Neither Tim Wagner nor Mike Kreidler imagined how climate change would intrude into state insurance regulation. Wagner, the director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance, said the reality is literally pelting him.
"While you can't correlate it directly, in the Plains states we've had severe droughts," Wagner, 63, said over the telephone. "We've had fires in Texas and Oklahoma. There's a terrible drought in Arizona right now. When we get rain, we seem to get more and more severe hail. I just drove to Kansas City. My nephew is in Iraq and we went to see his family. Our brand-new car got pummeled while it was parked in north Kansas City. We didn't lose any glass, but plastic parts of the car rack and a piece of the bumper was hanging off. I don't think I remember being in a hail storm like that in my lifetime."
How bad is it?
Ceres says that insured losses due to weather have grown 10 times faster than premiums since 1971, and the percentage of total economic losses from catastrophic weather has grown from a "negligible fraction in the 1950s to 25 percent in the past decade."
It's unlikely that the full extent of damage to oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico will be known, let alone repaired, before the start of next hurricane season.
Earlier this month, fewer than half of the 3,050 platforms that were in the paths of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had been fully evaluated for damage, said Don Howard, regional supervisor for field operations for the Minerals Management Service.
Check out the "Winds of Change" book, advertised on TOD. After reading the summary in Fortune, I concluded that I'm not sure it's a good idea to own property anywhere, but especially within a couple of hundred miles of the coast--from Texas to Maine.
It seems that the actuaries at insurance companies will be the final arbiters of climate change. You can have all the argumentation, both pro and con, going on, but when it hits the financial botom line, that becomes the final word. Making the wrong call on weather for them could put them out of business, if the government doesn't bail them out.
Interesting story from Houston Chronicle about China that seems to contradict itself, at least regarding oil.
...Meanwhile, oil producer PetroChina said it is stepping up exploration of both onshore and offshore oil fields and expects "major breakthroughs" in the next few years, the state-run newspaper China Daily reported Friday...
...Despite its exploration efforts, PetroChina expects its oil output to increase by only 1 percent from 2005 to 2010, to more than 107 million tons (781 million barrels), Hu was quoted as saying. But its gas output is forecast to surge 92 percent from 2005-2010 to 70 billion cubic meters.
I realize that the observation that the MSM, by and large, doesn't want to tell the Peak Oil story is not, shall we say, an original observation. However, I thought that the way the Dallas Morning News (DMN) handled the recent Boone Pickens story was pretty interesting. Also, I thought that the week that Khebab and I spent as #1 news sources on Google News was pretty interesting.
The Boone Pickens Story
Last week, buried in the Business Section of the DMN was a brief, cryptic account of a talk that Boone Pickens gave in Oklahoma, where he talked about $5 gasoline. It sounded like he was talking about a gasoline tax, but the article wasn't' clear. I did a quick Google search, and I didn't find much additional information.
I didn't get the full story until I logged on to The Oil Drum and found a much more thorough account of the story, posted by Leanan. It turns out that Mr. Pickens was explicitly advising a Congressman to raise the gasoline tax and cut the Payroll Tax. I was following the story so closely because I had just written Mr. Pickens a letter a couple of weeks ago asking him to endorse that very idea.
Our Week as a #1 News Source
If you go to Google News, and search under "declining Russian oil production" (without the quotation marks), you will find the article that Khebab and I coauthored on the Energy Bulletin as the #5 listing. For about a week, we were listed as #1, out of over 4,500 sources that Google indexes.
Why is that? Why wasn't this article written by any of thousands of real journalists in the world?
I suspect it is because writers, or probably more accurately editors and publishers, aren't asking some questions, because they don't want to hear the answers.
Khebab and I applied the Hubbert Linearization (HL) method to the top four net oil exporters, as discussed in our article. For those of you who don't study oil issue every day, Russia is a complex case. They had a production collapse, following the collapses of the Soviet Union, followed by a huge rebound in production. However, if you look at post-1985 cumulative production, Russia is slightly below where they should be, based on HL, and as they get closer to where cumulative production should be, annual year over year growth is slowing, from about 11%, to about 9.5% to 2.7% last year The last monthly number was up only about 1.5% over last year. Before production starts falling, it stops growing. BTW, as we predicted in the article, domestic oil consumption is going up in the exporting countries. For example, car sales in Russia were up 15% in 2005 versus 2004.
As confirmation of this problem we have a quote in our article by the Russian Energy Minister warning that without an immediate exploration effort in frontier areas, Russia is facing the possibility of a "real collapse in production." Russia is the #2 net oil exporter in the world.
