DrumBeat: June 6, 2006
Posted by threadbot on June 6, 2006 - 9:10am
Now for some wise words from the readers of The Oil Drum...
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
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Can oil companies handle more storms?
I have over the past couple of day begun to feel a deep despair about our response to PO. I'm beginning to move from mild doom / technofreak to off-the-cliff-doomer. :-(
Once the worst happens and you and your neighbors rise to the occasion and commit to jointly solving the problems; "the other side" is not so bleak.
I do wonder if much of suburbia will band togetehr though. Time will tell.
A new statistic in this mornings news. 53% of the people in the Metro New Orleans area are living in "temporary housing". And that does not count the 200,000 living elsewhere.
Temporary as in a tent inside your gutted home, FEMA trailer, on the floor of a friend's home, renting an apartment with others, living in an RV (4 close to me) etc,
This is the KEY to surviving any disaster and will most assuredly be true if we are indeed close to PO.
There is nothing more important, IMO, than cultivating the future plans for your local situation. Start small...get to know your neighbors before a dilemma requires it. If you find some friendly neighbors, so if you can start doing some things jointly in your neighborhood.
I do wonder if much of suburbia will band togetehr though. Time will tell.
I'm not sure of ALL of suburbia will band together, but I know that in my area, there has been much more outreach going on with neighbors to other neighbors. I have hope in my neighborhood that we can work together on surviving intact rather than tearing each other apart for the last twinkie on our cupboards.
(social capital more important than built or financial capital)
1 is a rental household, 3 adult males, all work for some haulage co. (but all drive their huge pickups to work separately). Aggressive and selfish. Definitely a worry.
Next door is a middle aged hippie couple, friendly and definitely a good ally.
The rest are all couples + 2 or 3 kids age 11 or less. All minivans and SUVs, no vegetables growing in their gardens, lots of water usage etc etc. All of them bar one have hired gardeners to landscape their front yards, so very little in the way of nature-savvy.
The two houses to our left are empty...
Typical suburbia, in other words.
My wife and I? lazy liberal slackers, 4 cats, 4 ferrets - soon to be 3 :-(. No veggies yet, but we bought the seeds! Our excuse is that we can't afford the drip watering system, and that we haven't yet gotten off our lazy asses to submit our plans to the Almighty Association.
ah let's face it, we're screwed ;-)
People have the ability to change and change quickly when necessary. Think about what they may have to offer in a crisis.
SUV - might be handy for making once a month shopping trip for the group many miles away when food supplies grow thin close by (don't drive frequently, but when needed useful).
Strong dudes - Assist in building new structures in your group or tilling soil in "community" garden.
:-D
I believe love even resulted...
higher PROI (protein return on investment), more daily dopamine from watching them do funny crap with neighbors shiny SUV tires, eat ticks, lay lots of eggs, etc.
sorry about your ailing ferret though..;(
For a new fowl owner I recommend Barred Rock chickens. Good egg layers and generally a good personality. Steer WELL CLEAR of rhode island reds and leghorns - they're evil.
Beware of foul fowl! (had to, sorry!)
Organic gardening is not as easy as you would expect, the bugs... and I just had a large number of rows of Blue Lake Bush Beans wiped out by deer. The only thing I seem to be able to grow huge quantities of year after year is potatoes, I need to find a Russian recipe to turn those tubers into vodka. You never know when an Oil CEO is going to turn up for dinner post crash.
You mean we have been tolerting it all this time?
Cool.
Being that today is 6/6/06, I propose that the US Senate adopt a new Constitutional amendment regarding the signature with the beast:
Defining "crude" as the marriage between a dinosaur and an oil company.
We need to stop activist bloggers from trying to corrupt our long standing belief in the fundamental right of all Americans to trade freely with any oil company that has married itself to the dinosaur. Let freedom ring.
There's a reason people think oil is made out of dead dinos. The oil companies have promoted the idea in their advertising, etc.
There actually was a Sinclair Oil company.
And bronto actually was their signature beast. The photo is a memorobilia from some site I found using Google image search.
Always thought it was neat when I was a kid, but now it makes me a bit sick...kinda like Charlie Tuna selling canned tuna.
You think he really wanted to get eaten?
Its insane. But all about keeping up with the joneses. If society told these same friends that they would be cool and have people in awe of them if they grew high EROI root vegetables and they saw examples of men doing this getting political office, womens attention and social status, theyd give up the other path in about 3 months.
*Note. I did not realize this was insane until a) I left this track and b) read books like Overshoot by William Catton, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, The Moral Animal, by Robert Wright, etc. My friends wouldnt have time to read those books. I guess I was always more motivated by learning than by money. Perhaps my genes will die out....(but not my ideas!!)
Yeh, if we could just get those oil companies, all would be solved. And as soon as we have converted our entire corn supply to ethanol, then what?
Being that she is from Michigan, I didn't hear much about driving more efficient vehicles or not driving at all.
I guess I need to move to Michigan if $500 is a house payment.
How many people think that the approximately 1% decline in total world liquids production since December and the approximately 5% decline in Saudi oil production year over year means that we are past the peak of world oil production?
Waaay too early to tell IMHO- it would take 5-10 years of decline to convince me, given that the main reason for the plateauing of recent years has been entirely geopolitical rather than geological.
If Nigeria and Iraq became stable, and the US and Iran / Venezuala / Russia made up, then oil production would be 1.5 mbd higher, and the price would probably be in the $50 range, IMHO.
It remains to be seen whether reserves in the ground translates into production in the long run, of course.
Well. yes, it's geopolitical. And yes, more data points are necessary to know, rather than have a hunch.
But remember that as supplies get tight geopolitical tension increases. If we were philosopher kings we would still be looking at an increase in reasons to squabble.
