DrumBeat: June 11, 2007
Posted by Leanan on June 11, 2007 - 8:42am
Surprise: less oxygen could be just the trick
It was used by the people of the Amazon for thousands of years. Now Australian researchers say biochar could reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide - while providing a new source of energy, and boosting farm productivity....At Somersby, on the Central Coast, BEST Energies Australia, a company researching clean energy technology, has built a demonstration pyrolysis plant with the capacity to process 300 kilograms of dry green waste, wood waste, rice hulls, cow and poultry manure or paper mill waste every hour.
The material, says Adriana Downie, the company's technical manager, is heated at up to 550 degrees for 40 minutes.
During processing gases are released from the material which are cleaned and burned to produce energy. This gaseous biofuel is called syngas. "Syngas can be used as a replacement for natural gas or LPG in gas-fired boilers or dryers, or to produce electricity," says Downie.
The remaining black carbon-rich biochar can be used on farms.
The wrath of 2007: America's great drought
America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water.
The revolution will not be blogged, either
In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond observes that the vast majority of technologies create more problems then they solve, and in the aggregate, technology virtually always fails to keep up with the unintended consequences it generates. The more we're able to do, the more net damage we do. He observes about people who advocate one or many technical solutions to our environmental problems all seem to be making the same basic error in reasoning.All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology. The rapid advances in technology during the 20th century have been creating difficult new problems faster than they have been solving old problems: that's why we're in the situation in which we now find ourselves. What makes you think that, as of January 1 2006, for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing new unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems it previously produced? (Diamond, 505)
Battle Over Bush Oil Law Proposal
The threat of violence is of course a major concern for Iraqis, but so too is how to handle the country's oil resources. The Bush administration claims its plan to privatize production is the best way to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. But representatives from Iraq's oil industry say the plan gives too much control to foreign interests. They're touring California right now to convey that message.Most of the Iraqi oil wells which were destroyed during the first Gulf War and in the past four years may soon be under foreign control. A law backed by the Bush administration and now in Iraq's parliament would give control of the majority of these fields to foreign oil companies for about 30 years.
Bodman: U.S. energy's future presents a powerful challenge
President Bush's 2005 Energy Act authorized the U.S. Department of Energy to designate special corridors where there was energy congestion, where the federal government's siting laws for transmission lines could supersede those of states.
Putin: Russia favors strategic dialogue between energy suppliers, consumers
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia, as a guarantor of energy supply to the world market, favors strategic dialogue between energy suppliers and consumers."Presently, we can see the emergence of not only new major consumers such as China and India, but also new producers on the Eurasian landmass," Putin told a plenary session of the 11th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with the theme of "A competitive Eurasia - Expanse for trust."
Oil slip: India on slippery track?
India, which imports two-thirds of its crude oil requirements to meet domestic demand, faces a big challenge in coping with oil shocks and supply disruptions. Crude oil is already heading north and trading above $71 per barrel. Fears of an attack on Iran by the US or Israel and reports of Turkish troops entering Iraq are keeping prices volatile.
Korea grows more dependent on Gulf oil
South Korea has grown more dependent on the Gulf states for oil imports over the last decade despite its bid to diversify, according to a US Department of Energy report.Seventy-five percent of the country's imports last year came from the Gulf region, with Saudi Arabia the single-largest source by supplying 29% of South Korea's oil purchases, according to analysis for June.
Gazprom close to signing deal that will increase its UK customer base
Alexander Medvedev told reporters at an economic forum in St Petersburg: "In the near future there will a deal to further increase the customer base on the British market. Anyone who will be in London for the Wimbledon tennis tournament will know about it." Wimbledon fortnight starts on June 25.
Ikea shines low-energy light on environmental concerns
As part of its strategy to improve its environmental credentials, the Swedish furnishing group plans to give each of its 9,600 British employees six low-energy light bulbs, which it will replace for nothing once they stop working after about five years.
Sizzling weather challenges Beijing's energy-saving goals
Beijing's power supply network is groaning under the strain this week as more families and businesses are forced to switch on the air conditioners in the early summer heat.The city's peak electricity demand hit 10.51 million kilowatts at 3:50 p.m. on Friday, the highest so far this year, said sources with the Beijing Electric Power Corporation.
Malaysia defends palm oil production
Malaysia, one of the world’s leading growers of palm oil, has hit back at allegations that Europe's growing use of "green" fuels will increase the destruction of rainforests and great apes, such as the orang utan.
For years, when there was a spike in energy prices, industry spokesmen were trotted out to claim that, after adjusting for inflation, it wasn’t really all that bad.Well, you can toss that talking point into the circular file. Inflation-adjusted gasoline prices are blowing past the 1981 record.
Allow me to suggest that we dispense with the usual Kabuki theater, with news interviews of angry drivers at the pump, members of Congress vowing to outlaw price gouging and the White House asking the Federal Trade Commission to do yet another study.
Instead, I lay on the table a modest proposal: Put the government into the oil business.
Why is peak oil politically incorrect?
Don't you feel at times that peak oil is not only ignored by the media but that it is, actually, politically incorrect? I got this distinct feeling after that, at a recent conference, a member of the Italian parliament spoke after me and said he didn't believe a word of what I had said because “oil prices have gone down.” It is difficult to quantify political incorrectness, but the graph [below] does tell us that, of the two major issues that we are facing nowadays, global warming beats peak oil hands down.
Government statistics show poverty has declined during Chavez’s eight years in office, and he rattled off lists of other improvements, from hospitals to new roads.But his opponents charge he has accomplished little considering the billions of dollars in oil proceeds flowing into the country.
Turkey not done with the Kurds
There is indeed a new ground situation. A Kurdish terrorist wave is once again sweeping across Turkey, reminiscent of the scale of violence 10 years ago. The Turkish military is taking heavy casualties. Popular feelings are running high all over Anatolia and tremendous anger is building up within the Turkish military.
Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley legend, is leading the venture capital rush into replacements for gasoline: biofuels made from corn and rougher stuff like switchgrass. But if prices fall and political subsidies vanish, the bubble may burst.
CNBC's Yergin: Russia Attracting More Western Companies
The Putin Administration continues to be intent on revising to one degree or another the oil and gas deals that were done in the middle 1990s. The actual rewriting varies from one deal to the next. So you don't see the same kind of enthusiasm in energy that is evident in other sectors. There's a lot of uncertainty, frustration, and pessimism about policy, decision-making and about the role of foreign capital in the energy sector. Also, exploration and development costs have been rising substantially in Russia, as elsewhere, but, at least in the mature region of West Siberia, this goes unrecognized by the very high tax rate.. Yet the resource potential is so great that the major companies can't easily stand aside. There are two critical things that they are waiting for, both of which are promised by the end of the year. One is the definition of "strategic sectors" and how those sectors will be managed -- in which oil and gas are at the top of the list. The other are the "rules of the road" for exploration and development in the off-shore and Artic, which will be high cost, challenging technically, but are very high potential.
Kurt Cobb - The official story: A lesson in how to undermine it
The peak oil movement has been focused mainly on selling a new narrative to the public without first dislodging the existing one. As long as people have faith in the existing official story about achieving American "energy independence" within the framework of a cornucopian future, it will be almost impossible to sell them on another story no matter how carefully constructed and supported.
Towards a true price for energy
The answer lies in that overworked word, "externalities". If widget manufacturers underestimate the demand for widgets there will be a temporary "widget problem", but the economy will carry on.A miscalculation on the energy front will, however, have a pervasive effect, irrespective of whether it comes through as sky-high prices or physical shortages. If a global slump is induced, the main harm will be felt far outside the energy industries.
‘Turkey must act before energy crisis strikes’
Turkish Union of Engineers and Architects’ Chambers (TMMOB) Chairman Emin Koramaz has said Turkey will face an energy shortage in the near future unless the necessary measures are rapidly taken into consideration.
Bush immigration failure hurts Mexico's Calderon
Apart from the drug war, Calderon's other main push is for economic reforms. A former energy minister, he wants to allow more private companies into Mexico's closed oil sector and U.S. firms would benefit.But any hint of foreigners taking control of Mexico's oil raises nationalist hackles, even though the government has no plans to privatize state energy monopoly Pemex.
Looser immigration laws in the United States might help Calderon gain an energy reform sought by Washington.
Mexico taking a lead role in global warming fight
Mexican leaders are starting to concede that they can no longer overlook that their nation contributes to the causes and suffers the pain of climate change.
Job #1 for Indiana Checkoff: Ethanol Education
While there are many areas in which the Hoosier corn industry needs to catch up, none is more glaring than consumer education. I am referring specifically to education about ethanol. The new law mandates that a portion of the checkoff dollars be used to increase the number of E85 pumps in the state. While this is certainly needed, it is only half the battle. Compared to other states, Indiana consumers are woefully ignorant about ethanol - how to buy it, where to buy it, and why to buy it.
Peak oil means inevitably higher prices
There are several reasons why gasoline prices are rising. The underlying reason is that world oil extraction is peaking. The oil companies know this. That is why they have not been building more refineries; they know that there will be less oil to refine in the years ahead.
Top scientist says biofuels are scam
THE government’s policy of promoting biofuels for transport will come under harsh attack this week from one of its senior science advisers.Roland Clift will tell a seminar of the Royal Academy of Engineering that the plan to promote bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants is a “scam”.
Kuwait: Oil sector essential to avert power cuts
Kuwait's Ministry of Oil stressed on Sunday the significant role by the oil sector for apportioning electricity consumption in the country so as to avert power cuts during the summer.
Oil prices rise after Iranian oil minister says OPEC has no immediate plan to release more oil
Oil prices rose Monday after Iran's oil minister said OPEC has no plans to release more oil into the market ahead of its next policy meeting in September.
Saudi maintains Asia oil supply curbs for July
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia told Asian lifters to expect the same crude volume for July as they have been getting since April, showing no signs of boosting production to soften prices near $70 a barrel.Saudi Arabia will supply crude oil to Japan and South Korea at about 9,5-10,0% below contracted volumes in July, the same as June, two Japanese industry sources and one South Korean source said today.
Why is Oil Refinery Utilization Down?
On Wednesday, the market seemed to be keying on the 3.5 million barrel increase in gasoline stocks -- more than double what analysts expected. July gasoline prices responded by falling around 1%, but the more interesting stat was the one concerning gasoline refining. Refinery utilization, which normally hovers in the 95% range this time of year, is currently just under 90%. In fact, it's at the lowest level for early summer in 15 years. Lower even than 2006, when the refiners were still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina.What the heck?
Gas prices post first decline since January
The national average price for gasoline dropped 7 cents in the last three weeks, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday that marked the first decline since January.