I think this is kind of an important story, don't you?
So again, why was it left to a couple of amateurs to write the story?
BTW, the HL method accurately predicted the 1999 peak in North Sea oil production, when the top 10 majors working the area--using the best engineers and the best data in the world-- were confidently predicting that production would not peak until at least 2010. Kind of gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of confidence regarding the proclamations of energy abundance by ExxonMobil, et al, doesn't it?
The MSM is under considerable financial pressure, but selective editing--and an outright failure to tell the truth--are going to accelerate the move away from traditional news sources. I suspect that the MSM is desperate not to upset the status quo "home buying/SUV buying" business model. Unfortunately, this business model is dying, and nothing will bring it back.
The MSM is in effect, lashing themselves to a sinking ship. In the process, they are--in my opinion--in effect engaging in a deliberate attempt to deceive their readers, so that they can sell some more advertising encouraging American consumers to continue buying their $50,000 Hummers to drive to and from their $500,000 mortgages. Consumers are not going to be happy when the learn that large portions of the MSM have known the truth about finite fossil fuels for a long time, but chose not to inform their readers/viewers.
However, perhaps the CNN story is the start of a crack in the dam holding back a flood of stories about Peak Oil that the MSM can no longer ignore.
It's always fascinating to try to discern the patterns of how Hollywood reflects what's moving in the zeitgeist.
Angst about nuclear power and weapons was transformed into mutant blobs and monsters set on infecting or ingesting the population. Fear of Communism was made flesh in pod-people, who would suddenly act and think differently and subversively, while still looking like their old selves.
So what fear is rising up to the surface of the dark waters of our collective unconscious today, like some Leviathan of the deep? What clammy nightmare jolts people awake in the middle of the night drenched in the sour sweat of panic? Judging from "Black Monday", a new movie that's being rushed into production, it might be sticker-shock at the petrol pump.
They rushed the book and movie into production, probably last fall when oil prices were spiking.
BTW, the HL method accurately predicted the 1999 peak in North Sea oil production, when the top 10 majors working the area--using the best engineers and the best data in the world-- were confidently predicting that production would not peak until at least 2010. Kind of gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of confidence regarding the proclamations of energy abundance by ExxonMobil, et al, doesn't it?
I've heard this said before, but do you have any citations for it? It would strengthen your argument if you could point to actual quotes saying this.
Thanks; I was looking for old reports or quotes from the conventional analysts who were "confidently" predicting that North Sea oil would not peak until 2010. I wondered if they were really saying that and how confident they were.
In addition to Leanan's link, Simmons was interviewed in the 1/02/06 issue of Barron's making essentially the same point, but he specifically noted that the top 10 majors were predicting a 2010 peak for the North Sea.
In regard to the North Sea HL plot, I did it myself. It's a beautiful--perfectly linear--plot, showing a Qt of 60 Gb. Production peaked at 52% of Qt, and it has been downhill since then.
My point has been and is that if the engineers can be that wrong about what--compared to Russia--is a piece of cake to evaluate, why can't they be that wrong about Russia?
BTW, my prediction is that Russian oil production will be down in 2006 versus 2005, probably the start of a very severe decline in production.
In a January 2, 2006 Barron's interview, Matt Simmons said
Can the Saudis keep their current production where it is for quite a while? That is certainly a likelihood. But there is a real but unquantifiable risk that it starts into the same type of decline we've seen in the North Sea. It is utterly obvious the North Sea oil peaked in 1999. In 1995, after a few hours of analysis, I made a presentation in Aberdeen saying with almost total certainty the North Sea would peak between 1998 and 2000. Yet the 10 major oil companies operating in the North Sea were confident the North Sea would not peak until 2010. They estimated by 2000 the U.K. and Norway would be producing 7.3 million barrels a day: the U.K. at 3.6 million and Norway at 3.7. It turns out in 1999 the U.K. and Norway produced just under 6.1 millions barrels a day, and by this summer they are estimated to be down to about 3.5 million barrels a day. You are talking about the most technically advanced oil companies in the world looking at their own fields and getting mesmerized by modern oil-field technology, and the mesmerization turns out to be a myth.
So again, why was it left to a couple of amateurs to write the story?
I don't think you are an amateur. If you call youself an "independent petroleum geologist", you have a certain amount of professional credibility. And this does not mean that the "amateur" label should have a negative stigma attached to it.
