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Drum(stick)Beat: November 23, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 23, 2006 - 9:31am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Paying the Piper: What if Russian gas runs low?
EUROPE has accustomed itself to a version of Russia and of Russian policy which goes like this: post-Soviet Russia is not only awash with oil and gas, it is using that energy wealth to promote its great-power ambitions through bullying and bribery. But what happens to the calculation if Russia is not an energy bully, but an energy beggar?Russia reckons it will be short of 4.2 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas next year—enough to fuel a couple of small countries.
Wind shifts; ships take on oil again
The loading of oil tankers at Valdez resumed Wednesday after days of high winds that forced a slowdown in the flow of crude down the trans-Alaska pipeline.Mike Heatwole, spokesman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., said the wind was still blowing but the direction had changed, allowing for loading operations to start again.
Throughput stood at about 300,000 barrels a day, less than half of normal for the 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope.
Putin Snubs Calls to Hike Gas Price
President Vladimir Putin took his government to task Wednesday for its poor handling of power shortfalls. But he stopped short of acting on the advice of top officials to jack up the price of natural gas to avert a mounting energy crisis."If everything had been done as needed, there would be no breakdowns, and people would not suffer," Putin said at a long-anticipated strategy meeting in the Kremlin.
But, he added, "almost nothing has been done. Thousands of people are now without fuel or electricity."
Energy waste boosts data centre costs
The UK is heading towards energy shortages because of companies' burgeoning use of IT, according to new research yesterday that called on companies to install lower-power technology to save money and the planet.
John Michael Greer: Christmas Eve 2050: Q&A
Pupils Evacuated After Warning at Nuclear Plant
In the first nuclear-related evacuation since the Three Mile Island accident of 1979, a Tennessee school district sent all 1,800 pupils home on Tuesday morning because operators at a nearby nuclear reactor believed they might have had a leak of radioactive cooling water inside the plant.
Gold, Uranium, Base Metals and Oil Are Heading Much Higher
More and more industry experts are accepting the fact that some of the easiest oil will come off stream by 2015 and 2020, thereby raising the price. And incidentally, the well you mentioned — it was a Chevron well and it was a $100 million well. So we are drilling these things, but they are vastly more expensive than they were coming out of Saudi Arabia in 1936.
Ireland: Mayor calls for council to join Nuclear Free Forum
EP’s Foreign Commission Approves of a Possible Delay of Shutting down NPP Kozloduy’s Units 3 and 4
SOFIA - The Foreign Commission of the European Parliament (EP) has voted “in favor” of a possibility of an eight-month postponement of shutting down units 3 and 4 of the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Kozloduy, the Bulgaria in EU press centre reported.
India: Oil & gas explorers face talent crunch
MUMBAI: Retaining talent in the exploration and production (E&P) segment has become one of the most challenging tasks in the oil and gas business. The problem has aggravated with the surge in interest among global oil and gas majors in India following major hydrocarbon discoveries in the past four years.
Researchers gaze at cloud formations
Finnish researchers analyzing cloud formations say ozone destruction in the Earth's stratosphere might be occurring at a faster pace than thought.
Oil prices about to rise, energy expert warns
Commodity Strategists: Oil Prices May Fall 9% in '07, CFC Says
U.S. crude oil prices may fall as much as 9 percent next year as global supply rebounds, outpacing growth in demand, CFC Seymour Ltd. said.
Nigeria plans to build nuclear power plants to meet energy needs by 2015
India: Nuke power to be predominant form of energy
The quest for clean energy: China's green revolution
The air in Beijing was classified as 'hazardous' this week as the city became choked with smog, but following dire warnings of rampant pollution, alternatives are emerging.
India: Corn finds future in energy
Rice as a source of electricity
Rice yields an abundance of biowaste: Husks make up around one quarter of the weight. Only a small fraction of this is utilized, for instance, to fire distillery furnaces. Researchers at Hanoi University of Technology now also want to use rice husks to generate electricity.