None of the geopolitical events you mention as possibly increasing supplies seem at all likely.
Gross liquids peak (including ethanol, CTL, etc) only matters for marketing and cornucopian purposes.
The peak does seem to have occured in light, sweet crude, but I believe it will take a couple of years of data to discern truth from wishful thinking and outright smoke
We are all paying a huge premium for oil having become a speculation commodity under Ronald Reagun under the guise of decontrol, although it is debatable what the majors in collusion with OPEC would be charging. The traditional measure of oil being 6 times the price of Natural Gas would make the price about $40.00 a barrel currently, but gas prices are in the hands of the same speculators. Trying to make money on futures is like guessing the location of the pea in a Monte game. If you think the game is straight and superior skills win you are delusional, and the same is true for any other comodity. You can pay your money and take your chances, but the house will always win.
For every commodity trade there is a counter party taking the opposite position. Buy a commodities contract on crude for $75 barrel, expiring Dec 2006, and you are hoping that the price of oil will be greater than $75 barrel on Dec 2006. You have gone "long" on the crude market. However, someone has to take the opposite position and hope that oil will be lower than $75 barrel on Dec 2006. The counter party is "short" the crude market. The house doesn't always win, the counter party wins if the market goes against the position you have taken.
That is the one thing that the MSM does not point out when they discuss the "premium" in the market for all these commodity traders. For every trading going long on the market hoping that oil goes up in price, there are just as many traders shorting the market, hoping that oil drops in price.
In one sense, you are correct. Playing the commodity market is the same as playing roulette, keno, betting on sports etc in that the 'house' (futures brokerage) charges a commission on top of a floor broker presenting a bid ask spread.
However, as a % of assets, this % is incredibly small advantage to the house. (I pay $10 per round turn at Man Financial on a $72,000 futures contract and the bid ask is 5 cents.
I think what you meant to say is that 20% of the traders make 80% of the money. But this is true in most finanical pursuits. There is nothing inherently crooked in the futures market, espeically if one can reign in their dopamine and treat the contracts as parts of a strategy, whether it be short term or long term.
He calls this one "Which of these plots is not like the others?"
Based on the HL method and based on all the other regions that we have seen peak (espeically Texas), it seems like a mathematical impossibiliy for Saudi Arabia to show increasing oil production beyond 58% of Qt.
Question: What do we know with certainty past the 58% of Qt mark?
Answer: The Saudis have to admitted to a 5% decline in production year over year, but they are claiming that it is a voluntary reduction.
If, as I suspect, Saudi Arabia has peaked, then the world has peaked.
However, if the Saudis have in fact peaked, I would expect them to do exactly what they are doing now, and claim it's voluntary.
The proof will be in the pudding.
If we see the next two or three months of production below 9.4 million a day from SA when we know the US refiners need more crude this summer to satisfy demand, I think westexas called it and gets the cigar!!
Seriously, "oversupplied" is a warning to us all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13123358/site/newsweek/
How Long Will America Lead the World
Excerpt:
The national academies' report points out that China and India combined graduate 950,000 engineers every year, compared with 70,000 in America.
There are some who see the (US) decline of science and technology as part of a larger cultural decay. A country that once adhered to a Puritan ethic of delayed gratification has become one that revels in instant pleasures. We're losing interest in the basics--math, manufacturing, hard work, savings--and becoming a postindustrial society that specializes in consumption and leisure. "More people will graduate in the United States in 2006 with sports-exercise degrees than electrical-engineering degrees," says (GE CEO) Immelt. "So, if we want to be the massage capital of the world, we're well on our way."
As a side note, there are no jobs in the US for even the modest number scientists and engineers graduating from universities here annually. A simple read through any given month's BLS jobs numbers will show that most 'new' jobs being created within the US are now low skill, low paying, service sector jobs (such as construction, waiter, and checkout clerk). More on this here:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050808_crumble.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/feb2004/ca20040212_6576_ca024.htm
Getting deep in debt for a sheepskin of waning value is no longer such a great idea.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2028836&page=1
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-03-27-grad-debt_x.htm
Especially for degrees in something that will not lead to producing/providing essential goods and/or services.
As I said before, I anticipate seeing something like student loan riots as we graduate ever larger numbers of young people--burdened with loans that by and large can't be written off--that have poor job prospects. There was a case history of Sallie Mae seizing part of the Social Security disability payments of some poor guy with AIDS.
You hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the US's lack of engineers, chemists, doctors, nurses, etc., and at the same time, this huge sector of the population that traditionally literally lived to go into one of those fields when they grew up, are now deprived of all but the most basic, and inadequate, financial aid, and in numerous cases actually kept out of programs - yes, there are medical, dental, engineering, etc programs where white students are not admitted because they are white one of the more high-profile being the recent University of Michigan case but that's only one of hundreds.
For those very few whites who can get through this, a simple walk through your local University's grad program, observing the colorful posters, will suffice as an explanation. Read them - you'll find there are gajillions of graduate programs, the kind scientists and engineers and med students go into, but they're only open to "minority" students. Says so right on the posters. Printed on heavy poster stock, with expensive 4-color or 6-color processes, at great expense, along with of course wonderful graphics and the juicy details of this fellowship or that program, is the stipulation: no whites allowed.
Now, as for the "exercise consultant" type programs, anyone can get into those, they're much easier to complete while working fulltime (no heavy calculus and the gym time, what there is, is good for the body) and since white culture, regardless of the fatties you see within it, is one that esteems physical fitness more than many others, you see these same people who in a fair society would be working hard to become doctors and engineers, instead working on their bench press or on memorizing the latest version of The Food Pyramid.