On the other hand, I would call someone like myself a complete amateur on the subject.
That's ok, Jesus was a carpenter before his career as a prophet. If I were you I would stay away from "amateur jounalist" and try "eminent authority on oil."
The Pentagon is trying to persuade investors and the energy industry to embrace an 80-year-old technology to turn coal into liquid fuel to power planes, tanks and other battlefield vehicles.
Officials have been crisscrossing the country, meeting with energy companies and state government officials to sell them on the idea. At the same time, military researchers have been testing fuel produced by the process to make sure it is suitable for military vehicles, especially older ones.
Does anybody else here find it rather odd that the military is getting involved at the level of actually trying to sell private corporations and investors on the idea establishing major coal-to-liquid fuels projects?
While I would expect the military to be concerned about its fuel supplies, they must surely know that in time of national crisis their fuel requirements would automatically take priority over civilian use. So, regardless of how tight the supply situation got, no one in the military would be left running on empty. That is a certainty.
There must be some other reason. Surely, they wouldn't be doing this without the approval and encouragement from Rumsfeld, et al. Does he (they) have a less than objective interest in promoting coal-to-liquid? Such as a financial stake in some of these ventures?
Or, perhaps there is a less cynical explanation. Maybe some of the top brass feel that the Bush Regime isn't taking the oil situation seriously enough and are using the subject of military fuel supply merely as a vehicle to help bring the oil supply issue to the forefront. Plausible?
What is this copmment based on? I followed the link but didn't chase down every single trail. I didn't see anything that indicated that the "military is getting involved at the level of actually trying to sell private corporations and investors on the idea establishing major coal-to-liquid fuels projects".
If you can provide a link to this specific assertion, I'll try to tell you what I make of it.
Ignore my comment above. I thought it referred to the main post and couldn't find the link. I just realized it was a follow up to Leanan's comment. I agree with you that the Pentagon should not be involved in this. Apologies.
To jack: if you were asking about the source of the comment on Military interest in coal to liquids
The reference to US military interest in coal to liquids came originally from the Associated Press. Being ex military, and hearing canned party lines over and over, I now believe in reading all sources of info. Therefore I just looked at AlJazeera (a pretty good, interesting news source for a lot of things we never see here in our MSM) and found the story on US military interest in coal to oil under AlJazeera Economy News
One other random idea is that by playing the coal card publicly we send a signal to oil producers that we might not need them as much as they think we do.
Or that other consumers (China?) need not think we depend on the same overseas oil sources?
But it does seem to indicate that the peak oil meme is rolling along. Being a moderate, that means I have to second guess myself about how much is a "mania" and how much is based on fundamentals.
I suspect some combination of the following are responsible:
Awareness of PO.
Awareness of PO impact on UK and Indonesia such that the public questions the past export and depletion of scarce resources. Some Brazilian observors have called the export of petroluem an act of treason.
Awareness of Mr Chavez' initiatives which both curb US influence and drive Venzuelan growth to 9%.
Awareness of greater than failure in Iraq. Not only has the US not met its goals of energy security in a "democratic" vassal state, it has resulted in precisely the opposite. It has greatly worsened the US security position rather than enhanced it.
Awareness that the Iraq initiative has greatly impaired America's global standing with all of its prior allies and friends. A nation which espouses a doctrine of pre-emption cannot expect to have friends.
Awareness of the fact that China is willing to pay inflated prices for oil assets in recognition that the US dollar is not a long term robust store of value. Better spend it quick!
Awareness that the physical scarity of energy will be greatly compounded by the political and social forces outlined above, all of which are suggestive of a global market failure.
Awareness of the compounding of the above when the value of the American peso drops to zero, when the required intellectual capital is coming out of Chinese and Indian academies, and all leading edge manufacturing facilities are located outside of the USA.
Be on the lookout for DARPA funding of steam powered F-22s and pedal retrofit kits for the M1A1.
With the Europeans leading, the USA military is now looking at renewable energy sources (they have been mandated to come up with 2% of energy in the near future). This includes PV and wind at military bases, and hybrid military equipment.
Britain jointly with Sweden have been looking at a hybrid combat vehicle but have not had much success I think because of the weight issue.
Britain jointly with Sweden have been looking at a hybrid combat vehicle but have not had much success I think because of the weight issue.
I have not heard any bad rumours about the prototypes, can you elaborate? The biggest gain is if I have understood it right to not have too design the wehicle around a mechanical drivetrain. Instead it has two smaller diesel engines with generators, accumulators, power electronics and individual electrical engines for each wheel or track sprocket.