Iran to build five new refineries across Asia
Oil-rich Iran Monday announced it will help build five new refineries across Asia with a total capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day in a bid to strengthen ties in the region.
Lawmakers want Capitol to go green
Congress says it is going to join the war against global warming by cleaning up its own backyard, now cluttered with a coal-burning power plant, a fleet of fuel-inefficient vehicles and old-fashioned lights.
When Americans elected a Democratic Congress last November, they were voting to end politics as usual and special interest legislation. On the vital issues of energy independence and global warming they are not only in danger of getting more of the same but also, unless Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders step forward, winding up in worse shape than they were under the Republicans.
Britons Urged to Leave Niger Delta Amid Kidnap Fears
Britain has advised its nationals in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria to get out due to the worsening security situation and repeated kidnappings."We advise that the security situation in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states makes them unsafe for British nationals. We therefore advise British nationals to leave," the Foreign Office said.
"If you stay, you do so at your own risk and should take professional security advice," Britons were warned.
The mainstream food economy is heavily dependent on petroleum -- used in conventional fertilizer and pesticides as well as for cultivation and transportation -- which the world has in limited supply. It stands to reason that sooner or later, the world will run out of major new oil reserves to exploit; oil production will "peak" and start dropping. People in Vermont and across the country who subscribe to the "peak oil" notion are betting on "sooner," and they've started giving serious thought to reorganizing their lives in the face of a huge, impending spike in the price of gasoline and fuel oil.
We still haven't found what we're looking for
What will the G8 do if the believers in peak oil are right and shortages of easily obtainable crude lead to oil prices going up to $100 a barrel? What will happen if the decision by central banks to raise interest rates leads to a credit crunch and sends financial markets into a tailspin? Is the global economy vulnerable to the activities of hedge funds, with speculation being all that really makes the world go round? And is there really no contradiction between growth and the future of the planet?
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There is some refinery expansion occurring. In the U.S. it is easier to expand an existing facility than to get government approval for a new facility.
Marathon has planned an expansion of its Garyville refinery by 180,000 barrels.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20070308/ai_n18712309
Currently refinery utilization rates around the world were high. By one scenario oil production will rise faster than refinery expansion, by a different scenario oil production will fall and refinery utilization rates will shrink.
The article doesn't say, but the reason for the expansion could be that they're adding capacity to process heavy sour crude. Not that they believe total oil production will rise.
My understanding is that expansion means exactly what it says and that changing from processing light sweet crude to heavy sour crude is less an act of expansion than of reconfiguration.
Perhaps Robert or Heading Out can shed some light here?
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Robert has said many times that he doesn't see that the US is processing more heavy sour crude than we did 10 years ago, so I believe he doesn't think it's a factor.
I think it makes intuitive sense that we are producing more heavy sour than we used to. This would explain why we have large stocks of crude, many refinery maintenance problems, lower refinery capacity, and more expensive gasoline. Robert doesn't seem to buy it and he has found no stats to really support this idea.
My understanding is that the transition to ULSD (Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel) has lead to more breakdowns. Apparently the process to remove Sulphur involves some pretty maintenance intensive equipment, and when that goes down they have to shut down the refinery to fix it. That is one of the more reasonable explanations I have heard.
Oh and more happy news on the Diesel front, most diesel engine manufacturers are going to SCR (Selective Catalyst Reduction) to meet the 2010 NOx standards. Part of the SCR process includes injecting Urea into the exhaust stream. Unfortunately Urea is derived from Natural Gas.
Yeah, that actually does sound reasonable though again it would be nice if someone can confirm or otherwise explain.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Robert has said many times that he doesn't see that the US is processing more heavy sour crude than we did 10 years ago, so I believe he doesn't think it's a factor
One more time, this is not what I said. There is a clear trend toward heaving and more sour crudes in the past 10 years. My point is that the quality has been relatively stable for a least a few years. In other words, we didn't suddenly develop refinery problems because we are suddenly processing poorer quality crude. The crude quality is almost identical to what it was 2 years ago. That's according to the EIA statistics.
OK, sorry and apologies, but still the EIA stats are not showing a sudden drop in quality of crude entering the US refineries.
Wish I knew what percentage of the refineries in the US could handle what levels of crude quality and what kind of runs they've been using in the last three years. It would be interesting to look at it on a refinery by refinery basis to see if there are any patterns.
The API blogger calls recently discussed that. It is FAR cheaper and years faster to expand existing refineries than to build new refineries. They were saying they added something like the equivalent of 3 new refineries over past ten years by expansion. [check my numbers] Still, I think the point that there will be less oil in the future must play in that. Somewhere I saw an article that oil tankers were not being built for that reason.
cfm in Gray, ME
10 new refineries in 10 years. Total capacity increase of 2 million bpd.
Saudi Arabia Maintains Supply Restrictions to Asia
In the same article it states that Iran will soon begin rationing gasoline. It really does not seem to add up.
The thing is the Iranians don't have enough refineries to process enough gasoline themself, and it takes years to build new ones.
So they export oil and import gasoline, but because gasoline is subsidised, this is a huge expence to the Iranian government. This is the reason for the rationing scheme, otherwise they would have to cut the subsidies, which could lead to unrest.
This is my favorite line in that article-
"Iran's Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said there's no shortage of crude oil globally and the high oil price is because of low product stockpiles. Iran, OPEC's second-largest oil producer, will start gasoline rationing ``very shortly,'' he said after attending the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur today."
I don't think Woody Allen could've written that better...
penguinzee,
I don't really see a contradiction. What is in short supply is the cheaply refined light, sweet crude, and the gasoline used in the United States. Oil companies, whether national or private, produce and sell the oil that is most easily sold and cheapest to produce first. So whats left is oil that comes out of the ground more slowly because of high viscosity, or has high sulfur content, or both. It brings less money because it costs more to refine.
The other problem with a quote like that is translation. To be translated accurately the translator must be very familiar with oil production and refining. And, the more languages the translation has to go through the more errors are multiplied.
According to the EIA Iranian gasoline consumption is expected to rise 11.4% in a year. They have limited refinery capacity and bought gasoline from Europe.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Iran/Oil.html
They have undeveloped large fields, yet the decline rate for their existing fields was estimated as 8-10%.
Iranians got subsidized gasoline for 30-38 cents a gallon, thus the decision to ration is in lieu of free market economics.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/05/28/iranian_gas_price_hik...
Sopranos and Peak Oil (sort of).
Last night, in the final espisode of the Sopranons, A.J., Tony's son, is making love in his SUV. In the middle of the, uh, session, a grass fire caused by the SUV burns up the SUV.
Needless to say, in a later scene A.J.'a parents are pissed and tell him he can't have another SUV. A.J. says that's great because "we need to do something about our dependence upon foreign oil". He tells them that from now on he is going to take public transportation.
The end of the show's credits list TOD. :<)
Elsewhere during the show, Tony's arch nemesis gets wacked as he gets out of his giant SUV. The SUV later rolls over his head, perhaps a hidden message of some kind.
I'm sure the bright minds here at TOD could deconstruct not only this episode but the whole series as it relates to peak oil, death, and the American way.
The reason the world is in trouble is that reality is created by TV.
My advice (when they ask for it, and don't just demand the latest pill hawked by the tube) to my depressed and insomniac patients: "Get off the tube, and start talking to your friends and neighbors. Get out of your car and start walking around your neighborbood."
That would make an enormous amount of difference in decreased energy use and decreased depressive illness for a start.
Good riddance to the Sopranos. Now if Paris Hilton would only grow up and join Code Pink....
On that note,
A Sunday Afternoon in New Orleans
I drove to the Marigny and parked to go to the New Orleans Seafood Festival + Creole Tomato Festival + Zydeco Festival (buses run every 30 minutes to 1 hour on Sundays post-K. RT distance was 5.1 miles. Before K I took the streetcar). Meet and chatted with two people I knew plus assorted strangers (I wore my FEMA Sucks/Katrina Blows T-Shirt which always starts a conversation). Enjoyed char broiled oysters, crab cakes, crawfish pasta in cream sauce & bread pudding with beer and the music.
Went by French Market, saw my long lost tie-dyer (dread locks black guy, been to his home once for dinner), caught up with him post-K (my Mardi Gras costume is tie die in MG colors of Green, Gold & Purple, topped off with underwear briefs (band inverted underneath) formed as a beret). Prepaid him $25 and used the receipt to get 5 lbs of Creole tomatoes (deal for Festival).
Stopped by Cafe du Monde for a fix of beignets & chicory coffee (I am addicted). Listened to good, mainly blues, sidewalk singer. Tipped her $5.
Walked around Jackson Square talked to fortune teller I have known for years (also checked in with him). Then walked to 8th District Police Station to make contribution to fix their broken a/c. Talked with cops a bit.
Drove home, walked to Sophie's Ice cream. I was going to do a "contrast & compare" between Strawberry sorbet and strawberry gelato, but both had sold out earlier that day (she checked and new flavors to be made today did not include either :-( So I had a double scoop of papaya sorbet :-)
A group of ten high school volunteers fresh from Los Angeles came in and counter girl and I had a good time alternatively scaring them (I can tell that you are fresh, no cuts or scrapes and you do not have that slave labor camp look) and fascinating them with stories of underage drinking. New Orleans parties, music etc.
If chaperon will allow them, I will take them out (my treat) to Port of Call for a $10 hamburger and Donna's for jazz and a beer.
Who needs TV ?
Best Hopes for REAL Living,
Alan
PS: Was planning to go see Amanda Shaw at Rock N/ Bowl (Bowling alley with live music, beer, food) but was too fagged by heat, etc. to go. I have been watching her fiddle since age 14. Quite the zydeco girl ! (Think improved Bluegrass with spice in French & English)
http://www.amandashaw.com/AmandaShaw/Welcome.html
I recently picked up this tee-shirt in Nawlins:
Paulie the good soldier lives for the big screen version.
The Energy Bulletin article by Kurt Cobb linked above is extremly interesting. It says we don't have to argue the facts of Peak Oil to get people to start changing, but rather to discredit them in as many ways as possible.
As nonsensical as this sounds, its right. The cornucopians are actively trying to discredit us by calling us cultists.They have attacked the climate change scientists in this manner, and it delayed our societies recognition of the problem for 10 years. The Iron Triangle uses this often!
My best idea is to attack the current focus on the basis of costs-even if they use coal-to-liquids, mine bitumen in Alberta and Kerogen in Colorado-average people can't afford it. Argueing with them on the basis of supply, or their lies in calling ethanol and synthetic crude helps too.
The protesters at the G8 summit, want the 'rich' countries to send more aid to the poor ones (how anyone can think countries that runup huge deficits year after year are rich is beyond me).