This is also why so many front-line troops in Iraq and elsewhere are white - out of proportions to their percentage of the population. It's often the only way a white person can have a hope at college, so many of the other routes being closed to them. And enough of the old culture of duty, service to country, hard work, etc. remains that unlike most other cultures, there's no shame attached to military service. This esteem for duty and hard physical work is seen also in the Hispanic culture and to some extent in the black culture I should mention.
These words are brutal but true. As Peak OIl unfolds there's going to be a lot more plain speaking in this country.
If you are white and working-class (don't have enough to simply pay full pop all the way through college) your best shot in life is probably to, if you are science and engineering inclined, start your own business. You'll waste years in college fighting with racist financial aid types and racist school policies, when you can be learning what you need to know and applying it to your company's products and learning much faster, on your own. If you're very young, under 22 say, the military can be a good, a very good, first step. Try to get into something techie and that means learn techie stuff NOW because they'll test you for knowledge and if you're outstanding at something like that, they'll move you into that. Working in high-tech, the security clearance you'll get in the military will be very useful when you're done. Sure, you can get shot, but you can get shot just walking down the street in many places in the US these days.
The system is increasingly Not For Us. Between the exporting of jobs, the exclusion of us from education and mainstream opportunities as detailed above, and the destruction of the middle class in the US that's ongoing, it's time to lose the illusion that the system is your friend. The one thing on our side is, Peal Oil says the US won't be able to be a service-oriented postmodern economy for much longer. We'll need people who can make things here. So the way to think is like the "yeoman farmer" so esteemed by the Founding Fathers - independent and productive. The bulk of people in the Revolution were craftsmen, Paul Revere was a silversmith for instance. Franklin an author/publisher. The rifles used to fight the English were made and designed here, by independent craftsmen here who didn't work for some big company, and so were free to innovate and design on their own. The best designs won the "turkey shoots" and were continued, and later proved to work quite well against the invaders.
Work hard. Create. The system is not necessarily your friend.
Now, this would sound like such a sweet deal for my company, but there have been so many IT Solutions projects released to IT Service that were not properly Beta-tested. They would then blow up and IT Service would be left holding the bag to clean it all up.
You see...these guys don't really know how the business runs...they are crackshot programmers, but don't understand the big picture of how it all fits together. My company is saving alot of money using these guys, but in the long term we are wasting money because we have to fix everything they release.
Some companies, like Sprint, have tried outsourcing and have now gone back to hiring Sprint IT employees after going through similar pain.
Generalizations are dangerous, however...
For a moment I thought that might not be as bad as it seemed because China's population is slightly larger than the US. But...
950,000/1,000,000,000 = .00095
70,000/350,000,000 = .00023
Turns out it's pretty bad. I wonder how many of those graduating in the US are US citizens?
Is there any way to determine if Saudi Arabia has increased drilling for oil this year compared to the last year or two? For example, have they bought more drill bits or leased more rigs in a desparate attempt to make up for the shortfall near peak oil?
People are also griping about Aramco bidding up the price of rigs.
Major Saudi Aramco Contract; 4 Jackup Rigs to Exit U.S. Gulf of Mexico for 4-Year Terms in Middle East
They did the same thing last year, luring four or five rigs from the GOM to Saudi.
As Jim Kunstler says, history doesn't repeat, but it may rhyme (don't know if this is original to Jim or not).
In any case, regarding post-peak drilling booms, been there done that. We had the biggest drilling boom in state history in Texas in the Seventies, as a result of a 1,000% increase in oil prices. We increased the number of producing wells by 14% from 1972 to 1982. Result? Production fell by 30%.
Once the big fields in a region or the world peak and decline, the smaller fields that are found post-peak can't make up for the declines in the big fields. This is what puzzles me about people that express optimism about conventional world oil production, when there is so much evicence that the big fields--Ghawar; Cantarell; Burgan, Daqing, etc.--are declining.
Rat
What was that joke about 4 blind men feeling different parts of an elephant and all thinking it was something different?
Far from the first time, and won't be the last.
Rat
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Men_and_an_Elephant
It was six of The Oil Drum
To learning much inclined,
Who wrote about the Hubbert Curve
(How much oil we will find),
That each by speculation
Might satisfy his mind
And so we read The Oil Drum
Dispute it loud and long,
Each in our own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each are partly in the right,
We all may well be wrong!
Moral:
So oft in geologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about a future world
Not one of us has seen!
If I had more time, I'd write verses for each editor.
Mediocre men talk about things;
Small men talk about people.
- Admiral Hyman Rickover
Peak Oil is that elusive jumbo-sized elephant offering us only various parts of itself from which to deduce it's true nature.
Haa...jk.
The donkey is all Hee and no Haw.
For starters, rigs are not normally bought, they are rented. The going rate for deepwater rigs is currently about half a million dollars a day. Shallow water rigs are of course cheaper and land rigs even cheaper yet. But that is another story.
Yes, the number of oil rigs is increasing dramatically in Saudi Arabia as well as in the rest of the Middle East.
And this from Forbes Magazine
Saudi Arabia and everyone else in that area are doing everything in their power to increase production. It is hypocritical of them to claim that they are voluntarily reducing production. Saudi Arabia, as well as most other OPEC producers are definitely post peak.
In most any kind of business, one does not 'voluntarily reduce output' at the same they are adding more production lines.
Unless you are schizophrenic. Or running in circles, chasing your tail.
But they're voluntarily reducing production...
Didn't SA say they had a gross decline of 8% but mitigated to 2%(previously discussed on TOD). I would say that is past peak.
Plus the FSU/Russians are sounding more and more like they are close to a major drop in production/collapse.
Mexico's Cantrell peaked out, and Kuwait revising reserves.
But, all this is subjective. We can only be objective in the rear view mirror.