But the Swedish requirement is for a shorter 6 wheeled/tracked wehicle and the Brittish a longer 8 wheeled one with a larger payload.
Many of the new combat vehicles are hybrids. They found out that they can actually get much more interior space for weapons and soldiers if they go the hybrid route. It has less to do with energy conservation than you would think. http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-3-05/feature-HED-afv.htm
In September 2005, DID offered in-depth coverage of Britain's transformational FRES armored vehicle program. That article has been updated in light of latest release from BAE Systems. They have been awarded contracts by the UK Ministry of Defence for a Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) Chassis Concept Technology Demonstrator Programme (TDP) related to hybrid engines and based on BAE Hagglunds advanced SEP vehicle, plus a FRES Gap Crossing TDP for combat bridge-laying.
These acquisitions are part of the FRES Integrated Technology Acquisition Programme (ITAP), which is focused on reducing risk around the latest technologies and their integration into FRES. This program is intended to provide the British Army with a family of medium-weight, network-enabled, air-deployable armored vehicles to meet up to 16 roles. FRES is intended to be the central pillar of a capable and highly deployable medium force that will be able to project power rapidly world-wide, complementing the UK's existing heavy and light forces. In this respect, it fills a somewhat similar niche to the USA's Stryker vehicle family, and to the Phase 3 Land Vehicle segment of the USA's $120+ billion Future Combat Systems experiment.
SEP: Modular
(click for descriptions)
The BAE Systems Chassis Concept TDP will build on work done on the successful Swedish SEP program. SEP is a family of modular vehicles, utilizing emerging technologies like hybrid drives and allowing different role modules to be configured with either a wheeled or tracked chassis. The purpose of the TDP is to examine the ability of the electric drive system developed for SEP to meet the requirements of some or all of the envisaged FRES roles.
The BAE Systems Chassis TDP effort will be led from facilities in the UK in close co-operation with BAE Systems colleagues in Sweden, and will be focused primarily on reducing risk to allow a successful transition to the next phase. Note that per our in-depth FRES coverage, the General Dynamics' Advanced Hybrid Electric Drive (AHED) 8×8 vehicle is being used in a similar Chassis Concept TDP.
The BAE Systems Gap Crossing approach is based upon the company's bridging technology and light bridging concepts. With additional support from semi-private British R&D specialists QinetiQ, the TDP will focus on a new light-weight assault bridge based on 2 designs: a stretched version of current technology, and a new design using hybrid materials. Both designs aim to provide better bridge packaging for air transportability, plus fast under-armour deployment, recovery and re-deployment.
BAE Systems is currently the leading provider of equipment and support to the British Army, and is responsible for over 95% of all the armored vehicles currently in service there. They will work closely with the FRES Integrated Project Team and with Atkins, the FRES Systems House (overall program manager and integrator).
In its ancillary comments to editors attached to its corporate release, BAE noted that the awards support the aims that UK MoD has expressed in its recently-published Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) to see BAE Systems Land Systems evolve its business "to bring advanced land systems' technologies, skills and processes into the UK." The firm also sees this contract as:
"...a step along the way of meeting BAE Systems' aspiration to take the leading role in the FRES programme. The company is evolving its land systems business in partnership with the MoD, to ensure it is in the strongest possible position to achieve this. "
Last week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a report that is dated September, 2005, in which they discussed energy availability and upcoming shortages. [The quick-read chart is on page 10 and the conclusions begin on page 73.]
Statements included: "The proved domestic reserve lifetime for natural gas at current consumption rates is about 8.4 yrs. The proved world reserve lifetime for natural gas is about 40 years, but will follow a traditional rise to a peak and then a rapid decline. Domestic oil production peaked in 1970 and continues to decline. Proved domestic reserve lifetime for oil is about 3.4 yrs. World oil production is at or near its peak and current world demand exceeds the supply. Saudi Arabia is considered the bellwether nation for oil production and has not increased production since April 2003. After peak production, supply no longer meets demand, prices and competition increase. World proved reserve lifetime for oil is about 41 years, most of this at a declining availability."
Another area discussed in the report is the use of coal. 90% of coal use today is for electricity generation. Current lifetime = 255 year supply at current use levels. If use is increased 1.4% per year that lifetime drops to 109 years. [2% use increase reduces lifetime to 85 years.] If the military starts gasifying coal for motor fuel, or if it gasified for domestic use, the decrease in lifetime could be very much more significant. Roscoe Bartlett stated in his interview with CNN this week that gasification and liguifaction of coal for motor fuel will reduce coal's lifetime by roughly another 50 years.
