DrumBeat: September 4, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 4, 2006 - 9:12am
The Demise of a Techno-fix Psyche
I would describe myself as a recovering energy engineer. Technology has been an integral part of my life. At one time I had viewed advancing technology as the answer to all of our problems and the only tool necessary in improving our relationship with the natural world. My own personal journey over the last several years has changed that.
BBC's Driven By Oil: Has oil production finally peaked?
Museletter: Middle East at a Crossroads
At the ASPO conference a well-connected industry insider who wishes not to be directly quoted told me that his own sources inside Saudi Arabia insist that production from Ghawar is now down to less than three million barrels per day, and that the Saudis are maintaining total production at only slowly dwindling levels by producing other fields at maximum rates. This, if true, would be a bombshell: most estimates give production from Ghawar at 5.5 Mb/d.
U.K.: Fuel poverty fear as gas price rise takes effect
Uganda develops plan to cut fuel expenditures
Uganda is developing an urban transport policy that is expected to cut the country's expenditure on fuel. Currently, the country spends Ush500 billion ($270 million) a year.According to German Technical Co-operation, GTZ, the government's consultant, the policy should consider technical options of redesigning existing infrastructure and build cycling and walking lanes in urban centres.
Iran and Japan close to oil deal
As China Spews Pollution, Villagers Rise Up
Environment-related unrest is spreading. It's not about old-growth forests; it's about business practices that are killing people.
China keen on piped Saudi gas via Qatar, Pakistan
Energy-starved China is exploring ways to tap Saudi Arabian gas through a tie up with Gulf-South Asia (GUSA) Gas Company of Qatar that already has a joint venture for a deep sea pipeline with Pakistan.
Taiwan finds huge underwater gas hydrate reserve
aiwan geologists have confirmed the existence of more than 500 billion cubic meters of gas hydrate off the southwest coast, enough to meet the island's gas needs for over 60 years, a government geologist said on Monday.But commercial extraction is likely much more than a decade away as techniques to tap the gas are still being developed, Wang Yunshuen, section chief of the mineral resources section, at the Central Geological Survey.
U.K.: Poor pay most for energy
As demand soars, central Asia's oil and gas reserves are a magnet pulling in the world's powers
India: Oil companies seek 2-year moratorium on drilling
Hit by non-availability of rigs and growing shortage of manpower, oil companies are asking the Government for a two-year moratorium on all drilling and seismic commitments.
Biomass could supply 66% of U.S. gas needs
Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years. Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger level.
'Look for unconventional energy options': Shell's senior economist peers into the future.
Solar is solution to energy crisis
Demand for the refined silicon that is the core component of solar panels, manufactured in just five plants worldwide, has grown so rapidly in the past few years that there is now a two-year lag time in the supply chain. This year for the first time, use of silicon in the manufacture of solar equipment exceeds its use for computer microprocessors.But the full potential of the world's most plentiful and renewable energy source will not be tapped until a new, less energy-intensive non-silicon based technology is invented. Solar experts say that it is only a matter of time, perhaps as little as five to 10 years.
Innovative farmers gear up to beat foreign oil
When Rudolph Diesel introduced his engine at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, he ran it on peanut oil. Perfect for tractors and electrical generators, he figured, since farmers could grow their own fuel. A few years later Henry Ford unveiled the Model T, designed to run on ethanol for the same reason....The energy-efficient farm, and even the energy self-sufficient farm, are ideas that have been intriguing us since we gave up farming with mules. But with ongoing war in the Middle East, a hurricane wrecking the Gulf oil rigs, increased consumption by India and China, and petroleum prices setting new records nearly every month, those intriguing ideas have suddenly become urgent ones.
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I can.
I can also imagine some oil production declines that require much more vigorous responses. Heck, you get a steep enough decline and you'll see democratic governments endorsing societal triage.
... but. In an echo of some of Sailorman's posts today, I'm not sure what the rate of oil production deline will be, and so I cannot out of hand reject anyone's response plan.
Maybe you'll be right and I'll adapt to an oil crash, but if you're wrong, and all it takes is some moderate ajustment, I don't want to be a roadblock.
(if it needs to be repeated, the world "as we know it" gets replaced every 20 years or so, no matter what we do.)
Energy research consultant Daniel Yergin, of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, believes the concerns are widespread.
"Every day," he says, "the head of every major oil company wakes up focusing on how he is going to replace his reserves."
The crisis anticipated by these so-called petro-pessimists is one in which the world returns to the dark ages
Daniel Yergin - a petro-pessimist!
Dave and Westexas want to comment?
I haven't heard the quote. I only listened to the first broadcast. Highly recommended.
When I read your Yergin quote, Euan, my first thought was that the heads of the major oil companies were the pessimists! It couldn't apply to Yergin, right? But your interpretation is no doubt correct.
I am dumbfounded that Tom Mangold could make this mistake.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5305950.stm
His name is no longer in the article.
This is big.
"The technology of today and tomorrow can look better and better at the opportunities," he says. "So far there's no limit on finding oil. The technologies can keep up with finding it, but it gets more and more difficult."
that's reassuring. perhaps he could give us some numbers on his limitless findings... i was lead to believe they have been in decline for a few decades now.
sounds more like a Pr-man on damage control then a geophysicist to me.
There's always the chance for a miracle, but when you're talking about going down 17-18,000 vertical feet, and going out 5 miles, being in temperatures of 350 degrees
The miracle being finding rocks with any porosity and permeability and those depths
From the Times.
''The Human Brain is Hard - Wired to believe in the Supernatural''.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2342421,00.html
My ex-wife sent it to me.
If you want to comment on it, send me e.mail before you post here.
ceojr1963@yahoo.com
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost?"
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!"
But, God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt."
Nice story. As a "practical working hypothesis" I try to relate God with my own self. For me, "get your own dirt" would be a very practical thing (not always nice and easy, too). It requires me to look inside myself, go down in my deep dark cellar and "get the dirt out". Be honest about my own taboos, the 'not said', my biggest fears, worst frustrations, terrible fantasies and strongest beliefs (like religion).
And then, sometimes, when I discover and investigate an unknown part of this dungeon, and see it for what it is, it becomes lighter. A bit like God shows. I remember moments of utmost clearity, intelligence, fulfilment, connectness with my true self and the world around me when this happened. This little girl knows much more about that.
Finding God in the dirt, how does that relate to Oil/Uranium and it's implications?
p.s. Dan, I left the one personal question out and posted here directly. Email's in my profile ;)
I am an atheist myself, even in foxholes.
But that thing about jinxing a no-hitter by talking about it...it's twue, twue! ;-)
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=35730
Anadarko Petroleum along with BP and Devon announced a lower Tertiary Gulf of Mexico oil discovery at its Kaskida prospect ... encountering 800 net feet of hydrocarbon-bearing sands. The well ... was drilled in 5,860 feet of water to a total depth of approximately 32,500 feet using Transocean's semisub, Deepwater Horizon.
Invisible in the big picture I know, but the deepwater GOM Lower Tertiary play will certainly flatten the US decline curve for another ten years or so.
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/060905/323/gl7tu.html
SAN RAMON, Calif (AFX) - Chevron Corp said it has completed the deepest successful well test in the Gulf of Mexico, with the Jack 2 well at Walker Ridge Block 758 drilled to a total depth of 28,175 feet.
...
The test sustained a flow rate of more that 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day with the test representing approximately 40 pct of the total net pay measured in the Jack 2 well, Chevron said.
Chevron said the Jack well was completed and tested in 7,000 feet of water, and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor, breaking Chevron's 2004 Tahiti well test record as the deepest successful well test in the Gulf of Mexico.
...
Chevron and Devon officials estimate that recent discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico's lower-tertiary formations hold more than 3 bln barrels' and perhaps as much as 15 bln' worth of oil and gas reserves, the Journal said.
15 billion barrels = 2.5 years of US consumption
They simply removed the two italicized paragraphs (my italics not theirs), apparently without changing anything else including the "last updated" line. Since they are the British Broadcasting Service, perhaps they did so in honor of the "memory hole", first invented by the British author George Orwell.
Google Cache =)
-C.
-C.
I find it interesting that the focus here is on Yergin, not the term "petro-pessimist." Where the hell have I never heard that one before?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/drivenbyoil/pip/krpen/
Played this to my wife - I am finding it very hard to get her to understand the consequences of this.
I wouldn't worry about the Daniel Yergin thing - I don't think actually heard him on the program.
You're not alone. I've sort of given up trying to get through to my wife on this. When one steps out into the "real world" after having looked at (listened to) a PO clip, everything still looks "normal". Life continues as it always has. There are hardly any clues that something big and bad is rolling our way. The clerks at the stores still smile. The pumps at the gas station still pour forth the precious petrol. A huge cognitive disassociation develops.
Somebody has to be wrong. And it can't be all of "them" happy people out there. So it's got to be the one depressed you who has gone stark raving mad. Simple as that.
And there is really nothing you can do but just go one with your life.
As far as I can tell there isn't a practical way to prepare for the crash (soft or hard).
I'm just going along with the charade hoping the peak comes in twenty years, not last year.
Now she refuses to live on the farm anymore and prefers the happy,shiny faces at the shopping malls in the 'burbs' which she has fled back to. She didn't want to hear what doom and gloom I was talking about now.
So ends a 42 year marriage. I am getting ready and she is in denial, well not exactly for she recently survived two back to back coronaries (my health is excellent) and wants , I guess, to make her remaining years memorable and return to her images of how she thinks its supposed to be and to remain so.
She is not about to get out in the fields or gardens,pick peas nor can any produce or sun dry tomatoes. In a way I envy her I suppose. I would prefer the espressos, croissants, lazy shopping and running here and yon on a whim , blowing money like it was nothing,seeing all the latest movies and enjoying the fantasy. Comes the day you have to take a stand and either do something or STFU.
I have always been a realist and her a romantic. It come to a fork in the road.....and so I took it(YogiBerra).
I think this may become more common in the near future but
if its all a lot of BS? Well then I will buy that dreamed of airplane and spend all my time using all the fuel thats in such great supply and that we were all wrong about. It's probably be a single-seater anyway. I don't like backseat fliers anyway.
thank you
and rest assured, the bullshit is in the shopping malls,
not in the fields and gardens
I fear tomorrow's news for many an Intel employee and their families.
After October, the interesting question: what to do next?
- Dick Lawrence
ASPO-USA Boston Conference Coordinator
I miss it greatly but life goes on so I sold my small horse farm and moved back to my home county.
My wife and children though having never been exposed to 'real' rural life just could not encompass it in their life styles.
Mindset: Programmers and engineers saved the country's ass on Y2K. What did we get in return? Off shoring of jobs to other countries and out sourced!!! As a mainframe programmer my skillset became worthless. Thanks corpos.
What can we do for the upcoming redux? Nothing and they brought it on themselves.
We had a shot.
It missed or the finger slipped on the trigger.
As for myself, I realized something was going in the wrong direction when the corp. I worked for refused to let me in on the "newer" 16-bit microprocessor designs. They told me I was too valuable to let go from ongoing 8-bit designs. (That was back in the 1970's. I realized it was time to shift out of engineering because I was going to be obsoleted out of the job no matter what I did. Engineers do not become more valuable as they gray.)
Any word yet on the scope of the Intel layoffs?
What prevented you from adapting your career to persue new opportunities? Why didn't you update your skillset as technology changed? FWIW's I have changed my career directions three times since I graduated and have never been unemployeed nor have I been laid off. Who says you have to always remain as a mainframe programmer or even a programmer? Survival of the fittest doesn't just apply to natural selection it also applied to employment. Adapt to the changing environment and you won't have to worry about unemployement. The only trick to remain ahead of the curve, and when to see the corporate train wreck/iceburg ahead find a lifeboat and seek employment else where (doing something else if neccessary), just has you're doing to prepare for PO.
Good Luck to you.
You are probably a relatively young pup. In-the-trenches engineering is a young man's game. Old dogs don't learn new tricks so quickly. Wait till you have gray hair and can't read the fine print any more.
The business cycle pendulum always swings. Sooner or later it's razor's edge is going to come swinging for you --no matter what great things you did for them lately.
I am not so young but not so old as some of you. I have worked with a number of fellow engineers in thier late 50's and early 60's that have successfully adapted to the changing enviroment. For instance, one fellow I know well was a former EE who now does SAP migrations. This guy is always busy and has to turn now work all the time and he is 61.
The biggest challenge is finding an employeer willing to hire aging engineers is to do to health insurance costs or stigma over age. One way around this is to become a consultant engineer. Look for employment on projects instead of a full time positions. I will be the first to admit that age is a huge employment barrier, but it can be overcome with flexability, effort and persistence.
Ah, the geopolitics of oil. Stuff like this is why I'm skeptical anything will happen vis-a-vis the Iran nuclear program. Sanctions? What a load of bs. The Bush crime family is insane if they think the world will go along with it.
at least I hope so!
<img src="http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k193/robwaldron/EthanolIdea.jpg
;^)
Have you done an energy balance? I notice that you assume sugar cane as input but the bagasse doesn't seem to be used. For that matter, neither is the waste heat from the charcoal retort.
I should leave the energy balance calcs up to you, being the engineer.
I am a coastal geologist by trade. Because the retort chimney has a very
high positive pressure inside (extremely small flue aperture), most of the
pressure can be released through the producer gas piping to a carburetor,
propane-type burner, gas lamps, shop heater (well vented), etc.
I hear that bagasse is making a very serviceable binder in insulative wallboard. It can also be processed for animal feed additive, being high in iron and other mineral content. Finally, let it dry and just burn it in the firebox.
I appreciate all of your input.
Spreadsheets are your friend.
I hope the drininking rum part isn't manufactured yet, as that would be in violation of the revenuing laws.
I was not think as much about Money as I was about Funny!
I don't think that I could drink more than a few small ounces,
but my brother sure could. Such a project, could, however be
profitable on a neighborhood basis as barter products prevail
under relocalization inevitabilities. Horse-draw trailer of hard
wood charcoal to farmer's market. Barter hot showers and laundry
(my well is artesian) to passers-by. Sell ethanol for alcohol lamps
and disinfectants. Make biodiesel with suitable stocks and trade
for household necessities. I know, I am somewhere between
a doomer and a dreamer!
Sell ethanol for alcohol lamps and disinfectants.
Alas, to be legal... any fuel that leaves the property/control needs to be de-natured. Ispropal is the only de-naturant I can think of that would be 'disinfectant' safe option.
As for lamps, I've tried the old-style bryte lyte petromax lantern. The alcohol "surges" and blows out mantles.
This page has a picture of the "new" mixing tube.
http://britelyt.groupee.net/MethanolEthanolTest.html
Now, what alcohol lanterns are you refering to?
Any number of alcohol cookstoves and lanterns are available or constructible.
http://wings.interfree.it/html/main.html
The optimus nova is not listed as Alcohol burning in the official lit, but others claim it works. I tried it, it does not.
Brytly and the Hiker 111C are suppossed to be able to burn alchohol, but brylyte stoves have been backorded from Jan 2006 (and are forward projected till Oct 2006) and the Hiker is having a burner head change in 2007 model. I have yet to see a 111C to try it.
IIRC the laws allow you to brew about 200 gallons (of at least beer) per year for personal consumption, but not for sale without a permit.
But be ye mead or barley or fruit...as soon as you distill it for drinking you are in violation of the law.
So having a GIF saying 'this is for drinking' is a poor plan,
Just in case we've got a "country snafu" going on, I'm talking about US law.
http://www.homebrewzone.com/
I came across the claim some 20 years ago... and the local BTFA agensts seemed shocked at the 'no limit' finding.
Not shocked that it has changed.
I appreciate having the updates on liquor law, but you guys sound like my female relatives. They all love their prescribed legal technodrugs that only insurance regulation can command, but once one of us gives my boy a beer they erupt into hysterics about the law and how my grandfather was an alcoholic. All of us should become men when considering the bleak prospect of Peak Alcohol. As the bible says, "they will allow themselves to be lorded over by women and their children (paraphrase). In fact, the revenuers will be women. When that happens, it's open doe season.
