as a lot of capital had to be scrapped and replaced with more energy efficient capital (something similar happened when the Soviet Union collapsed).
see www.econbrowser.com for some good articles about this: James Hamilton has done a lot of research on the effect of high oil prices on the US economy.
In some ways, Peak Gas is more terrifying:
- from Simmons' data, at least, gas fields tail off very quickly, much more quickly than oil fields. So less warning.
- gas substitutes for oil in a number of applications: home heating and power generation but also you can create transportation fuel out of gas (GTL or straight gas-powered vehicles).
But there isn't really a substitute for natural gas other than coal.On the CO2 output of coal, we will not be able to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at an acceptable level.
Me and my 4 cords of wood would disagree with you.
yea, I know 6.5 billion people can't use wood for heating. But, it will save me a bunch of money until those billions get out in the woods chewing down trees with their teeth.
In Muskoka, Ontario, at least, the price of wood fluctuates with the price of propane for home heating. If you don't have your own woodlot, you are going to pay a lot more.
There is a reason why so much of English Common Law is about grazing rights, and rights to pick wood from the forest. See also Tokugawan Japan (Jared Diamond in Collapse has a very good bit on Japanese woodlot management).
Bingo! I can easily imagine a life with electric cars and biodiesel planes, but I can hardly imagine it with not enough fuel for heating, electricity or fertilizers. I think that for a certain period of time after peak, we will try to substitute oil with NG, which is relatively easy to do. But then what happens when NG itself starts disappearing quickly?
I'm telling you guys, better start building those nukes right now or else there will be a lot of suffering in the decades to come...
There will be lots of suffering in the decades ahead with or without nukes. But of course it would be nice if "they" who look, sound, smell, feel and taste Different from "Us" do more of the suffering I suppose (I think Ma Nature said that herself - Wrote it DowN some 'weAr' even).
There's more than one cliff. Depleting oil will worsen global warming, because the frantic scramble for energy sources will raise CO2 levels through the roof.
It's like Leanan's post below: France engineers a baby boom, because it fears the effects of a graying population. But that baby boom is not such a geat idea in view of energy, food, water depletion.
Blindly jumping from cliff to cliff. Thst is a scary picture.
We got rid of industrial and residential heating and oil (almost-- there are a lot of places we (UK) could use ground source heat pumps if the government funded those conversions).
And oil is no longer used for electricity generation (except Npower restarted one of the UK oil fired plants last winter-- see TOD UK re coal).
Transport is much harder to squeeze down. Aviation you have to fly less. Motoring you can have marginally more efficient cars, but I don't see diesel hybrids or all electric cars out there en masse. Freight you can do almost not a jot (UK railways are already at capacity due to passenger demand).
We could go back to buses and bicycles, but any number of debates here will tell you why that is hard.
Of course everything is just a guess but I expect major shortages within a year after the world realizes we are post peak. That is not a physical point but a psychological point. That point will come perhaps three or four years after the actual peak. National oil companies will start to husband their oil. The knowledge, by all oil companies, that oil can only go higher and get more scarce, will cause them to cut back and hold oil their oil for later. This will cause a cliff in oil production and shortages will appear immediately.
I think you are dreaming. Oil production will decline much faster, I am guessing in excess of five percent per year. All those other things will take many years before they can even make a dent in liquid transportation fuel. They will not even be a factor. If you were starving today, what good would it do you if you knew you would have plenty of food in five years? Likewise, what good will coal to liquids do us if we have to wait 20 years for enough plants to be built to make a difference.
He, he, he, you are really funny. You are almost as optimistic as the author of the article is. The plateau will last only as long as it takes the world to realize we are truly post peak. At that moment, no more plateau. Do you think Mexico would still export oil if they realized that in five or ten years they would themselves have a crisis because they could not import oil, and realizing all the while that there would be no oil to import?
True but because of people like the author of this article, no one will believe there is even a need to conserve. Therefore no one will do one damn thing until it is way too late. Remember, the peak is not the important point. The important point in time will be when the world fully realizes that oil production is destined to decline.....forever!
Ron Patterson
If Mexico stopped exporting oil, their whole governmental regime would collapse, as it couldn't pay the bills without oil income. I don't think they'll stop.
Saudi Arabia? Same deal - they're dependent on the oil $$$ to placate the masses, otherwise there will be a national revolution.
Private Oil Companies? They need to make a profit today. Is there any value in withholding your oil today and causing a world war, or riots in the streets, or getting nationalized? Not to mention most of them have debts to service. They'll keep pumping like crazy because they have too.
We all take Peak Oil as a geologic certainty. So tell me, why has NO GOVERNMENT ON EARTH stopped their internal pumps and just started importing 100%? Surely it would make sense to husband this resource now, and use it later to get ahead?
The bottom line is that the world is an uncertain place. Peak Oil will only make it more uncertain. You can't predict what the market will be 5 years from now - so you try and make a profit today.
Just my take. I could be wrong.
Garth
But no exporter needs to stop exporting oil. They only need to cut back. And you know they will do that. After all, if they can get just as much money while exporting less, because prices will rise, then they will definitely do that. At least in my opinion they will do that.
No government has stopped exporting oil because no government on earth actually believes in peak oil! God man, have you never heard of Daniel Yergin and CERA? Their word is taken as the word of God.
But again, no one needs to stop exporting oil. If they all, or just most of them, cut back, that will be enough to cause us to head down the cliff.
Private companies only produce about 20 to 25 percent of the world's oil and that percentage is dropping every year. And private companies whose resources are in foreign companies will likely have those resources nationalized just as soon as it becomes obvious that we are post peak.
Yes, the world is an uncertain place. But most of the world is very overly optimistic as to the future. People see, in the future, what they desire to see, what they very much need to see. That is why no one questions CERA and everyone laughs at the peak oil crowd.
Ron Patterson
I could see so many individual "Actors" doing what's best for them and pumping the hell of out the wells as hard as possible. Collectively we're going to be screwed anyway, so shouldn't I make as much money now as possible and parlay that into something else? These actors can not change the fact that it's running out, but greedy self interests trumps just about everything.
On the flip to this, I could see a few who also realize the prices will be redicaly higher in the future and cut back to insure their future financial position. One word: Volatility.
One way to reserve oil supplies is to ask for a higher royalty rate, and then the oil companies won't bid on it till they think the price of oil will be high enough to make it worthwhile.
Any electorate wants jam today. Even in Norway, which has a $200bn investment fund for its oil revenues, the pressure for tax cuts is growing.
The sad thing about ANWR is that the industry, and the President, seem convinced that its exploitation will make a blind bit of difference to the US economy.