The smokin' gun folks. The Military had this information last September, long before TSOTU.
This week in DefenseNews.com it was announced that the "Pentagon will shortly unveil a military-wide conservation plan." Rumsfeld has initiated a huge program for energy efficiency, conservation, and alternative fuel use across the entire Defense Department. "A Dec. 14 memo by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, called on the Pentagon to create a "centralized point in the Department" to work on energy conservation." Here is an the article about that.
Where are the facilities to be located, the Powder River basin? The railroads ability to deliver is already at saturation. They better check in to the power industries ability to deliver electricity to the industries that produce their war material. Oh: I forgot about rationing.
I do wonder how quickly production of locomotives and box cars can be increased. Also, does anybody know how long it takes nowadays to train people to operate and maintain rolling stock?
As I sit in my car with my engine turned off and wait for long trains to pass, I often am impressed with how old a lot of the cars and engines appear to be. As we found out during the Second World War, cars and especially locomotives wear out quickly when put to especially hard use. Do we have the mechanics we would need to maintain, say, twice the number of locomotives now operating?
"do wonder how quickly production of locomotives and box cars can be increased. Also, does anybody know how long it takes nowadays to train people to operate and maintain rolling stock?"
One of my old acquaintences was an engineer for the Union Pacific. It took him many years to move up to that position, but even from his perspective [and he was not inclined toward modesty] it was mostly union rules not the complexity of the job. Maintaining locomotives requires very competent mechanics, but I understand that the interval between major overhauls is in the millions of miles ... and the interval is expanding as the oldest in the fleet require more service.
A few years back I went to the B&O railroad museum in Baltimore. There were an large number of very old examples of rolling stock on display. I was curious as to why they were still around to be placed on display [not exactly the kind of thing someone places in their attic], but after reading a lot from the displays it became apparent that a lot of this stuff has a useful life of more than 50 years even without extraordinary efforts to keep them servicable. Even then the stuff was not junk, it just wasn't as good as the latest and greatest. In second line service, who knows it could be used?
In a true post peak environment, the transition between a declining requirement for over the road diesel mechanics and the need for railroad mechanics would seem to the me a natural.
Electric loco are quicker and cheaper to build, simpler to maintain and last about forever. From memory, the last two electric locos to be retired in the US were from the short line to the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio. One was built in 1907 from memory.
Alan, I see you point on the advantages. What are the downsides to electrifying long haul rail lines [dependability, or just initial cost of a changeover]?
Ask the Russians who finished electrifying the Trans-Siberian (Moscow to the Pacific) in 2002 and to Murmansk (Artic Port) just before Christmas 2005. More to come in Russia.
The standard excuse for lack of electrification in the US is property taxes. No property taxes on diesel (except refueling tanks) but LOTS of property taxes on electrification infrastructure. I suspect ther eis more to it than that.
Most of Japan & EU (except UK) is already electrified.
I suspect the property tax explanation is a sufficient and correct one, at least in rural areas. Because of hatred of railroads by farmers (who felt and were exploited by monopoly pricing of rates) voters in many areas have a "sock it to the corporations" in general and "sock it to the railroads"
How bad is it?
And speaking of weather...
Gulf platform damage is still being assessed
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3730109.html
I realize that the observation that the MSM, by and large, doesn't want to tell the Peak Oil story is not, shall we say, an original observation. However, I thought that the way the Dallas Morning News (DMN) handled the recent Boone Pickens story was pretty interesting. Also, I thought that the week that Khebab and I spent as #1 news sources on Google News was pretty interesting.
The Boone Pickens Story
Last week, buried in the Business Section of the DMN was a brief, cryptic account of a talk that Boone Pickens gave in Oklahoma, where he talked about $5 gasoline. It sounded like he was talking about a gasoline tax, but the article wasn't' clear. I did a quick Google search, and I didn't find much additional information.
I didn't get the full story until I logged on to The Oil Drum and found a much more thorough account of the story, posted by Leanan. It turns out that Mr. Pickens was explicitly advising a Congressman to raise the gasoline tax and cut the Payroll Tax. I was following the story so closely because I had just written Mr. Pickens a letter a couple of weeks ago asking him to endorse that very idea.
Our Week as a #1 News Source
If you go to Google News, and search under "declining Russian oil production" (without the quotation marks), you will find the article that Khebab and I coauthored on the Energy Bulletin as the #5 listing. For about a week, we were listed as #1, out of over 4,500 sources that Google indexes.