Who am I to suggest to a CreoleGenius the removal of a reference to a crime from the public internet.
Carry on,
What are they adding so the yeast has stuff to build the rest of their bodies on? Pure honey is slow to ferment.
If one ferments to 'dry', there won't be any extra sugar left to consume.
Methods they could try:
If one ferments to 'dry', there won't be any extra sugar left to consume."
I'm not sure how exactly he does it, but one of the things he mentioned is that he uses a lot more honey than most other people as well as yeast that dies out at a specific proof. There appear to be no short term storage problems, but he anticipates that if someone were to leave a bottle out in room temp conditions for a long period of time the potential exists for the fermentation to keep occuring and eventually rupture a bottle. For a commercial venture that could present a problem.
There's an answer - fortify the mead!
MadBee 20/20...its got sting!
(why not slap a label that says 'keep refrigerated' if he opts to not go with, say, pot. sorbate?)
Not to be flattering, but I think you are a very smart guy.
What exactly, however, are you creating and fabricating to
prepare for the advent of peak alcohol?
I do not advocate use of primary foodstuffs such as corn for
the production of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. I do
prepare for the eventual return of gasoline and diesel shortages.
Katrina was a two-month object lesson for me in this regard.
Ethanol is a major component in the production of traditional
biodiesel. I now possess a copper reflux still and the surplus
stocks of grains, sugar and yeast to fuel the device. It would
be wonderful to believe that society-at-large will continue to
provide for my fuel needs as long as my credit is good. My
experience with disasters now provides me with the under-
standing that credit and even cash will one day not be enough.
prepare for the advent of peak alcohol?
The buytnol path interests me, and once I have a ball mill or destructive shredder I may spend some quality time working up a buytnol envirnoment. If I can get a fungus->sugar path worked out, I'll try that for ethynol. Because people will give me all the cardboard I can rot away.
http://www.lightparty.com/Energy/Butanol.html
http://www.butanol.com
The folks who have developed these new methods and organisms for fermentation should release the technology to the public immediately. Because butanol does not corrode pipelines, it could conceivably replace ethanol as fuel and anti-knock compound with similar efficiencies to pure gasoline. And, as you mentioned, butanol can use a number of waste products as feedstock.
They have, (at least the process) via the patent office. The use of the bacteria is how Acetone was mass produced for WWI.
But that bacteria in either a more traditional method(s) or the method that keeps the bacteria in a metabolism to butynol mode would require the feedstock to be mechanically broken up.
Remember too, that Bush thinks he is acting under divine mandate.
Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin
My family and I loved to watch him, but he always appeared to be living very dangerously. He leaves behind a wife and 2 young children.
He who lives by the venomous aquamarines,
Dies by the aquamarines,
We who live on the noxious petro chemicals,
..... (you don't want to know)
I posted on this weeks ago, and at the time asked if anyone knew whether it was just Heinberg making the claim, or if there were other parties saying similar things. There was no reaction then; now that Leanan posts it, let's try again.
It would not be without implications if it were true, to put it mildly. Cutting Ghawar output by 50%........
The EB posted this story a few weeks ago, and Professor Goose posted a discussion on the topic on the TOD. I pointed out to the EB guys the importance of the Ghawar story, and they highlighted it in their summary.
I agree that it is a good idea to revisit the topic, in light of the Saudis new status as a sometimes importer of petroleum products.
Based on the HL method, Saudi Arabia (SA) in 2005 was at the same stage of depletion that Texas was at in 1972, when Texas peaked. A key difference is that SA is far more reliant on its biggest field than Texas was in 1972 (50% plus versus 7%). Note that the fact that the North Sea peaked at the same stage of depletion as the Lower 48 peak supports using Texas as an analogue for SA.
IMO, we now have credible reports that all four of the largest producing fields in the world are now declining. There is a good chance that Ghawar and Cantarell may both be crashing. I think that we are in the calm before another round of bidding for declining net oil exports.
As I said earlier, IMO this is not a drill. I think that we are on the downslope of Hubbert's Peak.
Jan 9.4
Feb 9.5
Mar 9.35
Apr 9.35
May 9.2
Jun 9.1 million bpd
With the Haradh Phase 3 GOSP (S Ghawar) reported to be fully commissioned earlier this year there is no major new Saudi oil comming down the pipe this year.
I'm still puzzled by these figures in relation to oil price. Is Saudi playing its traditional role of swing producer or are they pumping flat out? Gut feel tells me the latter but oil price may suggest the former.
The commissioning of the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline in June has brought 300,000 bpd new Caspian oil to market and that may be keeping the lid on price for the time being.
Otherwise, soft price must be related to demand destruction - I've been meaning to look into this for some time now.
Of course the oil price is just below its 50 day MA and is above the rising 200 day MA - so maybe it is not soft after all. The US got tanked up waiting for Hurricanes that as yet have not happened - but as I've said many times now - wait for El Nino to switch then all Hell may break loose.
I suspect that the drop in oil prices is related to a worldwide slowdown in the housing marked. I don't expect a dramatic rise in the price of oil until it becomes obvious to anyone that were past peak, and that technology can't save us.
Then however I imagine there will be complete and utter panic.
by Jas Jain
http://www.safehaven.com/article-5824.htm
some interesting excerpts...
"I am no expert on Peak Oil, but Peak Oil is not the urgent problem that the world faces, economically, or politically. The problems of the supply-demand of oil will play out over a longer period and its effects would be spread over a longer period of time than that of the Peak Debt, which are lot more immediate. As a matter of fact, it has been the rapidly rising debt (racing towards the peak), which in turn has "fueled" a worldwide construction boom, that has resulted in the high prices for oil over the past 4 years and not the realization of the problem of Peak Oil. During the coming global depression, within this decade, the price of crude oil should fall below $25 a barrel and there will be glut due to sharply falling demand. I realize that these are not the concerns that people have today as long as the American consumer keeps borrowing. But, for how long?"
.
.
.
"What happens at the Peak Debt is that the Total Debt of the economy, as a percent of the GDP, or nominal debt in current dollars, or both, stop going up and start to go down. The last time that the Peak Debt occurred in the US was in early 1930s and I can confidently predict that the next Peak Debt will occur within this decade, because the forces pushing debt higher and higher are reaching a point of exhaustion."
Let us suppose that the crash due to peak oil does occur.
Everything is crashing down around us. The economy is dying, people are in panic, survivalists are running , the government is helpless.......
Do you then suppose that the bankers will be out beating the bush demanding repayment of debts and issuing foreclosures? ? ?
I sincerely doubt such. I think they would worried about confronting angry ,crazied , panic sticken people and would be wise to split to their own spiderholes instead.
If the did come to some outdoor campfire with survivors sitting around eating roasted roadkill and demand payments or foreclosure they would surely understand that their deaths might be very close at hand.
Instead seeing chaos on the horizon would it not be the wiser to make as many debts as possible realizing the need to repay them may never materialize? The banking technology can tumble just as easy as any other. Some one could burn the bank, dynamite it, steal everything...
Shades of Jesse James.. or Bonnie and Clyde.
Seriously though this won't be like the depression IMO.
I think you will own what you can defend and deeds and titles of ownership will mean very little.
BTW all national parks,national forests and all government owned lands appear to me to belong therefore to the public and are available for squatting.
airdale--I could be wrong, I have been wrong before.
YES
YES
I agree strongly.
Airdale, I'm not really sure why you make such an assumption, that bankers will not enact foreclosures, but it sounds like you are imagining peak oil to be a sudden catastrophe, with no public ambiguity about its cause.
Rather, I suggest it is more likely to present itself as a broad, slowly accelerating economic squeeze, with the price of living rising for everyone except perhaps the ultra-rich. As inflation rises, central banks will raise interest rates, regardless of whether that is the right thing to do. Economic activity will decrease, and unemployment will rise.
I suggest that bankers beating down people's doors to foreclose on marginal loans is exactly the kind of event which will characterize the peak period. Whilst I expect continued outrage over the cost of fuel, I actually expect the current focus upon high oil prices to subside as people have a more diverse set of grievances to complain about.
But you never know...
Reviewing my post, I think I may given the impression I'm something of a soft landing type.
I would like to clarify that I'd imagine that the kind of consequences you speculate about are more than possible, perhaps likely, but for me, they become possible in a period significantly after peak. Perhaps 20 years?
I guess the point is that however long it takes for us to get from here to there (if indeed we do), then surely during the interim period, foreclosures become more and more frequent?
The only way that a depression won't just spiral down and down is if the government steps in, takes over deliquent mortgages and lets people keep their homes. But, of course, government works for big business, special interests, and the military industrial complex, not for the average american without a multi-million lobbying budget. I am firmly convinced that the federal government will never again do anything that would help the average citizen.
The GSEs are in a hole somewhere between 1.5 and 2 trillion. There is no way the US gov't is going to bail out the system. that would be near 20% of GDP in a signal year.
Did you notice that the DOJ abruptly ended its investigation in the GSEs? My guess is that they found something really bad and didn't want to cause the markets to tumble.
I would add: the government, even if it wanted to (purely hypothetical), can't step in, because it's utterly bankrupt even before the crash. If there were any part of the powers of politics left that was not yet controlled by finance (purely hypothetical), this will be the last straw.
The question of whether it will be a soft or hard landing will be determined by geopolitical factors, not geological ones, in my view.
For example, if the oft-discussed attack on Iran does occur (with or without nuclear weapons) in the near future, it is quite conceivable that the global oil delivery system would be severely disrupted for possibly months at a time, perhaps longer.
With the personal debt levels being what they are, how would the US economy react to receiving, say, 50% of the usual daily oil imported amount? Not well, that's for sure. In such a catastrophic scenario, most everyone would be scrambling just to stay alive and I'm not sure if the mechnanisms to enforce bank foreclosures would survive in the immediate aftermath.
People with nowhere to go and nothing to lose would probably just remain in their foreclosed homes and dare the authorities to do something about it. Not to mention the fact that the authorities would be probably be concerned about a heck of a lot more than removing squatters.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but the catastrophic scenario is the one I think most likely, given the current level of unresolved international tension.
Historically, a fixed rate mortgage has been a slam-dunk no-brainer winner, because (1) one can almost count on any government to debauch its currency at least once in a 30-year period and (2) one can almost always refinance whenever rates go much below what one is paying. So it's a lovely one-way ratchet - as long as one can retain one's job, which was most often the case in that period.
The curious thing is that given all that, anyone is willing to lend money on a long term fixed rate basis. Moral hazard, I suppose. Perhaps a banker can comment.
For the most part, Banks don't hold the debt. Bank and mortgage lenders typically bundle up mortgage loans and either offer them on the bond market or to the GSEs (Freddie & Fanny). Banks make there money of servicing the loans (collecting payments) and fees.
When the tide of foreclosures begins, banks will likely foreclosure and either try selling the property or let it go to auction. The banks will collect fees from servicing the forclosure. Whatever the different between the mortgage and how much money is collected is thrown back at the foreclosed home owned. With the new 2004 backruptcy laws that debt hangs around the neck of the borrower like a dead albtross. Banks will have the ability to go after any and all personal assets as well go after job income.
>Seriously though this won't be like the depression IMO.
Its likely to be far worse, since there will be many more people than the 1930s. Plus the country will be facing PO, and Entitlement funding crisis. By 2012, SS outlays will exceed SS revenue. Medicare outlay already exceed revenues and the SS revenue surplus is used to close the gap. By 2008 the system cracks will start to appear because SS revenue peaks and begins a decline. With the new Drug entitlement program its likely that the combined SS + Medicare outlays exceed revenues perhaps as early by 2010. Even if PO was decades away, the US will still face a major crisis.
As for me I doubt that they would last very long shagging around trying to force folks off their land or out of their homes.
First because I don't see any law enforcement. In most rural counties there is only one sheriff and few deputies. I think they will not be sticking around after the paychecks cease.
Anyway they can't possibly suspect that the whole system of law enforcement will exist. Even if martial law is declared who is going to enforce it?
I think it will pretty much dog eat dog and those stupid enough to come around asking for money when it will not be in any supply whatsoever are not too smart.
Coming around with their hands out while people are trying to just survive? Nope.
I must live in an entirely different world than many here.
When if ever things get back in order then maybe I will consider it but first I believe that those EFTs and checks in the mail from SS and my ex-employer's pension plan are going to stop pretty damn fast.
Myself I doubt that paper fiat money will be of any use whatsoever since it all a mirage anyway and not of any real intrinsic value whatsoever.
But "dream on , dream on(teenage queen..yada yada)".
Greg, thanks for posting this. It makes it easier to get your mind around a problem if you have a catchy title for it.
Kevin Phillips -- whose 1968 book "the coming Republican Majority" psychically predicted Nixon through GWB -- has a new book out "American Theocracy." The three problems he identifies (in order of importance) are Peak Oil, the rise to power of the religious right, and Peak Debt.
When one looks at the charts, one will see that the exponential rise in debt directly mirrors the exponential rise in the use of oil and natural gas. Both are bubbles, and if the debt bubble doesn't pop on its own, peak oil and gas will pop it. The economy has been growing at a 3-4% rate, while the debt that powers it (along with fossil fuels) grows at a 15% rate. It is obvious that debt cannot continue to double every 5 years indefinitely.
Plus, peak oil strongly implies that growth will soon be negative, more or less permanently. Servicing debt requires the economy grow forever. If growth stops, the game of musical chairs stops and the vast majority of the debt outstanding becomes uncollectable. As the above article puts it:
"America will become a nation full of bankrupt households most of whom were formerly middle class. It does not bode well for the stability of the whole political system."
The rise to power of the Christian right helps ensure that the responses to the problems will not be rational, but instead based on fulfilling imagined ancient prophecies, in order to mechanistically provoke the diety into rescuing the faithful by the means of a rapture. (My favorite bumper sticker, "after the rapture, we get to keep their stuff.")
As I've suggested before, it is quite possible that the popping of the debt bubble will mask peak oil, and we might not even feel it until a number of years down the road.
If a severe recession cuts the demand for oil from 85 MB/D to 70, prices will collapse, expensive deep sea ventures will be put on hold, and somewhere down the road when a recovery starts up (or a war like WWII breaks out), we'll bump up against against limits, but they will be blamed on the lack of investment caused by the recession.
It may be decades before historians point out what will then be obvious: that peak oil came and went.
The rise to power of the Christian right helps ensure that the responses to the problems will not be rational, but instead based on fulfilling imagined ancient prophecies, in order to mechanistically provoke the diety into rescuing the faithful by the means of a rapture. (My favorite bumper sticker, "after the rapture, we get to keep their stuff.")
<<Snip>>
That last comment about the bumper sticker is Ironic. If You are following Christ, 'Your Stuff' means nothing to you, and if someone else has it so be it.
My Christian Opinion is that there is only ONE (1) End. There is not a "Rapture" that takes souls to heaven leaving the rest to suffer. In Missouri Synod Lutheran doctrine, this is a false teaching. Great fiction for books and movies, but bad for teaching what Christ Taught.
But aside from that, there is still a vast movement of people thinking that the rapture will save them and everyone else will suffer, or the bigger side of that movement those who make fun of the "rapturists"!
No matter what anyone claims I or anyone else can not change GOD's direction or anything GOD would do.
That is my opinion.
As far as peak oil helping anyone get God to work faster, they are misguided and should be prayed for instead and if they hold public office, voted out for their own sake and ours.
What can WE DO while the faith addicted monkeys roam around in their delirious dreams?
You're not going to change them.
You're not going to convince them that they are 100% wrong and you are 100% right. So you might as well give them some respect and hope that they behave per their religion by performing "good works" and being "good stewards" of the Earth.