This would not help, it would only create more inflation. The problem is not one of not enough money, but of to many people having to share not enough resources. Nature will eventually solve this problem for us, and not in a nice way.
This is why we're called cultists, because we do not believe in magic, regardless of whether the magic goes under the name of human innovation or the invisible hand of the market.
The irony, and this relates to the article, is that the protesters share this flaw with the leaders of the G8 they're protesting against, and with most people on the planet. They will not live within their means. If they did people would not take on so much debt, governments would not run deficits in peacetime, and the protesters would not think that loose monetary policy is a solution rather than a problem.
My message is not a good one. I believe the reason people will not listen to the peak oil message is because they no longer have any real idea of what money is. How can you expect a person who is used to paying his bills with a credit card to understand the concept of finite resources.
Yes. Discrediting official cornucopians has long been a large part of the discussions here at TOD. The problem is how to break them out into the official media. Cobb compares the PO issue with the Truth In 911 movement. But PO's discrediting of bogus energy solutions will be a much tougher sell for 2 reasons: 1)Energy directly and intimately affects peoples' lives in a way political conspiracies don't, and they know it. So they truly don't want to hear more...the ostrich response. 2)The Ruling Kleptocracy's propaganda machine - also known as the MSM - allows a little steam to escape (see Libby, Vioxx, perpheral 911 and Iraq War issues) but the day it can no longer hide the truth on bogus energy sources, and on appalling health issues such as Thimerosal and Codex Alimentarius, will be the day the MSM has been freed or destroyed by total sociopolitical collapse. Energy (their continued propfit) is the issue that drives all of TBTB's actions, and so they will try to hide PO until their very last breath.
Therefore Cobb's strategy will have to be sown and grown totally outside of the MSM. That requires, for us, continued growth of the internet news culture. And conversely it requires, for our Masters, a concerted, crash effort to control the internet and turn it into another arm of the propaganda machine.
Cobb compares the PO issue with the Truth In 911 movement.
Uh oh. Does this mean that in 5 years when the gasoline prices are outrageous---OPEC cutting exports due to some political excuse covering up geological peaking---and getting worse, the underground meme will be: It's the Jews' fault.
Let's hope not.
It's the Jews' fault.
Yup. But its really the Zionists with a transfer of power from the Bavarian Illumanti using the FBI's connection to the Boy Sprouts and the Orbital Mind Control Lasers.
That's good stuff. I better phone up Alex Jones and let him know right away :^)
No; it will be the Muslim's fault. And it won't be underground.
Why should we do anything? PO will be obvious soon to the cornucopians.
In my opinion we're already seeing the effects of peak oil and what's to come just reinforces the fact that we've reached it. I've asked before why peak oil needs to be subscribed to by the masses. The answers I've received are that we need to affect a change in the populace to avoid peak oil and that preparing people for peak oil will make things go more smoothly.
I believe Mother Nature has a plan and we are just flies in her jar. Organized and aware flies reach the same fate as disorganized and unaware flies, especially when both groups of flies are already at overshoot. The historical events may vary slightly between the two groups, but in the end all the flies are laying at the bottom of the jar.
I visit TOD because I'm fascinated to know more about this unique time in human history. But advocating that the masses must know that we're right and they're wrong is just another way to massage the ego.
Humbly,
Tom A-B
Swede says
" PO will be obvious soon to the cornucopians."
Now when you say "soon", how do you define what the meaning of "soon" is?
Or as Bill Clinton said, "it depends on what the meaning of 'is" is," :-)
(for those of us who have been looking for it since 1978, inquiring minds want to know!)
RC
Roger,
What do you (or anyone else ) know of the Gull Island AK oil ?
I came across the 8 part youtube video of a guy, Lindsey Williams (The Energy Non-Crisis) who says there is plenty of oil there.
There is plenty of meat (Williams) for the meat-grinder in this instance ;)
Where IS that 'Theory of Everything' ?
Here
it is !
ThatsItImout
I define soon, within two years. Matt Simmons to name one more in the know than me, has said, that PO will within 1-2 years overshadow GW in the media. I believe he is thrustworthy enough for me.
We have to do something, because if we do nothing we allow them to obfuscate the issue (and profit from it) for even longer.
Consider the dilemma faced by free-market people in the face of Global Warming. The majority of them have been dismissing GW for years, allowing a set of socialist, crypto-Marxist and borderline human extinctionists to set the narrative. Now that the issue is becoming undeniable, many free-marketers are still denying GW, not because they have any doubts about the evidence, but because they do not have a proposal with the mindshare to compete with the socialists and Marxists.
It's the fallacy of argument from consequences, but you'll see it in almost that many words regardless.
It's up to us to make sure that there's a competing idea of the future which people know about and can sign up to.
Consider the dilemma faced by free-market people in the face of Global Warming.
You missed the one where they FIND A free market.
Not certain what you mean but I take it that so called free marketers are so taken by their rigid ideology that they don't want to address global warming because it just might not be solved with pure free market solutions. So they have made the science fit the ideology. They must resist belief in global warming because seriously addressing it would require what they perceive as "socialist" solutions.
For some sense of clarity, we must define socialism. In the mean time, if every attempt to influence people's behavior to use less energy is branded as socialism or crypto Marxim, then we are truly screwed.
For the pragmatists amongst us, we will support any combination of free enterprise, capitalism, or socialism that has promise of getting the job done. When you careening over a cliff, you don't worry about which ideology will save you from doing so.
My competing idea of the future is to have a future.
Their are people from various ideological perspectives who use global warming as an opportunity to push their ideology. On the other hand, there are those of us who are just concerned with its impacts --- period.
I'll buy that tstreet, though even so, it would be nice if we do survive as a species not to have go all through all these things again. Maybe end up with a planet safe for bunnies bees and even the odd poet or even odder engineer, dare I say again poet?
There are a lot of possible outcomes and I would say our default position should go even further, to one of life's survival though not necessarily survival of our species, but then I guess I am a bit of a crypto-crank.
As nonsensical as this sounds, its right. The cornucopians are actively trying to discredit us by calling us cultists.
Naw, its all about the stakes one holds.
Say 9/11 is all government plot, micronukes, and alien space lasers. So? What will change? How would that change in narrative change your life? (Gee, some government/business officials lie for their or their cronies benefit. This is news?)
Peak oil (end of cheap energy) - now that tapdances on your forehead. I believe TOD has a Upton Sinclair quote in the corner box about understanding....
Roland Clift will tell a seminar of the Royal Academy of Engineering that the plan to promote bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants is a “scam”.
Errr, what exactly was coal and oil years ago if not plants?
Coal and oil?
They were plants, but the planet did most of the processing for us.
Why the planet did not go all the way and make finished products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel is beyond me.
Gaia is also a very slow, messy worker at times. Exxon-Mobil would fire her if they could. Maybe they did, who's to say?
Nature needs to be a bit more anthropocentric, don't you think?
oil was algea!
coal was plants or oxygen poor bogs!
Warming periods allowed algeal blooms to spread everywhere in geological history, they then died and turned into oil.
We didn't have to invest the geothermal and geophysical energy for converting decayed biomatter (plants) into petroleum, nor the transport energy for moving the biomatter, scattered across the globe over millions of years, into easily-accessed deposits.
Bioethanol and biodiesel are scams. Coal, oil, and methane work in our system only because most of the hard work was already done.
We didn't have to invest the geothermal and geophysical energy for converting decayed biomatter (plants) into petroleum,...Bioethanol and biodiesel are scams.
So your point of view is when no one has to do alot of work for a process VS a process that requires monitoring and shepherding to obtain the end product - the more human-shepherding process is a scam?
It has to do with EROI - having to input energy to complete the conversion of the plants to usable fuel suggests your EROI is going to decrease. Maybe decrease below viable levels, hence some people would call it a "scam". But I suspect you know all this.
I suspect you are right on the money there speek.
alright, Eric. That's officially 'snarky'
I guess you have to be a little more clear with your 'years ago', and recognize the difference between these apples and those oranges is where the Scam lies.
Bob
I guess you have to be a little more clear with your 'years ago',
If the law-bringers dance about the issue of photons-> human advantage and the time/amounts of photons needed to eventually create the human advantage, I'm all over the Snark.
And well, sometimes the 'hot oily earth' people show up and you get to laugh (or cry) over abiotic oil.
Eric Blair,
The issue is EROEI.
Ethanol is a net energy loser. It is only profitable now because of subsidies.
Look up Pimental et al. His research indicates that ethanol is an energy loser.
That is why this British scientist has rightfully called it a scam. Ethanol is not about real solutions; it is about profiteering from the public treasury.
Better yet--here is the URL:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/NRRethanol.2005.pdf
I am also including the executive summary from the top of the paper verbatim:
"Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were:
• Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
• Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
• Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
• Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn).
• Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced."
The issue is EROEI.
I agree it is AN issue. A big one. But the magical bacteria is supposed to be "good" at breaking down complex carbs (cellulose) and make alcohol, thus addressing the EROEI.
I have a concern about the bacteria entering the biosphere and the effect.
That is why this British scientist has rightfully called it a scam.
VS claiming that energy production methods that require tons of organic material, timespans that outlast human generations, and pressures caused by geologic folding of the earths's mantle have no 'costs' and the only 'cost' is just pucking the processed material?
Who's scamming whom about 'costs'?
Oh dear, and Roberts plans, by methods archane, to cure my grass allergy and save the planet are they mere grain ferment induced feeble foibles inherent in his system?
Cherenkiov, on a more serious note, have you had any thoughts on the bit about charcoal being used to improve soil characteristics for gardening and sequestering potential? To me, who loves a garden this interests me as well as an intact planet to do that on.
Surprise: less oxygen could be just the trick
As a gardener, livestock farmer, and researcher, I think that the biochar idea is of little merit. Of course, I'm imagining biochar being applied to agricultural waste which can be composted (perhaps capturing the biogas) and spread on the fields or just left on the fields in the first place (as is typically done when combining).
If your feedstock was something that couldn't be spread as is (ie. plastic) and the charring process rendered it safe to apply to crop-land... Well, that would be something of interest, but I'd want to see the EROEI numbers before coming to any conclusions.
I'm on the fence about terra preta/biochar. Maybe it will turn out to be a boondoggle, maybe it will turn out to be very useful.
Supposedly, the benefit of biochar is that it does not decompose like compost does. The claim is that farmers have been farming in terra preta for decades, without having to add any fertilizers. The biochar supposedly holds nutrients that would otherwise wash away, and provides an anchor for colonies of beneficial bacteria.
Some recently published research suggests that, while biochar does have beneficial effects, you still have to add fertilizer after awhile. The scientists thought they didn't fully understand the process, and once they did, they could achieve the same results as the Amazonian farmers. I think it might be possible that the Amazonian farmers have pulled one over on the scientists (who tend to be surprisingly gullible, since they look for errors in reasoning or design, not outright fraud). But it's still an open question, IMO.