Why is that? Why wasn't this article written by any of thousands of real journalists in the world?
I suspect it is because writers, or probably more accurately editors and publishers, aren't asking some questions, because they don't want to hear the answers.
Khebab and I applied the Hubbert Linearization (HL) method to the top four net oil exporters, as discussed in our article. For those of you who don't study oil issue every day, Russia is a complex case. They had a production collapse, following the collapses of the Soviet Union, followed by a huge rebound in production. However, if you look at post-1985 cumulative production, Russia is slightly below where they should be, based on HL, and as they get closer to where cumulative production should be, annual year over year growth is slowing, from about 11%, to about 9.5% to 2.7% last year The last monthly number was up only about 1.5% over last year. Before production starts falling, it stops growing. BTW, as we predicted in the article, domestic oil consumption is going up in the exporting countries. For example, car sales in Russia were up 15% in 2005 versus 2004.
As confirmation of this problem we have a quote in our article by the Russian Energy Minister warning that without an immediate exploration effort in frontier areas, Russia is facing the possibility of a "real collapse in production." Russia is the #2 net oil exporter in the world.
I think this is kind of an important story, don't you?
So again, why was it left to a couple of amateurs to write the story?
BTW, the HL method accurately predicted the 1999 peak in North Sea oil production, when the top 10 majors working the area--using the best engineers and the best data in the world-- were confidently predicting that production would not peak until at least 2010. Kind of gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of confidence regarding the proclamations of energy abundance by ExxonMobil, et al, doesn't it?
The MSM is under considerable financial pressure, but selective editing--and an outright failure to tell the truth--are going to accelerate the move away from traditional news sources. I suspect that the MSM is desperate not to upset the status quo "home buying/SUV buying" business model. Unfortunately, this business model is dying, and nothing will bring it back.
The MSM is in effect, lashing themselves to a sinking ship. In the process, they are--in my opinion--in effect engaging in a deliberate attempt to deceive their readers, so that they can sell some more advertising encouraging American consumers to continue buying their $50,000 Hummers to drive to and from their $500,000 mortgages. Consumers are not going to be happy when the learn that large portions of the MSM have known the truth about finite fossil fuels for a long time, but chose not to inform their readers/viewers.
However, perhaps the CNN story is the start of a crack in the dam holding back a flood of stories about Peak Oil that the MSM can no longer ignore.
Peak Oil makes for 'Black Monday' at the Movies
They rushed the book and movie into production, probably last fall when oil prices were spiking.
http://www.peakoil.ie/newsletters/649
In regard to the North Sea HL plot, I did it myself. It's a beautiful--perfectly linear--plot, showing a Qt of 60 Gb. Production peaked at 52% of Qt, and it has been downhill since then.
My point has been and is that if the engineers can be that wrong about what--compared to Russia--is a piece of cake to evaluate, why can't they be that wrong about Russia?
BTW, my prediction is that Russian oil production will be down in 2006 versus 2005, probably the start of a very severe decline in production.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/jrl-2004-oil.cfm
She was not very optimistic about Russia's future production, almost 2 years ago already.
He doesn't say whether he used the HL method.
I don't think you are an amateur. If you call youself an "independent petroleum geologist", you have a certain amount of professional credibility. And this does not mean that the "amateur" label should have a negative stigma attached to it.
On the other hand, I would call someone like myself a complete amateur on the subject.
While I would expect the military to be concerned about its fuel supplies, they must surely know that in time of national crisis their fuel requirements would automatically take priority over civilian use. So, regardless of how tight the supply situation got, no one in the military would be left running on empty. That is a certainty.
There must be some other reason. Surely, they wouldn't be doing this without the approval and encouragement from Rumsfeld, et al. Does he (they) have a less than objective interest in promoting coal-to-liquid? Such as a financial stake in some of these ventures?
Or, perhaps there is a less cynical explanation. Maybe some of the top brass feel that the Bush Regime isn't taking the oil situation seriously enough and are using the subject of military fuel supply merely as a vehicle to help bring the oil supply issue to the forefront. Plausible?
I really don't quite know what to make of it.
If you can provide a link to this specific assertion, I'll try to tell you what I make of it.