We are well past natural depletion. Adv Oil recovery Technics have been used on all the large fields. What is likely occuring is that the water cut is rising fast. Some producers make lack the equipment necessary to cope with the rising water cuts, resulting in the fast production declines. Nearly half of global production is produced from the top dozen or so largest fields. All of which have been in production for many decades. All these fields peaked more a decade ago.
Given we still have global economic growth we might expect to see demand at least 1 or 2% higher than 2005 i.e. 85mbd. The 1mbd shortfall in demand must be due to demand destruction due to high prices.
So if priced dropped, demand would increase and the Saudis could sell their oil i.e. if they kept pumping the price would drop and they would find buyers.
The Saudi excuse doesn't stack up, either they are manipulating the price higher or they have peaked.
I vote the latter so YES we are witnessing the peak.
If the price of oil stays high than yes we are past peak because demand destruction will limit use even if we could pull out all the stops to produce more.
On the other hand if the price drops $10-15 per barrel over the next year than people will ramp up consumption and maybe production could be ramped up to meet that new demand.
In summary what I think has happened is that the Cost of Goods for oil has gotten so high that there is a permanent demand destruction built into the system. The world can't afford to use more oil. This is an economic/political peak, different than a geological peak but they are inter related ultimately. At some point oil will be so hard to extract that even if we wanted to increase production we wouldn't physically be able to. In either case I think we may have seen peak production but it will be impossible to sort out what the limiting factor was until long after decline occurs.
On the other hand, I want to know much better what the timeline is, and it's very frustrating not being able to pin things down more accurately so one can have more confidence in what actions to take.
Having said that, I really don't think the things that are going to have the biggest impacts on our lives will be based on the geologic realities of oil extraction, rather it will be how people and societies react to them. This makes it even more unpredictable, and also means the exact time of the peak is less important. If I can no longer get fuel because some crazy bastard starts a war with a major oil producer causing short supplies and high prices, I suppose it might be nice to know that more oil could someday be available, but practically it won't help much.
As I've said before, when you push any system to the maximum of its capacity, the effect of losses becomes much more important. If we are near the peak, then all of this non-geologic crap that limits our ability to produce the crude and refine and deliver the end products is here to stay. One of the questions I keep thinking about is if the Hubbert method takes any of this into account - it's based on results isn't it? I guess when previous regions hit peak there were other places to go to, so while there was a temporary increase in political and other losses, it might be different this time. Now the non-geologic losses may be far more significant.
OK, enough stream-of-consciousness rambling!
However, If Ghawar, Burgan, Cantarell, etc get into their decline in a serious way, and political issues continue as I expect, I cannot see any way the world could get up to the 90 million barrel mark RR is speculating about. I would be very surprised to see production exceed 86 million. While I deeply respect RR's contributions, especially in the ethanol debate and economics issues, I remain puzzled that he hasn't addressed the issue of supergiant decline or just general depletion with anywhere near the throughness of other issues. "Trust me on this" doesn't do it for me. This is not meant as an attack, but I don't know how to evaluate comments like "mark my words" without more solid information. On the other hand, I certainly can't say I know better.
I don't think the new numbers say anything definitively, but they are quite suggestive in my book. If you define peak as a process rather than as a point, I think we are there to within 1 million barrels per day.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/6/151930/6286#201
Stuart's working hypothesis of the slow squeeze makes as much sense to me as anything else I've seen about depletion.
Due to the nature of my position, there are some things I can say, and some things I can't say. I firmly believed for a long time that peak would be 2005 or 2006, until I started talking to some people within my company, and they pointed out certain things to me. Since I can't be a whole lot more forthright than this, you all certainly are expected to be skeptical. But I will say that we try to plan years in advance, and we do look at these sorts of issues. I do ask tough questions about where we are going to secure oil supplies.
I know my position is a tiny minority on this board. But I want to stake out my position, because I firmly believe I am right based on things I have seen. If production records continue to fall, as I believe they will, then you may start to believe that there are some very competent people inside the oil industry looking at all aspects of this, and I have spent quite a bit of time picking their brains.
For the most part, I am not really going to spend too much time arguing this issue. I can't lay all my cards out on the table, and that's no way to conduct a debate. But when the production records fall, remember where you heard it. And if I am completely wrong, and we are at a peak today, then God help us all.
RR
points taken RR. This is a complex system we live in, and no one really knows how part A will affect part X. Your peers at your company are undoubtedly oil experts, but might not be human nature, political, economic, or weather experts. We could see records fall and we could be at peak now. The precautionary principle says we will be at peak sooner or later and we should take steps now just in case.
I used a very similar analogy in the Peak Oil Primer that I wrote for Omninerd:
http://www.omninerd.com/2006/05/17/articles/52
RR
There is a fairly large middle path consituency here, it just a bit quieter. In fact, when you look at longer term posters with analysis-based postings, the balance narrows. If you read what Stuart Staniford writes, it is far from doom.
There is plenty of room for open minded people who want to learn and exchange views. Please keep yours coming.
Where is the new oil production going to come from? Are the players using better techniques to suck more out now or are new fields slated to come on board? From what I've read on this board the big fields all seem to be either in or on the cusp of decline and there isn't a lot of spare production capacity. Is there spare capacity we're not seeing?
I do think the world can make do, and even grow, at current supply levels. First, current resource use is incredibly inefficient. I think demand elasticity for oil is strong, but acts over the longer term. I would guess that we could live pretty much the way we do now with 20% less oil. It would mean a bit less flying, more efficient vehicles that are driven less, and a bunch of other things that we can't see now.
