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DrumBeat: January 9, 2007
Posted by threadbot on January 9, 2007 - 10:05am
Speculators keep oil prices afloat - Investors still think oil is a hot commodity, which may explain why crude hasn't fallen far despite brimming supplies, warm weather and a cooling economy.
"There is no fundamental reason for [the price of oil]," Stephen Schork, publisher of the industry newsletter the Schork Report said of oil prices in the $55-$65 range. "This is a market that is trading on speculation."
"In our view, with the current supply demand environment, the price ought to be $35 to $40 a barrel," said Mark Gilman, an oil and gas analyst with the Benchmark Co., a New York-based investment firm.
James Howard Kunstler: Making Other Arrangements
Still, the widespread wish persists that some combination of alternative fuels will rescue us from this oil and gas predicament and allow us to continue enjoying by some other means what Vice-President Cheney has called the "non-negotiable" American way of life. The truth is that no combination of alternative fuels or systems for using them will allow us to continue running America, or even a substantial fraction of it, the way we have been. We are not going to run Wal-Mart, Walt Disney World, Monsanto, and the Interstate Highway System on any combination of solar or wind energy, hydrogen, ethanol, tar sands, oil shale, methane hydrates, nuclear power, thermal depolymerization, "zero-point" energy, or anything else you can name. We will desperately use many of these things in many ways, but we are likely to be disappointed in what they can actually do for us.
Perhaps the most widely heard response to the peak oil argument is that the world has lots of oil left. To those who understand the peak oil problem, this is a non sequitur. The typical counterargument begins with "Yes, but..." followed by a lengthy disquisition on the difference between stocks and flows of a resource, the geology of oil wells, and the various types of oil.Often what the listener thinks he or she hears is that the cornucopian thinkers are right. But, less often does the listener understand enough to take the problem seriously.
Over 1.5 TRILLION barrels of oil equivalent have been produced since Edwin Drake drilled the world's first oil well in 1859. The world will need that same amount to meet demand in the next 25 years alone. And if you're thinking that it's all for your gas tank, you're only half right.
Dems make bad start with "no-energy" plan
President Bush favors a comprehensive national energy policy that includes tapping domestic sources of oil and natural gas. Democrats have been unwilling to discuss any energy plan that calls for more drilling in Alaska.National security will suffer and Americans will pay a premium at the pumps if the Democrats compound their error in blocking drilling legislation by permanently banning all exploration in ANWR. The refuge is believed to contain about 11 billion barrels of oil -- enough to nearly equal the nation's imports from Saudi Arabia.
White House Hopefuls to Target Oil Industry Tax Breaks
Several high-profile Democrats, to include Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and John Kerry (Mass.), offered bills that would repeal tax incentives much like legislation the House Democratic leadership hopes to pass in floor votes scheduled for next week.
Ethanol makes economic sense for Missouri
Mapping the human genome wasn’t enough. Now Craig Venter is trying to create a microbe that will free us from our addiction to oil.(Sorry, it appears this article is now behind a paywall. You can get an idea of what it's about here.)
10 Books on Solutions for Energy Descent You Must Read in 2007
Are people ready for EU's energy revolution?
European citizens know very little about the importance of energy policy in their daily lives and do not see the need for research on energy efficiency.
Bulgaria Bakes At Least 2 Electricity Hikes in 2007
The predicted increase is due to bulging prices of gas, influenced mainly by the disturbed supplies of gas from Russia to Western Europe. Gas is the predominant fuel used in Bulgarian heating utility companies.
Nigerian Militant Group Threatens Fresh Attacks
The Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a major militant in oil rich southern Nigeria, threatened on Sunday to resume attacks on oil facilities this month and seize more captives."We are resuming with our attacks this month and may even take more hostages." the MEND said in an e-mail to media.
By re-nationalizing its energy sector, Putin’s regime is slaying its largest golden goose.
Zimbabwe seeks $2 billion to avert energy crisis
Zimbabwe requires more than $2-billion to build a new hydroelectric station, refurbish and expand existing power plants to avert an energy shortfall likely to black out the country and much of Southern Africa this year, according to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority.
Japan to subsidize uranium search
Japan will heavily subsidize uranium exploration as the global demand for the nuclear plant fuel increases, tightening the supply of imports Japan relies on.
Energy independence is South America’s big dream
LA PAZ, Bolivia – Aiming to leverage their huge natural gas reserves, leaders across South America are talking about building a network of pipelines stretching thousands of kilometres to feed demand and wean themselves from being so dependent on big U.S. and European energy companies.
Whale sightings add to pressure to block Firth of Forth oil transfers
THE Executive came under pressure yesterday to intervene to stop plans for ship-to-ship transfers of Russian oil in the Firth of Forth, amid fears that it will jeopardise the flourishing wildlife in the river estuary.
What Al Gore Hasn't Told You About Global Warming
George Monbiot's new book Heat picks up where Al Gore left off on global warming, offering real solutions without sugar-coating the large personal sacrifices they will require.
Rising carbon emissions set energy challenge
"Only in China between now and 2015 the capacity they will build in the power sector will be equal to the existing capacity in the EU (European Union)-25," he said.Without a change in policy nine-tenths of this new Chinese capacity would come from burning coal, the highest carbon-emitting fossil fuel, Birol says.
Grim prognosis for Earth - A View of the Year 2050
Rising sea levels and the spread of deserts have forced as many as 200 million people to seek new homes as environmental refugees. They're flooding into Europe, North America and Australia....The Netherlands, after centuries of wresting land from the sea, has had to give much of it back. Thousands of people are living in floating communities.
Oil priced beyond the means of Third Worlders means more for America, for the moment, and indeed the public here is glorying in still-affordable gasoline. Judging by the evidence in the supermarket aisles, there have been no noticeable Cheez Doodle shortages. There are certain Third World countries, however, that also happen to be major oil producers. Nigeria, for instance. It is already a very chaotic state. The oil there is extracted mainly by multinational corporations who pay substantial royalties and licensing fees to the Nigerian government. The people of Nigeria mostly do without. Increasingly, they are tapping into pipelines illegally and siphoning off oil. Meanwhile, a quasi Civil War has provoked assaults and kidnappings against the oil infrastructure and foreign workers. Sooner or later, Nigeria will become too chaotic and its oil supply will go off-line, so to speak, perhaps permanently. When that happens, the happy motorists in Atlanta and the San Fernando Valley may start to notice that something is happening.
Greenpeace: EU about to make climate change blunder
The European Union will sabotage its aim of getting developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions sharply if it sets a lower target for itself than it seeks for the rest of the world, Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
It's clean air vs. TV in poor India village
Across the developing world, cheap diesel generators from China and elsewhere have become a favorite way to make electricity. They power everything from irrigation pumps to television sets, allowing growing numbers of rural villages in many poor countries to grow more crops and connect to the wider world.But as the demand increases for the electricity that makes those advances possible, it is often being met through the dirtiest, most inefficient means, creating pollution problems in many remote areas that used to have pristine air and negligible emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas.
Fast-growing weeds have evolved over a few generations to adapt to climate change, which could signal the start of an "evolution explosion" in response to global warming, scientists reported on Monday.This means that the weeds will likely keep up with any attempts to develop crops that can adapt to global warming, said Arthur Weis, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine.
Not since the 1970s has the world seen anything like it. On the eve of his third term in office, Venezuela’s fiery president Hugo Chávez has announced a sweeping nationalisation of the economy, encompassing the telecommunications sector, electricity companies and heavy oil upgrading projects in the Orinoco river belt.
Russia oil trade dispute angers Belarus
MOSCOW - Belarus complained bitterly Tuesday that Russia was digging in its heels over a trade battle that has disrupted Russian oil supplies to Germany and much of Eastern Europe, as European officials voiced criticism of the pipeline shutdown.
EU demands supply line restored
European countries reliant on Russian oil were on Monday seeking to secure energy supplies and considering tapping strategic reserves after Moscow turned off a pipeline that delivers oil via Belarus.Germany demanded an “immediate and full reopening” of the Druzhba pipeline, as Poland admitted it was “completely dependent” on Russia to meet its oil needs.
Moscow-Minsk dispute leaves Europe in a quandary
In spite of the mercurial moods of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s authoritarian ruler, the country has long been one of Russia’s closest allies, enjoying its generous subsidies in the form of cheap oil and gas. In reality, the Kremlin has been getting increasingly irritated with the antics of the man it has kept in power.
IEA: Market can cope with Russian oil disruption
"There is apparently no immediate impact to any of the refineries in the countries involved, as they all have working stocks of several days. So there is no threat that product supplies to the end users will be disrupted," the IEA said in a statement.
Nexen Achieves First Oil from Buzzard Field
Richard Heinberg: The Closer We Get, the Worse It Looks
The problems of Climate Change and Peak Oil both result from societal dependence on fossil fuels. But just how the impacts of these two problems relate to one another, and how policies to address them should differ or overlap, are questions that have so far not been adequately discussed.
BP sees oil output fall for sixth quarter
LONDON - BP, the world's second largest oil company, has said that its energy production dropped by five percent in the final three months of 2006, the sixth quarterly drop in a row.In a trading update on Tuesday, BP said it pumped 3.82 million barrels of oil and gas per day in the fourth quarter compared with 4.02 million barrels during the same period a year earlier owing to supply disruptions in Alaska, a cut in output by OPEC oil-producing cartel and weak demand for gas.
Analysts had expected fourth-quarter output in the region of 4.0 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboed).
Danger of leaks said to hang over BP's Caspian pipeline
The story of how BP built the BTC pipeline using an inappropriate coating, despite repeated warnings that it would not work, points to companywide flaws, said Matthew Simmons, founder of Simmons & Co., a Houston- based oil and gas investment bank."There are clear parallels between what happened here and what happened in Alaska and Texas City," Simmons said. "When you get a problem at BP, you get massive denial."
Russia Cabinet told to weigh output cut
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin ordered his Cabinet on Tuesday to consider a possible reduction in oil output amid a dispute with Belarus over a halt in transit of Russian oil to Europe — an indication the battle could drag on.
Oil pipeline disruption 'destroys confidence' in Russia, says Merkel
BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the sudden suspension of oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline in Belarus destroyed confidence in Russia as an energy supplier."It is not acceptable when there are no consultations about such moves," Merkel said Tuesday when asked about Russia's reliability as an energy partner.
Cities rediscover allure of streetcars
 |
Cities hope that streetcars can do in this century what they did in the last: Connect neighborhoods and provide a relatively cheap alternative to walking and driving. |
Geothermal plan in doubt after tremors
BASEL - Efforts to tap energy deep below the earth's crust to provide power for homes in the Swiss city of Basel may have to be scrapped after setting off tremors."We had expected the experiment to cause minor tremors. But so far we do not know in detail why the quakes were bigger than expected," said Stefan Wiemer of the Swiss Seismological Service.
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I got a book on tape for Christmas - "Attack on the Middle Class" by Lou Dobbs. After listening to it for the last couple of days on the way to and from work, I have even less faith than before of having any impact on changing the direction of the battleship.
He delineates the money being poured into lobbying from who to who.
BOTH parties are two sides of the same coin.
We will hit the wall at 60mph. Only slightly turning the wheel at the last moment. But not enough I fear.
Peace
John
Hello Samasara,
My hope is that the Native-American Indian Tribes with their independent nation status will be the leaders in forming large, contiguous Biosolar Habitats. If one considers the staggering amounts of money that they are generating from casino gambling, and if these huge sums are put to Biosolar usage across their lands for the benefit of their people--it would do much to alert the rest of the US of the need for 150 million wheelbarrows & bicycles, PVs, windturbines, and relocalized permaculture.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Oops, forgot to include a link:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0615gambling1...
-----------------------------
Nationally, U.S. Indian gambling revenue totaled about $19 billion last year, up 12 percent, but about two-thirds the size of commercial gambling in states such as Nevada and New Jersey, the report said.
Meister expects Arizona to post growth again this year, albeit not as high as 26 percent, and he expects gains to continue nationally.
His report estimates Indian gambling directly and indirectly contributed $19.4 billion in wages nationally, 539,000 jobs, $6.2 billion in tax revenue and additional revenue sharing with governments of $900 million. He estimates total economic output from the industry at $52.3 billion.
-----------------------------------------
That is alot of money that could be diverted to the Paradigm Shift across Indian Tribal lands.
So you think people that sell tax-free cigarettes, alcohol and gasoline in conjunction with running casinos are going to take the lead in some kind of moral crusade?
I would love to know how you came up with this thought.
You keep hoping the wrong things, Bob. It is not going to happen. Homo sapiens is going to slam into the wall at near full speed. Our only hope is for yet another technological miracle. Barring that, we're screwed.
Hello Keithster100 and Greyzone,
Thxs for responding. You guys are probably correct, but the many AZ tribes control vast landholdings in crucial habitats. The Arizona tribes have terrible problems with obesity, alcoholism, and diabetes, along with other problems directly attributable to living against their ancient teachings, skills, and culture. PO + GW Outreach would be the best thing that ever happened to them as they could readily adopt their past cultures to biosolar living.
Take the health problems for example. I have read articles saying their tendency to get vastly overweight is due to the fact that their bodies are desert-evolved for the efficiency of highly active laborious lifestyles. Adopting sedentary habits and auto-driving is killing them vs their ancestors covering large distances to glean slim-pickings from the sparse AZ habitats. A early tribal recognition of this fact could lead to active permaculture programs whereby they go back to growing native foods versus Chez Doodles and Soda Pop. What better way to optimize their decline?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I have to dissapoint you about YATM. Physics being what it is has dealt its cards and the solar hand is as good as it gets. And it is a damn good hand, if I may say so... 10000 times the power manking needs, guaranteed for another three billion years...
If I were you, I would play that hand.
The difficulties of solar relate to how diffuse it is and therefore to the general problem of collection. Your statement of 10,000 times the power mankind needs can immediately be quartered, because currently there is no feasible way to install solar collectors on ocean surface. Then we can further reduce the collectible surface area based upon other factors, including food needed for agricultural, etc. Finally, the availability of solar is variable based on latitude with more nothern climates having less availability than southern climates. This brings into play problems of distribution and storage.
It sounds all very nice to point to the total solar radiation falling on planet earth but there are real engineering issues that must be addressed to utilize that energy. It doesn't just happen because the energy is there. If that were the case why had it not already happened in the prior thousands of years of human existence? Ah, yes, it DID happen, but the utilization level was so low as to preclude a modern lifestyle or modern population densities.
In other words, the engineering issues are not yet solved on a scale or in a manner that does anything other than ensure massive social upheaval anyway.
Now exactly what were you trying to say again before the bus of reality ran over your pipedream?
Yeah.. like many of us, you miss IP's point entirely.
As long as we hit this wall HARD enough, our bodies will just pop through the hole the collision produces, and land neatly on our bikes which are parked on the other side of the wall.
Our buildout of PV/Wind/Solar Heat/Conservation measures are way too late. (Even Nuclear, for those who look to that route) Who knows if we still have a few years to really ramp them up, or if we will do it even so. More and more people are trying as Grid PV and other commercial products start to ramp up some, but the numbers, as most probably recognize, are dismally small. The lies and distortions of XOM and GM, et al.. are getting some noise, but few Pols can take this info to the logical conclusion.. or dare to anyway.
I do have some hope in the fact that we are spread out over the whole planet, and that some pockets will find solutions where others are getting slammed, or slamming one another. While the international economy is one of the great, chain nets that will pull many, many communities downwards together.. as economic ties weaken, various communities will have the chance to 'refloat' on local assets, and the reduced ability to transport so freely could also have the benefit of protecting various areas by the very virtue of their distances from others. This might once again be a saving grace for the profligate USA, with the oceans as massive borders to migratory flows or invasions, etc. But really, this thinking is more about much smaller areas and communities, which is what I work on, since it beats painting caustic pictures of the 'Road Warriors'. By the way, if they were all attacking each other for fuel, would they really be doing it in a bunch of souped up V-8's, or should we remake it to today's tech and have them all on Vespas and Priuses?
I had a fairly pollyana-ish friend who took the 'Grass is always greener' aphorism and turned it into 'Make your own grasses as green as possible'.. Hard to say it without smirking, but I know it has a good bit of truth in it, nonetheless.
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.."
Bob
"souped up V-8's, or should we remake it to today's tech and have them all on Vespas and Priuses"
I suppose what the V8's had that the Vespas & Priuses don't, is it is possible to extend their running life using only metal hand tools.
Greyzone, before denigrating somebody else's 'pipedream', at least get your geographic facts correct. Solar energy is more abundant in the tropics or nearto than it is in either more northerly or more southerly locations.
Hemisphere-centricity aside, he's right. The "total solar flux" argument is the last refuge of the cornered cornucopian. It's a will o' the wisp that blows away at the first breath of common sense.
Right. Could one consider the fission products of all fissionable materials in the Earth's crust and bulk, or all the deuterium in the oceans?
Totally pointless---like pointing to the vast deserts of Australia or North Africa and exclaiming how much luxury truffles they could produce.
Whoa! Big deal! I spoke from a northern hemisphere perspective! Horror of horrors!
Guess what? Most of the land mass upon which solar collectors can be installed is... *drumroll* in the northern hemisphere.
My statement can be easily cut by a factor of one thousand, because once we start to change Earth's albedo by more than 0.1% or so, the absorbed heat causes global warming directly. Let me show you why that is so:
Currently (2001) it is estimated that we use 4.26 × 10^20J of energy annually. That is roughly 13,500GW of continuous power, most of which is waste heat, of course. Solar radiation on the surface is approx. 1kW/m^2. The exposed side of the planet has an effective area of pi*r^2 = 1.34e14m^2. Thus the power of solar radiation hitting Earth's (completely cloudless) surface is roughly 130,000,000GW and above the atmosphere it is 50% more. 1W/m^2 is the magnitude of the radiative forcing from trapped IR radiation in the atmosphere (energy that has not been used by us at all) that causes global warming. This equals roughly 132,000GW of heating power. These are all orders of magnitude, in reality there is cloud cover etc. which is seriously complicating things.