The reference to US military interest in coal to liquids came originally from the Associated Press. Being ex military, and hearing canned party lines over and over, I now believe in reading all sources of info. Therefore I just looked at AlJazeera (a pretty good, interesting news source for a lot of things we never see here in our MSM) and found the story on US military interest in coal to oil under AlJazeera Economy News
One other random idea is that by playing the coal card publicly we send a signal to oil producers that we might not need them as much as they think we do.
Or that other consumers (China?) need not think we depend on the same overseas oil sources?
But it does seem to indicate that the peak oil meme is rolling along. Being a moderate, that means I have to second guess myself about how much is a "mania" and how much is based on fundamentals.
- Awareness of PO.
- Awareness of PO impact on UK and Indonesia such that the public questions the past export and depletion of scarce resources. Some Brazilian observors have called the export of petroluem an act of treason.
- Awareness of Mr Chavez' initiatives which both curb US influence and drive Venzuelan growth to 9%.
- Awareness of greater than failure in Iraq. Not only has the US not met its goals of energy security in a "democratic" vassal state, it has resulted in precisely the opposite. It has greatly worsened the US security position rather than enhanced it.
- Awareness that the Iraq initiative has greatly impaired America's global standing with all of its prior allies and friends. A nation which espouses a doctrine of pre-emption cannot expect to have friends.
- Awareness of the fact that China is willing to pay inflated prices for oil assets in recognition that the US dollar is not a long term robust store of value. Better spend it quick!
- Awareness that the physical scarity of energy will be greatly compounded by the political and social forces outlined above, all of which are suggestive of a global market failure.
- Awareness of the compounding of the above when the value of the American peso drops to zero, when the required intellectual capital is coming out of Chinese and Indian academies, and all leading edge manufacturing facilities are located outside of the USA.
Be on the lookout for DARPA funding of steam powered F-22s and pedal retrofit kits for the M1A1.With the Europeans leading, the USA military is now looking at renewable energy sources (they have been mandated to come up with 2% of energy in the near future). This includes PV and wind at military bases, and hybrid military equipment.
Britain jointly with Sweden have been looking at a hybrid combat vehicle but have not had much success I think because of the weight issue.
Heck, it is smart thinking and good insurance.
I have not heard any bad rumours about the prototypes, can you elaborate? The biggest gain is if I have understood it right to not have too design the wehicle around a mechanical drivetrain. Instead it has two smaller diesel engines with generators, accumulators, power electronics and individual electrical engines for each wheel or track sprocket.
But the Swedish requirement is for a shorter 6 wheeled/tracked wehicle and the Brittish a longer 8 wheeled one with a larger payload.
http://www.baesystems.se/Hagglunds/default.asp and then "New Projects"
Interesting article at Defense Industry Daily about the things the military is doing to prepare for peak oil.
Check out this solar parking lot at a Navy facility:
http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-3-05/feature-HED-afv.htm
Good post.
It is my understanding that this program has some issues, but I do not know the details.
Also go to http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/01/bae-receives-2-fres-vehicle-rd-contracts-from-uk/index.p hp
In September 2005, DID offered in-depth coverage of Britain's transformational FRES armored vehicle program. That article has been updated in light of latest release from BAE Systems. They have been awarded contracts by the UK Ministry of Defence for a Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) Chassis Concept Technology Demonstrator Programme (TDP) related to hybrid engines and based on BAE Hagglunds advanced SEP vehicle, plus a FRES Gap Crossing TDP for combat bridge-laying.
These acquisitions are part of the FRES Integrated Technology Acquisition Programme (ITAP), which is focused on reducing risk around the latest technologies and their integration into FRES. This program is intended to provide the British Army with a family of medium-weight, network-enabled, air-deployable armored vehicles to meet up to 16 roles. FRES is intended to be the central pillar of a capable and highly deployable medium force that will be able to project power rapidly world-wide, complementing the UK's existing heavy and light forces. In this respect, it fills a somewhat similar niche to the USA's Stryker vehicle family, and to the Phase 3 Land Vehicle segment of the USA's $120+ billion Future Combat Systems experiment.
SEP: Modular
(click for descriptions)
The BAE Systems Chassis Concept TDP will build on work done on the successful Swedish SEP program. SEP is a family of modular vehicles, utilizing emerging technologies like hybrid drives and allowing different role modules to be configured with either a wheeled or tracked chassis. The purpose of the TDP is to examine the ability of the electric drive system developed for SEP to meet the requirements of some or all of the envisaged FRES roles.