It will also mean substitution of other fuels. As Engineer Poet noted yesterday, this is fairly realistic, based on current technologies. I think that ethanol and biodiesel could offset say 15-20% of oil use and electricity could do the same in vehicles. I would hope the inputs to these are renewable rather than coal. However, if it has to be coal, that is what will be done. This is a prediction, not a value statement. I am aware and concerned about climate impacts, but don't think that will stop it from happening.
I don't think any of this will be easy or guaranteed. I also wonder how developing countries will be able to continue to access the growth that has pulled millions out of poverty in China, India and other countries.
I do think it is possible. I write from a highly import dependent developing country that will suffer if changes aren't made. They have been incredibly slow to adapt, but are starting to.
I see price as the only mechanism for creating this change and think sustained high oil prices are probably among the greatest assets mankind has in adapting to a future of reduced supply.
This is where sociology/psychology comes in. Say that the true 'numbers' are that we peak at 90mbpd and have a 4% decline rate from there. Conventional analysis will say we have to tighten our belts, ramp up alternatives and build the wedges outlined in the Hirsch report. My concerns are increasingly, that 1-3 years past peak, when everyone realizes that peak oil is for real and here now, that the system no longer works smoothly - will Russia want to sell her oil to other countries? will Iran? will montana and texas sell their oil to other states that are desperately in need of it, to their own depletion.
The whole system is predicated on growth - if there exists the possibility in peoples minds that this paradigm is ending, I dont think we can rely on normal incentives to right the ship. I continue to believe that AT peak there will be economic contraction leading to demand destruction and selloff in oil prices - then the world reloads and next time demand outstrips supply it has caught up with depletion rate - here is where we see the nature/nurture intersection.
I am hopeful but afraid.
My baseline scenario is that the peak comes on us gradually. Exporters make huge sums of money exporting for a while until the balance shifts and their portion of the energy pie shrinks. Gradually other energy sources will displace oil.
This could be completely wrong, but so could every other scenario tossed around here. No one really knows and how we view post peak says more about our insides than the world outside.
but just for the record, because they are not "public" at all. they are private corporations, some of them "publicly listed", which are bestowed with the right to incorporation, and thus Personhood, by the states and the federal govt. this is supposedly in the public interest, but when did the elites ever do anything to help the public? instead corporations are legally bound to maximize their profits to shareholders, one way or another, regardless of civil issues, environmental effects, human rights or even national security. they only consider such "social" issues when it impacts their bottom line (thus "corporate responsibility").
Are you tallying votes? My vote is "No". I believe we have more production records ahead. However, I want to make it clear that I think we need to be preparing for Peak Oil with everything we've got. If Peak Oil happens 10 years from now, however, my feeling is that we won't be any better prepared than we are today.
RR
You know the more I read from poeple such as youself westexas, (kebab, RR, etc.) the more concerned I get. I think it is totally rational to expect a decline in production soon. What I strugle with the most is how will the chips fall? Depression/recession/inflation/starvation. It just looks so big time bad. How do others see this unfolding and most importantly why?
It could be but I'd bet against it. The emphasis people here sometimes put on specific data elements is troubling. Oh well. One could argue that the inability of people to deal appropriately with statistics is intimately related to society's failure to anticipate peak oil (along the same lines as Al Bartlett and his arguments about exponential growth).
In particular and of late, the over-emphasised data point of choice has been west-texas' "58%". The uncertainty here is large. The comparison with texas is said to be meaningful. And then most people seem to agree? Sheesh. Frustrating.
High cost of oil could put many jobs at risk
DuPonte says the cost of raw materials has gone up 85% in the last four years, and have hit a record for the first quarter of this year.
However, companies are finding it very difficult to pass on the increases to their customers. Instead, they are recycling, using software to increase efficiency...and laying off employees.
On a related note...CNN had a story this morning on metal thieves. Aluminum has become so valuable that people are stealing highway guiderail, light poles...even banks of stadium bleachers.
Aluminum is the new copper for metal thieves
Copper is still popular, too:
http://www.bdcnetwork.com/index.asp?layout=articleXml&xmlId=390939490
I'm afraid Chavez has struck a nerve
(No kidding....)
He goes on:
He warns Nigeria may be next:
And it gets worse. He thinks even food will be affected:
The big, scary grasshoppers had control until the ants realized they actually had greater power in numbers if they all acted together.
In real life, the grassgobblers have money, lot's of it. They spend on think tankers and outwit the ants every step of the way.
Let's define "marriage" as a sacred union between an elephant and a faith-crazed monkey. The sanctity of our society depends on it.
"Hey, look over there!"
Gota love that quote.
db
Also, helps the GOP scare and disenfranchise the Mexicans and Gays who typically vote Democrat. How convenient right before next round of elections.
I have a foot in the CG world, and I do think it's got a great advantage in the storytelling of the (near, at least) future. It is allowing filmmakers to build sets, create weather, creatures, etc.. without having to take crews all over the world and set up massive lighting and scenic displays. They still DO, but they don't HAVE to in many cases.
I don't think we're going to lose computing, but I do think that resource shortages will start to bend a lot of manufacturing, and particularly electronics, back towards valuing 'Durable Goods' instead of 'throwaway upgradables'.. maybe that's a pipe dream, but I think we'll start to see that we can't just buy new furniture every five years when the color is wrong, or there's a little rip in the armrest.
Oil price hike sparks uproar in India
http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/11431
I've been wrong, thinking that corn would be mashed and grains separated before fermentation (like beermaking), and was surprised to see that (yes, as others here have said) they ferment on the grain slurry.
The chart does indeed also show them drying the "stillage" to create DDG (dried distiller's grain)
(found via The Energy Blog)
That was a very good general description of the corn-to-ethanol process, and the flow chart was also helpful. I will bookmark that one for future reference.
As I understand it, the largest single energy input of the actual conversion process (as opposed to growing the corn) is the heat needed for the distillation step. Cooking the mash is probably a not-too-distant second.