Thanks to the energy conservation law it does not matter where the heat that causes global warming comes from. It can be trapped IR or it can be heat created by fusion power, to the planet it is all the same. It follows that ANY power generation method will have similar effects on the surface because the only way to get rid of it is by radiation into space! The limit of how much energy we can use in total before we start heating the planet directly (rather than by changing the atmospheric IR scattering) is therefor only one order of magnitude beyond the amount of energy we use already. And since future solar cells will have roughly 40% efficiency (going beyond three junctions seems a waste) and since the thermal efficiency of other power generation methods is also 40%, useful power vs. process it is a wash. I made the assumption here that the radiators are at sea level... you could always put the power plants on stilts above the atmosphere and then avoid the 60% penalty or install the solar panels in space and use them to shade the planet etc., but I am trying to discuss 21st century technology here, not 23rd century stuff.
So if we really wanted to use energy beyond the 1W/m^2 limit (which is on the order of maybe 100,000GW), we would need to start installing planetary air conditioning. It can be done, but we are talking terra-forming or at least terra-controlling technologies here... something I won't speculate about right now.
You see... the point is that solar energy can easily cover what we need right now and then some. But beyond what can be done with solar energy, there is very little room for anything else without really heroic efforts.
"Now exactly what were you trying to say again before the bus of reality ran over your pipedream?"
I was trying to say that I have done my homework. Please, please inform yourself.
Hah... so all we need is to cover the whole planet with solar panels? we are saved!
Or. . . how many solar panels would it take to run a factory that makes solar panels?
much more then would be practical. it creates a feedback loop in which they must produce them faster and faster to get the energy they need to produce them faster to meet demand..
EROEI of solar is 5-10 and getting better all the time. No problem. Inform yourself.
"Only" a few hundred thousand square km with current technology...
Our houses 'only' cover a few factors more then a 'a hundred thousand square km'.
People don't get that. On a flight to the East Coast this year I got to see parts of the Midwest and observed how huge the area of the barn roofs was. It occured to me that one could probably generate more net energy by putting solar cells on the farm barns than by all bio-ethanol efforts in total. But then... solar cells don't vote. Farmers do. So the political influence is all with bio-ethanol.
Sorry Bob, but I have to agree with Keithster. Speaking as a card-carrying Indian living in the Native-American Ground Zero known as Tulsa, Oklahoma, I can assure you that (unfortunately) the tribal nations are as short-sighted and greedy as any other. Our leaders are elected based on the promise of economic growth within our nations, not on a far-reaching view of an ecologically-balanced future. We're just folks like anybody else.
Hello Tsulio,
Thxs for responding. I am a fast-crash doomer [realist] myself, but I think some tribes could rapidly modify their reservations to Biosolar lifestyles with gambling income. Sorry, I am not familiar with Native-Americans in the OK area, and what I know about AZ tribes comes from Googling and what I notice from driving around my state.
For example, the Fort McDowell tribe is only 900 members [only 600 live on the Reservation] but in 1996 they each annually got $30,000 apiece from tribal dispersement. This amount is probably much higher nowadays because I know that the casino has been expanded greatly and with the continuing growth of the Asphalt Wonderland: business is booming. With 40 square miles of land for so few people-- there is much they could do to enhance future sustainability if they can shift their mindset. Here is a link:
http://www.ftmcdowell.org/History%20&%20Cultural.htm
If I owned that much land and had that kind of annual free money--I would be installing PVs, potable water systems, bicycle paths, permaculture, and so on. Many tribal members have new McMansions and are driving new SUVs [noticed in my last drive], so I guess the Peakoil message hasn't spread to them yet. Sadly, they also ignore my warning emails as I have gotten no response. It is very difficult to get past those gatekeepers that have the power to filter emails, but I keep trying.
I think that once the tribe does become aware, that the much smaller bureaucracy [as compared to Az state govt], will be able to move very fast in adopting Biosolar changes. Once PO+GW Outreach achieves saturation-- it is only natural to try and optimize the decline path ahead. Time will tell.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Unfortunately, it comes down to the average human's short-sightedness. The figures you cite are impressive, but as you point out, this revenue is being spent on the same goods and housing as in the rest of America. While you do make a good point regarding the smaller beauracracy leading to a chance for swift change within a particular tribe, you have to keep in mind that the individuals who make up that tribe probably aren't interested in building a sustainable community. They're interested in buying all the stuff that gets advertised on their satellite TVs.
Anecdotally, I give you my tribe as an example. When we began to see greater income as a result of our successful gaming enterprises, we established a program to provide a free college education to any tribal member who wanted it. The catch? You have to choose between either Gaming Management or Environmental Engineering. Graduates of the latter program are in strong demand to deal with the ecological fallout from our last great revenue boom - leasing tribal lands to oil and gas. Instead of preparing for the future, my tribe attends only to its present needs.
It's not impossible that some far-thinking tribe will implement the changes you suggest, but it's no more likely within the Native American community than it is within groups of educated and thoughtful Anglos, Latinos, or African Americans.
fast-crash doomer + realism = Lots Of Laughs.
Same for the idea that Native Americans will save the white man's ugly butt. That sounds more like eco romanticism to me.
Here are the facts: solar and wind energy markets have reached $11+ billion each in 2005 and are projected to grow beyond $100 billion some time around 2015. Venture Capital has discovered over the last two years that there is big money to be made in renewable energy and keeps pumping it up on the technology side. Drivers for alternative energy markets are government efforts all over the world to reduce energy dependence and imports from less than stable suppliers. In effect: renewables are becoming the playgound of the adults. Which means more international corporations and big business rather than Mom/Pop tech outlets and university R&D. Banks will want their share in return for the trillions of dollars of loans that it will take to re-tool the world energy infrastructure. When Edison and GE got into the game, it was huge. But it will be completely dwarfed by what will be happening over the next two decades.
I don't think the Native American tribes will get to play a major role in this. They would have to play it mighty smart if they wanted to.
The thing about buying/selling Solar/Wind equipment, is that a company is taking the chance of being the 'capitalist who sells you the rope to hang him with'.. as you can get products that don't require service contracts or visits by refueling trucks. It is one of the most hopeful things about Renewable Energy, and is why I support it over Nuclear, in part, as it allows a broadly dipersed ownership of the 'energy supply' create a more practical level of democracy than always is present on the paper-ballots of a paperless society.
FYI, I think my own, white butt isn't ugly at all. You just have to take my word on it.
I don't see renewables as the endpoint of capitalism. Quite the contrary. The capital expense to make millions of reliable solar panels for a competitive price is enormous. You can't just grow them in your back yard, they are being produced in state of the art factories. MW size wind turbines are enormous engineering challenges. You can't carve them out of a piece of wood in your garage. All of this is hard core technology on many levels. We are talking about industries here that have to grow to close to a trillion dollars a year if they are supposed to make even a dent in our energy future. And they will... we shall see $100 billion within a decade, at which point renewables will be everybody's darling (if for no other than economic reasons) and we will see the trillion worldwide being approached over the next 30 years.
The problem with nuclear is mostly that physics has linked weapons materials like Pu to the operation of reactors. You can't have civilian applications without the practical possibility of weapons. Most countries with exception of Japan, Germany and Switzerland, I think, got into the nuclear energy business as a by-product of their interest in nuclear weapons. Unless we can sort this out with international mechanisms to control the consequences, nuclear is a real pain in the ass. Just look at India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran. We shall see more of that.
And them ferrocious finns!
Yes that is the problem with nuclear. But massive coal expansion is worse.
We need to go to accelerator based reactors, which can burn up the long-half-life actinides, in the longer run.
I agree for technical reasons but I just can't see that happening for political ones. Who wants breeders in their back yard? Who wants the fuel reprocessing next door? Are we going to move ten times more disguised nuclear material across the country than we do already just because people are afraid of hosting the facilities in their county? I don't see it but maybe it is still the smaller of two evils...
Accelerator driven reactors are rube goldberg machines that keep getting press, but they just suck. Its an interesting, but dumb idea. You can make critical reactors just as safe, and accelerator reactors just as dangerous. If you want to do actinide burning, just use a liquid chloride reactor. If you want to do actinide free breeding, use a liquid fluoride reactor with thorium fuels. Just dont spend hundreds of millions more on a giant accelerator system.
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
I was not aware those accelerator ideas were still kicking... the Russians loved to talk about them in their nuclear physics textbooks but once you had to deal with a real accelerator meant to produce (a lot of) radiation (I was involved with SNS, ugly, ugly, ugly is all that comes to mind), you rather want to stay away from the idea.
I guess we still haven't seen the final demise of the fusion reactor, either. At least the Tokamak kind looks utterly hopless for its poor economy, but it seems the world is set to burn money in it, if not deuterium/tritium.
Thorium reactors, IF they became reality, could be interesting. How much real effort goes into making them ready for prime-time?
There are some Norwegian research in Thorium reactors. I have only read very short articels about it where it is said that the interst in it is due to Norway having very large Thorium deposits. They probably would like to develop this technology to export Thorium when their oil and gas deposits run out.
Oh I'm sure we'll figure out how to economically do confinement sometime in the next ten thousand years... as for the next century, it will continue to be everyone's favorite money pit. Not that there isn't cool stuff to come out of it. Magnetic confinement could be useful for other plasma applications, such as fissioning vapor core reactors and plasma propulsion spacecraft; But its such a waste these applications are mostly icing on a turd.
If they win it will be have to be on economics, and for that theres still some substantial R&D that needs to be done. We built several test liquid fluoride reactors in the late 60s, and ran one for four years at ORNL, so yeah we can do it using the ORNL specs, but it would be far better to improve on the design learning from the molten salt breeder reactor experience.
If I had to use numbers, I would guess it would take about ten billion and fifteen years to get a really solid liquid fluoride design up. Problems in the liquid fluoride reactor that are identified include a fully hot main loop because the fuel is liquid, so maintenance will have to be reduced and when necissary entirely robotic. Leaks are a possibility that must be accounted for, and so the reactor must be designed to manage a highly radiotoxic molten salt leak. Fortunately, if a leak does occur, the salt freezes and locks all of the fuel and fission products in a solid mass that just needs to be scraped up and put back into the reactor after the hole is patched, but contingency plans for such an occurance needs to be designed into the facility.
On the other hand, theres no cost for fuel fabrication and your fuel and waste stream is 1/100th that of a light water reactor with much of the waste stream partitioned as marketable xenon. Since the waste stream is allready in a molten salt medium, its not unrealistic to assume that further processing could be done to recapture value on fission platinum group metals and rare earths, in addition to chemical separation of stable isotopes to reduce the waste volume further.
According to an economic study I've seen, liquid fluoride thorium reactors could be cheaper than light water reactors or coal. The reduced fuel cost, higher uptime, better thermodynamic efficiency, and so on add up. But in all honesty theres a lot of work to be done to get there.
re: capitalism
Right. I didn't say it fully enough. I think selling PV and other RE equipment does have great business potential, and is being borne out, but it's a different model than selling a consumable supply item like heating oil or electricity. I don't know how much that issue has kept the existing energy 'suppliers' from getting into that field earlier, but for me, there's a world of difference, and still supports my preference for buying my own generation than tapping a needle into my cashflow every month. I would hope that the shift out of an oil economy could propel us beyond the 'forced addictions' models of buying/selling. (I don't consider food an 'addiction' in that sense, but a necessity.. and tho' I don't know how, I have to believe it is not part and parcel of an unhealty business model, as I feel the 'cheap energies' have been)
Plutonium is a problem, and so is the overcentralization of a nuclear powerbase and the dependence on too many layers of infrastructure (mining/refining/grid-power/highways) each with foreseeable weak-links and petroleum dependencies. Mine and refine the silicon and trace components, and you have local, daily juice for a couple to several decades.. acknowledging that this is one BB in the pile. Another will be adapting electrical requirements of various equipment to activate when the supply is available, instead of designing for 'a perpetual supply', which I think is a conceit of our recent decades of unrealistic availability. It'll be what it'll be. I won't likely be backing Nuclear. I don't trust it, for the above and other reasons (including the back-door development of new Nuke Weapons systems, as you pointed to), but I don't doubt that new reactors will be coming online soon and for a while.. my energies will be spent advocating and installing the forms I believe in as Clean, Safe, Long-Term solutions.
Thorium reactors have promise for being safe, generating power with very limited wastes, and for disposing of waste weapons-grade material.
removed duplicate post, sorry!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Re that first post -
Sigh. Like a bad lunch, or an overcharged Energizer bunny, this bicycle and-so-forth meme just keeps coming back.
Now, I live in a city that has a lot of bike lanes, and I even own a pair of Hakkapeliitta tires (which have gone unused so far this season.) So I've got nothing against bikes. (Unlike most of The Netherlands, which, as a continuation of the North Sea floor, may be the flattest land on Earth, my area is somewhat hilly, so the trip percentage has maxed out somewhere in the mid single digit percent range, and that's in the summertime.)
But the last time "we" lived in the 19th century, average life expectancy was under 46. Nowadays it's about 78 according to something I just heard on NPR. Some of that gain owes to antibiotics. But a lot also owes to people who can in effect be kept staggering about indefinitely on life-support even though they may not look it.
So: please go to the mall and look around. Or if you have a downtown area where people circulate on foot, look around there. Or just imagine it in your mind's eye. Whichever way, when you're done looking, please tell me, how many of those folks are young, fit athletes? And on the other hand, how many, even as young as 30 or 35, would be at risk of keeling over if they ever tried to shovel a 20 foot long sidewalk by hand?
It's just not 1850 or even 1900 anymore. "We" have the large population we have, not the much smaller and intensely selected population of the semi-mythical historical past. (Semi-mythical because Karl Marx alluded, accurately IMO, to "the idiocy of rural life", as rural life was then known, something folks choose to forget when they don't feel like expending effort to make it in the world as it is, and delude themselves that their imagined past would be easier or "simpler".) So how, exactly, is the meme supposed to work, or, rather, how is it supposed to work broadly enough to make a difference?
Given the choice of taking a chance on living in a different world, or accepting the certainty of either death or else labor sufficiently hard and awful as to induce the wish for death, I expect that most people will choose to take the chance. Certainly that's how it's playing out so far. Sure, the US Congress and the European Parliament are both good at passing cheap sentiments for the far future, but when those booby-traps finally spring, they are, if need be, gotten around in one way or another.
So, among other things, all of the accessible hydrocarbons are in fact likely to be burned as "we" muddle along to wherever "we" are going. 'Cos here we are, and I haven't got a credible alternative and neither have you nor anyone else.
If you turn the wheel quickly at the last moment while slamming on the brakes you can put your car into a skid and possibly roll it over into the ditch. This rollover will slow you down in a hurry.
Good thing I've got airbags:0)
In my early days as a management consultant to government agencies I would point out distant walls and say, "See that wall, you are going to hit it." As nothing changed, I would point out the approaching wall at opportune moments, but again nothing changed. After they hit the wall, they would say, "Damn, we just hit a wall."
I quickly learned that my job wasn't to point out the wall, but develop the recovery plan for mitigating the effects of hitting the wall.
Both parties are two sides of the same coin. It really couldn't be otherwise. While political agendas may appear to be short term, economic agendas are set in place over decades, and it is the economic agenda that is the battleship that can't be turned. Any particular party, Republican or Democrat, or even any particular western nation, has limited room to maneuver within the economic agenda. Which party is place in power is more an issue of which tactics to apply to achieving the overall strategic agenda, rather than a wholesale establishing of a new agenda.
Peak Oil in the US put in place an OECD emergency economic agenda that makes a battleship look like a bathtub toy. Petrodollar recycling and market liberalization marched hand in hand down a road that must be protected to keep the battleship afloat. Neither party is free to simply abandon this economic agenda, and both parties have limited room to manuever.
Ironic though, isn't it? Peak Oil in the US was predicted years before it occurred. But the US had to hit the wall before implementing, at emergency speed (Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy), a new world order.
When Peak Oil hits again, on a global scale, I can't predict whether things will get better or worse, but if history repeats, that is our governments ignore the looming wall, we can accurately predict that things will be very, very different.
My gosh, is this clear and articulate.
You frighten me.
Regards.
Nice perspective.
I have always thought though that at some level in government or quasi government (say CFR e.g.) peak oil is an expected guest and dinner has been prepared. You do not seem to think our government has a plan (even if they are not sharing it with us or the current political leaders, and even if we are better off not knowing what it is). I find this a strangely sad thing.
Of all the walls we are going to hit, the one we can most clearly see at the moment is the financial one. Money supply (= debt creation) is exhibiting all the symptoms of a fiat currency in it's death throws. What do you think (if anything) has been planned for the day after?
Francois
Something similar has been troubling my head recently. What if our "oil addiction" and the coming crisis are nothing else then a result of more or less intentional policies? And before shouting "conspiracy", just think who will be the inevitable losers and winners in the coming oil end game.
Winners:
1) IOCs
2) The military-industrial complex which sells its "product" and justifies its existance on "the need to secure oil supplies".
3) Every large corporation dependant on 1) and 2)... maybe half of the US economy.
4) The government receiving enormous amounts of money from 1) - 3). For the government our "addiction to oil" is a bliss. As long as we are dependant on something (oil etc.) its existance is justified and it can push the policies in favour of 1) - 3) undisturbed.
Losers:
1) World's poor, falling out of the PO cliff one by one, depending on income.
In support of this theory I can assert that there are such gross stuctural inefficiencies in the current system that I'm starting to think they are introduced on purpose. In addition, IMO they can be removed or alleviated with relatively minor efforts (relative to the effort of going to war 10K miles away for example).
A minor example - I live in Atlanta. Maybe half of the area within the 285 loop is not developed at all and is just woods - this is on the order of 250sq.miles. And this area is populated by only half a million people... For comparison a city like Moscow accomodates > 10mln. in an area of similar size. Instead we are having suburbs, spreading out to the tune of 40-50 miles away from the city center... and this does not even touch what kind of cars are driven here or the size of the houses, the green areas etc... utter insanity IMHO.