The BAE Systems Chassis TDP effort will be led from facilities in the UK in close co-operation with BAE Systems colleagues in Sweden, and will be focused primarily on reducing risk to allow a successful transition to the next phase. Note that per our in-depth FRES coverage, the General Dynamics' Advanced Hybrid Electric Drive (AHED) 8×8 vehicle is being used in a similar Chassis Concept TDP.
The BAE Systems Gap Crossing approach is based upon the company's bridging technology and light bridging concepts. With additional support from semi-private British R&D specialists QinetiQ, the TDP will focus on a new light-weight assault bridge based on 2 designs: a stretched version of current technology, and a new design using hybrid materials. Both designs aim to provide better bridge packaging for air transportability, plus fast under-armour deployment, recovery and re-deployment.
BAE Systems is currently the leading provider of equipment and support to the British Army, and is responsible for over 95% of all the armored vehicles currently in service there. They will work closely with the FRES Integrated Project Team and with Atkins, the FRES Systems House (overall program manager and integrator).
In its ancillary comments to editors attached to its corporate release, BAE noted that the awards support the aims that UK MoD has expressed in its recently-published Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) to see BAE Systems Land Systems evolve its business "to bring advanced land systems' technologies, skills and processes into the UK." The firm also sees this contract as:
"...a step along the way of meeting BAE Systems' aspiration to take the leading role in the FRES programme. The company is evolving its land systems business in partnership with the MoD, to ensure it is in the strongest possible position to achieve this. "
Statements included:
"The proved domestic reserve lifetime for natural gas at current consumption rates is about 8.4 yrs. The proved world reserve lifetime for natural gas is about 40 years, but will follow a traditional rise to a peak and then a rapid decline. Domestic oil production peaked in 1970 and continues to decline. Proved domestic reserve lifetime for oil is about 3.4 yrs. World oil production is at or near its peak and current world demand exceeds the supply. Saudi Arabia is considered the bellwether nation for oil production and has not increased production since April 2003. After peak production, supply no longer meets demand, prices and competition increase. World proved reserve lifetime for oil is about 41 years, most of this at a declining availability."
Another area discussed in the report is the use of coal. 90% of coal use today is for electricity generation. Current lifetime = 255 year supply at current use levels. If use is increased 1.4% per year that lifetime drops to 109 years. [2% use increase reduces lifetime to 85 years.] If the military starts gasifying coal for motor fuel, or if it gasified for domestic use, the decrease in lifetime could be very much more significant. Roscoe Bartlett stated in his interview with CNN this week that gasification and liguifaction of coal for motor fuel will reduce coal's lifetime by roughly another 50 years.
The smokin' gun folks. The Military had this information last September, long before TSOTU.
This week in DefenseNews.com it was announced that the "Pentagon will shortly unveil a military-wide conservation plan." Rumsfeld has initiated a huge program for energy efficiency, conservation, and alternative fuel use across the entire Defense Department. "A Dec. 14 memo by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, called on the Pentagon to create a "centralized point in the Department" to work on energy conservation." Here is an the article about that.
I do wonder how quickly production of locomotives and box cars can be increased. Also, does anybody know how long it takes nowadays to train people to operate and maintain rolling stock?
As I sit in my car with my engine turned off and wait for long trains to pass, I often am impressed with how old a lot of the cars and engines appear to be. As we found out during the Second World War, cars and especially locomotives wear out quickly when put to especially hard use. Do we have the mechanics we would need to maintain, say, twice the number of locomotives now operating?
One of my old acquaintences was an engineer for the Union Pacific. It took him many years to move up to that position, but even from his perspective [and he was not inclined toward modesty] it was mostly union rules not the complexity of the job. Maintaining locomotives requires very competent mechanics, but I understand that the interval between major overhauls is in the millions of miles ... and the interval is expanding as the oldest in the fleet require more service.
A few years back I went to the B&O railroad museum in Baltimore. There were an large number of very old examples of rolling stock on display. I was curious as to why they were still around to be placed on display [not exactly the kind of thing someone places in their attic], but after reading a lot from the displays it became apparent that a lot of this stuff has a useful life of more than 50 years even without extraordinary efforts to keep them servicable. Even then the stuff was not junk, it just wasn't as good as the latest and greatest. In second line service, who knows it could be used?
In a true post peak environment, the transition between a declining requirement for over the road diesel mechanics and the need for railroad mechanics would seem to the me a natural.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=53281
The standard excuse for lack of electrification in the US is property taxes. No property taxes on diesel (except refueling tanks) but LOTS of property taxes on electrification infrastructure. I suspect ther eis more to it than that.
Most of Japan & EU (except UK) is already electrified.