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DrumBeat: April 27, 2007
Posted by Leanan on April 27, 2007 - 9:33am
It would have been impossible to convince anyone ten years ago that such would be the case, but the sprawling tract housing that surrounds most of America's cities has been almost completely abandoned. It all started to happen ten years ago this summer, when the so-called subprime mortgage crisis spread into other housing sectors. Climbing oil prices, now understood to be caused by the peaking of worldwide oil supplies at the time, made interest rates start on a steady upward trend. Millions of middle class American families who were just scraping by saw the payments on their adjustable rate mortgages inch ever upward and beyond their means.
Oil May Rise on Below-Normal U.S. Gasoline Supply, Survey Shows
Fourteen of 33 analysts surveyed, or 42 percent, said oil prices will rise. Eleven, or 33 percent, said prices will decline and eight forecast that oil will be little changed. Last week, 45 percent of respondents said prices would fall.
The big dry: Australia's water shortage
Australia is struggling to cope with the consequences of a devastating drought. As the world warms up, other countries should pay heed.
April weather set to break record
The UK Met Office has released figures showing that this month is likely to be the warmest April since records began.
When asked recently about Iran's proposal to Russia to create a global gas cartel, a number of top Russian leaders and experts commented that the move appeared rooted more in politics than in economics - in particular, the politics of opposition to the United States and of counteracting its growing global aggressiveness.
Schram: A back-burner plan that could save the world
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's universally esteemed former chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and his home-state counterpart, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., have teamed up to sponsor this bill that would make it possible for all of those non-nuclear nations to obtain the nuclear fuel they require to build at last the nuclear-power installations they say they need. And it can be done in a way that can assure the rest of the world that they cannot divert the nuclear fuel to make a nuclear bomb.
Exxon reportedly eyeing oil-shale work on W. Slope
Exxon Mobil could use its long-idle Colony Project site to begin new research into extracting oil from shale, government regulators and industry experts say.News of the possible revival at the site comes nearly 25 years after Exxon Mobil predecessor Exxon Corp. shut down its oil-shale research at the Colony Project and threw thousands of western Colorado residents out of work. May 2, 1982, became known as "Black Sunday."
Denver is seeing a severe crunch in gasoline supply, and pump prices likely will top $3 a gallon in the coming days, industry sources said.Oil refinery problems in Texas and Oklahoma - which supply Colorado with gasoline through pipelines - are the root cause of the shortage. And the situation is being exacerbated by rising demand ahead of the busy summer driving season.
"There is no gas in Denver," said Bryant Gimlin, energy risk manager at Fort Lupton-based Gray Oil Co., a wholesale distributor of gasoline and diesel. "The situation here is worse than how it was after Hurricane Katrina."
Protect God's creation: Vatican issues new green message for world's Catholics
The Vatican yesterday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church must become far greener.
Agriculture for food and fiber represents another significant category of environmental impact. Before we worry about how to farm, we should consider how much agriculture we need. If you read the technical news, when this subject comes up it always centers on how to increase food production for a hungry world.
Kenya to host major oil conference in May
Kenyan authorities said on Friday the country will host international conference on petroleum next month as the east African nation seeks regional petroleum hub status.
Last week, we discussed the “Law of Receding Horizons,” which explains why marginal oil and gas projects can still be uneconomical even with high oil prices, contrary to projections.And back in March, in The Cavalry Stays Home, we reviewed how this phenomenon has caused the delay or cancellation of some highly anticipated new oil and gas projects.
Now let’s review the next rogues’ gallery of cavalrymen who have decided to stay home.
Bear in mind that all of this has happened since April 1.
Mexico's Cantarell oil output inches up in March
Crude oil output at Mexico's huge-but-declining Cantarell oil field rose slightly in March to an average of 1.585 million barrels per day (bpd), energy ministry data showed on Thursday.
Costa Rica's Energy Supply In State of Emergency
One week after a massive blackout swept the country, Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias declared yesterday that the nation's energy crisis has reached a state of emergency.ICE president Pedro Quirós announced that blackouts will begin today and continue until there is enough rain to feed Costa Rica's hydroelectric plants, which are currently low on reserves due to a drier-than-normal year and a growing demand for energy.
Colombia recovers power after blackout
Authorities said left-wing armed rebel groups in Colombia were not responsible for the outage.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have been fighting government forces for more than 40 years, and have previously attacked electric power stations as part of their campaign.
Ghana: The Casualties of Our Energy Crisis
The first casualty of the energy crisis is the manufacturing industries. The Volta Aluminium Company Limited (VALCO) has been made to close down. Other companies, which use much energy, face a similar fate as VALCO. Some companies are producing below their capacity at the same fixed cost of labour. No wonder production by Ghana Cement Company Limited (GHACEM) has gone down, causing the price of cement to skyrocket in the market. Now GHACEM has become an importer instead of a producer.
Iraqi Oil Minister Warns Companies Against Deals Bypassing Central Govt
Iraq's Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani Thursday warned international oil companies from signing oil contracts that bypass the federal government in Baghdad and the Oil Ministry, in a clear reference to deals signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government with a number of foreign firms.
We now have a globalized complex society. This globalized complex society manifests all of the classical symptoms of imminent collapse. The twin problems of peak energy production and pollution-induced climate change coupled with the inefficacy of proposed technological solutions practically guarantee collapse of the global system. The horror show of energy scarcity now playing in Zimbabwe will be coming soon to a theater near you.
Timing right for sour crude futures - but for whom?
The time has never been better to launch a Middle East oil futures contract but there is likely to be only one winner in the battle between two top exchanges to seize the prize.Rising supplies of Middle East sour crude, growing demand in Asia, more sophisticated risk hedging in energy markets and questions about existing benchmark oil contracts are factors that will help a contract succeed.
Ireland: Health service urged to plan for global warming
The health services have been urged to start planning for the impact of global warming and the likely increase in the price of oil in the years ahead.Due to the rising cost of oil-based transport, small hospitals will be a key point of access to healthcare for much of the population, it is predicted.
Looking at Kelowna through a crystal ball
James Howard Kunstler, an American writer on cities, may be the continent's leading suburbologist. With books like The Geography of Nowhere and last year's The Long Emergency, Mr. Kunstler has spent the past two decades building a sustained critique of the postwar suburb, and the energy-wasting, sedentary, under-stimulated lifestyle it promotes.
Solar-farm project doesn't go far enough, critics say
Ontario's decision to host one of North America's largest solar farms is a step in the right direction, but the relatively large project represents a fraction of the total energy supply and does little to clean up the province's act, critics said yesterday.
We are in an energy crisis — again. This time, unlike other decades, there seems to be the legislative will to change our fossil fuel ways. And though it’s not a new idea, farming for fuel seems to be a lead solution as our nation searches for alternatives to oil.
American drivers need not fear the worst, analysts say. That's because, despite tight supply and steady demand, gasoline prices will likely peak soon, meaning relief at the pump isn't far off. Analysts say that troubled refineries in Texas, California, and Indiana will start ramping up production, and there should be enough supply to quench the thirst of America's automobiles as summer driving starts."Everyone likes to hype $4 gasoline because it's sexy," says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, an energy consulting firm. "The reality is that we're nearing the highs of the year, and within 30 days there will be more gasoline on the market. You might see $4 in tony places such as Beacon Hill or Beverly Hills, where they wear the price as a badge of honor."
Uranium's set to make waves in futures: New York Mercantile Exchange, Ux Consulting to launch uranium futures
'Since we are moving off the age of oil and into a nuclear era, it's about time we had some liquidity in the uranium market and some visibility into pricing in outer months.'
Climate change heats up Arctic geopolitics
Global warming has the United States and Canada scrambling to overhaul their strategies for controlling North America's vast Arctic, as sea passage grows easier and natural gas resources beckon.
Planet 'emergency' 55 million years ago was global warming: study
Cataclysmic volcanic eruptions in Greenland and the British Isles brought on a destructive bout of global warming 55 million years ago, an international study revealed Thursday....The findings are important 55 million years after the fact, because the volcanic activity released large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures followed -- just as scientists warn is happening today.
Group Says Stanford University Ethanol Study Tainted by ExxonMobil Ties
A widely reported study sounding an alarm against using ethanol to replace gasoline is the most recent example of Stanford University's energy research credibility being undercut by the school's ties to ExxonMobil Corp., the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said April 26.
China urges end to polluters' tax breaks
China's premier pledged Friday to phase out tax breaks and discounts on land and electricity for highly polluting industries, saying that the country's environmental situation was grim and required urgent action.
Sen. wants to tax Big Oil's 'excess' profits - Senator takes aim at Big Oil to help poor people pay for gas
On the same day that Exxon Mobil Corp. reported higher first-quarter profits, a Pennsylvania senator took aim at the oil industry, proposing a tax on “excess” profits to help poor people pay for gasoline.Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., said he would introduce legislation Thursday to put in place a 50 percent tax on major oil companies profits’ from crude oil priced at more than $50 per barrel, where it has been trading for most of the past two years.
Russia to invest oil revenues in shares
Billions of Russian petrodollars are set to be invested in shares of international companies for the first time, boosting Russia’s presence in financial markets.
Oil sands hit by climate change politics
Alberta's oil producers are finding themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the government's new climate change regulations, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, even as industry plans to triple oil sands production.
Is Wind Power Full of Hot Air?
In the U.S., as people recently poured into Earth Day celebrations, they encountered all sorts of booths and speeches extolling the virtues of wind power and other renewable resources. What participants were highly unlikely to hear were the limitations of wind power. Let's revisit wind.
Race On To Increase Biofuel Yields
With controversy surrounding the economics of biofuel production and nagging doubts about its large-scale sustainability, researchers have now turned their attention to ways of producing biofuels more efficiently.
Saudi arrests suspects planning oil attacks
Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 170 suspected al Qaeda-linked militants, some of whom were training as pilots to carry out suicide attacks on oil facilities in the kingdom, the Interior Ministry said on Friday...."Some had begun training on the use of weapons, and some were sent to other countries to study aviation in preparation to use them to carry out terrorist operations inside the kingdom," the statement said.
"One of their main targets was to carry out suicide attacks against public figures and oil installations and to target military bases inside and outside (the country)," it added.
Analyst peaks interest on decreasing oil supply
The students of John Carroll's Peak Oil class sat scattered across the rows of chairs in Huddleston Hall's slightly lit ballroom. For them, the issue of peak oil is nothing new, but for most Americans peak oil is a term they have heard of very little.For Matthew Simmons, who studies the depletion of the earth's natural oil reserves, peak oil is the most important problem the world faces today. Simmons, a banking and investment advisor to the oil industry for approximately 38 years, was the latest speaker in UNH's Discovery program Power to the People, which focuses on energy use. In the past, Simmons served as a key advisor to the Bush administration, as a part of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.
Pacific leaders admit petrol and diesel energy is quickly becoming unaffordable
“And added to that they’ve got the complications that the major oil companies have been withdrawing from the Pacific and so they’ve had less security in their supply routes and they’ve have an increase in costs. So one of the main outcomes is a real push for a regional procurement strategy for fuel, but there has also been a focus on both renewable energy resources to substitute for fossils fuels and also improvements in energy efficiency.”
OPEC Eyeing Oil Invest Review On Talk Of Oil Alternatives
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is eyeing a formal review that could eventually lead to less investment in exploring for future oil supplies because of endless discussion in consuming nations to reduce fossil fuel demand and fight global warming.
Rosneft Says It Has Most Oil Reserves
Rosneft said Thursday that it had become the world leader among public companies in oil reserves with a 6.1 percent increase in its total hydrocarbons reserves in 2006.Rosneft said it had estimated proven reserves of 20.09 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 15.96 billion barrels of oil and 24.76 trillion cubic feet of gas under the Society of Petroleum Engineers classification.
Canada ready to ban sale of traditional light bulbs
Canada will be among the first countries in the world to ban the purchase of traditional light bulbs, part of the government's plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
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A new Round-Up has been posted at TOD:Canada.
This is on Round-Up, Oil Drum Canada
"When the fixed exchange rate regime is terminated, then newly minted funds from the foreign central bank no longer act to support the value of the US dollar and maintain low US interest rates. In effect, there is nothing left to support the US consumer anymore. The value of the US dollar collapses and US interest rates skyrocket. The skyrocketing interest rates cause a real estate crash. The collapsing value of the US dollar causes the price of gold to skyrocket. And needless to say, the stock market collapses.
At this time, the key foreign central bank that is artificially supporting the US economy at present is the central bank of China.
The point is rapidly approaching when China’s central bank will be forced to abandon their fixed exchange rate regime. On March 20, 2007, the governor of China’s central bank stated for the first time that they “will not stockpile foreign exchange reserves any more” (an extraordinarily important comment that few people took note of). Given the present state of affairs, how could that possibly be accomplished without the abandonment of the fixed exchange rate system? They will realize that the alternative to this (keeping the policy in place) can only result in the destruction of the Chinese economy. When the peg on China’s foreign exchange rate is dropped, the US economy (as well as the global economy) will implode."
http://www.prudentbear.com/articles/show/2001
Ol' Charley stole the handle, and the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down. - Jethro Tull
As I recall, Prudent Bear's track record stinks.
After reading over, I don't want to leave the wrong impression. There are plenty of financial observers with excellent track records who say the same thing as Prudent Bear. The difference is that the excellent observers get the timing right, instead of being a stopped clock.
Euan Mearns' Ghawar results article is on TOD Europe for those of you who cannot wait for it to appear on the main site.
To lighten the mood on a friday, I thought this was kind of neat from a novelty standpoint.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article...
Car made of wood, and gets 55 to 70 miles per gallon according to the article. Weighs in at 900 pounds.
Oh man, wooden cars. gotta love it.
Im a certified lurker on this site. gotta say that up front. I waste far too much time during the day, away from my 'hi intensity' bs silicon valley job reading so many of the posts.
I chide myself sometimes for wasting so much time...But tonight I started thinking that this place, this virtual reality of opinion and thinking people is my refuge. So much of what happens around me and in the world is so flip'in upside down/un-real. I value my 'little community' of outsiders so very much. Just wanted to say thanks to all: the common sense, down to earth, and just plain real human beings on this site who really give a crap about what happens to us on this little blue marble floating through the void (actually really enjoy the nut-bags also...come on.. ya'all knw who you are... I might be in that catagory ;-). OK, enough with the sappy shit. Thanks to all.
PS.. gonna buy me a wooden car. Is there a dealer in San Jose??
It is THE only community where you can openly discuss such cr*p without being labelled a nutjob. Congrats on finding the beauty of TOD...it's NOT just for the techie oil folks. I've been coming back off and on for 2.5 years now for that reason. Stick with it...it's worth the effort.
d_d, great sentiment. TOD is like a party/gathering, it sometimes gets "out of hand", and the "Peak Oil" featured guest doesn't seem to arrive, but I also enjoy slinging ideas around. My current opinion is that the technology to solve the PO problem is currently ramping up, but there's going to be a nasty pot-hole before we are saved. Anyhow, my sentiments exactly re TOD.
No attack here but reading the comments section night after night, one is struck by notion of most posters that Peak Oil is a bad thing because it will reduce our abilty to burn more oil. After reading the link "Gaia's Fever", below, one realises that all of humanity's efforts should be directed at returning the carbon that has already been burned BACK into the soil and that somehow the burning of all fossil fuels, particularily oil, should CEASE IMMEDIATELY. Failure to do so PROMISES a return to the climatic conditions that forced oil formation originally. Climatic condtions that should properly be known henceforth as GLOBAL HEATING. Lovelock is not off the mark with his dire warnings and prediction of lifeless, superheated deserts throughout the mid lattitudes and stagnant, uniformly warm oceans because THEY HAVE OCCURRED IN THE PAST, making a "Post Peak die-off" pale by comparison.
Understanding this gives humans a new or maybe our only, purpose on Earth, namely HELPING THE EARTH MAINTAIN A TEMPERATURE THAT ALLOWS LIFE TO CONTINUE, because "what we call “fossil fuels” were never meant to be a gift for us."
http://www.aspoitalia.net/aspoenglish/documents/bardi/gaia.html
Putting the carbon back....
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/
In the past, the global temperature has been 20 degrees warmer and 12 degrees colder. Both of these are natural states of the Earth - and life continued.
The Earth is currently bumping along in an Ice Age, with both temperature and CO2 levels at all time lows. Indeed, the low level of CO2 contributes to our current Ice Age.
We are currently in a brief warm spell (interglacial), but shortly the temperature will drop 12 degrees and we'll be back into a glacial period. It is pretty unlikely we will break out of the Ice Age, there just isn't enough stuff to burn. Release of large methane deposits could put off glaciations by a few thousands years, but in the long term, human activity will cause only a minor blip in the geological record.
If humans get that much time then I wouldn't bet against us. Maybe in "a few thousand years" we'd actually be able to retrieve hydrogen/hydrocarbons from Jupiter or wherever, burn them, and spit the excess carbon out into space.
Interesting! With todays level of CO2 what it is and us "bumping along in an Ice Age" you just stood all of science and observable data on its head.
"As of January 2007, the earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weight. This represents about 2.996×1012 tonnes, and is estimated to be 105 ppm (37.77%) above the pre-industrial average.