10 billion barrels: 3 years' consumption.
I think it would be better to wait for the day when the US is cut off, either economically or militarily, and that is the continent's last supply of liquid oil.
http://www.economics.rpi.edu/workingpapers/rpi0512.pdf
Ron,
Obviously peak oil is an entirely new scenario, so this is all projection...
But I tend to lean towards the camp that people will pump as much as possible.
High prices lead to demand destruction. That's a fact. In terms of inflation adjusted dollars, we still haven't hit historically high prices. People's habits will change, and new efficiencies will be found, driving the price down.
The bottom line is if you're Mexico, you can't afford to cut back at all. You want/need every dollar to line your own pockets and placate the masses today.
In addition, high oil prices makes oil attractive to the small operation wildcatter. They can make a go of small projects that the big oil companies just can't afford.
I honestly see a distributed energy future - where individuals make energy for themselves and pump excess back into the grid. Sort of like what Ontario is doing. Large scale power generation only makes sense when you have large scale sources of energy to be tapped. Once the big pools have been drained we will have to move to smaller, decentralized production.
The most efficient way to generate electric power is a 850MW combined cycle gas turbine unit.
Even with transmission loss, this has c. 50% efficiency when it reaches the home.
If you can do a district heating tie in, then a smaller CHP unit is higher efficiency.
Small generation units just don't have that thermal efficiency, so they waste fuel relative to centralised plant.
If oil were $150/bl, Saudi Arabia would only need to export half as much, to get the same revenue.
Almost all the world's oil producers have massive economic needs for cash: Saudi Arabia has a population 1/2 under 21, the fastest growing in the world, and a GDP/ head 1/3rd of what it was in the 70s.
Iran is in a very similar boat. So is Nigeria, Venezuela.
Russia needs oil revenues to keep the government ticking over. Russia is in the middle of a demographic disaster which will need huge government investment in social services to arrest-- Russian men live 10 years less than they did at the time of the collapse of the USSR.
The oil producing governments are in a bargain with Faust: they need revenues now.
Besides a prudent man would notice that low oil prices always follow high oil prices, therefore the most prudent thing is to pump like the blazes when prices are high.
'this time its different' is our argument, but why should anybody believe a bunch of cranks on the 'net?
Odograph made a similar observation a few days ago:
I've been thinking about that for a while, and I recently found this working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER):
So yes, there is ample waste in the US transportation system, but Americans have become extremely resistant to changing that, as compared to the 70s/80s. To respond to Odograph's question, if you asked those people how many of their trips were unnecessary, I would expect them to answer that all of their trips were necessary, but a lot of the other people's trips weren't necessary. They will only decide that their own trip is unnecessary when they can no longer afford it, and the current gasoline price elasticity of demand suggests that it will take significant prices increases, much higher than we've had, for them to reduce their motoring in the short run.
The authors speculate that the resistance to reducing demand is due to sprawl development, cross-commuting, more fuel efficient vehicles, and reduced alternatives. Those are all factors that may take considerable time to change.
The talk centers around preserving the technology and not the human.
What I find particularly fascinating is insistence that we can just switch over to less driving, more mass transit, that we can be just like Europe and start walking.
Have you been to Europe? If yes, compare and contrast. Hmmm. US--Five miles to the nearest store. No local food production. No local clothing production. No local industry. Car culture rules. Economy based on import of energy, food, clothing, consumer goods of all stripes, decent fuel efficient cars. We export IOUs. Huge military.
Europe--Walkable cities. More local food but still imports much. Imports fuel in most of Europe. Some local industry, but mostly high tech and service. High concern about energy issues and the political will to get something done. NOT A CAR-CENTRIC CULTURE. Husbands old farming methods. Slow food movement. Small militaries.
I'd say we have about as much chance of becoming like Europe as pulling a cow through your nostril.
The energy cost of converting this vast suburban, car-loving nightmare into a walkable country with local economies will quickly subsume any savings that may be accomplished. The truth is plain. There will be privation. When the NatGas goes, there will be starvation. When the television watching rubes that make up this country see their widescreens go dark and the Mickey D's closing, they will riot. And not one of these fantasies espoused here regarding a transition to another form of energy intense society that just keeps on growing and consuming will ever happen. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Now comes the point where everyone says, oh, pshaw, you doomer. How the heck could that happen? Look at us, we be so smart!!!
Well, if you are so smart, why do we continue to destroy the oceans, the arable land, our aquifers, the air, the climate? Why does our food have the nutritional quality of cardboard? Why do clothes last such a short time? Why can't we build a light bulb that lasts for 100 years? (HINT: we can and did in the fifties. My Uncle invented it for GE. They de-engineered it. "Can't make money with a device like that!") Why did we vote for a man who is clearly a retard, both morally and mentally?
Why? Because humans are incapable of thinking beyond their immediate needs.
My favorite statement today says we have "fifty years of oil left." SO, I GUESS WE ARE OKAY? Screw the future, as long as I gots mine.
Humans are vermin.
Step 2: See how damned handy an automobile can be
I saved an excellent post by someone here that'll I'll have to wait until I'm at home to retrieve, but consider steps 1 and 2 above for now.
Step 1: Break your leg
Step 2: Read "Where There is No Doctor" to find out about splinting broken legs :-/
So this is a false point that you are making.
I would dtrongly support corn ethanol production if that was the only source of fuel for ambulances making emergency runs.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
Very unreliable, you don't want to think about global warming, but there you have it.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/led_prods.htm
A few for household use (yellow outdoor light, bathroom night light, refrigerator light, closet light, bedroom "first up" & TV watching light). Mainly relamped my car.
However, they do not carry the speciality long thin Exit sign LEDs.
5 watt CFLs are about 4 times as bright as 3 watt LEDs.
Alan
"And not one of these fantasies espoused here regarding a transition to another form of energy intense society that just keeps on growing and consuming will ever happen. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN."
If your outlook is so poor why do you post, what is your goal? If no "fantasy" transition can possibly occur why waste your time on these words?
If we decide or must switch to European style living what is stopping us? Is there some rule of physics preventing people from making a few lifestyle changes? Remember though Europe is the way it is and not a Germanic Supernation because of a huge american military.
Many posters here especially alan have fairly plausable ideas for mass transit. You rant and rave but submit little evidence for your rhetoric.
And perhaps a handfull of Hurricane and Spitfire Pilots?
And last but not least, a few million Russians?
Lets not forget them.
A number the Soviets concealed, because it was so embarassing, and Western historians concealed because of a Western bias that our role had to be important.
To be fair, we could say WWII was won by Russian manpower and American production might. And American oil (Yergin is quite good on this).