I really don't care what weird ideas they may harbor internally about God and the Universe as long as their outward actions do not profoundly harm the world. So I say live and let live.
Not my goal, I just want NOT TO BE HARMED by the psychopaths.
You're not going to convince them that they are 100% wrong and you are 100% right.
That's not the point, I have NO HOPE of convincing them that they are even 1% wrong and I am certainly not sure that I am 100% right.
This last point is probably the main difference between them and us. By this, I am not confusing atheism with agnosticism but intend to speak of the PRACTICAL views held by both camps, God based "solutions" are always 100% right isn't it?
So you might as well give them some respect and hope that they behave per their religion
Yeah! Great!
Let the islamists behave "per their religion", it happens that they are the WORST and most prominent but EVERY other dominant religion is just as bad on the edges :
Condoms bad, AIDS good, population explosion good.
Burning widows alive.
Etc...
All these belong to the realm of PSYCHIATRY, notwithstanding the fact that they are widespread.
Alleged "democracy" is no reason to let the inmates run the asylum just because they are the majority, how psychiatric hospitals would do if this were the rule?
So I say live and let live.
I certainly agree that the harmless ones should be peacefully left to the "weird ideas they may harbor internally" but what about the noxious?
In case you did not notice the most extremists ARE defended by the "moderates" on the basis of freedom of religion.
Lumping together ALL faiths and any faith prescriptions under this "freedom" umbrella is the most perverse and deleterious effect of the otherwise commendable humanist stance.
Every religion (or non-religion) has nut cakes. You are being fooled by the randomness ... and by MSM. Timothy McVeigh was not a muslim. The right wing Israeli who shot Rabin was not a muslim. Lee Harvey Oswald? The soldiers at Mai Lai Vietnamm? At Ahbu Grave (sp?)
If you shut off your emotions for a moment and start compiling a list of non-muslim human devils (Adolf Hitler was not a muslim, Stalin was not a ..., Gengis Kahn was not a ...) you will see that "they" have no monopoly on bad behavior. All human populations are filled with evil doers.
That said, I agree that certain, My-God-Is-the-one-and-only religions cultivate a greater degree of xenophobia and intolerance than others. But that doesn't stop crazies from appearing everywhere.
Please READ the linked Quran’s Teachings.
Muslims are REQUIRED to be nut cakes, the "moderate" muslims are NOT GOOD MUSLIMS they will miss the 72 virgins.
Islam is specially psychopatic, even more so than ancient Jewish teachings which dont seem to be taken seriously anymore.
My main point is that "moderate" religions will ALWAYS be a breeding ground for extremisms under the guise of "freedom of religion" and that fancyful faith prescriptions should be constrained by the rule of secularist law whenever they imply hostility to non believers.
You did not address that point in you reply.
But that doesn't stop crazies from appearing everywhere.
In fact, in your reply you did not address ANY point I was making.
I was not at all talking about "customary" evil which will not disappear easily either.
I was talking about EXPLICIT evil trends embodied in any religion.
You whole response stinks.
You are a strange atheist...
I am not cognizant of our being in a debate and of one scoring "points" against the other.
You seem to have a lot of emotional venom against "muslims" in particular. I'm asking you to step back and see that almost all humans have a lizard brain (a reptilian part) that makes them think they are "special" ... that death/destruction will not come to the "special" them but only to the unspecial others.
Muslims think they are special. Christians think they are special. Atheists think they are special. Americans think they are special. PO doomers think they are special. None of them are. We should each treat the other as a relative equal. Just a little bit of respect and dignity. Peace.
It is not about scoring points it is about not straying randomly from the topic, and I guess we have been in a debate, if not this is pretty surrealistic.
see that almost all humans have a lizard brain
Yeah I even posted about that, so?
that death/destruction will not come to the "special" them but only to the unspecial others.
Thinking on my behalf! Truly smart!
But you are mistaken, it's just the opposite, my lizard brain tells me that I am likely doomed unless I can deter the other lizards.
None of them are.
Some are REALLY "special", willing themselves to die, like the muslims...
And BTW I am not against people, special or not, I am against psychiatric illness and deleterious memes or cultures or whatever you want to call crazy ideas which are detrimental even to their VERY BEHOLDERS.
Just a little bit of respect and dignity.
We probably have very different ideas about "respect and dignity" I am not too sure it is worth much keeping with this "non debate".
--LOL
Well clearly your lizard portion of the brain is way more advanced than most of the others.
Those other lizards are telling their owners: "Duck and Hide when you hear about that TERRORism stuff. Shut off all cognitive reasoning and become like a scared and hunted animal when this terror stuff is mentioned." And it doesn't matter whose side you are on. Terror from the Zionist Pig Israeli/Americans is the same as terror from the Islamo-Facist Crazed Muslims. Terror is terror. It is a great way to control the animal mind. No wonder all governments use it (Even those who claim to be land of the free and home of the "brave". Ha. Who's brave now a days?)
When the limbic portion of the brain hears that Mr. Lizard is terrorized, the limbic part says: "Hey, this is no time to cut and run from the herd. I'm sticking with my kind. Chickens of a feather flock together."
The cognitive neo-cortex figures there is no point in reasoning because it is already out voted 2 to 1, and besides, Mr. Lizard always has veto power.
May be, because I don't give a hoot about terrorism.
Your replies are more and more schizophrenic, you are absolutely off tracks with respect to the point I meant to discuss:
I was talking about EXPLICIT evil trends embodied in any religion.
And whether
fancyful faith prescriptions should be constrained by the rule of secularist law whenever they imply hostility to non believers.
because
I just want NOT TO BE HARMED by the psychopaths.
Why do you PRETEND to be an atheist?
Yes, I know I'm altering what you wrote and there is a reason for that. But first let me answer your questions (challenges?) in backwards order:
1. Why do you PRETEND to be an atheist?
A: I never proclaimed myself to be an absolutist atheist. I describe myself as a quantum religionist. For me, both statements are simultaneously true: God does not exist and God does exist.
It all of course depends on what you mean when you generate the noise bark: "God". If you mean any force by which a so-called "will of God" is made to come into being at least in some limited sense, well then yes, there are people who fervently believe in their version of God and do their God's will (to the extent they can) and thus under that definition God exists and his/her/its will is done (i.e. through the works of a Mother Teresa for example).
If instead you mean some super-natural all-powerful intelligent being that spends all his/its time focusing exclusively on the doings of some obscure, ape-like insects on some small planet in the vast universe, and especially listening in to their silent prayers --well of course that is total bullshit. One need not look further than the first few verses of the Old Testament to see a contradiction. If "God" is this all powerful being, what the hell does he need a day of "rest" for? A religious believer would never see it that way of course and would never question.
2. [I was talking about ..] whether fancyful faith prescriptions should be constrained by the rule of secularist law whenever they imply hostility to non believers.
A: In a former life I used to be a believer. So I kind of understand the mindset although I probably do not remember it well. I can only speak from the persepective of my own religion (semi-orthodox judiasm in my case). Although there is all kinds of "stuff" written in the holy books, hardly anyone pays real attention to it. A vast majority of the so-called religious do not even know how to read the texts in their original langauges (Hebrew, Aramic, Latin, etc.). The translations are always screwed up. Most believers simply follow the preaching of their Holy man (rabbi, mullah, priest, etc.) Most believers are functionally illterate when it comes to the actual writings of their religion.
There is a wide chasm between religion as "it is written" and religion as it is practiced. For example, most practicing jews refuse to eat meat with milk. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that this should be done. Instead it says thou shall not boil the calf's meat in his mother's milk --the scholars read this to mean that people should not be increduously abusive to animals. In other words, it is bad enough that you take a cow's baby (her calf) from her and kill it for meat. Do not humiliate the cow even further by using the milk that was meant to feed her calf as a resource for cooking that calf's meat. In other words, have some modicum of respect even as you go about killing and abusing animals. Well that was a diversionary rant about that aspect of judaism. Let's get back to your point:
If I understand you correctly, you are taking literally many of the things written in the Qoran and assuming that ALL muslims take this stuff literally and they are ALL out to kill you.
You are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that if there is even a hint of an implication of preaching harm to un-believers, then secular law (i.e. US Federal law) should step in and prohibit the preaching of the written words. Basically you want to cut off freedom of speech and freedom of assembly for all who practice any religion where there is an "implication" (as you see it) that they mean to harm you.
If that is the case, why stop at just religions? Why not expand your prohibition against free speech and assemblages to ALL mental activities that might imply harm to you? If I were you I would start with the halls of Congress and the White House because there are a lot of whacky, potentially harmful things being said in those places all the time --probably much worse and more dangerous than what some of the crazed religious people are preaching.
BOTTOM LINE: I see you as wanting to control the mental activities of the lizard brains around you because some of those lizard brains can do you harm. Unless you yourself are God there is no practical way of doing that. You can't stop other people from thinking. You can't stop them from having crazy thoughts.
(Lastly you accuse me of being schizoid. One part of me says you're wrong, the other says you're right :-)
Your weaseling is much more subtle and interesting than the one from odograph, understandable if as a "former" Jewish you had some talmudic practice.
Yet you CANNOT claim to be BOTH an atheist and a "quantum religionist" of whatever unspecified "residual" theism.
Go argue for your quantum religionism on a truly atheistic forum and get gack to me.
there are people who fervently believe in their version of God and do their God's will
Though you see this as a lesser idiocy somehow, this is in fact the CORE of the theistic question :
Assuming a WILL of some sort, this is anthropomorphisation and paranoia at its' brightest.
Did you read Scott Atrans' In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion?
Although there is all kinds of "stuff" written in the holy books, hardly anyone pays real attention to it.
Hardly anyone but the extremists, did I said otherwise :
even more so than ancient Jewish teachings which dont seem to be taken seriously anymore.
Most believers simply follow the preaching of their Holy man (rabbi, mullah, priest, etc.) Most believers are functionally illterate when it comes to the actual writings of their religion.
This is the reason they so easily back the extremists without really knowing what they are doing, they WRONGLY believe that the extremists are "of their same group", did I said otherwise :
My main point is that "moderate" religions will ALWAYS be a breeding ground for extremisms under the guise of "freedom of religion"
If I understand you correctly, you are taking literally many of the things written in the Qoran and assuming that ALL muslims take this stuff literally and they are ALL out to kill you.
No, you don't "understand correctly", quite surprising for a subtle mind like yours.
I AM "taking literally many of the things written in the Qoran" but I DON'T assume that "ALL muslims take this stuff literally".
Did not YOU just said that Most believers are functionally illterate when it comes to the actual writings of their religion.?
Are you playing a fool or assuming I am one?
How would most believers "take literally" things that they don't even know about?
and they are ALL out to kill you.
Keep the innuendo going, Eh?
Not "all" but SOME are out to kill anyone, including me and even any other muslims if they happen to have the "wrong" beliefs or just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Never noticed anything like that?
Or, contariwise, do you think I am endorsing the "war on terror"?
What I think actually is that these EXTREME cases must not be delt with with war, police or justice but with antipsychotic medication as far as one can be found to cure group psychosis.
You are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that if there is even a hint of an implication of preaching harm to un-believers, then secular law (i.e. US Federal law) should step in and prohibit the preaching of the written words. ?
Yes, I will have to "correct you".
Did I say "a hint"?
Did I say "prohibit the preaching"?
I said :
fancyful faith prescriptions should be constrained by the rule of secularist law whenever they imply hostility to non believers.
Basically you want to cut off freedom of speech and freedom of assembly for all who practice any religion where there is an "implication" (as you see it) that they mean to harm you.
Did I spoke of "freedom of speech"?
Did I spoke of "freedom of assembly"?
Did I say "as I see it" like if I were the one who legislate?
I said PRESCRIPTIONS should be constrained by the rule of secularist law, prescriptions are directives for ACTIONS not just speech or assembly.
I said whenever they IMPLY HOSTILITY to non believers.
Do you need an explanation for hostility?
As for imply conjoined with prescriptions this means that the prescriptions would be resulting in hostile actions toward non believers even when not explicitly proffered as threats or constraints.
It is the DEEDS resulting of such fancyful faith prescriptions which should be constrained by the rule of secularist law.
And as a LAW its should NOT be just the whim of an individual or small cohort.
If that is the case, why stop at just religions, etc...
...
I see you as wanting to control the mental activities of the lizard brains around you because some of those lizard brains can do you harm.
...
You can't stop other people from thinking. You can't stop them from having crazy thoughts.
WHERE DOES ALL THAT CRAP COMES FROM?
I am only saying KICK THE ARSES of the crazies whenever they try to ACT their crazyness, by way of SECULARIST LAW (not "war on terror").
You are BLATANTLY engaged in some sort of propaganda.
If you keep deliberately warping my words to suit your arguments I fear I will not be courteous for much longer.
Peak Oil, Peak Debt, Peak People. I'm not sure that is the right analysis. Seems to me we have hit limits, probably in the 70s, at which point the system started "substituting" as any good neo-liberal economy would. The more refined - and our is highly refined - the more likely everything comes to a crisis all at once. Those Microsoft ads about "one degree of separation". I used to tell my clients "Those are the next businesses to get rolled up in global economy". They didn't laugh. [I lost a few clients for being a bit forward, but they all got rolled up anyway.] Anyway, no fish in the ocean, substitute grain. No fuel, substitute grain. All we need is to start fueling our electric plants with ethanol from corn. Hmm, maybe I could get a grant for that....
Debt bubble pops. We are going to feel it.
cfm in Gray, ME
All U.S. debt (corporate idiots, government idiots, and individual idiots) is shown here. I am a self confessed debt-phobe; I will never own a credit card untill they place one in my cold, dead hand. I am nauseated by all the growth justification of government debt, where they say we will grow our way out of all the red ink. They've been saying that now for many decades, but I think it's a rabbit chasing a carrot on a stick untill one day, after the global oil production peak, there will be no more easy growth and the rabbit hits a brick wall.
That is one of the things that it scary about our current ratio. Imagine what would happen to our debt/GDP Ratio in a severe recession/depression.
Also, the nature of our GDP today is vastly different from 1935. Today, the majority of Americans live off the discretionary income of other Americans. In 1935, probably less than 10%, perhaps less than 5%, of Americans lived off the discretionary income of other Americans.
Thats rather silly. You can just pay the full amount due every month and hold no debt. I've had Credit cards for decades but I've always paid the amount due in full.
This self-confessed "prophet of doom and gloom" basically takes a snapshot of the last century which shows a clear peak around the time of the great depression, then a big mountain which shows no signs of levelling off, and from this concludes there must be such a thing as "peak debt".
No. I don't buy it.
- Debt is not a geologically limited thing. It's an artificial economic construct. There are no physical limits to it.
- He has not shown that economies collapse in the presence of high debt. He showed that around the time of the great depression debt levels fell, of course, along with everything else but correlation does not imply causation and he does not convincingly argue it was due to debt.
Stupid levels of debt and ridiculously bad loans are indeed likely to bankrupt people in the future, but that's not some natural response to a "peak", that's a response to irresponsible lending practices that encourage people to take out risky things like HELOCs. For there to be a "peak" you would have to show that there is some natural limit to the amount of debt that can be sustained by the economy and that a crash (rather than a levelling out or gentle fall) is the natural response. The author didn't do that.The limits are set by those who wish to lend money. When times are good, lenders are more willing to lend and in times of recession lends are less inclined to lend. Much of the rise of debt in the last 10 years can be contributed to steadly rising real estate prices. As long as the prices continued to rise, lenders were willing to lend out, even to those with crappy credit ratings. At the worse, the lender could just forclose and his principle was safe. Now that real estate is peaked there is a chance that they might lose some of their principal or have there capital tied up in assets for years, even decads. They are now less likely to lend out money. We can already see that mortgage rates and Credit card Rates are on the rise because lenders are pulling back.
>He has not shown that economies collapse in the presence of high debt.
A lot of south American nations defaulted on thier debt which resulted in economic hardships for decades.