The longest ice core record comes from East Antarctica, where ice has been sampled to an age of 800,000 years before the present. During this time, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has varied between 180 – 210 µL/L during ice ages, increasing to 280 – 300 µL/L during warmer interglacials."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
Did you actually read your link???
800,000 years ago is still well inside the current Ice Age, which started some 50 million years ago. That is still a small fraction of the Earth's 4,500 million year history. For the vast majority of that time, the temperature has been much warmer and CO2 levels higher. If anything, the current state of the Earth is abnormal.
Best hopes for improved reading comprehension.
Did you read the link I first posted?
"These Gaia’s fevers have happened several times in the past and have been disastrous for the biosphere. At the end of the Permian period, about 250 million years ago, a gigantic volcanic eruption took place in the area which is today Siberia, releasing great amounts of CO2. It may be that it also heated directly the hydrate reservoirs, releasing great amounts of methane. The resulting runaway greenhouse effect heated the planet to a hothouse and almost killed the biosphere. According to some estimates, only 5% of the species existing at that time survived. That was called, correctly, “the mother of all extinctions”. "
Best hopes for actually reading links you reply to.
So there you have it, despite an extreme catastrophic event, life continued. Life is pretty resilient. Catastrophic events will certainly happen again in the Earth's future - supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes etc, will happen. It may be considered an obligation of mankind to restrain his impact on the planet, but far worse events will befall the Earth regardless.
But perhaps you are being disingenuous, and like Alan, are not really concerned about maintaining life on Earth but specifically maintaining human civilization on Earth (a standard bait-and-switch tactic often employed in these debates), and the selected useful livestock or cute furry animals (no-one cares much about the ugly or troublesome ones).
As you have shown, it would be futile for us to attempt to maintain the current temperature within a few degrees as natural variation far exceeds this, which we have no control over. If human civilisation is unable to cope with it's self-induced warming of a few degrees, how is it to cope with temperature variations of plus or minus 10 degrees, which are certain to occur in the future?
Many people argue that the real problem is human overpopulation, even if we reduce Co2 emissions, the burden of 6.5 billion people aspiring to an affluent Western lifestyle is likely to screw up the planet as surely as anything.
The IPCC business as usual scenarios are based on projections of hydrocarbon use that we know are simply impossible. We will soon run out of stuff to burn. We may hold off the next glaciation for a bit (see Ruddiman), but in 50,000 years time, anthro-CO2 will have disappeared from the atmosphere, and Mother Earth will resume her regular course of glaciations. Ice caps will expand, subarctic continents will again be covered in 2km thick ice sheets, and life on land will be forced into temperate equatorial zone. The glacial period may last around 120,000 years. In this case, it would be interesting to see what becomes of human civilisation.
I find science fascinating, it is a pity some people try to turn it into pseudo-religion or anthropocentric dogma.
"life continued"
5%? The argument for divine intervention IMO has a better percentage of being involved with bringing the biosphere back from near oblivion than pure happenstance.
"It may be considered an obligation of mankind to restrain his impact on the planet, but far worse events will befall the Earth regardless."
Well I don't have to imagine an unobliging mankind gleefully returning a great majority of the carbon to the atmosphere. The same carbon that took the Earth many millions of years to squirrel away. All that CO2, back in the atmosphere, at once! Sounds pretty catastrophic by any stretch. In fact I see it happening NOW.
"But perhaps you are being disingenuous, and like Alan, are not really concerned about maintaining life on Earth but specifically maintaining human civilization on Earth (a standard bait-and-switch tactic often employed in these debates), and the selected useful livestock or cute furry animals (no-one cares much about the ugly or troublesome ones)."
It's like you're in my head!
"As you have shown, it would be futile for us to attempt to maintain the current temperature within a few degrees as natural variation far exceeds this, which we have no control over."
I have shown no such thing and instead argue the opposite. As Earths only sentient beings(apparently) we HAVE it in our control to push or not push the Earth into runaway global heating.
"We will soon run out of stuff to burn. We may hold off the next glaciation for a bit (see Ruddiman), but in 50,000 years time, anthro-CO2 will have disappeared from the atmosphere, and Mother Earth will resume her regular course of glaciations."
No one knows what percentage of CO2 need be present to kill the biosphere and make runaway global heating permanent. There may have been greater percentages of atmospheric CO2 present in the far distant past but solar output was much less as well. One thing is for certain however, we're heading in the direction where we may find out. Remember, all that carbon, back again, now!
"I find science fascinating, it is a pity some people try to turn it into pseudo-religion or anthropocentric dogma."
No pity at all since science cannot stand on its own. Science and religion are only a few of the things we clever, resourceful, resilient humans have INVENTED to help us understand ourselves, the Earth and our place in the universe.
Well, since homo sapians evolved (and basically all primates; 50 million is about back to the first primate from memory) under "abnormal" conditions; we should do our VERY best to avoid creating "normal" conditions.
Under your definition of "normal"; grasses are not normal, since they evolved recently as well.
The POV of looking at the earth from the perspective of billions of years has no validity for human beings. So your "normal" is utterly without meaning for us.
Best Hopes for human centered problem solving,
Alan
"Best Hopes for human centered problem solving,"
It's funny how this debate swings from "save the planet!" to "never mind the planet, save the humans", in the space of a few posts.
Well,yeh, now that you have stipulated that maintaining the human species is not important and that wiping out 95% of all species is no big deal either, I can understand why you wouldn't be concerned with global warming or much of anything else for that matter. But I think the debate generally springs from the consensus view that human beings matter and most of the existing species of other animals matters also. Now that we understand that you are operating from a radically different premise, there is not much sense in carrying on this debate with you.
Please review your geology and anthropology. The current alternating regime of ice ages and warm ages did not begin 50 million years ago. Try a bit over 3 million years ago. The period from 65 million years ago to about 3 million years ago was considerably warmer than today with higher CO2 levels. The period since the ice age cycles began has had considerably lower CO2 levels. This is the environment in which homo sapiens has evolved and to which we are acclimated. A significant change in this environment might lead to unpredictable results. Antarctica formed an ice cap a bit over 40 million years ago, changing the climate somewhat but the real ice age regime did not start til shortly after the central American isthmus rose from the sea changing the thermohaline circulation in earnest.
For instance, climate researchers in the Carolinas tested a large area by enclosing it in plastic wrapping and deliberately pumping in higher concentrations of CO2. Poison ivy responded strangely, not only growing more prolifically but producing a new and different toxin than that to which we were accustomed. Other plants failed to respond at all to higher CO2 concentrations.
The main point is that we have 7 billion lives dependent on today's climate. Rushing to alter that climate (either warmer or colder) when we do not have a good handle on what it might cause is foolish.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
"The main point is that we have 7 billion lives dependent on today's climate. Rushing to alter that climate (either warmer or colder) when we do not have a good handle on what it might cause is foolish."
Agreed. We sure did rush to release all that CO2 during the last 150 yrs or so. Now lets bring it back to pre-industrial levels, 260–270 ppmv, just to be sure.
Spaceman,
I wasn't trying to imply that humans actually know the answer now, just that if we actually have "a few thousand more years" that we'd figure it out -- e.g. when importing fuels from outer space whether to eject the carbon or not. I'm assuming that "Science" would get it right well short of thousands of years (look how far we've come in the last thousand).
Actually I was replying to the poster BobCousins.
With all the holes our present "advanced technological society" has it seems doubtful we could even make it back to the Moon! But following your thought and we figure a way to make it through this mess and expand into the solar system, Mars sure could use some extra CO2 if'n we want to live there someday. ;-)
Of course, like many things new, the wooden car is not new. The great British designer Frank Costin designed race cars, sports cars, and what can only be called a real "post peak" super efficiency car in the 1950's through '60's, and built many of them using marine grade plywood (which by the way is a bit more environmentally acceptable but a bit less exotic than mahogony)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Costin
Costin's reason for the plywood chassis of cars was strenth to weight ratio, which is very high on marine grade plywood, near the level of carbon fiber and higher than most steels and aluminum.
Costin's cars were aerodynamic masterpieces, expected given his background with De Haviland Aircraft Corp. Colin Chapman of Lotus came from the same background.
Widely regarded as Costin's great aerodynamic and styling masterpieces is the Maserati 450S sports racing car:
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/pic.php?imagenum=4&carnum=294
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/pic.php?imagenum=3&carnum=294
The body is hand formed aluminum constructed by the Italian coachbuilder Zagato to Costin's design specification.
The "shopping car" mentioned above is almost impossible to find in photographs. The one photo I have is in "Automobile Quarterly" magazine, and shows a tiny one passenger aerodynamic body, barely above knee high, with a one cylinder gasoline engine, a car so light in weight that it does not have a reverse gear, but instead a handle on the back, so that it can be picked up at the rear and turned around by hand! It was desinged to carry one person, and some 4 sacks of groceries in an enclosed body, with fuel mileage easily above 75 miles per gallon. The closest modern equal would be the Volkswagen 1 liter prototype (designed to go 100 kilometers on 1 liter of fuel).
It is easy to forget now that in the post war period, Europe suffered very badly from fuel shortage, as the Norwegian and British North Sea oil had not yet come onstream, Europe had virtually no home supply of oil. It all had to be imported. This is the situation to which Europe will soon return as the North Sea peaks, and it will be a shockng change, albeit a return to the Europe of the postwar period before the 1970's-80's. This is why such cars as the Citreon 2CV, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Fiat and Autobianchi compacts and the Morris Mini were the mainstay of the European car economy in those days. When it comes to motoring during "peak" oil periods, the Europeans have been there, done that.
The wooden car shows that autos can be built with surprisingly renewable materials, and the range of possible modern designs has only now began to be explored.
Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
... Mr Wood then built up layers of African mahogany ...
Cool, I can wreck the earth three different ways at the same time:
Where can I get one?
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
Saudi arrests suspects planning oil attacks
Well, TOD has almost proven(ACE's post late yesterday's drumbeat, etc) that Ghawar/SA/World has peaked.
I expect to see a "Terrorist" attack on SA anytime now.
The World didn't run out of oil, it was those Terrorists who took it from US(us)
Maybe time to go back and reread Chip's funny diary on just such an event.
Sixty Days, Next Year
http://www.newcolonist.com/dim_ages.html
Terrorist attack? Of course not, SA arrested all 172 of them. No more. No less. That's all of them we will be told.
They are just preparing the public psyche for what is coming.
I am sure the "terrorists" have everything ready by now.
Did that "Draft" bill get passed in the US?
And, Haliburton is itching to build those camps - after all the contract is already almost 2 years old.
Sshhhh! The American public isn't supposed to know that the governments of the world have a history of false-flag operations that are labeled as terrorist acts.
They're most certainly not supposed to know about the camps either! The ability for FEMA to declare martial law is not of concern for the Americna consumer (note I did not say citizen) who doesn't even know that habeas corpus has been removed let alone what it was to begin with.
American Civics class has been replaced with school security drills and dresscode/uniform enforcement.
There are previews for a movie called "The Kingdom" about an attack on a western housing compound in a "Middle Eastern" Country. I told my wife that as soon as that happened in real life, we would not be able to afford gas anymore.
I wonder if they are thinking Saudi Arabia, or some other "Kingdom".
Truth is stranger than fiction. But fiction is based on man's thinking of what could be if X events were to happen, so sooner or later someone will make fiction true life events, if possible.
Yes, we are clearly being prepared for...well, something. Let's not forget that book a while ago that claimed that the Saudi Royal Family has planted bombs themselves at all the oil facilities, which I don't believe for a second but it's certainly an interesting story. But however it goes down and is attributed, ample reasons will be provided to "blame the Arabs" for all our problems. When TSHTF I expect to spend a lot of effort trying to convince people to stop wasting time on the blame game and concentrate on dealing with the new reality of a lower energy world.
Blame game might be American problem. I took a Japanese mangement course and learned the Japanese don't really scapegoat like we do here. We always want someone to pay. Japanese want the problem to be fixed. When TSHTF as a company they find the solution to the problem as a team since the company is a team. Foreign concept here as I've pointed this out to many business types and they all roll their eyes as if their is no chance it can work. Ok, that's why Toyota is kickin so called American auto makers...
Amem Tate,
...and by the way, thats why this place is going to fall apart when all hell breaks loose. Every man for himself. I thinks thats one of the unwritten constitutional principles..
Yep, it's known as "Rugged Individualism."
Antoinetta III
I don't see much difference. The Japanese fix the problem. The US blames somebody and then fix the problem. Apparently in Europe they like to hide the problem.
Hmm...I may have called this one a few weeks ago when I listed 4 possible excuses that KSA might use to mask crashing production (April 10, 2007 - 3:57pm). My #1 excuse was:
They could be developing the backstory/alibi for an "event" coming up soon.
Peak oil is going to be subsumed by
"A B O V E G R O U N D G E O P O L I T I C A L E V E N T"
...or that's the PLAN at least!!
Even CERA will ba able to say "see I told you so" - they've stated that everything is just hunkydory in the world of oil, unless of course there is some sort of "geopolitical" problem.
This will reinforce the notion that all we'll have to do when the big problems start is to sit tight and everything will get back to normal soon.
Future CERA(WH) statement:
Unfortunately, John Q. Public, these "evil doing terrorist types" have made our lifestyle very difficult and we will have to fight them everywhere in the world in a half century long war, then things will be back to "normal".
Those tricky geopolitical events.
Banning incandescent light bulbs in Canada where homes are heated with natural gas or electricity for 6+ months of the year doesn't have much of a positive environmental impact or actually lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Replacing the so called "low-efficiency" of an incandescent bulb with a much more expensive (and higher energy) to manufacture and difficult to dispose system and then making up the 95% electricity-to-heat the old bulb used to warm the home with natural gas or electric heat is a little silly.
In warmer locations where homes are actively cooled or at least not heated as much this makes sense.
I disagree. Most of the Canadian population is in the southern part of the country, which has a relatively mild climate, and few people need to heat their homes for 6 month of the year. Some regions have very hot summers and use air-conditioners extensively. And what about all that outdoor lighting?
Banning incandescent light bulbs in Canada will make a difference.
I live right here: Google map of my house.
I installed CFL's on all the outdoor lighting. They don't work or last in sub-zero temperatures (a little better in enclosed fixtures), but I generally don't have a reason to turn them on in the winter.
My furnace will cut in from October to April. I only use AC for a few weeks of the year.
I didn't mean that higher efficiency lighting isn't a good idea, it just has less of an impact in colder climates. There is a lot of lobbying from CFL manufacturers involved in this.
I got all the proof I need that CFL's are "energy placebos" the other day when I heard that Oprah handed them out to her audience members. Like Oprah and W remind us constantly: "Keep shopping everyone!"
Frugal: I live in midtown Toronto, one of the most southern spots in the country. Heat expense far outweighs AC- we get a very hot, very short summer season usually.Winter drags on forever- my furnace was on last night with a temp of 42 F.
So all you folks in the Great North use incandescents to HEAT your homes? And this is efficient heat enough to offset 75-80% energy savings CFL vs. incandescent? This must be the reason why Susie Homemaker ovens are hard to find stateside.
history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men
It's simple conservation of energy. If you add 100W to a room, it's in the room somewhere.
If I replace a 100W incandescent with a 20W CFL and I read for an hour in the winter with the light on: My power bill is 80Wh less and I have 80Wh less heat in my home that my furnace has to make up. I also have sore eyes from the fluorescent and I can't use my dimmer.
CFL's in a location that has to use additional electricity to cool the home have a real gain in replacing incandescents. They save 80W on the same amount of light and that is 80W less heat the AC has to exhaust. In Canada that gain is much less than Florida and not really relevant in the winter.
If I unplug the TV and don't watch Oprah (not that I do), I am way better of in so many ways than replacing my incandescents with CFL's. I don't think Oprah would sell that conservation scheme.
The amount of fuel required to produce that 100w of heat from the lectric light bulb is much greateer than the amount of fuel required to get an equivalent amount of heat from your furnace, is it not? Isn't electric heat an inefficient method of providing heat, generally speaking. Of course there are other factors at play such as source of electricity, etc. but I don't think it is necessarily a one to one tradeoff.
Otherwise, perhaps we should just ensure we have lots and lots of light sockets so we can strategically heat our house with light bulbs. Maybe things would be a bit too bright, but toasty nevertheless.
About 2/3 of the energy from a coal fired plant is lost to heat and transmission line losses, 1/3 making it to the end user. To heat your home with incandescent light bulbs is expensive and adds greatly to CO2 production, change to CFL's.
In Manitoba 98% of generated electricity is hydroelectric. There is line loss, but the source is renewable and clean and a large portion of homes are heated with electricity anyway.
A 30% efficient coal plant versus a 50% efficient NG furnace isn't much of a discussion.
I changed all the outside fixtures to CFL's a few years ago and I put them in where they make sense inside. My garage has regular fluorescents. I'm one of those militant "turn the lights off if you don't need them" kind of people. There are efficient dimmers in most places and I like halogen undercounter and fill/accent lights. CFL's have a limited use where they actually make sense and I put them there a long time ago.
Modern high efficiency NG furnaces have efficiencies north of 90%. Or, are you measuring efficiency differently than the AFUE standard?
You are right, my 50% quip was way too low for an average NG furnace.
Mine is mid-efficient forced air NG and the EnerGuide tag has a 80% AFUE rating, which from what I understand also includes the blower motor and ignition electrical input.
According to an article in wikipedia transmission and distribution losses for electric lines in the US run a little over 7%. Also according to wikipedia the thermodynamic efficiency of a coal fired plant runs from 36% up to a little over 40% while nuclear plants are about 36% efficient. In either case if you subtract the 7% distribution losses then using electricity to produce heat in your home only provides you with about 30% of the original heat generated.
Thermodynamic efficiency is the maximum theoretical efficiency that a heat engine can produce. In real life the efficiency of the engine is lower because of frictional losses.
Also, banning incandescent bulbs doesn't necessarily mean switching to compact fluorescents. LED bulbs are probably going to hit the market in the next few years.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/MR16_specs.htm
I have several @ home (plus 3/4s done relamping my car with LEDs, which is an bit delicate).
LEDs are best when colored light is needed or low watts (< 3 watts).
Best Hopes,
Alan
I've been changing out the lights on my car with LED lights on a slow but steady basis. The quicker light-up time for LED lights is advantageous for brake lights. They achieve full brightness around half a second faster than incandescent bulbs. At 70mph, that translates to roughly 38 feet of reaction time distance. That can make the difference between being rear-ended and not. :)
I use the 3 Watt Luxeon LED for brake lights. Brighter than stock and, as you said, instant on. Plus the running lights, etc.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/tail-brake-turn.html
Ultra LEDs in the UK also has a good selection (I will finish my car with an order from them for lights that they uniquely have(, Also 240 V edison base bulbs for the 50 Hz crowd,
http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/
Most LED distributers are overpriced but these two appear to be lower margin. Hence they have steadily grown. Super Bright LEDs seems to be slightly lower priced than Ultra LEDs.
Best Hopes for LEDs,
Alan
What's the fossil fuel efficiency of a hydroelectric plant?
:)
Again, I think efficient lighting is a good idea. Banning incandescents in Canada is going to have a minor positive total energy usage effect which is a good thing.
In something more beneficial: There are going to be many more Canadian homes switching to ground source heat pumps. There is a $3500 federal rebate for new installations plus a provincial tax credit now.
Debating NG vs electric heat (a heat pump would be 150-300% efficient electric heat) isn't going to happen as NG runs into short supply. Increasing renewable sources of electricity and heating homes with ground source heat pumps is an efficient renewable strategy for Canada.
Then ban electric space heaters before banning incandescents. My apartment only has electric heat, so banning incandescent light bulbs would save me no energy at all save for the warmest days in summer.
All this talk of banning a lighting source is misplaced idealism. Public education on where using alternative light sources would be far better served.
My proposal in "Saudi Arabia has Peaked..." was to tax incandescents 80 cents/bulb (US). Someone had the better idea of taxing them a penny/watt.
The idea was to induce use of CFLs by narrowing the price gap; but there are applciations where incandescents are simply better ! (Cold use is one, although LEDs usually work in reasonable cold). And I use a high end incandescent for bedside reading.
Perhaps Canada should tax ALL light bulbs 2 cents/watt ?
Best Hopes,
Alan
Canada with canadian climate would realize almost no energy savings. Its political grandstanding.
Wrong !
Outside Quebec, Manitoba (sometimes BC), natural gas if the marginal fuel when lights are most likely to be used.
If is MUCH more efficient to burn NG for home heat in a 80% to 96% AFUE home furnace than to burn it in a peaker NG plant to heat a light bulb !
And home heating is NOT required all day, every day for even half the year where most Canadians live.
Best Hopes,
Alan
What percentage of energy savings are you actually going to get by imposing this onerous bit of nannystate regulation on people? 1%? 2%? Whats the percentage of electrical generation consumed by incandescents in Canada?
If people are spending more on their electric bills they'll be motivated themselves to buy CFLs. This isn't an issue to bother with. Its muddled political interference.
If you're concerned with CO2 emissions, issue a carbon tax, otherwise let people decide how to use their own power.
Being from Canada, I look at it as a little too late...as usual.
The ban will take effect in 2012. Around 5 years.
However, NG supplies are hovering around the same window +/- 2 years. And the local LNG terminals are continually being NIMBY'd to death. As if there will actually be enough LNG supply anyways with liquifaction terminals and projects being delayed and cancelled around the world...
NG will hit harder on a PPO(post peak oil)weakened/devastated economy...and it gets little attention.
I think by 2012 we will have bigger fish to fry.
Be careful with those CFL's
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id...
Maybe this would be the place for a "don't ask, don't tell" policy?
Nevermind the fact that Maine is the happy recipient of countless tons of mercury from coal burning power plants upwind. That would be the entire east coast, for those unfamiliar with US weather patterns.
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
Good grief. I had no idea they were that toxic. I've broken several of them, and just picked up the pieces and threw them away.
I've even had them break in my hand, when trying to remove them from a tight fixture. IME, the glass gets a bit brittle after awhile. The heat, maybe.
This seems like an over reaction. The measured concentration is about 25 times less than the California OSHA limit for mercury in air. Of course, kids are more sensitive to mercury than working adults.
Here is the cleanup recommendation from the EPA:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/mercury/faq/spills.htm
Compact flourescents only have about 1 to 10 milligrams ( 2 to 20 millionths of a pound) of mercury, about a single 1 millimeter sized drop at most. This spill would definitely be in the "less than the amount in a thermometer" category.
If I were her, I would:
The thing that I have never heard anyone talk about when banning incadesent bulbs comes up is that there are many millions of lighting fixtures out there that take special shaped and sized bulbs and the CFL bulbs just will not fit in them.
If everyone has to go out and replace all their lighting fixtures how is that going to save energy?
And there are a lot of places that CFL bulbs do not work well - Like outside in the winter in cold locations, where there are vibrations, in ovens, refrigerators and freezers, etc......
Another knee jerk political plan that is just plain bad! Work on encouraging people to replace incadesents with CFLs where it makes sense, but don't smack ourselves in the head with a frying pan.
My 2 cents worth.
Hi Jon,
An "anecdote" to support what you're saying. People could just make more effort to turn lights off when not in direct use.
Now that Everyone is talking Corn in the tank, OPEC is shaking and thinking they won't have funds for the big high rises they have planned. Congress wants the profits of CERA's predictions and Hilary is going to send Bill out to fix the mess of the last 8 years.
WOW, I feel so much better today than I did yesterday.
Sarcasm off.
Congress is always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, or rather doing whatever they want for all the wrong reasons.
" Bob is my name. I am never going to have to worry about retirement cause I got the fools down at the feed store to elect me as their Rep. That corn sure does smell good cooking in the boilers, pity it's never going to amount to a hill of beans. Well off to play some golf, and buy a new HDVD player and maybe a new Truck for the wife."
Mentioning in the above fictional blurb about Trucks, I have noticed a few things here locally. People are not changing their ways much with the higher prices of gasoline, New truck sales seem to be going along just fine. Since I moved from Huntsville, I have stopped seeing the Hybrids all over the place and now see more and more Pick-ups driven by people that never use them on a farm or for hauling things. $4.00 gasoline is not going to change them much. Not having a job will.
Charles.
Here in Dallas, it seems the highways are even MORE congested at $3/gal than they were at $2/gal!
$4/gal will NOT change anything. $5? Maybe. But probably not much, either.
I certainly have not seen a decrease in pick-ups. As a matter of fact, I've noticed more. Some guy in my neighborhood just purchased an H2. My boss is going this weekend to look at purchasing an H1.
Maybe I'm just a sick individual, but I love to see these soccer mom's pull up to the pump with their Ford Excursion and run up a $120 tab in one go.
I really love it when people pull up in their convertible BMWs or Mercedes and cautiously eye the price ticker as they fill up, especially considering most of those cars require 91 octane!
Actually, now I know I am sick, because I personally cannot wait for $6 and $7 per gallon gasoline! Watching the idiots at the local pump will be more entertaining than anything TV or movies could offer!
Canada as well.
Record spending on new vehicles: StatsCan.
As an oil exporter, Canada doesn't cap or subsidise internal prices, and the average prices are $1.05/L (USD 3.53/gallon) now. Doesn't seem to be slowing sales down much. Yet.
I personally believe the crunch number is 6.50 US/gallon.
That said, there are two ways to get to 6.50. Have an Oil price shock (coming very very soon), and/or rapid deflation of the US dollar against other currencies.
However, like all BIG picture items - they both will likely happen simultaneously...so, you could get 6.50 US a gallon with only a modest decline in global production...like maybe this year or 2008.
$200+/tank for an SUV has gotta hurt, even if you are rich.
I hope you ride your bike to the gas station. Please don't drive your car there to snicker at the gas guzzlers.
At the gas station I walk past on my way to work each day, the cost of 87 octane is $3.43 and the cost of 91 octane is $3.65--only a 6.5% increase in cost from one to the other. Assuming you aren't getting more Ethanol and other filler in the 91 octane fuel, the higher compression ratio of the engine designed for the higher octane might result in enough efficiency gain to offset the extra price.
I'd like to see fuel prices there if the extra $3 or $4 was a tax offsetting other taxes. However, the people with the brand-new high-end vehicles won't care about the $6/gallon much. The entertaining part will come from the expression on their face when they find out how much the trade-in value has dropped. It's the second and 3rd buyers who care about the fuel prices and will favor non-guzzlers accordingly. Hmm... I wonder if it is time to to lease to guard against future drops in resale value and also be able to buy an efficient vehicle when they become available in the USA.
According to Edmunds.com, the 5 year cost to own a BMW 750i is $113k. Of that total, $13k is fuel and $50k is depreciation (i.e.: original price - resale value). If fuel prices were double, the fuel cost for the first 5 years would still only be $26k, but you can bet that the depreciation will be well above $50k because the second buyer would probably look at a more efficient model that--even brand new--would cost less to own.
Where I live there are a lot of high end German cars owned by those who absolutely cannot afford them. At the extreme there are 600 SELs and A8 Quattros owned by combines of Lithuanian or Bulgarian 20-somethings who share a cheap apartment and a fancy car. That sounds like a fringe demographic but in Chicago has lots of them. As their comstruction jobs dry up and their drug deals go bad those cars are being dumped.
Any opinions on the accuracy of the depletion maps here?
http://www.lastoilshock.com/map.html
Yes, just a few inaccuracies here:
Shown as not yet peaked:
Saudi Arabia: Definitely post peak.
Venezuela: Definitely post peak.
Kuwait: Probably post peak.
Ecuador: Probably peaked in 2006.
China: Either peaked in 2006 or will peak in 2007.
Shown as peaked:
Russia: This is the biggie. FSU definitely peaked many years ago, but that included several states that are no longer counted in Russian production. But what we are concerned with here is the second Russian peak. It has not happened yet. In fact the increase in Russian production has been what has kept the peak in world production from becoming obvious to the rest of the world. Take Russia out of the picture and world production is down 1,487,000 barrels per day since May of 05, or 2.28%. Russia may reach its (secondary) peak this year. In fact it may be at, or very near that peak right now. If so, then by the end of the year it will be obvious to the world that world oil production has peaked.
Ron Patterson
There's something about that book/DVD that has "exploitation" written all over it.
Call it a hunch.
And Russia is down 2.5% in exports this year.
A second peak coming soon (within the year!) and NET EXPORTS eating away at what they do produce.
The BIG picture is really ugly at the moment.
Oh yeah, that map has Canada as producing 6MMBPD by 2035...that will NEVER happen.
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the straightening-out.
I asked a Q yesterday (posted to your comment in previous day's article by Euan), re: any useful generalizations to be made re: "technological advances may or may not" add to total amount recoverable - ?
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2462#comment-184197
I was wondering if you might speak to this, if convenient?
Also, I was asking anyone to comment on what Halfin said (further down under same Euan's #1 article) to the effect that even if Ain Dar has a production rise, the world could (emphasis) still peak. (I'd try to go back but afraid of losing post.)
"Russia may reach its (secondary) peak this year."
Those secondary peaks are tough, but it's those thirdnary and fourthnary ones that get you....somewhere about the fifthnary peak, folks don't get so worried, because by then, they are used to it...:-)
Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
Just a couple observations regarding the online video/DVD thing;
There is no amount of “government intervention” nor even industry innovation that will end piracy on the internet and we should all be glad that the internet has that distinction.
The internet is free (much to the consternation of all MSM owners) and it may very well be this unique phenomenon that saves our collective ass to what ever level it CAN be saved.
I have a large library of Reality Based DVDs (doomer) most of which I saw first on the internet and if they had substance (many do not) I purchase them and share them with others. Many whom I have shared with have purchased the ones that resound for them and share with their friends, family, neighbors and so on and so forth. Marketing.
A) Your movie, music, widget, whatever sucks and you want to trick as many people as possible into buying it with catchy clips, (old marketing that fools few)or…
B) Your movie, etc. is good and everyone wants to own it even after seeing it once.
If you still worry that everyone will go to great lengths to own it for free then you need to slap those persons mother and father for bringing them up wrong that is the real problem.
To look at each free viewing as a lost sale is to be living in the past. This is the MARKET.
Films like these are not going to spread as much any other way.
I also need to point out some hypocrisy here. You all are trying to get the word out that “The end is near” and we can no longer continue to do things the way we have been. But for gods sake don’t even think of F#*King with my precious “Consumer Capitalism”.
HELLO??????????????
My new book; "TS is HTF with MAJOR DIEOFF. and how to profit from it"
As of this morning the Google link, found the previously mentioned movie, "The Crude Awakening" as unavailable. I don't know how the Films are put on the web, so can they be shut down for anything but techincal problems?
I wait till movies get to the local Dollar Place before I watch them if at all possible. I personally rarely buy DVD's or VHS tapes of movies.
The person who posted it to Google Video deleted it, at the request of the copyright holder.
FWIW, I agree with you. I think there's more to gain than to lose, including financially, by allowing it online.
I don't really want to wade into the copyright discussion from the other day.
However, End of Suburbia was posted on YouTube by the makers, and I think it only benefits them. I saw it as a rental first. But sent the YouTube link around when it was posted.
The difference might be that they are now promoting their second movie, whereas Crude Awakening is still promoting and is very difficult to find.
I first heard about Crude Awakening on TOD about a week or 10 days ago. My girlfriend rented it from Netflix, received it, and we watched it on Weds. It was pretty good. Definitly worth a viewing.
Garth
I planned to watch it ON DEMAND from my cable co' but when I went to watch it - it vanished. Oh well...same thing happened to me when I wanted to watch documentary, Why we Fight. Now THAT should serve as an eye opener for everyone in the dark. Miltary bases on over 80% of the planet? What?
EOS was posted by the makers almost three years AFTER it was released
Rob posted "A Crude Awakening" less than three days after it was released.
As I stated elsewhere, the decision to release of 52 of EOS's 80 minutes to google video was made by the filmmamkers themselves, not some dude on the PO discussion forums. This is a major operative difference.
In other words, by the time EOS was released the makers had already recouped 98% of whatever they were going to recoup.
This is a totally different situation.
That is what I said. It is different. But that there is value in the process at some point.
And in any situation, it should be the up to them to release it...
That MIGHT be the case, particularly for and indie film like this, but it is the decison of the filmmakers not some jabroni posting on the peak oil discussion forums.
The point is, that the movie and its rights are not public domain. They are the property of the copyright holders/producers etc.
How about we try this with another product besides media.
Now would you consider it fair for me to go out, rob a farmers field of some corn, just so I can try it out to see if his corn is as good as I think it should be before I buy it?
Now I'm taking this sample without his permission, and I'm taking enough to make a meal out of it (i.e. I watch the whole movie).
But you know, after filling my tummy, I come to the conclusion that this farmer's corn just isn't that good. So I'm not going to pay him for what I ate or, purchase from him any additional corn becuase it just wasn't good enough.
But hey, I'm justified cause lord knows I wouldn't want to take his advertising at face value.
Theft is theft no matter how you color it. If you are taking something without getting the blessing from that person you are a THIEF.
Perhaps we should start with yours?
well how about we take your little farmer analogy in a little different direction.
Current property law has found that if your farm uses agway-type protected, genetically modified, seed-hybrids, then they are entitled to payment when those seeds are planted. It doesn't matter if you bought them one season, and then recovered them to plant the second season. In the eyes of the law it doesn't matter that you own the seed, and you own the plant, because when that plant leaves seeds behind, they do not belong to you, they belong to the company you bought the plant from. After all, what you would be doing is nothing more than copying somebody else's protected technology. Just like copying a CD. Maybe you agree with that, maybe you don't. but it doesn't stop there.
Now a days, if that farmer's seeds cross pollinate with the corn of the farmer next door, that farmer next door owes agway too. He didn't want the seeds, and he didn't want the hybrid. He is on a budget and working hard, tending to his own business, but because of the wind, he now owes a company for something he never wanted. He also cannot produce his own seeds from this crop, (a practice he has done for years), because he would just be copying that technology for his own gain. That means he has to start from scratch next season and buy new seed again.
that is the law. That innocent farmer is a thief if he doesn't pay for the seed guys. This is the outcome of the property rights laws that you are so eager to defend. It is a system that assumes that the producer of said goods has all of the rights and the consumer of the goods has almost no rights whatsoever, and that it is the responsibility of the consumer to avoid a good if he doesn't want to be responsible for its consumption.
oh, and to draw some similar analogs, if somebody were to go out push the issue, what about people that hear somebody else's music as they pass by? are they responsible for paying? What about people who live near a concert venue? should they have to pay for tickets?