Without those 2 ingredients, the Nazis would probably not have been defeated.
So that we refused to surrender when we might of was decisive, even if the actual war was won by other people.
I strongly doubt that. The US vehicles, tanks and munitions transported to Murmansk through the land-lease program accounted for about 4% of what was used up by the Soviet Union in the course of WW2 (that includes defeating the Japanese in China and Sakhalin in August-September of 1945). An important contribution, for sure, but by no means a decisive one.
Timing is pretty important in warfare - just think if Hitler had actually kept to the schedules his various professionals wanted him to follow. One major reason for knocking off Czechoslovakia was to gain the various weapon factories there - German armament production was still too constricted.
Yep, France was conquered using a lot of Czech made panzers, not German ones. That whole Munich thing is a lot more complicated than most people think.
And this is obliquely one reason why the Bush League is so utterly incompetent (you want a Hitler comparison? - Hitler lots like a strategic genius compared to those running the Iraqi war). If America stays in Iraq, its military gets tied down and chewed up for little gain. If America leaves, the Iranians can finally take care of both their generation long Iraqi problem and not worry about their own oil production peaking any time soon. Of course, handing a bunch of madcap mullahs a glorious opportunity to gain another what, 10%?, of the planet's oil is not exactly what most people who voted for Bush expected.
One of the most important things in war is realizing when it is to your disadvantage to engage in it. Blowing things up isn't war, it is destruction.
World's most idiotic superpower, that I won't argue at all. And as an aside - there seem to be some fascinating indications that the pre-invasion 'Iraqi opposition' was a tool being used by the Iranians - who do seem to be able to plan over the long term, and who will certainly rejoice whenever Saddam is executed - the butcher of Baghdad killed a lot more Iranians than anyone else.
'The Americans transferred to Mermansk'
You meant to write:
' the British and Canadians and Americans died transporting to Murmansk'.
It was perhaps the Royal Canadian Navy's finest hour.
There was no military necessity to assault Berlin. Just Stalin's ego.
Alan
Learn to spell habeas corpus, then you might convince someone you know something about it. Also never in war has it been a right of POW's.
Habeas Corpus used to be a right of US citizens. Now though if the government doesn't like you, it can declare you a "terrorist" and haul you off.
Brian,
Read the military commisions act 2006 and then come back to this conversation. HC is provided for US citizens, only enemy combatants or unlawful alien combatants have the writ suspended. Understand your argument instead of regurgitating rhetoric.
matt
O yeah, please report for re-education.
Did you read the actual Act not the commentary on it? This war is incredibly expensive and in a war you do not have time and $ to give every POW a trial. Do the foreign nationals captured by terrorists get a military tribunal or do they get their heads cut off on video tape. This law is not targetting migrant workers it is targetting terrorists. Bush wants migrant workers here for the low wage jobs. I don't think he is being hard enough on immigration.
Compare and contrast my views with hitler please.
Also you said hitlers germany WW2 not me. We bailed out Europe twice.
Habeas is not a human right it is a constitutional right passed down from English common law, and afforded to US citizens. If we are in the business of ensuring human rights we would have to occupy much of the world.
When I am out of the US I know the rules....don't get caught I don't have the same rights as locals. If foreigners come to the US illegally, they should expect the same.
I am not concerned with their safety I am concerned with everyones. To win this fight with terrorism we can't be bogged down legal loopholes. Terrorist don't have rights under Geneva or the US constitution. My opinion.
You are not going to change it.
The Act only involves illegals anyway see link above.
"Illegal enemy combatants" is Rovian neologism. There is no such thing outside the mind of KoolAid drinkers.
Under the Act the President,The Secretary of Defense, or their designee can declare anyone, anyone at all, an illegal enemy combatant. A terrorist. This has already been done to Jose Padilla. Padilla was a citizen.
W will continue to do what W has already done.
No one should feel safe. Most who suffer will suffer due to errors. Anyone can discover they are a mistake.
Read Article I section 9 US Constitution:
"The privelege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of REBELLION or INVASION the public safety may require it.
Padilla definately commited treason and therefore qualifies as a rebel, foriegn nationals bent on harming americans on american soil ar invaders.
Also see Article III section 3 read the whole thing.
Also see Geneva Conventions III
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
that of carrying arms openly;
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Terrorist operate in cells and are often not responsible and act completly independent of commanders.
They do not wear uniforms.
They do not carry arms openly and intermingle with civilians to avoid detection.
They intentionally harm civilians and rescue personnel and violate numerous other laws and customs of war.
They break all the rules and are not entitled to protection of Geneva or the US Constitution. I swore to uphold the first and protect the second. I deserved fair treatment under Geneva if I were ever captured but every US Soldier knows they probably won't get it....in any war.
Call me a flagwaver or prejudiced if you want. But I stick to my opinion which I believe is well supported.
To enjoy Geneva status a combatant has to meet criteria.
Read the convention.
The Terrorist are not following any rules.
However, only low ranks are being court martailed. They were supposed to break him, not kill him. The prison commander and those above him should have been court martialed for violating Geneva Conventions.
A captured general is a POW by ANY standard ! He has only to give name, rank and serial # and is not to be abused or degraded.
Ashamed to be an American,
Alan
Remember John bin walker? He was fighting with the taliban against the Northern Alliance. I think he deserves geneva. He was fighting others with guns as a SOLDIER.
When war crimes are committed investigations and prosecutions need to be transparent for the world community.
I am also upset by things like Haditha, and disheartened at what minorities in our military do.
The discussion here though is the actions and policies from the top.
I'll be in NO on tuesday before I fly out to Brasil, do you know of any good art stores where I can get my girl some oil paints and brushes?
Matt
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/trial/welshofer-011306.asp
Read it and weep for what we have become.
I first read of it from a long report from the Washington Post.
I will find out a paint supply store for you. We NEED the sales tax $$ and economic activity.
Alan
Hmmm.
Do the commentators mean that no one will ever find out if the accused ("disappeared") person is subject to the military courts if they can't challenge their imprisonment?
Oilrig Medic, assume for a moment that you are such a person, being picked up on false claims or because someone made a mistake with names or whatever. How would you make sure you can point out the mistake? Even if the capturers found out that you are innocent, would they maybe keep you stowed away, as the embarressment of releasing you would be too big?
See, they have not released dozens if not hundreds of people from Guantanamo even though they know these just had a serious case of bad luck.
Now to your point that terrorists don't follow rules: Did it occur to you that exactly because of this, the risk of mistakes and errors, of false accusations, manufactured evidence etc. gets amplified by orders of magnitude?