I think biochar is one of the most promising silver bullets out there. Not really as an energy source; the EROEI is likely to be poor. But as a way of farming without petroleum-based fertilizers, and a way of sequestering carbon. (Since the biochar does not decompose, it keeps carbon in the soil a lot longer than composting does.)
I think they are missing the most important question and that is - why?
Why would amazon farmers go to all the effort to create it.
If it is obvious that it is man made then you have to ask that question because it's answer will explain so much. Was it for fertilizer uses only? I don't think so.
I firmly believe that it was created by burning brush to kill weeds, weed seed, fungus(s) and insects.
They had no chemicals that I'm aware of or application methods. The research from Cornell mentions farmers using these fields but giving up because of weed infestation.
I burnt some brush to make some charcoal this spring. After moving most but not all of it into the garden I do notice a greener circle around the edge of the fire area. There are no weeds growing in the fire area. Given that we are clasified as a subtemperate rain forest that is pretty good as the growth rate here on brush and weeds is quite fast.
Dark loose soils warm quicker and drain better.
Is slash-and-char really that much more work than the more typical slash-and-burn?
Years of shrubby slash and burn - Could be a very good explanation. I wish we knew!
Hi DelusionaL,
Gee, maybe Engineer Poet is not so far off the mark when he describes me as slow. It took this long before your remarks suggesting observation is the mother of good science had me thinking of the Brita Filter used to take the chlorine out of our tea water. It also filters other chemicals out as well. I think that would suggest some holding of vital nutrients for plants by charcoal, particularly in rainy climes?
I suspect they were in closer relationship with the earth than we are today. These observations would be quick and easy to make with out labwork like we would today. That the charcoal helped nutrient wise I think could be recognized as well.
Fire while primitive is also highly effective. I do not know of any organisms that live through the high heat of a intermittent fire (as opposed to volcanic areas and even then - fire temps?)
Amazon soil was leached by constant rain and poor in nutrients. By burning to clear the field, the plants were eliminated to let in the light and to utilize potash and other minerals in the ashes to nourish the sugarcane.
These figures can't possibly be right. Sunflowers yield almost four times as much oil per acre as soybeans, and any differences in the energy content of their oils is trivial. The cultural practices required for each crop are not so hugely different as to suggest vastly different energy inputs between the two. It takes only 2.5-5 gallons of biodiesel per acre to runall of the agricultural equipment necessary to produce 100 gallons of sunflower oil. Sunflowers might benefit from a little fertilizer, but they are not anywhere close to being the greedy feeders that corn plants are. There is no possible way that it can require over 100 gallons of diesel to transport to factory & process the oil from 1 acre's production of sunflower seeds, unless the processing plant is located in Antarctica.
Still, even if so, WNC, until we are not using FF every little bit more CO2 is just that. Even if we weren't using FF we would still have the problem of who eats, who drives. Maybe we could be fair about it by then and each have a rationed amount of Bio and decide do I Eat or do I Drive?
As an Aside: When I lived in Winnipeg Beach Manitoba in my youth we would walk quietly into the local place they showed movies (no theater there then) and watch the movie and then after we would crunch our way out on all the sunflower seed shells that the film afficianados would spit out on to the floor. Ah those kind and gentle days with just that added crunch to make life amusing ... and you WNC would trade times like that that for a gallon of biofuel for your SUV.
Thanks for sharing your memories. I don't hava a SUV - never have, never will. I'm not sympathetic toward the idea of using biofuels to keep the general motoring public going in their funmobiles. I do think we need to keep agricultural equipment running, along with essential service vehicles, and small scale appropriate technology biodiesel is a viable solution to that specific, small-scale problem.
Sorry for the nose prod with that SUV. If as you seem to indicate 'everyone eats' is your modus operandi then more sunflower power to you.
This study supports WNC Observer's view.
Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/30/11206
Quoting (NEB = Net Energy Balance):
"the NEB for corn grain ethanol is small, providing 25% more energy than required for its production. Almost all of this NEB is attributable to the energy credit for its DDGS coproduct, which is animal feed, rather than to the ethanol itself containing more energy than used in its production. Corn grain ethanol has a low NEB because of the high energy input required to produce corn and to convert it into ethanol. In contrast, soybean biodiesel provides 93% more energy than is required in its production. The NEB advantage of soybean biodiesel is robust, occurring for five different methods of accounting for the energy credits of coproducts"
So, right now we already have at least two biofuels that indisputably yield net energy gains: sugarcane ethanol and soybean biodiesel. Production of the first is not a threat to food production, first because refined sugar in itself is nutritionally worthless (here and now I boldly assert that from a nutritional standpoint mankind would be better off if refined sugar - sucrose - and high fructose corn syrup just vanished from the face of the Earth), and secondly because sugarcane doesn't grow well where most staple crops do. Soybean biodiesel, however, is a completely different story, as soybeans are an important part of the food chain and, even more importantly, soy can readily displace most staple crops.
My point is that, with soybean biodiesel being a net energy gainer, and with diesel being far more important than gasoline for running the critical part of most economies (and with a lot of personal vehicles running on diesel, particularly outside the US), I see a high probability that soybean biodiesel production will increasingly become a serious competitor to food production. Which prompts me to think that:
1. The current long-term (>5y) forecasts for "total liquids" production are not of much use because the folks making them have their background in the oil industry and as such have very little insight (if any) on the prospects for biodiesel production.
2. It's possible that we never see a return to old labor-intensive farming, since it's reasonable to assume that the farming community would first use biodiesel for their own needs.
3. The relative allocation of world arable land between food and fuel production is likely to be the actual mechanism whereby it will eventually be determined how many people will live how comfortably, a dilemma hinted at by Professor François Cellier at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2534 . Particularly, a "crash program" implementation of biodiesel production could lead to a wave of starvation that would cause the sharp reductions of population after 2040 in two of the scenarios.
In other words, soybean biodiesel has the potential to be "Malthus reloaded".
first because refined sugar in itself is nutritionally worthless
Agree there are better carbohydrates but if and when the big crunch comes and all that is left is sugar filled products, are you going to turn your nose up on a chocky-nut bar sans nuts of course. In fact I think most of America is on a sugar diet and while thats too bad, the alternative is to produce real food and what would that do to profit margins all across the board? {Please have some pity for the medical guys and gals, okay). Gotta go now wife needs spinach from garden also a kohlrabi too, s'truth.
Yield per acre for sunflowers & rape seed is much higher than for soybeans, and they are thus a better choice for biodiesel production than soybeans.
Sunflowers have been used to dry out land, so there is a difference.
WNC, I tried to quantify your statement and got this data from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel for yield in liters of oil per hectare:
rapeseed = 1190
sunflower = 952
soybean = 446
Soybean oil also does not meet the European Union's EN 14214 biodiesel standard in some criteria, such as iodine value and stability.
While rapeseed and sunflower are not important parts of the human food chain, to the extent that they can displace grain crops, my main point still holds: there is a high probability that biodiesel production will increasingly become a serious competitor to food production.
first because refined sugar in itself is nutritionally worthless
Perhaps not....one gent in India puts about a kilo of sugar per hectar and it increases the yield. every couple of months.
A.D.Karve on the terrapreta @ bioenergylists.org
WNC, the figures include more than just the energy to plow, plant, harvest and transport to the factory. Pimentel includes all the fossil energy used in producing the farm equipment, divided by the number of years the equipment will last. He also includes the fossil energy that goes into producing the plant equipment. He includes all inputs of energy that goes into the production, inputs that others leave out.
But it is obvious that if sunflowers were more productive than other methods of producing ethanol, then everyone would grow sunflowers rather than corn or soybeans. There has to be a reason that farms grow corn to produce ethanol rather than sunflowers. I have no idea what those reasons are however, perhaps you can figure it out.
Ron Patterson
First of all, sunflowers & soybeans are biodiesel crops, not ethanol crops.
Soybeans have multiple uses - in fact, they are arguably the most versatile crop one can grow. Most farmers doe not grow them just for oil -- they sell them at market, and leave it to the buyer to decide what they will use them for. The greater versatility of soybeans is probably why more of them are grown than sunflowers.
One of the reasons that I have been commending sunflowers as a biodiesel crop is that they are uniquely suited for small scale appropriate technology applications. They are an easy crop to grow and harvest on a small scale of up to a few acres with simple equipment; they can even be harvested by hand with machettes if need be. I am not thinking in terms of industrial scale mass production of biodiesel for highway use here; rather, my focus is on making it possible for even poor farmers to be able to continue to utilize the advantages of mechanization. It is feasible for farms to produce all the biodiesel they need for their own operations with the dedication of just around 5% or so of their acreage to oilseed production. This isn't being done now because petrodiesel is available for around $3/gallon. When it reaches double digit territory, you'll see more interest in this.
According to the National Sunflower Association:
Is sunflower oil a viable alternative in producing biodiesel?
In the USA market, sunflower oil is priced at a premium to soybean and canola oils due to demand from the food processing industry. The price premium may make it prohibitive to use sunflower oil in biodiesel.
Why the interest in sunflower oil for biodiesel?
Sunflower is a high oil content seed and average yields can produce 600 pounds of oil per acre, considerably more than soybeans. There is a great deal of interest from local areas for construction of small processing facilities for sunflower biodiesel production. It is most important that processing equipment be analyzed very carefully for small ‘press’ only facilities. In most cases a portion of the oil is left in the by-product meal thereby reducing economic efficiency.
Also, it can be double cropped after wheat in states such as Kansas.
I seriously doubt some of those figures. I takes about 2 liters of fossil fuels to harvest and transport 1 cubic meter of wood biomass to the industry, at least in Sweden.
That same cubic meter contains more than 2000 kWh of energy, or the equivalent of 200 liters of gasoline. 2 liters of fossil fuels is 20 kWh.
So even if you lose 99% of the energy in wood biomass when converting to ethanol you still break even. But the thing is, a lot of the lost energy (heat) can (and is) be recycled to district heating, if the distillery is located close to an urban area.
You could even convert the forestry machines to run on gasified wood chips producer air generator (like during WW2), and that is about 10x as inefficient as fossil fuels, ie will require 200 kWh of energy instead of 20 kWh, but you will still get out on top, producing a significant net energy.
Anyway, cellulosic ethanol is quite efficient.
But EROEI is not really the issue for ethanol or synthetic fuels from wood biomass.
The issue is that there isn't enough forests around. Not even for a sparsely populated and heavily forested country like Sweden. It's not that the forests aren't used already.
Especially not if you want to produce paper pulp, paper and lumber from that very same forest. And refining products into paper or two by fours gives more jobs and higher growth to the economy than producing energy fuels from the same biomass.