I think they have a plan, but it's just to save themselves. Perquisites of power. When we hit the wall I don't expect much help from federal or even state gov'ts. Local will be the only choice available.
Right. Look at Louisiana after Katrina
Personal Lifeboat Building is the only plan. Paraguay. Golden parachutes. Keeping our eyes off them by pointing to gay couples.
For some reason, I think they have a doomsday plan so to speak.
I think it involves rapidly going from 6 billion to about 2 billion in a couple of years. Read a little on the dark side sometime on the Bioweapon research being done in this country, and every other.
From the www.dieoff.com site.
http://www.emergency.com/1999/alibek99.htm
http://cryptome.org/bioweap.htm
Also, given that many of the 3rd world nations are now fully locked into GM crops, and imagine that one year the harvest failed in a bunch of 3rd world nations because of some disease that just attacks one specific GM crop.
Ok, I'll take off the tinfoil hat now.
But, you have to admit that China would be kept busy if a quarter of it's population was infected with some virus....
There ARE people out there as crazy as Dr. Strangelove.
I remember the line in the movie when the General was asked if there would be any causalities, he said "100, 200 hundred thousand tops! I didn't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed"
Peace
John
What makes you think Dr. Strangelove was crazy?
He is crazy only by modern standards.
That rationale: Eugenics and Extermination has been on the fringes of Western Industrial Society since Chas. Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol'.
Dickens was probably the first to put the words 'surplus poulation' so effectively into print. Others may have done so before, but not with the effect that Dickens did when he put Scrouge's words in the mouth of a phantasm.
Throughout the 19th C, many considered Eugenics and various methods of Extermination to be both rational and humane. It led to certain experiments in the 20th C. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia did a few lab experiments in this regard. Since then, several other countries have attempted to replicate results in the lab. Several experiments are ongoing,with mixed (but encouraging) results.
Dont expect 'mercy' to be defined in the Book of Hours of the powerfull.
There is no profit in that word.
And also, dont assume that as a citizen of one particular country or another, that you are exempt from 'lets see what happens if we...'
You are about to send another 20000 of your finest into 'Stalingrad am Tigris'.
There are many diverse ways to cull 'surplus population'...
Especially if they are young and fit...
I assume they will be all point-men and not additional cooks and clerks.
And all this is merely an experiment....
Still , if its somebody else's kids , why worry?
In the early 20th Century, American scientists played a vanguard role in establishing Eugenics as a science and legal doctrine. Eugenics was taught at Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, and the University of Virginia. Laws were passed in Indiana (1907), California (1909), Oregon (1917), Virginia (1924), North Carolina (1929), and Vermont (1931). 27 other states in the U.S., along with two Canadian provinces, were responsible for sterilizing more than 60,000 men and women, boys and girls. Germany's dictator Adolph Hitler modeled his massive Nazi sterilization law in part on that of Virginia.
Maybe U.S. scientists will lead the way again, as fictionalized in The Stand
Divide what is left among fewer people, that's what has been planned.
Think: why would a nation actively encourage its citizens to rake up massive debt? Should we think that that's just an unfortunate accident? Why does the nation itself do the same?
There is only one answer, one word: endgame.
John is insightful in many ways, but not here:
The new order is in place,.
I'm quite certain there is a plan, I just have no idea what it might be and I probably won't recognize the shape of it until years after it has been put into action.
The plan, for better or worse, that was put into action in the early 70s, market liberalization and petrodollar recycling, was extremely complex and clearly reflected the best thinking of many brilliant minds. Some key elements of the plan were in place, but relatively dormant, prior to the oil shocks. And as successful as it was, in general, it has had severe and unanticipated negative side effects.
Consider this, and Heinberg's recent essay over on Energy Bulletin, makes the point quite clearly. It is extremely difficult to make even a small organization change course when things appear to be going well. Imagine trying to convince a nation or a global economy to make a drastic change in course without a shock, hitting the wall.
Many people here look at the predictions of governmental agencies, CERA, etc., with respect to far off peak oil in complete amazement and wonder where they can get some of the wonderful drugs these forecasters are using.
But what if they were correct? Say, TOD, the governments, everybody, agreed wholeheartedly that peak oil would occur on January 1, 2030. That would be the wall. Wouldn't we expect that the whole world should work cooperatively, each of us sacrificing what ever was needed, in preparation for that fateful day? Wouldn't we expect our governments to lead us into a gradual and painless transition with a clearly articulated world wide "project plan?" The Apollo Project?
I wouldn't be too surprised if the optimistic forecasts are strictly for public consumption and will be vigorously defended against all efforts of TOD et al. The Think Tanks behind the world leaders probably know better and have a plan, we can be certain, and elements of the plan are already being put in place. Major changes are occurring around us and they are neither ad hoc nor random. When we hit the wall, sooner than publicly forecast, that is when we will see real action. We just may not recognize what we are seeing. And we may very well not like it.
Thanks again. You expressed exactly what I was thinking when I read your initial post
As a goldbugger, Francois is going to warn us all to transfer our assests to bullion and certificates.
At YahooEnergyResources, they are pro doomers. Not the amateurs here. They have already outlined the neocons secret plan to confiscate your gold (again)...
You should post more often.
Uh huh. I dig clearly articulated doom. >:]
It's not just that. (Though that's always fun. ;-) He had some great stuff about China and the dollar in another thread. Which wasn't particularly doomish, all things considered.
We've got a lot of scientists and engineers here. We could use more finance types, IMO.
Good stuff, John. But what concerns me is that our future may be decided more by the results of "think tanks" in China and Russia and elsewhere. US dominance of world affairs is rapidly waning, the only advantage we have these days is our "advanced targeting capabilities". And others are catching up there, too...
Your cogent explanation is precisely why the assumption by so many others that everything will turn out fine is dangerous. The world tiptoed through some very dangerous times during that period and if even a few incidents had gone down slightly differently, most people posting here today would not even be alive. The dangers facing homo sapiens are twofold - the resource constraints imposed by geometric population growth versus human response to the problems created by those resource constraints. Both of these are dangerous and taken together, they are doubly so.
As so it is thus that our corporate government has adopted a mindset of managing crises rather than preventing them. In his book The Collapse of Globalism, economist John Ralston Saul explains this and how overly complex corporate and government management is mistaken for leadership.
For an insiders view of this management style and the concomitant practice of insiders skimming off any profits to be had there is no better source than Catherine Austin Fitts.
Very interesting angle on the topic. I appreciate it. Unlike others I am not too scared of the inevitable crash of political with geological reality, but more sadened that it can't be avoided. In the end the people who elected the politicians are the ones who will get hit hardest. So in the end every episode where politics lets the shit hit the fan is just another break of trust.
I agree that there will be changes in the structure of the world. My prediction would be that the more nimble Asian nations will come out of this strengthened while the US will lose out most. In the 21st century it simply matters who can turn faster on a dime.
Wow, I agree with you!
A toast!
Thank you so much John M. for stating what I am feeling and so crudely tried to say.
It cannot change. The inertia is near a sideways 8 (ie infinity).
If anyone thinks we will make a massive change, walk out your front door and try to convince 10 of your neighbors. If you get a majority, my thinking is wrong. My findings in the last 7 years of PO knowledge is that you will maybe convince 1 out of 10.
I have supreme optimism for individuals and individual communities, but for nations and the globe..... We're toast for all the reasons that Lou Dobbs has said and what John Mc. so nicely put.
Peace
John
Samsara, this interview is a good companion piece to Dobb's book on the decline of the middle class.
thats what i have been saying a few times around here. like a train, we are headed straight for a wall at full speed!
Some good news, some bad news, in current trends:
http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/04-01-07_9
And yet in the State of Georgia, the coddling of the automobile continues
Georgia car tag tax targeted
This is in addition to the proposed law change that would completely eliminate the state gasoline tax.
The real interesting thing is that a lot of the ad valorem tax goes to local governments. The legislature is proposing to use funds out of the state general fund to compensate the local governments for lost revenue, in effect creating a state subsidy of local governments based on the total value of automobiles in that community. So a town with lots of new Hummers and Expeditions would get a larger amount of state money than a town filled with five year old Civics and Jettas. Even if it is limited to the first $15,000 in value, it would still reward automobile dependent towns while giving less to towns with large numbers of pedestrians and mass transit use.
I would say at the very least all of this is on record so these politicians can be hanged from a rope made up of their own words and laws when the citizenry refuses to accept resonsibility for the hole they're in during the next gas shortage. But I think we all know that the number one ability of these types of politician is the ability to defect blame elsewhere.
I don't know about the rest of Georgia, but I visited Atlanta, arriving by train.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to walk safely in that city, which is clearly designed (if that is the correct word) for automobiles. No wonder the legislature is doing everything it can to promote automobile use.
But I have never seen so many morbidly obese people in one place before in my life. Is there a connection?
Hello TODers,
Richard Heinberg has a terrific article on EnergyBulletin that everyone needs to read and disperse elsewhere across the WWWeb:
http://energybulletin.net/24529.html
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I agree. This is a fundamentally important article. I've already seen it on a listserve, and I've started posting it around.
I agree as well, after a brief skim. I've marked it for thorough reading later on.
Hello Odograph,
I already hit the REDDIT tipjar: I encourage others to do the same to their favorite tipjars to help spread the PO+GW Outreach! Email to friends and family, shakers & movers in TPTB too.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Good article, Bob, but I have a big quibble with the article:
While Heinberg gives a one sentence nod to environmentalists, demographers, biologists, and agronomists, he makes the mistake of finally simplifying the problem into a dichotomy: climatologists and depletionists.
To tell the peak oilers and climatologists how to fashion a common argument is simply not enough. Many disciplines are involved here. Potable water is growing scarce. Oceanic fish populations may crash by 2050. Despoilment of the environment continues at an alarming rate. World population growth simply cannot continue unabated.
As an example of what I mean: Climatologists do not even talk to the environmentalists. Most of us like the website RealClimate, but have you ever seen a word mentioned about the biosphere? Mostly it is just about sea and temperature rise. If all we had to worry about was New York being under water, we could handle that.
We have fashioned a world of specialists. Now we need real generalists. We need a website that pulls a lot of these threads together.
Right now, TOD shares Heinberg’s view: The problem is that the climatologists and depletionists need a shared argument. That is such a limiting proposal. Not enough. That simply is not enough.
All the threads have to be pulled together. Why have there never been articles here about population growth, about environmental despoilment, about water resources, about the oceanic life…. I have asked about these issues time and time again. No response. TODers hear, but do not listen. Instead, we worry about reducing dependency on oil…or we worry what our communities will be like 40 years hence. Naïve talk.
All of these things are connected. Touch one, touch all. I find the talk about how survivalists are going to make it through this mess simple nonsense. And there is a lot of survivalist’s talk here…naïve. Is suburbia viable? That is so egocentric, so U.S. centric. That is such a dumb question. When the crap hits the fan, watch streams of people migrate. No place on earth will be protected.
Nations that think they will benefit from global warming—Canadians sometimes think they are sitting in the cat bird’s seat--, should think again. If Australia crashes, where does everyone will go? And when desertification hits China, where are they going to go?
And, oh yea, the economists, those darlings that love greed as a guiding principle: If all of us just did what served our immediate interests, the market would work fine. All problems would be solved. They need some real education on what the market place has done and is doing—and not just in terms of income equality, loss of jobs, massive imbalances… but in terms of global warming and the environment and and water supplies and and and...and maybe they should address the issue of population growth. Can, for example, China be white picket fences and a two-car garage? What does a zero growth economy look like, really look like? Does it have a stock market? What happens to the so-called "free market"? What happens to deregulation? Consumption?
I spend a lot of time on the economic websites, hoping that they will wake up. They need to be here, too. (I know Jim Hamilton comes here; I give him a lot of credit for that. A lot.)
Sorry to rant. But after a while, I just get pissed at what passes for intelligence and vision. In short, Heinberg is just a little less myopic than the best. Each field is blind to the others. Each makes hidden assumptions which one of the others can easily destroy.
Or, which is often the case, they think they cannot professionally cast their arguments to accommodate the facts of the other disciplines. Why? Because they will be seen as unprofessional, of not staying within the circle of their discipline, or of violating special assumptions upon which that discipline depends.
All of these things are already put together. Each is simply a symptom of the core problem - geometric human population growth. Notice that no one really wants to discuss the core problem. Why? Because there are no equitable answers to it. Homo sapiens is far into overshoot and anyone who refuses to recognize that has his head buried in the sand. Economics relies on population growth to continue the illusion of "growth". Potable water is a problem because of the rate we draw it down which is directly due to the number of people being supported. Greenhouse gases are an issue because of the rate of emission into the atmosphere, which is directly influenced by the number of people using devices that emit GHGs.
If homo sapiens population were in the 200 million to 500 million range, we'd have a good chance to create a sustainable civilization. Right now? None, zip, nada. We're going to crash and burn. People like Heinberg are kidding themselves if they think that 7 billion people can coexist peacefully in a world of shrinking resources. We couldn't coexist peacefully during some of the largest growth phases of our civilization! Why should anyone expect the planet's greatest killer/scavenger species to behave any better when things get worse?
That is the most central tenet, overpopulation. So we hit a plateau, or peak far enough away or with only a slight downslope, find "clean, limitless energy", and then we worry about population. Keep shoving it off. Until after all else is "solved".
When the world hit 6 billion, few other than ZPG (the Poulation Connection now) noted it.
Received a Newsletter from Lincoln financial Group today titled 'Your Future". You will love (hate) this. Here are some quotes:
"Bounding population growth is an indicator of our success as a society"
"Hope beckons the foreign-born....Moreoer a large percentage of newcomers' families are under 18, a strong sign of an energetic, diverse population and vital to an expanding economy"
"Four million U.S. births a day generate enormous economic activity"
"New parents by nature are optimistic. They're looking ahead, dreaming of the bright futures their children are going to have"
I had no idea.
Guess overpopulation is a bigger issue than we thought.
"Bounding population growth is an indicator of our success as a society"
It isn't even stated as growth, but rather "bounding growth." It's frightening.
Someone commented the other day on the term "lifeboat", in reference to doomers, that it came from Hardin. Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" was actually in regard to the problems of overpopulation. Hardin, Erlich, and many others extolled on the chaos of overpopulation over thirty years ago. Today, we don't mention it, lulled into a veritable stupor.
The reckoning talked about in the early 70's was postponed by the green revolution. Today, we see the limits of the green revolution, we see the end of cheap fuel, and catacylsmic climate change. But little note of is made of the population frieght train driving it all.
Perhaps this is why population, peak oil, and until recently, climate change remains a side domain on the US conscience. People recall the previous gloom and doom forecast of overpopulation, noted it didn't happen, and ignore other forecasts. Unfortunate, for the reckoning is inevitable.
The lifeboat metaphor and the topic of "lifeboat ethics" in the context of overpopulation goes back to Garrett Hardin, but I recall it was in one of his followup articles or books after the original "Tragedy of the Commons" article. One place you can find a discussion of lifeboat ethics is in his excellent book, "Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle: Exploring New Ethics for Survival," which is #1 on my list of Ten "Must Read" books on climate change, Peak Oil, environmental protection, social collapse, and population issues. It is an elaboration of "Tragedy of the Commons."
Hardin was vilified, had death threats, and one commentator suggested, "he be castrated with a dull aluminum spoon." And why? Because he called a spade a spade and not an "intentional digging implement." Where is Garrett Hardin now that we need him? Where are the people with the guts to say that what happened in Rwanda was basically due to overpopulation? And to affirm that the charnel house that is Africa is a case of where Malthus called it exactly right?
Hardin got it exactly right with regard to immigration: We should have NO net immigration. For each individual who emigrates, then let one immigrate. Otherwise our lifeboat will be swamped, resulting in ruin for all. Today nobody, but nobody in academia has the guts to tell the truth. What we lack is not so much knowledge--but courage.
Would be interested in knowing your other 9 must reads.
I have to keep the suspense up . . . just dribble them out one or two at a time. Seriously, though, I think I did list them all in my last big book-recommendation orgy, some months ago on TOD. Of even greater importance right now I think are films that can help us relate to Peak Oil and related problems, and I posted that list . . . um back in April maybe. Wish there were some way to title posts so that when I or somebody else wants to refer back to them we can do so easily. Now that is just a hit or miss affair.
After people start posting their comments on "Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle" maybe then I'll come up with some new recommendations. All the great books, or almost all, are old ones. Hardin wrote several books, all of them very much worth while.
Barry Commoner, "The Closing Circle," that one has to be on the list.
The neat thing about all these old books is that you can pick them up for pennies or dimes used on amazon.com or similar sites.
Aha! I see my list of Environment and Environmental Economics Recommended Reading was posted back on 29 March 06, so it should not be hard to find.
Had wanted to read something by Hardin. Ordered the last copy on Amazon of "..Spaceship Beagle". I have had luck lending out "End of Suburbia" and now "Crude Imapct". People who will not read books will watch films. Will check out your list. Thanks
Don,
I recall lifeboat as from the original "Tragedy", but not having read it in thirty years, I was mistaken. I just completed a google, the complete article can be found at dieoff.org.
Your commentator suggestion brought a chuckle. I recall a similiar one from that time-"slit you from crotch to hiball with a dull deer antler."
I've gone on rescue calls to take women to the hospital who were--literally--barefoot and pregnant, in trailers, with no fathers, living with their mothers, and as this was, say, their sixth child before they turned 25, I was a afraid it would just come walking out at me (I requested to drive instead of working in the back), and of course my immediate thought was that they were "looking ahead, dreaming of the bright futures their children are going to have."
Excuse me. Call me a cynic, but I think calculating increased government handouts might come into play there, too.
Call it "generating enormous economic activity."
Valley of Megiddo, here we come.
I agree that the problem of population quality is at least as important as the problem of population growth. Plato knew that, and he worried about it a lot.
My solution is to pay women not to have children. To some extent, children would become a luxury good; rich people could afford to have them, but poor (and less educated) women would have a strong financial incentive not to have a baby. Now if this proposal seems odd, it makes a lot more sense than Plato's notion of a fixed lottery to decide who should marry whom and who should have the right to have children.