Because terrorists don't follow rules, we (as the western world, I am from Germany) must follow the rules even more so to
a) avoid mistakes,
b) don't become like them,
c) don't encourage their fellow countrymen or believers to become terrorists, too.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Davidyson
My feelings are mistakes are inevitable, we should learn from them. The goal should be keeping americans safe not imprisoning innocents. If someone is not a threat let them go.
The Idea of becoming like them is a easy statement, but in abu grahb we put naked guys on a leash and forced them to watch two americans have sex? Married businessmen in the US pay extra for this treatment. They capture aid workers who are helping their people and cut their heads off.
Action or innaction will encourage more terrorism. Time will tell and hindsight is twenty-twenty. We need to protect america.
Sigh This assumes a basic decency and a willingness to learn on the part of your administration (seen any signs of this, lately?).
It assumes the potential for abuse of the Military Commissions Act is not by design, but by accident.
Another point: Any loophole that can theoretically be used to gain power and/or money will be used sooner or later. With this reckless US government and an athmosphere of "anything goes as long as we claim it's part of the war on terror", I expect it to happen rather sooner than later, but this might be personal bias.
Some respectful questions, Oilrig Medic:
- How far would you go with dismantling constitutional and basic human rights to "protect America"? What would be the point at which you would stand up against tyranny? Where is your "red line"? (For example, what evidence would you consider sufficient to prove that an election was rigged, taking away even your right to vote?)
- Do you really think that warrantless wiretapping, effective termination of Habeas Corpus etc. really saves American lives above those that can be saved just using previous laws to its full extent? (And I say "previous laws" because I don't think you will get them back anytime soon...)
- How many innocent "alien" or maybe even not-so-alien lives would you be willing to ruin to catch potential or real terrorists? (How do you even know someone's a terrorist if you don't give them a fair trial by an independent court?)
Cheers,Davidyson
We are in a fight for the survival of our way of life. I am not talking about car culture, or coca cola, I am talking about everything from athens to now. It is extremely difficult to play a game with clear rules for one side and no rules for another. Any law can be abused. Gun violence could be curtailed in the US if existing laws were enforced correctly, but they are not.
I think Churchill said be careful in destroyin monsters lest you become one. I get the qoute and I see your point. My feeling is a shift in policy now and controlled changes are much better than a series of dirty bombs going off in several US cities. After that the public will would suppport a second holocaust and our world woud change more so than 9/11.
The wiretapping is for calls to or from foreigners. If you are not doing anything wrong what does it matter if your call is tapped. Untapped electronic communication is not a Constitutional right, the founding fathers probably never considered the concept.
My feeling is that we are going to become monsters of a sort. I believe many of the young men and women fighting this war are destroyed by it and the children growing up in this umbra of fear are very different than the way we grew up.
The question of how far would I go? Thats a baited question but I'll bite. I think if I believed someone had info I could get and save American lives I would torture them. I am a utilitarian.
The fact that "any law can be abused" is the sort of dismissal of discussing limits and border cases by generalizing that just kills any discussion. Yes, all laws can be abused, but in most cases, someone just gets richer. In case of an abuse of the MCA, democracy in the US can effectively be suspended, possibly "forever" (like "forever" in the Third Reich).
It's like saying "it's not worth prosecuting murder because all people have to die some day anyway".
Well as soon as wrongdoing includes formerly protected free speech or other basic rights no matter if constitutional or just federal law, or if wrongdoing is even potentially secretly defined by a dictatorial regime, that then secretly prosecutes people for this wrongdoing, it starts to matter very much, I would assume.
Well, it seems to have been proven that torture does not give you reliable information. So the "utility" of torturing someone would appear to be very low, particularly if compared to the massive human suffering it causes to both the individuals involved and the society that accepts or even promotes torture as a legitimate tool.
And again, even if you would allow torture, you would have to define how many people you would torture (or, as in Iraq, kill) to save a single American life. One? A dozen? A hundred? A whole country full of people? Enough to fill Lake Potomac with steaming blood?
You can dismiss this as another "baited question", but as long as you can't answer this type of question with clear conscience, I believe you did not think far enough.
In any case, look up the history of the rise of German faciscm in the 1930s and the parallels to current US developments. It tells you where such things end.
Well, they didn't have all the technology then that we have today, so they "only" managed to get about 50 million people killed before the allies managed to stop them. Almost 6 million people were killed in an industrial fashion because of their "race" and religion or because they opposed the nazi regime or for whatever other sick reason.
My father personally saw a concentration camp near his home town being "evacuated" of half- and three-quarters-dead human beings in 1945 when he was 12 years old. My grandfather, together with the rest of the local population, was subsequently forced by the allied troops who liberated the camp to go there and look at what they had allowed to happen: mountains of rotting dead people who had done nothing wrong except being defined as "the enemy" by the dictatorial state because it served ideology, power and monetary interests.
I really do not want this or a technology-amplified version of this to happen again and I see enough signs that the US is getting on that type of path to be extremely worried.
Davidyson
11 million people, not six, were killed in the German concentration camps plus millions more POWs. 6 million Jews and millions more Gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses, political prisoners, homosexuals and more.
Wow. Now this is not funny but pretty revolting, really. Have you no sense of decency, Sir? Not only for Muslim people, but for those particularly, this sort of treatment amounts to a very serious violation of their personal dignity.
The German "Grundgesetz" (constitution) categorically states in its first paragraph "Human dignity must not be violated. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state institutions".
After Nazi fascism (which, by the way, started very much like the US is starting now), the mothers and fathers of the German Grundgesetz saw this first provision as the indispensible foundation for all the other provisions.
Actually, the highest German constitutional court recently ruled that shooting down a highjacked airliner to prevent it to be potentially crashed into a building is against the law as it reduces the human dignity of the passengers to "potential threatening objects", if I recall correctly. Sometimes even death is more acceptable than humiliation of your personal dignity.
(This doesn't change the tiniest scrap about the terrorist's acts being utterly inacceptable in whatever dimension you look at them, but rather supports this notion!)
Davidyson
No HC, no trials, unsubstantiated evidence, torture.
Thank God America still holds to the values of the great generation.
Actually, my heart bleeds for you guys. Of all the countries in all of history (in all the bars in all the world...)America had the best possible chance of makin' it.
It is not (yet) too late to change it back.
But with each day, it becomes more difficult.
You need less 'corporate managers'and professional politicos.
Churchill: Drank a lot, slept a lot.
WOMAN: '' Winston - you are DRUNK''
WC: '' Yes madam. And you are UGLY , but in the morning I will be sober''.
Representative of the Teetotal Society: ''Winston do you know that in your lifetime, you have consumed half the volume of this room in spirits?''
WC: '' I know, and I regret I have so little time left to consume the other half.''
Lloyd George: Slept (around) a lot, took bribes
Gladstone: Took a serious interest in the plight and welfare of fallen women. Slept through most parliamentary sessions. (Mostly because of his charitable and nocturnal interests).
In all of the above cases, the working day did not normally commence before 10 am.
Gifted amateurs always trump professionals...
Anyway. Good Luck with your professionals.
Germany is the one country in the world that has increased its share of manufactured exports over the last 5 years (other than China).
"the rubes... they will riot" No they won't. Rioting is a form of collective action. This is the land of rugged individuals. Maybe they'll kill themselves, their families, the neighbors, maybe, but they don't know how to riot.
"Humans are vermin." Be more clever than that if you want to be read
Hey...don't tell that to the latino Walmart employees down in Florida that walked out one morning to protest in the parking lot.
Fine, they didn't learn collective action here.
There's a reason SEIU is busy recruiting immigrants. And why the last strike of any significance was the UPS strike. When was that? Some time in the Clinton years.
I suspect there won't be much interest. They probably planned this when gas prices were high. But now prices are dropping, so people are going back to their gas-guzzling ways.
Its the work of a lunch time.
I despair.
I guess they're supposed to know what works and what doesn't. Also, we're a pretty big organization (hundreds of employees at this job site, and a lot more at others). We don't know each other, let alone where each other lives.
They've already laid out some ground rules: you have to live at least ten miles away (so I'm out).
Send me the company personnel address list. You will have the master plan by monday :-) ... My Wife n kids are away this weekend.The alternatives are fine whisky, foul curries, cigars and 1970's prog rock.
Clue: Its all about mapping Hexagons and personnel 'cells'.
But dont mention the word 'cells' in the same email as personnel address lists, or master plans... Otherwise your Heimat Sicherheit Dienst will get all sweaty...
Doh!
Since transport (going places, doing things, living in a bigger house further out) is a 'superior good' in the economic jargon (as incomes increase, our consumption of transportation rises disproportionately), you can see where the problem lies.
The income effect of gasoline is positive, the reverse of the price-substitution effect of higher prices.
I just heard news on a french radio that a local funeral home has been plundered yesterdy for all the metal objects it contained. This is how people react to limited supply of things !
But I suggest you are not that categorical yourself. If somebody asked me about it, my frank answer would be "I don't know". In addition I think it depends on the different types of societies - affluent and self-content Western nation are more likely to go down the "easy way" (war). Poorer nations are forced to be pragmatic by nature - and it is enough to take a look at the investment plans of China and the likes in nuclear and renewable energies to understand that. Clearly IMO some will make it, others will not - it all depends on the choices we make today. What was this called, evolution? :)
It wouldn't even matter that much whether you prepared, yes you'd have a better chance, but the odds would still be that you wouldn't make it. You can try "learning" survival skills all you want. The reality is primitive peoples train in hunting and other skills for their entire lives. They're learning nearly from birth. There's no way any of us can replicate their proficiency, no matter how hard we try. Living off the land is pretty much an optimistic fantasy.
Owning land in the countryside is not going to save you. You're just going to be overrun by rampaging hordes of hungry people. If the system really totally collapses and we have so many millions going hungry, there's no hope of being able to stand against all of them, no matter how hard you try. If you end up getting by it will just be by luck of the draw (you happened to be in a remote area where no one, or very few ended up coming).
In any case, neither survivalist option seems very viable to me. Both seem more or less futile. The odds of survival in that scenario are so bad, that no matter how unlikely you think finding a technological solution is, it's still better than that. That's not even going into whether it would even be worth living in that sort of world/lifestyle, and honestly I am not sure it would be. Remember what we're talking about is a scenario much worse than if we were just transported back in time to a tribal village, we're talking about losing access to all modern technology and being left with both too many people to support on what is available, and left with people who no longer have any functional skills whatsoever.
If it comes down to that, forget all the crap about survival skills and "bug out bags". The best backup plan would be to just find the nearest tall building and put the theory of gravity to the test. At least it would be relatively quick and painless.
The few that did try to prepare would easily be over-run by the the unprepared, desparate, starving majority.
But collapse won't happen overnight - the squeeze from depleting oil, natural gas, uranium and coal will be slow but sure - 20 maybe 30 years - make your own guess.
You can at least try and prepare for the period of severe economic and social stress after the peak.
Improve your odds of surviving the squeeze for as long as possible and hope for a miracle.
All of the collapse scenarios seems to hinge on the remarkable theory that people will not adapt to, or cope for increased energy prices and instead will continue to use more just to defy the world. Need I remind you all that oil use declined even 7 years AFTER the Iranian revolution? And besides, 70% of every barrel of oil goes to just transportation fuels.
Switching the entire transportation sector to run on electric rail or HEV's of some kind will dramatically reduce our consumption of oil. A much more massive scale up of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and even nuclear will be possible with the 'excess' of oil based stored energy that we could find ourselves with.
We DO have the technology to adapt to peak oil and still continue on! There was a post recently that showed that we could have built 76,000 wind turbines in the great plains with the money we spent in Iraq, and these wind turbines would have produced ammonia when there was excess power, letting us keep on fertalizing our fields and feed the nation. The Tesla team is going to deliver a 4 door sedan next year that will cost under $40,000, and can go as far as normal sedans do on one charging cycle. We already proved that the electric grid can handle the switch of all 210 million vehicles on the road right now.
We just lack the pollitical will to do so at present :/
PS: I seriously think some of you guys get a hard on dreaming of fantastic collapses of modern society. Sick...
So we're looking at burning as much coal as possible to maintain these cars, which are still wasteful no matter how you cut it. We need mass transportation to increase efficiency and reduce the waste. How many cars do you think will lose their charge sitting in the traffic still congested with TOO MANY CARS? I can see a guy go totally dead in the middle of the highway and cause even more problems. The idea sounds like a drug addiction where you're replacing heroine for methadone. Just curious, b/c I've started delving into this a little more.
I share your concern about keeping the grid ramped up all the time - I'm not sure that is possible given coal, NG, hydro demands that might not be able to be met. I would be interested in seeing some analysis of how long the grid can perform at close to peak in terms of maintaining fuel supply, water behind the dams, etc. AFAIK, only nuclear operates best at maintaining a high power generation 24/7. Pump storage programs (at least in CA) were designed to make use of the fact that nuclear always runs and they wanted to be able to store some of the electricity to cover the peaks.
Unlike a petrol car, an electric doesn't idle...it should actually result in an energy savings over petrol cars. Also between 0 and 35 miles per hour (i.e. rush hour crawl speed) is where an electric will be drastically more efficient over a petrol (check out this graph)
" I can see a guy go totally dead in the middle of the highway and cause even more problems."
There's a weird condition that occurs to cars now called "running out of gas." Strangely enough, when it happens...the world doesn't end.
If an EV is dead, does it coast?
In Britain, milk is delivered to the door by electric powered "milk floats" and has been for many years, of course they are slow and have limited range, but there have been working EVs in Britain delivering the nations daily milk for many years.
In fact, this service is dying out and has been for years, presumably due to cars,supermarkets and refrigerators.
Are you seriously trying to tell me that someone sitting for two hours in atlanta in august isn't going to be blasting the AC? If they don't, they will be cooked by the time traffic moves.
Same scenario, except Buffalo in January.
Electric cars cannot replace IC cars in the US simply because of traffic and the absolute need for environmental controls (heat/AC). Unless an EC can run heat and AC for 4 hours, plus go a 100+ miles on a single charge, it will not be possible to go to electric only vehicles.
Plug-in hybrids can (and will) replace IC only cars, but will not be sufficient to solve our problem.
Maybe there will be a technical solution of some sort. If not, you will learn to leave the AC off if the alternative is calling a tow truck.
Look at all those people who drive golf carts. They aren't even enclosed.
pre-Katrina, there were a few GEMs running around my neighborhood. Quite practical for 90% to 95% of my trips. Heat & humidity acceptable when moving with air flow.
http://www.gemcar.com/
Of course, I live in a almost unique neighborhood; totally unlike typical American sprawl. One that most would rather just kill off than learn from.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
The meaning of "absolute need" may have to change a little in the future...to not be so much of a "want." I bet you can find cars in Atlanta that don't have AC and are not being piloted by corpses. Now Beefalo in January without heat, there could be a problem there. However, I'll bet you'll even find people there out on the street (not even protected by a car!) and still alive!
No, there are collapse scenarios that hinge on war. For example, would the Chinese Communist party give up its power due to massive social/economic unrest (see a certain student protest, broadcast world wide live to get an answer) or would they try to ensure a flow of oil at all costs, even if it involved staring down another world power in a place like Iran? And that world power could be Russia, India, the U.S., or the EU - or any combination for or against the others, with the Russians, essentially having a border with Iran, being a given in such a situation. This is why the first Iraq war was such a geopolitical masterpiece at the end of the Cold War - the Russians actually allowed a massive military operation within striking distance of their borders.
There are a number of other scenarios - quite likely, both the Iranians and the U.S. having been working real hard on the details of what both sides seem to feel could become inevitable in another scenario, where one side tries to keep the oil flowing while the other tries to shut it down. Considering lessons from the 'tanker war' and America's current Iraqi experience, I think those trying to shut down oil flows have the overwhelming advantage - welcome to the new version of our MAD world.
Quite honestly, it is possible to imagine a world with 50% less oil in about the time it takes the last still floating supertanker from the Persian Gulf to reach a port.
But in fairness, this not really directly a peak oil issue, it is merely one which has occupied a number of governments (and their seemingly ignorant taxpayers) for decades. It was about as likely to have happened in 1987 as it is to happen in 2007. Which means not very unlikely at all in terms of the resources devoted to preparing for it.
And you are not completely wrong about some doomers seeming to wish for collapse - what you may not know is how certain strains of the survivalist 'movement' are anything but extreme environmentalists, they are instead people who thought nuclear war (which I think we can agree would cause a social collapse or two) was inevitable, and they were taking matters into their own hands against the fate awaiting the ignorant and blind.
With clear warning and political will, in 20 years, the US can do it.
Without that, it won't happen.
I would say 12 to 15 years with a near crash program, but 20 years is within reason.
Day 1 of the 12 to 20 years will not happen as long as GW Bush is in office.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
Brutal, but not impossible. Greyhound can be revived (quickest, cheapest quick win). Amtrak can be improved. Hybrid diesels can proliferate. Air traffic could go back to its 1974 level.
No one will do it until the waves are sweeping over the White House lawn. Actually the Congress will still be above the waterline at that point, so it won't happen then...
If you look at it, what happened was that oil consumption for non transport uses declined sharply: heating, electric power. Oil for electricity generation was something like 10% of US consumption in the 1970s-- it's about 1-2% now.
Transport consumption flattened out for a while (more efficient cars and trucks) and then resumed climbing.
The result is that oil consumption now, where 2/3rds goes to transport, is likely to be much more price inelastic than it was then.
By allowing US passenger car fuel economy to stop rising, and indeed to fall, we have wasted precious time.
I had a friend who was Christmas shopping in the Toronto exurbs. He went to 4 stores, on 4 corners of a major intersection.
He had to drive between the stores, there really wasn't a way around that. Total distance covered less than 2 miles: but when there aren't sidewalks, and you have 6 lane highways to cross...
that is the problem we are wrestling with.
It's an ad for some large car, but I can't remember which one.
This one?
That's not a big car, its a hatchback.
Some frightening fraction of Americans are 'seriously obese' in medical terminology. Something like 10% (the UK is fast catching up, as is the world).
Which means they don't fit in standard plane seats any more, and need bigger car seats. You really don't want to have to sit next to them on public transport.
And, after the need to drive has been brought down to the absolute minimum through restructuring, necessary driving should be largely accomodated through the use of shared low speed electric vbehicles, whether they be scooters or autos. Provide that local delivery vehicles will be electric or, at worst, hybrid.
Ultimately, the goal should be the movement of people, when necessary, not the movement of energy consuming vehicles, especially large ones.
Bingo
The only transportation investment we need is in efficient mass transit and especially rail, along with infrastructure that makes walking and biking more convenient.
Bike parking ramps with secure parking, showers and a small repair shop and a lounge -- that sort of thing. Focus urban development around transit corridors with plenty of neighborhood shops for people to walk to instead of drive.
We've overinvested in cars and roads for too long.
We have the technology to cope with (but not enjoy) post-Peak Oil. We lack the foresight or will do use what we know today.
The Swiss in 1998 ($12 oil) voted to spend 31 billion Swiss francs from 2000-2020 to improve their rail system and (among other goals) shift almost all freight from heavy trucks to (hydro) electric rail. Adjust for currency & population and it would be like the US voting $1 trillion before there was a "clear & present danger".
The Swiss may have started too late, and doing too little, BUT it is easier to ramp up to 100% from 50% than it is start from -1% (current US policy).
Let us suppose that the US gets 1/4 as serious as the Swiss in 2008 about dealing with post-Peak Oil. IMHO, too little, too late, but even that minimal effort at that late date may be enough to preserve our society if not our economy.
Best Hopes,
Alan Drake
Each year, things get a little tighter. The barbarians sack a little closer in-- uncle Lepidus was killed at his country villa a couple of years back. There is another change of government, and a new emperor, just like there was last year.
It gets a little harder to get that Syrian honey, Egyptian wheat, Chinese silk, Tunisian wine. The pirates are more active. The bridges aren't fixed.
There are periodic currency devaluations and runs on silver.
One day you wake up, and the barbarians are sacking Rome.
Slowly but surely society crumbles. If you look back over 20 or 30 years you can see it, but at the time, you just get on with your daily life.
My fellow Missourian put it best, paraphrasing, - History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
You are certainly welcome to believe what you wish but you, clearly, have no understanding of survival, either practically or psychologically. I believe what you would find if you talked to those of us who are taking action is that: First, we recognize that "buying time" is important. In other words, I have no delusions that I can continue my current lifestyle in perpetuity. However, I want to survive until things shake out whether it's one year or 20. People make horrendously bad decisions when under stress.
Second, we have the psychological advantage of having gone through the various stages of grief. Although I cannot know how things will play out, I can say I at least have a plan to survive that was not made when all hell broke loose.
Continuing this line of thought, in real survival situations the people who survive are the ones who have a will to live. I'd suggest watching the movie The Bear to see this in action.
Third, you'd be surprised at how much people like me do know and practice in real life. In other words, we have skill sets revolving around survival that are part of our daily lives. Heck, I actually just got through making a batch of acorn meal...but seriously, the skills we have advance the odds of coming out OK in the end.
Lastly, "the hords" have been discussed to death and I don't want to revisit this topic.
Here's an Army thought jogger:
S - size-up your situation (surroundings, physical condition, equipment)
U - use all your senses (haste makes waste)
R - remember where you are
V - vanquish fear and panic
I - improvise
V - value living
A - act like the natives
L - live by your wits, but for now, learn basic skills
While this is directed toward field survival, it is equally applicatble to survivaing societal devolution or collapse.
Todd; a Realist
We're talking about survival, but not much else. Maybe that's good enough for you, but I am not sure I am happy with it. Knowing we're each going to die someday anyway, I question whether it's worth toiling away for decades in destitute conditions if it comes to that.
Also, I still am not sure anything you said really contradicts what I said, which was essentially that the vast majority of people would die. Maybe 99% is too high, but it would be in that ball park. And even if you prepared you'd have a better chance, but all things considered not the greatest one. I guess if the end of civilization comes, I'll probably try to soldier on (though I probably won't succeed), but I will be pissed off about it.
Power will concentrate in the state capitols in a distress situation, and the Governor's main source of power is paramilitary. Think the Reconstruction period-- the last time when civil chaos was widespread in the USA.
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/west/index.html
Alan
Some of the Southern states during the Civil Rights period seemed to be going that way, with the Governors point blank defying the Supreme Court.
I think the US Federal Government could/would shrink drastically, and the States take over the functions, each in their own peculiar way.
One thing that struck me touring New England was how individualistic, and ornery, each of these States is. Maine is not New Hampshire, and neither is Massachussets.
As to technology saving us, part of the problem for me is that technology could save us. Technology could fix both the oil and climate change problems. It would take a tremendous amount of energy to do that, but we do know of a way to get that energy, we generally know how to harness that energy, but we haven't worked out enough details to actually do it. I'm talking about fusion, of course, both magnetic containment fusion and various forms of table-top fusion. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that 50 years from now we have palladium or sonoluminescent-based fusion working on a large scale or that some materials breakthrough allows the magnetic containment needed for a tokamak to work.
It also wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that 50 years from now we're fighting the third world oil war with a world population of 4 billion. It seems there is a wide range of possibilities. I can't get a fix on which is likely to happen. It makes sense to me to prepare for a wide range of outcomes at this point in history, and spend the most effort on the ones involving the most risk or reward. The only thing that seems definite is that oil will continue to generally be more expensive than in the past, and that change in itself will cause some economic and social mayhem.
My crystal ball says, "Cannot predict now."
The thing that does worry me is it does seem like we did get something of a free ride from petroleum. If modern society were to collapse, I wonder if we could ever come back from it? What I mean is it's a lot easier to burn coal and even oil than it is to build solar panels (wind turbines might be a little easier, but still tough). One is just straight combustion, while the other requires a complex trade network to get the necessary components and manufacture them. You can't just farm and then head out and mine all the materials you need nearby and put them together in a workshop.
So, if we somehow flub the transition, I'm afraid it won't be just a few decades before we make a comeback. It would be more like a few centuries at least, if we ever managed.
The EROEI crowd will argue that once the oil is gone, the economy has to shrink due to the laws of thermodynamics.
I've never seen a good economic analysis of that argument.
I'm with you that there is a huge amount we can do with :
- first and foremost conservation. Cars can do over 40mpg, houses can be insulated so they need little or no heat
- wind - here and now
- solar water heating - here and now
- solar PV - we are getting closer and closer to economic PV power
- hydro - at least in Canada there is still room for more capacity
and of course nuclear fission although I don't think it can be as big as some seem to advocate.If the input goes down, and you haven't made up the shortfall with efficiency gains, the economy shrinks. Can we do it? I hope so. But unless the growth paradigm is changed, the long term problem remains.
Economic analysis? Economics has no laws--only ideas that classical economists floated as such because they felt left out when scientists came up with theirs.
There's no either/or here. The social cooperator will form ties to enough people to facilitate the individual competitor. On your own, your chances of competing are non-existent, as the competitor knows well.
That's how you get gangs, roving bands, and who knows even a handful of 'peaceful' communities capable of defending themselves against those roving bands. But those communities will have to be armed to the teeth.
The human brain is not made to forge meaningful relationships with more than 100-150 people, won't be able to even remember their names. In times of strife, that leads to all groups splitting up and potentially turning against each other. Above a certain number, the lack of 'meaningful' leads to a lack of trust. And that leads to battle.
Two Great books on the subject: Constant Battles and The Parable of the Tribes
Ron Patterson
When I was a teenager, the football team I hate the most ended up representing the nation in the final of an international club competition - I was surprised to find that I supported them for that one occasion - there was no doubt where my heart lay on that night, and no doubt about a very different loyality in all other football contexts. I won't tell you who they were because I don't want to remind anybody that they won it, but I will happily reveal that it was an English team winning the European Cup.
Our tribal loyalities might just help us out, rather than hinder us in the event of genuine resource shortages.