So you cannot keep the jobs and the economic growth and wood biomass ethanol at the same time.
Yes, there are more efficient producers of biomass than the current softwoods (where spruce is the fastest producer), like american hybrid aspen (which incidentally my neighbour will plant 10 recently harvested hectares with). But if you plant the aspen today, it will still take 20-25 years before it's time to harvest. Considering that peak oil is here in the interval -2 - 5 years, you really don't have 20 years to sit around waiting for fast growing trees to be harvested.
And the lead times on the factories. There are quite a few ethanol or other liquid biofuels projects here in Sweden (at least five!), but none of these will be producing at any level that matters until 2012 at the earliest, and even then only a small portion of what's needed. And other new promising alternatives like wave power ( http://www.seabased.com/engelsk/ ) won't have finished full scale installations until 2010.
And all these new things will be evaluated for a couple of years once they're finished, and only then will you get a full-scale deployment of alternatives, ie at the earliest in the interval 2015-2020. And that will be a bit late to say the least. If they can be built at all when the fossil shortages set in, with all the sideeffects to the just-in-time based economy. Think of the stand-stills at construction sites when some significant component is missing due to shortages in transportation fuels, such as a spare part for some construction equipment. (Me, I've already started hoarding. Whenever I need a spare part for something, I buy two, even simple things like an axe handle.)
Things take time in the power and biofuels industry. Maybe people with IT background like Koshla don't get that. They still live in the dotcom age thinking that even in the real world you just have to hack up something in a couple of months.
Hi Cornucopia
You are absolutely on spot with all you say. For example The Swedish Farmers university(SLU) has in a report concluded, that Sweden should need thre(3) times our forest area to substitute the total oil imports, and then there would be nothing left to paper mills etc.
Perhaps you have read the report: Efter oljetoppen av Hillewi Helmfried och Andrew Haden version 060329
Best Kenneth
Yes, I've read the report.
What's most important is that we can keep the forestry and the farming going, as well as needed transports. Otherwise it doesn't matter how much biofuel potential there is, if we cannot harvest it. It would take many decades/centuries to breed back workhorses and change peoples attitude towards hard work and go back to the old ways of horse+man forestry and farming.
The first and only priority should therefore be to fix liquid biofuels for the forestry and farming equipment. Soccer-moms can walk their children to games.
Life will go on, but there will have to be changes. This is why global warming is pushed by politicians and the media. GW gives the illusion of choice (such as buy ourselves free by some poncy-scheme) and that we don't need to make sacrifices in our lifestyle. Peak oil won't give us any choice and will change our lifestyle, no matter how much kicking and screaming there will be. And peak oil cannot be left for our grand-children to deal with, like GW, because peak oil will hit (or has hit) no matter what the babyboomers want to do during their retirement.
Western civilization will be dragged kicking and screaming into the post-PO world, no matter what we want to do.
Me, I've still got global warming storm-felled forest to take care of, but GW has seen to it that the temperature is over 30 C right now, and that's not especially comfortable to strap on the chainsaw-protective coveralls and don a hard-hat and visor to do some really heavy work with the chainsaw in. Went out last night after 2200, it was "just" 22 C. Thank god for the long days in Sweden in summer, sun didn't set until 2300, so I did get some work done. And thank god for chainsaw-fuel. In these temperatures there's no problem running a chainsaw on ethanol.
I have also been preparing for PO in thre years. Small house, wood stove, bikes, electrical bikes, bike wagon, tools, fishing equpiment, bought gold etc.
Now we are about as ready as we can be.
You seem to be very well informed on agricultural matters, and it would be interesting to read what you believe on Swedens ability to feed our population in the PO aftermath.
During WWII i believe we were about 6 million swedes, and then we had food rationing. Smaller farms, many with work horses(agriculture better suited for PO).
Now we are 9 million inhabitants with a more mechanised larger scale farming, and we import a lot of food(at least meat).
I assume, that in a PO enviroment, not many other(if any) countrys can export food to us. It would be like WWII with the blockades.
So how do you think we will manage?? Or are we doomed to widespread starvation, until we are down to perhaps 6 million people again?
Thankful for your opinion Kenneth
I've been preparing for five years, and I expect to need another five years to be somewhat finished, as I've set up a homestead, doing some spare-time farming and forestry. Things take time. At least we won't starve or freeze to death, if no-one uses force and kick us out.
A PO environment is fluid. Things won't go away over night, especially as we're neighbours to Norway, and have excess refinery capacity which makes us a net exporter of refined gasoline today. There will be a few years while our refineries still get a surplus, and thus will provide for the home market too, barring EU-invervention (EU states that all members should share energy resources, ie no-one should be better off than anyone else).
We will be able to reduce consumtion quite a lot, hurting the economy. You could easily halve all car travel, just skip uncessesary trips, car-pool (ie ride two to work in the same car). It will cost at least 100 000 jobs in the automotive service sector (250 000 today, out of what? 3 million?) here in Sweden if we halve car use. Also, IEA has plans for all member states in an oil crisis, ie reduce maximum speed to 90 km/h, forbid or limit private car use (!!) etc.
The first effect of peak oil will be the economy. It will in turn have the result that really necessary stuff like food will get fossil fuels quite some time. Eventually I calculate that we will have rationing, and farmers will get extra rations based on acreage. Good for me that try to use as little fuel as possible.
Things won't get really bad fuels-wise until 2020 or so, up until then it will "just" be a recession and depression that kills what's left of the Swedish cradle-to-grave welfare system and puts hundreds of thousands people from the workforce out of jobs. And/or hyperinflation.
And by 2020 people might actually have woken up and accepted the new reality as business as usual. They will dig up their lawns and grow some of their own food, rabbits in the shed in the backyard will return, chickens will be seen in suburbs (and the municipality health department will be laughed at or possibly GBH:d if they try to intervene).
Remember that during the isolation of WW2 a major part of the male workforce were drafted, affecting productivity. And we've actually had 60 years of scientific progress and select breeding of crops and animals since then (not necessary a good thing - I have an old hardy country breed of sheep instead, and order old strain seed from SLU - our homestead has been worked since the stone age, part of it is a 5000 year old "fornåker". I expect to be able to farm it even without oil).
Knowledge hopefully won't go away, just make sure to have hard copies when the blackouts start, and a lot of the infrastructure will make sense even when TSHTF. The road may be void of cars, but they're straight from A to B, and will do fine walking, biking or riding a horse on once the cars are gone.
Telecommunications will work for quite a long time, although the modern digital switches will become a problem once just-in-time breaks down. But you can easily jury-rig a manual switchboard for your local zone eventually. Old jobs will come back.The cables will work indefinetly.
If digital technology doesn't brake down, you will have a lot higher efficiency than during WW2.
But I try to take nothing for granted, while enjoying the peak of our civilization while it lasts.
First we have to starve all the poorer countries of the world out of their oil consumtion. Not until they can afford almost no oil anymore, only then will we in the west start having problems. But by then the borders will have to be shut from the poor countries, because they won't sit idly. Migration will intensify enourmously, and it will not be stopped in a humane way. ("Hey, turn back, we don't have space and resources for you." yeah, right). When you ration your own, your own won't accept immigration. No way.
Thanks for your answer. Myself and my wife luckily already lived in a small former vacation house on the countryside by a river, where i can fish. So we didnt really have to do so much extra preps(new stove, windows etc). We can plant a garden, and perhaps have chicken, fish in the river. Otherwise i count on buying most of the food and wood, and believe it will be possible in the future also.
With a contracting economy i can´t see how our welfare state with the worlds highest taxes can survive, so it should be essential that ones personal economic affairs are in order, and with small outlays.
Then there should be problems within the greater cities with their immigrant population ghettolike areas. I would´nt like to live near those cities.
It sure will be interesting to follow the events.
I believe we will manage.
Good luck to you in your preps Kenneth
Roland Clift is saying that the idea that bioethanol and biodiesel will greatly reduce GW gasses is false. Biodiesel from palm oil and similar sources is a particular problem, because it is causing tropical forests to be cut down. Even those biofuels that do have some savings have such small savings that they will not make a meaningful dent in Britain's CO2 emissions problem.
Roland Clift is saying that the idea that bioethanol and biodiesel will greatly reduce GW gasses is false.
VS burning the locked away carbon in the form of coal or oil.
If the issue is 'CO2 in the air' and the choice is 'biofuel - carbon from last growing season used now' or 'old locked away carbon' which one will net more carbon in the air?
The issues are rapidly declining EROEI past peak oil production, EROEI of alternatives, contribution to GW, overpopulation and overshoot, thermodynamics.
But what I was specifically referring to was that, due to oil's historically high EROEI (100:1 in the past, about 12:1 currently) ethanol, with best-case scenario EROEI of 1.3:1, will not supply the incredible returns our society, our systems, our world as a whole expects.
And then Gail pointed out Clift's observation about GW gas production.
Population crash and die-off inevitably follow overshoot. How does ethanol help us deal with how H. sapiens has overshot its carrying capacity? It would appear it's only an attempt to continue business as usual.
And you do realize that the energy extracted from ethanol will always be less than the total energy inputs?
Human-manufactured ethanol is a scam. Relying on diffuse sunlight and diffuse crop production, plus the harvesting of the crop, processing, and fermentation, it isn't an alternative. It's a boondoggle.
If Robert Rapier reports, with backup, that his cellulosic ethanol project has a verifiable EROEI greater than 3, that would be a small miracle. And then we need about a few dozen or so of those miracles.
Saturday June 10, 2007 we visited the World Museum of Mining in Butte, MT.
Here's a photo looking to the west of the old, but relative energy efficient, equipment used in mining.
In 1955 they decided to use cheap energy to extract ore using the Berkeley pit. The Berkeley pit is now filling with somewhat acid water.
On Sunday we visited McMansion housing development several miles from Whitefish, MT.
We went through two condos which sell for roughly $350-500K. We asked about how they were heated. Salesman said, "All natural gas." Bill kept his mouth shut.
There were many single family homes like
Be interesting to see what happens to these energy sinks in the future.
WORLD MUSEUM OF MINING GAZETTE article written by John Astle reported
FACTOID?
Senior citizen poster is 70 years old today. But he is keeping BUSY while on essential non-gas-wasting trip in MT.
Yikes. Is that true? It takes a pound of coal to sent 2 Mb of data over the Internet? o_O
better than spending a couple tons of coal per tonne/mile by train to move letters or other information goods.
I wonder. This could be the classic example of technology creating more problems that it solves.
Maybe sending information over the net is "better" than sending a letter via train. But...because it's cheaper, we're sending a lot more of it, most of it of little or no value. Billions of spam e-mails, of which only a fraction of a percent result in sales. Millions of new blogs, most of which cover such exciting events as what the blogger had for lunch that day, or are set up by spammers to fool search engines. Closer to home, the daily dopey photos of cute kittens from my mom, and the encouragements to "pray for the troops" from my coworkers. If they actually had to put them in an envelope and mail them, they wouldn't send them in the first place.
"But...because it's cheaper, we're sending a lot more of it, most of it of little or no value..."
This is a common conundrum in medicine. New and easier therapies or devices are usually marketed by the proprietors as a method to lower health care costs in the long run but it just never works out that way.
The classic example is laparascopic gall bladder surgery. By cutting hospital stays from 1-2 weeks to 24 hours; reducing the rate of infection; and reducing time off work from 6 weeks to 1 or 2 weeks, it seemed obvious in the 80's that removing gall bladders with scopes would save the system tons of money. Turns out, since it's so much easier to go through the surgery now, the surgery is now done much more often. Why change your diet, avoid alcohol and lose weight when a relatively painless procedure will get you a quick fix? The savings from laparoscopes has more than been made up for in the increased number of cases.
too true!
but an economist would say you are lowering the barriers! (which is good), if it takes less effort to send information, more people can, and the better information will win out!
(look at spam filters)
That's why it pays not to listen to economists... how do spam filters stop spam using up bandwidth? It still comes to my email server.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
not to mention the best spam filters run of dedicated machines using a self tuning or user taught minimal ai.
No, that's just some FUD spread by coal promoters and discredited long ago. Here's some background on the "debate" and credible studies of electricity use by the office sector:
http://enduse.lbl.gov/Projects/InfoTech.html
I don't know if it was spread by coal promoters or not but it is absolutely false. It cost no more to send data than it does to sit idle. The signals are ever present. Whether or not the signals carry data or not makes no difference whatsoever.
However if you caculated the amount of energy required to keep the equipment powered up and transmitting, then divided that number by the megabytes of data, I would bet my bottom dollar that it would not come close to one pound of coal for every two megabytes. That is totally absurd.
Think about it. Two megabytes transmitted to whom? To one person or ten million? It makes no difference. Your computer does not consume more energy when transmitting or receiving data. Such nonsense could only be spread by the computer and technology illiterate.
Ron Patterson
But they do fire up more servers when traffic is heavy. Perhaps that's what they're talking about?
The "server energy crisis" is a big concern these days. IBM, HP, Yahoo, Dell, etc., are all trying to cut power use.
That sounds resonable at first glance, but I don't think so. The router servers are just passive and pass the signals on the same regardless of the amount of traffic. Only the individual sites that actually hold the web pages, and the search engines, gets bogged down when trafic is heavy. At any rate, one blade server uses far less electricity than your TV and it carries billions of bytes per second. If it consumed the equivalent energy of a pound of coal for every two megabytes it would be so hot it would set the whole building on fire. And even if that energy was divided by every server in the chain, that is still hundreds of times too high.
I know servers use a lot of energy and every computer room uses a huge amount of air conditioning. But two pounds of coal for every two megabytes is absurd.
One thing you must realize is that the well over 99% of the energy consumed by a computer, or serve, is disipated as heat! If it uses energy it gets hot. Now think of how long it takes to transmit two megabytes. (A tiny fraction of one second.) Now think of how much heat a pound of coal would generate. Burn that coal in that same amount of time, or better yet, burn one pound of coal for every two megabytes transmitted. Hell, you would need a coal train to supply one server.
Ron Patterson
NO routers are passive.
hubs are passive dumb devices.
routers actively take in every packet and examine it then send it on it's way depending on how it's set up compared to where the packet is from, where it's going, and what app sent it.
Leanan
The link sited in your post has a good number to work with:
" “It is estimated that data centers can be held accountable for almost 2% of the total electricity consumed across America: lowering consumption in the data center is an obvious place to make environmental and cost savings.”
Now at the pace that wind and PV solar and concentrating mirror solar are growing, even the doubters have to admit that they can and will soon be at 2% of U.S. electric power production.
So servers may be one of the first entire industries that will be powered (or more accurately, have their consumption displaced) by renewables! It won't be the last :-)
RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
Actually, Google is heavily involved in solar, both concentrated sunlight for heat/steam turbine setups and solar photovoltaics. And they are not alone.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
This is rough but maybe a handy approximation.
Total internet traffic is about 5 exabytes /year...
Global energy use is some 500 exajoules /year...
If we assume that 2% of global energy use goes to power servers and computers (as per prev. post), then we have about 10 exajoules / year going to data transfer. It's pretty rough I know but I'm just after an order of magnitude here.
Which gives about 2 joules per byte moved.
There's about 20 Mjoules in a pound of coal, but you lose about 2/3 of that when you convert to electricity, so on this rough calc, it does look like less than 10 Mb per pound of coal.
Interesting....
just to note that energy used by server farms != energy used to transmit data - to be fair it would be difference in energy use if you cut the 'net connection /bytes transmitted. Eg. my computer at home hosts a very low use website.
Assuming 150w of energy continuous (it might be more if you count high-load times like playing computer games, less if you count the time it is off) that is 4700Mj/year - i'm sure i download more than 5gb/year, but even if i did only dl 4.7g /year that is still 1 joule/byte (not counting the energy spent routing it, so the 2j/byte above looks plausible).
The problem with this calculation is that the extra energy use by connecting to the 'net would be at most a few watts, and the rest is due to the machine simply being left on for convenience, and of those few watts, most of that would be in maintaining the 'on' state of the connection, as actual transmition power is on the order of 100mw (even though the actual circuitry consumes significantly more - 5 to 15 W for an ADSL connection) - and there is a max of 30 intermediate connections before it times out (and 10 quite normal - use the 'traceroute' command to check now many intermediate links between you and the destination) - 20 connections @ 1W = 20W -> connection of 10mb/s - .016J per byte for the entire transmition cost. (for that cost you could transmit over the 'net at your full capability non-stop)
(note: this is back-of-the-envelope calculation, in reality i have no knowledge of how much power internet backbones take to run/transmit)
edit:
http://www.springerlink.com/index/vw3u29671p32w586.pdf
300mW adls chips - so i think the above calculation is quite pessimistic as the specialised 'net backbones can probably be quite a bit more energy efficient than domestic euqipment
Must be crap.
Last month I sent 3 GB of information over the Internet. I can not believe that I used 1 1/2 tons of coal doing that.
Sounds like one of those urban myths.
Very watered-down Bungalow style applied to the typical Garrison Colonial builder's plan. I've seen worse.
Why is Peak Oil politically incorrect and
Kurt Cobb ...
basically discuss the success of three stories:
- Peak Oil
- Global Warming
- The 9/11 conspiracy theories (i.e. the US government is behind 9/11)
A point not mentioned in both articles is: Peak Oil is a story of American powerlessness - we are helpless in the face of oil depletion. Global Warming and 9/11 conspiracy theories are stories of (evil) American power: America is the master of the universe, and therefore only evil Americans can and have brought/will bring it down through conspiracy/pollution. The central tenet, American power, is being taught everywhere, and therefore it is so easy for Global Warming and 9/11 conspiracy theories to be believed. To believe Peak Oil, on the other hand, a person first has to give up the belief in American Power.
This is purely a psychological comparison, on rational terms of course both Peak Oil and Global Warming are credible, whereas the 9/11 conspiracy theories are, well, lunatic fringe.
Good point. We mammals seem to have a biological need to deny our own powerlessness. The people who accurately assess the control they have over their situations are the clinically depressed. The "healthy" people all believe they have much more control than they actually have.
I had never really thought of it that way before, but you're probably right. For many, believing that evil Americans brought down the WTC is less scary than believing random foreigners most of us had never heard of before were responsible.
Leanan, care to explain how the man most named and that his followers were the culprits, yet
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0608-BinLaden.html
only one of many sites carrying this info
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI's web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."
FBI Director Robert Mueller, in a speech at the Commonwealth Club on April 19, 2002, said: "In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper - either here in the United States, or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere - that mentioned any aspect of the September 11 plot."
In fact there are no Arab names on the partial list of passengers on the 9/11 flights. A final list is not available.
Yet on September 12, 2001 ABC News reported that "investigators have identified all the hijackers". Among those identified was "Satan Suqami, a Saudi national on American Airlines Flight 11, whose passport was recovered in the rubble."
The evidence against Bin Laden, promised by Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 23, 2001, has yet to be made available to the public.
Do I also have to post the BBC pieces and other news organizations that have found many of the "listed" hijackers by the US alive and well.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
There is a passage in the memoirs of late author Arthur Koestler where he recalls going to the movies on a visit to the Stalinist Soviet Union, this was back in the thirties.
He saw a propaganda movie about Nazi Germany, and one scene showed how some nazies had captured some communists and brought them to a monestary so that the blackhodded monks could flog them.
Koestler recalls being flabbergasted, the nazis had at that time already commited countless crimes. But the idea that they would use Bennedictian monks to flog their communist enemies, as opposed to doing it themself, was beyond the absurd.
What Koestler wondered was why the makers of the movie would feel the need to invent crimes when there were so many real crimes to pick from.
One could ask the same of you.
I;m giving you facts troll, why don't you respond with the same.
If you care to give me the wanted poster of the top ten most wanted and show me the listing, if they have changed it, please do so,
Its you spouting propaganda troll, to promote your agenda, or to keep your political party in power for your own benefit.
And show us the crimes you speak of troll. Its your racist and religious intolerance that bleeds from your statements like so much puss. Who financed OBL Hurin in Afghanistan against the Russians. This site doesn't wish to talk about that, I didn't bring it up, but I sure as hell will not allow propaganda to take the place of facts.
Want to talk about a fire in Germany before WW11 and what that was for and how the media was used for that.
Just WTF are you trying to say. Your post is just attack mode jibberish with not a single basis of thought or logic.
what a loser you are.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Cool it, please. Hurin was perfectly civil.
The principle of secrecy
On the day that you take up your command, block the frontier passes, destroy the official tallies, and stop the passage of all emissaries. [11:63]
It is the business of a general to be quiet and thus ensure secrecy; upright and just, and thus maintain order.
He must be able to mystify his officers and men by false reports and appearances, and thus keep them in total ignorance. By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, he keeps the enemy without definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose. [11:35-37]
Sun Tzu
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Your paranoid 9/11 delusions are not facts. And I see no reason to discuss them, for the same reason I will not get into a mudfight with a pig. I will get dirty and the pig (meaning you) will have all the fun.
Bush crime, the really big one, the one that makes all the others, including your imaginary one, seem like small ones. Is that he like no other has turned to the printing press to finance his schemes. Money is the blood of a country, and since he is being imitated in Europe and elsewhere, Bush is the worlds septicaemia.