I wonder it there is much potential for internal energy recovery in order to decrease the energy input and improve the EROEI. During the distillation step the overhead ethanol vapors must be condensed, probably via some sort of heat exchanger employing cooling water. Perhaps some of this heat of condensation could be recovered and then used to help heat the mash in the cooking step and thereby reduce the energy input?
I suspect that the process, as presently configured, is designed to get the maximum amount of ethanol production from the smallest amount of process equipment (and hence capital investment), rather than to minimize energy use.
Maybe there really isn't much potential for energy savings, but I ask the question. Anybody?
Russia: 'Era of cheap fuel is over'
"Russia has served a double warning over the price of oil and intervention to block attempts by its energy firms to move into EU markets."
"Viktor Khristenko, Russian's energy minister and guardian of 5per cent of the world's oil reserves, declared that motorists and business would have to learn to live with expensive fuel...."
"Russia with its huge oil and gas reserves has been one of the main beneficiaries of soaring oil price and shares the industry consensus that there is little prospect of relief. Mr Khristenko said: "Forecasting is a thankless task in hydrocarbons, but one can say with certainty that the era of cheap hydrocarbons is over."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/06/06/cnfuel06.xml&menuId=242&sS heet=/money/2006/06/06/ixcity.html
Darn Commie is using free market capitalism/globalization against us... ;-)
'Those who do not learn from history.....'
Debate Over Wind Power Creates Environmental Rift
Don Quixote was a visionary embarked upon a quest. Seeking to uphold principles far greater than his mortal flesh could ever hope to play host to, yet as compelled to offer his life for these as the greatest knight in pursuit of chivalric perfection.
One might find both the humility of Don Quixote's limitations and the power his convictions drew forth nearly divine. Perhaps they might be seen as the ravings of a madman. I hope, for the sake of the world which gives you sustenance, Don Quixote's divinity is seen and admired long before his lunacy can be diagnosed and treated.
It is better for the spirit/soul to live poorly in beauty than live wealthy in squalor. The fool's errand is risking the grand oil flameout in the futile exercise of staying the economic course. Adapt, but wisely.
You must see something else altogether.
To deride his efforts simply because you and your progenitors have chosen to sully the landscape with "roads, electric poles and cell phone towers" shows the depths the problem Peak Oil reveals.
If you cannot embrace his activism to save his beloved landscape, then how can you lament the coming of Peak Oil? For if we've already squandered much of this amazing resource, much as this vista may be squandered by the coming of "windmills," why stop now? Why not really put our backs into it and make the tar sands melt and the Orinoco flow?
His activism is an important part of our salvation. Should we recognize the power of the landscape we inhabit, if through nothing more than its awe inspiring beauty, we will discover the resolve to save not only it but ourselves.
"Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
As for killing birds and bats, very little (large wind turbines spin very slowly).. In fact, orders of magnitude less than moving cars, pet cats and windows.
While the pressing need for changes in both our consumptive excess and our means of generating such excess are absolutely compelling, is not reflection on the value life not our own worthy of notice? Need we deride the motives of another when they fail to recognize our far superior understanding?
It is surely without doubt these "windmills" will cut short a winged creature. This is most probably an unavoidable and reasonable outcome. To forgo the electricity these monoliths provide smacks of childish indulgence or witless nonsense. But to fail to engage with the effects these towers inflict suggests we have limited our scope of inquiry to that of Dan Boone.
Sounds like these "monoliths" will be a good forage site. Windkill--yum!
May you one day wake and see what might have been. Only then shall you know what you have wrought..
So that would be 820 people killed every week.
number of U.S. annual bird deaths and the cause.
Deaths due to collision:
300,000,000 - buildings
200,000,000 - free roaming cats
150,000,000 - transmission and distribution lines
70,000,000 - trucks and autos
60,000,000 - pesticides
50,000,000 - communication towers - doubling by 2010
As compared to wind turbines the bird mortality rate is about 2.0 birds per year per tower. Also, it is becoming more common practice to site new wind farm developments out of the way of migratory paths and the increased size of the turbine blades also minimize the chance of bird death on collision.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/15/183357.php
A genuinely massive effort is presently being made in Iraq to get production numbers up, and yet they still have not reached pre-war output levels.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_8790.shtml
To give you an idea...
Now take a deep breath and repeat after me....VIETNAM.
I forgot that LA cop who wrote the book detailing this about his fiance breaking her ankle(s?) and she snorted some coke (before it was mainstream) and she sat on the phone (finishing some CIA junk I suppose) for like an hour before she had him take her to the hospital.
I was reading about this Kilo Company business, and there's another opinion out there, that a reporter spent a bit over a half a year with Kilo co. and thought they were fine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13124487/site/newsweek/
Just went through a pdf file on Los Angeles and hand transcribed #s for each project.
$23.8 billion in 2015 $
24.8 miles of subway, 109.3 miles of light rail and 11.5 miles of freight railroad running passenger service. 101.6 million boardings/year.
Just looking at a map, a good majority of Angelenos will be within a half dozen miles of a station. Many within bicycling range.
Boardings were calculated in 2003, add higher energy costs to the mix and those #s will rise. Give some time for TOD (the other one Transit Orientated Development) and ridership will climb even more!
IMHO, building out these plans (plus more) in Los Angeles makes more sense than building and operating a coal to liquids plant !
BTW, any good #s on capital and operating costs for a coal to liquids plant with and without carbon capture ?
My list of projects (my shorthand for offical titles):
Burbank LRT
Connector
Gold East - Air
Gold to Montclair
Green Harbor
Green North
Green South
Harbor DMU
Red Subway CC to Sea
Red Subway North
Red Subway to CC
Silver LRT
Vermont Subway
Yellow LRT
I guess I believe that in a city like Los Angeles the #1 issue is not so much right of way (thought ROW is always an issue to some extent), but the social-outcast nature that is attached to transit options.