Russia Says Will Sue Shell in International Court for Sakhalin-2 Environmental Damages
Head for the hills - the new survivalists
So what do you do when you're pretty sure that the end of the world as we know it is coming soon, but your girlfriend doesn't believe you? Sure, she might nod her head when you confront her with some of the gloomier facts, but then she shrugs and goes back to her pursuit of modern pleasures. She doesn't like it when you talk about it to other people, either. No one likes being told their hopes and dreams are about to turn to dust.
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Eat, drink, and be merry...for tomorrow it will be more expensive. CNN reports that ethanol is driving up the price of turkeys, because it's driving up the price of the corn they are fed. And it's not just turkey:
Ethanol Drives Up Food Commodity Prices Global ethanol production is driving up prices for food commodities, from feed stocks such as sugar, to meat, said Datagro, Brazil's biggest sugar-industry forecasting firm. |
WWF award for Nasa scientist who sounded climate alarm
A leading Nasa researcher who pioneered the case for tough action to combat climate change in the US has been awarded the WWF's top conservation award. James Hansen, whose testimony to the US senate on global warming is featured in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, received the medal from the Duke of Edinburgh at a ceremony yesterday at St James's Palace in London.
Indonesian pipeline blast kills 8, mud flow blamed
SIDOARJO, Indonesia - Indonesia blamed an uncontrolled mud flow on Thursday for a gas pipeline explosion that killed at least seven people and injured 12 on Java island.
3 Malaysian palm oil entities to merge
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Three of Malaysia's largest palm oil producers are to merge, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister said Thursday, a fusion that could potentially create the world's biggest biofuels company and its largest publicly-traded palm oil entity.
Hostage killed in Nigeria rescue try
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - One of seven foreign oil workers taken hostage Wednesday was killed and another was wounded during a rescue attempt that also left two kidnappers and a soldier dead, officials said.
Iraq, reversing course, to keep U.N. oil watchdog
UNITED NATIONS - Iraq has decided to keep alive for another year a U.N. watchdog to monitor the use of its oil wealth, reversing course just weeks after announcing the agency would be abolished, officials said on Wednesday.
London blazes anti-pollution trail with vehicle congestion charge
LONDON (AFP) - London is blazing a trail for the world's cities by slapping "congestion" charges on vehicles to reduce traffic, curb air pollution and fight global warming, environmentalists say.The US west coast city of San Francisco and Sweden's capital Stockholm are jumping on the bandwagon set in motion by London Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2003. French cities, including the capital Paris, are now studying such a charge.
==AC
Happy Thxsgiving Day to you and all TODers, especially Leanan! Peace!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Gobble, Gobble.
...Almost every leader of note has, either consciously or unconsciously, fished these murky waters at some time or other.
Their reward is a united people armed with humanity's shining Excalibur. To unsheathe this magic blade, such visionary leaders must first win over the populace with the primal fairy tale, which invariably contains two ingredients;
1.) A Monster-preferably one who speaks an alien tongue, prays to heathen gods, wears peculiar clothing, and/or has different-colored skin.
2.) A Miracle-earned only by sacrifice, but culminating in triumph for the home team and a nasty end for the Monster.
This tired old routine has worked its magic with astonishing regularity since the dawn of history, and no one with fully functioning DNA seems wholly immune to the lure of it. Its genetic nature shines through the grisly statistics that follow every major conflict, especially those that incorporate genocidal slaughter."
~Reg Morrison, 1999 "The Spirit in the Gene, Humanity's Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature"
Of course the godless heathens in Russia are scary Mr. CEO because you spent much of your life being propagandized that they were the enemy. It's not much of a leap because the decision has been cleverly made for you whether or not to believe Russia would bomb its own citizens and that we would not. Now the propaganda machine has a new face for the "monster" because the old one no longer fills the bill. What better "monster" to replace international communism than international terrorism? Oh my will we ever be safe? The only reason you can not fathom that your own tribe stoops to that level itself is because you are genetically wired not to think that way. Don't worry that is the way propaganda is suppose to work. It preys upon your "primitive brain" while your cortex is filled with pleasures. You need not burden yourself with this. All that is required of you is to grab a flag support your tribe at all costs...
"In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice."