If you guys want to bash a guy posting movies on You Tube go ahead. But if you guys want to blanketly defend an incredibly currupt property rights system that has virtually robbed consumers of all of their rights, you are on some seriously shaky ground.
If you really do want to defend it, start with this example, and explain to me how it is justified that somebody should be in debt to the creator of a product merely because they were inadvertantly exposed to it. Tell me why a producer of a good does not have a responsibility to secure their product from the use of others, and why a consumer has a responsbility to avoid exposure to the goods of others, and if they should fail, why they then owe the producer of said good.
For extra credit you guys can explain to me why it is proper for us to follow the micky mouse laws, that have extended copyrights from 10 years after creation, to the life of the author plus 95 years, and if the last 100 years have been any indication, anything copyrighted since 1928 will probably never enter the public domain.
In many cases, maybe its the violaters of property rights that are actually the victims for thinking that silly concepts like public domain should exist.
Just because you don't like the law, does not give you the right to ignore it.
I agree with you that the laws governing seeds, and GM crops are absurd. I also think those laws should be changed, to provide the consumer and neighboring farmers with more protections than they are being granted.
But as of the moment, the law is the law, and it needs to be followed.
As for copyright protections, there is little chance that someone will "accidentally" copy a video. That is a pretty deliberate act. We can't control the way the wind blows, we can control whether or not we click on the upload/download button.
I said nothing about ignoring the law, and just because something is law, that is not a mandate to follow it, especially if it is unconstitutional. That is where the very notion of civil disobedience comes from.
As for internet copyright protection. I can see a lot of people accidentally copying a video illegally. Take the documentary posted on you tube that we were talking about yesterday. It is not an uncommon practice for documentaries of that nature to be posted by the creators in places like google video as a promotional technique.
In a different context I could see myself coming across a movie with the start and end credits cutout, and some false information about the movie being an attempt to get the word out. I bet you might see a lot of people copying that video and distributing it in the hopes of helping the creators out, despite it being a copyright infringement.
I also copied a ton of TV shows back four or five years ago before I ever knew it wasn't legal. After all, the law up until the DMCA said that you could use your VCR to copy a TV show or even movies shown on TV and re-watch it as much as you wanted. You could even have your neighbor over to the house to watch the show with you. It was considered fair use. What reason would I have to believe that copying it onto my computer wouldn't be a similar fair-use?
so "accidentally" copying a video, no
intentionally copying a video and "accidentally" breaking the law, most definately.
This is hardly a case of Civil disobedience so please spare me the martyrdom. The being said, if you were in fact trying to commit an act of Civil Disobedience, it is because A) you are stating that your moral objections to a "bad" law are enough that you are willing to accept the penalties of breaking that law so that you may fight against it. and B) you would purposely break the law in plain sight of the authorities so as to ensure you are caught in the act so that your Civil Disobedience could be used to propel this case before the courts, and the public.
What we have regarding this movie is not an act Civil Disobedience, rather its an act of theft, committed behind the veil of an anonymous username on the internet. If we really wanted to turn this into a Civil Disobedience movement, someone would have downloaded the movie, then blatantly flaunted it to the IP owners, and to the FBI in the hopes of being charged so they could challenge Copyright law in court. I don't see that being the case here.
Firstly, ignorance of the law is not a valid defense.
Secondly, the scenario you are pointing out is one being caused by Fraud on the part of the person who posted the movie for download. By stripping the credits and presenting the movie in the context as a promotional or free distribution, it is the poster of the movie committing not only a copyright infringement, but a fraud upon anyone who downloaded the movie believing the fraudulent context it was presented in.
In most cases if the downloading user had this as an isolated case, the user would be asked to remove the material from his possession, and maybe at worst slapped on the wrist with a light fine.
Perhaps next time, they will be more careful about the videos they download and treat with suspicion the content they come across over the internet.
I don't know what case you are referencing. I was never defending the posting of the movie. I was attacking the defense that is being made for contemporary property rights and many of the severely anti-consumer aspects that they have developed as well as the raping of the notion that there is a public domain.
If you are talking about the rape of the public domain, and the rape of farmer's priveledge that have been the result of many recent copyright decisions, then yes, I would participate in civil disobedience on the matter.
and Civil dosbedience is only condition A that you mention above, not condition B. Condition B is indicitive of a much more restricted version of civil disobedience used as part of a political or social movement. There is nothing in the concept of civil disobedience that says that in order to bey justified in disobeying an unjust law that you must seek out an authority to break the law in front of them and get yourself punished. It merely requires you not to hide your unlawful activity from authorities.
Regardless, I would prefer that you stop arguing against straw men and trying to put me in a position of defending a case that I never tried to defend.
I was not providing a defense. I was just providing a situation in which somebody could "accidentally" download copyrighted material. Ignorance to the details of the law, and because they were decieved are both ways that somebody could accidentally violate the law.
But go ahead and continue to argue against straw men.
Please post references to a real legal case involving the seeds as you claim. Any real IP lawyer would be all over this asserting that the original company had lost control of their IP and therefore no longer owned the rights. I am interested in reading the case history for this specific case(s) if they actually exist.
Cites, please.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Monsanto v. Schmeiser
that case in canada is the benchmark case for the example I gave, however there are far less known cases that are similar. I can't provide many links b/c this is a few years removed from when i was actually interested in this stuff, so my sources are gone. here are a few links about PVP laws versus farmers priveledge and a few brief notes about the Monsanto v. Schmeiser case.
This case combined with the "terminator technology" on many new genetically modified hybrid seeds are bad news for everybody regardless, and represent a serious raping of what intellectual property was originally intented to entail. IMO
http://www.bioethics.iastate.edu/Bioethics_in_Brief/may05.html
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=121
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=202
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser
Thanks. I will read more shortly.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Since Monsanto owns the pollen, maybe there should be a price exacted for each honeybee lost due to a visit to a GM flower ... seems fair to me. Now the beekepers know who to sue.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0103perelman.htm
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
Souperman2,
There is no govt intervention in copyright cases. Its all by the company/entity that owns it and proceeds with court action. I think you're confusing LAW with policy.
If you STEAL then thats what you are. You are a thief. You can scrub that turd until it shines, but it does not change the facts that you are a thief when you take something that does not belong to you.
Your arguments for stealing are less than viable. I guess when your kids see you do this and they take a record album from the store or DVD then thats different or is it the same.
Hypocrisy, you should take a long look in the mirror before you try and use that argument on the OWNERS of the material. Their work. Their product. Their method of making a living. What do you do for a living Souperman2.
Your the hypocrite Souperman2.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
PrisonerX, in my opinion you are looking through a black or white looking glass. The situation is a bit more complicated.
The Internet service providers have provided 'the getaway car' in this case; so are they complicit? Broadband speed is so fast now that it makes downloading large amounts of data possible. Of course there are plenty of legal applications/usage of all of this bandwidth but when 2/3 of all traffic (a figure i recently heard) is illegal bittorrent traffic, where does that put the service provider in all of this?
Also artists are starting to release more and more of their material for free in order to promote themselves. If fact Apple has just agreed to sign up non DRM music downloads.
In the land of '1's and '0's change is in the wind.
Marco.
Marco,
your comments are what all thief's say.
Are they complicit. Well this depends on the details. Do you know the term "safe harbor". Because of the ability of people to illegally place info on a site without the internet provider knowledge, the "digital" copyright act was changed to provide "safe harbor" for the bandwidth providers. Once notified of illegal or possible infringement by the owners of the material they have a set time to take it down. Leaving it up they loose safe harbor protection. That is for their benefit.
The person that put it up has NO such protection.
I could give a rats A## what other artists do. Copyright is a RIGHT you can give it away, just like you don't do a thing about Habeus corpus, which is your and everyone else's right. Of course under your thinking why do we need habeus corpus. Artists give away "some" material to entice you. Show me sites where an artist puts up a whole CD of work etc. Few if any.
1 and 0's changing things . No. Its the morality of the country that changes. 1 and 0 mean NOTHING they have no rights.
If you think I'm living in dreamland about copyright protection then you need to pinch yourself. Copyright law is getting STRONGER not weaker, and its from people with bad morality issues just like you.
I am involved with a copyright issue right now. MAJOR stuff, and with thinking like yours, why, the violations don't mean squat. They can take my work and make all the profit off of it they want and not give share any of the profits.
You're wrong about this and screaming like a little child who's mother made them put the candy bar back in the store will not change things.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
My point was that I belive there are benefits (for all parties) in breaking some copyright law. heres a good example.
Someone recently gave me a DVD of 1000's of e-books. All copyrighted material. Now I love books and read a lot. I hate reading screen text, be it on PDA or large LCD screen. I look forward to reading a book in bed at night to relax. SO what I have done is previewed the books I want to buy. The author gains, I gain and everyone is happy.
I understand what is legal and what is not. Copyright is a very grey area. If it was not the court rats wouldn't be earning as much money.
Marco.
Marco,
your answers just show that you are not familiar with copyright law.
Copyright law is not "grey" its black and white. Either it is a violation or it is not. Grey is what the attorney's use to move to one or other of the positions.
You say you understand what is legal and what is not. Okay, so you're happy being a thief. Thats your choice.
You seem to think copyright cases are a dime a dozen. Well thats not true. Go find a copyright lawyer in any town outside a major city. Like bass players and hens teeth, they are rare, and especially good ones.
So what you've done is preview the books. Yes, but the violation here belongs to the person that made the DVD and then gave it to you. If you make a copy and give it to someone else, or give that copy to someone else then you're in violation.
You're digging yourself a deeper hole with each post.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
I'll spell it out for you. Most folk pirate to some degree. In fact I can't think of anyone I know who hasn't -even the ones whose obsessive compulsive anal morality issues have dictated their lifecycle from birth to death. Also I don't dig holes other than for planting tomato plants in.
Marco.
And just in case you post with 'well what if someone stole your tomato? I would just download another one.
Marco.
Copyright law in fact has a lot of gray area. Why? Because until the Internet explosion, it wasn't a very "sexy" area of law. The lawyers who specialized in "entertainment law" were generally not the best and the brightest, they were the ones who wanted to rub elbows with celebrities.
Now, I'm not saying uploading Crude Awakening was in a gray area. It clearly was not. But copyright is far from black and white.
Is what I do here every day, posting links and excerpts from copyrighted news stories, legal? How much can you post from a story under "fair use"? Linking back to the original source does not absolve you. Google is constantly in various court battles over whether they can legally cache, search, and/or link to copyrighted works.
FWIW, I think intellectual property law as we know it is not long for this world. If the fossil fuel fiesta continues, there will have to be some kind of adjustment for the Internet age. Clearly, digital is different. If I steal your car or your corn, I have it and you do not. That's not the case for an MP3 or AVI. I think something like Lessig's ideas will come to pass. Rather than charging per song or movie, everyone will pay for content via a tax on hard drives, blank DVDs, and/or ISP service. The royalties thus collected will be distributed among the people providing content. Whack-a-mole with pirates and P2P clearly is not going to work.
If the fossil fuel fiesta ends, intellectual property rights will be unenforceable, and probably not worth much anyway.
You are exactly correct.
Stealing a DVD from a retailer is theft. That is a criminal offense.
Downloading the same movie is not theft. It's a copyright violation. A civil offense.
While they may seem very similar - legally - they couldn't be more different.
Garth
Garth,
then why does the copyright statute have the term "willful" in its statute. Why is there jail time and involvement from the Federal level ala the FBI for such violations.
Copyright has civil and criminal violations does it not.
Do individuals pursue the criminal, not usually, they are interested in the civil side because of money.
Their is possible jail time for criminal copyright infringement.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-infringement.html
Two main FBI divisions investigate intellectual property crimes:
1. Cyber Division
-investigates intellectual property crimes involving all digital and electronic works (including Internet, CDs, DVDs, etc) www.fbi.gov/ipr
2. Financial Institution Fraud Unit
-all other intellectual property crimes
There are three ways a complaint made be filed:
* Complainants may contact their local FBI field office, and the complaint will be properly referred.
* A complaint may be filed online at the Internet Crime Complaint Center www.ic3.gov and, again, it will be properly routed.
* Suspected criminal activity of any nature may be reported online at https://tips.fbi.gov and will be routed accordingly.
The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice is the federal entity that prosecutes intellectual property crimes. Parts III and VI of the Department of Justice primer provide further information on the prima facie elements of criminal copyright violations, both misdemeanor and felony, and the factors considered in determining when to charge. However, all criminal complaints should be directed only to the FBI.
Not just civil.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Leanan,
The law has changed and there exists laws to cover what you say. The law is simple, you have to decide whether or not your instance is covered. If you don't know then you have to go to a more informed source, or risk a violation. The number of cases that cause a law to be updated are very rare. CASE Law decides cases. Its black and white. Its you that see's gray, not the law.
Fair use does have many more things to look at than what is being discussed here. Does the internet change things. Is copyright law and you will note that its toward stricter enforcement not the other way around. Does it seem to go overboard in some cases yes of course.
The copyright case I am now involved in has to do with the violation of my rights by a large major powerful company that enforces their copyright to the HILT>. If I had violated their copyright they would have hammered me if I had used their product without rights.
Now I have to go to court to fight them. A little guy. See it works both ways. One of the main reasons I am doing my best to do this is because of the way the biggies DO HAMMER the little guy. It is black and white to them, there is no middle ground. As someone told me about this case. If I do lose, we are all screwed, because this will change everything. Its my ability as the little guy to fight the corporation using the exact same law. Copyright law for the individual is just as important as the same law to the "buyers" and owners of copyright.
You Leanan are aware of the penalties financially for violations. Note that fair use penalties don't compare to the violations we are discussing. I have to go look, but I also think "mindset" plays a part in fair use cases also. Not in the cases we are discussing.
Entertainment law is not copyright law specialty. I can find entertainment lawyers a dime a dozen compared to a true copyright attorney. Bottom of the class at 250,000 per trial expense. Ha.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
It's not black and white. A lot of what people "know" about copyright is simply convention. Never been tested in court, because the usual case is settled out of court.
Exactly. A lot of copyright cases are settled out of court because little guys can't afford to fight big corporations.
And if it were black and white, there would be no possibility that anything would change.
I was once on a mailing list with a bunch of academic law coneheads. Basically, they were law professors at Ivy League universities who were suddenly interested in the formerly boring copyright law because of the Internet.
The discussion was often fascinating. For example, fanfic. Legal or illegal? You might think the obvious answer is "illegal," but many of the law professors thought it might be legal. They argue that what copyright protects is the ability of the copyright holder to make money and as long as you are not impacting that, you not violating their copyright. The odd thing with that argument is that the kind of fanfic that would be most protected would be the kind Viacom would want most to stifle. For example, slash - Kirk/Spock porn, say. You could argue that since Viacom is never going to produce anything like that, writing it and giving it away for free on the net doesn't affect them financially. They could try to claim it's damaging the reputation of the characters, but apparently that's pretty hard to make stick.
Of course, such cases never actually make it to court. What happens is that Viacom or Fox or some other big media company sends a C&D to the author, who immediately caves and takes down the offending work. (Though that rarely happens these days. The big media companies have come to understand that fighting fanfic is 1) futile and 2) counterproductive.)
Some have suggested that a "legal defense fund" be set up to challenge big media companies on this issue. But really, it's in no one's interest for it to get to court. Legal costs are prohibitive for an individual. And the big companies may not want it to go to court, either. Fanfic is free publicity, and cracking down on fans is a PR nightmare. And what if they lose?
Excellent points.
I aggregte news stories at LATOC, usually just a headline and the first paragraph sometimes a headline. Technically this is a copyright violation.
However, there is a big difference between posting a headline with a link to a blog or news article and posting an entire for-pay 80 minute docuentary online.
Or "there is a big difference between me doing it and someone else doing it".
Please visit my sponsor www.howtoprofitfrompeakoil.com!
The problem with copyright law is that it has become decoupled from patent law. The protection periods for both should be idential, and used to be pretty close. Patent protection has not been extended very much, while copyright protection has been extended far beyond any reasonable limit.
The original principle behind IP law is that it was supposed to balance the interests of the creators with the interests of society. It is in the interest of society for IP to be created, thus the incentive of protected rights for a time, but it is also in the interest of society for IP to move into the public domain after a reasonable period of time for the creator to realize some profit. Contemporary copyright law has become totally divorced from these underlying principles. I see no real public interest being served by extending copyright protection to centuries. We are left to assume that copyright law is just one more example of special monopolistic privileges being created by political elites for the benefit of economic elites, an exercise in mutual back scratching.
I play bass! =D
Maybe we should ask these people what they think of intellectual property: Ubuntu
GREAT,
though again its a choice. Recall the same thing about "linux"> it started free too... Started... then they turned profit too.
Again the point is copyright is a choice. They "offer" it free. If they don't, then its not your choice to take their property for your own personal reasons. People have a hard time understanding "intellectual" property rights. They are some of the most protected of the rights. Why, because if it does not exist then the zeal to take risk and loss is gone.
RISK is what you don't understand in this. Time, personal, and other others finances. RISK RISK RISK>, and that risk is rewarded by granting you the rights to CONTROL that work.
Go look at the box office takes. How many "winners" and "losers" on recoup of the investment in a film shown that you even "paid" for. Just production costs.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
If the makers of Crude Awakening are that damn poor then why the hell did they waste their time and money on making a film about peak oil???
This is what I do not understand about RISK!!! IF YOU ARE BROKE DONT WASTE YOUR LAST DOLLAR ON A LOTTERY TICKET! BUY SOMETHING TO EAT!!
Actually most Linux developers are very heavily into intellectual property. It's how they keep their code free - by setting the terms of use themselves.
The problem boils down to who sets the terms - you or the guy that created the IP? In my mind, we let the guy that created the IP set the terms. Anything else is immoral as well as illegal. In the Linux world, to be part of that world, you agree to set the terms of use to everyone can obtain the source for free. This does NOT mean you get free support or prebuilt code binaries, although in practice you can usually get free support and usually get free binaries. But the Free Software Foundation's copyright statement (the infamous GNU "copyleft") is a strict statement of copyright. It's just that the owners of those copyrights chose to share.
So what's the answer to not sharing? Do without. That's also what the FSF will tell you. They will NEVER tell you to steal.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
To say the government is not involved in copyright is absurd; it is the definer and the enforcer, after all. In my business life I'm an Internet Service Provider - don't tell me the government is not involved.
If our free trade agreements were about free trade, they would be short. But because they are so detailed on IP, they are anything but short.
To claim copyright doesn't have gray areas is also wrong. The whole concept of fair use is notoriously gray. Worse, when you add to that code protections and DRM that removes any possibility of fair use, then the social contract underlying copyright gets iffy. Lessig's Code is very good on that. What does a paywall do to Fair Use and copyright?
Our technology is the sum of knowledge, society and exchange. Copyright is all of those. The rules by which we have played in the past no longer serve us well and copyright is one of the systems that will have to change. Copyright as Ben Franklin knew it was one thing - artists got limited protection for a limited duration SO THAT the works would fall into the public domain after that period. That's not the deal we have now. Free Mickey!
cfm in Gray, ME
I was looking for a rude drawing I saw a few years ago, with Pluto lifting a leg and marking, as dogs do, and some of the dwarves getting amorous with Snow White. But the image did not come up in a Google search, at least not on the first couple pages... so:
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
Sood bass players are valued (which is a different thing than being paid) but hardly rare. Heard Henry Grimes recently? Mark Egan? Larry Gray? Harrison Bankhead? I got twenty more of that caliber and most of them you can hire for peanuts, see them free. Get out more.
Lordy the spelling is bad today. "Good bass players"
No, really the situation is not more complicated than that. See my above post about stealing food from a farmer to "sample" it.
Should they be any more complicit than a subway train company who happens to provide the getaway ride for a purse-snatcher?
The crime is done by the one commiting the action. If he happens to use publicly available resources to assist him in the crime, that is not the fault of the resources.
But basically Marco, I get the feeling that you are essentially saying that the "ends justify the means".
And since you are not such a "black and white" type of person yourself, let me propose to you another scenario.
We admit that population is a problem. A very large problem that is ultimately going to cause a lot of suffering for a lot of people. How about we nip this problem pre-emptively and simply elect to kill all people who have a last name starting with the letters A though N. At rough guess I'd say that would be a 50% reduction in population right there. That would prevent the massive suffering of starvation and other decline oriented problems, and prolong the destruction of our resource base.
I'd say the "ends justify the means". Wouldn't you?
Immorality is immorality, no matter how you slice it, and that includes theft of property (intellectual or otherwise).
Immoral or Illegel? Now tell me your masters are neither.
Marco.
How about both! Like I said, would you be willing to condone this exact type of behavior if I was "sampling" a corn crop from a farmer's field without his permission?
I'd condone it only if they had never tried a carrot before.
Marco.
WHat do you do for a living Marco.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Engineer.
So you are telling me that as an Engineer, if you came up with a great new invention/process to accomplish some objective and patented/copyrighted/trademarked it, you wouldn't be just a tad upset if I took that design without your permission, and went off to produce and sell that product/process for my own gain?
Nevermind that perhaps it took you a year of research and development work to come up with this thing, and that you perhaps borrowed money to stay afloat during this process, or maybe even because you believed in it so much, that you sold your house, and a lot of your belongings, because you believed your invention was a good thing(both for humanity and financially) and would allow you to make up the investment later.
I once attended a talk by ADS, the company that invented that corrugated plastic pipe you see used for highway drainage systems and the like. They invented it...and intentionally did not patent it. Why? Because they wanted other companies to rip off their idea. They knew that that would increase acceptance of the product, and the more acceptance, the better for them.
Then there's Beta vs. VHS, and Apple vs. Wintel. Trying to keep everything proprietary is not always the smartest thing to do, business-wise. Sometimes, it's to your financial benefit to share. Even if you are an engineer.
Very true, Leanan, but the choice should be up to whomever owns the copyright, should it not?
And I saw your other post. Yes, if fossil fuels decline precipitously then intellectual property as a concept may go the way of the dodo bird. But right now we still have this civilization, warts and all, and that's how we deal with IP.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Yes, and I said so, in my previous post.
From the high moral ground that you are standing on I cannot fault your logic here. Everthing you say makes sense. But you do not live in the real world.
I am a realist and gave up my home in Utopia when I was 13.
I have neither the time nor the will to enguage in this black and white argument any longer. W
Bye bye.
I strongly suggest that you study a bit of copyright law and copyright cases. You are wrong, in the legal sense no less and the law is what it is whether you like it or not. If you dislike the law, I suggest you work to change it. But in breaking the law, which you clearly advocate, you should not express surprise if you get hauled into court.
What you have done throughout your entire line of responses is called rationalizing, especially definitions #1 and #7.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Telumehtar,
You make a false assumption that we are all moral objectivists. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
That is that our consideration of what is right an wrong does not change with the passage of time.
That is not to say that a moral relativist would not agree on with a moral objectivist 99 % of the time.
This is exactly why things should be governed by a free market economy. If having a video uploaded for free viewing in the long term increases revenue we do not have to get into the very sticky situation of talking about morals.
Profits are a fact. I pulled the video considering that the authors thought they could make more profit having it such.
I personally feel that they will make more money if they have a good portion of it up, but that's their decision.
Cheers,
Rob
To be honest, I don't disagree with you on this point.
It's
That is the crux of my contention.
There are several on these boards who feel they know better than the owners what the best course of action is for the owner's content.
Oh-puhlease. You only pulled it because they sent you a friendly but nonetheless strongly worded email telling you to pull it and informing you they would be contacting the appropriate people.
Only then did you pull it, after which you sent them a bush-league smartass reply.
It was not yours to upload or post.
If the owners wanted it on youtube (or whatever) they could have put up some small screen low res version. Or snipits. Or even the audio (like a directors cut) Or the whole damn thing.
You are not even taking the position that 'the information is important and one can not buy a DVD'....which might be a market-defendable position. Article 1 section 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;And that the lack of the ability to buy could shows abandonment.Or grabbed the arguments from:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
like
In fact intellectual property is not like ordinary property at all, but constitutes a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas.If one is going to break a law, at least make a protest out of it.
Eric,
You make a good point but quite frankly it's a lot of lawyer mumbo jumbo—which I'm not very fond of—
Currently anyone can obtain the video if they have an internet connection and that goes for most movies.
By the time the laws are made for new technology the users have already argued the nuances to death—take this issue for example. This really is an issue that the law does a rather poor job of addressing.
…when reality meets bureaucracy…
Cheers,
Rob
You make a good point but quite frankly it's a lot of lawyer mumbo jumbo
Price one pays for living under the rule of law. Do you have an alternative living arrangement?
Currently anyone can obtain the video if they have an internet connection and that goes for most movies.
That somehow changes the legal status?
By the time the laws are made for new technology the users have already argued the nuances to death—take this issue for example. This really is an issue that the law does a rather poor job of addressing.
The present law does such a poor job you have 2 choices.
1) Civil Disobedience
2) Don't consume the products 'protected' by the law you object to.
If enough people pick your path, the law is revoked or the companies go outta business.
Either way, the law will adjust closer to reality.
This is not just my opinion it’s the facts on the ground. You may whine all you want but the world is a different place now (scary huh) in case you don’t research the internet much TSIHTF all around the world.
Your thing about the farmer is lame (though is describes post crash pretty good). When it is possible to scan a carrot and send out over the internet (patent pend.) to millions of hungry then you can use that argument.
It occurs to me that your response gives good insight into what PO is up against. Humanity will argue to the death to defend their current mind set.
I will expedite the discussion;
Me- no you are
You- no you
Me- na uh
You – uh huh
Me- na uh
You – uh huh
Me- na uh
You – uh huh
Me- na uh
Souperman2,
Your answer is just like everyone in prison, "they are innocent".
take your strawman argument and eat that, people that innovate and create MAKE the carrot or help the carrot grow. Not the one that stole and ate it, because they wanted it for their selfish purpose.
Don't worry with your attitude you will be either in jail or someone will shoot you when you try to steal their stuff when TSHTF.
Its your attitude that everyone must "help" the other. WHAT, why, this is a planet of "free will". You make your choices, and will answer for them. AGAIN, its my RIGHT and my CHOICE to do with my property what I want. I make the choices, not the other guy.
You sound just like a kid that has grown up with everything given to them. This is where the attitude you have taken comes from, or you give it to your children.
Sad you are, sad.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Your answer is just like everyone in prison, "they are innocent".
For your position to be true EVERY person who was freed by
http://www.innocenceproject.org/ is a mistake.
its my RIGHT and my CHOICE to do with my property what I want.
Really? I've heard that kind of argument from people who pollute.
Eric,
keep on trying to convince yourself you make the rules.
"its my RIGHT and my CHOICE to do with my property what I want.
Really? I've heard that kind of argument from people who pollute."
Geez, How is asking that my intellectual property right be honored, compared to me doing something illegal like pollution, which is criminal.
You try to turn me into the criminal for asking for the robber to be jailed.
You' sir need to learn to think.
Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
How is asking that my intellectual property right be honored
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
What did you do on World Intellectual Property Day?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070426/102516.shtml
You try to turn me into the criminal for asking for the robber to be jailed.
No, I'm just pointing out how your arguments were flawed.
You' sir need to learn to think.
I'm think'n just fine. Thank you for your concern. And you are quite welcome for me pointing out the flaws in your postings.
From:
http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/dvd.html
The DVD is not yet available for sale.Looks like the consumption options are limited. (no screening in May and the April showings all would result in the burning of oil to move me 100's/1000s of kM to see the film.)
http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/news.html
It is the creators CHOICE to not allow the purchase of the product.
So how should the desire to consume the message be satisfied? Given you are all about the think'n - I look forward to your solution.
You call yourself Prisoner X. You don't identify with criminals and cons? Whassup widdat?
That's the best you can do to dismiss the argument? The internet changes nothing. Property is a fundamental right enjoyed by citizens of this country and most other representative forms of government.
Granted there has been some errosion of this right, like so many other rights, but frankly in this case, unlike many others where the government has erroded rights, it is the people who in their self-righteous self-serving "wisdom" have deemed that the thoughts and ideas, and creative works of others should be theirs for the taking.
You are a tyrant soup, usurping the rights of hard working minds. A leech, a parasite, and a drain on the creative process, because you believe you are *entitled* to something you had no effort in creating.
And btw, I don't disagree that posting this movie either in part or perhaps someday in whole on the internet would help exposure and perhaps even sales. But I do disagree with you that YOU or anyone else except the owners should be allowed to make this choice.
It's the owner's right to decide that type of exposure, not YOURS. Perhaps the honorable thing would be stop making an excuse for your theft, and instead apologize to the owners, and then make a case to the owners as to why you think it would be in their best interest to post this film.
A farmer has corn. You steal some corn. They now have less corn.
Someone has a digital copy of something. You copy it. They still have exactly what they started with.
If someone broke into your home, looked at your TV, made an exact copy without using your materials, and then took the copied TV, have they stolen your TV? No. Would you be mad on behalf of Sony (or whoever made the original)?
Or in cartoon form:
http://www.angryflower.com/supergo.html
There is a major distinction between stealing a physical object and a digital one. Legally, maybe not, but it is in most people's minds and it's a fairly rational distinction. I don't disagree that people should have intellectual property, but I don't see it as the same thing as actual physical property. If I watch a video on youtube, or wherever, that is posted against the law, have I stolen it just by watching it? Can I steal by simply watching/listening something?
Similarly, let's say I had downloaded hundreds of movies and 1000's of mp3's and put them on my computer. To buy them all in original form costs, say, $100,000. I then delete all the files. Have I destroyed $100,000 of something? No, I have not. Now I go steal 5 cars (same value). I "delete" them (throw in ocean perhaps?). Now I have destroyed $100,000 worth of stuff (and caused environmental damage putting cars in the ocean).
Incorrect. If I create a digital work, investing my time, money, energy, and effort into it, I have SPENT time, money, energy, and effort. I'm now at a loss as I have sunk in MY resources.
Now I've invested my resources into this effort with the prospect of using my creation to make money(or whatever compensation I ask for) to grant me a return on my investment, and a little profit.
When you copy the work without my permission, you are stealing my time, energy, money and effort.
Time, enery and money are very tangible commodities, and effort is an intangible but still quite real commodity.
Thus, my argument stands, copying a work without permission is theft, PERIOD.
Sigh...
If you note, I am agreeing with you in that I do not claim intellectual property isn't a form of property (and thereby accepting the term theft as appropriate). I'm just acknowledging the obvious truth that stealing by making a copy of something digitally is not equivalent to stealing by, well, actually stealing something. I'd put downloading a copy of a documentary well below, say, stealing a physical copy of the same documentary.
In no way has your time, money, energy, and effort been "stolen". Those are sunk costs at that point. Hurting the chances of future money-making is not the same as stealing present money/goods, which has not happened (Again, I speak from a non-lawyer perspective, and acknowledge that legally, they might be similar things, and do say both are theft).
To put it another way, let's say TSHTF, and a neighbour/housemate wants to make a copy of a book you have on farming techniques. Will anyone care that the author won't get a cut? No. Ideally, you might convince him to trade something for the copy. Is that illegal? That depends on which laws survive, but currently yes. If the same neighbour came over and stole the book, well, that's a problem no matter what else is happening.
And yes, I'm rationalizing. But when I can buy cereal and get a free DVD IN the cereal box, I can't feel sorry for companies that charge $20+ for the exact same thing. Music downloads are similar...99 cents for a song that costs, literally, nothing for the seller to make (in most cases where the song was made and put on a CD primarily) outside of 2 cents of electricity, is still way, way overpriced. Does that make downloading for free it OK? No. Again, I'm rationalizing here.
Private property did not exist before the establishment of government. What we know of the origins of capital goods, i.e., goods used to make goods, is that they were regarded as tribal property, and that as the tribal government of Egypt grew into a kingdom, the pharoah as head of tribe technically owned all capital goods. Thus he owned all the wheat, and could build state granaries to store it. Presumably later pharoahs distributed land to their favorites, who became the first aristocracy.
So as much as we wish it to be otherwise, you can forget about private property outlasting the collapse of government. It's strictly a political construct. Recall the story of the Enclosure Acts? Feudal Britian left marginal land un-"owned" by custom so that unfortunates could scratch a living from the earth in hard times - but the new capitalist elite created by industrialization bought up Parliament to change the very concept of property, turned the commons into their titled land, ran the peasants off and forced them to go to the cities and become the employees in their satanic mills at the lowest wages. Neat, huh? Without the resources of modern wealth and government, such an atrocity could never have been enforced. Then the best part: they set to work teaching all the English-speaking peoples that things had always been this way.
Property is whatever power groups can enforce. Whether that proves to be economically productive or not decides which societies come out on top. I guess some model will win out after ours collapses.
If you STEAL then thats what you are.
When I asked Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti
whether the director of the highest-grossing movie of all time was the ideal
spokesperson against petty theft, he tap-danced. 'I found the most
convincing part to be the working stiffs,' said Valenti of the PSA, 'the
guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make
$75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell
you that,'
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,442431,00.html
Good article.
I especially like this part...
I dont even make half that. Capitalism blows.
As a guy who has produced environmental and expose-type films, I'm pretty aware of the stark realities. It's hard to turn a profit. Without the "edge" of Al Gore, would "Inconvenient Truth" have even made it into theaters?
The reality of making money off of films that the average viewer would find hugely depressing is that it's hard to do.
Thus, if you're courageous enough to end such a show without some feelgood "solution" which tells people what to do so everything will be OK, it becomes a nearly impossible sell in terms of going through traditional 'movie' channels.
Realizing this, I made it a rule never to plan around turning a profit unless it was other investors taking all the risk against my advice, or me writing off the project as a financial loss ahead of time. This latter tactic, while affecting the fanciness of the productions, made the impact of the productions hugely greater since the penetration of the information into the target markets could be fast and huge. If planned well, that could generate some non-traditional revenue streams.
I contacted the "Crude Awakening" folks some time back to see about helping them market it. I couldn't even get an advance copy to review. And then they release it on DVD in only limited markets? I agree with the fact that they should be rewarded for producing it, and their copyright held sacrosanct. However, in the real world, it will get posted to the net as well as bootlegged, morality notwithstanding. A great concept for a film, but what was the marketing plan?
My kudos to the producers, and I wish them luck.
Sounds like they really missed an opportunity by not taking you up on your offer.
Yeah, greenish makes good points.
I don't think the film adds much to the likes of End of Suburbia. Greenish asks about the marketing plan, I was wondering what audience it was intended for. Seems a long sequence of data and talking heads for someone not already interested in the subject, while for those in the know there's little new.
I'd like to see someone try and tackle the consequences, and ram that into people's minds: More Mathew Simmons gets stale.
how many jobs will be lost
when will the food stop being delivered
when will the lights go out
when do we bring out the guns
Listen up Dr. Ignorati, I just dropped $750 on plane tickets to a part of the world I think might miss the worst of what is to come to see if the reality of the place mathces my research on it. Car rental is running me another $500. I'm not a man of means so you want to know what my accomodations are when I get there? I'm pitching a freakin' tent for $10 a night. Even with a tent as my accomodations, By the time it's all said and done I suspect this 8 day trip is going to run me $2,000.
The above example illustrats a bigger point: if you want to prep for Peak Oil, you better have some cash and a lot of it. That's the big "inconvenient truth" the greying hippies and relocalization activists who dominate the local PO meetings don't want to acknowledge.
(If others in the doom business aren't using the proceeds from their doomer books and dvds to prep themselves then, imho, they are dumbasses.)
I can't speak for others in the business o' doom, but at LATOC 9/10 items I sell will be more valuable once capitalism collapses then they are today. The Encyclopedia of Country Living is a good example. I would link-whore directly to it but I've done a lot of that lately, you know where to go to look.
(The other 1/10 of the stuff I sell will likely be used as toilet paper or heating fuel once TSHTF.)
In other words, 9/10 of the stuff I sell is actually going to help people as the shit hits the fan and the dieoff commences in earnest. What, praytell, do you do for a living oh High-Priest of Monetary Fool-Assery?
Already done and done well my friend, originally published over a year ago. Will link-whore for illustrative purposes only:
http://www.peakoil.org
Furthermore, I'm setting up an audio seminar based on the newsletter as well, will be eady in about a month. Info will be available at LATOC. Will cost $30-$40, I'll end up making about half that for each person who signs up. The money goes straight into the Chimp's "off grid, well-concealed, tropical farmlet" fund.
And that's not all, I'm going to be adding every single QUALITY book I can find that could be titled "The world is going to shit, here's how to make money from it" to the LATOC store in the next few weeks as time is running short for those of us who want to roll our FRNs into Farmlets.
Best,
Chimp
Two pieces of advice from Marc Faber:
Remember Richard Rainwater's warning 16 months ago?
Based on a communication with Mr. Rainwater, this is a one time event; apparently, he won't be speaking out publicly again, but he felt compelled to issue a public warning.
http://www.energybulletin.net/11695.html
Published on 12 Dec 2005 by Fortune. Archived on 13 Dec 2005.
The Rainwater Prophecy
by Oliver Ryan
smart man.
You should see the emails I get requesting that I intro people to RR so he can fund their "totally ri-coc-ulouls idea here" project.
TOD Troll record for longest parent thread does he hold?
All fun aside, of all the legal issues we should run a long debate on right now considering what is happening in the world IP seems almost redundant.
This is perhaps part of phase I. Coming to terms with the legal issues…… one at a time…..ad nauseam. Could take a 100 years. All of which only serves to delay/
distract from the real issues.
If so then, IMHO for the sake of humanity lawyers should go first in the great dieoff.
Come on guys lets hammer out some of the real issues.
Yo Chimp in the imortal words of Buckaroo Bonzai "Where ever you go, there you are."
Bam
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers
Shakespeare
Matt, not sure where you're headed exactly, but the North Island is smaller and has 3 million people. The South Island is slightly larger and has less than one million.
I spent six weeks travelling all over NZ in 2005. The place I'd want to be when TSHTF is Golden Bay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bay
Shush, you!
:)
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Um...If you copy someone's work, is there a way to provide them with the cut they would normally get, if not double that, directly?
I'm think more music than anything else, because the artists get so little, but even movies?
"Canada ready to ban sale of traditional light bulbs"
Far too little, far too late.
"The new-generation light bulbs cost a bit more but last about seven years ..."
Bullsheet. We know it, the industry knows it, but the media as usual is clueless.
The era of feel-good, half-assed attempts to curtail energy consumption is just about over.
Homo Sap can't control himself so Mother Nature will.
Sap will learn the hard way that "Demand Destruction" isn't just a cute academic term used by the brian-dead economists. It means parts of the economy are dying
I cannot personally vouch for whether or not this new generation lasts 7 years but I do know they are way better than the first generation. All my "first gens" are dead. My latest batch are going strong after three years.
Yes, light bulbs are just a small part of the puzzle, but first steps need to be taken, if only symbolically. For many people, this is their first act of consciousness.
As far as this argument about their overall effect in the winter, this needs to be counterbalanced with their overall effect in the summer. In addition, there are many areas of the country where winter is minimal so the argument doesn't apply.
In any event, I have seen assertions that the electricity savings are not worth the reduction in heat fron incandescents, but would actually like to see some real numbers rather than assertions. If worse came to worse, one could switch back and forth between incandescent and CFLs depending upon the season.
"I cannot personally vouch for whether or not this new generation lasts 7 years"
I'm sure they last 7 years in some lab under their "Standardized" conditions - which do not necessarily resemble real-life conditions anywhere on the planet.
This is an example of where we "pretend" and fool ourselves into thinking we are doing "something" about the energy problem. The truth is, these silly little baby steps at This TimezUp are little more than investments in complacency.
"Yes, light bulbs are just a small part of the puzzle, but first steps need to be taken, if only symbolically. For many people, this is their first act of consciousness. "
And for many people, these symbolic first steps are the only steps they will take, and will be their last acts of consciousness before Demand Destruction by Mother Nature takes their T-birds away.
I do understand your points tstreet, it's at least a start in the right direction... but IMHO it's far too late for baby steps that in reality do little more than reinforce complacency in the Herd.
Well, the Osram CFLs I buy in Germany come with a multi-year guarantee - depending on the bulb and when it was bought, 6 or 8 years.
Having never yet needed to take advantage of the warranty (yes, the receipts are kept), since the oldest of these Osram bulbs is about 5 years old, there is no way to know how good it is.
However, the Osram bulbs are easily 4x more expensive than the cheapest CFLs, costing something like 5-8 euro, instead of 1.50-2 euro for the least expensive - which are definitely less bright, and definitely have a shorter operating life in general - seems related to the production run more than anything, but that is only a guess.
I know a little about lights. What temp rating are yours? The reason people get pissed about CFL's is they are dingy when you turn them on. And they are, until you learn a little about lights. You need the highest temp bulbs (blue color in the states) and stay away from Red and Green. I buy mine now from home depot and it's some company called Nvision I think. I've had mine for bout two years without a single problem. I have purchased roughly 15 of them.
To this day I still have problems acquiring more. They are always sold out when I check and they piss me off by not making a multipack. The CRAPPY ones come in three packs but the good ones are running singles only and I'm paying almost $5 per for the 100~150 equiavalent watt rating. Oh and the hotter bulbs do use marginally more energy than the base, dingy, yellow junk in the three packs. So what I'm still green, right? I mean blue...
I've used many CFLs over the last 20+ years. Some lasted more than a decade. The early ones were Osram and Philips and cost close to $30 if you correct for inflation since. We'll see how well the current cheap (6-pack for $10) Chinese ones do.
One certain lab condition that is missing is vibration...I replaced my garage opener lights with CFLs a few years back, but to my surprise they die about every 4-6 months.
I know it is most likely the vibration, but I am getting tired of changing them.
Interesting. That might be my problem. I live in an old apartment building where the whole building shakes when someone slams a door.
What would the mechanism on that be? Incans burn out when the hot filament is more pliable then vibrated. CFL's light up a gas which isn't going to be effected. Are you buying the cheap bulbs or name brand. The store I get mine at sells phillips and the managet signs the base of your bulb and dates it . 1 year gaurantee. It is in Brasil though so it might not be economical to travel for the purchase. Seriously the electricity is touch and go here with surges and ocassional outages. All my bulbs are burning fine for six months.
matt
I'm in an old apartment bldg that sits very solid. But plenty of voltage spikes. Maybe the answer is for you and I to move out to sublurbia.
Watch the humidity too. Two Sunbeam "Mighty Bulbs" caught fire after being installed in our bathroom. The other two hit the sh*tcan soon after.
More likely it's due to electrical noise. Your garage door opener is an electrical motor on a switch. Electric motors make lots of spikes in the voltage in the circuit. The bulb is connected right next to the motor. And those CFLs are electronic devices, not simple resistance heaters like incandescents. So they're sensitive to the condition of the power.
Um, I hope I don't sound too sarcastic here, but in comparison to the light bulb, how much power does your garage door opener consume? Couldn't you just open it by hand instead? That would save even more power.
Come to think of it, why are you opening your garage door anyway? You wouldn't be driving a car in and out of there would you?
I'm just thinking that replacing an incandescent bulb with a CFL doesn't hold a candle to reducing the big draws on fossil fuels, such as that thing that is going in and out of your garage.
If you are just rolling your bike in and out, please accept my apologies.
I thought garage door openers required "rough service bulbs" -- that it's vibration protection you need.
academic term used by the brian-dead economists
Man is lead by the zombie economists killed by Brian? No wonder things are as bad as they are!
yes, thank you eric for catching my spelling twitch.
Upon reading the article about windfall profits taxes, I note that Bernie Sanders wants to reduce gasoline prices. I am assuming he doesn't believe the two actions are causually related. I gave Bernie more credit than that since he is also sponsoring a major bill with Barbara Boxer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Maybe he thinks he can keep the gas prices down until then.
My vote will go the to the first Presidential candidate who tells people the news they need to hear; gas prices should and will go up starting now and into the indefinite future. He/she should tell them that this is going to be painful but will be a lot less painful if they take steps to adjust to this new reality. The government is here to help with tax credits for more efficient cars and much highe CAFE standards, and more mass transit, but ultimately people have to take responsibility to get ready for the inevitable. And, oh yeh, we are going to have some biofuels but this provide a very minor amount of our fuel supply.
And, oh yeh, last night Obama helped me narrow the field of candidates with his response to the question,"what have you personally done to fight global warming". He said that he had organized tree planting on earth day. Bryan Williams then prompted him by saying he was talking about things like CFLs. Obama said he was working on putting CFLs in his house. "Working on"? How hard is that? You don't "work on" putting CFLs in your house, you just go out and buy them and then install them. Since Obama's income last year was around a million dollars, he can probably afford to to have someone install them for him.
I was very disappointed in the debate last night. This is supposed to be the year that America wakes up to green issues, peak oil, and global warming. There were very few questions on this subject and even when the candidates got a direct question, they wanted to change the subject to Iraq. At least Kucinich drew a connection between "global warring" for oil and "global warming". Need to get off oil for a lot of reasons, including war and warming.
Iraq is ruining this country and the world and not just because of all the dying and the expense. Candidates can't seem to focus on anything else.
A little bit of credit should go to Edwards since he at least tried to fit in his plan to address global warming. Too bad about the haircut and the 28,000 square foot residential complex. And, oh yeh, I must say he had the best hair cut of the bunch. Kucinich needs to talk to Edwards.
How many political aides does it take to screw in a CFL?
Answer: All of them. Any action that involves a "screw in" implicates all politicians.
Does anyone here has an idea about the outcome of the 200 Mio.$ exploration well spudded by Chevron in the Orphan Basin off-shore Newfoundland? Is it a duster?
It has been declared a tight hole and next activity which was scheduled for later this year has been delayed onto 2008/9. I mean, if they had found something substantial it would be subject to ad hoc reporting duty, wouldn´t it? And you would expect a media blitz how the peak oilers all got it wrong and underestimated the ingenuity of the oil industry.
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=24823&sc=82
The euro set a new record intraday price against the dollar:
Financial Times
Check live spot prices at Yahoo.
This is the second of psychological low barriers that the dollar crossed this month, after the 2 : 1 against the sterling.
Next to watch is the 80 points barrier for the dollar index and the 1.4 : 1 against the euro. IMHO this current ascendant trend should stop before the later barrier is crossed.
Daylight Savings Time Exacerbates Global Warming,
Or so says one writer to the Arkansas Democrat.
http://www.nctexasbirds.com/images/hot_news.jpg
That reminded me of a few years ago when, on the TV local news, there was a story, with pictures, about a petrified (fossilized) dinosaur egg that had been found. Like many stations they have a call in period near the end of the newscast. One lady called in and said: “I am sure hope they don’t let that egg hatch. We don’t need any little monsters running around.”
With folks like this we have no hope that people will ever accept peak oil until well after the fact.
Ron Patterson
Ron, That is truly funny. I wonder if my dad read that one? We might have the paper still that was in. Arkansans can't be said to be the brightest folks on the map. But having spent a fair amount of time here, I would have hoped they were not that dim witted. Maybe the paper published it to show the dim bulbs, or maybe they did not really think through what the person was saying before they published it. Either way it bodes ill for the clueless people of the world getting the facts straight about anything that has a bit of science tied to it.
Next they will be blaiming bee deaths on the human clock.
The letter's author is a Little Rock lawyer who has a history of writing letters like this as a joke.
Ron,
Several years ago my son was working as a wrangler, taking dudes on horseback into the high country. One lady kept talking to the others about things she knew lttle of, and finally was trying to convince the other riders in the group that deer turned into elk way back in the mountains. She asked him for verification. He turned on his horse, looked her in the eye, and replied. "Yep, mam, keep your eyes open, be quiet, we're almost at that elevation."
He said you'd never convince her otherwise, why even try. Kept the bunkhouse laughing the rest of the season though. Abiotic oil, anyone?
Hi TODers
I am a bit confused about from witch sources transportationfuels(gasoline and diesel) are produced from.
We assume, that global conventional oilproduction peaked 2005/05. And if gasoline and diesel is produced from oil, than also gasoline and diesel has peaked?
Does anybody moore in the know than i(and other TOD readers) be able to explain from witch sources outside oil transportationfuels are produced excluding biofuels and coal.
I have read about condensates, LNG and so on, but i do not really understand what they are used for?
Have transportationfuels(excluding biofuels and coal) peaked with the conventional oilpeak???
Fossil fuels can be viewed as a continuum, from natural gas (C1H4, one carbon atom, four hydrogen atoms), to natural gas liquids (e.g., propane), to condensate (natural gasoline), to light/sweet crude, to heavy/sour crude, to bitumen, to coal.
This is a progression from gas, to liquid to solid. It is also a progression from cleanest (natural gas) to dirtiest (coal).
Gasoline consists of shorter chain (fewer carbon atoms) hydrocarbons, diesel and jet fuel consists of somewhat longer chain hydrocarbons. Gasoline is therefore more volatile than diesel and jet fuel.
In any case, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are our principal Liquid Transportation Fuels (LTF's). We get the most LTF's for the least cost (in terms of dollars and energy) by refining light/sweet crude oil, and it appears that light/sweet crude oil production has peaked. We can make LTF's from any fossil fuel, but as we move toward the endpoints--natural gas and coal--the cost goes up and in the case of the heavier end, the pollution goes up.
Note that in an attempt to increase the LTF supply, by moving to the endpoints (gas and coal), we are simply accelerating our overall rate of consumption of fossil fuels.
Natural gas can be transported from overseas markets by turning it into a very cold liquid, LNG, or into an ambient temperature liquid (basically a very clean diesel fuel), via a GTL process.
World crude + condensate production, as of January, was down by one mbpd from the 5/05 peak. I suspect that most of the decline consists of light/sweet crude.
Note that our inventory numbers don't differentiate between light/sweet and heavy/sour. I suspect that one reason that some refineries worldwide are not running at full capacity is that they can't get all of the light/sweet crude oil that they need.
BTW, check out the Denver story up the thread. If we don't see some gasoline supply increases soon, I expect to see some hoarding start to occur, if nothing else, when drivers keep the gas tanks close to full, instead of letting it go down to a quarter tank or less before refilling.
Thanks, that sorted out a great deal of my question marks about fossil fuels.
Strictly speaking, when you speak of the progression from methane to longer molecules, you are discussing the family of molecules known as alkanes. As the length of the chains gets longer and longer, it doesn't turn into coal - you get waxes (parrafin), and ultimately polyethylene.
And that ignores all sorts of other hydrocarbon molecules such as the aromatics that start to become prevalent when the molecular weights become large enough.
Coal doesn't have the hydrogen atoms in it - in theory a lump of coal would be 100% carbon atoms. In practice there are all sorts of impurities in it.
I didn't think that Swede wanted me to get into organic chemistry.
In regard to coals, anthracite (metamorphic) coal is almost pure carbon, but lower grades of coal, below anthracite, have significant hydrocarbon (hydrogen + carbon) components:
http://www.uky.edu/KGS/coal/coalcomp.htm
Identification of Coal Components
Re: Race on to increase biofuel yields.
This brings to mind a paper published in 1986 entitled "Warm Season Grasses - New Agricultural Crop For The Cornbelt". The thrust of this paper was cellulosic material treated with a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution would add weight to cattle just as fast as a corn based diet. All of the soil loss and chemical pollution associated with corn being raised to feed cattle could be avoided. What happened to this technology? As I understand it, Con-Agra bought the rights and nothing has been said about it since.
The prairie supported 70 million bison, we have plowed the prairie to plant corn to support roughly the same amount of cattle, where is the progress?
Can we get Ace's comment from last night the place it merits?
His comments should really be separate posts, and certainly not be hidden in late night Drumbeats. Far too much quality.
If TOD is asleep on this, perhaps TOD Canada or Europe can provide this service?
Has anyone talked to Ace about this at all?
I know, Leanan, mail the editors.....
I agree.
His last two major posts should have had their own threads.
The Receding Horizons - Part 2 article is absolutely stunning!
He then goes on and looks at projects for Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iran, Kuwait, Algeria, and Qatar, all with equally dismal news of cancellations, delays, and downscaling.
And finally he concludes with a look at the increasing nationalization and taxation going on with regards to oil globally.
That's a very ugly picture people.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
The LNG picture is really really frightening. Without significant imports of LNG, NG goes out like a light switch in a 1/2 decade(+/-). Makes Peak Oil seem trivial in some ways(even with a black diamond downslope).
I really wonder if the NIMBYs will change their mind when they start running out of gasoline and heating fuel.
Every day they delay the construction of these projects (which are needed), increases the cost of construction and increases the probability it will be a day late, and a BCF too short.
I know we have said it before, but it is like we are "spending/consuming" like there is NO tomorrow.
Let's blame CERA. Where has Danny boy been these days, probably building his bunker.
Has anybody else noticed the hyper-contango futures market for Natural Gas these days? It seems odd it has reached similar price spreads to what preceeded a price meltdown last year.
Feb 9.94
Mar 9.69
Apr 8.33
May 8.20
Jun 8.27
Looks pretty normal to me. Nat gas is more expensive in the winter months, like beachfront condos are more expensive in the summer months.
The Shell withdrawal of the Louisiana LNG was because of "market conditions". From memory, we will soon have 7 LNG ports on the Gulf Coast and an 8th is not needed.
Best Hopes,
Alan
GreyZone: Glad you appreciated it.
I welcome anyone who has more evidence of "receding horizons" to send it to me, for use in a future article.
It's an ugly picture indeed.
--Chris
Energy consultant, writer, blogger www.getreallist.com
Hi Grey,
Thanks and perhaps this isn't the time, but I'm still interested in your "best case mitigation" plan/scenario, if and when you'd like to share it.
I've also been wondering about the LNG projects picture.
1) Do you know: Has anyone done any actual looking at what quantities of say, solar and wind projects would be needed to offset no new LNG facilities?
2) Similarly, I haven't attended any of these hearings, and haven't worked on the issue. Just curious, though, if anyone, on either side, looks at what equivalents would be necessary in terms of say, solar and/or wind projects to make up for the lack of LNG?
Also, I'm wondering if people involved have any idea of the NG picture at all.
3) And then, wondering...when you say "very ugly", could you please elaborate?
I think I know what you mean, but would like your take on it anyway.
"$4 a gallon gas fat chance" yeah, it might go higher!
HUh? FTX posted a chart here showing that the best U.S. output was ever was just over 9.3 Mbpd of gasoline when refinery capacity much better than today.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2495#comments
The U.S. is currently using 9.3 Mbpd before the peak driving season at something like 8.5 daily output.
RR's compiler from EIA says U.S. stockpiles need to build 3Mb per week for 5 weeks before Memorial Day to get back to some semblance of forward supply. (three stories down)
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/
It ain't happening. Their senior analyst ,quoted above, would seemingly advise buying 'puts' when 'calls' seem to have almost no downside risk.
Being short say .8 Mbpd and importing maybe 1. something is a wash at best but still the 'unexplained' drawdowns. (Got to be careful not to count that ethanol twice) If by some miracle the refinery ultilization jumped to 95% or better that'd still leave the question of demand. Nobody seems to have a handle on what that's going to be. Will we try to burn 10 Mbpd of unleaded this summer?
Lots of boomers in motorhomes, the irresistible force, refinery throughput, the unmovable object.
But we are only 6.4 M below last year which we survived. EIA says we need 3Mb for 5 weeks or 15 M. I don't get it -- did they define "semblance"?
Hello wstephens;
Yeah I guess I was thinking of a similar promise of forward supply given the higher demand this year against a tight output.
I'll give you what I find worrysome. I don't know if you caught this quote from Doug MacIntyre who does the input on inventory data for EIA. From RSquared.
April 25, 2007 12:27 PM
The demand is up 2.3% this year over last. That evidently has been averaging 1.5% y on y
The other issue that has been circulating is why refinery capacity has been faltering. Up to 90% and now back to 87%. Within this thread and elsewhere. Dante peakoil.com, RR, Leanan and Darwinian ,I believe, have included reports of having to buy Tapis or other light sweet to supplement runs b/c plentiful heavy sour was causing problems with the equiptment or because hydrogen crackers were down. I was curious with regard to inventories a few weeks back and WT responded.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2442#comment-177330
The sense is that southern Ghawar, Syncrude, and Mayan that are replacing better grades from Cantarell, N Ain Dar, and similar require more refinery tweaking this year and all has not gone smoothly. A 'Red Queen Syndrome' of high demand and failing refinery utilization has put refiners behind the eight ball. FTX has a good outline in the chart comparing last year with this. Khebab has posted a good range chart as well of the 11 week slide.
Anyway there is a somewhat documented picture shaping up out there that this situation is different. If everyone in the 'sandbox' plays nice and no hurricanes then we get by with IMHO at least a $3.50 average retail top. Otherwise a run at the $4. average figure is a real possibility.
The 9.3 Mbpd demand at this time vs. the lower output and the real possibility that European gasoline imports (due to their own demand) will not be forthcomming in quantity makes further slide possible. All we need is still more strong demand and it's hard to see enough refined products distributed everywhere.
Sorry I didn't have time to chase down all the links.
If inventory goes below ,say, 185Mb it may be enough to get by but for my Washington State area and for some others where supply lines may not be as strong and retail is already well over $3, I think it may well mean spot outages or historically expensive gasoline.
"2.5-3.0 MB each week over the next 5 weeks"
So, what is the normal build rate during May? Anywhere near 3.0?
"demand is up 2.3% this year over last"...refining "90% and now back to 87%"
Apparently last year during May we imported about 1.6 mbd and refined 9.2 mbd. So if demand is up 2.3% and refining is down 3%, the difference is (approximately?) up 250 kbd and down 275 kbd, say 500 kbd total -- then times 5 weeks would have us at a 17.5 mb deficit to last year's May build -- which would leave us at 191.1 in inventory -- a little LOWER than where we are now. That seems awful. Or am I missing something?
Someone observed on the WSJ blog that 4 wk avg refining was about 500 kbd higher than last year, so that makes the recent drawdowns even scarier, no?
Also there was a mention of the recent port strike in Versailles as the reason that gas imports were down.
From this point on last year we had a build rate of 1.48 per week through the end of May. That was a good one. Reasons why it may not build this time.
Refinery percents were better than they are now.
Imports were higher.
Demand was less.
"Also there was a mention of the recent port strike in Versailles as the reason that gas imports were down." Yes I read that. There is one in Antwerp maybe upcoming.
Currentlly at 194Mb if we drop each week rather than build, where does that leave us? Probably more than a little bit lower than last year. And heading out for the summer drivefest.
The trend is for analysts to continually miss the inventory number high this year suggesting demand is ramping up faster than refineries are building. The trend may reverse next week but for now the price signal on wholesale gasoline is running the other way.
More bee problems...
Taiwan Stung by Millions of Missing Bees
That is happening not only in the East but also in the West. The US has been suffering for a few years now from this and other issues to do with Honey Bee losses. The Taiwan problem might be linked to storms they have been having, but there have always been storms, I'd be willing to bet it is a combination of problems least of all is the weather.
There should be major concern about the loss of the bees because they are the major pollinators out there. Just another link in the chain we have been breaking bits of over and over again.
Did you read the Einstein quote regarding four years of life left without bees. Someone on another board (ill try and find it) posted today that after examining the utility of bees, this is probably a year too long given today's resources etc.
Don't worry the 'killer' bees will save us.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/176000
http://esa.confex.com/esa/2005/techprogram/paper_22428.htm
The problem with "killer bees" (Africanized) and solitary bees is that they are not easily managed to stay at a specific orchard or field.
Sure, they'll be some around, but probably not at the densities required to manage a crop effectively.
In an article I read this week out of Acres magazine, "Colony Collapse Disorder" by Gunther Hauk, he said
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=6680
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp
Alan
Thanks. I had doubts about it when I read it, too, that's why I worded it the way I did in response to Tate's question.
FWIW, am currently reading Einstein, by Walter Isaacson :^)
There should be major concern about the loss of the bees because they are the major pollinators out there.
http://www.ebeehoney.com/Pollination.html
OK, so from your 1999 bee article, it says,
Although the number of pollen bees has also declined, due to pesticide use and habitat destruction, pollen bees are unaffected by mites and Africanized bees
Does anyone know what the current rate of decline in these other pollinator species is?
Global Bee Rapture :P
Seriously, very disturbing. Why is there no trace of them?
The pied piper of bees, of course. :-)
-
James Gervais
Hope was the last ill to escape Pandora's box.
Italy
Germany
Poland
Croatia
Russia
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Spain
Switzerland
Brazil
India
And now... Taiwan.
The world's bee populations are VANISHING from the face of the earth right before our eyes and no one has a GDMD clue as to why!
Bees don't just vanish without a trace because of a mite infection or cell phone radiation folks. And they most certainly do not vanish from every continent by the billions simultaneously!
Something's up. Something big.
Leanan...I thought I read an article over at PeakOil.com yesterday that some researchers had found the potential culprit of the bee colony collapses. I believe they were looking at a new parasite and virus found in some bees.
Have you posted that article yet?
Here's the article I was looking for:
Bee Colony Collapse Disorder And Viral Disease Incidence Under Investigation
Date: April 24, 2007
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423113425.htm
********************************
Here's some more interesting reading:
Colony Collapse Disorder and Pollinator Decline
Statement of
May R. Berenbaum
Professor and Head, Department of Entomology
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
and
Chair, Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America
Board on Life Sciences and Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources
Division on Earth and Life Studies
National Research Council
The National Academies
before the
Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture
Committee on Agriculture
U.S. House of Representatives
March 29, 2007
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Colony_Collapse_Disorde...
********************************
I want to pull out two sections of the Colony Collapse Disorder and Pollinator Decline link that caught my eye:
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Colony_Collapse_Disorde...
(italics and bold added for emphasis)
--snip--
I DON'T place a lot of faith in the "wild pollinators" to pick up the slack of Apis mellifera (the honey bee).
I'm sure you are aware that Apis melliferra, the honey bee, is an alien species to North America, inadvertly introduced and that it spread across the continent faster than the zebra mussel.
Although I don't wish to downplay the seriousness of CCD, I also believe we must look to alternate wild pollinators. The native flora evolved under these, and though many may have been lost undetected in the centuries since honey bee introduction, I think there may quite a few left. Probably not enough to forestall real problems with production ag.
I have a small orchard, about 150 trees, and noted last year the bulk of the pollination performed by bumblebees, vespids, and an assortment of dipterans, whereas in previous years the pollination was done via wild or "volunteer" honey bee colonies. One benefit was the little amount of crop thinning needed on the apples, about 90% of the orchard. Cherries were hard to find. It's still early for blossom this year, cherries should be next week, and I'll watch with fingers crossed.
I read of study beginning in Germany, under the hypothesis that GM crop pollen has lowered the resistance to an otherwise benign parasite or infection. I am unable to find the link, it did not state their experimental design, of which I am curious.
Pollinators or not, I'll miss the honey.
doug fir...I'm not saying it's impossible to pollinate with other species, just that we have once again built a huge economy relient on one resource (like fossil fuels). When that one resource runs into problems, it's going to have major effects on the status quo.
How long will it take us to switch our pollination industry over to new species and what will be the transitional economic impact?
Please note that ALL of of commercial fruit trees are imports as well, and they were breed/domesticated in the presence of honey bees.
Secondary pollinators are just that, secondary.
Best Hopes for new hives (even if they do not live as long as before),
Alan
I reciently talk with a lady whose company makes phermone(sp?) traps. She also mentioned the bee problem. They were wondering about the newest insecticides. I would wonder as well because there is alot more use of insect growth regulators in our industry as they phase out older chems.
Peak Bees?
With respect to the missing bees, my bets are on Imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide that was banned in France after beekeepers staged a protest. Apparently, this insecticide is also used in GM plants, so there are two ways a bee can get the poison.
Some linke to TOD posts on this subject:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2471/181485
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2471#comment-181613
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-473166,00.html
(was a Leanen link - I bookmarked the article, not the link)
These three links together make a fairly strong case.
Oil War Music Video (Nine Inch Nails?)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a2e_1177652873
FWIW
After I saw A Crude Awakening posted to google...I posted it to a forum.
I was sent a PM from the forum owner that it had been unposted and that if I did it again I would be banned.
The owner said that by me posting it to the forum would cause the makers of the movie to "whore" themselves out to recoup the cost.
I was a little shocked.
Some people don't have $40 for the DVD.
Oh well - it is always ever about profit.
I checked Amazon to see if I could buy it and they say it is not yet available. Do you know it will cost $40? Do you know where it is available for purchase? I also checked their site and it states it is not yet available.
Matt Savinar is selling it at LATOC.
But I think they'd sell a lot more copies if it was available at Amazon.com.
>Some people don't have $40 for the DVD.
The solution to this problem is very easy: DON'T BUY IT.
The solution to this problem is very easy: DON'T BUY IT.
The 'not buying it' and having it 'for free download' is the who problem.
And while you ponder DVDs and income Let the words of Jack Valenti be your guide:
" They make$75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that,"
There was some discussion in the DrumBeat yesterday about locations that would be best suited for post-peak living.
I've been thinking a bit about this, and on top of peak oil there is climate change.
Greenland came to mind. They are now beginning to grow crops and support dairy farms in Greenland, and the receding glaciers reveal more and more fertile land. And to boot, there's plenty of fresh water for drinking and for hydro power.
The only downside I can see is that large extraction companies will rape the place for minerals, water, oil, NG, fish, etc. And I suppose if everyone got word of the utopia of Greenland there could be mass immigration to settle the place. As of now there are about 56,000 people living there.
http://greenland.com/
What do y'all think?
Tom A-B
What is the current population of trees in Greenland?
I would guess similar to Iceland, but I don't know. Not many, that's for sure.
Tom A-B
In that case I wouldnt dare move to Greenland. Worst-case scenario, there will be no natgas to heat your home and no electricity so therefore you would be forced to use biomass to keep you from freezing to death. And since most of Greenland has been covered in ice for who knows how long, theres no telling how long it will be before there will be enough biomass for any human population to use.
My nice Icelandic friends at Landsvirkjun have built a small hydroelectric plant in East Greenland. I was jokingly asked if I would like the job of operating it.
And they are looking at a collection of hydropower plants in West Greenland to run a small aluminum smelter.
Don't let ALL of that melting water go to waste !
Best Hopes,
Alan
Þrostur Eysteinsson, Asst. Director of the Iceland Forest Service, has worked to establish the first plantings in Greenland. Siberian larch was the dominant planting.
Iceland plants over 5 million trees.year now and hopes to surpass Malta for the least forested nation in Europe.
A few years ago I spent the shortest night of the year in an 1,100 year old geothermal fed hot tub with 5 Scandinavians at a Nordic forestry conference :-)
Best Hopes for Nordic forestry (and more even gender selection in hottubs),
Alan
Sounds excellent, but you will need to wait for them to develop the energy resources. You'll freeze to death in the winter otherwise. Also, what if the thermohaline conveyor collapses? You'll suffer the fate of the previous greenlanders.
If think that most people will get suicidal due to the lack of sunlight in for large part of the year. Unless we're getting into some major geo- (astro-) engineering , like tilting the earth axis.
“The global oil price has not reached its real value yet. The products derived from crude oil are sold at prices dozens of times higher than those charged by oil producing countries,” the report quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
http://www.bakusun.az/cgi-bin/ayten/bakusun/show.cgi?code=9517
Do you think Ahmadinejad is reading Matt Simmons? :>)
Maybe he reads TOD, still 9-10 cents a cup.
And just think of the collective whining that will begin when it gets to 25 cents a cup.
What is a Starbuck's coffee at $400/barrel?
Hey, good to see that the Vatican has gone green, along with its billion adherents. The way their flock breeds, that will be two billion green adherents in no time! We're saved!
Ouch! =/
High-five! =D
More Bad News on the US Housing
Across the board, the report was glum …
First, total sales fell a sharp 8.4% to a seasonally-adjusted annual pace of 6.12 million. That was the single-biggest monthly decline in 18 years, and it left sales at their lowest level since June 2003.
Second, prices fell again. While the year-over-year decline was just 0.3%, it was the eighth such drop in a row … the longest losing streak on record.
Third, supply remains a major problem. The total number of homes for sale was just shy of 3.75 million units — 17% higher than a year ago.
Sales dropped in EVERY region of the country. They were down 6.2% in the South … down 9.1% in the West … down 8.2% in the Northeast … and down 10.9% in the Midwest.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article865.html
As I said the other day, take a look at the totality of the news--up to and including the report of spot shortages of gasoline in Denver.
If one had written a screenplay for "Peak Oil: The Movie," events are closely following the script.
Ah, but westexas, you've heard of "ad-hoc-ery" haven't you?
Why both with ultimate causes when the proximate ones are so much more . . . acceptable?
Hmmm ... regular gas is $2.91 in western Colorado and still seems to be available.
Looking at the wholesale price on NYMEX, it seems probable that our gas will go over $3 the next time the tanker truck comes through.
Likely by this afternoon ...
The west coast and California in particular are leading the way into post peak hell.
http://www.iowastategasprices.com/Price_By_County.aspx?state=IA&c=usa
A strip of states in the central US from Minnesota to Texas seem to be following behind. These are ethanol and oil producing states. Today the closing price of ethanol on the CBOT was 2.18 as compared to NYMEX gasoline at 2.35 for a .17 differential. If this trend continues, ethanol will be appropriately priced for its energy content.
The totality of the news is forming a picture of some big changes in awareness or world events... I keep telling my friends that this summer will be very interesting; to see how PO, Iran, Iraq, USD currency, hurricane season and housing all come together. It's a fascinating time to be alive. By next November's elections it's any one's guess as to what crisis is most in the MSM, and who the majority of Americans will be blaming for their predicament.
BTW, I am also in the Denver metro area and will be watching gas/diesel prices. This stuff is not just in cyberspace anymore, it's right here now! I'm working toward my own ELP, trying to change jobs and cut about 60 miles a day out of my commute. Frankly, the job change is risky but I am hearing (and smelling) the early hints of TSHTF and am convinced that localization will be a survival tool in itself.
Lastly, the best book I have ever read on fool-proof, easy vegetable gardening is "Square foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. A real survival gem, that I highly recommend all of us to try out. His methods work even in urban city areas. Very cool:
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
Re: Square Foot Gardening
I have it on my shelf, too. It sounds good in theory, but I tried it one season and abandoned his idea. I found his guidelines to be unpractical because my vegetables became way too large for the spaces he alloted, and this actually harmed production. If you live in an urban area, you might just mix your vegetables into regular garden spaces, too. I like to give plants plenty of space, good soil, and the most sunlight possible. It probably depends upon where you live and how good your soil is. A system which I like was one I saw recommended by your own Lauren Springer in her book "Undaunted Garden" borrowed from English cottage kitchen gardens called Four Square Gardens. I have learned much over the years by watching The Victory Garden on PBS. Currently, they are just planting in rows using mounded soil for their rows and straw in between to walk on.
The Four-Square: A Classic Kitchen Garden Design
by John D. Simpson
The history of the classic four-square garden goes back seven centuries, to the first English cottage gardens. The English cottage garden style was born not of abundance but in a society crippled by the Black Death of the 12th century. The plague so decimated the working peasantry that, to garner a work force for the landholding aristocracy, landlords offered land and cottages in exchange for crops. The gardens that sprouted up around these cottages became a hallmark of English culture for hundreds of years. They were planted in the traditional four-square layout.
Early cottage gardens were commonly divided into four rectangular plots by two intersecting paths—hence the term "four-square." This arrangement made it easier to cultivate crops such as grains, vegetables, herbs, berries, and fruits, and sometimes even to raise livestock.
I also tried square foot gardening for a while. It is a good concept for lettuce and I still have some beds set up on the square foot model that I use for my lettuce crops. But it doesn't really work that well for production gardening. The whole idea is that you are going to lavish a huge amount of attention on a few square feet. If you are just growing a couple of tomato plants and a couple of other things, that makes sense. But if you are gardening hundreds of square feet, a different approach is called for. A couple of books that are more appropriate for larger scale gardening:
The Self Sufficient Gardener, J. Seymour
Four Season Harvest, E. Coleman
If you are serious about producing most of the vegetables that you will need to eat year around, then you need these two books.
Since JHK wrote about the "stockplosion" before this workweek, the stock prices (DJIA anyway) kept rising higher yet. Some months ago, every time oil prices went up, or there was some bad economic news, the stock prices would respond. Now it seems that those stock traders have lifted off the planet and are having a big party somewhere in hyperspace. No bit of news, from non-growing (gosh!) GDP to terrorists in KSA to vanishing gasoline inventories, is able to get their attention. Is this a sign of impending doom -- the last hurrah of the pyramid scheme?
It's bubble-icious when some people get to borrow lots of money at rates which are below the actual (real, not official government) rate of inflation. We had a stock market bubble, which crashed and was followed by a real estate bubble, which crashed and is now being followed by a stock market bubble again.
The DJIA 30 are pretty much all global firms. They therefore have a global value. As the US$ goes down relative to other currencies, then their price in US$ must increase to maintain their real value relative to other currencies.
The US stock market used to be a pretty good leading indicator, I am becoming more doubtful whether this continues to be the case.
With all the doom and gloom, it seems as if y'all need a little cheering up. Time for a big dose of some Cornucopian Market Economics. This is a classic--a must read. It's short, but it covers everything:
Oh, and ignore the fact that the Ph.D. Economist author bears a striking resemblence to George Constanza.
"Although it’s politically incorrect to say so, the best way to protect endangered species is to allow private individuals to own them and sell them to the highest bidder."
Hmm. Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, the Southern slaveowners used to explain to dense secular humanists that the Negro was better off as property than as a worker in the capitalist North, because the Yankee factory owner had no stake in the well-being of his workforce.
Now based on that, then African-Americans, and maybe Mexicans, should immediately be declared property again. They, like the rhinoceri and blue whales, will be able to live normal, happy lives as the violently-protected property of moral exemplars like Donald Trump or Marge Schott. I'm sure killer whales love being enslaved circus performers, and so will NBA players. Yeah, Shamu is what conservation is all about. Hell, let's make everybody property. Oh, wait, too many poor whites with guns. Never mind.
Oh my, where to begin? So little time!
The difference between other private property and endangered species is that if someone messes up a piece of land, you have a messed up piece of land, but it is still there. If someone kills a cow, it is dead, but there are certainly more of them around for replacements. But if an endagered species is killed -- and if enough of them are killed (and it doesn't take many) -- then there is a real risk that the entire species will be gone forever. No replacements, nothing. Society has judged that those who cause this to happen are taking away something (stealing, really) of the common natural patrimony that is the inheritance of all humankind, now living and those generations that will follow us. This is one case where if endangered species are made private property, then property truly will be theft.
Futures markets are pretty much short-term in their focus. The vast majority of futures trading is in contracts that only go out to a year or two at most. It is true that one can get a pretty good fix on the consensus outlook on a traded commodity for the next few months by monitoring the futures markets. This works less well the farther out you go.
As for global warming, it is the mother of all externalities, the greatest market failure of all time. If an unbridled market has reulted in a market failure, then more of an unbridled market is not going to result in less of a market failure.
Wow a copyright fight on TOD.
We entered in to the new era of mankind (sure those are baby steps but we are there, remember the news from Africa, those are real states having real layoff problems which are to become a food problem that develop in the die off) and interesting thing hapends, people make the movie in hope to share the wisdom of coming age (and make enough money for that huge sexy Mcbunker with solar panel on some island or very rough mountain), unfortunately for these guys it seems that some people want to spread a word and think it should be done for free, so they post it on net and for that reason most of TOD yesterday and today acts as its end of days, not becose of people living more and more crappy lives, not becose of end of all good in our current civilization, no, the reason is IDEA that ideas are for sale. Copyright is just part of old system that is about to go extinct, you may not like it but its in the wind.
Ps for all of you that thinks its immoral to steal a movie i have a little question. You are hungry and you see a little plot with veggies, you haven't eat nothing for days.... are you really going to turn around just becose of “old moral values”....
those who turn would die, those who take it would have a bit more chance.
Perhaps the right thing to do would be to find the owner of those veggies and ask if you could have some, or offer to work in exchange for some. There is the chance he will say no, granted, but then there is also the chance he will say yes. Furthermore if you do good work, there might even be the chance to continue working for him so that you have recurring source of nourishment. Voila, the capitalist system at work.
Moreover that scneario is where a concept like honor comes into play. Is honor worth dying for? Is being moral worth dying for? There are some things in life more important than life itself and it is those people who remember those things that make mere men and women, into great men and women.
And to flip your argument on its head,
A common set of morals/laws is the glue that holds community together. Without this, a community cannot survive and thrive as there will be no common trust.
The creation/adoption of morals/laws is of paramount importance for the survival and growth of the human species.
I've come to the sad conclusion, that when TSHTF it is the moral relativists who will be the blight on our humanity, as they justify their actions at the expense of others with the EXCUSE that it was for some "greater good" that they hold. Hrm, I believe I've heard that line before throughout history, usually right before some group tries to murder another.
Yes and No.
you may find a good farmer, but if he has a single brain cell working he would probably shoot you on sight. There is simple to many of us and to little of veggies. And this entire scenario is made just to point out the fact that our current moral is a bit off road in TSHTF world. That is of course if you want to live.
Yes the whole copyright issue seems to have brought out the douchebag in all of us. =(
And every time Chimp uses some word like "jabroni" or "kapisch" and calls another poster a name like "Dr. Ignoratio" or something like that, I lose a bit of respect for him. I am guessing he is going to try to survive post-peak all by himself.
Thats right. What a dolt! I thought the word was "jamboni" myself.
I agree that when TSHTF copyrights will be pretty worthless. Possibly even more sacreligious is the idea patents will be worthless too. Both ideas are born from the belief that we are separate and can maintain advantages over others. In reality we are all in one big life-boat and we better learn to work together and share resources if we have a chance of getting though this mess. I know this sounds quite Utopian, but even from a technical and legal standpoint I think this is the only viable option. The first book I read on Peak Oil was "Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann back in 1998. Still a classic on PO and his main solution was a form of ELP with a spiritual awareness that we are all in this together, whether we want to admit it or not.
I disagree about the "old moral values" not holding force though. They won't be moral platitudes but will take on more of a role like "natural consequences". During times of crisis communities become tighter and more interdependent. Look at some of the still functioning (there are a few left) indigenous societies and they have strong ethics and consequences for selfish behavior. Don't forget all those armed life-boater's who may take offence to food stealing. After a lot of initial chaos, I would expect pockets of self regulating communities to hold on OK applying the ELP model but expect a wild-west system of justice for cattle rustlers and carrot thieves!
Nail. Head. You hit it.
There are many nails, but that is an important one of them... thanks for the reference to the book.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
The subject of intellectual property rights remains contentious in large part because people argue at cross purposes, not unlike abortion rights, the peak oil debate, global warming and politics in general. Choose any hot-button issue and chances are high that the vitriol is perpetuated by this sort of misunderstanding, due to the forces of ignorance, fear and deliberate obfuscation. You can see it in action all around you, but I'll sum up this one for your convenience:
Alice: Content is free like speech and shouldn't be treated like property.
Bob: Content makers need to be compensated!
Carl: I agree! I'm the content maker and I have rights.
Alice: It's not stealing because you, Carl, still have your content.
Bob: It's stealing because it's illegal. Look it up, Ms. Stupid McStupid.
Alice: You can't stop it. Your legal efforts are futile, so get with the program.
Bob: That doesn't make it right -- it's still immoral. You can't decide for Carl.
Carl: Yeah! You can't decide for me. I'm going broke here.
Alice: Looks like you need to find a more creative way to make money. Your content belongs to the universe.
Carl: That it. I'm suing.
Alice: That's not what I had in mind.
Each side of this argument works within its own cycles. Alice is circling around the dual stars of rationalism and pragmatism while Bob finds his center in morality, law and just compensation (and Carl just wants his money). These cycles never intersect, and while their arguments are most effective when their orbits come within yelling distance, little else gets done.
My opinion on this topic isn't important -- though you can probably deduce it from my characterization -- but I hope to illustrate how language, institutions, tools, state of the art, conventions are all in perfect alignment to give us a raging debate.
What's needed is a little understanding (can we hug?). Until we all agree on the crux of this problem, we'll inflict more damage on ourselves than the real problem ever could. Can you tell that I'm trying to relate this to the subject of PO? I'd get Alice, Bob and Carl to play out a PO debate, but why perform it for roomful of Alices (including me)?
Or maybe copyright law lit a brush fire here today because you're all a bunch of geeks who like free stuff.
Also: someone pointed to Linux and said that it started out free but now people are profiting from it. I can't help but point out that people aren't profiting from it by enforcing copyright law; they're profiting by offering value-added products and services. The very fact that people are profiting from it by means other than property rights kind of reverses the direction of this attempted volley.
You're not going to die if you don't copy a frikkin' movie. I wouldn't copy Crude Awakening out of compassion for those people who worked so hard to make it. Life sucks for them because they can't get distribution. They're locked out of the theaters.
Same with small book publishers. Most of them lose money, so I would never Xerox Chimpy's book.
On the other hand, the RIAA is so dishonest and their music industry is so criminal that I can't but suggest everyone copy commercial music and share with abandon!
The copyright laws in the US are way to restrictive and the copyright granted is too long. But don't step on the little guys.
the RIAA is so dishonest and their music industry is so criminal .... The copyright laws in the US are way to restrictive and the copyright granted is too long. But don't step on the little guys.
There is another path than copy commercial music and share with abandon!
Turn your back on 'em and give them none of your money.
If you don't like the game, don't play it. At all.
Frankly, I don't play the music game anymore. The RIAA hasn't received a dime from me. If I bought a commercial music CD, the artist would only get a penny anyway.
Self-publish or perish.
Well, it could be argued that this particular movie could save someone's life. Maybe a lot of people's lives...if they see it. Remember, most people assumed it was unavailable for purchase. It's not at Amazon.com, their web site said it was not available on DVD, and even us peak oilers didn't know Matt was selling it until he came here and said so.
Maybe they should have put it on one of those indy movie sites. I've bought movies from them before. I think it was $5 for the download.
Sorry, but I've never bought into the notion that the ends justify the means. And who is to say that your ends are more justified than the other person's ends, anyway?
The problem is that the current copyright laws don't constitute just means employed to advance just ends, either. Privileging one class of intellectual property with a period of protection that is many times longer than is provided to other classes of intellectual property cannot possibly be viewed as a just means under any circumstances. Yes, it benefits the owner of the copyright. A patent holder probably wishes that they had the same benefit. There is no excuse whatsoever for this type of discrimination, it is fundamentally unjust.
The conclusion is not to diregard this unjust law, but to work to change it.
Gold has gone up 225% in the last 5 yrs vs. the US Dollar, But not against other currencies. In other words the value of gold has not gone up, but the value of the USD has depreciated dramatically. The USD is worth less than half of what it was 5 yrs ago.
http://www.zealllc.com/2004/eurogold.htm
The above article is from 2004. If you look at the 5 yr chart below you will see Gold/USD has skyrocketed since then, from 66% to 225%.
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html
for those of us who look into a little bit the 'human' side of the equation here i suggest you get your hands on the new documentary mini-series by adam curtis.
information on part one.
part two
part three
What's up with Canada?
Has anyone been following the Baker Hughes rig count reports lately? Drilling in Canada seems to be on hiatus for reasons that aren't clear to me.
One speculation I've had is that maybe the government up there has figured out oil is either near or in decline and there isn't much point giving what's left to us. NAFTA agreement says they are obligated to sell whatever they have to whomever wishes to bid on it. I don't believe it says anything about not pulling it out of the ground in the first place.
Does anyone have an explanation or hypothesis regarding the precipitous drop in drilling rigs? You can read the Baker Hughes weekly report on their website if you need background information.
Thanks,
Jeff
One theory, the unit trusts are being screw-ed by the Gov't (forcing them back into corporate tax status). They have ALL shut down any drilling.
The unit trusts were the primary market for wells & fields past depletion, so their loss hurts everyone. Perhaps a bit of a "sit down" strike, driven in part by changed economics due to new gov't policies.
Just a thought,
Alan
That's an interesting thought regarding the unit trusts. Could that many corporations foresake profits for spite? 65/barrel;7.50/foot is still good coin if you can get it, taxes or not.
I read a lot of marginal wells aren't feasible without the subsidies, but 50% of the rigs? I don't know.
Good thought though. Thanks for your response.
Maybe even North American governments have figured out that they need to be drilling where the oil is, and as such, are packing up and shipping all spare and not so spare rigs to the Middle East.
Any other guesses?
Take a look at the graph for the rig count in Canada in this pdf:
http://www.bakerhughes.com/investor/rig/pdf/na_rigs_042707.pdf
Canada's rig count drops precipitously every spring. I assume its because the spring thaw makes moving heavy equipment and supplies difficult.
Thanks alan,
That chart paints a better picture that just reading the spreadsheet. I was focusing on the YOY numbers which seemed dismal. It still seems like a low number at $65bbl.
My apologies for manafacturing an emergency.
Maybe global warming is forcing them to retreat from the ice earlier each year, but I'll have to post that theory to another website.
Thanks for finding that graph.
Jeff
Well, there was this in yesterday's news:
Western Canada oil and gas drilling to drop 18 per cent in '07
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/070426/b0426144A.html