My agenda can be summed together as follows.
1: We are in overshoot. If others must die so that I may live so be it. If a billion people in some far away country I care nothing about, should die so that a million people in my country may live. Why should that be a problem to me.
2: Human rights, political correctnes, civil liberties, feminism, tolerance, equality and so forth are not some eternal truths derived from the word of God or human reason. They are nothing more than luxuries that can only exist in a era of resource abundance (also many of them reek of old hippie fart, so I doubt I'll miss them much).
3: I have a great anger towards the generation before me, as I feel they as a generation have only been capable of taking good tings and replacing them with bad things. I owe them nothing, least of all my taxes.
4: Monetary expansion is the core reason why we have gotten to where we are today. Because the human race has lived with a fiat currency for so long, we no longer have a real concept of money. Whenever we run into a problem we try and solve it with more money, which is to say we try and solve the problem with the problem. This is why everyone and everything is drowning in red ink right now.
5: Peak Oil will bring this to a halt, as you cannot for long have a growing economy and a shrinking energy supply, and you cannot for long have a fiat currency system and a contracting economy.
6: I don't necessarily advocate a return to gold and silver. As far as I'm concerned money could be based on copper. But money HAS to be based on a physical commodity to prevent a government to turn to the printing press to pay its bills.
I live in Denmark. The number of danes deciding to keep my party in power because of my comments can probably be counted on one hand (I wish). So it's not really worth the trouble.
I would if it were in any way relevant.
Being called a loser be a 9/11 conspiracy loon, LOL!. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Wow. I've seen many examples of ignorance, but this takes the cake.
You are right that these "rights" are not something given by nature. But you are woefully incorrect in believing that they were created necessarily during resource abundance, though it may depend upon how you define that.
The tendency towards developing rights exists mainly in fair societies. Obviously not all societies living in abundance believed in these things, nor did all societies living without abundance necessarily abandon these rights.
I can but only assume that you are a 35 year old white male with plenty of disposable income and who believes that he somehow did this all by his extravagantly powerful lonesome. No point in noting the people who suffered to get you to this point of obliviousness, because I suspect you already know and probably will spit in their children's faces with a maniacal laugh.
Well, sport. I got news for ya. Come the revolution, all the whiteness in the world is not going to save you.
As for old hippies. I find it amusing that when people who are privileged sons of Cheney want to put down some idea created by revolutionaries in the 1770's in America and around the enlightening world they drag out the poor old hippies and point to them and call them the bad guys for wanting such nonsense that our founding fathers called for.
You, sir, are a fascist and not even a very intelligent one.
Come the war crimes tribunals, I'm sure your name will top the list. May you swing.
Hurin,
I'm an old hippy, sometimes flatulent. You hurt my feelings! I hope you have to spend time with me in a closed area! But don't blame all of us, its really the Vegans of your generation pumping out massive amounts of bio-methane.
I guess, you cannot imagine what it's like to grow up, and always, every single day, being talked down to by people a generation older than you, in school, in college, on TV, in newspapers and now also on the internet. And all that because they see themself as morally superiour to the rest of us.
Your generation has never know humility. I hate you, everytime I come into contact with one of you, I feel as if some physical stench is emanating from you seeking to infect me.
'whiteness' What kind of word is that? It basically sums it up. People who can invent that kind of words have nothing good in them. Your generation is trash, and the purpose of trash is to be thrown out.
And you will loose your property, your pension and your social security. Your family will abandon you, and you will die of starvation in the street, robbed of your humanity.
And you are wrong. The revolutionaries in the 1770's lived in a time of tremendous optimism, economic and scientific progress. If Thomas Jefferson had tried to explain his ideals to a 13's century englishman, he would have run little risk of being burned at the stake, as it would have been impossible for people to understand what he meant.
Well then you can call me ignorant because I find the statement spot on. Resource abundance created virtually all the luxeries we now enjoy, and that includes human rights. In a world where everyone must grub for his daily bread and fight to keep it from others, there is no such thing as human rights or any of the luxeries we now enjoy.
Ron Patterson
It's spelled luxuries. You sound like a retard when you can't master your own language but want to lecture us about your view of the future.
The American revolution was fought by soldiers without any shoes on their feet during the New Jersey winter. Many in the US faced extreme hunger and poverty during the late 1920's and 30's yet somehow our civil rights survived. If you yahoos really believed this doomer porn you wouldn't be hanging out making illiterate posts on websites.
What you actually believe is that your own civilized behavior is paper thin and that you would abandon the sacrifices of generations before you in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. All you are doing is projecting your own deficiencies onto everyone around you.
The whole generational hatred thing is messed up and not systematic... you are disturbed individuals, nothing more, nothing less. The guy who talks about growing up in a fishtank with the morally superior gawking around him sounds an awful lot like a paranoid schizophrenic. If you insist on defending him, crack a fucking book and learn how to spell.
Many in the world faced hunger and poverty. A mere decade of bad times (compared to what's coming, hardly a blip), and for certain values of "we", their civil rights did not survive.
What, you wouldn't kill or steal in order to live, should the need arise?
My post was civil Wideblacksky, yours was not. Civility is a great measure or the intellect. And Mark Twain wrote that the ability to spell is inversely proportioned to one's intelligence. Of course he was being facetious because he was such a poor speller, but I think he was correct. ;-)
That being said the debate was all about this statement:
Now what in the hell has that to do with the American Revolution or barefoot soldiers. And the word “revolution” is capitalized in that usage. You failed that English usage test Mr. English expert. ;-) And there is no such word as "fishtank". It's two words, fish tank.
Good God man, what sent you on that tangent? I applaud civil liberties but they are nevertheless a luxury that is found only in the age of abundance. And I agree with Hurin that political correctness reeks to the high heavens.
Go back in history before the age of abundance and see what kind of civil liberties existed. The age of energy slaves replaced the age of human slaves. Life isn’t fair and it never has been fair. But it is far fairer in the age of abundance than it ever was in the age of starvation and misery.
I am not commenting on how things ought to be. Civil liberties ought to survive the collapse of the fossil fuel age but I doubt seriously that they will. Look as the former Yugoslavia, look at Rwanda if you wish to find out what kind of civil liberties survives the collapse of government. Old scores will be settled, all manner of hatred and revenge will manifest itself when law and order collapses.
Ron Patterson
Spelling is way overrated as it is used as a barrier to entry, much like all the rules of etiquette. Take a look at the Lewis & Clark journals from Undaunted Courage. Those learned men conveyed the information quite well in spite of the supposed mis spellings. Slang today, Kings English tomorrow.
Maybe you didn't read the post you were defending. It was indefensible. The original comment was horrible but what was worse was seeing someone try to defend it with reason.
The comment was indeed horrible, but, I'm sad to say, very likely correct.
Ron:
''Well then you can call me ignorant because I find the statement spot on. Resource abundance created virtually all the luxeries we now enjoy, and that includes human rights.''.
I am inclined to agree , or at least give the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the period of social enlightenment was entirely coincidental with access to cheap energy.
I suspect they go hand-in-hand, and that the reduction of energy will, almost certainly reduce access to acquired rights.
We have a party here called the BNP. They give up a fair slice of website to PO. More than any other political party you could name. I think they relish the thought of PO.
Waiting in the wings, they see PO as an opportunity...
Human rights in general will suffer, but one of the first advances to go will be feminism and sexual equality. Simply because that enables control of 50% of the population. Soft, easy targets. The BNP are great believers in 'Kirch, Kinder und Kuch'. Whether BNP, Christian Right or Muslim Fundamentalist, disenfranchising half the population appears to be a likely first outcome. The loss of other rights will soon follow.
But yes, energy access and civil rights are IMO linked.
Actually, old sport, most of our rights as commoners stem from the time of the bubonic plague in England. There was quite the shortage of labour after it, resulting in new freedoms as well as standards of living. I guess you could say that was a time of plenty, plenty of deaths.
This argument seems to sway between two visions: a) a group of la-la doped out rich uncaring types, 68ers or whatever one calls them, affording themselves luxury in abundance, and b) a world or rapacious social Darwinism, where dog not just eats dog (which dogs don’t do btw) but enslaves and tortures.
Both visions are reductionist and very ‘Western’. To be very brief and thus perhaps too general: Examples of societies that were murderous, cruel and competitive, as well as large groups living in peace and harmony, cooperating and sharing, and caring for their members more or less equally, have existed throughout history. I can’t see that ‘abundance’ or ‘the oil age’, nor for that matter its upcoming demise, is correlated in any way to social structure, except indirectly (eg. the ease of transport encourages larger trading blocks which in turn means more consequent ‘laws’ as well as practices..err.. maybe some of those ‘rights’ as spelled out in explicit principles - a fairly modern invention after all...that kind of thing.)
Research also tends to show that material richness does not create happiness; ppl only need what their group accepts as ‘needed.’ (Downscaling is tough I suppose, though I don’t really see it that way myself.)
Not this Noble Savage crap again.
That's just completely offensive. I think you should be banned for that. Go spew your bile somewhere else.
Going to bring the previous generations to their knees Hurin. Well not without a fight from what I know about us old codgers Hurin. Have you considered that your opponent will be old and feeble against your abilities to reason and plan. You have studied the situation and we don't look like we have much of a chance as I read what you say.
I know that your smart enough to know that the previous generations will not be able to easily lay down and die for you. You know their obvious arrogance to the real ways of the world you recognize will blind them to your plans.
Your obvious abilities in building your viewpoint in spite of the weaknesses passed on to you by the previous generations does much to reveal your abilities. Surely shows your skills to make sensible and wise steps. How you have learned from history. Such thoughts when conversed with others should leave others gasping at your mental aptitude.
Well Hurin, when you make your play and go after the old, feeble, intellectually inferior previous generations, you are wise to think they will be easy prey. They won't have a chance, don't you think. So easy to do. Jeesh Hurin, I just can't understand why they all just don't give up to you right now.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Hurrin, after a first reading of 'The Prince', was infatuated and afire. He wanted to share his new discovery and the new power surging through him, arisen from his new found knowledge, yet he was concerned that others might come to know of his discovery and that he might have to share the power. Feeling perplexed, Hurrin considered his options, and made his choice.
PrisonerX, you are not only getting less civil, you're also getting more incoherent. OBL got his financing from Saudi donations. Several Afghan militia leaders got financing from the Pakistani intel service, the ISI, which in turn got them from the US. Among those leaders was Ahmad Shah Massoud, OBL's most hated enemy, who was murdered September the 10th, 2001.
Apuleius,
I have been perfectly civil, show me where I have not, I think its pretty easy to show you that even after Leanan said to cool it Hurin did not.
