DrumBeat: October 29, 2006
Posted by threadbot on October 29, 2006 - 9:19am
China limits exports of energy intensive commodities
China plans to increase taxes on exports of metals, oil and steel in an effort to contain excess investment in energy intensive industries, and simultaneously will reduce tariffs for the import of commodities, reported the Finance Ministry in Beijing....“These changes are geared to limit export of energy intensive products since the growth of these resources effectively means China is exporting energy, which it lacks”, argued Feng Fei a researcher at the Development and Research Center of the State Council, the Chinese cabinet.
Big oil may have to get even bigger to survive
The international giants are in trouble, with reserves shrinking, taxes and costs rising, and producing nations reneging on deals or nationalising their assets. The answer to their problems could be massive mergers.
Five ways to make a difference
World demand for natural gas to exceed oil by 2020
The world demand for natural gas would increase in the coming decades and exceed the demand for oil by 4.4 percent yearly until 2020, a report issued by Kuwait- based Global Investment House said on Saturday.The report also predicted that the proportion of world natural gas to total global energy would rise to 28 percent in 2030 from 2005's 23.5 percent.
Norway Oil Industry Chief Fears Investment Drop
The director general of the Norwegian Oil Industry Association, or OLF, said Friday he fears an imminent drop in investment levels in the nation's oil and gas sector could impact future production and Norway's position as the world's third-biggest oil exporter."Activity is very high, we're at an all time-high when it comes to investment...but I fear a drop in investment to come," Per Terje Vold said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
US energy secretary announces $450 million for coal research
ASHLAND, Kentucky - US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced $450 million (euro355 million) in grants during the next decade to further research into technology that would lessen the environmental impacts of coal use.
Oil majors go silent as shadow of US regulator grows bigger
Singapore - A crackdown by US regulators on energy trading may make some physical oil markets more unpredictable and opaque by prompting major companies to cut off communications with market media.Chevron Corp followed ExxonMobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell this August in curbing the exchange of information between its oil traders and the publishers and news agencies that report on crude and product markets.
What are the principal energy stakes in the next few decades?Patrick Criqui: Sometimes I say that to achieve sustainable energy growth, like Ulysses, we have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis. The first risk is a scarcity of cheap oil and gas resources, as evidenced these days by the threat of peak oil (and peak gas). The second risk is climate change. But we can't count on a scarcity of oil and gas resources to solve the problem of climate change.
It's a badge of economic success -- or excess -- that can be seen from space.The gargantuan development of Alberta's oilsands is visible from beyond the ozone layer and promises to be more apparent as the planet's insatiable thirst for its bounty increases, says Dan Woynillowicz of the environment watchdog Pembina Institute.
"One of the most alarming things the UN has documented is the sheer footprint of the oilsands," says Woynillowicz.
Morales' Gas Nationalization Complete
LA PAZ, Bolivia - President Evo Morales completed his ambitious oil and gas nationalization plan early Sunday with the last-minute signing of contracts allowing several international companies to continue operating in Bolivia under state control.
Gazprom is raising $69 billion to revive gas production
MOSCOW: Gazprom, the world’s largest natural-gas producer, is raising investments to $69bn through 2009 to develop new fields amid concerns the company may not meet soaring demand in Russia and Europe.
Ten years to save the planet from mankind
The Stern Report will tomorrow reveal that if governments do nothing, climate change will cost more than both world wars and render swathes of the planet uninhabitable. Can the world find the will to act?
Australia: Nuclear power will 'worsen drought': nuclear uses 25% more water than coal.
Africa ‘faces catastrophe’ unless West acts on climate change
Africa will go “up in smoke” unless the international community acts to curb climate change. A coalition of the UK’s leading development and environment agencies argue that global warming is already having a serious impact on Africa and will get much worse unless urgent action is taken now.
[Update by Leanan on 10/29/06 at 8:46 AM EDT]
Protesters seize oil station in Nigeria
YENAGOA, Nigeria - Protesters demanding jobs and aid took over an oil pumping station run by an Italian oil firm in Nigeria's volatile southern delta region, forcing the company to shut the flow of oil, a Nigerian security official said Sunday.
Iraq, China to revive 1997 oil deal
BEIJING - China and Iraq are reviving a $1.2 billion deal signed by Beijing and Saddam Hussein's government in 1997 to develop an Iraqi oil field, Baghdad's oil minister said Saturday.
Volkswagen begins constructing first Russian plant
"But we are delighted more than anything with the production of 115,000 cars a year that Russian citizens will buy, because that will increase their well being," Gref added in comments cited by Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency.
Securing future energy will be difficult but doable
Lou Grinzo is the grass roots, where change in America always begins.A technical writer with a degree in economics, Grinzo has worked for IBM and Microsoft Corp.
Since the 1973 oil crisis, he's been, in his words, an "energy geek" — fascinated by the relationship between energy supplies and economics.
Alarmists have long predicted America's demise. But Joel Kotkin says the declinists are just as wrong now as they have been in the past.
Have oil supplies peaked globally?
It looks as if the ongoing tug-of-war between the oil bulls and bears is heating up.That provides the big question as to whether global oil supplies have peaked, or if there are additional reserves hidden away in the Earth's recesses that have only begun to be tapped.
Foster Wheeler gets Moneefa contract
Saudi Aramco and Foster Wheeler have signed a front-end engineering and design contract for the Moneefa oilfield development, which is expected to add 900,000 barrels per day of crude oil by mid-2011.
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My initial thought was, will this cause an increase in retail prices of many imported products from China?
Emissions should be calculated, like efficiency, throughout the entire production/consumption process. Don't hold your breath on that one.