Never, not once, in my travels around Japan, including on some of the most desolate and darkest streets after midnight, even in seedier areas, have I feared of being mugged or having my pockets picked. Something tells me (namely, my own driving experience around LA) that riding on the LA green or blue line would be a different experience.
I can be packed like a sardine in train car in Japan and not be at all concerned I might lose something.
It is acceptable to women I date that I don't own a car.
I've never been at a loss to find help at a station, for directions or anything else.
Etc., etc.,...
You get the picture... there is much more to the challenge of reinstituting rail in the US than tax dollars. Indeed, taxes and plans are not really the issue IMO.
Speaking of tax dollars, have you been considering the future of private rail?
The Red Line was a fairly upscale crowd in LA, as is the Gold Line. The Blue Line goes through the heart of the barrio, but I was not uncomfortable taking it. The Green Line was in between.
I think that you are wrong, there is a social negative about taking the bus, but not Urban Rail.
That's my observation in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, too, especially the South Bay and Mid Peninsula. People riding Caltrain are mostly white-collar types or in the technology industry (or both); bus riders seem to be moms with small children, laborers, and other 'non-professionals.' I think cost might be part of it: the buses are painfully slow but cheap, while the trains can be fast but are more expensive.
My employer gives me a regional bus pass for free, but I pay the $99 each month for a Caltrain pass. I've sat on the buses plenty, I don't mind mixing with bus riders, and I'm familiar with the VTA system, but it's just too slow for me.
Solar power plant for North China
...
On my way to New York last weekend, I was stuck in a New Jersey Transit train for about half an hour because the overhead catenary lines were lacking sufficient power. Recall that a week earlier the entire northeast corridor was affected, and several dozen trains - both Amtrak and NJ Transit - coasted to a stop, some under the Hudson River, due to a cascading power outage. Which leads to this question: Why must our rail transit systems continue to lurch from one financial crisis to another, always begging for the table scraps of transportation spending? Why is there no dedicated funding source? (no doubt, this issue has been addressed here in this forum before).
Common sense tells me that as the age of cheap oil comes to a permanent close, we ought to be doing whatever it takes to fund the necessary capital improvements for our rail transit systems to help prevent these system failures. But of course, rail transit never had the lobbyists to throw money at politicians the way auto, oil and airlines companies did for so long; perhaps this answers my question to a great degree.
On another matter, do you sense a general lull in the energy markets? After the very impressive runup in crude prices in March and April, things have settled down.... for now. But I get the uneasy feeling it will not last for very long. Here's a question I want to pose for you: what will we see next - $80 a barrel or $60 a barrel? My money rides on the former. After witnessing a few of these smug pundits on cable television blow their "$50 a barrel before $70 a barrel" prediction with such absolute self assurance, I realized my own instincts are more reliable.
Have a nice day!
I don't think you can draw much from SSTs as they can change quite a bit from day to day. It's the deeper water temps we need to get at.
Enter your own date range here
Here's 06.05.2006
Here's 06.05.2005
Here's 06.05.2004
Does anyone know of where they post the Sea Temperatures?
Temps
This site has mountains of data.
Here's one little chart on Galveston, TX area (sea temp).
Suggest that an answer to your question "Why must our rail transit systems continue to lurch from one financial crisis to another, always begging for the table scraps of transportation spending?" could be:
because you are unwilling to pay a ticket price for a high quality, 99.8% assured service.
The reason I believe this is because of your next statement: "Why is there no dedicated funding source?" as if you expect someone else to pay for your transportation.
Yes, I realize automobile travel is subsidized - vehicle and gasoline taxes don't pay the full cost for private automobile and truck usage. Perhaps that should change, and the general revenue taxes be refunded to the taxpayers... but I wouldn't hold my breath.
What was it?
and
Why were they wasting something that was burnable by just burning it off?
From what you described, it sounds to me like some pressure relief valves popped and sent some gaseous hydrocarbons to the refinery's flare system. Typically, the discharge side of the pressure relief valves are tied together via a piping system that flows to a small flare which is kept lit at all times (sort of like the pilot light in a kitchen stove). When the hydrocarbons hit the flare, they burn off, and hence the flame you are seeing. If there were no flare system, the hydrocarbons would be discharge directly to the atmosphere and contribute to VOC air emissions. So, the flare is both a safety feature and a pollution control device. Obviously, one wants to avoid having pressure relief valves going off too frequently, but sometimes things happen that can't be avoided.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/all/stories/DN-dimartino_05bus.ART.State. Edition1.e274a31.html
Aaaahhhh....the calm BEFORE the storm...enjoy it.
U.S. to give Iran nuclear technology
I just read the same thing. Until I see more details, I will remain highly skeptical of the Bush regime's true motives in its actions toward Iran. It could be genuine, or it could just be a ploy to show the world that, 'Lord knows we've tried to be nice' ..... before we take military action.
Nor should one underestimate Israel's influence on what the US does or doesn't do with regard to Iran. They want Iran taken care of, one way or the other, and have enormous clout in the US Congress. Woe be it to any congressman up for reelection who doesn't take a tough line on Iran. (Notice that there is no open debate on Iran in Congress. Why IS that?)
Let's keep our fingers crossed that things will eventually get resolved peacefully, but let us also keep in mind that there are strong forces at work pulling in the other direction.
I'm a long way from believing that's what's happening here. I still think it's just pre-positioning - so we can say "well we really tried". If they actually negotiate with the Iranians without the preconditions, then I will be willing to consider it real.