Of course is would be racist and fascist to suggest that after the sixth child an unmarried twenty-five year old woman should have a mandatory tubal ligation, and so I won't suggest that;-)
"Of course is would be racist and fascist to suggest that after the sixth child an unmarried twenty-five year old woman should have a mandatory tubal ligation, and so I won't suggest that;-)"
Irony alert:
this is maine. she was white.
Reminds me of one of the questions I have to ask experienced midwifes some day, do young mothers have an easier time delivering? I have heard that it is hard for old mothers and that experience from professional life isent that much of a help for raising young children, is about as important to welcome a complete change in your life prioprities and have stamina for all night wakes. But this is only anecdotal.
It is a very non PK thought but I wonder if it is a mistake to first have a long education, then a career and after that a child or two. It might be better the other way around even if it is hard to study with small children running around in the home. Having children late slows down population growth but I am kind of greedy, if people living in my region would be happier with another chedule for their lives I would like them to have that one of they want it.
I see no problem with having kids when you are 18 exept that manny males of the same age group mature slower and it seems to be hard to keep the family togeather. Again only anecdotal info. :(
And I also dont realy get the goodness of the idea that you should be young, free and behave as a teenager as long as possible. What is lost if a baby ends such a charade?
The social engineering in Sweden is mostly to support children and get people to conform by tax financed day care. There is a fairly strong social pressure that young womnen should not have children but no religious contraceptive schizophrenia and also no large problem with teenage parents.
The efforts for social engineering are probably getting weaker and I like that since it makes it easier to live different lives and I dont like that kind of control of people. The quality of parenting is more important then if you get pregnant at 17 or 37 or if you have municipiality day care and schools or home schooling. (Bad example, home schooling is extremely uncommon but we essentialy have a school chech system that have made all kinds of non municipiality schools popular introducing some real competition in the school system wich seems to slowly repair some of the damage our toying with socialism has made. )
The tax financed and politically controlled efforts should be about helping those with problems to be better mothers and fathers. 25 years old with barefoot economy and 6 children is bad, over here she would get quite a lot of financial aid and help with tracking down the fathers. But curiously it is an uncommon problem, we got all kinds of abuse of the old socialistic support systems but this is not one that is debated, it could be insignificant in Sweden.
From a biological standpoint of both the health of the mother and the health of the baby, the optimum time for a woman to have children is roughly between ages eighteen and thirty. Younger than eighteen and you can run into some problems, though the great majority of births to sixteen year olds are healthy. Because of the aging of eggs, mothers over age thirty (and especially over age thirty-five) are more likely to have Down Syndrome or otherwise defective children.
In terms of difficulty of first birth, I think youth is a huge advantage for the mother. My sister had her first baby at age eighteen and found there was nothing to it. My wife had our first child when she was twenty-two and had a relatively easy delivery.
Aristotle was aware of the problems encountered by older mothers and advocated marriage at age eighteen for women. At the time he offered this advice he was about forty-nine years old, and not surprisingly found that forty-nine year old men were in their prime; thus he advocated about a twenty year age difference between husband and wife based on the realities of reproductive life. He thought that most trouble in marriages came from disagreements about whether and when to have children. (By the way, he was happily married, and after the death of his wife he took up with the young niece of his boss, a relationship which went on with much affection until Aristotle's death. He is one of the few philosophers in history who had happy marriages. Also, his son, Nichomachos, turned out rather well.)
You're talking about the need to address the entirety of the Club Of Rome's "World Problematique":
Climate change
Oil and natural gas depletion
Air, water and soil pollution
Deforestation and desertification
Depletion of ocean fish stocks
Depletion of soil fertility and fresh water reserves
Decline of the global grain supply
Massive rates of extinction and biodiversity loss
Social, economic and geopolitical instability
I agree that the whole Problematique should be seen as one interlocked problem all stemming from population growth and our genetic-level growth imperative. However, I'm convinced that trying to promote an activist effort on that basis would be self-defeating. The problem is simply too large, and when the implications of it sink in, the realization of the scale of the problem is paralyzing.
One of the points Heinberg makes is that simply adding CC and PO together makes the problem much bigger, harder to solve and therefore harder to sell. In fact, the underlying conclusions gained from comprehending the overlap of those issues can be generalized by most people in an instant to apply to the other elements of the Problematique.
If we can take enough people to the next level defined by CC/PO convergence we will have taken a huge step in opening their eyes to the real problem.
Good article on CLub of Rome from Douglass Gnazzo<\a>.
I take issue with your assessment. That article is anything but good.
It is, in fact, a very crude hatchet job. Gnazzo utterly misrepresents the intentions of the CoR, and his interpretation of their principles, mission statement and the underlying logic of their position is twisted beyond recognition. His polemic may convince somebody who has never read "Limits to Growth" or thought deeply about the causes and implications of population growth, but for anyone who has done any such reading or thinking this screed immediately reveals itself as a shameless rant in support of the Infinite Growth on a Sphere mindset. A mindset that is in fact far more dangerous and even elitist than he accuses the CoR of being.
A single Google search reveals Gnazzo for what he is: a mainstream monetarist economist who is utterly dedicated to the proposition of growth. To such a man, recommendations for the limitation of growth are the purest heresy, axiomatic indicators of black motivations and dreams of dictatorship. From the point of view of those concerned with the outcomes of peak oil, climate change, environmental damage and resource depletions of all sorts, Gnazzo represents the engineer with his hand clenched on the throttle as the train thunders toward the washed-out bridge.
This man is one of the enemy.
Gnazzo is making the case that the CoR proposes a steady-state population and capital society that implies loss of individual freedoms in exchange for a better life. I did not get that to mean that he necessarily was advocating Infinite Growth as a solution, or any other solution for that matter.
I find his articles well researched and very educational.
About the author: Douglas V. Gnazzo is CEO of New England Renovation LLC, a historical restoration contractor that specializes in restoring older buildings that are vintage historic landmarks. He writes for numerous websites and his work appears both here and abroad. Just recently he was honored by being chosen as a Foundation Scholar for the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education (FAME).
The comments in that article that bothered me include things like this:
and this:
and this:
As far as I can see his analysis of the CoR is completely coloured by his personal values, which has led him to attribute to the group some nefarious New World Order agenda. He makes what is essentially a high-level policy discussion group sound like the Illuminati! I cannot accept such a biased interpretation as legitimate commentary.
Whatever his strengths may be in other areas, he has completely missed the boat on this one.
Whoever Gnazzo is, his article on the Club of Rome is nothing but utter, mouth-frothing propaganda.
Read "Limits to Growth - The 30-year Update", and you will understand why.
Cheers,
Davidyson
I agree, Stormy. Unless all the problems you list are "solved", and much more can be added to that list I'm sure, then any one or two or three of these things going haywire could easily render tackling other problems moot. It is one big, stinking ball of sh*t...
However, I'd bet that if you sat down with Heinberg over a couple of beers he'd certainly acknowledge all the problems you mention. But in order to be heard these days it is necessary to provide some sort of plan or you'll simply be dismissed as a hopeless doomer. And valuable messages will be lost. So I appreciate the need for the Heinbergs, Kunstlers, even TOD to narrow the focus a little.
I still consider Heinberg's "The Party's Over" to be the "best" PO book. I certainly don't see much "painting of the pig" in there...
Didn't Catton make a cogent PO-GW link nearly 30 years ago? The thesis of "Overshoot" was simple: 3 billion years of carbon fixation made this rock compatible with life-as-we-know-it; mankind is extracting that carbon to support a desirable lifestlye and in doing so is (1) destroying our lifesupport system (GW) and (2) guaranteeing a collapse in lifestyle/population (PO).
Richard Heinberg, not for the first time, shows us that his time is up.
He's saying nothing new, he's not saying anything really (•). That's because he doesn't understand the question that he pretends to answer. Read the question, Richard!!
Why is there an ongoing increase in pollution, CO2 or otherwise?
Because we increase our energy use.
Why do we increase our energy use?
Well? No answer, not a word.
And if you can't answer that, how are you going to find a solution?
That's why he produces things like the Oil Depletion Protocol, which a 5 year-old would find ridiculous as a bedtime fairy tale.
It's time for people with more brain. John McFadden's first post today goes a way there, not perfect, but still, a battleship in a bathtub is hard to manoeuver.
Stormy,
I agree with the need to go beyond peak oil and global warming; with the need to incorporate ecology and economics in the analysis.
I think Heinberg, with his background in ecology, is aware of your arguments. The problem is lack of time, energy, resources. Heinberg is only one person.
This is a huge set of topics - we need people like yourself and other TODers to be actively involved:
Stormy,
Excellent observation.
I try to visually show how and why things fall betweeen the cracks here at the Lemmings on the Ledge page.
Ours is a society built on a Wealth of Tunnel Visions. That is our strength. That is our downfall.
A key feature in Tainter's view of collapse:
Generalized knowledge (low input, high output) yields to specialized knowledge (opposite: high maintenance).
Fascinating that our own educational system keeps yielding diminishing returns.
I'm teaching myself how to use a slide-rule these days.
A key feature in Tainter's view of collapse:
Generalized knowledge (low input, high output) yields to specialized knowledge (opposite: high maintenance).
Fascinating that our own specialized educational system keeps yielding diminishing returns.
I'm teaching myself how to use a slide-rule these days.
Colonel John Boyd's view of collapse comes at the problem of dimishing returns from the perspective of decision cycles:
Sound familiar?
I agree completely with Heinberg here. I see many people who want to treat fuel shortages separately from the other problems, and that's where you start to see CTL and other such ideas propposed.
I can also recommend Lester Brown's book "Plan B 2.0", as it addresses many of the same points.
Heinberg's Depletion Protocol is not going to happen.
As laudable as it is, that is just not the way things happen on planet earth.
We just dont do it that way.
We fight our tribal corner. We are hard-wired.
Sure , we understand beauty and truth: we got shed-loads of poets and artists and stuff.
But at the end of the day, our biological imperative is tribal survival.
On the one hand it is why we are really good at what we do (planet-wide domination), but , ultimately it will be our undoing.
Gaia will look back and see us as her most gifted yet errant student. She will purse her lips, write an unfavourable report card and move on.
If I were a religious man, I would consider the fall of Lucifer from Heaven an appropriate analogy.
A very nice summary of the political battle field around PO and GW. However, it fails to take into account that many of the solutions are already out there and are just waiting to be implemented. So in the end it boils down to the question: Are Humans smarter than Yeast? My answer would be, yes, they are, although, like yeast, they need some time to ferment the information and pick the right solutions. Along that way they are also known to make mistakes (see bio-ethanol) and progress is not nearly as swift as it could be.
What I took from that article was the notion that we have a 2.7Gton annual carbon allowance. I don't believe we do, but it will probably make it easier for people to believe that for as long as it will take to get close to that number, i.e. the next 50 years. After that much time (we are talking over two generations) 2.7Gtons of annual carbon emissions more or less will probably not matter on the much larger background of renewable energy production and we will probably let go of it, anyway.
Good news at last!
The Chinese are going into SUVs!
Changfeng Liebao Sedan
Great Wall SUV
src
And after we complain they are demanding too much oil!
The Changfeng Liebao Sedan looks like a jacked-up Smart Car. That ain't no Expedition ;-)
Would it be considered racist to express an opinion about the headlight treatment on the Changfeng Liebao Sedan?
LOL, I did not notice ...
By the way, I just responded to something you wrote in yesterday's Drumbeat, but I will repeat it here. My intention to read Tainter is not because "everyone else is doing it." Tainter has been recommended to me on numerous occasions, often by people whose opinions I value. Also, Tainter comes up often in Peak Oil/sustainability discussions, and I am in the dark about what he has to say about it. So, I intend to educate myself on the man's ideas.
You should "know" me well enough by now to know that I don't do things just because everyone else is doing them.
I don't think you have to defend yourself for reading Tainter, odo should, for not doing it, and also for still expressing opinions. Real smart.
I'm still surprised that yesterdays thread has 300+ entries linked to Tainter, many from people who haven't read him, but have an opinion anyway.
I doubt even the bible would cause that much controversy here. Though, on second thought, we could give that a try.
We already have.
I see, darn, 422 comments.
Then again, we could beat that easily.
How about we start where the whole Tainter thing really took off (in a whirl of confusion):
It takes just one question, apparently, so here it is:
No, that is not as obvious as it seems. As I remember, someone, sailorman?, said yesterday that Tainter is faith-based because he "always" talks about complexity.
So we could say that that whoever wrote the bible, let's call him/her/them Joseph(a) A. Holy Spirit., was "always" talking about the same thing too.
But since we all know that in reality, it is a book with more writers than Wikipedia, we'd have to say that all of them were faith-based? Hard to swallow.
I doubt even the bible would cause that much controversy here. Though, on second thought, we could give that a try.
Another reason yesterday's Drumbeat was so long is that we did get into the Bible a bit (whether Jesus existed, the Flood, etc.) That will usually generate a lot of heated debate.
Tainter is very much worth reading and taking notes on. There is much of value in the man's works, and not only in the one book that he is famous for. Just because I'm not in Tainter's cheering section does not mean that I do not recommend studying the man's works. (I'm no great fan of Marx either, but I'll bet a small sum of money that I'm the only person who comments on TOD who has read all of "Das Kapital." How about you, Old Hippie?)
I'll take you up on that, Don. When I was young and without girlfriends, I read Volumes I and III of Das Kapital. (Also read most of the novels of Ayn Rand, so I guess that evens out.)
Tainter, Marx, Ayn Rand - they all stretch the mind and arouse an enthusiasm for ideas.
For an introduction to socialist thought (which, agree with it or no, is essential in understanding the modern world), I usually recommend To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson.
"To Finland Station" is one of the twentieth century's most important books; one cannot understand the history of that century without the information on its pages. Plus, it is superlatively well written. Except for us two, I wonder how many on TOD have ever read that book?
Another important book, IMO, is "Ideology or Utopia" by Karl Mannheim.
Thanks. Another thing I like about TOD is good and relevant reading suggestions.
In my opinion one of the 21st Century's most important books is Schneider and Sagan's Into The Cool
It gets right down to the fundamental connection between energy and life. Also, therefore, more on topic ;-)
Oh, man, Into the Cool! What a great book. They offer some hope of a real beginning-to-present history of life on earth.
Our county library does not even have it. :-(
Rick
If I remember correctly from some of your previous posts, your idea of great literature is 1960s sci-fi, so I think many of us may be forgiven for not taking your recommendations in this area seriously.
May I suggest to you an application of the Copernican Principle: you are not unique and do not occupy a privileged position in your own culture. That is, there are actually untold thousands of people with more or less the same right-wing Heinlenesque libertarian works as are mouldering away on your own bookshelves. If there were not, you probably wouldn't have such a collection of books in the first place. It's called the publishing industry. The point is of course generally applicable, to other people and other ideologies. And yes, Don, plenty of people have read Das Kapital, even me.
Franz,
Science fiction did not peak in the sixties; it peaked in the fifties, more specifically in the 1953-55 time period.
I stand behind my declaration that this science fiction is a more serious literature, a literature of serious ideas--in comparison to the largely vapid, vacant and minimalist post-modern literature that litters the bookstores theses days.
The twentieth century (compared to the nineteenth) was not a good century for the novel, though I do make exceptions for the work of Patrick O'Brian and a few others, such as the young John Barth.
Do you still have your notes on "Das Kapital"? Do you remember what Marx said about literature?
You win hands down in my case. I did not read one word of "Das Kapital". However, I do have the questionable privilege to have been born in a formely communist country and I have seen how well "Das Kapital" worked in the real word, not. And based on that experience I have concluded that reading it would be a total waste of my time. Why bother with something that obviously does not work? The Russians tried for 60 years... if that's not enough to test an idea, I don't know what is.
Similar things can be said about Tainter. I don't really care what the man has to say about the fall of the Roman Empire or the Mayas while I am screwing in a CFL. The CFL does way more to solve the problem than an analysis of things that happened millenia ago and are utterly unrelated to the physics problem of providing humanity with energy from one of the two sources that are inexhaustible on any practically relevant time scale: solar and planetary angular momentum.
IP, Das Kapital is not about communism [that's The Communist Manifesto], it's about capitalism, a critique, and prophecies its future - excellent until it falters.
Whatever people took from Marx was turnied into an awful mess. You can defend his work if you like or just remark that communisn wasn't Marx, I don't really care. Neither do tens of millions of Stalin's victims. What matters is what people do, not what they write. Whatever Marx wrote made people create a lot of misery. That is enough for me to disregard him for his influence on them.
stop wasting your time on Marx and Hitler and all those other writers of penny-dreadfuls.
Read:
Chekov - The Cherry Orchard
Chekov - The Lady and her little dog
Both are Masterpieces in middle class angst.
Then, for a sublime and insane entry into the workings of empire and callous stupidy:
The Good Soldier Schwiek , by Jaroslav Hacek.
He died of the drink before completing it.
Good Man :-)
ps: Try and get an Illustrated copy of Schwiek.
It WILL set your world to rights.
I suddenly feel the urge to buy a copy. It will be my fourth. - I lent all the others out.
Here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_Svejk
enjoy.
Wow... I wasn't aware anyone outside the German/former Austrian-Hungarian Empire world knows about Schwiek! I am impressed and amused. Feels good to hear from someone who has the right outlook on life and a good sense of humor.
It isn't just a physics problem! It's an engineering problem, a financial problem, a marketing problem, a political problem, as well as being a physics problem!
Maybe it is a little bit like Crater Lake in southern Oregon. That was a big mountain that didn't work. Now it is a big hole in the ground! Human culture is like geology or biology. We are essentially constituted of the past, we are like walking history books. If you want to understand what human beings are, if you want to understand what possibilities might lie ahead and how you might steer to actualize some more preferable element out of this set, you'd be wise to understand a little history.
The attitude you express is about as stupid as that of a typical American who dismisses peak oil and the need to start steering away from the petroleum economy, because after all, he's grown up his whole life with that economy and it works just fine, thank you. The whole point of education is to probe a bit below the surface.
The idea that physics alone is all one needs to be effective in the world - that is really sadly narrow. Pull your head out of the sand!
As a physicist I would have to say that you never get to solve the engineering, marketing, financial and political problems unless you succeed solving the physics problem. It is necessary but not sufficient to solve the physics problem, though, as renwables demonstrate.
Truth to be told, the engineering problems surrounding renewables remain challenging. So challenging, indeed, that any practical solution will also have to involve marketing. And marketing should be involved, because the current PO problem in the US is, to most part, created by marketing. SUVs and light trucks have an enormous advertising value but they have very little utility value. Their return on energy invested is enormously negative. So negative, indeed, that they will have to disappear. And since the only reason they exist is marketing, it can only be expected that marketing will have a central part in making them go away.
In summary, physics is value neutral, but it gives you the tools to really mess up on the engineering level (see nuclear technology), the marketing level (not all products of thermodynamics make sense) or the social and political level (see global warming and the non-negotiable American Way of Life which resulted from technological and ultimately scientific progress).
And as a physicist I ultimately believe that physics has a great deal to teach us because we are ultimately only bound by the laws of physics in how badly we can mess up. And trust me, for all practical purposes that is a very, very weak bound.
As is clear from the other drumbeat thread, you don't know anything about Tainter, so you should keep quiet and stop making a fool of yourself about it.
It is galling: you are a highly intelligent person with a great deal to contribute, such that I agree with a great deal of what you say. And then on the other hand you insist on shooting your mouth off about things that you know little about.
Worst of all, you do not seem to realize that a person can make a complete pratt of themselves even when they are right. You do this a lot.
Tell us about solar PV if you want. But your opinions on Marx and Tainter are worthless.
"Tell us about solar PV if you want."
I will.
"But your opinions on Marx and Tainter are worthless."
Let me know when Marx will finally have been right about capitalism. And give me a buzz when Tainter's research about the fall of the Maya civilization leads to an important and useful insight into how we feed 10 billion people and get you to work at the same time.
I do not not care about Marx and Tainter because they have nothing important to contribute to the library but because they have nothing to contribute to the solution of the problems we face. It simply does not matter what they wrote or keep writing. It does not matter how impressed anyone is by Tainter's research into the Roman Empire. The man could be an archeological genius and it wouldn't matter because the old Romans are dead and they took the lush forests of Italy with them to heat their bath facilities and build their ships.
What matters at the end of the day are kWhs and GBTUs and how we stop wasting them. Neither political philosophy nor archeology contribute to that. If you need to read Tainter to see where the problems of humanity are, that's fine. But I need to keep looking at my electricty and heating bill and keep thinking about aligning them with the reality of decreasing hydrocarbons. I like books. But I like reading them in a heated room in winter. I want our children to read them under the same and probably better circumstances and I want to preserve the forests that are still left. A post mortem of the past does not help me with that.
I just returned that book to the library.
Chs 1-3 are a bit tedious, historical summary of past crashes
Ch 4 is riveting
Ch 5 applies his hypothesis to Rome, Chaco Canyon, Maya
The end in confusing (to me). Abstract language kills me.
Enjoy.
Actually, "summary of past crashes" is incorrect.
Should be "summary of past collapses."
After all, Tainter's point is that our value judgements (Collapse = bad) might be misplaced, for collapse may be a preferrable course rather than continuing with diminishing returns.
Collapse means "reorganize at a lower (or more do-able) level of complexity.
If this is a double post I'm gonna SCREAM.
I keep having issues with this...
As I said in the other thread, I thought I remembered a particular post, around year end, as people discussed book lists, but couldn't find it. I'm sorry if I misremembered, but I think I generally do pretty well on that. I was unable to find the post in about 15 minutes of frenzied googling.
(give me a mysql password and i'll find it ;-)
Found it, from January 1, 2007:
and my statement with which you disagreed:
I got it a little wrong. But I think my question about which "everyone" still works with "It seems like everyone but me has read that one."
I hope you don't mind that I only post this to one thread ;-)
BTW, I'll continue a little bit because this interests me. Your actual statement was "It seems like everyone but me has read that one."
And my original question was about which "everyone" though I framed it narrowly.
Is it everyone you meet around town? Probably not. Is it everyone in the oil business? I sincerely hope not, or I am scared ;-)
(If it is everyone in "Peak Oil" I am of course concerned, but for reasons already explained.)
Colonel John Boyd also studied the survival of social entities (in both war and peace), but is less well known in PO circles as Tainter. Boyd developed and posited the OODA Loop decision cycle as the central mechanism enabling adaptation (apart from natural selection) critical to the survival of social entities. Boyd never wrote a book, but his writings are available on Belisarius
I missed it too, thanks Glider. Yow... And what's up with that front grill, looks like a wool hat or something...
Well, I'm going to hold out for the Rolls-Royce SUV coming soon to a dealer near you :-)
Interesting NYTimes article:
Paying in Pollution for Energy Hunger
Somewhat depressing, but this is something new to me:
The main material is dhaincha, a weed commonly grown in India to restore nitrogen to depleted soils. The dhaincha grows 10 feet tall in just four months, with a green stalk three inches thick. Wood from shrubs and trees is used when there is not enough dhaincha.
Anyone familiar with dhaincha?
This is just another example that the binary choice is wrong. It is, like mostly in real life, a choice of two out of three of: energy, cheap and clean.
You can have cheap energy and it will be dirty or you can have expensive energy and it will be clean or you can have no energy at all. What you can not have is cheap, clean energy.
Yeh, but you can have dirty energy and TV, so what else matters. Yeh, solar would have made more sense but who is going to subsidize it.
The same people who are subsidizing nuclear power plants and bio-ethanol now: YOU and ME.
Dhaincha is the local common name for Sesbania bispinosa, a member of Fabiaceae, or the legume family. This means it has root nodules that fix nitrogen into the soil, just as peas, beans, peanuts, vetch, and other widely used legumes do here. Sesbania can fix 150 kg of N per hectare (midrange for a tropical legume), and when cut is usually plowed in the ground. It's found throughout tropical Africa and Asia, and is often a weed in rice paddies. It produces a seed that can be roasted and eaten and is a recommended "famine food".
"Russia Cabinet told to weigh output cut"
I wonder if we are going to see Russia joining Saudi Arabia in announcing "voluntary" production cutbacks, following the path of Texas, where we are in our 35th year of "voluntary" production cutbacks.
I wonder when WT is going to post something new instead of the same old, tired and unrefined statements hes been doing for the past year ~_~
WT's repeated posting of the same argument serves a valuable purpose: it provides new readers with a crib sheet without having to look too deeply. Casual readers who only drop in from time to time are well served by his concise explanations of his theories. The Drumbeat is usually at the top of the page and is the first thing most people read. Because of this, it's important to have at least a brief intro into historical examples of energy resource depletion (as opposed to, say, 300 posts on the merits of Tainter).
A copy of my post over on the Reserve Growth Thread:
Hothgor,
These "Yes we have peaked, No we haven't debates" are getting really tiresome.
You apparently believe that the following ten facts are just coincidences, with no connection to the physical impossibility of an infinite growth rate against a finite resource base.
I disagree. Shall we just leave it at that?
WT, you have enough respect here that you don't need to respond to Hothed, whose has become your classic energy sink.
It's all been said. "There is nothing new under" etc....
WT, you have enough respect here that you don't need to respond to Hothed, who has become your classic energy sink.
It's all been said. "There is nothing new under" etc....
no sweat, b3.. this does bear repeating!
I dont think he needs to post something 'new'
Do you?
Saudi May Cut Oil Supply to Asia Most in Two Years in February
There was a story over at:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/bnsf_railway_co.html#more
linking to an article here:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/01/09/news/state/25-railway...
that Burlington Northern is looking into CTL to provide a stable source of diesel fuel to power their diesel locomotives. No word on whether they are considering electrification :-(.
I work at the biggest RR in the country and just so you know, electrification is being studied, but I doubt its serious without gov't help. After all it was a gov't monopoly at ONE time wasn't it?
Union Pacific?
I worked a lot for Missouri Pacific. Later absorbed by UP.
How about getting all your Big Boys out of mothballs?
The coal fired ones. :-)
There were a couple of interesting discussions yesterday on MSNBC regarding the Iraq War.
A frequently stated opinion was that neither Bush nor the Democrats has the courage to admit that we have failed. Bush is just trying to run the clock out and dump the problem in someone else's lap. The Democrats could cut funding, and (possibly) force Bush to pull troops out, but Bush would then blame the Democrats for "losing" Iraq.
So, the end result is that the troops stay in the shooting gallery because neither Bush nor the Democrats has the courage to admit that Iraq is a lost cause by pulling the troops out.
Of course, assuming that we are in the early stages of a Resource War, Bush will never pull troops out--which puts us right back where we started, the troops stay in the shooting gallery.
WT...even if Iraq becomes an admitted failure, would we destabalize the region even more by pulling out? [Granted, I think going into Iraq was shortsighted and knuckleheaded, among other things.]
BTW, don't change your posts. They're spot on.
A paraphrased song from the Vietnam era:
Assuming that Bush is in Iraq to guarantee that the US continues to see about a 5% increase per year in Petroleum imports, my guess is that the most that he will agree to is to withdraw to the new bases, and basically let the Iraqis kill each other to their heart's content. One of the almost infinite number of problems is that the Saudis will not be happy with this turn of events, since the Sunnis will be on the receiving end of most of the killing.
So, almost any way you look at it, it looks like American soldiers are going to continue to be sent into the shooting gallery. It may take something akin to a full blown mutiny before something gives.
Wrong assumption. That's a dead end street, and they know it. The economy would have to grow by the same percentage, medium term, and there is no chance of that happening.
US soldiers will die just to keep control of the oil where and as it is.
And the risk of mutiny and domestic civil unrest is well documented, and prepared for. The mortgage market will result in millions of people with a 20k salary and a 200K debt. Sign at the dotted line and get on the plane.
The US economy is on its last legs, and with the dollar sliding slumping further, a lot less people will be able to afford gas.
Or, more correctly, not gas AND housing AND food.
No need for that 5% import growth.
"No need for that 5% import growth."
Note that our imports have been going up for two reasons: (1) increasing consumption and (2) declining domestic production.
For our imports to just stay flat, our consumption in bpd has to fall at the same rate that our production in bpd is falling. And we have to do that every single year.
I know.
I also know that you follow the housingbubbleblog. Which makes me think that you understand what the odds are for domestic economic growth. Without recent creative CPI indexes, GDP would probably already be negative. Seeing that home prices will plummet, and equity and credit right along with them, while the dollar finds a damp basement to live in, we'd be lucky if a 5% decrease in demand is all that happens.
Trying to keep US society running in its present form for much longer is a losing proposition. So when's the time to shut it down? I guess when a large enough percentage of the population can neither consume nor produce, the characterictics of a poor (non-) developing nation. The way to shut it down is easy, it was tested and proven in the thirties: shut off the credit flow.
2.2. million foreclosures are in the cards for 2007, as are $1.5 trillion in reset ARM mortgages (which increases consumer debt by some $1 trillion). Real estate prices will fall in large double-digit numbers, taking additional trillions in hot-air "wealth" out of the remnants of an economy.
Half of all new jobs in the past 5 years were housing related. They'll be gone soon. And there's nothing to replace them. Most of the other jobs were McDo and Wal-Mart. They'll be laying off people, not hiring, when less people have money to spend.
How will Americans pay for the gas the country can still buy on the world markets? WHat do they need it for? Less and less to drive to work.
WT's bold "(2) declining domestic production"
shows us that he knows as much about macro economics as he does global oil trends. To which he has added a Russian peak today. He know's Dick All and has become a mere blowhard at TOD.
USA goods production is up 4% since your mini recession. Last week i also posted a graph showing that mnfg jobs are up by 600,000 (incl farm workers) in that same period.
Since the american dollar devaluation program commenced in Jan 2002, its 30% decline has allowed the USA to set three export records in the past two years.
Americans are at the height of their biz cycle presently. They are back to work and their products are priced to sell in the global marketplace. There are over six million more employed today than during the Clinton Recession.
The trade balance still sucks. The buck will depreciate another ten percent.
WT's painting of america is a distortion that mirrors his inner defeatism. Don't let it cloud what's really happening "out there".
Freddy,
I was of course talking about domestic oil production declining.
Khebab plotted the long term trend in Total US Petroleum Imports, as our domestic consumption increased and as our domestic production declined: http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/28/Data_4weeks.png
As I predicted one year ago, Saudi Arabia and Russia have joined Norway in showing lower oil exports, year over year.
So, IMO we are facing a collision between an expectation of an exponential increase in petroleum imports against the reality of declining exports.
Your primary contribution to the debate appears to be encouraging consumers to buy ever larger debt financed SUV's to drive to and from ever larger suburban mortgages.
Mea culpa. My reference is partly uncalled for and was brought about my (mis)understanding that u were referring to industrial production ... not usa oil production. I'm sorry.
EIA posted in its STEO report today that 2006 usa oil production was a mere 40-kbd below 2005's rate. And it expects 2007 to exceed 2006 by 1-mbd. This was on top of early news that 2006 natural gas production exceeded 2006 by 2.9%; explaining in part the decreased Canadian imports.
We see that Venezuela is crapping its drawers on last week's price drop and wants an extraordinary OPEC mtg scheduled for next month to address cuts and get prices back up. Venezuela has seen its production take a major hit. Almost 1-mbd in 2006. With the double whammy of lower revenues based on lower volumes and now lower prices, they have reason to panic.
OPEC misread non-opec supply levels. And they see increased 2007 non-opec supply more than wiping out its own announced quota cuts. This misread has OPEC in shock. Obviously they don't follow Skrebowski, Campbell, Koppelaar, CERA & IEA's medium term bottom up Outlooks.
EIA has noticed also. This is their new surplus capacity view:
It's impressive that even without massive hurricane losses in 2006 compared to 2005, we still couldn't equal 2005 production.
the link to see 2007 & 2008: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Slide13.gif
Now I know for sure that you really don't know what you are talking about, Freddy Hutter. First you blame Clinton for the last recession, which is patent rubbish. Clinton left office with a $200 billion surplus, and the economy in excellent shape. Bush came in, won his trifecta, then proceeded to waste $10 billion a month chasing his demons in Iraq, reneging on his promise to the AMerican people:
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden."
"It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
George W. Bush 13Sep2001
"I don't know where he (bin Laden) is. I have no idea and I really don't care.
It's not that important. It's not our priority."
George W. Bush 13Mar2002
Meanwhile, back at the ranch by Jan 2007, Bush has burnt nearly a cool $trillion in his futile attempt to build a legacy. And Bin Laden still roams the planet. And tens of thousands have been killed or seriously hurt. Senselessly. Some legacy.
Then you say "There are over six million more employed today than during the Clinton Recession." True enough, but it's less than HALF of the growth in employment from trough to peak after the average postwar (wwII) recession. Why? Because, according to the economists, Bush's policies have raised the income of the bottom 99% of the US population rose less than 2%, while the income of the top 1% rose by almost 13%. Bush's policies have by and large enhanced the richest workers, and done very little for the average Joe, who represents the base of the employment pyramid. Like a reverse Robin Hood.
What's clear from your diatribe is that you have some kind of agenda, and politically it is clearly conservative (ie. anti Clinton). And we all know which way most conservatives lean on the issue of peak oil. Hint: Exxon-Mobil. You wouldn't be on the take from Exxon and their ilk, now would you Freddy?
I think we can dismiss Freddie's comments out of hand from here on out.
GJ, thanx for the compliment but i don't set the Recession Dates for the usa. That is done by theNBER who state:
"The November trough marks the end of the recession that began in March 2001. The 2001 recession thus lasted eight months, which is somewhat less than the average duration of recessions since World War II. The postwar average, excluding the 2001 recession, is eleven months."
I guess u missed the press release. Your mini recession started 60 days after Bush's inaugeration. It was Clinton's Recession. And Bush saved your ass with the tax cuts that dug in just when 911 occurred. I agree it was a jobless Recovery, but it was none-the-less a very masterful soft landing.
U will likewise thank Bush ten years from now for getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his sons when the opportunity presented itself.
As far as XOM paying my bills, please feel free to give them my number...
Westexas is obviously talking about declining domestic oil production.
Yes, we would destabilize the region even more by pulling out. As others have observed, the US has done Iran the greatest service it could have ever done - it removed Saddam Hussein as a nearby enemy and it removed the Taliban as a spiritual competitor, thus leaving Iran as the leading proponent in the Muslim world of an agressive, puritan Islamic worldview (under the Shia banner, no less).
As Colin Powell once asked George Bush Sr.: (paraphrasing here...) Yes we can take Iraq but what are you going to do with it when its yours?
Now his son has gone and done what the father avoided - taken ownership of one of the world's nastiest, most violent places. We're in the "you broke it so you bought it" catch-22 situation.
What?
Never mind Colin Powell and what he said to George W Pube.
That's what OUR Chief of Imperial General Staff (CIGS) said to OUR Prime Minister on the eve of the Suez Crisis about getting to Cairo.
Steal your own anecdotes.
This isn't U571.
pulling out early has always created extreme frustration...
but it does avoid future problems.....
While I agree that the Iraq is a disaster and that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want to admit the obvious failure, there are hard practical reasons that both the Republicans and the Democrats want to keep it going:
1. It's becoming clearer that Bush's strategy is to divide and conquer. In his view it's not a bad thing to have the Sunni and Shia factions killing each other en mass, especially if Al Qaida is being occupied killing other Muslims. If Al Qaida in Iraq wants to waste money and it's fellow Muslims, at least it keeps them busy so they have fewer resources to attack the USA.
2. Most Democrats want to keep the Iraq war going for the demonstrated political benefit that we saw in the November elections. If the war is still raging come November 2008, they hope that Bush will lose the Presidency for the Republicans just as he lost the Congress in the November 2006 elections.
But is it a failure? That depends on what their original plans were, which most likely have nothing to do with what we hear in the MSM.
Is it possible that the scenario we're seeing is a foreseen outcome, with the spinners spinning away?
Don't "we" have our fat ass on the oilfields, and 14 bases nearby, and damn all else?
Just a thought.
no mate.
its a failure.
cough it.
and move on.
I believe a lot of smart people could have told you that even before the war started. The word used at the time was "quagmire". Could those doubters have been more validated by time and events?
I, by the way, admit to being wrong at the time. While not being for the war, I was willing to give the military and the administration the benefit of the doubt. I really thought they could muddle through and come out with a halfway stable state run by a somewhat stable government based on some strongman/pseudo-democracy scheme. Man was I wrong...
WT, for a man or a group that claims to rely on evidence for drawing its conclusions, I find it strange that there is any debate about withdrawal; the proof is the presence of four or more permanent bases and a huge fortress for an embassy in Baghdad. 'Pull out' is a pipedream.
From my comments from up the thread:
I wouldn't expect to see the military acting up. Officers in western armies are people with a family tradition who have a very different mindset than most and they stand by their duty, no matter how hard or hopeless. It is probably more a matter of family than anything... that Dad did not run in the last war makes for a formidable psychological bond to the service and therefor the son will not run, either. He might get killed but he will not run... he would have nothing to go back to if he did. A single sane reaction to the insanity of war would rob him of all he has: tradition, family, honor.
People with working frontal lobes but weak "moral support" from home (like me) do not need to apply for the military. We do not belong there. We are much better sitting at home and posting crap about the military. :-)
I don't see the fault with the military, anyway. Iraq II is the result of the breakdown of the political system, something the voters are to blame for most.
Damn it! The Dems got elected to do get us out of Iraq. Do something! If the Dems get blamed, so be it. Or is that more imporatnt than a few more thousand dead and seriously wounded soldiers. Actually, the biggest downside is the injuries not the deaths. These people will be paying in pain for decades. So will the taxpayer.
The other downside is that our news, commentary, and analysis is cluttered with this stupid occupation 24/7. Nothing else matters and, therefore, things like peak oil and climate changed get pushed to the side. This war is ruining our country and planet in so many ways.
i am now convinced that the purpose of the iraq war is to facilitate the looting of the treasury. follow the money: $ 3 trillion debt in 6 yrs
Hi new guy here. I hear that Kudzu is edible is it possible as that grains become harder to grow and the climate more hospitable for this noxious weed expands into Wisconsin and Canada that people will start to eat it for food and use it for animal feed? Just curious I wasn't able to find anything here about it using the 'Search' feature.
Patrick
Kudzu as an animal feed is addressed in a new publication by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, and is available online here:
http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/rx-grazing/TG_Handbook.htm
A university I use to work for had a cookbook with recipes submitted by staff and faculity. One of the recipes was for kudzu flour. I never tried it and unfortunately do not have a copy of the cookbook so I can't post the recipe here but apparently it is possible to make flour, and I would guess by extension, bread, buiscuits, pancakes, etc.
I've wanted to hear if anyone knows of Kudzu's potential as a biofuel source.. (Just to grab one more handful of food out of the grasp of a hungry world..) since it is already abundant, unpopular and accessible as a common roadside weed, I thought it might be a source of biomass that was essentially harvestable and transportable without really adding much acreage and other infrastructure..
Even to create great composting piles, ala Mssr Pain to create methane and heat, in which case you don't have to use all the energy to dry and then distill a liquid fuel from it.
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html
Na ja?
Root depth to 9 feet, a legume.
It might make a fine green manure for your crops.
Alfalfa can get its roots down 20+ feet, thus pulling elements from the deeper sub-soil to the top for critters/plants.
Kudzu is known as kuzu in Japan -- try searching for that spelling. The root is a jelling and thickening agent like corn starch. It also has medicinal properties and relieves indigestion and stomach pain.
Thanks guys for responding. Kudzu(Kuzu) seems really interesting although then again if I had a patch of woods or a junkyard in the deep South I might not think its so interesting. Also while looking it up I found one site that said that droughts in some areas of the South haven't affected Kudzu growth. Something to look into if GW forces drought in some regions.
Patrick
OPEC May Cancel Oil Expansion Plans on Weaker Price
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aXhh7KpttxsY&refer=news
The EIA has annual oil prices up. From 2002 to 2006 (five years), the average annual year over year increase in oil prices (WTI spot) has been 21.2%.
From 2002 to 2006 (through October), the average rate of increase in world C+C production has been 1.6% (with declines in 2002 and 2006).
It seems pretty obvious that we have been in a five year period of prices going up, in order to equalize consumption and production.
IMO, the markets killed off some underlying demand (and probably some people in Africa) just as we arrived at the 2006/2007 "Winter," combined with no hurricane damage and probably combined with some hedge funds selling (and/or being forced to sell) highly leveraged oil positions.
IMO, this is just the calm before the full force of the Net Export Storm hits, beginning with confirmed production declines in both Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The only question on my mind is at what price will waste destruction stay ahead of or track production decline? Are OPEC nations happy with the $50-$60 range and is this enough to eliminate SUVs in the US as the first step of a twelve step addiction revocery program or will we see far higher price levels over the next years? Do you have an intuition?
Assuming that China is about to peak and assuming that Russia starts a permanent decline this year, the US, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia will all have the following characteristics: Declining domestic production and Increasing domestic consumption.
So, what the US and China want to import goes up, as the spread between consumption and production widens, and what Saudi Arabia and Russia can, or will, export goes down as the spread between production and consumption narrows.
IMO, we are facing a fundamental collision between an expectation of exponentially rising imports and the reality of exponentially declining exports.
What is somewhat amazing is that five years of an average increase in oil prices of 21% per year has not dampened demand more than it has.
So, to answer your question: I don't know what's going to happen.
However, since consumers are almost constantly being assured that energy supplies are virtually infinite, I think that the vast majority of consumers will put off fundamental changes to their lifestyles until they are physically forced to change because they either: (1) can't buy energy and/or (2) they lose their jobs.
Thanks. I appreciate it.
"What is somewhat amazing is that five years of an average increase in oil prices of 21% per year has not dampened demand more than it has."
I usually take that as a sign that energy from hydrocarbons was too cheap. I still think it is too cheap. Europeans are paying roughly double for gas and they are still driving, albeit on average much smaller cars. Since US GDP/capita is higher, still, I can only assume that we have to see more dramatic increases, certainly well into the $6+/gallon range to cause some serious damage to American consumer behaviour. But all of this is based on my European model. Despite living in the US for close to a decade some pieces of the American mindset still evade me. Certainly this necessity to be hit hard by events before change takes place keeps amazing me.
I simply don't know where people have their real pain threshold. And I guess that is what I am asking... when does it start to really hurt? The mild winter certainly does not help to deconstruct if the low demand is going to last... I will have to wait for next year's statistics, I guess, since I don't have a model for oil demand vs. winter temperature profile. Do you?
A question that is probably not any easier to answer is how much demand we can still syphon off the developing world by pricing them out of the market? We might not have reached that limit, yet.
Re: Winter, no info.
Re: Pain Threshold, The NYT had an article last year that profiled a group of drivers, as gasoline crossed the $3 mark (as you pointed out, laughably low in Europe). By and large, the only driver who had curtailed his driving was a college student who literally did not have the money to buy gas to drive out of town to see his girlfriend. (There was one guy who wanted to carpool, but couldn't find anyone interested.)
Yeah, Infinite and WT, I still just don't get this notion of a Magic Round Number at which large numbers of people will suddenly and radically change their behavior. I suppose it's a news hook. But very little in economics works that way. And the population of the USA is just too diverse in wealth, incomes, and attitudes - some will respond long before others.
At $3/gallon and a mediocre 20mpg, that's 15 cents a mile for gas. It costs another 35 or 40 cents to own and insure and maintain and park the car. So the gas is just not significant unless, like that student, one is right at the edge to begin with.
In addition, there is not much alternative for most folks. They do not live in Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, or downtown San Francisco. If public transportation is available at all, it is unreliable and it takes forever to get anywhere. The opportunity cost of riding a bus to and from work will be a couple of hours, or say $30 at an average wage. That a lot of gas (or diesel). Plus, you can't save much unless you ditch the car; if you keep it even just for out-of-town meetings and visits, you must still pay much of the cost.
Probably gas (or diesel) would have to get to $15-$25 per gallon or more (current dollars) to produce large decreases in driving. (IIRC, some years back the German Greens wanted to raise it to the low end of that range, and they got their electoral heads handed to them.) That kind of cost would change so much else as to render this speculation meaningless. (For one thing I suppose we'd have riots and blockades by independent truck drivers.) So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Of course there is no such number. You are right. What there is, however, is a range where people will start to make disproportionate and non-trivial changes. Say gas went to $10/gallon. That would stop many from driving their car to work, they simply couldn't afford it. Europe holds on at $6/gallon but with a 40mpg economy standard. Somewhere inbetween is a range where it gets uncomfortable for a heck of a lot of people with SUVs. I don't think we are quite there, yet.
As for alternatives: for most ride sharing will be the one and only alternative that will cut their cost significantly. Public transportation costs between $40-$100 a month, WHERE AVAILABLE. Many people probably won't afford to have a car and a monthly pass. For many more there are just no options, except to share rides, because of distance and/or coverage.
You are right, the opportunity cost for those with a second job is probably a killer. But they will also not be able to afford their car any longer because they usually have a second job because their first income is marginal or worse. These are the people who will have to move and be hit hardest.
At $15 per gallon you can as well drive an EV charged from solar cells. It will actually be far cheaper that way. Electricity starts making sense somewhere close to $8-10/gallon. I do expect to see early adopters quite soon. For a geek with money this would be a wonderful way to be "different and better".
Consequently everyone who can't make do without a car, will make do with a smaller car. Many who can, will probably make do without as much as they can.
What about the ones driving old gas-guzzelers, old , clapped out cars.
The ones who cannot afford to 'switch' to a 40k
prius?
You know: Nurses, Sanitation Engineers, Teachers, WallMart employees, Postal Workers etc, etc?
Those invisible people that make things work in a society.
Thats right: The people on the margins who make it all work, - for fook all pay cheques?
Either we all hang together, all we all hang separately...
...or even the opportunity cost with respect to taking overtime on their first job, which is the most productive approach. That's not an option for everybody, but it is still an option for an awful lot of folks, and many jobs carry heavy pressure to take on overtime. That's even true in a recession - it will always be administratively more convenient to hire two people and overwork them than to hire three.
There will probably be more ride sharing, but even that is not simple. The giant factories that drew large numbers of people from the same area have been moving away. So the cost of leaving in the morning in time for the earliest person in the group, and waiting in the evening an unpredictable time for the last person to get out of the late-day snap meeting, plus driving a circuitous route to get everybody to and from where they're going, will often be enormous, as bad as with the bus. And the circuitous route will ensure that the mileage saving won't be what was expected. Which is probably why carpooling has not caught on.
And then we have to note that at $10 and 40-50mpg (which is surely what would happen at $10 unless it got there very suddenly), the gas or diesel merely goes from 15 cents to 20 or 25 cents per mile. So it's still not the dominant issue - to save real money, you still have to ditch the car, not just drive it less. If you only drive it one day in three, then instead of wearing out, it will rust out - and the wickedly expensive hybrid battery will deteriorate - and that will still cost you.
PaulS
You mention that gas at $3.00 per gallon won't cause people to curail their driving. That's assuming that most people are solvent, not living paycheck to paycheck and living within their means. I believe that there are massive numbers of people living paycheck to paycheck and using credit to live a life style they think they deserve, but can't factually afford.
Well, yes and no. We actually got past $3, and we all know in exhaustive detail, from TOD headline posts and even the MSM, that while there was a lot of whining and bellyaching, it signified nothing, inasmuch as the change in quantity demanded was well and truly lost in the noise. There might be a gradual peeling-off sort of attrition, but I do find magic numbers unconvincing. Those who see no problem between $2.50 and $2.99, and suddenly perceive a huge problem between $2.99 and $3.00, will almost always be cured of their peculiar statistical affliction the first time they try to get to and from work by some other means.
And if push comes to shove, then while few have effective alternatives to driving, many (not all) have veritable mountains of fat available for the cutting. The 40% of meals eaten out. The cable and satellite subscriptions, especially the premium ones. Dare I day it, the prescription drugs they're taking not out of genuine need, but only because they "asked their doctor". The alcohol and tobacco. The double lattes. The trips halfway across the state to take eight-year-olds to sports games. In other words, all that stuff that mothers who were children of the Depression scolded their utterly unhearing children about during the Baby Boom.
Oh, BTW, I might wonder whether some of those credit users (debtors) might be implicitly expecting the Fed to 'monetize the debt', giving them the same free ride that a lot of folks got from the inflation of the 1970s...after all it would only be 'fair', right?...
Hi WT,
What did you think of the WSJ article today on "private oil inventory levels"? I have never noticed this category before. Was wondering how significant it was? (sent you the link this AM)
thanks
I noted that they didn't provide a volume for the private inventory levels--apparently as opposed to commercial inventories. (The WSJ article noted that "private inventory" was filling up.)
Total US crude + product inventories have fallen by 65 million barrels since the start of the fourth quarter. Relative to consumption, we had about 30 days consumption of crude oil stored in the US at the end of 1982. At the end of 2006, we had 21 days consumption stored.
The article kind of reminds me of a recent news item out of Russia to the effect that oil exports via pipeline to non-CIS countries were up. Two qualifiers: pipeline and non-CIS countries.
In fact, if you look at total exports (via all methods), exports to both CIS and non-CIS from Russia are down year over year.
Since they never quantified "private" we don't know the significance. My conclusion from the data you quote is "private" is much less than "commercial". It is an article geared to those looking to game the system.
I think that price of oil, barring extreme short term fluctuations, will be capped by Global Macroeconomic factors. Judging by the reaction in the all important US-petrochemical-burning-market post Katrina, I feel that that price in todays dollars is ~$90/barrel. Anything higher will "encourage" some to drive the smaller vehicle more often. Toyota may finally spend the $50 and put in a 110v charging circuit in the Prius and perhaps spend another $2k on larger capacity batteries.
In real terms $90 per barrel in 2007 is below the alltime high of some twenty-eight years ago. Yes, $90 would cause stagflation, but for the price of oil really to bite and get unemployment up over ten percent, my back-of-the-envelope pencil scribblings suggest that $150 or barrel is the true threshhold--beyond which we get rationing, price controls and the worst economic picture since the early 1980s. Politically, I think $150 per barrel is the ceiling price--though with Democrats controlling Congress I'd expect to see harsh excess profits taxes and price controls on Big Oil somewhere in the $100 to $150 barrel range.
And remember Sailorman's Fearless Forecast for this year: Oil prices are going to fluctuate (a lot).
In case anybody wants to know how much lower the price of oil can go this year, I herewith present my neck to the chopping block: I think $50 per barrel is the bottom--for psychological reasons as much as anything. In other words, I think speculators will go long as oil dips down toward the $50 mark.
As an economist I look at supply and demand--and chuckle. As a social psychologist I look at a whole 'nother set of variables, stir well and add rum. Yo ho ho . . . .
Don, what happens at $150/gallon? Are we crossing some particular economic threshold? Just wondering. I believe your suggestion would result in somewhat higher than current European gas prices in the US, but, of course, Europe drives way smaller cars, so they feel less pain. I did ask westexas where he thought the pain threshold was to initiate large scale changes in consumer behaviour. Well, I guess the changes from last year were already large enough for Ford and GM but they are still far away from making a lasting impact on fleet economy. I am more looking for the SUV graveyard level.
Does profit taxing from Big Oil make economic sense? Most of the damage is, after all, in oil imports, isn't it? And I don't think we have any political instruments to tax Aramco et al....
Most of the world uses gasoline tax as the key instrument to reduce demand. At some point, of course, gas tax becomes politically absolutely impossible, even though it would continue to stay effective. If US politicians wanted to do something about energy dependence, this would be the time, wouldn't it?
U.S. politicians have three objectives:
1. to get re-elected.
2. to get re-elected.
3. to get re-elected.
They will do anything whatsoever to hold on to power . . . except maybe administer Polonium 210 to the opposition candidate.
Speaking as an economist and sociologist and one with an M.B.A. in finance (I wear a lot of hats, am qualified to teach in six different disciplines, according to the Calif. Community College certification board.), I can say with no fear of successful contradiction that
1. economic logic does not matter when it comes to things such as taxation of oil companies or of gasoline,
2. economic logic and long-term concerns for the environment are off the political radar screen,
3. any law that might impose short-term pain in exchange for great long-term gain will never get on the floor of Congress for a vote--too ludicrous.
Thus, I could prate on all day and night about externalities, abrupt climate change, the fact that perhaps 98% of Ph.D. economists favor taxing gasoline to internalize external costs, and on and on and on to no avail.
Politics is about power. Power to see who gets what and when they get it. No commodity is more vulnerable to political meddling than is oil. What the Democrats will do is:
1. Transfer income to poor people to help them pay fuel bills.
2. Tax evil "Big Oil" because it is good theater.
3. When the going gets tough we'll have price controls, and that means rationing of some kind too.
How sure am I of all this? Well, let me put it this way: Does the sun rise in the east and set in the west?
By the way, the Republicans are no better than the Democrats: I'm just picking on them because they now control both houses of Congress. The question is not whether they will screw up but rather when and to what extent. In general, the more pain that is felt, the worse will be the legislation.
Democracy is the worst possible political system ever invented--except for all the others.
(Actually, I don't exactly believe that. I'm an Aristotelian in my political thinking; I think political science has regressed over the past twenty-three hundred years. When Aristotle wrote his books he combined politics and ethics into one big book, because he thought [obviously to him] that the two topics were one big ball of wax. Now, of course, modern "political scientists" laugh at such an approach, because they know it is about power--and nothing else.)
((3. When the going gets tough we'll have price controls, and that means rationing of some kind too.))
I second that. The chances of its being any other way are slim. It will be an American phenomenon, the rest of the world has a somewhat different social structure that will not demand equal distribution of available fossil fuel.
I am unable to formulate how the rationing system will be implemented? How will "illegal" residents be allocated their "share" of fossil fuel rations?
The most logical way to do rationing (and the way most economists favor) is with marketable coupons. For example, every holder of a driver's license might be issued with coupons good for ten gallons of gasoline per week. People like me who use way less than that could sell their coupons (presumably through a middle-man) to those who were willing and able to pay for them. The nifty thing about this approach is that the rich have to pay more for the privilege of burning more gasoline while poor people can make extra income by selling their coupons.
Of course the poor who "need" lots of gasoline will be screwed, blued and tatooed.
Back in the seventies when there were gasoline allocation schemes I could always get all I wanted, because I knew the owner of a gas station. At midnight me and his other friends would pull up to the station and fill up "off the books" with cash payments to the owner. During the World War Two rationing of 1945 it has been estimated that up to half of all gasoline was diverted through black markets. Americans will do whatever it takes to get gas--syphons, line jumping, fist-fights and brandishing guns--just what you expect from addicts.
The form of any price controls and rationing scheme will be to enhance the power of the politicians in office. To make this observation is about as startling as to assert that water tends to run downhill.
WT, you've forgotten the downward reweighting of gasoline in Goldman-Sachs commodities index. According to several stock pundits, this is still putting downward pressure on oil prices.
Let's not overstate this, the reweighting appears to have been the following:
So Energy did not drop much (2.3%) in the summer re-weighting of the GSCI. And it gets re-weighted every year.
Do you notice unleaded? All along traders who have been critical of this Goldman move were questioning the huge reduction in unleaded smack in the middle of the summer driving season. During last summer, there were periods where unleaded strength was a contributing factor towards a higher energy complex overall, particularly when it came to supporting sentiment. We were still in the discounting period of possible hurricanes and geopolitical risk with the Middle East (especially Israel/Lebanon) was front and center. That put pressure on upstream (Crude/Brent), but "trading sentiment" is a holistic sort of thing, shaped by how the whole energy complex is trading. We were also in the period where MTBE was being transitioned out as an additive, which contributed to higher prices in unleaded.
I've been a student of markets and politics for some 20 years. Even though I don't have proof in the form of a "smoking gun," I'm of the strong opinion that Goldman Sachs was partly motivated by the desire to manage markets. I can't prove it, but I'm not making a case before a grand jury either. Make what you want of the history, but don't dismiss it on the excuse that "it's just some conspiracy theory."
Goldman Sachs has recently made additional moves that need to be examined more closely. In this case it appears to be more a reaction to warm weather and an "honest" reweighting of the GSCI vs. something that was done for a variety of reasons that included political considerations / manipulation. If you want to see a commentator that takes a more critical view on the most recent reweighting see this article:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01082007/business/energy_dumped_business_mic...
Again, I don't have a firm opinion on the most recent reweighting other than to say it's less suspect than the move taken last summer. In the most recent case, Goldman was reacting to warmer weather and prices that were moving down strongly. But that doesn't change the fact that their move pushed prices even lower as institutions following their index adjusted prices.
Here is the total open interest in unleaded gas at the beggining of each month leading up to the re-weighting and past it:
So the hedging peaked in Feb -- way before the re-weighting. Then in July the OI actually went *up* -- after the re-weighting. So I don't see how the data supports your theory. The re-weighting did not cause a net cancellation of contracts in the market.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The open interest picture also supports what I'm saying. The lion's share of the GSCI change came in July through August, and Goldman's management/announcements of their change to the index was an ongoing process that unfolded over two months. See this:
http://www.indexuniverse.com/JOI/index.php?id=787
The decline in Aug. open interest is exactly what one would expect as the impact of the Goldman's changes unfolded over the two months from the initial announcement (and more importantly, with the fumbling that followed as the index weighting was adjusted - again, see the above story for context).
And as you can see, the price of gasoline started to, er..., well, tank, in August, right along with the decline in open interest.
The numbers you quote support exactly what I'm arguing. Perhaps you are like many in the media that missed the fact that this Goldman reweighing didn't happen in one fell swoop in June. I've seen that misquoted countless times.
None of the above should be taken to mean I'm arguing for a grand conspiracy. But a lesser one? Perhaps. In any event, it's clear that the Goldman change moved the energy markets.
Here's the price chart. The fall took gas in August, 2006
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/hist_RB.html
Open interest declined as contracts were closed out, and the spot price declined at the same time.
Also, keep in mind that changes in open interest very early in 2006 wasn't what was key in the July-Aug.-Sept time window. Prices in markets are set at the margin. The peak in Feb. 2006 open interest could very well have been hedging linked to the refining cycle well in advance of the driving season. Quick changes in markets in a short time window in August were key here, not the magnitude of open interest in early 2006.
I don't get it. The OI dropped more in the Mar-Apr (27k) period than in the Jul-Aug or Aug-Sep (21k) period. Also re the supposedly critical Aug 10 date (in the referenced article) the OI dropped only a few thousand contracts on Aug 10, (and Aug 11, and Aug 14). So what did the indexers actually do? Did they sell or did they not? And if they sold, who did all the buying? -- remember the total open interest changed very little. So I still don't see how the numbers support this line of thinking.
Personally, I think the GSCI change may have sparked a sell-off due to *fear* about the indexers -- without the index funds actually having done anything at all.
A doomer's community.
Yesterdays Drumbeat was vast and very informative. 385 posts I counted.
I don't wish to restart the doomer vs cornucopian battle but I did wish to followup on a few comments about doomerism that implied that I(or others) wish to stand on a hill and shoot everyone we could and that I should instead think of community instead of self.
Ok. My background of community as I recall it during my youth on the farm in the 40's or thereabout.
We bartered. We exchanged work and staples with neighbors. On Saturday we hitched up the team to the wagon and drove it to town. The women had packed up there buttter,cream or eggs or chickens and other items to trade with. The local grocery had scales and other means to receive them and gave credit so they could purchase what they needed. If you didn't have enough you signed a ticket. The ticket stated what you owed and was kept on record. No interest was charged. You paid when your crops came in or some other way(by trading more).
This way the folks in town had staples to buy that they couldn't get otherwise and the country folk could get flour,salt and perhaps sugar and meal. It worked for the good of everyone.
You also traded/bartered work. A neighbor need to put up his hay crop. You helped him and he repaid the help later. For this to work everyone had to be honest and repay favors else you were shunned as a deadbeat.
You wanted to slaughter some hogs then the neighbor came and helped. He might also get some of the meat. It all depended.
The whole system worked without money having to change hands. Riding into town you would stop along the way and chat with neighbors who were on their front porch. You visited as you could and still got the wagon and team back to the farm before sunset.If you fell asleep at the reins, believe me the mules knew the way. No cars to run over you.
You went to church on Sunday or just visited and rested. You worked the rest of the week. Trade day on Saturday, church/rest on Sunday..work the rest.
We had no electricity. We cooked and heated with wood and did not ever waste it. We read and studied or whatever by kerosene lamps. We went to bed when it got dark and the stove died down. We got up at dawn and took care of the animal chores and other work.
This is how is was and I still see some local stores using those 'account' ticket pads to this day but its fading very fast. Only one I now know of.
Doomer scenarios. To revert eventually to this lifestyle is the only chance I see of us making it here in this country. It will take some time to get back to this but it was basically a good life. Healthy and meaningful and very worthy but a lot of hard physical labor as well as many times of rest, fishing and hunting. Winter was a slack time as was rainy days. You spent rainy days lounging on the porch or playing if you were young.
This is what I would like to see happen in the country. I don't see it happening in any other setting. The land has to be our way to return to any meaningful type of lifestyle and culture. Nothing else IMO exists.
This is my take on the future. This is based on the unviability of life in the suburbs and cities. Small towns would likely return as specialized skills were required and they couldn't afford to both farm and perform those skills. Blacksmithing, doctors,storekeepers,etc.
I think it will be a long long time for cities of any size to return.
I prefer to harm no one and not be harmed in return. In a chaotic scenario you can't take chances if you are to survive. You must be on guard and be fully prepared. This means you need to surround yourself when you are able with a trustworthy community of like minded people.
Wary of outsiders and will to take hard stands on many survival issues.
I hope to not have to go it alone for very long. Where I live I have many I can already trust and I will be relying on many of those friends. Most people in my area will die off just like the city people will. They are not going to be able to make it. They don't understand why nor have any inkling of a possible doomsday future.
I hope feverently that something will stave off this possible future. Somewhere an answer will be found. I am not too hopeful.
I have some kerosene lamps. I have plenty of cast iron cookware. I have lots of wooded areas. I will build my light sport aircraft and make plans to return after I move to live in N. Carolina. I could survive no where else but where I was born and raised.
I pity those who have naught but a small lot in the middle of suburbia and no where to go or plans made. Surely it is going to not be pleasant for those left in the dark if this comes to pass.
So yes, I am a doomer if thats what making plans gets you labeled. I will not be able nor intend to proceed without others. We didn't do it that way back in my youth and I don't intend to do it that way in the future or at least for very long. The future is cloudy anyway.
I could be wrong but I doubt very many here have any plans whatsoever based on the comments. They just wish it would all go away. Thats why I sense a dieoff. They just give up or have no skills or means.
I just finished reading the Kunstler piece indicated at the beginning of the entry. I think he has started getting a lot of his material at this site.
airdale
Account pads:
In town, many of the stores use these-pharmacy, lumber yard, feedstore, taverns. The hardware quit several years ago. All local-owned shops. Chain grocery never had them. I would think its a headache for the shop owner, but on the flip side, it makes it easier to buy when I didn't bring any money. I would bet their losses are less than those of comparable business loss to bad checks, if near that. You don't pay, you get cut off, and word goes round.
Airdale,
Given your comments above, and location in the SE, I think you would like the author Wendell Berry and his series of novels on fictional Port William, Kentucky and the Coulter family. They occur in a rural community from the turn of century to the 40's. The novels stress agrarian lifestyle and community cohesiveness. Berry himself is a literary heavyweight, writing acclaimed prose, poetry and essays. For the latter, The Gift of Good Land, 1981, and What are People For? 1990 would be appreciated by many on TOD.
Airdale
it's been an hour and no-one replied to your post.
I think, however, that what you write, and you do it well, will be worth much more to many than 99.9% of the comments and posts here, which in essence come down to little else than intellectual air jumping.
And it would be good if you share much more, if you feel like it that is, and in much finer detail. There is a lot, naturally, that seems obvious to you, ways of doing things, ways of coping, that will be valuable skills to learn for many who don't yet have a clue.
Please don't stop. And thank you for your story.
Airdale,
If I didn't know better I would have sworn my mother wrote your last post!
That is exactly how she grew up (She can't fly planes, though) ;-).
Being a young (in any regard) reader of the oildrum I find the different attitudes quite interesting. I think it is always a good idea to try to do everything by yourself, even if you decide to have it done by others later, it will be harder for them to rip you off.
I hope you consider placing bullet proof textiles below your planeseat.
I thought I knew what urban sprawl is supposed to mean but looking at the pictures here http://www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-1om/Maisel.html I am really impressed and understand more why some Americans expect Armageddon with gasoline at 7$. I think everyone from central Europe should consider these pictures to get a better idea of the dimensions.
For Austria I would say remembering studies of the reason for goods transport (subsidies form A to B, benefits of label produced in Italy, Austria, or Germany for special groups of products etc.) 25% of the goods transport could be stopped in no time (more with longer preparation time) with basicaly no negative effects on goods supply. As public transport is not that bad, every mayor city could reduce personal transport via private single user cars substantially and still nobody will have to starve in his flat because he can't find a place to buy food.
So for some parts of Europe I might be called an optimist.
I am more inclined to think that when the things go bad Indians will continue their way of living they have followed the last centuries (millenia) as most do now and will not make it to the level of China, and that it will be more difficult for China, and one just has to consider that tens of millions of Chinese people starved not long ago under Mao.
And the USA, I am quite sure there a "pleasant" corners, too.
I would be very surprised if passengers from Europe on their first flight over the continent were more impressed by US urban sprawl than by the vast empty spaces between the coastal cities. A European is very accustomed to seeing a minutely planned century old agricultural infrastructure anywhere. We have basically no untouched forests left. Our woods are all cultured, second and third generation logging areas. They might look neat, but they do so because they are being thinned out by the logging industry to be easily accessible at any time and to produce disease free timber. What a contrast the giant lakes and tundras and mountains and forests of the Canadian and American wilderness make! What an enormous chess set you have in the Midwest with giant irrigated farms. Absolutely amazing... and something to cherish and hold on to and use to the best of your abilities. Europe has nothing like that. It is a confined space with people using every nuck and cranny to make a living.
In comparison to your nature and rural areas, American cities are tiny islands of boredom. Hardly worth mentioning, although they are the cancer of the land and need to be kept in check. But thanks to their flatness and total area they will be great places to install solar power. A hundred million roofs are waiting to be populated with crystals to make electricity and with collectors to heat the living rooms. What a great advantage over Europe you have, yet again. It is hardly a fair competition, I must say.
"Ok. My background of community as I recall it during my youth on the farm in the 40's or thereabout.
We bartered."
On July 1, 1940, the US population was estimated to be 132,122,446. The GDP that year was estimated to have been roughly $800 billion in 1992 dollars. I assume that is roughly a tenth of current GDP and maybe a third of the GDP per capita.
And even that a fraction of the population was reading their books by the light of a kerosene lamp and had no electricity means little. Please keep in mind that at the same time Berkeley was building Cyclotrons to smash nuclei, the vacuum tube had seven years of life expectancy left (it did not know it, yet, but only seven years later Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain would invent the transistor and extinguish its glow almost completely) and US cities were brightly illuminated. Some of the best movies ever made fall into that period of time, the studios burning giant electric arc lamps to illuminate their scenes and the war was running at full speed at that time and Germany was victorious...
A snapshot in history from the neck of the woods is not a model for the future. It wasn't even a model for its own time. It is nothing but a snapshot of the neck of the woods...
Not that I mind if people decide to live in a museum. There is nothing wrong with that just like there is nothing wrong with surfing all day long if that is your idea of spending your life. Just don't expect 1.5 billion Chinese to share that vision... and don't expect them not to invade your back yard, either.
Infinite: Charlie don't surf.
IP...well my man I was speaking of the past BUT I was also painting a picture of a very possible picture. What we went thru on our way here.
What did someone say about forgetting the past? I am sure you have all that on the tip of your tongue, but your not understanding the whole (or as we once said) BIG PICTURE.
If the cities and burbs crash and burn,,yeah you say it won't because all we gotta do is throw some switches and toggle some things and voila we have zero problems BUT I am not exactly buying that you see, for its my future possibility as much as yours and this is something I once lived ,knew quite well and understood that it was a doable thing.
Now one last point. This was my grandpa's and grandma's place but they didn't own it. They sharecropped it and RAISED 14 children doing so, and that doesn't count me and my brother and it was only 100 acres if that and quite a bit uncleared.
AND we didn't have chemical fertilizers either. Just what we collected from the animals. We weren't into nuke collision detection and all that 'stuff'...they were just living a life like unto what most Kentuckians were doing at that time.
I also lived with other relatives in that time frame and saw it also exactly the same up with my uncles as well. In fact the whole county lived like that. There was a tad of running water in town they said. I never saw it. I did see some picture pumps but no toilets.
Their was a movie house and pool hall and maybe stores but now that town is mostly filled with hair dressing places and flower shop/botiques. Fixing hair and dying seem to be big business now days in small town USA.
Remember...the future...Back to the Future Part IV!
and spare me the switch throwing and rocket science. This is life in the slow lane and if lucky behind the ass end of a mule and those fartsy smells that roll back when the single bottom plow bites down hard into the dirt and the mule is sweating bigtime.
I know your not looking forward to such.
I think smart money would invest in some jacks and mares. Maybe learn how to build a wagon. Trim wicks..etc.. all that science thingy stuff.
I assume your sarcasm detector is functional.
Oh great. He wants to turn us all into Mennonites.
Note to self: go short on egg prices when gas hits five bucks/gal
Airdale,
Don't listen to Freddy.
I love your posts and I love your stories.
Please keep posting them.
HAs anyone read "Progress And Poverty" by Henry George?
Husky exanding reserve estimates at White Rose
God of small things - Yea...that'll work out REALLY well.
Like the last time. *sigh* Like how well the patented genomes of plants don't drift into other previous GM free plants.
Yea, We'll THINK our way outta the problem because we are clever.
http://www.safe2use.com/ca-ipm/01-02-05-study.htm
In the early 1990s a European genetic engineering company was preparing to field test and then commercialize on a major scale a genetically engineered soil bacteria called Klebsiella planticola.
So, genes were taken out of another bacterium, and put into Klebsiella-planticola in the right place to result in alcohol production. Once that was done, the plan was to rake the plant residue from the fields, gather it into containers, and allow it to be decomposed by Klebsiella-planticola. But, Klebsiella would produce alcohol, which it normally does not do. The alcohol production would be performed in a bucket in the barn. But what would you do with the sludge left at the bottom of the bucket once the plant material was decomposed? Think about a wine barrel or beer barrel after the wine or beer has been produced? There is a good thick layer of sludge left at the bottom. After Klebsiella-planticola has decomposed plant material, the sludge left at the bottom would be high in nitrogen and phosphorus and sulfur and magnesium and calcium-all of those materials that make a perfectly wonderful fertilizer. This material could be spread as a fertilizer then, and there wouldn't be a waste product in this system at all. A win-win-win situation.
So what does Klebsiella-planticola do in root systems? The parent bacterium makes a slime layer that helps it stick to the plant's roots. The engineered bacterium makes about 17 parts per million alcohol. What is the level of alcohol that is toxic to roots? About one part per million. The engineered bacterium makes the plants drunk, and kills them.Here is a website you might find interesting regarding GMO and farmers. Its from 'down under' but still relevant in all locales.
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/
Tying this in to the corn discussion below, back when the concerns and development of GM seeds was taking off, it was corn that really pushed me over. The pollen from GM Minnesota corn was found incorporated in the seed of the grass progenitor of corn, still growing in the wilds of Mexico.
So much for a seed source for one the most important agricultural grains. At the time, this "got lost" over the debate of bovine growth hormone in milk, and the labeling fight. Monsanto was sueing a farmer near its test plots for stealing the patented gene, he launched a counter suit that Monsanto contaminated his seed. I believe Monsanto won, in spite of the Mexican evidence.
I don't recall a case about a corn gene. But there was a Canadian farmer in a similar case against Monsanto, for growing a patented rapeseed. The farmer's argument was that the GM crop had contaminated his non-GM crop via windborne pollen. But it was widely believed that he actually planted a bin of seeds harvested from the GM crop.
Alas, I can not find it... but a gent was trying to get 100% blue (or what it black) organic non GMO corn on his 80-120 acres. Breeding 18 (or 20 ish) years. Last year it was mentioned in 'the press' (ok, mentioned on the internet)
He's found Monsanto geans in his corn and now has 'lost all the years'.
There were rumbli9ngs of a lawsuit - and now nothing for press.
The modifying of some bio-bit to make 'energy sources' has a past history of being able to wipe out life on the planet. I'm not hopeful that future efforts won't have the same feature.
"One of the world's oldest varieties of maize has been "contaminated" by genetically modified organisms, say US researchers who have had their work confirmed by the Mexican government.
The findings in the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca region will stoke the row about whether it is possible to control GM crops and their potential threat to genetic diversity. "
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/biologicalscience/story/0,,609558...
The Monsanto case did involve rape(canola) seed, not corn.
So much for my "Mexican evidence"
It is believed that corn pollen is too heavy for distance contamination. The contamination of primitive corn in Mexico is thought to have originated from imported food aid corn which crossed via multiple pollinations.
If I'd stop to think, I might have recalled my wife gets away with planting different sweet hybrid corn varieties by spacing the varieties several hundred feet apart.
Leanan, thanks for the article about Bulgaria. And thanks for all your efforts which I, and I believe everyone else here are appreciating.
I found the news (which is nothing new in the practice of my country) rather disturbing. Even before I left a typical winter heating bill was exceeding one minimum wage. The country needs massive investments in the energy sector and in efficiency, but is largely lacking the funds to do it... think we got lucky with providing the fincancing for the new NPP in Belene, but this will deliver too far in the future and IMHO will not be enough.
Hello TODers,
http://www.ww4report.com/node/3007
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More than a thousand peasants and fishermen marched in Campeche, in the Yucatan peninsula, Jan. 6 to protest the degradation of their lands and waters by the state oil company Pemex.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0109mexico-tortillas09-ON.html
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Mexican tortilla producers predict further price increases
Rising demand is a major factor pushing up corn prices, Sojo told a news conference Monday - in particular the fact that more U.S. corn is being diverted for the production of ethanol, instead of heading to Mexico's consumer market.
Although local corn prices are typically volatile around harvest time, which mostly falls in the second half of the year, traders say the farm gate price for white corn saw an unprecedented rise of up to 45 percent in 2006 compared with the year-ago levels in the Mexican market.
Grains traders have forecast tortilla prices to rise between 20 percent and 25 percent during the last quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007.
------------------------------
When the avg Mexican earns under $4/day: price increases like this will severely strain their society, especially as Pemex collapses. Just wait until the ill-maintained Pemex infrastructure really makes a mess of the Mexican habitat and coastline, combined with no way to get fertilizers to grow their own corn.
Bob Shaw In Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
toto,
Thanks for the link w/ Mexican corn price effects. At first glance, you would not expect that white corn would be impacted by the etoh demand, usually of the old yellow dent varieties. Grain substitution must be working hard. Course look at present barley/oats prices. Wheat is still, IMO, up on the drought. June prices will tell with that one.
It looks like one of the unintended consequences of ethanl production could be deglobalization. And didn't all those cheap corn imports from the U.S. have something to do with the destruction of the Mexican agricultural economy which in turn had an impact on illegal immigration?
Mexican farmers may eventually make more money selling to the US than feeding their neighbors.
City and town dwellers impoverished out of inflation may be the new economic migrants as the farms come back to profitability.
Of course---at that point---food vs fuel you will likely tempt nationalization.
Hello Doug Fir & Tstreet,
Thxs for responding. Presidente' Calderon had a stupid idea of taxing soda pop to try and make up for Pemex's shortfall--Laugh, then Cry if that is the best his econ. advisors can come up with.
IMO, He needs to rapidly kickstart a Mexican Outreach & biosolar conversion program, otherwise future leaders will be ripping beating hearts out of their peasants' chests again in a stupid attempt to appeal to the Abiotic Gods to refill Cantarell. Something tells me that this religious event will never be a huge tourist attraction to the Gringo. The recent bowling of five severed heads onto a disco-dance floor was not considered the best way to boost spring-break nightclub partying by the American college kid. Tequila = To-Kill-Ya
The Zapatistas and other indigenous tribes would be more than happy to desert globalization and live a relaxed lifestyle with wheelbarrows, bicycles, PVs, tending crops, and so on. Calderon should be pushing his people hard not to urbanize, suburbanize, exurbanize like the US, and trading the last of his FFs for real biosolar assets.
But I think this is unlikely, and eventually 50 million Mexicans will be right behind the 50 million Southwesterners in a huge migration into Cascadia, Alaska, and other areas further North. The est. twenty million illegals here now will gladly help ease this eventuality WTSHTF down South. This is no different than the huge migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa because the leadership is only concerned with lining their pockets first, then taking out the rubbish [Project Murambatsvina]. Infinite Growth leads to Infinite Corruption.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Uncertain how they grow corn in that hot climate in Mexico. Must be the blue corn or old varieties they plant. Something able to withstand dry conditions and high temperatures.
With what we grow and the pollen starts , if the temp gets a bit above 100 degrees then it can kill the pollen. More like maybe 103. But also extremes in moisture and temperature play havoc with the kernel production. You can end up with nubbins and other defects.
Thats why I never see much corn growing to the south of us. Little in Tenn, ditto Alabama.
I was raised on a farm in North Alabama and corn was one of our main crops. But corn grows a lot further south than Alabama. It was the Mayan's staple food.
Ron Patterson
When I visited Mexico a year and a half ago, it was cooler in tropical Oaxaca (elev ~5000ft) than in central Texas (elev ~900ft). The nice gentleman at the Jardin Etnobotanico showed us his patch of teosinte and spent a bit of time explaining the virtues of maize. It has been in human cultivation for several thousand years at least.
Corn is an incredibly adaptable plant, and will probably survive the century in some form or other. Your super-sweet or other highly inbred varieties may not, however.
Uncertain how they grow corn in that hot climate in Mexico. Must be the blue corn or old varieties they plant. Something able to withstand dry conditions and high temperatures.
With what we grow and the pollen starts , if the temp gets a bit above 100 degrees then it can kill the pollen. More like maybe 103. But also extremes in moisture and temperature play havoc with the kernel production. You can end up with nubbins and other defects.
Thats why I never see much corn growing to the south of us. Little in Tenn, ditto Alabama.
Many areas in Mexico are at high elevation. Mexico City itself is around 2240 meters (7300 ft), and this lowers the temperature dramatically.
Corn production in Mexico is 1/10th that of the US, but is a very important crop for many poor farmers.
From Wikipedia:
Areas south of the twentieth-fourth parallel with elevations up to 1,000 meters (the southern parts of both coastal plains as well as the Yucatán Peninsula), have a yearly median temperature between 24°C and 28°C. Temperatures here remain high throughout the year, with only a 5°C difference between winter and summer median temperatures. Although low-lying areas north of the twentieth-fourth parallel are hot and humid during the summer, they generally have lower yearly temperature averages (from 20°C to 24°C) because of more moderate conditions during the winter.
Airdale:
I swear: if we had to board some sort of an Ark tomorrrow, and I was assigned the task of choosing a few people who were well qualified to get the human race started back up again after the waters have subsided, YOU would be one of my first choices! You are one of the dying breed of people in their 60s who understands the making of useful things and the cultivation of the land, without agribusiness and high-tech assistence. I too have a dying talent for making things will little more than my own hands and a few simple hand tools.
Give me a few old-timer mechanics, carpenters, farmers, midwives, moonshine makers, maverick engineers, gunsmiths, and by golly; we could get it started all over again! It wouldn't be pretty and it wouldn't be very nice, but I do believe that we, as a species, can pull it out.
There is far too much whining here at TOD. Things are likely to get tough in the future, but we have been tough in the past, but have become soft in the present, and will need to become tough once again.
Hang in there.... We're gonna need ya!
Well thanks for the nice words.
However I must admit that one of these days I am not going to be riding that Harley LowRider much longer. That the day will come when that last garden will be a bit too much. That I hope I can build my sport aircraft without some malady striking and have enough nerve to fly it once done on a cross country over the smokies. One of my last remaining dreams of which many have gone by the wayside.
Dreams we all must have had and some that may now not be realized. It looked so good for so long and we thought we could dance our lives away and not worry. We could dance the hornpipe and forget to pay the piper.
John Prine : "You never know the load until you take a strain"
"But it don't do no good, to get angry, so help me I know." John Prine
Airdale:
I swear: if we had to board some sort of an Ark tomorrrow, and I was assigned the task of choosing a few people who were well qualified to get the human race started back up again after the waters have subsided, YOU would be one of my first choices! You are one of the dying breed of people in their 60s who understands the making of useful things and the cultivation of the land, without agribusiness and high-tech assistence. I too have a dying talent for making things will little more than my own hands and a few simple hand tools.
Give me a few old-timer mechanics, carpenters, farmers, midwives, moonshine makers, maverick engineers, gunsmiths, and by golly; we could get it started all over again! It wouldn't be pretty and it wouldn't be very nice, but I do believe that we, as a species, can pull it out.
There is far too much whining here at TOD. Things are likely to get tough in the future, but we have been tough in the past, but have become soft in the present, and will need to become tough once again.
Hang in there.... We're gonna need ya!
Corn actually has its origins in Mexico.
This may be an unexpected "benefit" but I think that in the long run, oil scarcity now due to political problems---i.e. Iraq and Nigeria---is ultimately beneficial.
The crude oil in Iraq and Nigeria will eventually be extracted sometime in the next century, and it will slow down the depletion curve a bit, and move up the time period where alternatives are necessary.
We need to avoid a catastrophic collapse which would cause so much chaos and poverty that long-term planning and investments in remediation would be impossible.
A sooner, but slower-declining Peak Oil is better. Get people working on the problem now.
And there's a psychological issue. Most people are inclined to ask, *Who* is responsible for the problem?, as opposed to What?
People instinctively look for enemies and problem causers among other humans, not large-scale unobvious, objective, global scientific reasons.
A useful remediation plan in response to "We have to do something because of Those Bad Guys Out there" (if "something" isn't "more war") is unfortunately more likely to gain support than one which (correctly) blames objective geophysical facts and our own past and current actions.
It is generally a three level process:
1) At the most immediate level people ask who is responsible for the problem
2) Then the more analytically thinking people start asking what is responsible
3) The most difficult one is to answer who is responsible for what is responsible. This is the rarest question asked, because it may very well turn out that it is yourself causing your own problems in the end...
Obviously most people prefer to stick to number one.
>The crude oil in Iraq and Nigeria will eventually be extracted sometime in the next century, and it will slow down the depletion curve a bit, and move up the time period where alternatives are necessary.
Crude Oil is already being extracted from these countries. Its also likely because of huge population in the Middle East and in Africa that both of those regions will continue to destabilize no matter what the west does (short of genecide). Whether a sea of Oil remains untapped in Iraq is probably irrelevent if these regions continue to destablize, and I don't see how that trend will change over the next few decades until the population level receeds significantly.
>We need to avoid a catastrophic collapse which would cause so much chaos and poverty that long-term planning and investments in remediation would be impossible.
>This may be an unexpected "benefit" but I think that in the long run, oil scarcity now due to political problems---i.e. Iraq and Nigeria---is ultimately beneficial.
The global proverty level has been on the rise since 1979. It began as the unsustainable population levels began to reduce the carrying capacity of the planet (deforestation, over-fishing, depletion and pollution of fresh water supplies), etc. Every year our population is reducing the carrying capacity of the planet because we continue to degrade the environment. As Oil and Gas reserves deplete its only natural to expect the destruction to accelerate as the population turns to the surface for energy needs (ie instead of consuming oil and gas below the surface, consumption will turn against the forests, coal fields, etc). The quicker Oil and gas resources are depleted the shorter time remains before topside destruction begins to accelerate.
About 100 years ago, much of Europe and the US east coast was deforested. Then Oil and gas made its presence and we stopped using wood as our main energy source. The forest recovered over many decades but the population growth also accelerated. When the Oil and gas shortages arrive, people will again switch back to wood, and this time the deforestation will be much more rapid, since the population is much larger and much more dependant on energy to get by. Before Oil and Gas made its debut, about 2/3 of the population lived in rural regions and they were nearly self-sufficient. Today less than 10% of the population could losely be considered self-sufficient, capable of feeding themselves. The Genie is out of the bottle and there isn't a way to put it back unless the population is drastically reduced. But as I said earlier, every year goes by without change will further reduce the planet carrying capacity.
EXTRA EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT
"Auto makers already pouring billions into more efficient engines are likely to be the first to sound the death knell for oil use..."
Check this one: (from REUTERS!!)
"...peak oil — the moment when crude is taken out of the ground faster than new reserves are found..."
Party on dudes!
Let's see, what theory was that--oh yes; The "Iron Triangle."
Go for it!
My paycheque depends on people sucking up oil.
At least for now.
2050, huh?
Whew! Just in the nick of time!
I was going to post that story this morning, but apparently Financial Express didn't pay their domain registration bill. I had bookmarked it the previous night, but this morning, there was a "domain expired" message where the article had been. I guess they've paid up. :-D
It's a pretty cornucopian article. Peak oil not until 2050. And it probably won't ever happen, because environmental concerns will force us to move to other energy sources. I'm not holding my breath for that one.
I do find that the Indian press is pretty open to the concept of peak oil, and to resource limits in general. A reflection of their different experience, perhaps?
Well, yes and no.
It also puts peak oil in 1981:
DEMAND PEAK, will it be ahead of supply peak?
YES, and much further ahead than many imagine
“Global oil demand will peak by 2050, possibly even before world production does, as environmental policies harden, security worries speed the hunt for alternatives and technology makes other fuels cheaper.
Auto makers already pouring billions into more efficient engines are likely to be the first to sound the death knell for oil use, as motor use accounts for up to two thirds of demand. Coal and natural gas producers are rushing to find ways of replacing crude-derived fuel.”
(A bit of a secret, no one is telling you...demand will peak MUCH sooner than 2050, MUCH SOONER....
A gallery of what we were promised and should have seen 30 years ago...
http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos/chevy-volt-concept-1/121361/
http://rqriley.com/xr3.htm
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.php?file=car.php&carnum=1316
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html
http://www.daihatsu.com/motorshow/tokyo05/ufe3/
http://www.rasertech.com/tech_p-2.html
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-2004-Volvo-3CC-Concept.htm
http://ev1-club.power.net/evpics.htm
http://archive.cardesignnews.com/autoshows/2002/paris/preview/gm-hywire/
If oil at $60 to $75 a barrel can create this much innovation, what would oil at $100 to $110 do for technical advance? Oil will NEVER hold sustainably above $120 a barrel, for one reason: It simply isn't worth it. Despite the rantings of the Kunstlers, and their mad worship of oil, it just ain't that good.
Some weep and cry and gnash teeth...
http://www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-1om/Kunstler.html#
Others design, build, and innovate. With which ones would you bet your money?
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
"What Al Gore Hasn't Told You About Global Warming"
Nelson DeMille may have an answer.
Nuclear winter is the answer to global warming.
WildFire quote
regards
Hussein in the Membrane: Making Lemonade in Iraq
1776 reads as if January 9, 2007 17:53.
We commented [Fred Fair].... for visibility reasons, of course.
Words, words, and more words. Do something?
This is something I've been thinking about for a while. Almost without exception when "we" post here about the effects of peak oil on "our" society we're talking about the first world.
What about the third world?
While we're fretting, peak oil is happening now in the third world - at a time when the first world has not yet experienced (logistical) peak. By experiencing peak oil first because of their poverty, third world countries may have better circumstances in which to adapt, perhaps a slower descent, as well as having not so far to fall.
The meek may inherit the earth indeed.
Cheers,
xuewen
Yes, this is the way I've been thinking too recently.
IMO, about 80% of the world's population does not have very far to 'fall' post-Peak. I would estimate that the remaining 20% probably use about 80% of our energy (maybe someone has better figures).
That's why I don't buy the whole massive die-off theories.
Where the real pain will be felt will be in the first-world countries, and in particular in the middle classes. But even a 50% die-off of the US population is only a 2% reduction of the World's population.
Again, look at Cuba. They lost about 20lb per person on average and became more agricultural, after losing more than half their oil imports. But there was no massive die-off. And yes, I know that they have their own oil now, but that is more recent.
The US will most likely be the last to feel the pain, but once it does, the "non-negotiable" lifestyle will be negotiable, and massive belt-tightening will reap many energy-saving benefits.
Hi DuncanK-
"That's why I don't buy the whole massive die-off theories."
I would agree with you here except that 2/3s of the world's food production is derived from fossil-fuel agriculture.
What happens when FF ag goes belly up?
You are making that stupid doomer assumption again that people would rather drive than eat...
There is a partial truth in that some people would rather drive, than others have what to eat. But this is nothing new actually...
I drove for a few hours today through several biozones and I now doubt that conventional high-input farming will produce enough biofuels. I think the biomass will come from woody weeds, undergrowth cleared for fire hazard reduction and invasive plants on low value land. Some type of local rendering (pyrolysis, torrefaction) will be needed to feed a network of refineries.
If I'm right this is almost the opposite of corn ethanol and biodiesel with high input, starch or lipid rich biomass (ie food) which is locally finished.
I've heard that the wood-to-methanol route is at least in principle sustainable, and has a pretty good energy return as well. The energy inputs required to grow trees are pretty low (as long as you grow the right trees).
Cheers.