As for the article, it talks about commodities, not finished products, an important distinction. Still, there's no doubt prices for and at Wal-Mart will rise. China, so keen on export, underestimates its growing domestic demand, which rises with the economy, at over 10% a year.
Which in turn may also be behind the decision to slow down commodities and/or half-products export. If they can't keep feeding the rising appetite at home, there's trouble looming.
1.3 billion people have seen a dangling carrot. Better not take it away.
From the above, we can already clearly see how inadequate that well-intentioned plan is. Since a car produces 1/3 of its pollution before it hits the showroom, the card should certainly apply to those purchases as well, if it has to have any serious meaning and effect.
I see the carbon card a good idea in the opposite direction - for rebating the tax on a certain carbon allowance back to the people. This would make it much more fair and socially acceptable.
Not 1/3. According to the ILCA, it's 10%.
A simple carbon tax will roll the cost in automatically. That's why it's so important.
Dirty from cradle to grave
If you'd paid attention, you would have noticed that your link talks of things like "cubic meters of polluted air", a rather elastic measurement (if you concentrate or dilute the emissions, you can make the numbers into whatever you want them to be). Last, it's a newspaper article duplicated on a personal site. You should be citing - and reading - the original source; there's no telling what the reporter decided to leave out.
Frankly, it looks as though the difference is largely down to the amount that the vehicle is driven and the Heidelberg research including the eventual disposal, which the Carnegie Mellon research left out. Europeans drive less so that manufacture is a bigger percentage, Americans drive more so manufacture is a smaller percentage.
My initial thought was, will this cause an increase in retail prices of many imported products from China?"
My take on that is that they're trying to contain the exportation of the raw materials...not the finished product. They can probably get more for the raw materials elsewhere and thus export it rather than use it domestically for their own finished products export. It may very well turn out to be a wash, or could lower prices of finished products from China.
The article stated that China planned to raise taxes on exports for copper, nickel, aluminum, steel, and other energy-intensive commodities and to ALSO lower import tarrifs on same. This would serve to decrease domestic production and thereby lower the domestic energy expended on such production. Essentially, it appears to be an indirect (and some might say, sneaky) way of importing energy, and thus freeing up the displaced energy for domestic use.
I agree that whether this move will raise prices for certain Chinese export goods is a tough call. I suppose it depends on the differential between what it really costs the Chinese to produce these commodities and what they will have to pay after they start importing them. The various currency relationships now become a factor that could further complicate things.
I also sense that this move might indicate a growing desperation on the part of the Chinese regarding future energy supplies. Increasing one's dependence on imported commodities tends to also increase one's vulnerability to supply disruption. Then again, the question would be: is it better to be more dependent on imported copper, nickel, etc. or to be more dependent on imported fossil fuel? The Chinese appear to have decided that the former is the lesser of two evils.
There is also the possibiliry that certain rare earths which are utilized in high tech defense industries may also be included. If so the implications for US defense industries will be enormous.
Jimbojim39
I've always had a hard time understanding things related to international currency matters, balance of payments, and the like.
Let's see: if China reduces it's exports of commodity metals, then that would lessen the inflow of dollars (and other foreign currencies). That I think I understand. Now if they also encourage the import of commodity metals, then that would imply that they are willing to get more Chinese currency out there in exchange for tangible materials that they can then manufacture into value-added products, much of which is for export and which will result (as it does now) in an influx of dollars, etc.
So, I have a bit of difficulty in understanding what is being done to whom and what is flowing where. Will they now buy copper from the US and thus help our balance of payments problem (but increase our domestic industrial energy consumption) ? Or what?
One thing I think might happen is that by taking a certain amount of commodity metals off the market, China could cause a rise in the global market price of such, depending, of course, on the current size of their commodity metals exports in relation to the volume typically traded.
I don't fully understand this, but I get a feeling that is is not a good development for the US.
I'm not enthused about coal-fired anything, but if we need steel and such to put up wind farms and rebuild our rail system, I'm willing to look at the trade-offs.
Yesterday the NY Times had an article about religious groups who are uniting in opposition to the practice of mountain top removal to extract coal from the Appalacian region. It appears that more people are questioning the long-term effects.
Several months ago National Geographic had a good article on mountain top removal and it struck me as an audacious method of terra forming.
Right now, the debate is over whether a more cost efficient process and less hazardous environment for coal miners is worth the destruction of mountains. Later on the scale may tip away from environmentalists as concerns about energy scarcity and unemployment heighten.
Spot on. Energy decline will, perhaps counterintuitively, worsen climate change to such a degree it'll be as if we haven't seen anything yet.
And that is a process already well underway, when you consider that today much more energy is needed to extract fossil fuels, as can be seen in the decline of EROEI numbers for oil, from 100:1 to 20:1 or worse (while at the same time the amount of oil extracted has increased exponentially).
How to flatten an entire mountain range. Wait till they find something 'burnable' under the Himalayas.
That was funny in a macabre sort of way. I am convinced that those who can will burn whatever will burn until there is nothing left to burn.
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
by E.O. Wilson
http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/store-books/product/0393062171/The-Creation-An-Appeal-to-Save-Life-o n-Earth.html
Harvard species guru takes on spiritual side
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15332951/
excerpt
"HOME-BUYING RING GOT STEAL OF A DEAL
Houses bought at inflated prices. Millions in loan proceeds allegedly pocketed. All ending in foreclosure. In Colorado, it's one part of a nation-leading problem.
On an autumn day two years ago, Colorado issued a warrant to arrest Taiwan Lee, 25, a state prisoner who had vanished on parole.
He hadn't gone far. While police looked for him, he bought three houses at inflated prices in Arapahoe County with the help of lenders who put up the entire $1.9 million.