He shall not regard the desire of women (Daniel 11:37)
Some scholars see the desire of women meaning the desire to "give birth to the Messiah". In any case, Javier Solana has a wife and two children, but lives on his own in Brussels since taking the post of NATO Secretary General in 1995.
EIA: May OPEC Oil Output 29.335 Million B/D, April Revised Down
There is a 4 MBD lag from EIA's numbers to IEA's, any guesses why?
Maybe this is why? I'm not familiar with all this type of data, but I ran across this article and it may at least be tangential to your questions and somewhere within this lengthy article, may be your real answer.
http://www.energybulletin.net/16745.html
But there is indeed a substantial gap, not 4 mb but 600 kb in March, and growing all the time. Surely IEA will have to revise down now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=389357&in_page_id=17 70
I don't know how to post pictures, but PLEASE look at the pic there.
Dunno how practical they'll be in the post-carbon age, though. Carbon fiber = high-tech plastic. So it's another petroleum-based technology. ;-)
Here's what I get when attempting to view it (from work, natch'):
"Air Force Materiel Command - Proxy Server Policy Denied"
"The website you have attempted to reach has been blocked by AFMC or Air Force policy."
^_^
Certainly would want us looking at it, eh?
What if....there was another plan?
Already in the works?
A grand 'Strategic Vision'?
Peruse the following two links, in order:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745322069/qid=1129652725/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3515470-9410501?s=b ooks&v=glance&n=283155
Left hand column here is excerpted from the book above:
http://inspectorlohmann.blogspot.com/2005/10/let-culling-commence.html
An order of magnitude increase in the pump price will be necessary before significant meaningful demand suppression takes place.
The term 'demand destruction' is something of a misnomer, for demand is not permanently destroyed by higher price signals, only temporarily suppressed.
Wow. The Yanks must be absolutely stark raving bonkers. I'd get out and walk long before petrol hit 10 bucks.
The numbers are based on YOY demand/price data and a previous WSJ article.
This isn't demand and demand and supply are different, but yes the short and long term price elasticity of demand may be different. Not necessarily so, but most long models a culmination of lots of short term models.
What I am looking for is values for both US and world price elasticity of demand over time with constant economic activity. Just HOW elastic are we over some time interval ?
So far, a 50% increase in price seems to restrain US oil demand about 1% over what it "would have been" without reducing overall US economic activity.
This 50:1 ratio should shrink with time, but by how much ?
From behind WSJ's paywall (5/1/06):
"Research suggests it takes years for higher gas prices to meaningfully damp consumption. Opinions differ, but many experts say that, in the short term, the "price elasticity" of U.S. gasoline use is as low as 0.1. That means gas prices have to rise 10% to produce an initial 1% drop in demand."
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/5/11/115546/370/39#39
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/5/2/114715/2993/68#68
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/2/114715/2993#49
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/5/17/952/79161/48#48
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/4/11/04241/0758/29#29
There is also the obvious: Crude prices are up over 300% since 1999 (under sub-$15 crude vs. $70+), yet both US national annual and worldwide annual demand has continued to rise throughtout that same 7 year period, in total opposition to these price signals (from IEA numbers).
Others on the subject:
http://are.berkeley.edu/courses/ECON100A/2006/student%20applications%20to%20post/Application%20writi ng%20-%20Jay%20Jo.pdf
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/04/more_political.html
http://www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/transportation/trans-25.cfm
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/05/more_on_gas_pri.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/01/bloomberg/bxretail.php
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2006-05-25-memorial-day_x.htm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/05/suv_survey.html
http://www.env-econ.net/2006/05/inelastic_short.html
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/05/daniel_gross_wh.html
In searching for more information on the web, use the term "price elasticity" rather than "demand destruction".
Note that this refers to US demand elasticity.
Demand suppression is more resposive to price increases elsewhere, as the article below indicates.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2047633
If you don't believe me see the links below. I think that this explains the cameras and security fences along the north & south boarders not to keep people out but to keep people in.
http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/109/h4752.pdf
or
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4752
I would bet anything that Rangel knows there's zero chance of that bill going anywhere.
I understand what you are saying. However they are debating this as of today. The idea is to do what the Israelis' do and make service mandatory. As the $ crashes the choices will be going to a camp or service. All of this is frankly possible. Who would have thought we would have a dictator in the US? Who would have thought both Dems and Repubs after giving war powers to the Exec branch still want to stay in Iraq even though they did not do 9-11?
My point is that these days anything is possible and Rangel is part of the same body that brought us utopia on a stick with a side of death.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ny15_rangel/CBRStatementDraft05262005.html
It's devised to draw attention to the crappy job Bushco has done with their war planning.
"As much as I despise the "Bretton Woods II" hypothesis, there was some truth to the notion of the symbiotic relationship between the U.S. as borrower and consumer and Asia as producer and saver. The significant Financial and Economic Power now shifting to the oil producers entails quite different dynamics and should be cause for concern. We do not enjoy such a symbiotic relation with the oil producing community, while the rising prominence of energy on the world stage will diminish the Asian infatuation with our securities markets. We could always count on the Japanese to do what we wanted, and the Chinese and other Asian countries have to this point basically followed a similar path. But many oil exporting countries clearly hold us in contempt."
His piece begins more than halfway down the linked page. Just scroll down or search for "What Difference Does a Year Make" -- that's where his remarks begin.
The best one I could find was on page 103 of The Party's Over, but that's about 6 years old, and I was hoping for something more current.
I've Googled until my mouse button finger was raw, but I can't seem to locate this information.
Suggestions, anyone?
This gives you crude + condensate by country and region for several decades.
The San Jose Murky News has a story today that people aren't fed up with $3 gasoline anymore.
Oh, and we have no control over gas prices: