DrumBeat: February 7, 2007
Posted by Leanan on February 7, 2007 - 10:12am
Australia: Report urges vehicle congestion charge
Australia must reduce its reliance on oil and consider imposing vehicle congestion charges in major cities, a key report on the country's future oil supply suggests.I moved this article back up to the top of the list, because we now have a link to the full report:The analysis by the Senate's bipartisan Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committee also calls for increased funding for ethanol research to help develop the biofuels industry.
The document, tabled in parliament on Wednesday, contains 10 recommendations aimed at shoring up Australia's future energy supply and making the country less dependent on fossil fuels.
Australian Senate Final Report on Peak Oil [PDF, 1.3 Mb]
Exurbs hardest hit in recent housing slump
Distant suburbs of major cities experiencing biggest decline in price and sales since summer of 2005..."It's been hard for sellers to comprehend, and I'm usually the bearer of bad news," said Mike Wagner, a real estate broker who works in Loudoun. "The news is: Your home is worth $100,000 less than it was a year and a half ago."
With record profits, some investors believe dividend boosts are in order. But experts say managers at the majors are making the prudent choice in holding back.
Greenest cars...are all Asian.
Special: The End of Oil - Part 1 airs on Link TV this week:
The End of Oil - Part 1 is the first half of a special four-hour programming block exposing the facts and quickly approaching consequences of our dwindling world oil supply. The special features the highly-anticipated feature documentary Crude Impact, and the film Protecting the Heart of Everywhere by the Pachamama Alliance.There will also be live online discussion with Richard Heinberg and other oil experts.
China Suggests Gas Field Has Not Started Production
A Chinese official suggested Tuesday that reports claiming China has started pumping natural gas from a disputed gas field in the East China Sea are incorrect.Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, speaking at a regular press briefing, said the reports "do not tally with the facts," adding China carries out oil and gas development in the East China Sea only in its own territorial waters.
China's armed forces ordered to cut costs, reduce energy use
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has ordered China's armed forces to cut costs and save energy in response to the government's call for a resource efficient and environment-friendly society.
China approves Sinopec, Sinochem port expansion near Zhejiang oil reserves
China's government has granted approval to China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, and China National Chemicals Import & Export Corp., or Sinochem, to expand their crude oil terminals in eastern Zhejiang province near the country's strategic oil reserves, the country's top planning agency said Monday.The expansion will allow the terminals to handle Very Large Crude Carriers with loads of 250,000-300,000 deadweight tons and increase their shipment capacity by a combined 22.5 million metric tons annually.
China begins pouring oil into 1st strategic reserve
China's first strategic oil reserve base began operation on Monday as oil started filling up its tanks, according to a National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) official.
As energy demands devour crops once meant for sustenance, the economics of agriculture are being rewritten.
Governments urged to take swift action on trade of biofuel
A coalition of civil society organizations on Tuesday urged governments to immediately suspend all subsidies and other forms of inequitable support for the import and export of biofuels.
Yet all this has taken place against the backdrop of three record harvests in a row, a sure sign of how strong the ethanol appetite for corn production is turning out to be. It’s tempting to assume that the effect of sharply higher prices is confined primarily to the agricultural sector. But where corn is concerned, we are all part of the agricultural sector. The historical cheapness of corn has driven it into nearly every aspect of our economy, in the form, most familiarly, of corn syrup. The low price of corn over the past half-century lies at the very foundation of America’s historically (and unrealistically) low food prices.
Energy efficiency, aid to poor suffer in priority shuffle
Under a 2005 energy bill signed by President Bush, an array of programs was promised more money.But when Bush unveiled his new budget Monday, some of these programs — including energy assistance for low-income families and energy efficiency — lost out.
ExxonMobil Urges Alabama Supreme Court to Overturn $3.5B Award
Asserting the state improperly turned a contract dispute into a fraud action, Exxon Mobil Corporation on Tuesday urged the Alabama Supreme Court to overturn a $3.5 billion punitive damages award. The award resulted from a lawsuit regarding payment of Mobile Bay Project royalties to the state.
Pennsylvania Launches Energy Independence Plan
The state set a target of producing 1 billion gallons of biodiesel and ethanol by 2017, about equal to the amount of fuel Pennsylvanians buy from external sources, costing about US$30 billion a year."We need to keep those dollars at home and put our people to work building the state's energy independent future," said Governor Ed Rendell at a news conference.
China blames the west for global warming
Rich industrialised nations must take the lead in cutting greenhouse gases since they bear the “unshirkable responsibility” for causing global warming, a Chinese official said on Tuesday.
Thai environmentalists halt public hearing on plans for nuclear energy
Angry environmentalists demanded Wednesday that the government halt a proposed plan to build Thailand's first nuclear power plants, forcing the cancellation of a scheduled public hearing on the issue.
Foes rally against Peru oil drilling
Peru's state-owned petroleum company, Perupetro, attended a giant trade show in Houston last week in hopes of attracting well-heeled foreign oil companies to buy prospecting rights in the country's vast, still largely unexplored interior.But the proposed sale has set off an avalanche of protest that literally followed Perupetro right into Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, site of the NAPE Expo.
Putin: Russian economy must diversify
President Vladimir Putin told Russia's most powerful business tycoons Tuesday that the economy suffers from an over-reliance on raw materials and called on corporations to move toward producing higher-value exports.
Japan to Raise Electricity Supply Target from Renewables
Japan should nearly treble the supply of electricity generated by renewable energy by 2014 from current levels to reduce use of fossil fuels, a government panel on energy policy said on Tuesday.
IEA: 2006-2011 Global Oil Demand Growth Seen Rising 2% a Year
Global oil demand growth is seen rising 2% annually through 2011, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, in a forecast that is more optimistic about the rate of future energy consumption compared with previous five-year periods, because of rapid growth in Asia.World oil consumption growth is expected to rise on average by 1.8 million barrels a day over the five-year period, from 84.5 million barrels a day in 2006 to 93.3 million barrels a day in 2011, the Paris-based IEA forecast in its medium-term report for 2006-2011.
An energy crisis looms over Iran's future. They currently consume half of their oil production. As the consumption rate increases, their available income will seriously diminish.In 2004, oil exports accounted for 65% of the government's revenue. Any disruption within their oil sector would cripple their economy. And their oil industry is continually degrading.
Nigeria: Energy Crisis Worsened Our Problem
President, Enugu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA), Sir Rob Anwatu, has said persistent energy crisis in the South-east is making life miserable for companies, particularly manufacturing firms.
Vietnam Petrolimex to buy diesel from Korea's SK
Vietnam's Petrolimex will buy 640,000 tons of mid-sulfur diesel from South Korea's SK Corp. this year after the Southeast Asian nation's move to tighter fuel standards forced it to end a long-standing deal with Kuwait.
Kuwait to raise naphtha premium
Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) is aiming to almost triple the premium for April 2007-March 2008 term naphtha supplies in this week's talks with Asian buyers, to capitalise on the current bullish market, traders said.
Connecticut: Groups set sights on high cost of energy
While lawmakers continue to make promises to fix problems in the energy system, watchdog groups will meet in Stratford, New Haven and elsewhere this week as grass-roots efforts spread to combat electric utility rate hikes.
Brazil's Lula blasts rich nations on climate
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed wealthy countries for global warming on Tuesday and said they should stop telling Brazil what to do with the Amazon rainforest.
World's churches go green and rally to cause
Dire warnings from top scientists that mankind is to blame for global warming set off alarm bells everywhere -- but many of the world's churches have already "gone green" in the race to save the planet.For Christians, Jews and Muslims, the message is the same -- mankind has "stewardship" of the earth which it has a duty to protect for future generations.
The new statistical rhetoric of climate change
The change in strategy began when Richard Moss and Stephen Schneider—a pair of researchers dubbed the "uncertainty cops" by their peers—urged the U.N. panel of climate scientists to fortify their language with hard numbers. The mapping of phrases to percentages, they argued, would make it easier for policy-makers to apply the science and harder for skeptics to spin it.
Pelosi settles battle over climate panel
Under the agreement, the new committee — to be chaired by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. — will hold hearings and recommend legislation, but will have no authority to approve legislation. It also would expire at the end of this Congress.
Thunder Horse Project to Start Up By End 2008
BP PLC's (BP) Thunder Horse oil and gas project is due to start up by the end of 2008, the company's designate chief executive Tony Hayward said Tuesday.BP had previously said the project wouldn't start before mid-2008.
...Hayward also said the start-up of Atlantis, another Gulf of Mexico project, is now due by the end of 2007. The company had previously said production was scheduled to start in the second half of the year. The platform's planned capacity is 200,000 barrels of oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas a day.
About Thunder Horse, Hayward said "it will happen." The project is now three years behind the original schedule.
Investing in Oil Sector Companies - Peak Oil
You may have heard of the theory of "peak" oil. One of the most interesting modern books on this topic is Matthew Simmons' Twilight in The Desert; I heartily recommend this book to all subscribers. The theory of peak oil isn't that the world is literally running out of oil but that actual daily production of oil is at, or very near, a peak.
Oil-rich Abu Dhabi takes lead from high-flying Dubai
Abu Dhabi, which controls more than 90 percent of the vast oil wealth of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), appears to have set its sights on following the example of booming Dubai.
Four people were injured, one of them suffering serious burns, in a gas pipeline rupture that caused an explosion Tuesday afternoon at an Occidental Petroleum site near Tupman in eastern Kern County.
BP posts 22% profit decline, scales back production outlook
BP on Tuesday posted a 22% profit decline in the fourth quarter and scaled back its production outlook for the coming years as it operates more slowly in an effort to avoid deadly accidents.
EU proposes 25 percent cut in new car emissions
The European Commission has called for new car emissions to be slashed by a quarter over five years, but greens accused the EU executive of watering down its plans under pressure from German auto makers.
Global Warming's Simple Remedy
Any lasting solutions will have to be extremely simple, and -- because of the cost implicit in reducing the use and emissions of fossil fuels -- will also have to benefit those countries that impose them in other ways. Fortunately, there is such a solution, one that is grippingly unoriginal, requires no special knowledge of economics and is easy for any country to implement. It's called a carbon tax, and it should be applied across the board to every industry that uses fossil fuels, every home or building with a heating system, every motorist, and every public transportation system.
Contact
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Here's a question which I posed to someone else and which I will post here:
Regarding humankind and technology, do you believe:
1. Humankind could survive without technology.
or:
2. Humankind survives because of technology.
or:
3. Humankind's survival is impossible without technology.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
Why don't you start by defining "technology." A spear and a stone axe are technology as is a water wheel.
Hello Todd,
The question is not difficult, Todd. We aren't living in the Stone Age any more. We left that age thousands of years ago.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
Dave,
I'm one of the old farts here so maybe I have more of an historical perspective than you. You DO have to define what you mean by "technology." There was no household electricity when my parents were kids in a large city. There was no radio. They had ice boxes not refigerators. No one had cars. There were no computers, etc. I have farming friends in Delaware whose families didn't get electricty until the '50s and who still farmed with horses at that time (They were just plain farmers not Amish.). Clearly, the technology at that time was at a far lower level than today. But, inspite of this low level, we are here to discuss these issues.
Perhaps, what you asking is what level of technology is required to maintain the present day consumer society.
Todd
I grew up in the 1970s. We started out middle class but my parents screwed up. We had a phone, rotary dial, sometimes - when we could pay the bill. We had one light bulb per room. Washing was at the laundromat, and at times when quarters were scarce, done on ye olde washboard. We lived in (rented) houses that were built in the 1930s. Welfare and food stamps were the order of the day - the local markets were not allowed to give cash change for food stamps, so they came up with various scrip systems. Each store had its own, from plastic coins of various colors and denominations to just scribbles on the reciept.
The whole mode of life had a very 1930s feel to it. You wanted to go somewhere, you walked or took the bus. On school mornings your teachers would be there with you - they paid a quarter as adults, we kids paid a dime.
I often fished and foraged for food.
The whole mode of life was 1930s-ish, and this was in the 1970s, a time when the US was doing well.
My young adult years, 1980-1986 were likewise more 1930s-ish than not, more bus riding, living in a rooming house, had a bicycle I went all over on for a while. No real job prospects past the most basic work. Work for me meant getting dirty and smelling bad and the first thing was to wash up and clean up after work.
Entertainment was the library, ridin' around on the bike, no museums because they cost, and I often, riding home from work very hungry, got the vegetarian chili at the health food cafe because the kind with meat in it cost a buck more. (In all fairness, the veggie stuff had TVP in it and plenty of lentils, it was probably better.)
This was life when the US was doing well, we're in for a rough ride folks.
Good and concise response, Fleam. Could be we are far enough removed from that reality now to make an important difference, not for the good. It feels so in UK, more so in the bits of USA I know. Could be your relative disadvantage before will give you some advantage henceforth, I dunno. But I do expect 80% of US households to be facing borderline economic (and subsequently real) survival within 5 years.
Rough? I have a nasty feeling most have no idea what even mildly rough feels like. Honestly have no idea how people will react.
I'm with you Agric, I can't believe it, most white Americans seem to have lived these incredibly easy lives. There seem to be actually very few who have experienced actual malnutrition (not the "fat but sick" kind, I mean the ribs sticking out kind) or been where there are almost NO jobs, and what jobs there are, are monopolized by other groups with the blessing of the laws, at least how they're locally interpreted, and in the case of some laws, flat-out put them at a disadvantage - often their wealth* insulates them from the brutal everyday world I and I guess a mostly stifled stratum have seen though.
*Wealth - defined by, if your parents can afford to let you live in their garage, they HAVE a garage, and let you eat their table scraps while you attend the local college, that's enough wealth to catapult you into a degree and the gravy train that follows after. This does not sound very wealthy, but it's infinately wealthy compared to sink-or-swim-by-late-teens beginning many Americans have. People from other countries are generally appalled by the way many American kids are kicked out of the nest to fly or not-fly. If you want to look up another culture like the US's, look up a people known as the Iks.
Todd's question is very relevant and you're ignoring the very profound effect technology, from the stone axe to the microcip, has had on human evolution. You still need to clarify what you mean with your use of the overly broad term "technology."
Example: we have evolved to require vitamin B12 in our diet. This can only come from an animal source. Considering the health risks involved in eating animal dung (one source of B12) we need technology to safely extract this vitamin from its animal source whether it's processing pills out of animal dung or chucking a spear at an antelope. Due to our lack of large claws or 35mph+ sprinting ability without technology we die out from B12 deficiency.
"Due to our lack of large claws or 35mph+ sprinting ability without technology we die out from B12 deficiency."
Earthworms are an excellent source of B12. No spears needed...
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/22250/1/V074N6_359
Moreover, cats eat a lot of insects. If I am not mistaken cats are even worse off in their need for fatty acids and proteins than we are because they have a more specialized diet than us. If you watch your cat hunt for small animals and insects, you might learn a lot about how to get by without any tools.
:-)
And non-Western ppls eat bugs happily for wonderful treats they are. Bugs can be raised, or of course if human population goes way down like it should, there will be plenty free-range.
A photo helps to visualize the tasty treats available on the street here in SE Asia.
Re: B12 vitamin
This is not correct.
As a person who chose a vegan diet 15 years ago in part because industrial meat and dairy contribute to global warming (even more so than transportation), I can attest to sufficient non-animal sources of B12 - (e.g. some yeasts, some misos, as well as fortified cereals, soymilks, and supplements where B12 is derived from non-animal sources).
Whereas as eating a vegan diet, along with restricting personal auto use and flying, and bearing no children can go a lot further to saving the planet for future life on earth, eating a meat- and dairy-intensive diet is demonstrably certain to contribute to the destruction of both your health and the planet.
OK, OK, I concede the vitamin B12 point.
I would still like to hear Dave's clarification on defining "technology" as I believe it's overly vague. You can't deny that it has affected our evolution to the point where we cannot survive without it on the most basic levels.
Can we survive without iPods and cars? Absolutely.
Can we survive without any technology whatsoever? No.
I don't mean to get into a pointless semantic pissing match, but I think this is an important distinction. I think mindless objection to "technology" such as Dave's original post paints Peak Oilers as simple luddites.
It's not quite that simple, some of us are complex Luddites.
Right now I have to have my computer, my car, lights on and I mean every friggin' light on* to do my work, I have tons to worry about, tons of things can go wrong, tons of things can put me on the street, and I hate the stress and precariousness, so I aspire to being on the street.
Compare and contrast being a street musician, living in a nice simple place, and not needing gobs and gobs of electricity to survive.
I need to come up with a certain, rather large, unless I do a bankruptcy, amount of money to buy my freedom, but that is the plan.
*every friggin' light on is a fact - the moment I turn a light off, I find myself jumping up to go into the other room and turn it on again for some damn thing.
Now that really worked for me: complex Luddites
Perhaps I am a combination of that and sceptic technophile. Nah, I think I lost the techno bit a decade or so ago. But philosopical Luddite, yes, I think I have been a while now.
If you don't mind me getting personal I would say worry never works. If the worry is that bad then face the worst and lose the worry, maybe.
Er, well, you are correct about worry, except worry is a good value if you're living in the machine. Check things, double check, monitor the finances, monitor the crazies next door, make sure you lock your car, etc etc yadda yadda, you can get into some real trouble not being paranoid enough, but it's very hard to get into trouble by being TOO paranoid.*
*You can, if you go into full-on OCD or something, of course. But living in the US you'll notice you can't check, monitor, check out, and worry over things too much as a general rule.
TonyF says:
Based on what evidence?
1 billion eating meat and dairy = no problem
7 billion and doubling every 40 years eating meat and dairy = massive dieoff, perhaps not just of us but of all large animals on Earth.
Not in the least bit obvious. Lester Brown and co have been trumpeting this nonsense for decades, but crop production is still so high people are actually trying to make fuel from it.
Don't be daft! Yes people are making fuel for their SUVs from corn, and the price of grain in the world is going through the roof, over $4 a bushel compared to half that price in 2005.
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CN/M
Grain stocks are dropping all over the world.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/2006.htm
Simply because people choose to make fuel from their grain does not mean people in other areas of the world are not starving because of the lack of grain. It simply means they are willing to pay more for the grain, to use as fuel. People have only so much money for food. When grain gets too high and their money runs out they simply starve.
Ron Patterson
Exactly - if there'e one message of boards like this, it's that, even though the party's still hopping on the upper decks of the Titanic, the water's entering the lower levels and rising......
Actually, we sent a team down to see why we were slowing down; it was those freeloading liberal barnacles sucking on the hull...
If you use 'liberal' in the meaning of 'pleading for liberalization of the markets while actually aiming for lessening control and curbing of monopolistic practices': of course.
Ever heard of John Robbins?
(from 1989)
Length of time the world's petroleum reserves would last if all human beings ate meat-centred diets: 13 years
Length of time the world's petroleum reserves would last if all human beings ate a vegetarian diet: 260 years
Principal reason for U.S. military intervention in Persian Gulf: Dependence on foreign oil
Barrels of oil imported daily by U.S.: 6,800,000
Percentage of energy return (as food energy per fossil energy expended) of most energy efficient factory farming of meat: 34.5%
Percentage of energy return (as food energy per fossil energy expended) of least energy efficient plant food: 32.8%
Pounds of soybeans produced by the amount of fossil fuel needed to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef: 40
Percentage of raw materials consumed in U.S. for all purposes presently consumed to produce current meat-centred diet: 33
Percentage of raw materials consumed in U.S. for all purposes needed to produce fully vegetarian diet: 2
User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the United States: Livestock production
Quantity of water used in the production of the average cow sufficient to: Float a destroyer
Water needed to produce 1 pound of wheat: 25 gallons
Water needed to reduce 1 pound of meat: 2,500 gallons
Cost of common hamburger meat if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by U.S. taxpayers: $35/pound
Current cost for pound of protein from wheat: $1.50
Current cost for pound of protein from beefsteak: $15.40
Cost for pound of protein from beefsteak if U.S. taxpayers ceased subsidizing meat industry's use of water: $89
OK look, this is all great data, but, the real problem is too many people on the earth, not what they're eating. True, by all going vegan, we could get that 10 billion on the planet, maybe 15 billion, all in dull-minded vegan semi-starvation, other animals only in zoos because we need all the habitat we can get to grow our precious veggies and grains.....
Ever seen a prairie dog town after its population has crashed? It's just dirt, not a blade of anything green growing, no more prairie dog either, I guess maybe a few survivors run away or maybe the hawks get 'em. And they're vegan.
Does it really matter what food scheme we follow if we're bound and determined to overpopulate enough to kill the planet?
We need a new term here, we have Cornucopian for those who believe oil/energy are unlimited, we need a term for those who don't/won't accept that a population decrease will be necessary.
Popultopian?
Cancer.
Blessed is the man who maketh clothes for the winter out of animal skins, for his technology shall keepeth his ass warmeth.
Hello Francois,
If 6.5 billion humans were to follow this advice the world would quickly run out of animals. This is a technology which is simply unsustainable given the current state of the world's population and also the damage to Nature inflicted by the last ten thousand years of human modification of the Earth.
Any other ideas? Or is humankind really a lost cause?
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
"given the current state of the world's population"
Surely that is the whole point. Talk about the elephant in the living room. No amount of alternative fuel and techno-gimcrackery will support this level of population, much less the 9-12 billion that is forecast before some levelling off. We are clearly overshot.
Therefore, the question is not about "humanity" surviving, it's about how many humans, and at what "standard of living".
You clearly believe so but it isn't obvious that the population cant be sustained at 5 billion, 50 billion or even 500 billion. Even with such banal technology as hydroponic greenhouses we could push populations into the hundreds of billions. Then we get back to the deep ecology arguments that suggest (without any real evidence) that humans require all the biodiversity of a rainforest to thrive.
When I look at the evidence, the worlds population is very sustainable at 7 billion, because we're doing it now with a rising global standard of living.
Julian Simon Lives!
The idea that the earth could support, with any technology, hundreds of billions of people is absurd beyond belief. We are killing the earth just trying to support 6.5 billion people. We are drawind down our aquifers, drying up our rivers, drying up our lakes, our topsoil is being washed away and blown away, the rainforest is disappearing by millions of acres per year, animals are going extinct at the rate of thousands of species per year, and the lifeblood that makes this all possible, fossil fuel, is disappearing and will never return.
How long since you visited Sub-Sahara Arfica? How long since you checked the water, river and grain and topsoil situation in China? Do you have a f**king clue as to what is really happening in the world?
And for every Homo sapien added to the world's population, some other animal must give way to make room for him or her. Does that mean anything to you? The world is at 100% of carrying capacity and has been at that point since the Cambrian Era. For every species that adds to its population, another species must give way to make room for their opponents success. We live on a finite world with only finite resources.
Hundreds of billions indeed! I have never heard of anything so absurd in my entire life. You need an education. Lester Brown would be a good place to start.
http://big-picture.tv/index.php?id=62&cat=&a=147
Ron Patterson
Its easily demonstrable with greenhouses and hydroponics.
All replacable with energy and different farming techniques.
Aesthetically displeasing yet it doesnt impact humanity in the least. Open up a few zoos. While we're at it, exterminate all nonhuman primates. They're dirty things that spread all sorts of horrid diseases.
And nuclear power will last millons of years.
China gets richer and richer. Aquifers deplete and desalination plants are opened. Rivers are diverted for even higher agricultural output. It doesnt seem to me that the world is getting poorer in the least.
Nope.
Not even wrong. The finite resources of the world can support tens of millions of hunter gatherers sure. A technologically advanced world can support hundreds of billions.
He's been spewing that stuff for decades and we're no nearer to collapse now.
In all my years on the net I have never witnessed such gall and ignorance. At any killing all the other great apes would make little difference. There are about 200,000 other great apes combined. The population of Homo sapiens increases by that much each day.
Wrong! China is not building desalination plants. They are far too energy intensive. The cost of energy to desalinate one acre would be about ten times the profit in produce or grain from that acre. Anyone who knows one damn thing about desalination knows it is highly uneconomical for irrigation.
Hundreds of billions! Are you for real? Is it possible that there is anyone on earth who is that ignorant? Well, one at least.
Ron Patterson
Yeah, knock that strawman down. I was so totally suggesting desalination for irrigation.
Sure. Its been addressed many times; Cohen wrote a book on it and many others made calculations based on different assumptions. You can technically support hundreds of billions on earth with advanced hydroponics farming and the like. With traditional agriculture perhaps ten billion. With advanced water irrigation, some more ten billion.
But when we get into advanced techniques like global hydroponics and aquaculture systems you can get really huge food yields. I dont think we're going to have this sort of enormous population however, for different reasons that I imagine you would scoff at.
China is not getting richer, a small portion is getting much richer, there's a bit of an upper working class/lower middle class developing, but for the average guy on the farm, in the city, etc it's much worse.
There's a Frontline TV program about this, you can watch it for free on line. I forget the title, but you'll find it, it will stand out, it's the one about how China may not be doing so well for its people under globalization/capitalism. Very watchable and thought-provoking like all the excellent Frontline programs.
Yes, I've seen it. I dont know how you could from that episode conclude from watching that that China is getting poorer, even the average guy.
What is happening is there is a rapidly rising disparity of wealth, but even the peasants in china are doing better than a generation ago. Some individuals are worse off, but change always brings turmoil.
Damn, Dezakin, I have very serious doubts that what you suggest is viable but I won't bother arguing about that.
What really scares me is if what you argue is viable. I would not wish to live in such a world, but I don't wish to die, either, I have a problem!
Tangentially you might try reading a book by Sherri S. Tepper: 'Beauty'. It's a synthesis of faery tales, a racial slur on the Fae, an observation on the waning of magic, and more.
I wouldn't worry about that. Demographics show population maxing out at most at 12 billion at the end of the century because of declines in fertility, not climbing to hundreds of billions. I only argue the possible.
What I expect is eventually we'll breathe life and intelligence into machines, and the children of humanity will devour (or 'convert') us all before our population climbs to such huge numbers. Of course such speculation is often dismissed as transhumanist nonsense, but the trends and possibilities are clear to me. Still, such visions are beyond the scope of the decline of oil production and not entirely germane to the conversation.
Dezakin,
You are dumber than a six-pack of GWs (better known as Resident Bush, or Shrub as Molly Ivins lovingly dubbed him).
People like you will ensure the demise of the species. Perhaps that's just as well if you are the future.
Stupid and ill-informed is no way to proceed through life.
Because you are too dumb to even know that you are dumb, these words are a waste of time.
I could not let it go because willful ignorance is something I absolutely hate.
I get this sort of response a lot. People hate their worldview being challenged.
It's not so much because of the disagreement that you get these reactions, but because your viewpoints show a lack of compassion with anything that lives.
You should look for more evidence. The fact that we have been unsustainably drawing down the natural resource reserves that we depend on has been understood for decades. The very first biology lecture I attended drove that point home. That was 15 years ago. That lesson was repeated again and again, with flour beetles, fruit flies, and the evening news.
But if you want to have a useful discussion about a sustainable population, you'll need to define at what average standard of living that population will live.
Its been repeated for decades but hardly demonstrated. Water, topsoil, and other inputs are all derivitives of energy.
When do you expect the dieoff? I'll mark my calander for a gentlemans bet if you like; We'll have a higher global standard of living with a higher population in fifty years.
I'll take it. Median standard of living, of course, measured by objective, absolute criteria like frequency of cancer, violent deaths, psychological disorders etc. The loser procures and transports a barrel of oil to the winner.
Many of these things can be argued. Frequency of cancer goes up if the average lifespan goes up for instance. I'm not sure we could even agree enough to make a bet. I would argue that global per capita energy use will be significantly higher in 2050 and thats something that reflects median standard of living objectively.
As for a barrel of oil... I'd prefer 42 gallons of diesel fuel. Who knows what they're going to call oil fifty years from now?
Humankind isn't a lost cause. The lives of many individual humans are though.
If human sustaining life exists on Earth (where we can access it) then humans will survive. We are the most adaptable species ever.
Worrying about the fate of 6.5 billion people is an exercise in futility. I've found that if I cared enough about the situation in Africa I would be faced with suicide, there's nothing that I can do to help and the situation is quite depressing.
I would suggest that the fashion industry's main problem is to animate consumers to throwing slightly used (not old or worn out) clothes away to buy new ones. Our production capacity for practical garments probably outstrips our needs by at least an order of magnitude, if not more. Most of the "demand" is created by advertising.
But a doomer on a roll will probably grasp for any straws to "prove" that mankind is lost. I am not surprised by the animal skins idea.
:-)
Peak ANIMAL SKINS??
Hmmm....Now I've heard it all.
I think we already passed Peak wild animal skins. Nothing concrete yet on the HL of domesiticated animal skins, though North Sea Sheep may have peaked :)
Hello neon9,
This is not such a difficult concept, neon9. An animal which is driven extinct provides no skins.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
This is a strawman. Depending on what you mean by technology,
the answer is 1. or 2. In a sense, the main thing that separates humans
from other animals is that we use technology, however primative,
to fashion our environment for our short term advantage. However, the
level of technology needed to survive as a species has not changed in
100,000 years, and a few remote tribes still get by much as they
always have.
Beyond that the question is a philosophical one - I could argue that all
technology relies on ultimately finite resources and hence cannot
be sustainable on earth (lets forget colonisation of space for now). I
could argue that we have not escaped the inevitable drift of genetic change
and that the human species cannot survive because no species can
remain genetically static for ever.
Perhaps I would say that the human species will become extinct because
to be truely sustainable is not in our current genetic make-up. However
'rational' we may feel as individuals we cannot break free of our evolutionary
programming to reproduce and expand by use of all available resources.
We cannot escape the tradegy of the commons.
This does not stop me from trying.
Hello RalphW,
The argument is not a stawman. I am speaking in a theoretical manner about the long-term (and by long-term I am here speaking about the next thousand years).
Within the next thousand years, undoubtedly, humankind will exhaust the Earth's supply of oil, natural gas and coal.
What then?
How will humans live in the year 3007 A.D.?
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
I am inclined to argue that some technology and information will be helpful, other technology and information will be forgotten.
For example, some things such as modern medicine are highly technology-dependent. However our understanding of things like bacteria and viruses would still be of use - our strategies for minimizing the spread of disease will change over time, but I doubt that we would ever regress to the point where knowledge of these things is forgotten.
I don't think this is the correct forum for this discussion.
However, briefly, my best guess is that
1. Industrial society largely collapses.
2. Climate change et. al. causes large scale reduction in human population.
Large areas become effectively uninhabitable.
Genetic diversity of life on earth is seriously depleted.
Climate change shifts habitable zones towards the poles rapidly.
3. With the collapse of modern mass society, the smaller remaining
populations revert to diverse social models that work on a small scale
in the local environments they find themselves in. Traditional cultures
like those found in India will survive, as will stone age tribes in PNG
(if climate change is not too extreme).
4. All the easy oil and most of the easy coal will have been burnt, so it will
not be possible for a global technology based society to re-establish itself
until a more sustainable infrastructure has been developed. This may take
hundreds or thousands of years, or we may become extinct first. I do not see
modern technology has significantly increased average human happiness or understanding, I do not think it will be greatly missed.
Human society is highly adaptable, and cultural memory is quite short. I
do not think humanity will learn from its mistakes.
I may be wrong and climate change will be so extreme as to make human life
impossible. I don't think there is much point in worrying about that, except
to discourage the more CO2 polluting blind alleys that the current society will
undoubtedly follow before collapse.
One thing I am certain of, neither of us will be there in 3007 to say 'I told
you so!'.
I have no genetic interest in the distant future. My children are adopted. I
hope they find happiness in their life.
How will humans live in the year 3007 A.D.?
Answer: very differently than today. But the question is just how hostile will the climate be in 1000 years, after the booty of fossil fuels, after the rapacious destruction of the environment, after a probable (or at least possible) nuclear exchange.
That being said, I would put my bet on humans still being around, but reduced to a more animal-like existence. Rudimentary tools are not going to go away as long as humans are around, but I have a hard time believing the complexity and unsustainable nature of human civilization will be overcome.
Or, other the other hand, maybe humans will graduate to adulthood and learn to TRULY live within the earth's ecosystem. Ha! From here it sounds like a bad joke though, and I wouldn't bet on it. I guess I don't think we're smarter than yeast, when it comes to sucking up resources with no eye on the future. I have a hard time seeing how humans could have a large population in 1000 years, but hell by then all our societies may have collapsed, and totally new (smarter and much smaller) civilizations that we cannot even imagine will exist (but they certainly won't be flying around in planes or jerking off to internet porn... how sad, j/k).
By the way, I don't get why you seem enamored of religious superstition (the Flying Spaghetti Monster is as valid as any cult, er, I mean relgion - just look at what L. Ron Hubbard has done - he said to himself - I can make more money creating my own religion, fleecing these fucking rubes - and he was right!). Is it what allows you not to jump in front of a bus or what? I'm just saying you seem smarter than that, though sometimes it's hard to see it through your arrogance. ;)
Hello Veganmaster,
I enjoy & appreciate the religions of the world.
Jumping in front of a bus or off of a cliff might appeal to some people, but not to me. I will die when I die.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
To dmathew1:
You have way too much time on your hands. I say this as someone who gains nothing from your comments. I don't think everything you say is wrong per se, but you're perhaps addicted to that checking for comments, the glow of the screen, replying to get one up on someone or be the 'teacher'; while the gaze of your narcicistic nihilism doesn't move past your own navel.
Do you really care how humans are gonna live in 3007? Or is that a set-up to tell me how we won't be? Civilization is headed over the cliff. The earth is in extreme peril. There are people profiting from industries that destroy the earth (even as billions of humans are currently sustained by those same industries). If we'd all have just stayed hunters and gatherers then we wouldn't be in this mess (say while wagging your finger and scrunching your eyebrows). As these are basically truisms, I don't think anybody here is gonna completely disagree with you on a lot of that. But what's with the defeatist attitude and the anarcho-primitivist posturing BS? If you're up for walking your talk, then get off the internet. And if not then shut up.
Indeed..."What then?" Is that not a question so much as a statement? Oh, well, then I'd rather you spared me the effort of having to scroll past every one of your incitements to stale discourse that always come to the same circular point so that I can read the posts of people interested in discussions about reality.
Watch Little House on the Prarie. That's what I think 3007 will be like.
Except we will benefit from better horse drawn carriage designs.
Combine Little House on the Praire with Idiocracy and THAT is what 3007 will be like. Logos on your horse's ass.
'How will humans live in the year 3007 A.D.?'
Interesting question - do you have any personal idea of how humans were living on all major landmasses on the Earth except Antartica in the year 1007 A.D.? or 7 A.D.? Or 1007 B.C.? or 10,007 B.C.? or 47,000 B.C.?
Do you think humans live in a single manner today? If so, you are even more limited in thought than even the carefully constructed questions, answers to which you dismiss so handily, would suggest.
But I have a fair idea that humans living in 3007 A.D. will not live like Americans or Europeans or Japanese or Koreans do today. So what?
On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the absolute bottom strata of the peasants in India, or Nepal, or Peru will be living pretty much the same way in 3007 A.D. as they have for the last couple of thousand years - no water, no literacy, no doctors, no political voice, and absolutely no interest in dying because someone thinks they have to in order to fit his view of humanity's future. I am also fairly certain their population will be pretty much at whatever limit of whatever environment they inhabit, whether in thousands, millions, or billions - so what?
Do you remain so completely ignorant of how so many humans live today, without any of the things you seem to feel will disappear in the future? In fairness, they are about as ignorant of how you live, too - but they have a better excuse.
Ah, but is a straw man also not Technology?
A tiny population of humans might have more leeway to make techno-mistakes if such a population had the wisdom to stay small and closely monitor the impacts of their technology.
Over time the sun and earth do change on their own, so adaptation would be important.
So, who volunteers to be a part of the tiny population of humans left alive?
And now, who volunteers to be a part of the masses of people who are not left alive?
Who decides and how?
Mother Nature?
God?
The Straw Man?
Who is "The Decider?"
"We cannot escape the tradegy of the commons."
This assumes that you look at the world as some sort of Greek Drama. Outside of the confines of the theatre, however, the difference between doom and a comfortable life is mostly application of true conservatism (as in: "I will not buy/use what I can not afford").
The question is designed to eat up this board's air supply and that is all.
He's had about a half dozen responses to this extraneous question.
He says he's talking 1000 years timeframe.
How about this question...
Do you think humans will evolve to be able to breath nitrogen in 30,000 years?
It has as much validity.
Don't reply to this thread/post it's one of the many just to make this site undesirable.
Don't feed the trolls.
Exactly. He has hijacked today's discussion on futile speculation.
The question is a bit vague, I would answer YES to all 3! Humankind will survive (1), BUT in greatly diminished numbers as technology breaks down and our easy cheap energy becomes scarce. I do anticipate a die-off in humans almost in direct proportion to how fast technology breaks down(3). The coastlines will move inland, there will be brutal competition for food and water. I anticipate it to get ugly and once people's livelihoods are threatened people and societies become more militant and nationalistic. We have such a huge biomass of humans at this time in history because of all this ancient sunlight stored in petroleum and our amazing technology that has transformed this ancient energy into food, medicine, mobility, air transportation, etc.(2).
I hate to say it, but we are approaching the "long emergency" where the status quo is dead and there will be incessant disruptive events due to people, nations, and the environment. Finding batteries for our i-pods will be the last of our worries and irrelevant. Our standard of living will need to do a serious retreat back to a sustainable level. And to paraphrase Cheney, to Americans "this is unacceptable".
I'd have to agree with previous posters on this one. What one considers technology is the big question. A bow is technology, as is an axe, or manufactured nails and hammers. If by no technology you mean no tools and no manufactured clothes (so, just animal skins), then we're screwed. If you mean no electrical devices, but we can still use metal and wood tools, I think we'll be fine.
Humankind can survive because of technology and not only survive but thrive even with 10 billion people. All it takes is the political will and the moral authority of a truly Christ-like theology. We christians have an obligation as the body of Christ to save the world. Not just christians, not just people, but everything that lives on this planet. The Good Lord gives us thousands of times more energy every day than needed to eliminate global poverty. To a certain extent it will mean giving away renewable energy technologies to lift the poorest among us out of poverty without having them become dependent on fossil fuels. It will take inspired thinking to end business as usual practices so a mix of social programs and well regulated private enterprises can create a transition away from the fuels from the depths of hell and into what flows down from heaven.
Regarding an answer to your question: I rarely believe anything. I prefer to KNOW things. And by knowledge I mean facts and logical deductions based on facts.
1. I KNOW that humankind can survive without technology. We did it for hundreds of thousands of years in almost modern form and for millions, if you allow earlier ancestors in your definition of what humankind is. Having said that, this survival will be anything but comfortable and only extend to a very small number of individuals.
2. I KNOW that much of humankind survives because of technology. My proof are people like James Kim who got himself and his family lost in slightly uncomfortable weather and did not even manage to walk out of a 40 mile forest area without killing himself (please compare that to Inuit who KNOW, or at least used to know, how to survive above the polar circle all year long). He also did not manage to find the nearby lodge where he and his family could have found shelter. Obviously, not having a GPS receiver was deadly for Mr. Kim. He needed a locating device based on general relativity and rocket science because he did not know how to read a map printed on paper. Or maybe he just did not know that he needed a map...
3. I KNOW that this is a logical contradiction to 1. and thus can not be true. Of course, if you define humankind as the covering set of Mr. Kims... 1. is false and 3. becomes tue by default to idiocy.
:-)
Yes James Kim is a very good arguement for the position of the fast-crash doomers.
A map, a GPS, something, would have helped.
The native peoples of that area, before they were exterminated to make way for Empire, would have grown up knowing the area intimately, and would have known exactly where they are, just like you do standing in your house, Since it was the beginning of winter, they'd have had jerky and pemmican and so on with them and stored in caches. They've had known how to find hibernating animals lacking that, and also, they've have been part of a community, not a nuclear family going it alone. The closest thing to that situation among the First Nations may have been the group Ishi was part of, a few individuals, and they died out.
In the end it is all about how much you know about your environment, isn't it? Native people manage to survive in environments which can kill the unsuspecting traveller in a matter of days, if not hours. But then, the native people teach their children what the dangers are and which options they have, what is smart and what isn't in most situations. I bet that most tribes of the region could have camped out there quite happily and would have had a party after the other using just the resources they could find.
In a sense, it is not very different with us, either. We have enormous resources in terms of energy and building materials. And we have a few dangers that are real which we need to deal with. We theoretically know how to use the resources and we know how to avoid the dangers. What separates us from well organized tribes is that we have much more children than adults. We have many Mr. Kims and worse, Joe Icouldntcarelesses. This is the only thing to be concerned about. How do we teach our children before they burn the tents down and let the horses get away?
Even primitive tribespeople in such hostile environments like the one which killed Mr Kim, would also stand a very strong chance of perishing if they were alone, and placed into a location they'd never seen before.
Survival requires a strong community structure --- so you are accepted and fed --- and knowledge gained from intensive study day in and day out of the work environment.
A stranger even one who was accustomed to living in a prehistoric type of manner somehwere else would have little chance if plunked down somewhere random in a blizzard.
It is obviously 1. The human species has evolved and lived without technology for millions of years.
But there is also the problem of timescale. Survive how long??? We will not survive billions of years without technology, because the sun will become a red giant star.
"We will not survive billions of years without technology, because the sun will become a red giant star."
And we will not survive even a million years without natural selection transforming us into something that has only vague resemblence of who we are today.
I wouldn't be concerned about the red giant phase of the sun. We won't be here. Somebody else might. Let them figure it out. Let us be concerned about preventing a runaway greenhouse effect. That is much more urgent.
This question is only peripherally relevant. Technology is the knowledge and skills we use to produce what we need.
The relevant question is, will we have enough technology to survive without fossil fuels.
Sure, if we were willing to use lots of nuclear reactors, including breeder and thorium reactors.
We could conceivably keep a modern technological society with physical development patterns like that of the USSR, but without its energy inefficiency and let's hope without its repression.
This would include significant dense urbanization, little private vehicle ownership, electrified street car transportation for most.
There might be a whole lot of dirt poor agricultural peasants, however. But I think that even farm machinery could be electrified with good enough batteries. Since they don't have to go long distances, the recharging cycle wouldn't be a big problem.
I worry more that technology is going to be too good in the sense that to ameliorate peak oil, all sorts of technology to use coal for fuels, undoubtably very profitable with expensive oil, will induce catastrophic climate degradation.
The new EIA International Petroleum Monthly report is just out:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/
There have been some major revisions upwarf for Russian and "Other" numbers. 2005 is still the peak for C+C but 2006 has moved ahead in all liquids. The peak is still May of 2005.
Ron Patterson
Since May, 2005
The average monthly Brent spot oil price in the 20 months prior to 5/05 was about $38 per barrel. The average Brent spot price in the 20 months after 5/05, through 1/07, was about $62.
BTW, why do so many people use Total Liquids, but talk about the price of crude oil? As Khebab has pointed out, the BTU content of the oil substitutes--NGL's; bitumen/water blends; ethanol, etc.--is less than crude/condensate, so why talk about the price of crude oil, but when talking about volume, why talk about crude oil + lower quality crude oil substitutes?
In other words, if we are talking about the price of apples, why don't we talk about the number of bushels of apples? But I digress.
The post 5/05 Brent monthly median price was also about $62 per barrel, within about a $19 range from $54.35 to $73.67.
Several people have accurately pointed out that US and EU refiners have been fully supplied over the past 20 months. But why did the price of Brent crude average $62 after 5/05 versus $38 before 5/05? Could it have something to do with richer consumers outbidding poorer consumers for declining crude oil supplies?
As the WSJ has documented, regions like Africa have been unable to buy the same amount of petroleum at $62 per barrel that they bought at $38 per barrel, freeing up oil for the US and elsewhere. Of course, as production continues to contract, future rounds of bidding will be much tougher.
As Ron noted, the latest EIA data continue to show that world crude + condensate production has continued to be below the 5/05 level.
As everyone knows, Deffeyes picked 2006 as the most likely year for a world crude oil decline, within a predicted range of 2005 to 2009 (with a peak between 2004 to 2008).
The Lower 48 peaked in a range from 50% to 52% of Qt, in 1970. The North Sea peaked in a range from 48% to 52% of Qt, in 1999. And Mexico just crossed the 50% of Qt mark, and is declining, as Khebab predicted.
IMO, it's really very simple. We have used half of our conventional crude + condensate reserves worldwide, and we are now on the downslope. At the present time, based on Deffeyes' HL plot, the world's conventional crude + condensate reserves are about 53% depleted, after crossing the 50% of Qt mark in late 2005.
WT, you are right. This IS THE major talking point when anyone asks about price.
If a country had a million dollars to spend on oil, lets say it cost $30 a barrel, so they could by X barrels of oil.
If the price went up to $60 bucks a barrel NOW they could only afford 1/2 X barrels of Oil.
Hmm. I guess we are "Free" to buy the other 1/2 X barrels for our SPR.
This IS the point.
Now if we only had numbers on the purchases for countries so we know what X amounts were world wide.....
John
I have an acquaintance who is a foreign diplomat in an African country. They moved from an apartment building to a house with its own diesel powered generator because the local power company could not afford to buy enough fuel to keep the power going to the entire city 24 hours per day.
So, it's not a question of fuel not being available in Africa, it's a question of who can afford to pay.
Or, put it this way.
Just because we can go to an American grocery store and find (at least for now) abundant food does not mean that there are not hunger problems worldwide and it does not mean that there are not people who are hungry in America.
Currently, the "demand destruction" (which increasingly will be a euphemism for "people destruction") for food and fuel is going on in regions like Africa, and among poorer consumers worldwide. But the demand destruction is going to be relentlessly moving up the food chain.
Have I mentioned ELP today?
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer? Why, I think you have not.
Axiom #1: The price of oil is controllable by an entity that can buy and sell future (derivate) paper contracts in sufficient volume to dominate the market. (Economics 101 - supply and demand).
Axiom #2: Price elasticity for oil is not uniform across the world - third world countries (e.g.) does not have the ability to pay to the extent the OECD countries have. (as witnessed elsewhere on this page).
Observation #1: The central banks are on record (as reflected in the BIS balance sheets) as holding $5.8 trillion in oil and energy derivatives. JP Morgan holds over $5 trillion in Natural Gas derivates. Ergo - there are entities out there that trade sufficient contracts to move the markets.
Putting this all together:
Assume you are interested in maintaining orderly markets as PO starts to hit, and specifically, you want to ensure that the OECD economies keep ticking. Your objective is to control the price of energy, instead of having geology and politics dictate it. You dont care if you loose money - its just paper fiat anyway and you control the presses.
1. You wait, and you keep an eye on world oil production. You clamp down on all accurate information about oil stocks, oil production declines, and other usefull information, so that only you know what is really happening. Private information is key to your success. YOu may even publish misleading information about the future oil market (CERA), or influence the IEA and IEA reports.
2. As you become aware of an imminent actual supply crunch, (and before the market sees it) you buy short dated contracts to force the price higher, but in a slower manner, than what it would have done naturally. This causes CONTROLLED demand destruction in the third world, and since less oil is now demanded, you can reach equilibrium by buying and selling these same short term contracts to put the price where you want it. (Subject to available oil supply of course).
This approach is much better than just waiting for the price to spike naturally due to shortages, since that would result in a lot more volatility. In other words, by front-running the actual shortage and artificially creating it sooner through buying additional paper contracts for unneeded oil, the price of oil is now determined by you (low volatility), instead of through the geology and politics of oil extraction (high volatility). You may have to store some oil you bought for a while but you can minimize this since you are buddies with some of the producers (KSA) and you have big tanks (SPR).
3. As oil demand fluctuates during the year, you keep front running the market like this. Your buddies at KSA can produce less any time you ask them too, and if there is not enough production, you simply buy more contracts to cause more demand destruction at a pace of your choosing. And by the way, since you co-ordinate the value of currencies with your other banking buddies, you can selectively cause more demand destruction in some countries vs others.
I think that this scheme has been operating for the last few years, and that there are sophisticated trading algorithms in place to control the price of oil on a daily basis, with the purpose to manage the downslope instead of being managed by it. There is (controversial) evidence of this pricing behavior in the 100 day moving average of Brent Oil in my opinion.
As volatile as oil prices have been in the last two years, I think it would have been a lot worse had peak oil been allowed to take its natural course.
So - when oil prices are rising, I say the FEDS are forcing it higher since they see production shortages down the road (say six months). WHen oil prices are falling, they are letting it do so since there is ample supply for the time being. The point being that they work to smooth out the price volatility, and divert demand destruction to the developing world.
Francois.
So the Western Banking types are going to try to stay on top and ride the powerdown bubble to shore as the energy supply contracts.
I hope they're good surfers ...
"So - when oil prices are rising, I say the FEDS are forcing it higher since they see production shortages down the road (say six months)."
The only problem with this argument is that it is not the FEDS who are buying this oil but consumers. Among those consumers are those who save energy (like me) and never expend more than they can afford on anything (by a very, very long shot in my case) and then there are idiots who live from credit card bill to credit card bill. The price of oil is driven by idiots and it will go higher until even the most moronic of types will learn their lesson. You are right, the FEDS are printing the money that fuels the credit card spending, but they only provide the means. They are not the ones pulling the trigger. To do that takes masses of stupid people.
A quick check of the open Interest on March 07 WTI futures contract:
Open interest is about 340 Million barrells, (I guestimate this is about 180 days of actual WTI production, corrections welcome). This has a face value of about $20 Billion dollars; cash required to assume this position, about $1 Billion.
Though this is appealing as a theory, I don't buy it. Too many people (read Hedge funds) have enough money to influence the market, and once someone gets on the wrong side of a trade, the street runs with blood. The traders can smell it.
If anything, I see the futures market becoming squeezed out for exactly the reason that it is too difficult to completely control. Post peak, I see a scenario where the quartely price of contracts is set by the Feds. Or I should say that I would not be surprised if that occured.
Brent and WTI are tightly linked because any moment to moment variation in price is arbitraged away....
I agree. All I am saying is that the Brent price is managed - the WTI follows closely due to arbitrage or whatever. Also - most supply contracts reference the Brent price AFAIK.
This is an interesting cross-check on what I am saying. In other words, if the FEDS has $5.8trillion in derivatives as their books show, this should be reflected in the open interest, and specifically, in near term open interest per my theory. I will ponder this for a bit...
If you have the information - how much open interest is there IN TOTAL on ALL oil bourses all the way out to 2012? And what percentage of that is $5.8 trillion?
Without pulling out the numbers into Excel for NYMEX, the March 07 contract looks to be about 5% of the total open interest for WTI going out Dec 2012. You can get this info from the NYMEX web site. I have no idea how to get my hands on the other contracts. When I get time I look at the NatGas futures.
My guess (clarification welcome) is part of what is on the books are CDSs on the outstanding debt of IOCs...
While digging around, I notices that the Crude prices are essentially in perfect contango while ethanol futures are in backwardation. The market has priced future oil as more expensive yet ethanol is cheaper....Go figure.
Francois,
The problem with this is that an entity that doesn't take physical delivery of contracts must reverse their position before expiration (or "first notice day"). The futures markets is only a price insurance market until you reach the delivery period. So I disagree that the actual market is controllable my an entity that simply buys and sells contracts.
Hmmm.
This reminds me of those quotes where people say "The US uses x% of the oil in the world for only 5% of the world population."
If we truly are outbidding the poorer countries, wouldn't it follow that we are also using a larger fraction of the world oil? Could't we just do the calculation of this percentage again and see if it is higher now? Is this just a number that someone pulled out of their ass and wasn't actually computed?
Keep 'em coming WT.
The numbers typically referenced are that the USA has 5% of the world's population and consumes 25% of the petroleum.
The mistake in your logic is that there are more consumers than just the USA and "poorer countries". The USA's petroleum use is relatively flat, as it world supply, so the percentage isn't changing so fast. However, there are countries whose use is increasing rapidly, China and India. Essentially, China is outbidding Africa for the oil. But we all pay the higher price.
I think that because the US imports alot of manufactured goods that include plastic or oil fired energy sources that we must be using more as country. This would only make sense, imho.
Supporting data - in 1995 the US consumed 6.469 billion barrels annually. In 2004, the US consumed 7.587 billion barrels. That is not "flat" at all. But in 2005, the US consumed 7.592 billion barrels. That is "flat" but for a one year period. Further, if the December 2006 data is close to the December 2005 data, then 2006 will show a flat or declining behavior. So the bidding war goes back to the July 2004 period when we clearly began to see the production graph start to flatten. This means the bidding war is occurring directly in concert with the flattening of production.
Note: These numbers are EIA figures for petroleum product supplied in the US. See this reference for more information (EIA web site) but you will have to add up the data yourself. Information for 2006 is not complete because December totals have not been finalized. It would take a fairly large increase in December 2006 alone to really show a rising consumption rate for 2006 as a whole.
When the "We" term is used, it probably should be defined as the sum of consumption by the richer regions--like the US and the EU--and the rapidly developing countries like China.
So far, IMO, the bidding has primarily been the US/EU/China against regions like Africa. In the future, IMO, it will be the US versus the EU versus China.
BTW, May 2005 world crude + condensate production (EIA) was 74.2 mbpd. The cumulative shortfall in crude + condensate production--what we would have produced if we had just maintained 74.2 mbpd, less what we actually produced through 11/06, is now on the order of 325 million barrels of oil.
So, relative to the 20 months prior to 5/05, Brent spot oil prices on average are on the order of two-thirds higher, but the world produced about 325 million barrels less crude + condensate than if we had just maintained the 5/05 production rate.
It seems to me that I have seen this pattern--Higher Oil Prices + More Drilling = Lower Crude Oil Production--somewhere else before.
What you don't get is that it is not even country against country but consumer against consumer. There are people even in the US who drive a Prius now and who are lowering their heating bill and save money by buying less junk.
The outbidders are those who can't moderate their lifestyle even under the pressure of higher prices, be it because they lack the means (no money for a new car) or the brains (got to have that iron...). What will happen is imply that the conservers will be financially better off than the outbidders in the long run. That is just one more factor that is driving the social divide in the US and elsewhere.
From one of my posts up the thread:
Sorry, I was responding to the original post. I completely agree with you, even the poorest pockets in the US are deeper than the somewhat filled ones in the developing world. But in the end it really becomes a matter of the dumbest of the "rich" wasting their money and making it harder for everyone else. Even in the US there are modestly living affluent people. They will stay affluent. Everyone else will lose.
Westexas,
Can increased demand for gasoline over the past year be attributed at all to the fact that gasoline is now 10% ethanol, and people are getting worse gas mileage due to the lower total energy content of the product?
In other words, since ethanol has 20% less energy, and is 10% of the new formulation of gasoline, wouldn't we expect an almost immediate surge of 2% in gasoline sales to make up for the lower energy content?
Garth
The mandate now is for only 2% of gasoline to be ethanol, not 10%. Ethanol has 1/3 less energy content, meaning that gas mileage should drop by 0.6%. 0.6% would be hardly noticeble by the average driver, but still it may play certain role in the increased gasoline demand (3.9% year over year).
I suggest much simpler explanation of the increase in gasoline consumption - prices now are some 10-15% lower than a year ago. Simple supply and demand.
I seem to recall a few dozen posts by you where you stated repeatedly that petroleum imports were down, yet here you are today stating that we, the 'contrarians', were in fact correct in our statements that we were still adequately supplied in petroleum. And now you have entered the speculative job of discussing oil prices. Perhaps its a new straw man argument?
The irony isn't lost on me.
Petroleum demand in the US has recently been met by drawing down total petroleum inventories by 58 million barrels since early October, 2006--which is a rate of about 450,000 bpd. I suspect that the US cannot keep meeting demand by indefinitely drawing down inventories.
In any case, I only focused on US imports early in 2006 because of the anomaly of falling petroleum imports combined with rising oil prices, but the first round of bidding for declining oil export capacity was easy--it only required oil prices be bid up to about two-thirds higher than the average prior to 5/05.
I suspect that the next round of bidding for declining oil exports will be much tougher.
The only 'petroleum' draw down occurred when we tapped the SPR and imported more refined products from OEDC countries after Katrina. Once again you manipulate the facts to fit your opinion, and once again I point out the flaw. This cat and mouse game is getting quite repetitive.
I repeat:
I suggest that you check the EIA data.
Everyone notice the pattern here? A discussion is going on. An exchange of facts and opinion. No personal attacks. And then the trolls appear. Talk about repetitive patterns.
I would also point out that US inventories and imports are--for the time being--tangential at best (for the time being anyway) to the central argument that oil prices are up because richer consumers are bidding against poorer consumers worldwide. Again, the reason that I first mentioned US imports in early 2006 was the odd anomaly of rising oil prices and falling imports. The question I kept asking was why were refiners paying higher oil prices, if they didn't have to?
The pattern that I notice is that you repeat the same thing over and over again, then appear offended when someone has the nerve to disagree.
Just because someone doesn't buy the “Westexas is infallible” argument doesn’t make them a troll.
I think you have made great contributions to this site and dialogue, but you have got to have the thinnest skin of anyone I have ever encountered.
If you don’t want anyone to disagree with you, start your own website/cult and then ban people who disagree. You could even issue fatwa’s.
Hang on just a minute here Jack.
WT is one of the kindest most gentlemenly posters on this board. I am amazed at the patience he shows when addressing both questions and attacks. He does an exemplary job of explaining himself and his reasoning.
I am all for disagreements and differing points of view. Don't get me wrong what WT says is not gospel. And plenty of people have expressed disagreement with WT and the discussions have been most informative.
Hothgor has gone way beyond disagreeing with WT. He has shown himself to be an amazing troll. I can't imagine this point is even debatable. Why you continue to defend him is beyond my understanding.
Examples please. In what way has he really gone beyond the pale? As far as I can see his main crime is constantly pointing out the flaws he perceives in WT's arguments. That pisses some people off, I get that.
It annoys me that there's a doomer backslapping society that paints any persistent critic of WT as a troll. Some of the arguments he uses are suspect; at least that is what I've taken away from the epic debate between him and RR. He makes similar points on nearly every thread (nothing wrong with that IMHO), so why is it wrong for someone like Hothgor to offer a refutation? How does Hothgor's behaviour differ from someone like RR? Why is RR not a troll? Certainly Hothgor can be blunt and offensive in making his point, but this is a flaw that many of his detractors share (and then some).
While the increasing popularity of the site may have lowered the quality and civility of some of the debate on TOD, there are still few here I would label as trolls. If you want a true example I would suggest there is none better (worse) than the poster of the first comment on today's Drumbeat.
Hello Hothgar,
I am confused. You are young and bright and accept the overall theme of Peakoil, yet you refuse to apply your considerable talents to the much harder and more challenging statistical task of helping the Deffeyes Group [Simmons, WT, Darwinian, et al] prove their case conclusively. A good scientist can lay aside emotional beliefs and easily start arguing the opposite case [Recall SS's permeability to new evidence quote]. Please don't shortchange yourself.
Yergin, Lynch, Freddy Hutter, R-squared, and numerous others are already doing an excellent job of making the Deffeyes Group carefully buttress their research with even more data.
No sense in your further jumping up and down on the dogpile scramble for the Peakoil football--Don't you think it would best serve your young generation's future hopes and dreams if you joined the TOD research efforts of WT & Darwinian?
I would like to see the info you could generate by switching your mindset for the next six months--Are you up to the scientific challenge of gracefully rebutting the difficult questions sure to come from those advocating Peakoil later?
Or is it more emotionally important to you to later exult endlessly, "I told you so, I told you so, I told you so...."???
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast
Well said Bob!
Amazing how Hothgor shows up 2 minutes after WT posts.
I suppose 2 minutes in doomer time is actually several hours in the real world time. Perhaps that explains why you guys predict an imminent peak! :laughs:
How long are long-term oil contracts? I imagine that a poor African country doesn't buy much of its oil on the spot market but has long-term contracts with other African or Middle East exporting countries. So when oil went up to $60-70/ barrel in 2005, the importing African country may have been locked in at $30- no demand destruction (yet). But after a year or two (i.e. 2006-2007), as contracts expired, our poor African country would then be exposed to the new higher prices. That's when the demand destruction would really set in. Perhaps this is why we are able to see continued slow consumption growth and healthy stockpiles in OECD countries despite flat to slightly lower world production. Mayybe the real demand destruction is just now showing up as long term contracts are re-negotiated?
Ron,
At 8.8 mbpd in 11/06, Saudi Arabia has shown an about an 8% annual decline rate since 9/05. Recent Saudi reports have suggested a production rate of about 8.5 mbpd for February. This would be a decline rate of about 8.5% since 9/05.
It's interesting how the series of "voluntary" production cuts seem to be following a predictable pattern--at about 8% per annum so far.
Two more years of cuts and we got a four sigma effect. In 2011 it will be a six sigma effect. Or something like that... :-)
If I had to make a judgement call, my gut tells me you are up to something. My brain tells me to wait until we got at least four to six sigma. I am patient...
This is also my sentiment...no statistically significant smoking gun but I would be surprised if it was not correct.
One thing that is missing in various analysis is consideration of the accuracy of the production numbers, are they reliable at 1%, 5% or 10% level? I recall that Simmons talked about "spies" determining tanker loads by observing the water line. I can't believe that this can be done more precisely than 5%.I think drawing conclusions from 1-2% effects is, shall we say, fraught with peril unless there is a clear trend. This trend may very well be emerging.
For the record, 38% of my assets are in the energy sector with about 5% in XOM. This leads to me to a deep moral dilema. In the purest form of double-think, I rationalize owning XOM despite it's corporate record by acknowledging that if I have to own something, it should be a stock positioned to deal with P0.
I had some oil stocks and made some money on it. I had some solar stocks and made some money on them. Now I have an alternative energy fund or two and I hope to make money on those. If I don't... oh, well. My income stems mostly from honest work and I am not too old, yet, to be able to afford that strategy.
I don't think one can do anything that would resemble scientific error analysis on the data that is available. I also don't think anything would change if one could. Consumers are driven by emotions, not science papers on energy markets and geology. Hubbert got the message out 50 years ago. His model is as good as any to predict the correct timescale for PO. The peak is now, plus minus a decade. It would make as much sense to change the way we use oil now as it will the day after PO, and today could just be the day of the peak.
To me PO is nothing but foolspotting and waiting for the "toldyouso" moment. We shall see when the fools raise their necks out of the swamp and start to scream. Then we shoot a few of them and then we move on to buying hybrids, solar panels and wind turbines while the fools settle down and continue to ignore the next obvious problem that comes after PO.
This statement of yours has finally piqued my curiosity… tell us, IP, what your line of honest work is…
As far as I can tell you have spent every weekday of the last few months clogging up TOD with 20-30 (often lengthy) posts per day; on virtually every subject under the sun.
I note also that you comment strictly from 9:30 - 5:00; last post nearly always a few minutes before 5:00pm (clocking-off time??)… hardly ever on Saturdays… sometimes briefly Sundays.
Now, you claim to be employed as a Physicist/Engineer in California… so the only possible conclusion is:
(i) that you are vastly under-employed and your employer is unaware of your on-line activities… or,
(ii) you are the boss… in which case do your employees know how you spend your ‘working’ hours?....
(iii) you are being paid to waffle at TOD…
"This statement of yours has finally piqued my curiosity… tell us, IP, what your line of honest work is…"
I design test and measurement and instrumentation for mostly scientists. My job requires basic physics knowledge and not so basic EE and CS experience. In other words: I am your run-of-the-mill physicists working in industry.
It is neither (i), nor (ii) nor (iii). I will let you keep guessing.
Hint: I have two new products coming out within six months and work lined up for another two years. The 9-5 part is true. No need to enter the rat-race if you can do better. It is a fair deal, by the way, I am not asking for top-dollar and I am not being paid more than I am worth (in other words, I am a designer, not management).
Fair?
So, you got into one of the few jobs left in the US that's like it was 30+ years ago, a mere 40 hours a week, and you got in because you're Nonwhite Ethnicity X, got in by playing the race card, probably have a whole cabal of your race in there, and God help anyone at the workplace who questions your doing very little work, and posting on here all day.
A white person would work their ass off because they know, being white, they have zero rights and have to work harder and settle for less. Your having a job at all in the US shows the evils of hiring by race instead of by merit.
Here's hoping you inhale a goodly amount of Pu oxide.
I am as white as a blank piece of paper. Your racial prejudice gets you nowhere.
"A white person would work their ass off because they know..."
Whaahhahahahhahaahahahhhaahahaha....
A typical white person in your world is probably as naive as I was when got my first job. I did work my ass off because I had some ideas where I wanted to go. I learned, the hard way, that it does not matter how hard you work because they will still take credit for what you did, they will give you a couple thousand more, you will go nowhere and they won't love you any more, either. In other words: "they" behave like rational people. The only one who is irrational is the guy (white or not) who works his ass off. Truth to be told: my boss was honest enough to warn me and I had his support until I had learned the lesson and left on my own terms.
Now, as to why 40 hour weeks work in my job: as a design engineer you are creative for a couple of hours a day, then you can do some busy work. If you do more than that, you end up being "over-creative" (i.e. crazy) and usually you destroy what you did during the first two hours of the day. Been there, done that. Or, as a bunch of quite successful friends of mine say: work smarter, not harder.
In time, of course, you become smarter and you learn how to do it right. In one of my jobs I did good work and when the CEO asked me why I am not staying until 10pm like everyone else, I told him the same things I told you. He asked me and I told him in his face that I couldn't care less about working long hours. What was the result? I got more respect from the boss, they doubled my stock options, the thing I designed worked great and I was the only guy who did not get laid off among the people who had to go because the money was running out. You see? Work smarter, not harder worked. Speak your mind and let the chips fall where they are going to fall, anyway. If they want to lay you off, they will. It does not matter how long you worked the day before. It might matter a little bit if they get that you are honest with them. It massages the little bit of hope that even the most professional manager has that there has to be another way. Some of them are actual real people. With emotions. And in any case honest people are easier to manage than backstabbers. If he can, a rational manager will always lay the backstabber off first because he might be dangerous. A guy like me who speaks his mind but gets the job done isn't.
That is Corporate America in a nutshell.
Now, why do people like me around here?
Because I deliver a lot of bang for the buck. I am accumulating the experience of a EE since I was 10. I have a physics PhD, so you don't have to explain to me what scientists want. Actually, I know what they want and I also know that most of the time what they want is not what they need. So I build what they really need, it works great and they are happy. Which means $$$ in my company's pockets. Which means good times for me.
I have done a dozen different things in my life and am not afraid to do another dozen if necessary. I don't mind getting down and dirty if necessary, either. Huge advantage over sandbox builders if you need to get the job done. Huge dissadvantage in most places where the sandbox is king, though. I know how to avoid those. Which is why I do not earn as much as I potentially could. I sleep well at night, though, and I am having fun on weekends. And I do not have a pager. :-)
The other reason people like me is because they can come to me at any time and ask anything and I will try to help them with their problem. I do not play games, I do not build sandboxes. Nobody around here does. We know better. We work smarter, not harder. The success proves us right.
Hope you are happy with your racial slurs. You certainly got my pity. You certainly did not earn my admiration for what you said. And I doubt you learned anything from what I was trying to tell you. Work smarter, not harder.
IP;
What does building 'Sandboxes' mean? I'm not familiar with the shorthand.
Good post, by the way. Fleam was out of line, but you responded very simply and straightforward. It's a good example to follow.
I'm always trying to remember where people 'might' be at emotionally when the insults and condescension kicks in, and without simply being an apologist for antisocial comments, I think it's worth noticing that there is some pretty profound fear that is stirred up by most of what we talk about, and where it ~might~ lead. I don't blame people for getting a bit freaked out.. it might be good practise in case things do get truly scary, and we have to remember again some of the ways to keep our heads when someone else is losing it. Tag-team sanity might keep you alive..
Bob
IP - I'm self employed because I'd rather work smarter than simply long hours.
You seem to have found a very, very, rare in the US, decent workplace. I have a friend who has something like that, not full EE or master's EE level like you are, but beyond the average tech - a fellow white took him under his wing when he'd started there, and essentially paved the way for him, and then passed the job he has now, when the "mentor" retired. If you have not realized that whites are in a very precarious position in the tech field, well, all I can say is enjoy your nice little coccoon while you can, may it continue until you can retire, at least someone can believe in the storybook world. Carry on!
Very very very rare to have a non-Dilbert workplace in the US, why do you think that cartoon is so popular? Almost all workplaces are Dilbert all the way.
But, getting to the general idea of overwork, you are correct. The "Work is good so more work is better" does not fly during a catabolic collapse. The guy/gal who can work 4 hours a day and get along ok, isn't a slacker, they're a hero. Extra points if they're able to live off of their Boomer parents, hehe. Losing the "more work is good" brainwashing takes a fair amount of "mental furniture re-arranging" for most of us.
I saw a bit of the real, hippie, "work is bad" ethos in the 70s growing up, hippies basically not working, wearing the same ol' clothes until they wore out, and living on welfare/food stamps. They were trying to stay out of the final throes of Vietnam, and they may have seen that more work just feeds the machine - I dunno, I was not old enough to ask about such things. One thing, they were not into owning a lot of stuff. They might have a radio, and their thrift-store clothes that they really did wear until worn out, a pair of shoes, just not lots of stuff. Compared to today's society it's pretty amazing. Of course it takes a draft hanging over people's heads to make them that serious I guess!
Hi Bob,
I very much appreciate your post, especially: "Tag-team sanity might keep you alive.."
I nominate it for quote of the day, week and beyond...
IP, let me guess, two hours of creative work and then four hours posting on TOD? :)
Ever heard about procrastination? :)
Fleam,
What is wrong with you really?
matt
I think we need to have a test on here, you can't register unless you can prove you come from the middle-class or up. If you've been exposed to and battled through any other stratum of life in the Empire, a few well-placed questions should sniff you out, and you can be banned from this site. That way the customary smarmy comfortable middle-class American viewpoint can be maintained.
I think Oilrigmedic was asking about your racism.
Which among the upper middle class, the "haves" is about as welcome and as commonly heard as an audible fart. But down here in the wide base of the pyramid, is rampant and ignored at one's peril. Yes, what race you are will determine where you can live, what job you can get, whether you get ahead in what job you get. etc.
To a "have", being racist would mean not liking Condi Rice, which is of course rediculous - she'll embody your values, and she's a very accomplished person to boot. To a "have" it's just silly to not like her.
To a "have-not", it means not liking the people who are laying for you in the parking lot after work, since with broken ribs and a broken jaw, you can't work so one of their buddies gets the job. It's lunacy to not be very careful, ready to fight, etc. And it's a violation of the operation of the human nervous system to not develop a group that in general wants to kill you.
Because the Haves and the Have-Nots are going to be seperated by a huge gulf until this whole evil machine is tumbled, I don't expect this post to make any sense to anyone here,
"I don't expect this post to make any sense to anyone here" -well atleast you live up to your own expectations.
Fleam, you are a sad little man. I dont know or care what made you that way. There are ignorant people everywhere who race does matter to (like you) but none of them determine where I live or what I do. I make my fate, and anyone who wants to can make theirs.
Please quit posting racist trash on this site. It has nothing to do with peak oil.
matt
Well
You 'make your fate'?
You should watch Titanic again, to see how foolish that sounds. Billy Zane's character does this with his stacks of bills, then his bodyguard matches it with his .45
Fleam goes over the top, but he's right about most of what he posts, and class and race issues have to be looked at with all of our perspectives in the mix. His anger is sometimes an impediment to getting his ideas across, as are yours and mine.
Bob
IP,
"Up" to something, or "On" to something?
I do believe you mean "On" to something. It makes a difference. ;>
Forgive me for butchering English, my friend, for it is not my first language. A truly wonderful language it is, though.
As I've said before, people will remember peak year, not peak month... but, regarding this, eia shows jul 06 oil supply higher than may 05. Regarding 06 vs 05; 06 thru nov is ahead 0.03%, but the fat lady has yet to sing... to stay ahead dec must be at least 84,234k/d. Three months in 06 were lower than this. SA cuts alone, voluntarily or not, might take the total down below this value.
Of course, you are using Total Liquids, versus the crude + condensate numbers I was using. As noted above, Total Liquids is crude + condensate + various substitutes for oil (plus refinery gains).
As I've said before, people will remember peak year, not peak month...
Allow me to disagree... peak year or peak month will be remembered by quite a few people - maybe the people at this blog plus a handful of oil production specialists.
IMO, what the majority of people will remember will be the decade after PO. And even in this decade it is highly unlikely they will link the events happening with PO. It will be the financial crisis decade, war swamped decade, nuclear rush decade - but not the PO decade.
For those hoping for recognition I need to say: sorry guys, we are never going to get the MSM projector lights upon this problem.
Naa... it will be the year when Toyota and Honda make a killing in the US selling real hybrids at top dollar and GM and Ford will promise to fill'er up until chapter 11.
:-)
That will be only one aspect of the decade after the Peak Oil point. That decade will be when it at least mostly unravels, and it becomes obvious to all but the most delusional that our Way Of Life has been just plain Wrong.
Everyone knows Japanese cars are good and US made cars are shite, that's been no secret for decades now.
No, this is going to be a time of people rearranging their mental furniture at the very deep, fundamental beliefs, or Why We're Alive, level.
World stats, Oct to Nov and since peak, C+C, according to the EIA.
World Oct to Nov
Down 224 kb/d
World since peak in May 2005
Down 741 kb/d
OPEC Oct to Nov (Includes Angola)
Down 384 kb/d
OPEC since peak in Sep 2005 (Includes Angola)
Down 1,354 kb/d
Non OPEC Oct to Nov (Excludes Angola)
Up 160 kb/d
Non OPEC since peak in May 2005 (Excludes Angola)
Down 157 kb/d
Ron Patterson
Rigzone article on Thunder Horse, from about five months ago
Notice how the date for the startup of production keeps slipping? There have been some questions raised as to whether something might be going on metallurgically in the very deep water projects that the engineers don't fully understand.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=35570
Thunder Horse Delay Due to Subsea Manifold Cracks -Analyst
by Angel Gonzalez Dow Jones Newswires Saturday, August 26, 2006
WT, The pressures are extreem here are they not. I thought I saw go by 22,000 psi. Comments.
This is way, way out of my area of expertise, but the question is whether or not there is something going on in the very deep ocean environment that made the manifold fail. Note that the startup date has basically slipped two years from the estimate that BP made in the middle of 2006.
http://www.eoascientific.com/campus/ocean/multimedia/sea_pressure/view_i...
Looks like about 1500 lbs. for 3000 ft.
From an account of Dr. William Beebe's pioneering efforts.
"To test the windows the bathysphere, unoccupied was lowered to 3,000 feet. When the great steel ball was hauled up, Beebe wrote. "It was apparent that something was very wrong, and as the bathysphere swung clear I saw a needle of water shooting across the face of the port window."
http://newport.pmel.noaa.gov/nemo_cruise98/education/pressure.html
Thanks, I thought 22,000 psi seemed beyond belief.
Wait a minute 1500 psi(.433 lbs per foot head) - The hydraulics on my tractor run 2,500. I think there must be more information missing. I thought the pressures were record setting.
Let's compute:
3000 ft / 6 ft = 500
500 X 14 lbs/sq st = 7000 lbs/sq ft of pressure
At least this is what I remember from high school physics.
"Since water is much heavier than air, this pressure increases as we venture into the water. For every 33 feet down we travel, one more atmosphere (14.7 psi) pushes down on us."
http://www.onr.navy.mil/Focus/ocean/water/pressure1.htm
caculations...
14.7 psi/33'= .445 psi per foot of depth. 3000 * .445 = 1335 psi.
Interesting bit of info. the navy uses .445 psi per foot. Gravity flow water systems use the fagure of .433
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:F6R9S2jDcc0J:www.agf.
gov.bc.ca/resmgmt/publist/500series/590304-5.
pdf+gravity+flow+water+system&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
I think your calculation should have been (3000/33)*14.7
Anyway I still remember something about a pressure record.
Salt water is more dense than fresh water, hence the navy uses the .445 figure. Gravity flow water system would be fresh water and less dense giving the .443 number.
"This is way, way out of my area of expertise"
Not to worry, we can ask the resident expert. Hothgort?
Oh of course everything is fine, WT is wrong...blah blah blah.
I expect we will see a lot more of this sort of thing over the coming years. As technologies become more complex an exponentially greater portion of the capital committed to the technology (or project) is immediately converted to waste.
The BP situation is simply an example of this phenomenon. It the heart of the HL curve. The backside of the curve is the catabolic collapse. No matter how much capital is poured into the process, more is converted to waste than new capital (production).
While BP will finally get this well working and production flowing, it is the cumulative slipage of the entire industry in the face of increased complexity and scarcity of resources that will shape the peak and subsequent irreversable decline.
Re: PEMEX
PEMEX workers dancing in oil platform (youtube link)
;-)
Haha, cute, thanks for posting that.
The EIA also released its short-term energy outlook.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html
Here's a figure on non-OPEC supply gains/losses projected over the next 2 years -
Looks as if the EIA has gotten the religion on Mexico, but deep-water optimism for Angola/US/Brazil (especially the latter two) seems a bit overdone.
Why isn't sa on this list? Too scary?
This is a non-OPEC list. I notice that Angola tops the list, but is about to disappear from it. That leaves the US at the top. Maybe it will join OPEC next? Oh wait! The US isn't actually much of an exporter. Sorry.
BP profit drops 22% in the fourth quarter
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bp-posts-22-profit-decline/story.a...
Awhile back, I asked folks if they had noticed BP gasoline stations being closed around their area because I had noticed quite a few in Kansas City shutting their doors.
I think the article above may explain this.
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending February 2, 2007
These numbers seem bullish yet the market price is dropping. Was the draw less than expected?
Actually the draw was much greater than the estimates. CNBC was showing a build consensus of 2.2 million crude barrels and it ended up being a .4 draw. Distillates draw was also greater. Build in gas was higher but net was inventories on balance were lower than the market forecasted.
From the report:
Total products supplied over the last four-week period has averaged nearly 20.8
million barrels per day, or 3.2 percent above the same period last year. Over
the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged nearly 9.1 million
barrels per day, or 3.9 percent above the same period last year. Distillate
fuel demand has averaged over 4.3 million barrels per day over the last four
weeks, or 3.6 percent above the same period last year. Jet fuel demand is up 6.3
percent over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last
year.
Why was there such a huge draw in propane/ propylene?
Maybe home heating and de-icing/anti freeze
Iran's economic conditions deteriorate
The report by Roger Stern was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January, and can be dowloaded here.
And you can read my analysis/critique of Stern's work here.
Thanks for that. Sorry I missed it the first time around.
Dave, while I appreciate your oil/gas expertise, I doubt that you or Mr. Stern have any useful knowledge of ME politics, and are simply falling for the loony opinions of the Nec-cns and the Republican hard-liners.
My first observation would be that the rulers of KSA are quite well aware of the trustworthiness of the USA's rulers [ie. none], so will operate clandestinely to make an ally of Iran, a much better role for them anyway.
Why do USAns not understand that other people can observe and think?
Iran and Saudi Arabia — allies? KSA is scared feces-less of Iranian influence in Iraq and their ability to disrupt the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia has come to the conclusion that they can't depend on the United States. And you know what? They're right. Democrats won. They'll win again in 2008. They're trying to take things into their own hands now. Doesn't look good, though, and they know that. That's why the Kingdom is making substantial increases in their military and trying to use the "oil weapon" against Iran. That's hopeless, too.
Get a grip, do some homework and try to grasp understand the geopolitics and sectarian divisions. It's not all propaganda, you know. Think for yourself. It's a lifelong skill and may even pay dividends for you. On the other hand, given human mediocrity, it may not. Worth the chance, though.
Hi Dave,
Thanks and some qs for clarification:
1) When you talk about the Dems winning (and "...again in 2008.")...do you mean this is the reason SA concludes "...they can't depend on the US." - ? If so, could you please expand on this?
2) When you say "They're trying to take things into their own hands now."
You mean, KSA (right)? Just want to make sure I am reading this correctly.
3) Actually, I also realize - your second sentence: Are you saying KSA is afraid of Iran's ability to disrupt Iraq, and in turn, Iraq's ability (or Iran's?) to disrupt the PG.
4) And then...if all options are hopeless for KSA, what do you think they a) should do? b) will do?
Dave, I do think for myself. And I think that the main fear of Iran comes from Israel not KSA, because Iran could prove a problem with their intended expansion into areas of the ME outside the original boundaries [as currently in the West Bank]. Currently, Iran is supposed to be helping both Hezbollah and Hamas. [In the former case, I tend to believe it, in the latter, I don't.]
At some point, the Arabs are going to have to take GWB and cronies at their words [crusade, remake the ME]. One of the maps published in at least one of the mainstream newpapers showed KSA reduced to desert [no oil wells] and the holy cities of Meca and Medina given to Jordan.
Hmm.., I guess they didn't notice.
http://alternet.org/envirohealth/47668/
Vegetarian Is the New Prius
Nice to see this issue is starting to get a little noticed. The UN report says that while 13% of anthropogenic CO2 equivalents come from transportation as a whole, livestock accounts for 18%! Now add that to the info above from the University of Chicago and what it tells me, is that energy descent is going seriously curb greenhouse emissions. Just look at the Zimbabwe article posted by Bob Shaw - prices have quadrupled in a week. One of the examples is is a 20 kg bag of grain, and one is 1 whole chicken - and the single chicken was more expensive than the grain!! Calorie per calorie that is astounding, but you have to realize that animal products are subsidized by government in the US and if the "free market" was allowed to run most people would not be eating all that "cheap" meat/dairy.
Read this article for more on the relatively quick greenhouse reductions caused by reducing livestock consumption:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/dec/globalwarming.htm
Of course from what I've seen the feedback loops are already rolling, and all that permafrost methane might replace the huge amount cut by peak-oil induced cuts in livestock. But either way, humans must learn to eat lower on the food chain, in alignment with their herbivorous anatomy (starch digesting enzymes in the mouth, long intestines, flat teeth etc.) - or suffer the health and environmental consequences.
Sorry Veganmaster, but I vote for population die off before I vote for the earth to be nothing but people, corn and soy beans. I will take a hiatus from the omnivore lifestyle, when the world takes a breeding hiatus.
I will take a hiatus from the omnivore lifestyle,
If one has the money, (resources), man has not went without meat.
The end of the $1 double cheeseburger is what's 1st on deck.
Humans are clearly omniverous, a mixture of slicing, tearing and grinding teeth, stomach pH optimised for the digestion of protein by pepsin, a pH at which amylase, the starch digesting enzyme is denatured, an appendix reduced in size, formerly an aid to digestion of plant materials now only with a role in the immune system. On top of this our sensory system is optimised for hunting with forward facing eyes etc, typical of carnivores, unlike the side mounted eyes of most herbivores, rabbits for instance.
I'm not saying we're carnivores, but that we can definately handle meat, and probably need it, just as much as veggies. Further proof is that it tastes so good! Try feeding a cat an apple or a cow a sheep and you'll see what I mean.
This article rightly points out that too much meat is eaten. However, it doesn't look at what some people are doing. Buying pure grass fed meat directly from ranchers where they live. When you do this you cut out the feedlot issue, the concentration of waste and water use intensity of big slaughterhouses, etc.
Growing corn and soybeans is a major contributer of greenhouse gases, both for the inputs to the ag, and because of what happens to soil carbon when earth is plowed and/or given chemical fertilizers--i.e., stored carbon is consumed by soil bacteria.
By contrast, allowing animals to graze pasture is a low input operation that is often necessary to keep grasslands healthy (as long as overgrazing is not allowed). Healthy grasslands can often be carbon sinks. That's how those deep soils being mined by the corn-soybean industry were created anyhow.
I would prefer to eat locally raised, pastured meat over veggie nuggets any day, and suspect the environmental calculus supports that choice. But would love to get feedback on this line of thought.
I posed this question to a professor of agroecology: What are the greenhouse gas impacts of a sustainably-managed cattle operation? Assume the operation has been established for a while and the herd is rotated so that the ranch creates no major deforestation, desertification or soil depletion impacts. All the cattle eat only biomass grown on the ranch. All the biomass on the ranch is grown without any outside inputs like fossil-based fertilizers.
The answer I got was prefaced with the usual caveats -- the cattle operation may be changing in net carbon balance from year to year depending on rainfall, animal stocking, degree to which cattle disturb the soil, etc. But the bottom line was that on average, the cattle operation would be carbon neutral or a sink over time. That does not include the long-term loss of carbon from soils converted from forest to grassland, which can occur even without soil disturbance.
In my book, it's gain on grass. We've selected animals, esp cattle, that respond well to the cow-calf operations of present, which are finished on grain . I hope we see a change in this. Our place keeps the flat or small slope land in pasture, and manages accordingly. So my bias is evident. For us, there might be a larger paper return by switching 100+ ac to grain, but even with rapidly rising grain prices, I don't know if it would work. The cost for switch is too high, and returns from grain lease don't look that inviting this year. I hope that other returns to land can keep this spread going. I believe they will.
Grass-fed stock is gaining "market share", but it's still a pittance. Problem is extra cost for consumers, and distribution to major retailers. One of the prime movers of the feedlot system is the decrease unit costs-that product arrives in the supermarket 6 mos or up to a year sooner for cattle. Those extra carrying costs are hard to make up. Higher grain may be just the ticket for grass fed.
Healthy grasslands are carbon sinks. It should be noted that all grasslands evolved under grazing pressure, and that productivity of pasture is improved by grazing. There are new grazing systems coming on which attempt to either mimic historical patterns, or increase the total productivity of pasture. In the former, livestock are "overloaded" in small sections of pasture, forcing consumption of all plants, then rapidly pushed on. It is thought to mimic historical grazing by large herbivores. Management and costs are easily seen as much higher. A variation is called twice over, where densities of stock are lower, and are allowed to graze a unit with diverse forage shorter periods over two intervals per year. This allows cool season grasses and warm forage to be grazed without range damage.
We have incorporated sheep in with some of our rotations, and I see cost reductions, and hopefully gains, in the future. Granted, our operation is small in comparison to the multi square mile sections of the midwest. It takes often nonexistent time to move livestock at critical periods. It is expensive, in that sheep view fences as a personal problem to solve. But they are enabling us to nearly retire the sprayers for these units, and the pastures with sheep in rotation are showing improvement with no spray over 2 years.
Some other web pages:
http://www.eatwild.com/environment.html
www.eatwild.com/images/joes_farm_lg.jpg
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=792&Arti...
"But either way, humans must learn to eat lower on the food chain, in alignment with their herbivorous anatomy (starch digesting enzymes in the mouth, long intestines, flat teeth etc.) - or suffer the health and environmental consequences."
I believe your conclusion is based on two implicit assumptions:
1.) We can not increase the efficiency of the process that gets us from starch and plant oils to animal protein.
2) We can not replace plant starch and oil with chemical feedstocks made using much higher efficiency renewable sources like wind and solar energy.
Neither of these assumptions is an unalterable fact, thus, your conclusion is not as strong as you might have implied. And while I do agree, that eating less meat would be better for us, I do not think that mankind, on average, will shift its diet back to starch. We will find more efficient ways to produce protein, though. I believe to have heard that mushrooms are better protein sources than animals but I can't find a reliable scientific source. Judging by your name, you might be able to point one out to me or disprove my own assumption?
It would be interesting to know how many pounds of mushroom protein can still be grown from the crap equivalent of one pound of chicken, turkey or beef. Anyone got numbers?
This isn't just for you IP, but all the other happy-happy shills too. In Rickover's 1957 speech, he speaks specifically to your type:
Whether your sincere in what you believe, I don't know, but your endless happy-happy has the same impact of those who deny any energy problem. At least the apocalyptos, who I don't agree with, are facing the problem. You live in fantasy land, and what's worse, you actively deny America is in the Mid-East for oil, which means you'r much worse than just happy-happy, but culpable. Never mistake intelligence for wisdom. Have a nice day!
"Whether your sincere in what you believe, I don't know, but your endless happy-happy has the same impact of those who deny any energy problem."
I do not only believe in what I say, I can usually back it up with facts. One fact is that one can make A plus protein from animal crap... that is how they make mushrooms. Now just imagine we wouldn't just take the crap but use some of the energy to produce the animal and make mushrooms directly... And do you want to know another fact? Here is how you make sugar and starch from sunlight, water and CO2:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-202/sess5.2.htm
The process can be made nearly as efficient as chemistry allows, without all the waste that photosynthesis goes through. As you can see... all the energy comes from the hydrogen that needs to be produced initially and there is waste heat to spare that could be re-used. Here is the reference to the energetics in the web page:
"It should also be noted that the sole energy-requiring reaction in the sequence is the electrolysis of water required for the recovery of oxygen. The remainder of the reactions are exothermic."
Hydrogen can be made with a multiplicity of methods from sunlight directly, but I did talk about that at any number of occasions. You can go loot it up for yourself. Even if you had to make it with solar electricity and steam electrolysis, you would end up with something like 10% area efficiency for the overall process. That is ten times better than most plants. My guess is that the final solar to sugar processes will get closer to 20%.
Now, wether we really ever have to go to such lengths, I don't know. But, if we had to, we could. There is nothing in physics, chemistry or even economics to prevent us.
As you can see, I am not here to play a happy tune but to tell you that "the end is near" tune is stale and that speculation about the decline of mankind does not replace scientific facts about energy, energy conversion and physical efficiency limits relative to technological efficiencies dictated by markets.
"At least the apocalyptos, who I don't agree with, are facing the problem."
These people are facing nothing. They simply keep talking about scenarios that will never happen. When the end is near, after all, you can just slack and wait it out, you don't have to work on preventing it, anymore.
People who make things happen are those that work for PG&E trying to increase energy efficieny at home. People who make things happen work for Toyota as design engineers. And, yes, people who make things happen are like me who monitor their energy consumption at home and at work and are trying to get it down, percent by percent, CFL by CFL and computer by computer. Apocalyptic dreamers are simply apologetics of their own misery.
"You live in fantasy land, and what's worse, you actively deny America is in the Mid-East for oil"
I don't remember saying that America is particularly smart about chosing their political leadership. Neither is it smart about buying its cars and 30% of America seems to fail high school on a level of knowledge which is laughable to other nations. Indeed, America is not smart. Neither are its leaders. None of this will make the oil flow in Iraq anytime soon. There are plenty of forces which will make sure of that. By the time Iraq will produce, it won't matter any longer.
"Never mistake intelligence for wisdom."
I never do that. Intelligence is the ability to put facts in order and derive conclusions that withstand reality checks. Wisdom is the ability to laugh about your own mistakes and to know that there is nothing you can do to prevent others from committing the same. As far as I can remember, I did not call myself either smart nor wise once. Not being either, on the other hand, does not prevent me from pointing at bigger fools than I am.
I do not only believe in what I say, I can usually back it up with facts. One fact is that one can make A plus protein from animal crap... that is how they make mushrooms.
Nope. In fact the bulk of human-edible and palitable mushrooms are not 'from crap'. There is a whole set of edible and not tasty fungi also.
Because you 'know' one 'fact' does not apply to the entire human-eat'n fungi kingdom.
It would be interesting to know how many pounds of mushroom protein can still be grown from the crap equivalent
Fungi like the oyster mushroom can convert straw (Non-food) into a 'food' source for cattle and pigs.
lbs per lbs of material the conversions are 10:3 source/fungi range, with the rate less for myself.
Conversion of fecal material into food source via maggots is 35-40%,
Veganmaster --
I posted this Commondreams.org article in response to another point (about B12) before I saw your lengthy quote.
I think the grain/chicken example, which echoes what is already happening as corn prices (driven ironically by a blind need to keep driving 20mpg vehicles) impact animal-derived food costs, will become more and more pervasive.
Westexas talks in this Drumbeat about people already being outbid for fuel in places like Africa. The same mechanism, when applied to food as some growing fraction of 7 billion people begin to clamor for McD's food and amplified by competition from food-as-fuel, will hasten starvation for an even larger fraction of that same 7 billion while accelerating global warming.
Plant-based diet, no children, and driving/flying little are the only answers. Not one, but all, together.
There's something to be said for going largely plant based, and if one eats meat, raising it oneself. Look up something called "possum living" about a gal and her dad who lived in a big ol' house in one of our blighted/depopulated areas in the US, interesting reading. They raised rabbits and I think chickens. There's also raising various bugs or fish, the way hobbyists used to raise mealworms etc. Even in a tiny apartment, you can raise mealworms, even if you still have to buy/forage your veggies.
Look up something called "possum living" about a gal and her dad who lived in a big ol' house in one of our blighted/depopulated areas in the US, interesting reading.
And I'd live to have heard how she ended up. I expected to find out how one of the internet detectives would have tracked her down - but I've never found a follow-up.
you can raise mealworms
The edible bugs pages come and go....I was going to try wasps this summer, but I didn't :-(
The difference between the survivors and not might just be who eill eat bugs.
Veganmaster --
I posted this Commondreams.org article in response to another point (about B12) before I saw your lengthy quote.
I think the grain/chicken example, which echoes what is already happening as corn prices (driven ironically by a blind need to keep driving 20mpg vehicles) impact animal-derived food costs, will become more and more pervasive.
Westexas talks in this Drumbeat about people already being outbid for fuel in places like Africa. The same mechanism, when applied to food as some growing fraction of 7 billion people begin to clamor for McD's food and amplified by competition from food-as-fuel, will hasten starvation for an even larger fraction of that same 7 billion while accelerating global warming.
Plant-based diet, no children, and driving/flying little are the only answers. Not one, but all, together.
Thanks to Veganmaster and TonyF for posting this article.
Heinberg, Kunstler, and others wisely advise that we have got to change our entire way of life if we want to adjust to resource depletion, environmental devastation, etc., with as little chaos and death as possible. Do the mostly wise and insightful readers of Oil Drum really think that stops at just changing a lightbulb or car?
I'm struck by the tinge of denial and hostility by some of the Oil Drum posters to the issues raised by the UN report cited above (when there ARE comments--perhaps tellingly, there haven't been many). The same sort of denial I see (and have noticed Peak Oilers grouse and wonder about) in SUV drivers who can't dream of a lifestyle without their cars and weekend air travel and endless consumption of throwaway tchotkes, I see in folks who hear about animal agriculture's major contribution to green house gases and other environmental devastation. I'm really surprised that people would rather keep on driving or see total die out than switch to plant-based foods. I mean, come on!
So next time you wonder how the common American can keep up this deadly lifestyle that's using up all the oil and choking the planet, just study your own reaction to the idea of choosing, to save the environment and conserve resources, to replace meat and dairy products with plant-based foods. Hopefully, such a mental exercise will prompt both understanding for the SUV drivers and a desire for positive personal change.
Dear Vegans;
I appreciate your advocacy on this issue. I agree that there is a lot of essential work to be done around energy and food-supply directions. I have a couple 'yeah, buts' to offer.
1) I think it's a proportional issue, and not a black/white one.. (understanding that these proportions ARE massively off-balance). While my 'moderation in all things' might play for you as the quintessential cop-out, or 'less-bad' argument.. consider that if you want to devise a strategy for seeing your belief come to fruit, then pitching it as an all or nothing is probably worse than 'too big a step', and instead is throwing people into actively opposing the truths they otherwise might come to accept in this. Sorry if it's irrational. It'd be perfect, but there are humans involved.
2) Cain and Abel. The Meat/Grain contest is thousands of years old. We've only had our CARS for three or so generations, and are in massive denial (on the broader scale) about letting 'them' take these chariots from us.. Food is very primal, and people who seem to be reaching for my cat-dish WILL get clawed. I'm just saying try to appreciate what your audience HEARS, not just what you are trying to say. If you want to get the message across, this is essential. It might be essential for them (us) as well, if we want to be able to eat anything, but you are attacking a very old, thick wall.
I hope the Farmer and the Cowman can be friends while we work this out. I think it has to move in babysteps (even if there's not time for babysteps).. and some of them have already been started. More people eat salads, McDonalds serves fresh salad for 20 years now.. that might get a sneer, but it's huge. People still argue about the value of organics, of whole grains, of Atkins, but there is more awareness of diet than before. 'Supersize Me' could not have been made 30 years ago, even if 'Silent Spring' was. I think it is one of many BB's, and people who have done other steps in the right direction should be encouraged, not harangued for not making YOUR step yet. (I thought one of the best directions above was to direct the work towards the Subsidies, and make the market pay what the meat really costs. It's hard to argue against doing the 'fair' things, especially when they are also 'right' for other important reasons)
This could have a great impact, but it needs to be approached with understanding and creativity, and a lot less Evangelizing. How does evangelizing work on you?
Respectfully,
Bob Fiske
More nonsense from veganmaster.
We have sharp teeth upfront, and canines like dogs. Our bodies are better adopted to meat and vegetables than grains -- too much grain intake exacerbates diabetes, and causes excesss flatulence.
ImSceptical --
These are the teeth of an animal that lives on fruits, leaves, shoots, nuts, and the occasional insect.
The "canine tooth means we're meat eaters" canard is as tired as they come.
There's actually very good evidence we're designed to be omnivores, and furthermore, ones who cook.
But, I have to agree, large canines are used for fighting, and can be handy dealing with fruits and plant parts, so they do not necessarily mean an animal with 'em has to be a carnivore.
Here is a new variation on an old question.
We are all convinced that Peak Oil is a geologic reality that at some point will slap us across that face. We are not in agreement on when this blow will be delivered; although most of us seem to hold within the next 5 years as a likely time frame. In the past, we have had spirited debates about when the peak of production will be. Here is the twist:
When do you think that the stuff will hit the fan? That is, when do you think that greater than 50% of the american population will be aware of peak oil as a reality? Other countries? Also, when do you think the peak in 'all liquids' will occur(I ask this because the deniers seem to favor pointing at the 'all liquids' graphs when denying peak oil)?
This should be illuminating.
Awareness of Peak Oil as a reality can spread across the globe in a matter of hours: For the implications to sink in will take longer--but not much longer. I recall how fast awareness changed in the fall of 1973--a matter of days only.
The mainstream media can turn on a dime. The one thing I do not think likely is that the media will exaggerate the significance of Peak Oil to hype advertising sales;-)
When the stock market crashes more than thirty percent in a week as a result of Peak Oil discussion, then I think we'll have a definitive indicator of Peak awareness. Note that the collapse of stock markets around the world will also have other financial fallout.
Is Peak awareness going to happen this year? I'll give odds of five to three that it won't. What about by the end of 2008? For that time period I'll give even odds. By 31 Dec. 2012 the odds rise to five to three in favor of Peak Awareness.
See my post back up the page. I think that TPTB are working dilligently to control and manage the whole PO awareness and price volatility thing to the extent that it is possible for them to do so. They are not passive observers by any stretch of the imagination. Just like with Global Warming, they want to control the message and it's timing and are going to great lenghts to do so.
So Awareness of Peal Oil is not simply a matter of average Joe "getting" it, but of him "getting" it while listening to the spin of the day from TPTB.
A little up the thread I suggested PO will never become MSM. And here are my reasons:
PO as a phenomenon threatens a very basic psychological rationalisation in the human mind - that we will be eternal, tomorrow will always be better and the party is going to go on forever. Advertising PO on the TV is akin to advertising how we are all going to die some day. Everyone knows he/she is going to die, but prefers to ignore this fact - it is just psychologically unbearable to think about it in detail all the time.
In contrast Global Warming is far more "sellable" problem. It promises to become serious far after we are all dead and hence it gives us the psychological cushion of still doing what we like to while being "concerned" for our grandkids. The theater called Kyoto protocol or ethanol or you name it illustrates very well how we are going to rationalise our failure and the devastated world we are going to leave after us... "Sorry son, we tried and we tried so hard..."
To continue my thought, there are only two ways PO is going to be sold by the MSM. Either rationalise it with some external factor (does "Reduce our reliance on ME oil" ring a bell?), or sell it wrapped in another rationalisation - "Well, oil indeed is depleting but we are going to replace it with ethanol, biodiesel, nuclear etc.etc."
The idea that this may turn out a problem without an easy solution and people may have to give up a good part of their lifestyle will never be entertained.
In the fall of 1973 oil shortages and oil-price spikes received much media attention; speculations about a peak in oil production were widespread by Dec. 1973, triggered by the observation that there must not be much surplus capacity if Opec production cuts could have such a huge impact. There was a LOT of speculation about what would happen due to high oil prices.
Thus I do not think the psychological mechanism of denial is strong enough to prevent Peak-Oil awareness.
OK, my fault - I did not explain the underlying assumption I had in my opinion.
What I meant is that the media will never examine the PO problem the way we are examining it here - as a phenomenon of ever-expanding civilisation facing the constraints of a limited resource base. PO will be presented as a technical problem (what substitutes to find to preserve our way of life) while the underlying reasons of how we got here will be quitely ignored. It is very likely we are going to jump to other easy short term fixes (CTL comes to mind) and face the very same fundamental problem just several decades later. Your example of the worries of the 70-s shows very well how short-term human memory tends to be.
How is this a problem? We've illustrated before the potential for technological advances such as PHEV and nuclear power. We could expand our global energy consumption a thousand fold and still have millions of years of nuclear fuel.
Your hyperbole's are getting the better of you, D.
god, Dezakin, you are dumb.
The world will be lucky to find 30 more years of nuclear fuel with the stuff becoming ever more expensive to mine and concentrate.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Nuclear.html
Wow, a little chart with no citations.
This is so trivially wrong its ludicrous. First, theres thousands of tons of spent fuel that can easily be reprocessed into new nuclear fuel rods for light water reactors, enough to easily last 30 years. And the reason most dont is uranium is still cheaper to mine from the ground.
http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution
From currently exploitable ore bodies at concentrations that we're using today (300ppm and higher) we have approximately 100 million tons of uranium. A 1GW light water reactor uses about 170 tons of uranium ore per year, lets round that up to 200... and there are less than 500 commercial power reactors around the world... Lets pretend there are 1000 sucking down 200000 tons of uranium ore per year... Our nuclear fuel supply will run out in five hundred years. But we can easily mine lower concentration ore bodies than 300ppm. The rossing mine in nambia has an energy return of over 500 on mining operations! If we use only uranium extraction reprocessing we more than double our resource base, and with MOX fuel its quadrupeled... 2000 years worth of supply from ore concentrations as high as we're using today.
http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_...
Lets say we run all of civilization on these reactors. We'll need about 20000 light water reactors, that sucks down 4 million tons of uranium ore per year. If we limit ourselves to shales and other soft ores that have an energy return from 16-32 from light water reactors, we have approximately 1 trillion tons of uranium. Our resource base will last about 250000 years, or a million years if we use MOX fuel.
If we use breeder reactor regimes and thorium, we multiply our energy return by 100 and our resource base is about 120 trillion tons of fuel from thorium and uranium... breeder reactors require about 1 ton of fertile fuel per year for 1GW. If we have nuclear power output in the same order of magnitude as the solar flux, say 20 petawatts, we need 20 million 1GW reactors. We probably cant do more heat rejection than that without seriously roasting the earth so thats sort of our absolute limit. 20 million 1GW reactors use 20 million tons of fertile fuel per year, and our resource base of 120 trillion tons lasts six million years.
I imagine sometime between now and then we'll figure out inexpensive solar power and commercial fusion power.
The notion that we have 'only 30 years' of fuel left is patently absurd.
Don,
Perhaps you could refresh our memories regarding just what did happen in the 70s. I was in Canada at the time and while we did see some price volatility, we didn't get the lines at the pumps.
What caused the lines at the pumps in the US? Was it panic? People trying to get the last tank of cheap gas?
I can look up lots of technical data on the period, but what were the people on the street thinking? Any light you or others who went through it can shed on the topic would be appreciated.
1973 was a too-interesting time, and the winter of '73-'74 was the last time I was ever concerned about being able to heat my house (oil heat at that time). Because of the Nixon price controls, shortages developed, and because of the shortages there were allocations and lines at gas stations. Heating oil was also rationed; you could get only two hundred gallons at a time (as opposed to a fill up).
The main perception was that the central problem was high prices, and hence price controls were popular. Except for economists, almost nobody understood that the price ceilings were what created shortages. Nobody knew how bad the shortages were going to be: I put in a coal burning stove in my basement and helped my neighbors to cut firewood.
In my region (northern Minnesota) everybody could get gasoline "under the table" if they knew somebody in the business. Even though plastic bags covered gas pumps, there was always plenty of gas available for midnight fillups (if you knew the right people). Even if half of the stations in town were out of gas, the other half had some, though it might be only premium grade. Teenagers often siphoned gas out of others' cars, and "gas and dash" thefts from gasoline stations became fairly common.
The rising price of oil drove up the general price level; inflation was at least as much of a concern as was oil shortages. Price controls tempered and postponed the rise in prices for a period of months, but to avoid serious shortages prices were eventually allowed to rise, and before too long exports of oil from Opec countries to the U.S. resumed, and gasoline prices fell from their highs.
During the Iranian revolution of 1978 there were once again abrupt price increases, but because there were no price controls there were no shortages that I recall.
There was an enormous amount of writing (and talking heads on TV) discussing the oil-related events of the seventies, including plenty of gloom and doom and gold mongering. My recollection is that both gold and silver peaked in 1978 amidst semipanic/gloom/doom-mongering.
I do think that a careful study of the seventies will provide much light on what future reactions to a decline in oil imports will be.
Natural behaviour turned a shortage into a crisis. Gas tanks are normally about .55 full, people usually fill when they get down to about .1. When the shortage hit they tried to always keep the tank filled at least half, so avg went to .75. The increase demand (not consumption) was around 3g/tank, or nearly 10Mb.
Hi Don. You said:
"During the Iranian revolution of 1978 there were once again abrupt price increases, but because there were no price controls there were no shortages that I recall."
I recall '78/79 well, and in Southern California then, we had severe shortages and long gas lines. I wouldn't be so quick to attribute shotages/gas lines to price controls.
There were fights and even some shots fired, too. I recall the evening newscasts. Can't recall whether it was California or someplace else.
I agree. The allotment system the was applied to gasoline retailers had a drastic impact on supplies available to consumers. In Northern Utah where my father had a mom and pop service station, the refiners had the product, but my father couldn't buy it because of how his allotment was set.
Other retailers had governmental magic applied to up their allotments. No supply disruption occurred, just a major snafu by Uncle Sam. Gas lines never happened there, but trying to find a gas station open late what an excercise in futility.
BTW my father's allotment was roughly 50/50 regular and premium a mix that had no basis in previous usage patterns.
All things considered, it looked to a youngster [me] like something out of Atlas Shrugged. In the event of a major shortage, God save us from the real life Wesley Mouchs.
BTW and IIRC, at the time Nixon slapped on price controls the official inflation rate as measured by the CPI was about 5 percent. Kind of amusing given that in 2007 a 3 percent hedonically adjusted inflation rate is considered benign and annualized monthly fluctuations well over 5 percent don't get much attention.
Don
It's true that price controls cause shortages.
However it is not the case that if there are no price controls, there are never any shortages.
If a supply chain is interrupted, supply just stops, regardless of price.
I too recall the 70s crises. It was about that time that the first locking gas caps appeared, as I recall.
The Mob was doing a number on hijacking petrol tankers in the New York area, if I recall correctly. When a guy appears in your cab with a gun and a cigarette lighter, and tells you to drive your tanker somewhere, you don't argue.
Yes gold and silver peaked. Partly as a response to the Hunt Brothers trying to gain control of the silver market (the effort collapsed, and they were bankrupted). Also to soaring inflation expectations.
Eventually Paul Volker was appointed as Chief of the Federal Reserve system by Jimmy Carter (1979). He pursued an aggressive policy of high interest rates to control inflation*. The result was a steep economic recession (1980-81) where for the first time since the 30s, the US had double digit unemployment (big chunks of the Midwest became 'the Rust Belt' almost overnight).
Of course the US is much more dependent on oil imports now than it was then, due to declining domestic production. To an extent, Canada has made up that gap, but only to an extent, as their conventional oil production is declining. Under NAFTA, the US has equal access to Canadian energy, and the costs of Canada breaking such an agreement are too great for it to do so.
My conclusion on any sudden crisis on oil imports is:
- there will be panic, and that will have a big impact on consumption (wasted energy idling in gasoline line ups, plus as noted by other poster, everyone running around with a fuller tank). Hoarding will take place (driving prices higher than they need to go).
- there will be civil disorder, although it may not be widespread
- there will be widespread theft and diversion of gasoline from the supply chain, reinforcing the sense of panic. I would expect to see the State Governors deploying National Guardsmen and/ or state troopers to escort petrol tankers
- there will be the inevitable civil protests, demanding the government *do something*. It's quite possible that what the government does will be absolutely the wrong thing (eg as you mention 'anti profiteering' measures).
We have precedent on this. Iraq is plagued by petrol shortages. Due to very low petrol prices (officially mandated), gasoline is smuggled out of Iraq by local tribes (and sometimes reimported and sold illicitly). Yet if the government tried to raise petrol prices, when most Iraqis depend on cheap petrol to run their personal generators, it would collapse.
- those SUVs and pickups sold since 1998 will be mostly scrap metal. The residual or resale value will plummet, whereas the price of small used cars will soar. Pickups at least have utility value, but you can bet the big gas guzzlers will sell for very little. Things get bad enough, you won't be able to give them away.
- the Fed will not want to be caught napping by inflation the way they were in the 70s. Interest rates will go up soon, and quickly. *that* may be the most painful moment of all, as the housing market and other interest-sensitive sectors go off the cliff and glimpse the abyss.
If I understand the US system of government correctly, the State Governors will pick up the slack. Post Reconstruction, a lot of the paramilitary power (state troopers and National Guard) and organisational capability rests with the state capitals.
* the previous Governor, Arthur Burns, had agreed with Richard Nixon that he would keep interest rates down to allow Nixon to be reelected in 1972. This was followed by the inevitable surge in inflation post, which then collided with the 1973 Oil Crisis (the Arab Israeli war and the Arab oil embargo).
By contrast, Paul Volker (and the Iranian militants) cost Jimmy Carter reelection. (without
Rationing was part of the problem, but not all of it. The distribution was very uneven. Some places had no lines or shortages. Others had people camping out in long lines at the pumps.
This is why you'll often get very different accounts of what the '70s energy crisis was like in the U.S., depending on who you ask. Some people say it was no big deal, others talk about how they had to spend the night in their cars to get gas. It's all true, depending on where you lived.
1973-1974 was also a miserable time for investors. According to my data series, the S&P 500 dropped by 37% during the course of those two years. Grizzled investors in their 70s and 80s will tell you that that was the worst bear market they've been through. The three year period 2000-2002 was also bad, with the S&P 500 down about the same amount, but it still didn't quite have the same intensity as the '73-74 bear market, especially if you avoided .com, tech, and telecom, or at least bailed out before the crushing declines.
Worse than that.
Inflation was running c. 10%, if I recall correctly.
So the market dropped 1-(1-37%)*(1-10%) = 43% in real terms (there would have been some pickup from dividends, about 5% I think-- yields were higher in those days).
In the UK the market dropped *90%* and inflation touched 20%. This was the time when our Chancellor nearly went to the IMF to beg for a bailout.
From memory, the Dow peaked in 1968, and did not again touch 1000 until 1979. After inflation, you had lost something like 70% your value (but again, dividends would have been a significant source of return, except in those days, dividend income was highly taxed).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/economy/energy_price.html
What has happened to the share of energy in the U.S. economy since the early 1970s?
*
Prior to the embargo of 1973-74, total energy expenditures constituted 8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the share of petroleum expenditures was just under 5 percent and natural gas expenditures accounted for 1 percent. The price shocks of the 1970s and early 1980s resulted in these shares rising dramatically to 14 percent, 8 percent, and 2 percent respectively, by 1981. Since that time, the shares have fallen consistently over the last two decades to current levels of about 7 percent for total energy, while petroleum has fallen even further to 3.5 percent and natural gas to just over 1 percent. The shares were lower during 1998, when oil and natural gas prices were lower, but have risen recently in response to higher oil and natural gas prices. (Figure 1)
*
Part of the reason for the overall decline in the energy shares is the decline in the world oil price from its peak in 1981. The other reason is the steady decline in energy intensity, measured by energy consumption per dollar of GDP. This ratio has declined due to structural shifts in the economy and improvements in energy efficiency. (Figure 2)
*
Although the U.S. has reduced its use of petroleum as a share of its economy, there is a growing dependence on imported oil. In 1973, net imports of petroleum made up 35 percent of petroleum product supplied (consumption). For 2000, this share has risen to over 50 percent and is expected to reach 64 percent by 2020. (Figure 3)
What does history tell us about how energy prices affect the economy?
*
Viewed from a long-term perspective, inflation, measured by the rate of change in the consumer price index (CPI), tracks movements in the world oil price. Not only do oil and other energy prices constitute a portion of the actual CPI, but downstream impacts on other commodity prices will have a lagged effect on the CPI inflation. (Figure 4)
*
Looking from the 1970s forward, there are observable, and dramatic changes in GDP growth as the world oil price has undergone dramatic change. The price shocks of 1973-74, the late 1970s/early 1980s, and early 1990's were all followed by recessions, which have then been followed by a rebound in economic growth. The pressure of energy prices on aggregate prices in the economy created adjustment problems for the economy as a whole.
What odds do you give that Iran will be bombed later this year? And what will that do to peak oil awareness?
I've started to think of it in terms as "Which will be the last Olympic Game; 2008, 2012 or 2016"?
I think by the end of this year, 2007, the climate issue will focus the media on fossil fuel consumption.
During 2008, next year, we will face the meaning of Peak Oil. The catalyst will be Mexico. The decline of Cantarell will be unmistakable. We will watch a regional depletion crisis unfold.
More doomerist nonsense. In today's other major posting, Euan Mearns showed that Mexican production will NOT crash because other sources are coming online.
The replacement of the oil from Cantarell is simply something that is on the drawing boards, something that they hope will happen. But they have neither the expertise nor the resources to make it happen. And even if they did, production from other parts of Mexico will be inferior and likely far less than Cantarell production.
The following is the most recent report on the KMZ and Chicontepc, the areas that Mexico hopes to replace Cantarell.
http://www.mexidata.info/id1106.html
And as I said, this is still all just talk. And don't think for one moment that the best oil experts in Mexico are not aware of what is happening.
Ron Patterson
Not crash. Mexico's production seems set to decline inexorably from now on. This is a crucial distinction.
Now, projecting the production from all the oil provinces that are declining year-on-year, compared with the producing countries that seem capable of putting more oil onstream and the uncertainties there (eg. Nigeria) -- and delays in new oil production like at Thunderhorse (GOM, BP operator) or Kashagan -- it would seem that we have something to worry about, after all.
Perhaps all this is too subtle for you. I can document every statement I made and, actually, I have already done so on The Oil Drum.
Apparently, your contribution amounts to making smart-ass remarks.
Please note that I did not say tortillas would vanish, that hordes of Mexicans would cross the Rio Grande. I did not use the word "crash". I said a regional depletion crisis would unfold. Perhaps crisis is a strong word. But think about it... if the U.S. economy started to shrink at 3%-5% per year we would call that a crisis.
I doubt that 50% of all Americans can EVER understand intellectually what PO is and will actually be able to explain "how it works" when asked. It's not even necessary for people to understand PO. All it takes is for a majority to understand that buying a more efficient car does have great financial advantages for them.
So if you want to know when the majority will be convinced of oil being and staying expensive for eternity... just look at SUV and pickup sales. Beyond that the question might be meaningless.
Quotes for today:
June 2007 6077
December 2007 6280
December 2008 6365
December 2009 6414
December 2010 6365
December 2011 6354
December 2012 6340
Not posted here (yet) is the EIA's release of the latest IPM. A quick update of the numbers still shows crude oil's slow slide in production. Some of it is due to OPEC's cuts AND they are falling back into the range of early 2006. I plugged the numbers into the spreadsheet this morning. Since the crude peak of 5/2005, a decline in production of ~900,000 BPD. Looks like 2006 is going to be a negative growth year if you are into calendar year data.
The "all liquids" data also shows a decline between years and still shows an all liquids peak of 7/2006.
The latest version can be found at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/
Oops! I see someone beat me to it while I was playing with the numbers.
CNN this morning did an item on food vs fuel (ethanol). At least they got the issue out there. Then talking head A says that increased etanol use will lead to decreased oil demand causing falling price for oil then increased demand for oil and less demand for ethanol. Talking head B says .. heehee ... ya. Talking head A then implies food/fuel issue solved.
Gotta love those market forces!
Catalytic converters cut out of cars
Why? The scrap value has increased tremendously:
Eventually the market will respond by processing the fission platinum group metals out of spent fuel.
http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/dynamic/article/view/49-2-79-90
Isotope separation??? How much energy does it take per gram of Pt? Just asking...
Got to love those nuclear physicists... they always come up with new ways to process the hell out of the crap... no matter how futile the technology in the long run. If all you have is a hammer... everything looks like nails to you.
The correct answer, of course, is that the chemists will come up with new nano-materials to replace many of the catalyst applications. And catalytic converters for cars will be mostly unnecessary by the time the rhodium has cooled off enough to be safe for use (which will be in 2050... IF the first of these separation plants goes into operation in 2020).
You made me laugh there. :)
If you hadn't gone off half cocked and read the article you wouldnt look like a reactionary buffoon. There is no 'isotope separation' in spent fuel processing (except when you send extracted uranium back to the enrichment plant) and certainly not on Pt since its not a fission product. Laser isotope separation is potentially considered because of its low cost compared to other isotope separation regimes, but it certainly isn't necissary for realizing rewards for processing spent fuel.
The notion that these new 'nano-materials' will replace all platinum group metals as catalysts doesn't pass the laugh test. There are fundamental chemical reasons why platinum group metals are desirable for catalysts. Next its very unlikely that fission platinum group metals will find markets in mass market automotive applications because of radiotoxicity, but they are quite valuable for displacing demand in large chemical reactors (in the petroleum industry for instance).
We have an abundant source of cooled fission platinoids from spent fuel dating back to the 1950's, so we needn't wait until 2050 for the rhodium to cool down.
Futile? The entire yearly global market of rhodium and xenon could be met by processing spent fuel, and we're at no shortage of uranium and thorium feedstock.
Dezakin says
Yay, lightswords. And what REAL physical process is this?
Laser isotope separation. In brief, the differing isotopes can change some of the electromagnetic spectral lines by a tiny amount. A laser can be made precise enough to distinguish these and preferentially ionize one isotope versus others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_separation#Laser
You know, you could just use google instead of being an ass and demanding I do your research for you:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=laser+isotope+separation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVLIS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_laser_isotope_separation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_separation
vhttp://www.aip.org/png/html/umisoto.htm
A more complete article:
http://www.llnl.gov/str/Hargrove.html
I'm sure you can figure out the rest.
_
For any one interested the Australian Senate Enquiry into Peak Oil
Here is the link to their final report;
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/report/index...
Here are their 10 recommendations
Recommendation 1
3.136 The committee recommends that Geoscience Australia, ABARE and Treasury reassess both the official estimates of future oil supply and the 'early peak' arguments and report to the Government on the probabilities and risks involved, comparing early mitigation scenarios with business as usual.
Recommendation 2
3.145 The committee recommends that in considering a less oil dependent policy scenario, the Government take into account the concerns expressed in the World Energy Outlook 2006, namely -
current trends in energy consumption are neither secure nor sustainable;
energy policy needs to be consistent with environmental goals, particularly the need to do more to reduce fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions.
Recommendation 3
7.63 The Committee recommends that the Government publish the results of its review of progress made towards meeting the biofuels target of 350ML per year, including which companies are meeting the target.
Recommendation 4
7.64 The committee recommends that the Government examine the adequacy of funding for lignocellulose ethanol research and demonstration facilities in Australia, and increase funding, where appropriate.
Recommendation 5
7.96 The committee recommends that the Government commission a research group within the Department of the Treasury to identify options for addressing the financial risks faced by prospective investments in alternative fuels projects that are currently preventing such projects from proceeding. This group should determine how these risks might be best addressed in order to create a favourable investment climate for the timely development of alternative fuel industries, consistent with the principles of sustainability and security of supply.
Recommendation 6
8.21 The committee recommends that the Government, in consultation with the car industry, investigate and report on trends in the fuel efficiency of the light vehicle fleet and progress towards the 2010 target for the fuel efficiency of new passenger cars. If progress under the present voluntary code seems unlikely to meet the target, other measures should be considered, including incentives to favour more fuel efficient cars; or a mandatory code.
Recommendation 7
8.35 The Committee recommends that Australian governments investigate the advantages and disadvantages of congestion charges, noting that the idea may be more politically acceptable if revenue is hypothecated to public transport improvements (as has been done in London, for example).
Recommendation 8
8.56 The committee recommends that Commonwealth support for Travelsmart projects be maintained beyond the currently planned termination date. (Read encourage ridership of mass transit)
Recommendation 9
8.78 The committee recommends that corridor strategy planning take into account the goal of reducing oil dependence as noted in recommendation 2. Existing Auslink corridor strategies should be reviewed accordingly. (Think about rail and new corridorrs for rail)
Recommendation 10
8.94 The Committee recommends that the government review the statutory formula in relation to fringe benefits taxation of employer-provided cars to address perverse incentives for more car use.
A landmark study on Peak Oil released. And they found the sky is not falling. Michael Lynch was right again...
War is Peace, Day is Night, 2+2=5
"Recommendation 2
3.145 The committee recommends that in considering a less oil dependent policy scenario, the Government take into account the concerns expressed in the World Energy Outlook 2006, namely -
current trends in energy consumption are neither secure nor sustainable; ... "
.. or did you want them to actually say "The Sky is Falling" ?
yawn ...
i am pleased that u are satisfied with this report to Gov't. From my perspective i note the language is calm and measured. No sense of panic. Like many other countries, TrendLines was contacted wrt this study. The lack of strict timelines, call for more study, soft recommendations ... tells me the Opposition is not gonna have ammunition to force Howard into spearheading crisis inspired programs. And that is a good thing...
Each nation needs to look at the many different options and decide what activities are best suited in the long term. They need time to see what new technologies work, what sucks and see how the many trials are succeeding.
This is not the time to go half cocked. Or, Aussies will end up with all funds going to a biofuels initiative in the next Budget.
hi folks,
I've been moved to write a reply in response to the Australian Senate Report, available here:
www.philhart.com/peak_oil
The inquiry considered the question of 'whether Australia should be concerned about peak oil'. They correctly noted our fear 'that declining production after the peak will cause serious hardship if mitigating action is not started soon enough'.
Through written submissions and committee hearings, industry experts including members of ASPO Australia 'criticised what they regard as over optimistic official estimates of future oil supply with detailed and plausible arguments'. There has been plenty of economic bravado condemning these plausible arguments but the Senate Committee was not able to find 'any official agency publications which attempt to rebut peak oil arguments in similar detail'.
cheers!
Phil.
also other comments on ASPO-Australia website:
www.aspo-australia.org.au
Thanks, Phil.
Hello TODers,
I believe Pres. Calderon is fully informed on Pemex's problems going forward. What will be interesting is to see if Mexico continues towards the Zimbabwe Syndrome, or can institute legal reforms best suited to detritus powerdown and biosolar powerup for paradigm shift optimization:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/23292.html
----------------------------------------------
Calderón: We must update Constitution
------------------------------------------------
My belief is that if Calderon goes full bore on Mexican Peakoil Outreach: it will give him the best chance for proper national reform. To continue the present course of further economic polarization and draconian treatment of the poor will only add to the growth of future blowback forces. Recall how close the last election was contested: AMLO still carries considerable influence among the masses.
NewsQuote from an earlier post of mine:
----------------------------------------------------------
OAXACA, MEXICO - Before he was tied up, thrown in the back of a truck, and tortured in prison, Gonzalo heard words he'll never forget. "The poor will always be poor and the rich will always be rich," a police officer taunted. "So why don't you go home and abandon your struggle."
---------------------------------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070206/cm_csm/ypress
This is the crux of the wrong human response to PO + GW--Mexico needs to promote cooperation across the economic spectrum.
As posted before: When does Tiger Woods use his fortune to help finance turning golf courses into urban vegetable gardens?
Carlos Slim of Mexico, world's 3rd richest man, could easily finance Peakoil Outreach across Mexico to help his countrymen. I hope he chooses to do so.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
$30/gallon (or $15/gallon depending on how you read it) seems awfully high. Is this that "new math" or something?
Hello TODers,
Repost of my just submitted suggestion to Tiger Woods at his website:
http://www.tigerwoods.com/defaultflash.sps
-------------------------------------------------
Hello Tiger,
May I recommend you study Peakoil at TheOilDrum.com, Dieoff.com, EnergyBulletin.net, LifeAfterTheOilCrash.net?
Congrats on having a family, but if you study Peakoil + Global Warming: your primary concern will be food and water for your offspring. Thus, I was wondering at what point you will use your fortune to convert golf courses into urban vegetable gardens? Thxs for any reply.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
-----------------------------------------------------
If I get a reply I will repost on TOD.
Wouldn't exurban parking lots be better?
Hello Mbkennel,
Yep, but I will accept any mindset change by the wealthy and powerful. But if Tiger cannot bring himself to plowing Augusta National into a cabbage patch, I will gladly accept him buying appropriate grass and wood habitat to help protect tiger extinction. Who knows?
I even have a new NIKE marketing campaign for Tiger:
VOICEOVER: "Tiger would, Tiger could, Tiger does lead the national adoption of NIKE-Brand garden hoes, shovels, rakes, picks, axes, pitchforks, and handsaws. Get your new NIKE irons now at a hardware store near you."
Camera cuts to a photo of Tiger standing by a golfbag with no clubs, but stuffed full with the latest designs in sleek garden handtools.
Wouldn't that be too cool to see on the TV tube?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
This gives me an idea. Jeff Gordon (NASCAR driver) is set to have his first child in July, an e-mail is probably in order for him too!
Hello Richlev,
Thxs for helping to spread the PO + GW Outreach. I already emailed golfer Phil Mickelson too. I hope it gets past his web-assistants and he actually reads & replies. Time will tell.
In the past: I emailed Oprah, U2, asked for the GOOGLE unlucky button, and hundreds of other people of wealth and influence--the best I have gotten back is the software auto-reply thxing me and blah,blah,blah.... =(
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hi Bob,
re: "...and blah, blah..."
They don't appreciate your efforts like we do. (sincere smile goes here). Perhaps they will, though. My idea along these lines is to nominate Colin Campbell for the Nobel Peace Prize, for, among other things, formulation of the Oil Depletion Protocol. http://www.oildepletionprotocol.org/
Apparently past winners can propose names, and I was thinking Jimmy Carter might be up for it.
Hello Aniya,
Thxs for responding. Yep, the Protocols were a brilliant conception--full credit to Colin and ASPO. I would like to see M. King Hubbert posthumously recognized for his contribution too. Probably won't be allowed to happen until the rear view mirror conclusively proves we are well postPeak.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I may be mistaken, but i believe Kjell Aleklett developed the (aka Uppsala Protocol, aka Rimini Protocol) Oil Depletion Protocol.
Over the past few weeks, the TrendLines commentary on Peak Oil has been expanded with many new historic graphs.
http://trendlines.ca/peakoilcomment.htm
Colin Campbell of ASPO is a dominant personality in that discussion. His ongoing studies continue to be a standard for the industry and a major backgrounder to much of my research as well.
Our "work-in-progress" compilation graph of his calls since 1991 has finally been completed this week:
Mr. Hutter,
I scanned your linked article quickly. I got the feeling your message is "everyone is wrong" with their predictions.
I am having a difficult time determining your position. Do you have a graph showing Hutter or Trendlines prediction for oil depletion? If I missed it, sorry.
I always read your stuff, but stop and move on when the insults start flying. I also stop reading when others are insulting you.
Integrating a Hutter forecast into the above Campbell/ASPO forecast would be most helpful.
Thank You.
Hi Bob and Freddy,
Thanks for responding to my idea for the next Nobel Peace Prize.
1) In terms of posthumous awards, here's what the website (http://nobelprize.org/) has to say:
"Is it possible to nominate someone for a posthumous Nobel Prize?
No, it is not. From 1974, the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation have stipulated that a prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize. This happened in 1996 when William Vickrey died only a few days after the announcement of the Prize in Economics.
Before 1974, the Nobel Prize has only been awarded posthumously twice: to Dag Hammarskjöld (Nobel Peace Prize 1961) and Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Nobel Prize in Literature 1931)"
2) Freddy, on the website of the Oil Depletion Protocol (http://www.oildepletionprotocol.org/), it implies the originator is Colin Campbell, as they say "Read the...protocol as drafted by Dr. Colin J. Campbell." Now, this is not to say that Kjell Aleklett did not have the original idea, and I'm sure if this is the case, Colin would be the first to say. However, my take on it is that Colin originated it. Certainly ASPO, including Aleklett and others have my vote, as well, for their work in establishing ASPO.
My mind has been going down disturbing tracks (even for me) in the last week. I'd like to run the basic thesis past folks here so you can hopefully convince me it's lunacy.
Access to resources, especially energy, are a primary (quite possibly the primary, given knowledge) determinant for the industrial and technological advancement for a country / society. China becomes the pre-eminent global economic power within approx 20 years based on current trends. That is disadvantageous to the USA. However, if resource scarcity (especially energy) were to impact sufficiently before that time then China may be relatively more hampered than a more developed country, like USA, and hence the economic advantage of more developed countries may be eeked out a bit longer.
Hence, some serious (but sick) thinkers within some developed nations may be 'happy' to hasten resource depletion as a method of possibly securing relative economic advantage over developing nations. One thing I notice from history is: the later countries develop the faster it happens (provided there are no other major constraints). Thus USA's economic power evolved more rapidly than UK and 'old Europe', Japan happened even faster. China is happening faster still, so might India.
I fully realise what I am suggesting is psychopathically sick (from a species perspective) but it is the only medium to long term hypothesis that I've conjured which fits with the short to medium term actions of countries like USA and China. US policy (aggressive) seems to be military securitization of energy supplies, China policy (more defensive) seems to be securing preferential access through bilateral agreements.
Is my sick hypothesis that rapid depletion could be a real policy of economic advantage or should I seek professional help for such insane delusions?
Agric: Your theory is okay but it is based on a very questionable assumption, which is that TPTB would prefer that the USA succeed as an economic and political entity rather than China. I would suggest that there is very little evidence to support this suggestion.
Fair comment perhaps, but I suggest there is less evidence for the null hypothesis (that they would prefer China). I'm not sure that that perspective is valid, though: I am not (yet) a subscriber to the theory that a shadowy group determines a significant part of global policy. Rather I would suggest that countries tend to act in their own, perceived, selfish interests. My hypothesis is in that context. What is clear is humanity is currently not succeeding in acting in its own, overall, best interests, unless the 'lemming' solution is the objective.
Now, if you wish to get a bit sinister about some TPTB.org and can construct rational scenarios for reliably engineered changes to their advantage them I will listen. For now I would say my assumption is more sound than your doubt.
Agric - I like it, it's been talked about here in the form of joking, and sarcasm - basically, "Bring on peak oil, buy a hummer" etc along that vein.
However, I can think of a counterarguement, and that is, that a junkie will tend to slam that heroin into their veins as often as they can physically stand, so if you want to see a big pile of heroin get used up, just stand back and let 'em at it.
This is how the US (and every other country given the opportunity) acts regarding oil.
Thus, oil has been kept artificially cheap, gasoline artificially cheap, something close to 50% of the cars on the road (at least it seems) are SUVs or those full sized trucks that never seem to get used for work. Houses are huge, etc. the whole story - supersize everything!
So...... this is yes, the best way to use up that oil and bring on the dieoff, yes.
But, it's taken no propaganda, no urging, just appeal to the most basic, piggish instincts and there you are. We're suckin' it up as fast as we can!
Hi Agric,
Thanks for sharing and I support your honesty. (The whole subject is too much, which is why we're here, huh?)
Re: Your specific thought:
"Hence, some serious (but sick) thinkers within some developed nations may be 'happy' to hasten resource depletion as a method of possibly securing relative economic advantage over developing nations."
Well, I'd say a couple of things to this:
1) I would guess that the motives (or, apparent motives) would probably be reversed, actually. Economic advantage *perceived* as the objective, with resource depletion as a secondary effect, or "unintended consequence" or even, "poorly understood, unintended consequence".
To me, this fits more with what got us to this point, collectively speaking, or...what do you think? (Hence, the popularity of "abiotic oil". No one really *wants* to hurt others, just keep their own scene going...)
2) I'm trying to think of a good reference, but it seems to me there are many similarities with the nuclear arms race. It sort of had its own internal impetus, in the sense that each actor (set of actors), industry, military, etc. (and even within each group), had/(has?) their own goals, and justified these in terms of the objectives/goals of other actors. (Scientists building bombs because they "have to", workers just "put them together", politicians just "reflect the will of the people", while "the people" don't actually dream up these weapons...) A case of the whole being worse than the sum of it's parts, so to speak.
3) I also recall Simmons comparing the growth in China to the last five years (only) *increase* in oil consumption in the US. (I'll try to find this.)
4) In any case, the thing is, we're talking flows, right? So, that makes it a little different, it seems to me, than a simple concept of just resource acquisition, (or, flip-side, depletion).
5) In other words, I'm not so sure that your initial premise -
"...if resource scarcity (especially energy) were to impact sufficiently before that time then China may be relatively more hampered than a more developed country..."
is necessarily valid.
We'd have to look at:
1) How much energy, in what form, is used in each case?
2) It seems like your premise here assumes that "resource scarcity" is kind of a simultaneous, world-wide event? You are speaking as though the scarcity would be more or less evenly distributed in its impact. (Entire tub w. one drain.)
Yet, further on, you note that regions/countries, eg. US/China have different strategies (so far). I mean, this may be worth thinking about, yet it seems, what we've seen so far, is that the "tub" does not drain evenly, so to speak.
So, if I may try to re-phrase your question, are you asking: "If the drop-off in total availability is simultaneous, would some actors would want the tub to drain faster?"
I'm just saying I'm not so sure the drop-off is that evenly distributed, in the sense you are posing it.
Just trying to be helpful.
Thanks Aniya, this is just a temporising post cos I must sleep. I largely agree with you but think you miss my main point - back in about 12 hours. My first response is: the truth is simpler.
In case no one has heard, Kansas City, MO has an ongoing chemical plant fire about 2 miles from downtown. I could see the plume outside my office window and the energy grid blinked about 3 times across the entire city when it occurred (verified by friends at various offices).
LATE-BREAKING NEWS: FIRE AT CHEMICAL PLANT
Feb 7, 2007 04:25 PM CST
http://www.kctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6052823
My company closed all air intake vents to all buildings on our campus at about 3pm this afternoon. EPA has yet to determine the hazards in the plume. The plume is heading SW over downtown and over the suburbs of Overland Park and Olathe.
Hi D,
I hope you (and everyone else) are able to stay safe. Take care.
If you can, it might be worth reading up, for eg.
http://www.vdh.state.va.us/EPR/Agents/ChemicalAgents/Agents_Chemical_Unk.... I was once unknowingly in a situation of prolonged exposure to toxic smoke from a chemical fire. I didn't know some things that (may) seem commonsense (in hindsight): Once out of range, get rid of exposed clothing, don't eat food that's been exposed, take a shower, etc.
Thanks, A.
I wasn't really that close to it to be acutely affected, but before they shut off the air intake vents we could smell it inside the office.
Just made me sick to my stomach (literally) to see all those petroleum-based products hanging in a cold, winter black cloud.
There are reports of burnt solids falling out of the sky and a sticky substance raining down in some locations. We may get snow tomorrow...that should be interesting.
Here's a slideshow:
http://www.kctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6053077
Hi again, D,
Good...if you don't mind my adding on: still...if you can smell it, the particles were there...(I mean, you know this...I'm just concerned)...I didn't realize the things I mentioned, as we couldn't even smell it, really. Just to say...the particles remain, (on clothes, skin, hair, apples, etc.). So, are you now out of your office and far away (I hope)?
Dragonfly;
adding to the choir.. just a normal day in America is bad enough for particulates.. I do hope you would consider going to a few impractical lengths to spare yourself any more toxic loading.
Bob
Shower shower shower.
And laundry your clothes.
You don't know what is in those particles.
As the WTC workers found out, the government isn't necessarily in a hurry to tell you, either.
Hi V, A, and J,
I worried about A last night. To be honest, I hope you get out of breathing range of whatever is falling. V, I don't know how to interpret what you're saying. My suggestion is to leave the area and not return until the sky is clear.
Rigzone has released numbers from the new IEA Medium Term Outlook that (if not confused with prod capacity) would indicate a 2.4-mbd downward correction in 2011 to 91-mbd. This number is in line with IEA's recent (November) WEO release and therefore should have little effect on the market.
EIA November stats released today confirm the IEA figures from seven weeks ago that:
a) the monthly global Supply record was July 2006 (EIA 85.5 vs IEA 86.1)
b) the quarterly global Supply record was 2006Q3 (EIA 85.2 vs IEA 85.5)
c) after 11 months, 2006 global Supply of 84.59-mbd (IEA 85.2) exceeds 2005's 84.56-mbd (IEA 84.5)