>Stupid levels of debt and ridiculously bad loans are indeed likely to bankrupt people in the future, but that's not some natural response to a "peak".
Easy credit was attributed to the internet boom of the 1990s and later the housing boom. Now that the housing boom is coming to end its very possible that that debt levels have peaked. When this occurs the economy will face lots of pain, as consumers can no longer continue buying goods and services on future earnings. The will begin to pay down debt causing the to consume less and cause an economic downturn. ie the must start paying for the stuff they purchased years ago which leaves the less income to spend on goods and services today.
NEW TOD EXPERT
One third of US oil use (and comparable elsewhere) is used for non-transportation uses. Virtually no analysis is done on this subject on TOD or elsewhere.
Instead, the primary focus is on personal transportation use (a bit less than 9 million b/day for US use, out of ~21 million b/day).
Sweden, Switzerland and others are pushing the use of ground loop heat pumps to replace ol for space heating. Much plastic use is "discretionary" and often wasteful. Much is essential.
But on one on TOD has analysized the #s, looked at policy options and so forth.
I carved a niche at TOD by looking at inter-city heavy trucking (as well as Urban Rail). I have the technical capability but not the time to pursue this opening.
TOD has developed acknowledged experts in several areas, but we have a MAJOR gap with non-transportation uses of oil.
Any long term reader here understands the level of technical expertise and research required. I think a diligent, informed lay person could tackle this project. More than one person may be needed to adequately cover this position.
I hope that the editors of TOD consider this and will post an article on "Help Wanted" for greater visibility.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Ironically, it's probably easier to propose schemes to get all our plastic monomers from non-petroleum sources than to learn how that petroleum gets used (one bit of fallout from Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" scheme was the information that there exists a catalyst for reacting syngas which is highly specific for ethylene; voila, there's polyethylene).
I have an idea for using diesel engines in our St. Charles route until the new
high-tension lines are installed (two more years). I need to know what power each unit requires for its electric engine (start-up amperage and voltage). I realize that it could never get done in today's political landscape, but I would still like to draw you a picture. If you would ever like to see far-thinking, non-transportation oil use projects, you will be invited to my homestead north of I-12. We could get together with Engineer Poet.
http://www.kcrw.com/podcast/
It's easiest if you use podcast software, but if you want a quick hack, just open the podcast xml file and look for the url directly to the mp3.
Alanfrombigeasy...
I have whined about the heat pumps for months and pointed out something that seems tob becompletely ignored, that being that if we can make heating, hot water and aircondition more efficient through ground coupled heat pumps, better insulation, solar hot water, passive heating and cooling, etc, we can free up natural gas and propane which can then assist on the transportation side. Unlike coal, nuclear wind and solar, nat gas and propane are transportation fuels and very clean that way.
Put the wind, sun and ground to work on th non transportation sides to free up the clean stuff if we need it for transport, and to slow the coal consumption to reduce greenhouse gas....this is why the wild attack on the THE CAR, THE CAR THE CAR!!!, is sometimes a bit over done, thank you!~ :-)
On the other side though, you mix the stationary conservation with the electric trains your a proponent of, you could take consumption of crude oil per se in this country right through the FLOOR!
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
I have been living with the geo-thermal heatpump I installed myself in my log house for the last 2 1/2 years. Don't know why I waited so long, oh yes,,it was lack of funds.
Now that I have seen its performance I couldn't get by without it except to go back soley to firewood and my aging Buck Stove.
I save one hellva lot in electric bills as a result.
I highly recommend them but you need to run them off a ground loop instead of using well water, unless you have a return for the well water but still you are paying for a more powerful wellpump at that in lieu of just a small pump to circulate the necessary solution. 1 hp vs maybe 1/4 hp or less.
I had a chance to buy a 'holler' from my uncle which had many cold clear running springs located in it such that a crystal clear branch ran completly thru the holler all the time. I was interested in damming it up and sinking a heatpump ground loop in the backed up water. The whole holler was naturally cooled in the summer's heat by the springs and the resulting microclimate.
It was perfect but I passed it by.
I met Charlie Stephens from Oregon Planning Office here in Maine early this spring. He had come all the way to visit a firm in Bangor with a new heat pump design that worked well in cold. Hallowell International He did a great talk on Peak Oil and energy. LESS LESS LESS. To my recollection I've never heard another planner say that. [Stephens was one of the modellers for Limits To Growth.]
Another idea (I think from Jean Laherre) that might apply to coastal towns - an inground loop for seawater and water based heat pumps. Ocean gets pretty cold around here in the winter, though. And I can't guess the size of the piping that would be required to make it work - not that hard to crunch the numbers. Sure would suck if all those efficient heat pumps froze it up. Dig we must.
Still, the thought of making heating depend on the grid gives me hives.
cfm in Gray, ME
I had promised to get real data, but the time was short and the instruments few and flaky, so I didn't get any good numbers. But, she said comfortable, so there. Will give it a real try next year, inshallah. This winter I'm gonna freeze that cistern- or, anyhow, get it slushy.
As for heat pumps. Great, but why not just run them on a biomass fired generator and forget the grid? Don't have a biomass-fired generator? I'm working on it. So far, very nice. No vibration, no noise, 120 VAC, target 1kW, but after all, first run just last week , besides, 250 watts at 400C ain't all that bad for starters-esp. considering that I didn't have the cooling system on- oops.
The hard part is the linear alternator. You can get them out of linear compressors. You need a lathe and somebody who can work it. Otherwise it is all "simple". Ha, ha ha Ha.
Longer life, more efficient.
On my older heatpump (Amana) I had to replace the old style compressor at least twice in 5 years. Plus other components.
I finally got my own set of guages and tools. Now with the intergrated(geo-thermal) heatpump and scroll compressor I don't think I will experience any more such failures.
High pressure and low pressure cut-off switches are good safety measures to shut down the system if something is wrong (freon leak, blocked air flow, etc.)
I think point here is how to make polymers from non-fossil sources, and yes, it can be done, although not as cheaply. A good start is this article from Scientific American, August 2000. (text available here) The authors are describing the Cargill stover-to-plastics plant at Blair, Nebraska. They make the familiar argument that the process uses more fossil fuel than the polylactate it produces. They don't mention that the plant is nearby a nuclear plant, so in the event of rising fossil fuel prices it could become a uranium-to-plastic via corn process, and the efficiency would be above unity, as with ethanol. The corn used in the process is bio-engineered to produce more of the monomer. Other plastics made from monomers that are, or can be, natural products are Kevlar, Nylon, Urethane (the polyol part), acrylic, and others.
If the only energy in the world was heat and electricity, it would be possible to make acetylene and oxalic acid from CO2 or limestone. Oxalate can be use used as sole carbon source by some bacteria, so many natural products could then be produced by engineered bugs. Plants make more sense as polymer factories, though, and businesses growing chemical-feedstock crops will outbid ethanol/biodiesel producers for the farmland.
Although I agree with the arguments made here against corn-ethanol, it won't be hard to convert ethanol plants to polymer factories if/when there is a level playing field to allow it.
Ever read about all of the products that Henry Ford wanted to make with hemp and other biomass?
http://www.hempcar.org/ford.shtml
Thanks for the link. I think Henry Ford must have slipped a digit on his slide rule with that potato quote, but its interesting that he believed that fuel self-sufficient farms would work. I am suspicious of those in favor of hemp as a fiber/food/oil source. Any credible sources I have read (dept of Agriculture) show that flax produces better yields than hemp for all the above, and it often turns out that hemp activists have a "recreational" interest.
It grows up to 1 foot a day, grows anywhere, in any kind of soil, and is a vine plant so the stems should provide good fiber.
Though the plant is edible to humans. Most people hate it and try their level best to kill it. But why shouldn't we be using it if we can?
Grow it in a large feild, on vertical wire trelis lines and let it grow a week and harvest it be hand, cutting it off at X feet off the ground and letting it regrow.
Frost kills its above ground stems and shoots. But it comes back year after year just spreading in the wild. No need to weed the rows, just keep the other plants down with hand mowers and use them as biomass or compose.
Hire homeless folks to collect the wild overgrown feilds of it for your plant if you get a good return off your feilds. This source could provide a needed windfall or boost in lean months.
Just An Idea.
I have been planning on finding a way to grow some for my own personal consumtion but have not gone out to get wild sample yet.
HOW WILL WE MAKE WHISKEY WITHOUT OIL!?!?!
Scientists of the world, the challenge is set
Note: Do not use an old radiator for the condenser. They are often patched with solder which contains lead. This often makes the whiskey dangerous, even sometimes lethal.
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
Look for someone in the plastics industry.
I saw six US plants close and ones built in Eastern Europe, and China in the last 6 years.
I also saw all the major suppliers of PolyEthene move from the US. Industrial Nat. Gas in the US killed it.
jc
Sigh. And so it begins.
"If we don't solve the problem ourselves by pleasant means of our own choosing, nature will solve it for us using unpleasant means we do not choose."
That doesn't make it any easier to swallow, but there it is.
Yep, and if we are at Peak Beer--a whole bunch of enthusiasts are going to be mighty upset -- we need to link beer with Peakoil on GOOGLE somehow to increase Peakoil Outreach.
Reminder: Don't forget to shout out 'Peakoil' anytime your frosty mug, cocktail or wine glass, or bottle reaches half-empty-- I am trying to create a
new cultural traditionfor the world as we go postPeak. It is also an excellent way to broach the topic with newcomers asking why you shouted out the keyword.Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Thxs for responding. I would especially like to see any Peakoil Conferences or meetings to use the half-empty message, including those drinking from just a plastic water bottle. That way the media may videotape, then broadcast this verbal warning.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Worst nightmare for me is the vineyards of SE Australia getting converted to fuel production. California, that produces inferior product, should definitely be first to go.
Vineyards? Doesn't that have something to do with wine? I think you have to have culture to get into that. Bob may be able to help you. He just started wearing shoes recently. I'm still trying to carve stick figures on my wall with charcoal.
Savor the aroma of the spirit, but then dilute with its own volume of room-temperature chlorine-free water - brings out the flavor and aftertaste. I find cask-strength undrinkable without a drop of water.
Interestingly, before Dr. Dale went to Michigan State, he taught at Texas A&M. His biomass lab was adjacent to mine.
I knew he was enthusiastic, but those claims go far beyond enthusiasm. He claims under Myth No. 1 are just flat out false.
That would be right up there with better net energy than gasoline.
piggies that'll be fattened up on the DDS
( distillers dried grains ), before they
end up on the dinner table ..
Triff ..
A better use for the DDS might be here:
http://www.communitysolution.org/04conf/af1.html
The idea is that this diagram forms the basis for proving that EROI is better for petroleum than ethanol, and that ethanol proponents should find fault with the diagram. It is a simple diagram for people with a simple understanding of the issues (such as myself).
I would be interested to know if it has any merit.
Regards,
Russell Dodd
I e-mailed you back. I think that sums up the issue nicely. For one, there are other limitations that are important to consider in the debate. You did a nice job of capturing those. But the diagram also gives a realistic view of how much vehicle fuel can be produced per BTU of input into the process, comparing both life-cycles side by side.
One can't blame a guy for trying to keep his recent opportunities at the podium with the great dinner tickets coming. Now that the longer visioned farmers and others with the purse strings, both investors and government, are starting to recognize the negative ramifications of diverting crops to ethanol production, a reasonable prediction is that the ethanol R&D $$$ pipeline flow is likely to resemble Ghawar as the $$$ move toward better solutions. Once one has experienced the tall cotton (everyone wanting to throw so much money at you that you are looking for places to bury it), going back to the desert is tough. If he gets called on the spin, he'll be where he was going to be anyway.
Most of us who read here do NOT have PhDs, and cannot evaluate the claims of the various experts. We do the best we can, but because the very "experts" who are to guide us through this mess cannot agree on ONE THING, it bodes ill for the future.
I've read thousands of pages of material since late 2003. I have not come away with any kind of coherent picture except, "save yourself."
You hit upon one reason I get so upset about this. I hate to see people using their academic credentials to mislead. And I don't think any but the most extreme ethanol proponents would support the statement that Dr. Dale made:
Ethanol has a better net energy than gasoline and, if burned efficiently, will provide mileage equivalent to gasoline.
Most of us who read here do NOT have PhDs, and cannot evaluate the claims of the various experts.
....
I've read thousands of pages of material since late 2003..
Au contraire, an educated layman (without Phd) can make substantial progress on this stuff. But he/she has to roll up their sleaves.
i.e. Read less. Analyze more. If the margins of what you are reading are not filled with your own notes and cross-references and you have compiled no external notes, then your reading is just a form of relaxation or recreation. It is not a serious research attempt. You are just shopping for an expert you feel you can trust. A sheep looking for a shepherd.
To make headway, one has to be willing to break a sweat and bust one's head a bit.
Ever Asebius
'Trust no one and question all' is perhaps wise counsel. You must come to your own judgement on these matters, you cannot just accept another's view, the implications are too great. The only rational present answer is: insufficient data.
Honestly, we don't really know. It could turn out bad, megadeath bad (most probable cause human stupidity and greed), or be the dawning of a new age of enlightenment and sustainable prosperity for near 10 billion humans in the next 50 years.
I wonder what he's smoking? Do you think someone is paying him to write nonsense like this?
Given that this is the area of his research, and he depends on funding for that research, then it is in his best financial interst to present these uber-optimistic scenarios.
To produce ethanol this cheaply, we need focused, sustained laboratory research combined with large scale testing of promising technologies. The price tag for this research and development work is equivalent to about two days' worth of oil imports.
He is approaching this from the view of someone who can benefit from increased funding in this area. If he knows he is being misleading, maybe he feels that the end justifies the means.
great importance and usefulness. the website in question is
http://www.peakoilblues.com
Whether they will actually post the essay in question, I do not know.
This is a slightly ironic and humorous name for a website that confronts a very seriousissue, that being depression brought on when some individuals learn about so called "peak oil".
What is becoming known however, is that "peak oil" awareness is beginning to have psychological and sociological effects among people, and some of these can be quiet severe, and even sad and tragic.
It is this issue that Peakoilblues addresses. In giving people a place to
visit, tell their stories, and even recieve feedback from the "peakshrink" and others, the hope is of reducing the mentally destructive depression and possibly destructive actions by
people as
they face what they percieve (rightly or wrongly) as the possible complete
collapse of their lifestyle and future.
Having seen this "depression reaction" before, and in fact, in the 1970's,
having some personal experience with it, this is an area dear to my heart. (It is easy to be drawn in on a
purely emotional level when you read a 24 year old girl that says after she read "The Long Emergency" or "The End of Suburbia" she "cried and cried for four days"...or someone else say the was thinking of leaving his wife, whom he says he "deeply loves", but this issue and his desire to 'powerdown" and return to a farming simple life has made them unable to communicate...
However, I think there is something much bigger to confront here, and much more complicated. It is this that I attempt to confront in an approximately 4 page essay I wrote for the site, and which I am repeating below in it's entirety. It confronts not only the "depressive" problems depicted above, but also the whole way in which some in the peak oil community, and some grafting themselves to it are "informing" the newcomers to this issue. It touches on the philosophical/cultural/aesthetic issues that have attached themselves to the "science" of peak oil, oil depletion, use of energy, environmentalism,
and even issues of cultural aims and aesthetics. We may be at the cutting edge of a complex new world, peak or no peak.
Thank you all again for all your support and interest, it is after a ful year
still greatly
appreciated! :-) below begins the essay/post for Peakoilblues....
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello, my name is Roger Conner Jr. I am a longtime student of energy issues,
and regard it is my avocation. I have a small Yahoo group on the subject, and am developing a website related to a wind energy/energy storage experimental project myself and some partners have developed.
Below are some of the most important words I feel I have ever written, under the heading "THE GROWING DANGER OF PSYCHOLOGICAL "PEAK OIL": DEFENDING AND INFORMING
THE NEWCOMER"
I must tell you, PeakOilBlues, your becoming famous! Well, at least among a
selective group, as someone linked your website on The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com
recently, and you have since come up several times in conversation, at least a
couple of times by me. I have now visited your website on repeated occasions, and found it a very good site, very well done and extremely important in dealing with an issue that I began working on about a year or more ago. I realize now that I had actually dealt with this in 1977-79, in the energy crisis/economic crisis at that time. You see, in a way, this is my
second trip to the catastrophe!
I will try to be brief, even though this is a complex topic, and touch on some
serious points that I have made in discussion on TOD (The Oil Drum, for short) and some other places (forums, blogs, boards, etc.), and that relate to your important work on mental health as it relates to knowledge of peak oil. Mine may be an alternative view, I admit up front, but it seems to be an aspect of the sociological/psychological/philosophical peak oil
issue that has been completely ignored, involving not only those receiving the
"news" of peak oil but also those giving it.
The essay below is about 3 pages, and to me, is of extreme importance in
confronting and dealing with an issue that has been long ignored, and require more involved study. I think people's mental and social well being is at stake, however, and feel obligated to disperse the informantion below in any way possible. Thank you for your attention and interest in this subject, and again, excellent website, and very greatly needed.
THE GROWING DANGER OF PSYCHOLOGICAL "PEAK OIL"
DEFENDING AND INFORMING THE NEWCOMER
(a) There are actually three "peak oils"
1. The first is the actual geological/technical "peak oil" which can be
demonstrated to have occurred in very large and major producing regions, and based on this, can be assumed will occur at some point in the future (assuming it has not already occurred) on a worldwide basis. The areas in which peak oil is demonstrable as a historic event are
many, but the largest and best known are the United States and now, the British Atlantic north sea. These are proven historical facts of geology and are basically scientific technical issues.
2. The second is what I will call "sociological/psychological/philosophical" peak oil, or the peak of "inferences and implications". This is the "peak oil" that is most popular on websites, blogs, books, and in the popular press, and is much larger and broader than the geological/technical discussion of "peak oil" as purely a geological occurrence.
It is from the second type of "peak oil" that all inferences/discussions of economic collapse/social and civilization collapse/destruction of lifestyle and technology etc. is drawn.
Geological "peak oil" is a scientific discussion. Sociological/psychological "peak oil" is decidedly not. (even though it may incorporate information from the arts and sciences, such as history, economics, anthropology, sociology, and physics.)
(b) While the number of people in possession of the data, experience, and
education to discuss the facts of geological peak oil with real authority is very small worldwide, the number of people who feel qualified to discuss "sociological" peak oil is very large, in fact, almost unlimited. There are no qualifications required, and the person can basically "self qualify", that is, they can declare themselves in possession of knowledge or information
and abilities to infer outcomes which, since they are to occur in the future,
and are based on no single branch of science, are not provable in any way, but also cannot be disproven.
(c) ""Sociological/psychological/philosophical peak oil", not being a "science"
in any real definitional form, is not subject to rules of investigation/experimentation, or peer review, and is not prohibited in any way from being influenced by: cultural/psychological/ philosophical/political/moral/aesthetic biases. IMPORTANT: This is a fundamental truth that must be understood in evaluating the thoughts, writings, opinions, philosophies, scenarios, projections or "predictions" of anyone writing or discussing "peak oil", except in it's narrowest geological form.
3. There is a third category of "peak oil": "logistical peak", that being a
"peak" in oil production brought on by logistical and not geological factors, including shortages of machinery, shortage of labor, extremely low price resulting in under-investment in the oil industry, political and geopolitical issues such as wars, insurrections, rebellions and embargoes, among other factors. This type of "peak" can mimic and is sometimes confused with geological peak. For the moment, we will lay this aside, to discuss our
primary issue, but it is well documented and of extreme importance as a
complicating factor.
WHY THESE DISTINCTIONS MATTER
Many newcomers to the "peak oil" issue are not aware of the extremely
complicated mix of scientific, economic, geopolitical, political, and even cultural, philosophical, and sociological issues that make up discussion, writing, blogging, and commentary of the "peak oil" issue in it's various formats as it is exposed to the public.
Thus, many newcomers give all commentators, predictions, projections,
prognostications/scenarios etc., equal factual weight, and do not factor in the possiblecultural,philosophical, sociological, aesthetic and value agendas of the writers and speakers making these prognostication/predictions/projections/scenarios.
It is human nature of the "fight or flight" type, when given a set of
possibilities, the one that will be most noticed and responded to emotionally/psychologically is the one that is perceived as the greatest threat. This is a survival mechanism. Issues of "immediate response" mean that the source of the warning of threat may not be deeply studied, but purely reacted to in a deeply instinctual way, given the history of our mental evolution.
To put it another way, if someone were to shout "fire!" in a theater, a person
reacts first, and does not bother to check the credentials of the person shouting! This explains the well known way in which people can be caused to panic quiet easily if that is the desired effect.
TECHNICAL ORIGINS OF "PEAK OIL"
The geological roots of "Peak Oil" are generally attributed to the geologist M.
King Hubbert and the "Hubbert Curve", a pattern of resource depletion that he postulated applied to any mined mineral resource, including oil and natural gas. Hubbert correctly predicted, in a presentation in 1956 that the lower 48 U.S. states would peak in oil production in 1970.
The work of Hubbert, however, remained relatively unknown with the exception of geologists and geology students, until very recently when another geologist, Dr. Colin Campbell, brought the ideas to the attention of the public as it applied in his view to the "world peak". We will not reexamine the history of the geological argument about "Peak Oil" and even less so discuss the controversy involved in attempting to time it, except to
say that world peak was and is more difficult to demonstrate, due to the very
shaky knowledge of oil reserve numbers, production rates, depletion etc. of the world as compared to the Lower 48 U.S.
What is often forgotten and almost never explained to newcomers however is this: Even the worst case scenario, depicted by ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Colin Campbell's group, shows as much oil being produced in 2025 as was being produced in 1985, and as much being produced in 2050 as in 1970. This is even without biofuels, solar, wind, LPG and natural gas conversion for liquid or as transport fuel, the possibility of advanced batteries and using the electric power grid for transport of needed
goods by way of electric rail, plug in hybrid cars, etc.
The main point: NO ONE, even in the "Peak Oil" technical or geological
community, predicts the world "running out" of oil, and in fact, world production will be astounding by historical standards, IF you count the whole of the 20th century.
What is much more important for our discussion is the birth of the
"Sociological/ Psychological/Cultural side of "peak oil".
"CULTURAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL/SOCIOLOGICAL/PHILOSOPHICAL/AESTHETIC
INFLUENCES ON PUBLICIZED, AS OPPOSED TO GEOLOGICAL PEAK OIL
In a period beginning in the late 1990's, "peak oil" began to be publicized as a major catastrophic event, one that would in fact, "end civilization as we knew it". This came as something of a shock to many who had long known of "depletion" as a geological/ scientific phenomenon, and knew that discussion of it was no surprise, but an ongoing debate and concern in all resource mining industries. It IS in fact a valid concern, an important challenge to the current civilization, and yes, IT MUST BE DEALT WITH ASSERTIVELY.
But the presumption that it was an almost guaranteed death sentence to modern technical culture and the Western way of life had not been heard in most circles, and must have come from somewhere (?)
There has long existed a philosophical/aesthetic movement, variously called
"Primitivism", "Ecological Anarchism", "Green Anarchism", "deep green", and other various names. To keep things as brief as possible, we will use the term "primitivism" as our descriptive word to cover the above. One can learn more by checking the links below, and following out the various writers and links:
http://www.primitivism.com/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Anarchist
The important thing for us to recall here is that for
philosophical/cultural/environmental reasons, these groups (and there are many more of them) desire the collapse of modern technical society, including it's political and social institutions, and the Western capitalist/
manufacturing based economical model along with it. Some of the writers and thinkers linked to these causes are very influential in the environmental movement, and some have links to both "Primitivism" and Peak Oil, witness below, speech given by Richard Heinberg in 1995, before "Peak Oil" was a known issue by most people, excepting geologists:
http://www.primitivism.com/primitivist-critique.htm
CONCLUSION
As we are seeing on your group, a growing number of people are becoming aware of posts, blogs, books, literature and speeches concerning the "peak oil" issue. These people are confronting often shocking and even horrifying predictions that are given as based in the science of geology, and therefore carrying the weight of scientific certainty.
Many newcomers to this issue are, and this again is depicted in the posts and
stories recounted on your website, are being deeply affected by the
predictions/prognostications/ scenarios they hear. Some are even being plunged into deep depression, by their own admission, and even speaking of divorce, relocation, and some even express "cries for help" and have expressed remarks indicating possibly suicidal thoughts. I know of some
from other sources who have dropped out of college, or decided not to go, since it would now be pointless in thier view.
These are life altering thoughts and occurrences in these peoples lives, brought on by their new perceived "knowledge" of "peak oil".
But are they aware of the motivations of some of the people who exposed them to this new knowledge?
Do they understand the distinctions between science, and what is (and I say this NOT as a perjorative, but as a descriptive) essentially a "psuedo-science" based on science, with elements of history, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology and values mixed in?
The unavoidable truth is, there has always been a philosophical/cultural strand of people who deeply desire "primitivism" for philosophical/cultural reasons.
For these people, "Peak OIl" is the ultimate good news, the chance to see the
collapse they have so long dreamed of come to modern technical Western society. The science, per se, is of less importance than the very deep desire for this event, which seemed so unlikely, almost impossible, only recently, given the reach, scale, wealth and power of the consuming modern technical culture, but which the "collapse" brought by peak oil will finally bring to the world.
Needless to say, many of the "scenarios" of catastrophe are more driven by their deepest desires and cultural aesthetic desires than it is by any scientifically demonstrable facts. At this time, the "collapse" or "powerdown" or "catastrophic failure" of the modern technical world is not a foregone conclusion. It is, as it has always been, a possibility, one of many possible outcomes, which may occur soon, or much further in the future, depending on a very complex set of variables.
The proponents of "primitivism", or "deep green" or "environmental anarchy"
have the perfect right, in a free thinking free speech culture to express these views, wishes, and dreams in writing, speeches, books, blogs, etc.
But those of us who know the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of many of these most depressing "predictions"" and horrifying scenarios, which are often given as "science" MUST DO OUR DUTY to inform those who are newly arriving to this information, and hopefully encourage them to reconsider any rash and destructive actions, and to treat any destructive depression symptoms as very serious, and beg them to take all information with a grain of salt, and test and check information as they receive it. They
are in greater danger right now from the depression and the impulse to rash
reaction than they are from peak oil.
It is becoming obvious that people's mental, social, and functional well being
are at stake. This can be a time of great danger. We must recall that the most radical of the "anti- techno anarchist" the Unabomber, formed his ideas in the 1970's, when the U.S. was going through an energy/economic crisis, and Tim McViegh in his formative years in the late 1970's early 1980's had as a youth already adapted a "survivalist" philosophy, which stayed with him, as he was certain American culture was on the edge of collapse.
THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS ISSUE TO CONFRONT. I count upon those who are alert in the psychological/sociological community to begin a discourse and study of the these issues, and to not leave the newcomers to what are some terrifying scenarios, given as science, intellectually and emotionally defenseless. Many of thes most frightening and depressing scenarios are often aligned with deep cultural goals by groups who see the collapse of the
modern culture as we know it as a very good thing. How many newcomers know this? We must be very open in informing them, so that they can defend themselves, and avoid potentially dangerous and destructive actions and emotional damage and depression.
It is NOT ethical to leave these people ideologically and informationally
without defense.
As I said, in the 1970's, I was at this very place. Depression was a real
threat. Lost years of productive education, career development and saving for my future still haunt me. (this is another subject for another day....but how many people are not planning for their retirement or investment goals correctly because they believe it is pointless, and basing it on possibly weak or biased information? This could cost them greatly in their future years,
and may be a threat to their lifestyle greater than "peak oil". I myself missed
the greatest investment years of the modern age in the 1980's, still convinced the collapse would come.)
Geologically, a very strong case can be made for peak oil, for the need for
great change in the way our culture uses energy, for the adaptation of modern, environmentally clean and aware and efficient methods and the adaptation of science, engineering and design of a creative type we have not yet seen. It will be a challenging time.
But the blind acceptance of the absolutely most horrific scenarios and
predictions, possibly based more on the philosophy and deep desires of the writer than on any scientific evidence, could be a real tragedy in the lives of many real people, who deserve a chance to be informed of the complexities and the agendas of "peak oil' predictions.
Depression is already a dangerous mental health issue in America, and does not need assistance in it's spread. There are MANY possible future scenarios, with or without "peak oil". For newcomers, however they decide to prepare or plan, protection of their mental health NOW, and avoidence of rash reactive actions without consideration or thought may be the most immediate dangers.
(closing note: I am signing this, as I always sign my written material, simply
because I think more people should, in fact MUST take responsibility for their words, which we know can have effects, and even be damaging in some cases. Also, I do intend to have attribution for this work, as this is material I will be using in other places, and on other occasions, and adding to and developing in more detail. IT IS THAT IMPORTANT.
Newcomers, please, do not steal from yourself what the future has not yet stolen from you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, and I look forward to your views and thoughts. I feel assured that
we agree on
the one great goal, and that is the desire to maintain the health and hapiness
of our fellow
human beings. Roger Conner Jr.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
Excellent essay!
The future is uncertain, and regardless of what happens, deep depression leads to a failure to cope with whatever challenges emerge.
It is hard to deal with grave uncertainties and ambiguities and hopes and fears--but we have to do it not only to survive but to flourish. Despair and doomerism and resulting depression paralyze the will.
While the worst may indeed occur, it is by no means a certainty, and those who claim the opposite are arrogant prophets who should be taken with a few buckets of salt, just as we should discount the claims of the cornucopians.
When I was growing up, the odds of all-out thermonuclear warfare between the U.S. and the Soviet Union seemed to be higher than fifty-fifty; many claimed doom was inevitable. They were 100% wrong. Although I think hard times are coming along with worsening conditions especially in the poorest nations, I've learned that betting on doom-for-sure is a losing strategy.
Drink some coffee. I think you fell asleep!
Of course World War III could have happened in the nineteen fifties, sixties, or seventies. I do not deny that the worst scenarios of doomers are possible, but what I do deny is that they are inevitable.
Unlike those who claim to know the future (prophets), I do not claim that knowledge. What can be argued convincingly is that if present trends continue, then we are all going to be in deep doo-doo, but that is a long way from saying that all societies are going to collapse. My best guestimate is that present trends are not going to last more than a few years past peak oil--which I think is about now.
Interestingly its not something I would have expected to hear .. yet.
I'm not a total optimist, only a moderate, and so I can be pleasantly surprised. Score one (if this trend continues) for the invisible hand (especially in combination with yesterday's reference to new anti-consumerism).
As I pointed out earlier, grain production has dropped 26 percent since 2004, from 2.68 billion tons to an expected 1.984 billion tons in 2006 according to the USDA. But the population is still rising while grain production is dropping like a rock. And peak oil will greatly exacerbate this situation and so will global warming, eroding topsoil, climate falling water tables and a host of other things.
The very idea that we just might pull things out without any real catastrophe is simply dreaming. There is no doubt that the shit is going to hit the fan. The population simply cannot keep rising while everything is going to hell in a hand-basket and to think it can is simply being delusional. Under such circumstances a so-called soft landing is not possible.
You could eliminate yourself under such an ethic and not be condemned!
As for me, I am going to do everything I can to care for my two children.
Big,
Same here, but it had nothng to do with peak, I'll admit, given my early career development, I simply was not able to easily find some poor dumb girl willing to embark on the enterrpise with me....:-)
By the way, I read in an a background peice that Matt Simmons has something like 4 daughters....so he doesn't have to worry about "peak oil blues" driving him off the edge if he was able to survive that...:-)
I try to wonder what I would think if I had children....the closest I can get is thinking about the future of my nephews and niece....I only hope they finally get to see some of the future designs and ideas we have known since the 1970's put into play....and get some relief from the "boomer retro" design of every freaking thing....in my 20's and 30's it was like living in fvchin' retro time warp!! :-O auuggggg!!! I heard a classic old swinger, gold chain and Elvis fan type once say, "I bet if they built cars like that looked like they used, like the Thunderbird or the 40's, they could sell them." I laughed at what an out of touch geezer he was.....then they came out with PT Cruisers and the retro T Bird!! Beyond bizarre!! We're living in the "Twilight Zone".!!
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
What is not clear at all is the future of rich societies, such as Sweden or Iceland or the U.S.A. Peak Oil may indeed be a greater challenge than the Great Depression or World War Two, but it is not written in stone that all (or even most) societies are going to collapse.
To say that present trends cannot continue indefinitely is to state the obvious. To assert that you know for sure certain trajectories to doom is to claim knowledge of the uncertain future. To put it mildly, such claims to knowledge are questionable.
"failed nations". Passive tense. No ownership. I would suggest they are not so much "failed nations" as "destroyed nations". We - you and I - prosper because our boots are on their necks. We get our gas because they do not. There are a number of articles in today's drumbeat with that angle. They didn't fail; we killed them.
OK, we have the power and the responsibility. Next step?
cfm in Gray, ME
(Tropical Gangsters is a good read for more recent conundrums in aid and development.)
We as in "we get the fuel, blacks and swarthies do not". They starve. Half the links Leanan posted [it seems] deal with who wins/loses today. This is not "sins of our fathers", but what is going on right now to support our non-negotiable lifestyle. Right now.
My particular focus is how this affects state policy in a relatively small state like Maine, US. Surprise, surprise, it's driving the whole state. Maine is pretty much a plantation economy. What can be extracted and how little can the state get away with charging (benefits to citizens) is the issue (because the PTB are the extractors, not the community/citizens). Neo-liberals/neo-cons. Nigeria? I hope they kick the f***ing oil corpos out PRONTO. Ditto for every raped plantation state on this planet. Oil, elements for semiconductors, water, avocados. But also Maine's land, Maine's forests, Maine's rape seed, the eels in Maine's local rivers - local stuff. Substitute Maine for your locale.
Responsibility for those before I was born? Yes I share that. Power and responsibility go together. So yes, YOU do share that responsibility (not the same as blame) - not for the past, but for what is happening now in the present. So what if my Dad did it (or your) we can fix it now. It's in our sphere of influence therefore our responsibility. Precautionary principle. Islam has something like that too - if you can act, act.
Thanks for Tropical Gangsters, goes on my next Powells order. Someone posted a Kaplan article, here is an older one via dieoff How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet from 1994.
cfm in Gray, ME
IMO, "responsibility" or as you said earlier "our boots are on their necks" implies something else ... something much easier.
I endorse every kind of improvement to the situation in Africa, and elsewhere, that we can manage. But to remain sane I'm not going to take responsibility for the patterns we inherit.
I'm not going to pretend, as our President does actually, that it's easy to remake the world as we wish.
We passed per capita peak grain over 20 years ago, it looks like we are about at absolute global peak grain now; since 1999 we have only produced more than we consumed in one year:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm
Since that data the news from Europe and US on wheat crops has been mostly poor, US market prices have only moved up by 5% recently, they could yet double in the next 6 months. As you say, just about all the omens are conspiring towards lower future grain production, a significant increase in starvation mortality is likely in poorer countries. Let them eat ethanol? Perhaps beware, they may choose to use it for Molotov cocktails.
What was the SINGLE biggest difference between then and now?
Back then the pie was increasing. Soon it will be decreasing. The difference between the fighting over oil on the way up (as the Soviet Union and U.S. did in Vietnam) and how the fighting over oil on the way down will proceed will be DRASTICALLY different.
My guess that the weakest and poorest will suffer first and most is a reasonable one. My hunch that a number of modern societies will make it through tough times to come intact and with no collapse is a WAG.
Your analogy of "the experts in the 1950s were wrong about nuclear war" and thus "the experts today about peak oil might be wrong also" is not very good.
Today the "experts" have irrefutable evidence that we will smoothly transitiion to oil sands, ethanol, etc. The peak oil experts frequently cited on TOD are really a very tiny minority. How often do you see PO induced catastrophe trotted out in the media the way you saw Nuclear war induced catastrophe trotted out in the media from 1950-to-1985 or so?
The bullk of experts you cite from the 1950s were dead wrong just as today's bulk of experts will turn out to be dead wrong. But the bulktoday's experts are not warning about peak oil catastrophe. They are warning about "OH MY GOD BIRD FLU!!!!" and "OH MY GOD AL-QAEDA IS GONNA TURN YOUR KIDS GAY!!!" and other such things.
Why were the experts wrong back then? Well their arguments were trotted out to the public to get support ($$$) for massive defense programs. In other words, to enrich the societal elite invested in such projects.
Today's experts are trotted out to get the public to keep consuming and to support things like massive subsidies to ADM for ethanol and massive wars for "democracy."
So comparing the nuclear war experts of the 1950s to the very small cadre of peak oil experts today is a false analogy. A more congruent analogy would be to compare the "Oh my god the Ruskies are coming with nukes" of the 1950s to the "Oh my god the Islamists are coming with nukes" of today.
Should you go into debt at the possible cusp of a new Great Depression to buy these sorts of alternatives changes on a personal level? The wealthiest top 1% will always be unaffected, while the average person risks becoming the equivalent of an indentured servant by going into debt.
So there it is, much that could change, plenty of preserve the status quo inertia and great personal risks. "Expect the worst, hope for the best" doesn't cut it, perhaps "expect the unexpected" is the healthy mindset for now.
What I do find lacking is a certain historical context - for example, Carter's prediction that if America couldn't get a handle on its ever growing consumption of oil with declining domestic production, in a generation America soldiers would be dying in the Middle East.
To be honest, the 1970s were the time to have begun the necessary work to deal with a future where the amount of oil available to the United States would decrease over time. Oil production may gradually decline (not my personal bet - I think we will easily hit 8% or higher depletion rates), but America's share of the oil available will be significantly less.
Americans learned in the 1970s that oil is not permanent - this too is part of the whole reason people get so nervous about the subject. It was a nightmare they thought had gone away, instead of the one they now feel they are waking up to.
And sure, there are a lot of people waiting to help them step into any number of nightmares.
Getting a balance between reality and either blind hope or black despair is not easy.
Especially in a society which has done very little but go into massive debt, dismantle its industrial economy, and increase consumption without any concern for the future. It isn't morning in America any more.
For any TOD newbies, or any youngsters not aware of Pres. Carter's famous "Sweater Speech" here is the all important link. If only we had stayed the course! Please contrast with Pres. Shrub's latest:
------------------------
"Just make sure I don't run into the wall," he joked.
--------------------------
Meaning [for the rest of us proles]: my 'decider' policies guarantee that you will hit the wall at max velocity.
Sarcasm rant by me, or not?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than YEast?
'We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation.
We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.
But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.'
Well, that little reminder from 1977 shows the path not taken, doesn't it? And notice that Carter had a lot of faith in rational principles and in his fellow Americans. Luckily, his failures as president where put into stark relief by a B-movie actor, who noted in public that trees caused pollution.
As for America's current leadership, we are positively blessed that the top 3 executive positions are filled by people with oil industry experience.
The world is not doomed, but truly, America needs to change in the ways it rejected in 1977 - and where are you going to get the 20 years from?
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/2/2/202144/5783/6#6
There are 'intellectual / rational' and 'feeling / emotional' dimensions to this pesky peak oil thing. They seem surprisingly orthogonal (sortof = different), understanding and acceptance on one does not equate to understanding and acceptance on the other. If PO happens 'suddenly' for most people I do expect the psych aspects to be very significant in several potential ways.
I spotted the peak oil blues site about a month back, posted there, revisited a few days ago, something feels 'off-ish' about the place to me, hopefully that is just something in me.
I think the "off" feeling is because a lot of the people posting there may have had psychological problems PRIOR to coming across this information. This info is the ultimate "ungrounding." So if somebody was already ungrounded and then they came into po and related info you're going to see some hints of weirdness in their writigns.
Consider that one poster on poblues wrote that after finding out about PO, he/she went out and purchased 500 books on peak oil and sustainabilty! 500?!!! Assumming they are telling the truth that is a sign of some type of obsessive-compulsive problem. There is no way anybody could process the info in 500 in just a few months or even 2 years.
Now if the person had been homesteading and farming for 30 years and had slowly built up a library that is a different story. That's not what I'm talking about. This person it seemed found out about PO and then just went totally nuts with book buying.
But seriously, 500 books? Taking a flying (and possible low ball) guess of $10/book...DID THE PERSON BUY $5,000 OF PO BOOKS?!
You make a useful distinction between peak oil, and the political and philosophical conclusions drawn around the issue of peak oil. This is an important distinction, one that I agree with completely.
Of course, I also think that every issue has its science, its philosophy, and above all, its politics, making peak oil in no way unique.
However, I don't agree with your next step, that "primitivists" and "deep greens" are taking advantage of peak oil to impose an agenda upon a credulous population. I think the issue, the true clash, the actual "us versus them" associated with peak oil, is between those who want to consolidate political power, and those who want to see it dispersed.
With this in mind, I can say that I know your bad guys --- deep greens,believers in primitivism, upgraded versions of the Unibomber and Tim McVeigh, and so forth. My question is: who are your good guys?
I suspect that when all gets stripped away, your good guys are those who use political power in ways that you approve, i.e., bureaucrats who consolidate power for goals that meet your approbation.
So, yes, right, all of us, being human, are going to use peak oil to advance an agenda. As a secessionist, who deeply laments the series of bad decisions made by a good man on a battlefield outside Gettysburg, Pa, I can say that peak oil is a godsend, but alas, my poor fellow Southerners are too deluded and too confused to see what is being handed to them on a silver platter.
Of course, when it comes to secession, I am for it where ever it happens --- Scotland, pais vasco, liga nord, Quebec, and if Vermont gets serious about bailing out, I'm taking my AK and heading north, provided of course they agree to leave us along when we get our heads screwed on right once again, and give this business of secession another shot.
With this in mind, I can say that I know your bad guys --- deep greens, believers in primitivism, upgraded versions of the Unibomber and Tim McVeigh, and so forth. My question is: who are your good guys?"
"I suspect that when all gets stripped away, your good guys are those who use political power in ways that you approve, i.e., bureaucrats who consolidate power for goals that meet your approbation."
Who are my good guys (?)...well let me tell ya'! First, I have ZERO interest in political types or bureaucrats....but let's talk about the real good guys and gals:
As we write, guess, and prognosticate, there are a small, underpaid band of people who are scattered out across the planet....most of them don't even wear neckties, but are more likely to be seen in jeans and a checkered or plain shirt...they are in the labs, in the machine and fabrication shops, with a scientific calculator, or the mouse to a CAD terminal or the control pad of a CAM (computer aided machine tool)....they are comparing the profile of windmill blades, to see what changing the profile or the trailing edge of the blade could do, gain maybe a percent, two percent? They are machining or welding up or hand laying up the blades, the motors, the controllers.
They are in the shops comparing mixes of chemicals and and the layup of solar cells, one cell at a time....or doing the same with battery cells....one cell at a time....first a change of a percent, then two then three....a hundred mixes, and then go to the second element, a chang of one, two three, and DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, because in that mix could be the extra 2, 4,6 mile range or ability to take a thousand, two thousand more deep discharges without failing.
They are the machine shop guys and electrical engineers at groups like Kramer's Calcars who got tired of waiting and banded together to "shut up about it and build a few to show them" Plug Hybrids (PHEV), to combine with the hoped for new generation of batteries to finally "push it over the top"
(Is there a greater band of good guys and gals than the ones who, as a labor of love put together Calcars?) http://www.calcars.org
They are the people in the shops and labs at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory who are beginning projects that need 3 to 5 year lead time, while not even knowing if their own job will survive the next month....
http://www.nrel.gov
They are the technicians, machinists and draftsmen at EPA, Ford and Eaton Corp. who went together in special assignments to build the Hydaulic Hybrid, that could bring 50% more fuel efficiency to even a SUV sized vehicle in one fell swoop, to make the transition to better efficiency at least salable to the spoiled customer...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/02/epa_eaton_and_p.html
or the folks in 1978 who did the same work and were ignored...
http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1978_March_April/This_Car_Travels_75_Miles_on_a_Single_Gallon of_Gasoline
The good guys? Remember, that everytime you see one of the "suits" in front of the press on the podium, telling you "what we must do", "what we are working on", what we will do"......there is a small scattered brother and sister hood of technicians, designers, draftspeople, machinists, fabricators, welders, chemists, electrical engineers, hydraulic fabricators, and independent tinkers and craftspeople and thousands of other plain shirts in hundreds of other specialities who are among the most talented and dedicated the world's technical communitiy have delivered to us.....and if they don't do thier work, the "suits" for all their talk, ain't gonna deliver shiit....
Those are my "good guys". :-)
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
Basically what you're saying is "there's some whacked out hippies talking about peak oil so you should calm down as they aren't to be taken seriously."
There, 4 page rambling letter summarized in less than 40 words.
AlphaMaleProphetOfDoom
First, I am going to use this reply to somewhat reply to all the posters who responed to my post....hopefully to cut down on the aforementioned rambling, always a problem for me :-), although I may still have a small side point or two to say to some of the other folks, but let me say here thank you all for the feedback and imput from everyone, as this is an issue that I think is of growing importance.
Alpha, to your points, which I think are very interestinging and observant, first, yes, I agree with you that some of the folks going deepest over the edge are the ones who may already be the ones emotionally/psychologically weakest, but that does not mean that their health/stability should not be considered important. Just as many say that it is the elderly, sick, poor and weakest who will suffer first should the big meltdown occur, it is the ones who are prone to paranoia, depression, and cumpulsive disorder who will suffer first from the thought or predictions of complete loss of all they know and understand. It does not take a very big straw to break the camels back.
On a point more important and serious to me,
You said, "and trying to - not very suavely - link the likes of Richard Heinberg to the likes of the Unabomber? Come on dude, you can make your point a bit smoother than that, can't you?
First allow me to say, with no equivocation, that this was not something I was "trying" to do, and was not the intent in any way of what I wrote. If such a conclusion was drawn, that is an indicator of bad sentax on my part.
Despite my sometimes strong difference with Heinberg's conclusions, I have high regard for his writing, and his reasoning skills, and read him whereever I see his words available.
My point concerned the time we live in, and the fact that there are certain radical green elements who may percieve a strike well directed to strenthen their position not out of the question. One of the things about the energy system the administration and other planners are conjecturing is that it could be even more centralized and fragile, (this being to my mind a grievious error of the "official" position). There has already been concern expressed regarding the LNG facilities and certain other facilities (possible future coal to liquid and tar sand facilities) regarding "deep green" activism. I have structured that as politely as possible, but you can easily read what I am referring to. I can't say this any other way except to say that what I have called "deep peak" elements could be cautioned not to be associated too closely with these causes, unless they are very aware of the possible implications down the road.
Again, thank you for the reply, and I appreciate those who read it, because it can be faulted for it's lack of brevity, but I could find no other way to get the major points and stress the importance of this issue. There are a lot of fragilve people out there....Alvin Toffler in 1980 said that one of our major issues in upcoming decades may be what he called "the attack on loneliness".
This means that for these people, the much maligned and hated "lifestyle" as it is referred to here has become their social network as well as their network to supply material needs. (Do you know how many people are shown in polls to go shopping out of loniliness?)
Anyway we look at it, peak or not, yesterday or in 20 years, even though it looks clean and prosperous in places, it's a tough world, and changing fast.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
There are about a dozen different groups who are currently using PO to promote their agenda. And yes, the deep green hippie primitivists are one such group. New urbanists are another, new agraians another, investment bankers still another, drill-in-ANWR yet another.
I don't see how this changes the fact that peak oil will (actually already is) result in things such as massive econommic dislocations, global wars, ecological emergencies and a general state of discontinuity.
The fact that people who had been totally unaware of these things get freaked out when they learn about them is a perfectly normal reaction.
I think you got burned by being an early adopter back in the 1970s and are having trouble seeing how things are different this time around.
The 1970's taught me one invaluable lesson (and to me, that is the thing that matters....extract the one essential fact our of an event...not the thousands of side facts I later heard people extracting but as Curly said on City Slickers, "the ONE thing..."
What I learned is this....no matter how sure you, and everyone else may, no matter how much the surface information seems to indicate something, no matter how persuasive and charming those telling you somethig is true....it is still possible to wrong, either in fact or in timing.
Thats It. I never dismiss the possibility that I may be wrong.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
Mutual support and community are key ingredients, as is civic involvement (however frustrating) and Mardi Gras :-)
Our ability to party is a key coping strategy.
But we deal with the reality of massive destruction and a 1,000+ dead; not some hypothetical future risk.
Filmmaker takes on broad topic
Katsuhiko Machida, the CEO of Sharp Corporation--the world's largest manufacturer of solar cells--was speaking to the press at the IFA trade fair in Berlin, the world's biggest consumer electronics fair. He says, "By 2030 the cost [of producing electricity from solar] will be comparable to electricity produced by a nuclear power plant". Then he's asked how the costs were likely to compare with those for producing electricity from fossil fuels such as coal. Machida replies: "Fossil fuel resources will be totally out by then."
This statement seem like a pretty big deal to me. A major corporate head pronouncing that fossil fuels will be exhausted in 25 years. But then I do a search for this on google news, and there is only the single Reuters article, reproduced in just four other publications (two in the US and two in New Zealand).
And then I do a search of Japanese-language news sources on google news: One single hit, which is an abreviated translation of the Reuters article. This is on an IT site. No Japanese publications--not the national general dailies nor Nikkei--have carried it at all.
Just not newsworthy, eh?
I'm thinking that Japan might for energy Independence and global warming reasons choose not to use fossil fuels for electricity before ... more laggardly North American governments.
by the way ... i didn't really want to wait 24 years for my cheap solar cells :-(
Why do you find this a big deal?
The CEO of a company that creates products that produce energy states that a competing source of energy will run out.
If you want to sell more solar cells, what better way than to say that fossil fuels are going to run out in 25 years.
Maybe the media just saw it as BS marketing.
Now if Lord Brown had stood up and said that oil was going to run out in 25 years, that would be news.
Based on EIA data, the only month for 2005 for which world production was below the corresponding amount a year earlier was October (during the big post-Katrina outage), and the October 2004 amount was unusually high.
Jan 2005 72,877 1.8%
Feb 2005 73,154 2.3%
Mar 2005 73,436 2.7%
Apr 2005 73,782 3.3%
May 2005 73,928 3.9%
Jun 2005 73,629 1.2%
Jul 2005 73,527 0.6%
Aug 2005 73,681 2.1%
Sep 2005 73,246 0.6%
Oct 2005 72,973 -0.4%
Nov 2005 73,655 1.0%
Dec 2005 74,311 2.4%
AVE 2005 73,519 1.8%
Jan 2006 73,816 1.3%
Feb 2006 73,754 0.8%
Mar 2006 73,502 0.1%
Apr 2006 73,498 -0.4%
May 2006 73,334 -0.8%
Jun 2006 73,382 -0.3%
In a supply driven decline, prices go up, and up an up, which is exactly what has been happening for over two and one half years now.
That Gail, is how we know.
Ron Patterson
There is plenty of supply on the market to supply everyone who is willing to pay $70 a barrel for oil. There are a lot more people wanting oil but are only willing to pay $50 or $60 for it. If oil drops to their price, they will step in and buy it, but not before. But only a drop in the current supply of oil can send prices higher, forcing more people out of the market. It's a bidders market. The less oil available, the higher prices will be bid up.
Data: EIA International Petroleum Monthly, Table 1.4 - World Oil Supply
One thing I am noticing in the data is that the relative change over the past few months is much smaller than for the rest of the period. I wonder if we will see some siginificant revisions to these numbers at some point in the future (which the EIA does quite frequently).
It has been many years since I ventured into a middle school (junior high school) science class to see what they are teaching the younger generation.
Does anyone here have insight on what they are "teaching" the younger folk today (if anything at all)?
Irrespective of the answer, you are correct to observe that each professional specialization has a very myopic view of the universe:
cfm in Gray, ME
World supply of crude oil and condensate for the first six months of 2006 averaged 73,546 mbpd versus 73,468 in the same period in 2005.
World supply of 'all liquids' for the first six months of 2006 averaged 84,289 mbpd versus 84,398 in the same period in 2005. I find it slightly suprising that 'all liquids' is slightly down on 2005 whereas oil+condensate is slightly up.
North Sea oil production was particularly low in June, at just 4,111 mbpd of crude+condensate. Angolan production is also down for the second month in a row - is there a particular reason for that?
OPEC's Monthly Oil Market Report (PDF) is also out now.
This decline shows that not only third world countries with bad credit are at risk, but also that the most industrialized countries in the world that rely on imported oil are also vulnerable.
Yes Angola is down 135 thousand barrels per day over the last two months because of rebel insurgents. They were supposed to have signed a peace tready and production is supposed to back to normal this month, September.
Ron Patterson
An excerpt:
In other words the author of this essay thinks it is selfish to try and save yourself, your family and perhaps the group of survivalists you have chosen to unite with. But instead you should try to save the entire world. In other words, show compassion for the starving masses, do what you can to feed the world that they may breed future generations of even more starving people.
The problem is far greater than Peak Oil, it is Peak People that should be on people's minds. Many a cornucopian, as well as many in the peak oil camp, believe we can just turn to organic gardening and feed the world. They seem to think that population is no problem, that we will reach a bumpy plateau of 9 or 10 billion people around mid century. Then the so-called "Demographic Transition" will have taken hold and the 10 billion will live in peaceful tranquility for as long as the sun shines. I agree completely with the critic of the peace who wrote:
It is the simultaneity of peak oil with other problems that will insure there can be no transition to a society living like cheery castaways on Gilligan's Island. Grain production is dropping like a rock. As the article says, in 2004 the world produced 2.68 billion tons of grain. This year the USDA estimates grain production will be about 1.984 billion tons. And we wish to take a large amount of that and produce automobile fuel with it.
But it was the green revolution that enabled the world's population to grow like a kudzu in the South. We have genetically modified plants, fossil produced pesticides and fertilizers and massive amounts heavy farm equipment that allows one farmer to feed thousands, or one farming company, like ADM, to feed millions. But now food production is dropping because we have reached the point of diminishing returns. And when all that chemical fertilizer and pesticides are removed and the world returns to pointed stick planting, the world's food supply will drop to a fraction of what is produced today.
But the dream of a cheery Gilligan's Island lives on. The belief persists that if we all just pull together and help each other out, no one will go hungry.
My dilemma is that I cannot laugh and cry at the same time.
Ron Patterson
"Follow me."
I've begun to ignore him.
Certainly, it seems like lots of little lifeboats would be better than one big one. We don't know what solution will be best; with lots of lifeboats, you have a better chance of at least one surviving.
OTOH, so many of our problems are now global in nature. Global warming, acid rain, nuclear war. Something someone is doing in their lifeboat can end up swamping yours.
I wouldn't really characterize DailyKos as liberal. Its more "centrist" leaning to the right, in my view.
Multiple lifeboats create diverse possibilities. Since we don't know all the best choices, and since different regions and different circumstances call for different best choices, multiple lifeboats is the best strategy.
Powerdown in the Heinberg voluntary sense has no chance, in my view. Too many around the world agree with Cheney about non-negotiability of our lifestyle. Actually, it is, but voluntary reduction to enable others to survive...Maybe to enable US to survive. This is my estimate of what's possib le; I am neither condemning nor supporting this view.
Global warming is indeed global. Many of the sensible strategies: economize, localize, produce, as well as electric railways, PHEV, will reduce our contribution to the acceleration of global warming. The loss of oil may tend to reduce CO2 production, but its replacement by coal will make it worse. We cannot control what others do, but we can make wiser choices for ourselves. And we can try to prevent the US from launching a war against Iran that could be or become nuclear.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2342421,00.html
I agree that becoming a survivalist will have far less bearing upon a person's survival than the response of that person's local community.
However, a person who is trying to prepare now has far more control over whether they become a survivalist, than control over how their community responds to pressure.
This is perhaps the psuedo-paradox that explains the popularity of survivalist doctrines.
To bring the decision back to a moral point of view is absurd to me. I guess I favour the position of Monbiot - our moral positions are caused by our wealth, not the cause of it.
However, to a person who has forsaken the idea of survivalism, perhaps the best course of action (to regain a semblance of control) is to try to influence the future response of one's local community. Perhaps the moral persuasion of Rob is an attempt at this behaviour. If this is so, I think the essay may be described as 'appropriately desperate'.
What would Jesus do?
In D.H. Lawrence's The Escaped Cock, Jesus comes back from the dead only to give up the idea of saving mankind. He views the world with wonder and asks himself: "From what, and to what, could this infinite whirl be saved?"
I do not believe the mass of mankind can be saved. Of course I am speaking in the physical sense, not the spiritual as I am an atheist. If we did somehow manage to keep the population bomp exploding until it reached 9 or 10 billion, we would simply destroy the world in the process, and in the end increase by three billion or so the number of humans who must ultimately miserably perish as the world withered under such an unbearable load of humanity.
Ron Patterson
If you know the REAL history of these two men you know what I'm talking about. If you believe the myths then you don't. Just do some googling.
More likely, MLK would have been busy seeking a ghostwriter to churn out yet another 'I have a dream' speech, or he would have just plagiarised as usual (see the MLK Plagiarism Page).
And as to you, Darwinian, my dear little brother in Christ! What you need is faith.
With this faith, you will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, you will be able to transform the jangling discords of your nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, you will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together ... zzzzzzz zzzzzz
who doesn't want to get his wicker wet? Ghandi wasn't above getting his groove on either.
I think that MLK would have been very involved helping the masses form survivalist organizations in order to cope. Ghandi, I'm not so sure about. However, the reputations both men had for compassion certainly had more than a small basis in truth and shouldn't be crudely mocked.
My point exactly. I'm all for debunking myths, but find it disturbing when only the negative characteristics displayed by great leaders are focused on to the exclusion of all the good they accomplished.
Maybe you should read what Orwell wrote about the man - especially in light of Orwell's distaste of Gandhi. The article ends 'One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!'
( http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/898/ )
And of course, the British rulers of India were famed for their deep devotion to not screwing over the poor people and just letting them suffer.
It strikes me that one can score more points on these workers and activists if one presupposes their failure (and presupposes faulty goals like the desire to "breed future generations of even more starving people" or "the dream of a cheery Gilligan's Island").
... of course, if a non-crash is possible, the attack on workers and activists looks much different. Then, it rapidly becomes the stuff with faulty goals and motivations.
What do you describe as a "non-crash"? Would that be the case if no one suffered hunger due to peak oil? Would that be the case if everyone turned to organic gardening and got fat and kept having kids? Then these kids cleared more land for more organic gardening, then their kids.....
Tell me Odograph, what the hell is a non-crash anyway?
Obviously people who think "action" can do some good will be more supportive of action. People who carry a sense of futility are going to be less supportive of those plans or actions.
You set a pretty high bar there when you say "no one suffered hunger due to peak oil."
Is that a realistic goal? Or would a "non-crash" be a course in which we tried to minimize suffering, and maintain the institutions of civilization?
That isn't actually the case, is it? Many environmental orginziations have population control wings, movements, etc.
Odograph, if trying means a non-crash then you can be sure we will have a non-crash. Everyone, including myself, will be trying like hell to keep food on the table and clean water in the well. But I haven't a clue as to how you will maintain the institutions of civilization when fossil fuels start to dry up. But of course I cannot elaborate because I don't know which institution you are talking about.
Of course not, I would not dream of suggesting that is the case. It's just that saving civilization as we know it means saving the status quo. A lot of people advocate population control, including myself. But of course that means draconian measures. Only a totalitarian world government can truly control population. The people, left to themselves simply will not do it.
Speculation ahead
The obvious middle ground between the survivalist's isolationist mindset vs. the universal handholding and singing of "Oh, what a Wonderful World" societal cooperation [as advocated by your linked author] is the creation of large, contiguous biosolar habitats protected by my hypothetical Earthmarines. Expect Blackwater to provide similar security for the remaining rich detritovores. At least for an indeterminate interim period as detritus entropy will eventually unwind these areas too.
Legislative Secession, combined with the inevitable shrinking of the long-distance foodstuff and detritus infrastructure spiderwebs will cause this biosolar vs detritovore geographic division. Longtime readers of my postings can see this obvious logic as the basis for my hypothetical conclusions. Consider this recent posting of mine.
Just as Gretna sherrifs prevented Nawlins people from using I-10 to escape the devastation: I think Cascadia and other Secession areas will prevent the hordes of millions streaming out of the Southwest postPeak. The Cascadians will be forced by a desire for ecologic sustainability to unite, to some degree, to protect themselves from being overrun. The 'Minutemen' along the AZ-Mex border are already consumed with this mindset. Ponder the implications.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than YEast?
I read it too. IMHO, this guy is clueless and used a bunch of disturbing pictures to help make his point. Either he'll wise up when the crisis begins or he'll die.
>But it was the green revolution that enabled the world's population to grow like a kudzu in the South.
This guy sounds like he majored in philophy and has little technical knowledge.
BTW: Your son still works for Americo on KSA right? Does he have any way to check on Heisburgs rumor of Gharwar production down to 3 mmb/d?
I don't think so. He trains and tests Saudis who are trying to take over the maintenance of their electronic equipment, mostley in the Safaniya area. Safaniya is in the far north, Ghawar is in the south and is handled out of Daharan.
But I will check with him and see if he has any information.
Geez. It must be frightening to have such predictive abilities ... "or he'll die."
Tell me, what rate of oil production decline, specifically, will kill him, and when does it begin?
It was based upon his intention to face the hordes seeking food and provide them with whatever resources he has at is disposal. In such a scenaro, his resources will be quickly depleted and he will just become another member of the horde in search of food and either fall prey to violence or starvation. I can't see any other outcome if that is his intentions.
>Tell me, what rate of oil production decline, specifically, will kill him, and when does it begin?
I can't say. All I can say is that some point the future industry nor the gov't will be able to provide the daily calorie requirements to feed the massive populations of the big cities. When this occurs, people will flee to find food and shelter elsewhere.
Back in 1977 during the Carter sweater years, There was a black out in NYC. It didn't last very long, but because of the decaying local gov't services and high unemployment rate, the inhabitants took to rioting and looting. It came to end when the power was restored and the national guard was sent in. What if this even occurs in multiple cities simulateously and there aren't enough troops to quell the riots and if the power and food remains in accessable for days?
Lets consider a slow decline rate. In this scenaro, Unemployment soars over time, and local gov't revenues drop. Drug use, crime, gang violence, and corruption all soar just like the did in the 1970s. Unlike the past, the problems will get only worse since there is no new source of cheap energy to be found. The number of homeless grows to a point where they can not longer obtain enough food. They leave the cities to find food and shelter else where. These people will have no money and won't have access to transportion and will disperse into the neighboring areas and spread their chaos like cancer.
I'm not a big coal fan, but wouldn't others (the voters?) choose coal over the scenario in your last paragraph?
Do you really think it is a coincidence that Stuart disappears in the run up to the November elections and right before the discovery of an oil field called Jack?
Stuart is gone. The Chimpster is keeping silent. I guess that only leaves Savinar.
- A simple slow decline does not consider the geopolitical ramifications. For instance when the rest of the worlds oil exporters nationalize oil and gas assets and put hard limits on exports and demand payment other than US dollars.
- I believe Stuart's slow decline is flawed because it does not consider the broad use of water injection that has permitted all of the largest fields to maintain steady production well after they peaked (some more than decades ago). When these fields water out, the production will drop off a cliff. For instance Mexico's Cantarell and the North Sea have much steeper declines than original projected. This will certainly also occur in many of the other big fields in the Middle East soon.
>I'm not a big coal fan, but wouldn't others (the voters?) choose coal over the scenario in your last paragraph?Coal, Tar Sands and other projects used to product liquid (or gas) fuels do not scale well. The bigger the project the more contraints (water, transportant, maintaince, logistics, etc)are impose on them. All of the non-conventional oil sources combine can only provide a small fraction of the refine products produced from oil and gas. Whether voters or gov't gets big on coal or other alternatives will have little impact on our future.
We will face a battle of curves, some of them exponential, some of them not. Broadly speaking depletion versus scalability, yes.
>We will face a battle of curves, some of them exponential, some of them not. Broadly speaking depletion versus scalability, yes.
The only real battle is between export volume and demand destruction. If consumption continues to fall it might decline enough to prevent a crisis from happening for a few more years.
Of course, the problem is that the decline could be anywhere between 2 and 20%. We have to be prepared, but in a different sense than a basement full of food and guns. We have to be prepared to respond in a manner appropriate to the depletion curve we actually encounter.
Planning, preparation, but avoiding "lock in", and retaining flexibility.
Techguy, if it wasn't the green revolution that fostered the population explosion, what was it? Apart from modern medicine and the resulting reduction in child mortality, I can't think of any other major cause.
Do you have any better ideas on this topic than Darwinian?
Incidentally, Darwinian is not 'this guy'. He is somebody with whom you disagree.
I fully agree with Darwinian. FWIW, in my opinion, Darwinian is one of the few here at TOD that gets the big picture. "The guy" I was referring to was "Rob Hopkins" who wrote the article and didn't bother to consider how the green revolution has impacted food production. Hence Rob probably doesn't have a technical background. Rob has not even remotely begun to understand the ramifications and why the survivalist method is the only realistic approach to deal with overshoot. It better to build a lifeboat and hope that one day in the future you may have the opportunately to help rebuild society then gamble on a "all or nothing" approach. Those that are also self sufficient no longer impose on the collective society resources.
Imagine if just a few million americans became completely self-sufficent and didn't require any resources provided by the rest of society. That would liberate a lot of resources that could be used to support those that remain dependant.
Consider this situation: a Doctor and a fellow traveler end up in a bad car accident. Both are bleeding badly. If the doctor addresses his wounds first, he might be able to stop the bleeding before he loses conscious. Once he has address his own critical situation, he might have a chance to save the fellow traveler. If he was to not address his own injuries he's likely lose conscious before he is able save the fellow traveler, in which case both of the end up dead.
The point I am trying to get across is: Save yourself first and then try to help others if you can. Don't be foolish and gamble on gov't or society to pull through. To believe that everything will work out or there is a techno solution out there is simply flat out denial. It will happen, its just a matter of when.
How about the instructions on a plane.
If an emergency happens, Put the oxygen Mask on YOURSELF first, then put it on your child.
SAME reason. Ya can't help nobody if ya ain't helped yourself first. Especially if you see the crash coming and the guy beside you doesn't.
I have two daughters and a granddaughter. I ain't got a choice but to try to get prepared. For their protection.
If it wasn't for them, I'd pull up a chair and grab a couple of cool ones.
JC
Here is the map
of tropical depression SIX in the Atlantic Ocean...
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj05cavallo
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ÔÆÄÏÂÃÓÎ×ÊѶÍøÌá 5;©¸÷ÖÖÂÃÓηþÎñ£¬ÔÆÄÏÂÃÓΣ¬ÔÆÄÏÂÃÓÎÏß·£¬À¥Ã÷ÂÃÓΡ¢ÔÆÄÏÂÃÓξ°µã¡¢ Àö½ÂÃÓΡ¢Ïã¸ñÀïÀÂÃÓΡ¢ãò¹ÁºþÂÃÓΡ¢Î÷Ë«°æÄÉÂÃÓΣ»³Ð½Ó³Ð°ì¸÷ÖÖÔÆÄÏ»áÒé¼°¹«Ë¾³öÓΣ¡ ´ËÍâÎÒÃÇ»¹ÌṩÀ¥ 5;÷³ö¸Û´òÕÛ»úƱºÍÀ&# 165;Ã÷Ìؼ۾ƵêÔ¤¶©·þ Îñ¡£
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and the sixth repeat of
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(of course I understand the repetition is functional)
other than that, your theory looks solid
Oh my god in that case it means our soon to be chinese overlords have infiltrated the oil drum! Run!!! Everybody run!!!
Thanks for the reference to Alfred Cavallo's article titled `Oil: Caveat Empty', which was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, issue May/June 2005. As your citation indicates, Cavallo claims that ExxonMobil's report `The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View predicts `non-OPEC' peak oil by 2010.
Cavallo's interpretation is somewhat cavalier - in fact Exxon's report is a standard-issue sunny-side-up study. Here is a summary of the report's contents (courtesy of Euractiv.com):
.From a PowerPoint presentation based on this report it would appear that non-OPEC oil production flattens off at 2012 and remains level for three years, declining slowly afterwards. I suppose you could call that an 'impending plateau' but it certainly does not reflect any revolutionary change in ExxonMobil's world view. It's part of the conventional wisdom that, even if something goes awry, OPEC will always be around to carry the can.
(snip)
"Just a single fill of ethanol for a four-wheel drive SUV, says Brown, uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year. This year the amount of US corn going to make the fuel will equal what it sells abroad; traditionally its exports have helped feed 100 - mostly poor - countries.
From next year, the amount used to run American cars will exceed exports, and soon it is likely to reduce what is available to help feed poor people overseas. The number of ethanol plants built or planned in the corn-belt state of Iowa will use virtually all the state's crop.
This will not only cut food supplies, but drive up the process of grain, making hungry people compete with the owners of gas-guzzlers. Already spending 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, they simply cannot afford to do so.
Brown expects the food crisis to get much worse as more and more land becomes exhausted, soil erodes, water becomes scarcer, and global warming cuts harvests.
Making cars more fuel-efficient, and eating less meat would help but the only long-term solution is to enable poor countries - and especially their poorest people - to grow more food. And the best way to do that, studies show, is to encourage small farmers to grow crops in environmentally friendly ways. Research at Essex University shows that this can double yields.
But the world needs a new sense of urgency. "We are living very close to the edge," says Brown. "History judges leaders by whether they respond to great issues. For our generation, the issue may well be food security."
(end article).
Someone might have talked about it above I don't know.
The corn and soybean crops are being reduced in some areas because of the several weeks of the heat waves we had this past summer. Now some states are going "hog wild" with corn to fuel. Reduced stockpiles, reduced yeilds and now reduced exports from the USA could help doom a lot of others.
The DieOff begins here.
But could we (collectively) have stopped it?
Vast numbers of the World's population do not produce that much - and so removing them from the statistics may actually result in the World Average per capita GDP increasing going forward.
Looking not too far into the future (2020?) and based on what we actually know is happening right now:
- US and other OECD countries are to start using croplands to grow fuel - food to fuel.
- Decreasing EROEI of energy production and with peak oil, reduction in gross energy growth. At some point reducing net energy availability hits food production. This might simply be energy costs getting too high in some countries
energy shortages, leading to lower agricultural ouput.Therefore, it seems likely that famine on a massive scale could just be around the corner. Growth in the world population gets halted and then it starts to fall, the poorer, less productive members of the population are first to go. And so starts the process of increasing the avearge GDP per capita and this may go on for decades./
My guess is that World "Leaders" will say they had no way of knowing.
Likewise here, say in Lewiston, Maine, the way to eliminate poverty is to give the CDBG monies (because Lewiston is very poor it gets a good amount) to the Economic and Development Organization (business community, eg the Best Citizens), to eliminate the Planning Board (community) and then bulldoze the low rent district. Per capita GDP goes up when all the poor move out. Progress, just like NOLA.
Maybe every citizen of the planet needs a $10 Kalashnikov. I can't get one that cheap. Anyway, it's the duty of a citizen to oppose oppression; think before you shoot. :-) [Should be pretty good on the Tainter index - a tractor plant can make them]
cfm in Gray, ME
I posted the exact same quote in RR's ethanol follow-up post yesterday.
Another quote from the article by Geoffrey Lean (yes a reporter called Lean writing on famine).
I am amused by the paradox that so-called environmentalists will continue to believe that the headlong rush for bio-fuels is being pursued in the name of saving the planet.
"Problem is, we get oil from some parts of the world and they simply don't like us," he said. "The more dependent we are on that type of energy, the less likely it will be that we are able to compete and so people can have good paying jobs."
Bush also said he is interested in new technology that advances that produce battery-operated cars and allows people to fuel their vehicles with ethanol, particularly in Farm Belt states. And he made a fresh push for greater development of nuclear energy.
"Nuclear power is safe and nuclear power is clean and nuclear power is renewable," the president said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-04-bush-economy_x.htm?csp=24
I have an idea for using diesel engines in our St. Charles route until the new
high-tension lines are installed (two more years). I need to know what power each unit requires for its electric engine (start-up amperage and voltage). I realize that it could never get done in today's political landscape, but I would still like to draw you a picture. If you would ever like to see far-thinking, non-transportation oil use projects, you will be invited to my homestead north of I-12. We could get together with Engineer Poet.
RTA and Boh Bros. have a gentleman's agreement to go slow now. The only cash RTA has is the set aside for this contract, Boh Bros is short of skilled people and has LOTS of other work to do. So St. Charles will reopen from Canal to Lee Circle by year-end and then "step-by-step". RTA is broke and has zero interest in anything that costs more and is temporary.
As someone who lives 2.5 blocks from St. Charles and dearly misses the streetcars, I would oppose dieselization in any case. I am NOT alone.
GO-POP (Grand Ole Peak Oil Party)
1 - Roscoe Bartlett (R - Maryland)
2 - Richard Lugar (R - Indiana)
3 - Tom Udall (D-New Mexico)
4 - Edward Markey (D - Massachusetts)
5 - Al Gore (Ex-presidential candidate)
6 - Bill Clinton (former prez)
7 - Mark Udall (D-Colorado)
8 - Jay Inslee (D - Washington)
9 - Bill Gates (this party will need funding)
10 - Richard Rainwater (ditto #9 if he's got the will to come back)
BTW...I just figured what GO-POP really means. What happens to your ears as we descend faster down from the Peak? They GO POP!!!
Or...what happens to the housing bubble as it expands beyond it's natural limits. It GOes POP!!!
http://thewatt.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&mode=nested&sid=1087
Leads me to recall this old favorite:
http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/
Sounds like the love child of R. Reagan and Gertrude Stein.
An extract ...
The largest production and reserves on the continent are in North Africa. Algerian and Libyan production is increasing, consumption in both countries is low. Egypt (of lesser importance) has peaked and hence is declining. ExxonMobil now produces 30% of it's oil in Africa. Although we tend to focus on the Persian Gulf, the IEA use the acronym MENA (Middle East North Africa) in its analyses. Much of the world's recently discovered oil is in Africa. Etcetera.
It's a place with a promising future, if you're not too bothered by mutilated corpses by the roadside, courtesy of the unending civil war, likely more guns per capita than even the US, and a bunch of minor items that go by exotic names like Ebola and Marburg.
The contraceptive of choice is widely available under the name HIV. Ask any girl.
I think there was another article posted yesterday about Africa and the mixed blessings of oil underneath your land. The most humiliating poverty lives on top of the last big riches. And they won't get a penny.
If we're to fight that energy war with Hu Jintao, want to bet it will be in Africa? When We Were Kings, 2007 revisited revised version.
One good thing fror them that I see is that they will have the upper hand over us post peak, simply because they have much less changes to adapt to.
About 1.4 Billion issues come to mind. China is already the largest importer of grain. A sustainable amount of fertile farm land was flooded by the three gorges dam.
China also lacks the military hardware to engage in cross contentenial warfare. They lack navy assets that would be required to sustain a large force in Africa. It would probably take a full decade before their navy is capable of such an engagment. But by then other problems at home will prevent them from these actions.
There is one possible tactic that China could use that might swing the balance to their favor, but it would likely be a tremendous cost and probably would prevent them from obtaining a decisive victory anywnay.
Freeway Lifestyle Comes to an End
Nothing about PO, but does present some interesting facits about transportation issues for the present & future.
Oh Crap -- more exponentiality!!! Check out the latest news from the BBC on Antarctica:
-------------
The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years.
"The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records," he said.
-----------------------
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than YEast?
Sorry, I pasted this in the Sept. 3 Drumbeat, when I actually meant to paste it on today's Drumbeat:
_________________
I hope everyone reads Leanan's Uganda top-thread article:
-------------------
According to annual consumption records of petroleum products, Uganda in 2004 imported 571,749 cubic metres of oil products, compared with 526,583 in 2003, representing an increase of 8.6 per cent.
Officials said that the 2005 figures of petroleum consumption are higher given that the year was the worst hit by the shortfall in hydro power generation.
-------------------------------
If I comprehend the article correctly--the Ugandans are to be congratulated for their desire to move away from cars to mass-transit and bicycles for their population!
From the CIA Factbook: Uganda pop. = approx 28.2 million
and 1 cubic meter= approx 6.3 barrels.
572,000 cubic meters x 6.3 = 3,603,600 barrel of petroluem.
28.2 pop divided by 3.6 = 7.83 barrels/person/year of FF usage. 7.83 x 42 gal/bbl = 329 gallons/Ugandan/year
From this EnergyBulletin link:
----------------
America leads the world in fossil fuel burning with a per capita energy consumption of 57.5 BOE, approximately 2,400 gallons. The average U.S. citizen, and there are 291 million of us, consumes 12.5 times the energy of the average citizen of Africa or Asia.
-------------------
Will we wait till American oil usage declines 7/8ths to the Ugandan level before we get smart about relocalizing our infrastructure for bicycles and mass-transit? If TODer Westexas is correct with his export depletion theory and a now-occuring Peakdate-- will we reach the Ugandan level of FF usage in less than 5 years?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Latest Mexico update from the Washington Post. AMLO has not yet told his supporters about Cantarell crashing and Mexican Peakoil, AFAIK. Perhaps, as the above article suggests: the ongoing political tugs-of-war occurring in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Mexico City is already too stressful. To handle the additional stress of their coming reality of declining FF output would be too much for the average Mexican to bear.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The result were:
Dont know/no answer: 5%
Close down ASAP: 12%
Use those we have until the are closed down by cost or security reasons: 53%
Build more nuclear power: 30%
No political party have made a major issue about closing down nuclear power in the election campaign wich have 12 days left to election day. The price of electricity have recently been a larger issue then the price of oil, recent high prices have been blamed on low levels in hydro dams, a lack of competition among the power producers and a lack of investments in new powerplants.
The opposition alliance who has one of the leading anti nuclear parties have agreed on keeping the nuclear powerplants we have and allow life lenght extensions and upratings. There has been some public talk about more nuclear power as a reasonable issue for the 2010 elections and in the meantime there will be large investments in "alternatives", quicker to build and a bid from the anti nuclear people to outcompete new nuclear power in a constructive way.
I guess that Swedish industries will invest more in the likely Finland 6 then they did in the building Finland 5 1600 MW PWR and that our neighbours power industry will continue to plan for more reactors. Having capital leaving to our nearest neighbour in the east by the $billion will probably accelerate the investments here. But they have a multi year planning headstart.
I suspect that the quote was made based on a quote from The Economist
The Economist
Let's see if this one is retracted :-)