After he was caught and jailed, he managed to buy two more. Until the foreclosures commenced, Lee owned five villas in an affluent gated community while living behind prison bars 150 miles away.
The cast of characters in this foreclosure tale includes drug dealers who went straight from prison to the home-acquisition business, a developer with ties to an international Christian group, a state-licensed real estate broker who saw nothing peculiar and an appraiser who has disappeared.
Taiwan Lee is among a group of former inmates and others accused of buying 17 homes for inflated prices and taking $2.1 million from excess loan proceeds.
On the day Lee bought his fifth villa, another fugitive bought her third in four weeks in the same neighborhood. Cindy Ingram, also wanted for violating parole on drug charges, borrowed $1.8 million for those homes.
Talita James, a convicted cocaine dealer, bought two villas across the street from each other in one day for $1.1 million, promising to occupy them both. Her brother Torrence James and Ervin Camack, both released from federal prisons in Colorado, each bought another villa.
[the article gets better, felons become mortgage brokers then set up a phony home improvement business to siphon profits, identity theft factors in, and the article decribes non-criminal gullible idiots with no income who get involved in puff pricing and then squander their windfall on shopping, trips to Disneyland, gambling, etc.]
Lee's buying spree is an extreme example of something that happens every day in Colorado, the state with the worst foreclosure rate in the United States.
..."We started noticing this phenomenon in 2002, when the price puffs seemed to start at 3 percent to 6 percent in amounts of $6,000 to $12,000," Goodman said. "We now see price puffs of 30 percent or more in amounts over $100,000."
The Post also asked Eibner and Goodman to examine whether inflated prices played a role in 500 recent foreclosures in the Denver area.
Eibner's office successfully traced the multiple listing service history of 292 of them, and Goodman analyzed their list and sale prices. The result: Forty- eight percent of the newly foreclosed homes had sold for more than the original asking price or the listed price on the sale day.
Critics say mortgage companies have little incentive to ferret out inflated sales because they bundle and resell their home loans to Wall Street investors, taking their profits and diluting fraud losses in large pools of mortgage-backed bonds."
full article: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4567736
Who says crime doesn't pay?
I imagine the biggest customer is pension funds, causing people to see the value of their homes and their pensions shrink at the same time.
The default rate is rolled into the ultimate interest in an actuarial fashion. Therefore anyone who has a mortgage and is making payments is a victim. Now you have an incentive to pay off your mortgage :-)
EHTANOL COULD CORRODE PUMPS, TESTERS SAY
CHICAGO, Oct. 26 -- The farm-produced fuel that is supposed to help wean America from its oil addiction is under scrutiny for its potentially corrosive qualities.
E85, a blend of 85 percent corn-based ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, could be eating away at metal and plastic parts in pumps being used to dispense the fuel at gasoline stations, Underwriters Laboratories, the private product-safety testing group, said this month.
BP, the British oil company, said on Thursday that it would delay the expansion of E85 at its American gasoline outlets until the laboratories certified an E85 dispensing system.
How Long Can the World Feed Itself?
And our little patch of land is getting smaller as the population keeps multiplying.
That is a 26 percent drop in only two years. That is alarming. And we want to use grain to power our SUVs! Methinks the world is far closer to collapse than even most doomers believe. If we throw declining oil production into the above mix, then in less than ten years there could very easily be a worldwide famine.
Ron Patterson
Are humans smarter than yeast, indeed...
Do you know how smart yeast can be? Do you know that some yeast, like bacteria and fungi, alter their 'behaviour' according to their population density, and engage in group-level cooperative action? This is called 'quorum sensing'.
If yeast and bacteria can do it, then why shouldn't we?
Having said that, I am not optimistic. I'm just pointing out that I believe that a lot of the Jay-Hanson-style genetic analysis behind the idea that we humans are destined to destroy our environment is wrong.
Dictyostelium discoideum :
a lot of the Jay-Hanson-style genetic analysis behind the idea that we humans are destined to destroy our environment is wrong.
Jay Hanson is certainly wrong on many points but that does not mean we are safe.
But in the big picture, which is more or less the topic here, humans act more like yeast than your peripatetic little Mycetozoa. At least we don't normally cooperate to that level ... of course, once the litte gal gets to the ball-on-a-stick stage, she is getting ready to disperse a fine dust of spores and die.
Quorum sensing is a method of not acting until the population is great enough. It is not a method of population control. It is exactly the opposite!
Yeast do not engage in population control. They multiply to the very limit of their existence, just like Homo sapiens.
Is yeast single or plural? ;-)
Ron Patterson
There are some critters that -do- practice population control, however... many parasitic worms will not attach to hosts which are already infected, if the host is a natural carrier of that parasite. The idea is that if they do not visibly harm the host, they can go around shedding eggs/larvae for quite a long time and further the spread of the parasite.
OTOH, when a parasite infests a novel host, the mechanism sometimes fails. They can quickly sicken and kill a host for which they have not evolved this relationship. Said mechanism is apparently the result of a strictly darwinian selection process. :-)
No, I must confess Coilin; I did not know that. But I would just love to know more about that. Have you a URL? Or even a book that I could purchase. Such a revolution would, to me anyway, easily be worth the purchase price of that book. Just give me the name of the book and the author and the book will be on its way, via Amazon.com, tomorrow. After all, I call myself a "keeper upper" on everything biological. And, if what you say is true, then yeast cooperating with other yeast in order to limit their population is one thing I obviously have not kept up with. Anxiously awaiting your reference.
But the reference to; "Are humans smarter than yeast?" in this case is an obvious reference to David Price's excellent essay. Anyone who has not read it is obviously missing something very important concerning the population explosion, in both Homo sapiens and yeast.
Ron Patterson
I obviously meant revaluation not revolution. My spellchecker changed my original misspelling to the wrong word. Sorry about that.
"Such a revaluation would be well worth the purchase price of the book.
Ron Patterson
You refer to 'yeast cooperating with yeast to limit their population', which is something which may well happen, although I didn't claim it did in my previous post. What I said that yeast (or at least some kinds of yeast) change their 'behaviour' when their population density increases, and engage in cooperative behaviour. Since the discovery that yeast also engage in 'quorum sensing' is quite new, and since I am not an expert, I don't know exactly what kind of cooperative behaviour they engage in but my understanding is that quorum sensing in bacteria can certainly regulate population growth.
Here are a few links to a few abstracts of scientific papers:
- This one is for e-coli. It is about how quorum sensing controls cell division (and therefore population growth, in e-coli. It says 't has recently been shown that many prokaryotes are also capable of modulating growth, and in some cases sensing cell density, by production of extracellular signaling molecules, thereby allowing single celled prokaryotes to function in some respects as multicellular organisms.' You can also download the full paper for free from that page if you like.
- This one is for yeast. It was published earlier this year, and the full abstract is: 'Many microbes use extracellular signals to transmit information about population density and environmental conditions. Recent evidence suggests that the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae exhibits this type of regulation and that the signals are aromatic alcohols.'
- Here is an abstract referring explicity to the fact that quorum sensing involves population density-dependent cooperation in bacteria. It begins 'Work over the past few years has provided evidence that quorum sensing is a generic regulatory mechanism that allows bacteria to launch a unified, coordinated response in a population density-dependent manner to accomplish tasks which would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve for a single bacterial cell.'
Bacterial toxin production seems to often involve quorum sensing. If there are not enough bacteria present, producing the toxin is a waste of time, but when density increases there comes a point when it is worthwhile producing the toxin. Bacteria 'quorum sense' this point, and despite what some people believe about cheats making cooperation genetically impossible, the fact is that they then do cooperate to produce the toxin. Here is a paper about quorum sensing controlling virulence, including toxin production.Another popular example is certain bacteria which only luminesce when they are in high enough concentration. Producing light when there are too few bacteria is a waste of energy since the light will be invisible. But once the population density increases, the bacteria luminesce, another example of genetically determined cooperation. (see here).
Yet another example is biofilm formation. Biofilms protect the bacteria inside of the biofilm, but there is obviously a cost associated with producing the biofilm. Biofilm formation can be controlled by quorum sensing, according to this paper.
If you want to know more about it, Ron, just google "quorum sensing" or use the Pubmed search engine for scientific papers.
Quarum sensing then, is a method of holding back your attack untin your numbers are great enough to overcome the host's defenses. It means multiply as fast as you possibly can and do not attack until your numbers are great enough.
Every plant and animal in nature multiplies to the very limit of its existance. They do not practice any birth control other than those imposed on them by their environment. That is, by their food supply, predators and diseases..
Ron Patterson
Here is a link to another abstract I did not previously refer to. It clearly finds that quorum sensing regulates the entry into the 'stationary phase' of population growth which follows the 'exponential phase. The paper is called 'Control of Escherichia coli growth rate through cell density' and the first part of the abstract says:
'The transition from the exponential to the stationary phase of Escherichia coli cultures has been investigated regarding nutrient availability. This analysis strongly suggests that the declining of the cell division rate is not caused by mere nutrient limitation but also by an immediate sensing of cell concentration. In addition, both the growth rate and the final biomass achieved by a batch culture can be manipulated by altering its density during the early exponential phase.'
Here is one final link to a paper about quorum sensing in e-coli which finds that it inhibits chromosomal replication, ie. it stops population growth.
I am off to bed now, so I will not be replying again tonight.
After all, what else could we expect?
But all this has absolutely nothing to do with yeast multiplying in a sugar solution. Which was what the original post by Leanan was all about. A proposition that you objected to. How yeast behave in such conditions is well documented. They multiply until they poison their environment, then they dieoff.
Hell, have we learned nothing from thousands of years of wine making?
Ron Patterson
and
I then post an article showing that quorum sensing (ie. sensing of population density), not 'mere nutrient availability', can halt e-coli population growth. You then say that you are not surprised!
Of course, you try to put your own spin on the article by saying 'I am not surprised that E-coli bacteria also divide more slowly when faced declining nutrient concentrations' when, of course, the whole point of the article is to point out that it is not 'mere nutrient availability' that limits population growth, but also 'an immediate sensing of cell concentration'.
As usual, you try to distort what is being said by the person you are disagreeing with. I never claimed that yeast, under such conditions, do not initially multiply exponentially and then ultimately dieoff. I know this happens, and do not find this 'yeast' behaviour 'stupid' as is implied by the oft-quoted 'are humans smarter than yeast?' What else are yeast supposed to do except dieoff if they only have a finite amount of food?
What I disagreed with was Leanan's implication that yeast were not 'smart'. I showed that, for e-coli at least and probably other organisms (such as yeast) which have quorum-sensing mechanisms, that they can regulate population growth according not just according to nutrient availability (which is hardly 'regulation', but rather starvation), but also according to population density.
When in an environment with high nutrient availability and low population density, e-coli, like yeast, will multiply exponentially. This is called the 'exponential phase'. They then (and the articles I have quoted show this occurs partly though quorum sensing), enter the 'stationary phase', when population growth ceases.
If nutrient availability is ultimately finite or the e-coli or yeast are put in a situation where their wastes cannot dissipate, they will of course ultimately dieoff. Big surprise. What else could they possibly do?
key phrase in the third link.
so this is a way to promote growth not curtail it.
the yeast link only mentions the presence of the mechanism of communication between cells. it does not say what it is used for.
Ron Patterson
Dude ecoli can't read.
Sorry about that. Here is the link.
Here is another link to an article called 'Control of Escherichia coli growth rate through cell density' which clearly says that e-coli stabilise their growth through quorum sensing. It says:
Referring to another article, you say:
I don't know where you got that from. As your quote says, quorum sensing in bacteria (and, as it happens, in higher organisms) is, in general, a way of launching a 'coordinated response'. This coordinated response, or cooperative response, can, depending on the organism and the environmental conditions, involve a number of actions such as producing a biofilm, producing light, releasing a toxin, becoming invasive or stabilising population growth. No doubt there are many other actions which can occur also.
I definitely never said that quorum sensing always involves population control. I said that quorum sensing always involves cooperative 'behaviour' which is population-density-dependent. This is genetically determined cooperative behaviour, something that Jay Hanson and others tell us is impossible.
I already said that, not being an expert, I do not know what kind of actions are taken by the yeasts. The discovery of quorum sensing in yeast is, I believe, fairly recent. All I know is that the yeast in which quorum sensing occurs change their behaviour according to population density, and that they do so in a coordinated way. That is quite 'smart'.
Does it really matter. The important question is if the community you live in is going to collapse or not.
The very idea that people living thousands of miles away dying of starvation somehow has got anything to do with you is laughable.
It matters! If there is a global collapse, then every community will collapse. Sure, there will be a very few who, because of their great wealth, or whatever, may find themselves a fortress. But collapse is collapse, and to think that some communities will be totally okay while the rest of the world goes down the toilet is hilarious.
You equate the future with the present. Yes, there are people in Africa dying of starvation while we sit fat, dumb and happy here in the good old US of A. But if we have a global collapse, that will not be the case. Of course the poor nations will be affected first. But eventually global collapse will affect everyone on earth.
Your logic is truly laughable Hurin.
Ron Patterson
That is just stupid. Every community will be affected. But the effects do not necessarily have to be all bad. More resources do not equal more happiness.
But collapse is collapse.
No. Collapse means to scale back to a society with less available resources. It does not have to play out the same way everywhere. In places like Africa and the Middle East I expect massive die-off and a return to the stone age. But that's not really my problem, and your bleeding heart can bleed all it wants to as far as I'm concerned.
to think that some communities will be totally okay while the rest of the world goes down the toilet is hilarious.
I did not say that. I am hopefull we can scale back to a civilication based on electricity from renewables, rather than physical labour. It will be one with fewer people, but could be one with a higer quality of life.
You on the other hand seem to believe there is no hope for the future, so let me ask you. Why are you still alive. Why don't you just kill yourself.
If there is a global collapse, then every community will collapse.
Hurin replied:
Oh hell, of course you are correct. While most of the world is starving to death we will be living high on the hog. Hell, those starving people will be an asset as far as we are concerned. A starving man will work pennies on the hour.
And to think that only yesterday I was called a racist. But yes, I am a card carrying bleeding heart liberal. I wear that badge proudly. But unlike most other bleeding hearts, I fully realize the limits of my ability to change things. And, as hard as it is, I accept the fate of civilization, as we know it. It is doomed!
We, as a nation, cannot escape the fate of the rest of the world. We have painted ourselves in a corner. That is, we live in a global community, and if that global community collapses, we, as part of it, will collapse also.
A higher quality of life? You are saying there will be a massive dieoff, but this will lead to a higher quality of life for we members of the privileged few! Pardon me while I puke! No, when the world goes down the toilet, we will be lucky to just hang onto the edge of the toilet.
As I have said before, I am 68 years old and hope to be safely dead when TSHTF. On the other hand, there is hope for younger people. They can be making plans to be among the survivors. It will be a hard life with death all around you, including some of your loved ones. But Homo sapiens will survive, if not civilization, as we know it. I would hope to help insure that some of human history survives into the future.
But in the meantime, merely standing at the preface of collapse is breathtaking. How many people have witnessed such an event and realized it? Not many I assure you. Certainly not you.
Ron Patterson
The global community is a recent event in human hustory, and not something I would call progress. I for one will be glad to see it go away, as I fail to see that it has led to an increase in our quality of life.
I realise the repercussions of a collapse in global trade. But it doesn't have to be the end of the world.
A higher quality of life? You are saying there will be a massive dieoff, but this will lead to a higher quality of life for we members of the privileged few!
Why not. The plague in Europe led to a massive dieoff, but can you really say life after the plague ended was worse than life before it.
Pardon me while I puke!
Your indignations are getting boring, try something new.
Thxs for posting the EnergyBulletin link on world grain supplies-- this is the main reason why I have been posting that North America needs to move most of it's labor force to relocalized permaculture. Obviously, our Overshoot may preclude a non-violent social response, but we got to try.
Tragically, the MSM is not making this headline news on all forms of media to alert the unwashed masses and societal leaders that thoughtful mitigation must begin.
Our politicians cannot duck this issue as crop-growing cycles are much shorter than election cycles. The danger is that food prices will scale out of sight much faster than our social ability to peacefully transition.
The successful hoarding of canned, bottled, or prepackaged dehydrated foodstuffs, besides basic grains itself, can sustain a family for years [if they have the income to achieve this], thus preventing a top-down shift to permaculture participation. In short: the shelf life of a lot of foods far exceeds the shelf life of stored gasoline or electricity in batteries. For example: a tubular can of PRINGLES remains potent much longer than a tubular DURACELL battery.
Contrast this mindset vs the enlightened elites like Richard Rainwater's survival farm. His admirable biosolar goal to be self-sustaining effectively insulates his temptation to use his detritus wealth's ability to outbid lesser souls in the foodstuff marketplace.
This wealth differential applied to on-the-market foodstuffs thus creates instant dire shortages for those who incomes are at the basic JIT consumptive level. IMO, if some kind of early incentive could be created whereby the rich could be induced to shift their investments to urban and suburban permaculture plots-- it could be a big help. In effect: they are trading detritus wealth to create social biosolar wealth to reduce future violence. Easier said than done, of course, but this is the direction we need to go--trading Detritus MPP for Biosolar MPP.
By this manner: it is much cheaper to create relocalized permaculture vs waiting until the food crisis hits. Delay will only result in the imposition of the high overhead costs of slave-labor camps, ruthless police/military actions to suppress food riots/wars, and other competitve conflicts [as we now see occurring in world newsarticles]. Inducing social cooperation by elite altruism to refrain from hoarding is the better course of action. THE BIG QUESTION is: will the topdogs see the wisdom of this plan?
I am doubtful, that is why I remain a fast-crash doomer.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Much like RATS and COCKROACHES the population will grow until food is scarce.
(I am personally from a poor third world country and believe that excessive population is an Albatross). One does not want to have people die and that will be the result of unrestrained population growth from today's levels.
No doubt that the ignorant topdogs will burn food for fuel. I hope we can be smarter than that when the whole world becomes PO & GW aware. IF this awareness level ever results-- social norms will change and people will willingly choose recreational vs procreational sex-- and overpop. won't be a problem. But the MSM better get going on spreading the news, or else the Dieoff goes down with mind-bendingly horrific levels of violence. Other posters besides me have commented on the MSM's failure to accurately report what the public truly needs to know.
I think it is safe to assume that the Agriculture Secretary will brief the President on grain supplies and its ramifications, and I hope the White House press corps will ask him to respond to this EnergyBulletin article. We will see if the press corp has any balls. They have children too.
I personally would like to see the President announce that the Rose Garden and lawns will be converted to vegetable gardens, and everyone else should do the same. That should kickstart a nationwide permaculture process. It would also show that the Paradigm Shift has begun, and the true 'Jeffersonian' mindset applies to lead the transition. Time will tell.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Does anyone here really imagine that grain production could plummet that much and no one would notice? Australia just projected a 20 million ton shortfall on wheat next spring and the markets jumped and the TOD board took note. Now here's a 700 million ton gap and this is the first we hear of it? Get real.
The idea that the harvest fell 26% asd no one noticed is similar to, but even more unlikely than that oil production fell 20mbpd and we needed this board to find out. Every last person on the planet would know in either event.
And I say that as a 'doomer' ...
Respects,
Yes,sometimes it's painful.
I too appreciate Roger.
Unlike Roger don't expect me to do the big essays, just don't have the energy to craft them the way I'd want or the gift to make them flow out the keyboard
==============UN Food and Agriculture Organization data:
=
=============FAO Food Security Statistics:
http://www.fao.org/es/ess/faostat/foodsecurity/index_en.htm
FAO grain production numbers are here:
http://www.fao.org/giews/english/cpfs/index.htm
FAO current report on global cereal supply and demand:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/j8122e/j8122e03.htm
FAO Food crops and shortages:
http://www.fao.org/giews/english/fs/index.htm
=================For purposes of comparison, another source of data:
=
================USDA FAS - Foreign Agricultural Service - Grain and Feed Division
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/
The USDA FAS Production, Supply and Distribution Online database
http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdhome.aspx
Current coarse grain report
http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdReport.aspx
====================For the longer view, a couple of books that may raise the hair on the back of your neck:
=
===================Feeding the Ten Billion: Plants and population growth (1998, Lloyd T. Evans)
When Rivers Run Dry: Water - The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century (2006, Fred Pearce)
Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil (1992, Daniel Hillel)
Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures (2005, Lester Brown) On-line version available:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Contents.htm
And I'm getting the feeling that the denizens hereabouts are as innumerate as politicians; a thread of what, thirty or forty posts based on numbers out of the ballpark and clearly just an error. Everyone wants to talk about collapse and is quick to grab a calculator and say 26%, see: right here; 26% when they haven't a clue what that would mean to real mouths and real stomachs
I don't know if it is really that simple. There are many social forces at work, and are somewhat different in different countries. We shall see.
regards,
ChemE
Thxs for responding. As other posters have noted before: much of our problems are easily solvable, but our emotional fight, flight, hoard, etc, tendencies get in the way of truly rational planning and mitigation. If we were evolved to be more like 6.5 billion Spocks from Startrek--let our grey matter rule us instead of our primitive lizard brain-- the paradigm shift would be a piece of cake.
Jay Hanson has speculated that a properly programmed planetary-ruling computer could make the necessary unemotional decisions to force us to a proper path. But obviously humans would have to write the software first, and Jay said some hackers or programmers would invariably change the code to gain an advantage. Cunning corruption is what humans do best.
An empowered group of Socratic philosopher-kings is the next best solution; a set of global habitat managers to be ruthless, but fair to all species, and constantly checking each other for corruption. Unfortunately, natural politics tends to kill off any truly rational leaders, and our educational system abandoned the Socratic Method long ago.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
How much energy will it cost to feed, maintain, and grow the typical bovine?
To put this whole thing into perspective, here is a rough rule-of-thumb that has been used in the design of digesters for the anaerobic digestion of livestock waste.
For cattle: A digester can be expected to product 35 to 45 cubic feet of digester gas per day per 1,000 lbs liveweight of animal. Digester gas, because it contains large amounts of CO2, typically only has about 65 - 70% of the heating value of natural gas. As such, 1,000 lbs of cow can produce the equivalent of roughly 30 cubic feet per day of natural gas.
So, it takes a hell of a lot of cows to produce an appreciable amount of energy in the form of digester gas. This should not be surprising, as the energy content of the animal feed is mostly consumed in respiration and in the production of living tissue. Some of the waste that is left over can be converted into digester gas, but it is a relatively small fraction of the original energy content of the animal feed (which itself requires a considerable amount of fossil fuel energy to produce).
Picture it more as an energy recovery step rather than a primary energy source.
Joule,
Thanks for the added info on the digesters. In reference to your comment above, note this from the first article I posted:
Of course, even at 94% usable biomethane, we will never have enough cows to power our automobiles at today's usage levels. At best, biomethane will only be a small part of the answer.
RE: Cellulosic Ethanol vs. Biomass Gasification
Posted by Robert Rapier on Thursday October 26, 2006 at 9:20 AM EST
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/22/211321/89
Hopefully no one will farm cows for the sole purpose of harvesting biomethane gas. With ethanol you have a choice of using the crop for food or for fuel, but not both.
This is more like biodiesel coming from USED vegetable oil. Here, dairy cows are continuing to be used as dairy cows. It's the waste that is being processed into biomethane. Once it is processed, it produces LESS greenhouse gases than it does when left unprocessed.
Here's a better article from the Bellingham Herald:
Which has me wondering what the opposite to that would be.
Your Quote: "Which has me wondering what the opposite to that would be?"
RECLINERS--People kicked back in comfort and total denial.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Here's the lastest Oaxaca. Sounds way too quiet to me.
Yep, been following Oaxacan conflict as I can. But check out this link on high-level political talk on curtailing Mex. FF exports to US:
-------------------------------
Mexican Oil Experts and Heirs Address the Future
By George Baker
The face of anti-globalization in the energy sector in Mexico has reappeared in public statements by two prominent Mexican personages, former Pemex CEO Adrián Lajous and three-time Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.
The first in a long article published in Este Pais (September 2006), a magazine owned by a family with Institutional Revolutionary Party affiliations. And the latter via a paid announcement (and therefore not accessible on the Internet) in Milenio (October 20, 2006), listing a nine point proposed energy policy.
Lajous
For having been a manager and executive in Pemex for nearly 20 years, Lajous is certainly familiar with its institutional workings, projects, accomplishments and shortcomings. For having these qualifications, his wide-ranging use of quantified data (as, for example, production costs) carries an air of authority.
In his 12-page tightly argued article, Lajous reviews many of the management issues and ideas related to the oil sector that have been floated during the Vicente Fox administration -- Pemex fiscal and labor reforms, for example. Most of his analysis however is devoted to upstream issues. Lajous underscores the need to strengthen Pemex's portfolio of prospects and discoveries, and he comments on the difficulties that will be caused by the decline of Cantarell, Mexico's major Maya-grade crude oil production field.
Lajous is silent in this article on the current proposal to reorganize Pemex into one legal entity, thereby erasing the fifteen-year experiment that he himself initiated that created a headquarters unit and four legally independent subsidiaries. While noting that Pemex's proposals to develop KMZ (Ku-Maloob-Zaap) and Chicontepec are intended to replace the volumes lost in Cantarell, he is silent on the point that the oil of the first of these two complexes is of inferior value compared to that of Cantarell.
A proposal of the current Pemex administration to which he takes exception concerns the need for strategic alliances with international oil companies. Lajous insists that the "diagnosis" is mistaken, as there is no technological advantage that cannot be bought on the open market. In taking this position, Lajous aligns himself with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, whose statements to the effect that international oil companies are unnecessary for Mexico appeared in the Mexican press on October 10, 2006. "Pemex needs alliances with Mexican companies," Slim was quoted as having said.
Cárdenas
A rumor is floating around Mexico that President-elect Felipe Calderón has offered, as a gesture of reconciliation to the Cárdenas wing of the PRD, two cabinet positions and the director generalship of Pemex -- provided that it is Cárdenas himself who takes the Pemex post.
In his nine-point paid public notice, published not in La Jornada -- the normal venue for the Mexican left -- but in the centrist Milenio newspaper, Cárdenas goes over much of the same ground as that covered by Lajous, but with notable exceptions. Cárdenas proposes that the Mexican Congress, not the Executive, should make the decisions on oil extraction levels. He also proposes that Mexico should reduce its oil exports, even eliminating them entirely, and that the country should concentrate on petrochemicals and refined products. Unlike Lajous, he supports the proposal to reintegrate Pemex into a single legal structure.
Observations
- In trivializing the need for strategic alliances with international oil companies, Lajous is reaffirming a position that he has held for more than 20 years. The topic of international oil companies does not even deserve mention by Cárdenas.
- The call by Cárdenas to end oil exports, if implemented, would not only jar the international oil market and raise pump prices in the United States, but too it would provoke an unprecedented financial crisis in Mexico.
- Lajous and Cárdenas speak about Pemex plans to increase oil production in order to compensate for the Cantarell decline, but the proposed volumes from KMZ and Chicontepec will be of a far inferior quality. The fact that Lajous and Cárdenas speak "volumetrically" about replacing Cantarell barrels as if they were fungible with those of KMZ, also speaks to the yet unacknowledged shortcomings in Pemex's portfolio of upstream assets and prospects.
- Cárdenas is exploiting the anniversary of his father's death (October 19, 1970) to advance his own political causes and career by means of overtures to the incoming Calderón administration. His still revered father, President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940), nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves in 1938 in an expropriation that was highly popular at the time, and even now is politically venerated by many.