Missing You,
==AC
We sure seems to try to get global warming and peak oil to fit the bill.
I'm not saying there is no factual basis to global warming and peak oil. I'm just saying we don't have all the data and don't know the extent which the data is being manipulated...
==AC
==AC
"The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth."
~Jean de la Bruyère
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ensmPJm5B5A&eurl=
==AC
Peter Phillips? Name ring a bell? Did I spell it right? Big guy, grey hair and beard. Just saw a conference of conspiracy theorists from Berkeley on BookTV last night. I think it originally happened on Sept. 24th. Pretty Good. I mean, I'm not sure if I agree, but they were at least getting their message out.
Peter Phillips is in this video too. It should be on C-Span 2 this weekend.
==AC
CEO, I say don't worry about the Russians and worry about the neo-cons. Well not really the neo-cons but the CFR. Putin is a fucking pussy cat. There are much bigger conspiracies to ferret out right at home. Take a look at what Dobbs is just barely scratching the surface of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAeEc23_7Ig&eurl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmFrYWPoG8&eurl
All under the guise of "security" from those nasty Muslims don't you know? Who needs annoying borders when you can just scrap them all together and hold hands? Hey can we still call it a conspiracy when it hits the news to soften up the proles or am I still just a crazy? I know I know; nothing to worry about Peak Oil is just around the corner.
I'm putting my bet that merging the US with Canada and Mexico along with the destruction of the US standard of living to that of the average Mexican is part of a short term "solution" to the energy situation.
Na dem rich peoples to stupid to knows anthings about dat peaks oil. Only dus engineers and matamaticians knws about that...
PS
Sorry about the straw man. I couldn't resist...
==AC
http://www.cfr.org/publication/8102/
==AC
"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
~George Orwell
I go from one wireless hotspot to the next only posting to lists through anonymous proxies. I'm working on setting up a mailbox through http://www.ultimate-anonymity.com/ once I can confirm they are legit. It's possible they may be cutout for the CIA. I'm not safe yet and I'm still on the move. I never stay in the same place more than two consecutive days. I'll drop you a message when I can find a reliable remailer. I don't know long I can keep this up. Thanks for your support man.
Never surrender,
==AC
Unless you are using a PII or older AMD processor, know something about MAC reassignment, spoofing at various levels, and on and on. And note that the people that do know such things will tell you in all seriousness, why bother if your goal is to stay unknown?
A networked computer is the antithesis of private or secret.
Oh I'm known. I just can't give away my exact location or it's "American Rendition" for me baby!!
==AC
I'm behind you all the way.
That the price of crude remains 'stubbornly high' at $60 is a given for the last quarter, not counting market speculation as a factor.
A slowing economy in the U.S. can also be considered a given - and a slowing economy has implications for refined products first - which are still being drawn down, and are at a level just a little lower than last year's level (think about that little lower compared to last year for a second...).
So, refined products still seem to be sold at a normal rate, commercial crude storage is full it appears, and the SPR expansion seems to be on hold. Does this make much sense?
It could if you are concerned about any Iranian based supply disruptions.
Maybe the next round of poker at the geostrategic table is about to get started, maybe after the holidays, or maybe when winter is winding down? Possibly even provoked, since then any economic downturn can be blamed on the evildoers of the Islamic Republic, who just happened to cause the price of oil to explode due to their evilness. After all, turning cause and effect, or truth and lies, on their head is a particular skill of the Bush League, and they don't have a lot of strengths left to play to.
Is the sort of above ground factor that CERA means?
If he is going to do something provocative, he also needs to do it before the new Democratic congress gets started in January.
So, I'm not predicting, but merely saying that the probabilities are increased at this time.
So, everyone....enjoy this holiday season as much as possible...be with friends, family...enjoy food and drink...give thanks to things/people that make your life meaningful...and above all...pray to God(s), Gaia, or whatever gives you inner strength...that we will all be together again same time next year.
Someone (CERA) paid for that.
So no, not a coincidence.
Its not a normal result, but a sponsored link.
There, took a screen shot. But now I get two sponsored links when before I just got the Cera one.
My point stands that there is a lot of jumping at shadows going on here. Peak oil would have a lot more credibility if we could focus on the issues and not pretend that we are in some kind of bad spy novel.
However someone paid for that ad. Its not random, they choose the search term "peak oil".
Someone is trying to discredit peak oil. Someone is funding CERA, someone is paying for this sponsored link.
I'm not assigning motives or naming suspects cause I don't know. But this is very interesting.
It is interesting that CERA does seem to be positioning themselves as an anti-peak oil voice. To the degree that there is a question, it seem to be:
Is CERA a consulting firm that believes what they say, or are they acting as a PR agency promoting a message regardless of their beliefs?
I imagine the answer is complex and we will never know what it is. I do agree with you that it is interesting and lends credence to the idea that someone wants to get an anti-peak oil message out there.
I am sure that CERA paid for the ad, but to the degree that they are playing a PR role, they paid on behalf of someone else. My guess is Saudi Arabia. But it could be Exxon, etc.
I think a few strong pieces of evidence like this will be far more powerful than all the shadow jumping, finder pointing, conspiracy spinning, and Manichean world view portrayals done since the start of TOD.
I clicked >:-)
Alan
Interesting strategy. You get to read a misleading press-release; then you see the full report costs $63 a page so by definition it is very valuable private information and therefore must be true.
Cheers!
Now, this is not an open disagreement between the two. Mr Hutter has cast aspersions on Bakhtiari's figures in another thread:
"Bakhtiari used IEA's all liguids data sets. His forecast of 82-mbd was for all liquids. See my TOD links to his original data presentations. IEA's current forecast for 2006 is 85.2-mbd. We don't include him as a modeler due to his old data and massive miss. WOCAP is a pretender."
I weary of the clouds of confusing data that keep wafting through here, so I decided [naively?] to use The Google and The Internets: I emailed Dr Bakhtiari about it. Here's his [prompt] response:
"Mr. Bendzela,
Thank you for support of WOCAP, you can see more on my
website at www.samsambakhtiari.com.
Comments on quote:
- Never used IEA's data sets.
- Yes, major forecast for 'All Liquids' at around
81-82 mb/d in 2006 and 2007.- Massive miss?? what's that !!
- WOCAP is a pretender: sure... know of any other
model predicting that precisely ??World has peaked, we are in 'Post-Peak', follow WOCAP
to see where we are headed for.
Yours,
Samsam Bakhtiari."
Also, here's his explanation, from his own website:
"At its [WOCAP's] very foundation are conventional oil's global 'Ultimate Recoverable Reserves' (URR) of 1,900 billion barrels developed by Dr. Colin Campbell [2]. Other relevant inputs are taken from either the BP PLC databases [3] or the author's personal sources."
When I posted this for Hutter to see, he responded thus:
"As mentioned, we did all this months ago. Look at his graphs and tables. All the supply figures from the 90's are exactly the same as IEA's "all liquids" and he footnotes IEA at the bottom."
OK. So I go back to Bakhtiari's website and find his graphs:
http://www.sfu.ca/~asamsamb/conference/figure2.jpg
Here you find just what Khebab posted respresenting Bakhtiari's prediction: just over 80 mmbd, around the year 2007. The side bar states this is for "CO + NGL."
Where's the "footnote" to IEA at the bottom? Since Bakhtiari mentions "oil" many times in his explanation, who cares whether his figures happen to coincide with the IEA's "all liquids" figures?
What the fuck is all liquids anyway? Bakhtiari never mentions upgraded tar, watered-down heavy sour sludge, bootlegged moonshine, used fry-o-later oil, refinery "gains," or urine samples. I think it's safe to assume he counts what Campbell counts, since that's who he cites as a source, not IEA.
If Hutter would like to call Dr Bakhtiari a liar, he can email him here. Or he can go back to hell where he came from.
I plan to spend more time reading than writing. I got tired of posting at peakoil.com, and I'm getting tired of it here--NOT because there is anything wrong with these sites--they're both great--but because I am exhausted trying to sift through the bullshit to get at the truth.