I can't do it, though. The rivalry is too intense. If, say, the Cowboys are out of the playoff chase, the last thing I want to see is the Redskins winning the Super Bowl. I just hate them too much. :)
You just won me over.
Yes, doubtless, however if there existed in American football something equivalent to The European Cup, which to my knowledge there does not, you may find yourself in a position where a much detested local team represents your nation. You may (or not) surprise yourself at how your loyalties change (or don't). It happened to me (the point I was making), and took me completely by surprise.
I hate them, I loathe them, I detest them and the stinking ground they walk upon. Their mothers are cheap pox ridden whores who do it for bus fares and their fathers are pimps who beat women. They are cowards and lickspittles and twobit running dogs. Their stadium is a public toilet and they stink. However, when they represented my England in the final, my heart told me to hold my nose for a higher loyalty (much to my surprise).
to justify fighting resource wars ..
Triff ..
Except when it doesn't...
8ball's answer, "Signs Point to Yes."
For entertainment purposes only, and all that. :)
Human nature has almost nothing to do with it, because we have examples of both scenarios in our history. There have been times where by civilization developed and adapted to a new technology to continue their existance. And there are examples of civilizations that folded and essentially cannabalized themselves back to a primitive or even non-existant state.
At this juncture in time, neither one of you can say which will happen definitively. And to be honest, both you and the author need to be more open to the possibilities that the other presents.
The author does characterize many of the doomers on this forum correctly. Several on these forums have openly stated they are preparing places to retreat to, hold up in and wait for the worse to pass over(essentially saying collectively as a species we just need to wait around and let lots of us die). Their time and effort and energy are being spent in preparation to hunker down, and not to solve the problem for everyone. That is certainly their right, and their perogitive, but just as it is their right it is the right of the other side to keep looking for these technological miracles.
Which brings up another point, people on these forums keep saying "technological miracle" when trying to deride the more optimistic posters. What people don't realize(or in my opinion refuse to accept) is that those "miracles" are occuring, and that the bigger hold up is not the technology, but rather the social will to implement it. That will, will not occur until the current energy paradigm puts enough stress on people that a demand for something else becomes profitable. That demand will happen... it has already begun happening in small ways (more people bought more fuel efficient cars due to the last few years of gas prices, and in Toronto I recently read about a program to promote more localized energy production via solar and wind and the financial incentives to do so).
The bigger question in terms of adapting to a post peak world is less about technology in my opinion and more about making sure the social will is there to adapt. And generally speaking, when given the choices of cannabalizing themselves, or embracing a new way that shows viability and promise, humans have had a pretty decent record of embracing new ways.
a sample:
By looking at the crisis spreading over a century or so, one gets a better idea of the magnitude, as well as the whipsaw manner in which these changes will probably ensue.
Regardless, I get leery when people say "never" or "certainly" about these matters.
How things shake out depends largely on how we respond, as a society. (and things ain't looking so hot in that respect...)
is "a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge."
The sad part is, most people who read that crap and were receptive to his propaganda didn't bother to check his credentials.
"DON'T VOTE - It just encourages them"
but I'd have to drive an armored Humvee...
Yeah I know this is pie in the sky, but it would be nice. We could spend the billions on transitioning.
If the US acted in the world's common interest, then maybe we should mourn the loss of US influence. But as the US has focused on their narrowly defined self interest at the expense of others, their diminished influence should be welcomed.
The sad thing is that the forces that are filling the vacuum created by the waning US position are potentially totalitarian.
I say baby sitter since we are basically NATO when TSHTF in war torn countries.
You just explained US foreign policy.
I'd personally like to see a massive Turn out for Mickey Mouse. What would happen to our constitutional system if the majority vote went to a fictional character.
No president for 4 years? Hrm... that might actually be a good thing.
</sarcasm>
as a ballot choice for all
future elections ..
Triff ..
Or as Walt Kelly memorably put it:
'we have met the enemy, and he is us"
Wal-Mart workers walk out
Why the ruckus? Wal-Mart is trying to rid itself of full-time workers and any who are unhealthy, in order to cut costs. So they are doing things like cutting hours, changing schedules, and trying to make the job physically difficult for the elderly and infirm. (Forcing cashiers to collect carts in the parking lot, for example.)
They've basically taken over the U.S., but Wall St. expects them to keep growing. Which means expanding overseas...and squeezing ever more productivity from their employees.
France devises a baby boom as Europe ages
Their secret? Massive government benefits for families, and support for working mothers in the form of daycare, long maternity leaves, and job guarantees.
But what got me is this bit:
"The threat of zero population growth"? Zero population is the goal of sustainable societies, not a threat to them.
But as the article details, there's a whole lot of reasons why zero population is a "threat" to our societies.
* Wal Mart:: the only possible outcome of a global economy is a Bangla Desh level pay-scale. The Daily Show last night had a (black) commentator who applied this to stars adopting 3rd world babies.
"American black orphans can't compete anymore in this market. You can feed an African child for 12 cents a day." The truth in absurd terms.
* France: the idea works for the people who propagate it. They fear a pension problem. And if that's the no.1 problem you see, the solution is obvious.
I think part of the explanation here is intense national pride with the idea that the French culture must be propogated; screw the rest of the world. Population control is only suitable for the non French. Could it be that there is so much animosity between the French and the Americans because, in many ways, they are so much alike?
Don't get me wrong. There are many things I love about France, but this population policy is not one of them.
After losing money steadily, finding out that yes, German laws are actually enforced, and that unions do actually have support and political power here, Walmart packed up its bags fairly quietly - and then recently bought out a Taiwanese owned, mainland China chain. I would guess that China is likely to be a lot friendlier to Walmart. After all, the Chinese still shoot striking workers in the interest of ensuring labor peace for employers, if what gets out past the censorship is to be trusted.
In Germany, this was based on the labor laws, and the fact that native German discounters were much more efficient than Walmart - Aldi is a truly fascinating operation, and by Aldi standards, Walmart is a bloated, top heavy, inefficient retailer, with lower quality products and higher prices to boot. For a while, Walmart was headquartered near where I lived, and I knew people who had friends/family that worked at the former Wertkauf headquarters. That Walmart was pretty inept was the general opinion of these people.
In South Korea, Walmart had many of the same problems that it did in Germany - workers who stand up to management, and shoppers who were used to either lower prices or more suited products.
Walmart is a surprisingly ham fisted operation at times - for example, according to some of the articles I read, the large package sizes of Walmart's 'family sized' product packaging didn't fit into a typical Korean's life at all. In Germany, the Walmart ads a few years proclaiming 'Made in Germany' with the German colors o