------------------------Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Good Morning--You online yet? Please feel free to repost link on Monday's Drumbeat.
http://www.mexidata.info/id1106.html
If she misses this request, will some other TODer repost this link early? I gotta get some shuteye, but I am interested to see how long it takes for this news to hit Bloomberg's and CNBC's talking heads. My guess is they won't discuss this at all until after the upcoming elections. Thxs.
http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=2763&mode=&order=0
Ed Felien, publisher of the alternative weekly "Pulse of the Twin Cities" wrote an article entitled "George Bush Stole My Jesus" that I found to be very insightful.
Felien not only contrasts the hypocritical use of the religious right and "Christianity" as a political tool, but takes note of the very central role of oil as the geopolitical prize in the Bush administration's policies.
Corruption and connections between the US CIA and drug-dealing, drugs for arms deals (Iran Contra) and close ties between the Bush family and Halliburton and the Saudis are wrapped together to portray a cynical and vicious regime aimed at global domination through Machiavellian use of religious, political, military, and economic power.
I recommend the article. Disturbing facts are often dismissed by the MSM -- CIA drug-dealing is dismissed out of hand or relegated to the "few bad apples" bin of arguements. Also, the connection between companies like Dresser and Haliburton with the Bush family, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are pretty much ignored, as is the obvious nature of the "resource war" ongoing for the prize of oil (and NG).
Any comments on the article from fellow TODers?
One place where the author seems to be mistaken is in the following section:
Saudi Arabia produces about 9M bpd and Iraq about 2M bpd, so regardless of what denominator a person uses, the two produce nowhere near 65% of total world oil. Also, I thought the oil price was largely determined by the future's market.
Furthermore, with supplies as tight as they have been, neither of these countries is in a position to greatly increase their production. Iraq has recently increased its oil production a little, but Saudi production is flat or declining, depending on the comparison months.
Sure enough, it's visible:
Ft. McMurray, AB (Google Maps)
But just as telling, I think, is this other view, to the same scale:
Hiesler, AB
That checkerboardy texture is hundreds of farms. We've replaced nature with human intervention just about everywhere possible. There are essentially no wildlands left, at least not on arable land.
Anadarko surprised many by selling all its oil sands assets this summer.
But why did the article end up in the Denver Post "Travel" section?
The low temperature and low preassure steam leaving the turbine is then condenced in a very large heat exchager that most often is cooled by on open loop water stream.
The cheapes cooling to condence the steam is if you have a large body with low temperature water nearby to pump thru your condencer. If the this is not enough or not available you can use a cooling tower and the most popular process is to spray the water in the tower and get some of the chilling from the evaporation. But it is possible to use a water-air heat exchanger, much like a giant car radiator in the tower, and also have this as a closed loop, this makes sense in very dry areas.
Another version often used in smaller powerplants is to condence the steam at a higher temperature with the return flow from a district heating system. This is again a closed loop system where you utilize the waste heat as space heating but loose some electricial power.
And on the heating side of the steam cycle you heat the turbine steam directly inside the reactor core in a BWR, Boliling Water Reactor, and a PWR, Preassurise Water Reactor, has an inner high preassure non boiling loop carrying the heat fromn the reactor core to large heat exchanger called steam generators.
This would probably have benefitted from some graphics.
I read somewhere that nuclear power plants have been affected by the drought in the American west. Water levels fell so much the plants' water intake pipes were left high and dry. They had to extend them, in some cases by a hundred feet or more.
Remember, it's a really big deal to shut down a nuclear reactor because your cooling system doesn't work. Even coal burning plants don't handle shutdowns that well.
And hot weather is the max load time because of airconditioning, if you do live in Texas.
What happens to the baseload power cost? Anybody have an example of a retrofit that someone has done?
I'm not a nuke expert.
However I know that there are different kinds of power plant designs, most notably BWR's and PWR's (Boiling Water Reactors and Pressurized Water Reactors).
In a BWR, the same water that flows through the reactor also flows through the turbine. In a PWR, there is a heat exchanger separating the fluid that flows through the reactor form the water that flows through the turbine.
At least in the case of the BWR where H2O is hit by radiation, the nuclear exchange generates Nitrogen (out of oxygen!) and that gas has to be let out into the atmosphere. Lost H2O has to be replenished. So that loop is not "closed" in the sense that nothing comes in from the outside and nothing goes out. It is "closed" in the sense that most of the water circulates in a loop passing through the reactor and the turbine and the condenser (then back to the reactor).
Beyond the 1 or 2 "closed" loops of BWR and PWR there is also usually an open path for spraying cooling water onto the condenser tubes. That's a 2nd/3rd place where water is used. As others here note, that cooling water is generally not recycled. Ultimately, the waste heat from the reactor has to go into the atmosphere and then out into space via IR radiation.
Last time I checked Australia had plenty of water. It's called the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. And the damn plants don't even consume the water, they just heat it.
But the article is hardly surprising as the Beatie guy is owned by the Australian coal mafia.
We got into the Little Rock area and just beyond I-440 there is the construction mentioned below, which is a royal mess, and has made me wonder about the sanity of Highway engineers to no end. My dad says its been going on for years now. Our little section called Levy is congestion filled with all the construction, but was not before it all began.
Read it an weep.
http://www.arkansasleader.com/2006/10/top-story-six-lanes-of-highway-may.html
This is all part of the process of outsourcing energy-intensive , low-added-value production, just like the "other" developed nations have done.
Hold on a minute. Who's going to be producing the world's commodity steel etc. in an energy-strapped world?
Where's the spare coal? Hey, it's in the USA... and Australia...
Re-industrialisation?