Incoherent, there's another unsubstantiated charge with no fact. Who you trying to fool with your childish techniques.
trying to claim that OBL was not financed by the US during the Afghan russian war is folly on your part, but go ahead live in your delusional world, is that "clear" enough for you.
Now you even try to claim its not true pointing out one of many money trails. To claim I don't pay the garbage man because the city cuts his check is pretty stupid in my book. You can ignore reality as long as you want. Don't expect people playing with a full deck to walk your path of madness and folly.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
A hint, PrisonerX: if you ask a question, end it with a question mark. That, among other reasons, is why you are being incoherent. Now as to financing, go read Charlie Wilson's War. The only people claiming OBL got financing from the US are fantasists, and the only "money trails" pointing to him are their Internet ramblings. Ahmad Shah Massound got US funds from the ISI. OBL preferred to keep even the ISI at arm's length.
Sorry so much Apul, I didn't realize that a statement phrased with correct words to phrase a question you would need a question mark.
I'll try an remember to help you out when you post, or maybe not. You seemed to understand it was question, and its not a piece to be read outloud, or spoken in any way. Generally I think of a question mark is needed in those situations. A statement can be a question, but its something a real good PR person spoke about, and lectured on, the overuse of the question mark, so its just a learned thing. You know keep on learning, questioning what does not fit. It their for inflection assistance mainly, they said, and its true really imo. I don't need an "emphasis" imo in your brain, the words tell the story.
and for argument over the financing, this again is what is used in the troll world as "divide and confuse" so to speak.
He offers opinion. I' can show photos of people shaking hands,... if you don't think we helped him, and he as a CIA asset, then what can I say. How bout this here, never answering the real charge that is apparent but to those with "something" that can't make them question outside their box, for personal, private, and paid reasons. I think even the news media says these things, but james randi doesn't think so, so apul goes along.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
If you're going to shed your misuse of rhetorical questions, it would certainly be progress for you. After all, books on rhetoric define them in order to advise against their use. But if you must use them, understand that rhetorical questions are questions nonetheless, and your failure to use question marks makes your paragraphs incoherent.
Capisce?
He offers opinion. I' can show photos of people shaking hands,So can I. ... if you don't think we helped him, and he as a CIA asset, then what can I say.
You can point to actual evidence of him being a CIA asset, that is, besides the assertion of yourself and fellow fantasists.
Apuleius, the bottom line is that during the eighties the US was the biggest sponsor of jihad in the world. The US funded, recruited, armed and trained the most backward & fanatical Sunni Muslims from all over the world and then sent them into Afghanistan to kill the Russians. The CIA setup a large number of madrassas along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Tens of thousands of jihadis were brainwashed and trained in these madrassas and then sent into Afghanistan to kill the Russians. The Taliban later graduated from these same madrassas. The US also setup radio and TV stations to broadcast Islamic fundamentalist propaganda at Muslims living in Central Asian republics that were a part of the Soviet Union.
During the Reagan era, the state department instructed the US consulates in Saudi Arabia to give student visas to Saudi terrorists; these "students" were brought into the US, given terrorist training by the CIA, and then sent into Afghanistan to kill the Russians.
So you see, Al Qaida as we know it today is a creation of the Reagan administration. Whether OBL personally received a check from the CIA or not is not very relevant.
No, that is not the bottom line, because that is not the case. The ISI, not the CIA, trained Afghans. These Afghans wound up fighting alongside freelance jihadis funded by oil money, and after the Soviets left, they fought with each other over the region. The CIA did not fund madrassas, nor did they fund an itnernational coalition in the region. THat one emerged, however, is true.
You are just completely blind. The CIA, ISI and the rich Saudis, all worked on this together. The CIA's goal was to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan; the ISI's goal was to install a pro-Pakistani government in Afghanistan so they can have strategic depth in their confrontation against India. The rich Saudis simply want to spread the Wahhabi Islam which according to them in the real, original, Islam.
But none of this would have been possible without support & leadership from the US. The Russians controlled the sky and had firm control of the Afghan cities until the US started supplying stinger missiles to the rebels. After that the Russians lost their air superiority and consequently the war.
Remember the first world trade center bombing in 1993 which was inspired by the radical blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman? How did this cleric end up living and preaching in NY? He was given a green card by the US government out of gratitude since he helped the CIA set up a lot of madrassas to train jihadis along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. These are the kind of people the Reagan administration was in bed with during the eighties. So you can thank the gipper for making 9/11 possible.
Here let me help you out some more, you sure seem to need it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/
...
As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world.
As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.
What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.
so even the CIA when it releases the info you now considered them a fantasists,.... whatever that it according to you.
He was agent for the organization that received its funding thru the US. and you don't think BL did not know this. That the US did not know who he was and where its money ended up, and he did not also.
sure everyone but you. way to go pal, you lead the way down a path of desertion, enjoy your journey.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Gee and I thought it was the Taliban who were the original benefactors, of US policies, when the Bolsheviks were in Afghanistan. I didn't know that OBL stood for Osama the Bolshies Lover, either. I guess that's why he didn't get paid?
You thought wrong. The Taliban did not even exist at the time of the USSR's ejection from Afghanistan. They were a product of subsequent infighting.
Okay, so the jokers who became the
Taliban, better now?
The jokers who became the Taliban (Arabic for "the religious students") did not receive CIA funding. They were in school.
Into this mix of question marks, Taliban, ISI, et al, one should keep in mind that Pakistan, hence the ISI, wanted an end to their caravans of trucks transiting Afganistan being stopped every few miles by armed bandits demanding payment, or, simply seizing the trucks and the goods they were carrying and disappearing the drivers. Part of the reason for the creation of the Taliban was to create an Afganistan where commerce could transit. That said, many other factors came into play and once an idea is set into practice the outcome is seldom predictable when humans are involved in the mix. Scientists have the same problems even without the human element. One of the largest of the 'other factors' that I have not heard mentioned thus far in reading the thread is that the US wanted a pipeline right of way running north-south through Afganistan and exiting at a port in Southern Pakistan. The US did not go to war on Afganistan until after it was established that the pipeline was not feasible, considering the demands of the various tribal leaders of the areas of the proposed pipeline route would have tranisted. To unravel what happened and is happening in Afganistan it is prudent to follow the oil/money trail. A good place to start is to ask the question 'what was the CCCP doing in Afganistan', and follow the history from there...imho.
Okay, lets get this question mark question answered?
Here, is a better example.
I think its time I left for the bus stop? I don't expect you to tell me it is. A direct question, but a reply is not expected.
Now should there have been a question mark, or should it have been a period.
the answer is.
if your expecting a reply it should be a period.
Period,
use one after a question of courtesy, which is really a request,
Question mark
Use after every direct question. After a question of courtesy and when a reply or action is expected use a period
AMA handbook of business letters.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZOPKIaZdfbQC&pg=PA474&lpg=PA474&dq=ques...
I expect an answer since these are forms of "letters" going back and forth with a conversation.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Hey dont get excited. I like question marks. Hell, I even like commas. I believe that punctuation makes reading and comprehension of a sentance much easier and eliminates guess work on the part of the reader. The English language is enough of a perversion already, without punctuation it can be impossible to understand especially if one's original language is not English. I have a hunch that since punctuation is a courtesy to the intended reader that leaving it out is a subtle but intentional slight, intended to provoke a negative response by the reader. It seems to have worked well on this thread.
I wasn't picking at you. I just put it here, the Apul crap posts would have covered it up. I posted it so others would see, its a rule. It was not intended to intimidate etc. BS. I hardly ever use them, because of my background, its as I pointed out something I learned while working. Its a rule, most people don't know it, and so the question mark is overused, as I was told, 90 percent of the time.
anyway here, enjoy,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLHTcd2RxoI
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Here is a passenger list with seating chart for American Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11. It includes the names of the hijackers, who were in seats 2A, 2B, 8D, 8G and 10B.
http://www.911myths.com/html/flight_11_manifest.html
http://911review.org/brad.com/Holmgren/fake_passenger_lists.html
from the above link which contains links to the news media releases and published accounts of info given out on the passenger lists.
Lets review the problems so far.
From five mainstream media outlets we have four conflicting lists.
Robin Caplin and Robin Kaplan on the same flight is difficult to believe, especially as Caplin is one of the frequently missing names.
The lists can't agree on the correct names for three of the passengers - Hashem/el- Hachem, Heath/Heather Smith, and Antonio Montoya/Valdez .
There are collectively 92 innocents and 5 hijackers for a total of 92 aboard.
So these are the possibilities
a) 5 of the innocents are fictitious
b)There were no hijackers
c) Some of these people were the real hijackers
d) There were 97 people aboard.
I will clarify what I mean by "fictitious". It may be that the extra names represent real people, who are missing and presumed dead. It may be that they have family and friends who honestly believe that the missing person boarded a flight called American Airlines 11. That's a matter for further research. But for five of these individuals who have been listed, (although we can't at this stage specify who ) the belief that they were on AA11 is proven to be false - unless one is to accept one of the other possibilities above.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
You forgot possiblity (e): the passenger manifest contained the names of the hijackers. Information about the hijackers was released early on. The passenger names were witheld pending notification of kin, as is standard operating procedure. (In my personal experience, I've seen police withold a man's name for two weeks while they looked for his kin.) Once the names were released, media organizations published the lists without the hijacker names, because in American culture, it is regarded as highly inappropriate to speak of a criminal and his victim without making a distinction. Not to mention offensive.
(e) happens to be the truth.
Apuleius,
Trying misdirection as your tool. Works on some people because they don't read the linked page. But if you read the linked page you will find the numerous press releases of passenger lists from several different news organizations, all with conflicting information. Conflicting spelling of names and genders it seems. Totals don't match, go one way then another.
You claim that in your experience this and that, we call that "pleading to authority" around here. doesn't hold water.
What you didn't do was explain why all the information was incorrect, and unusable because it was never ever consistent. Those kinds of conflicts cannot be reconciled and you understand that, you just will not admit it.
Why go on believing that 16 men with box cutters took over 4 aircraft, with little or no training experience and did moves that even trained pilots and tower employess whistled at.. These men understood also, or were damn lucky, that a training operation was going on that day that allowed the air traffic controllers and even the mightiest fighting force in the world to be rendered useless during their attempt.
I could go on, but I am sure you know the rest of the story.
and you guys wish to call us conspiracy theorist,
the official story is the stuff of conspiracy and fantasy that reaches beyond the bounds of even most imaginations.
Except for Fox Entertainment that had the story on a TV pilot before hand.
yet no one expected it. LOL
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Trying misdirection as your tool. It's only misdirection because I have a longer attention span than you, long enough to check a claim thoroughly. Works on some people because they don't read the linked page. You are projecting. You might not, but most people do read the linked page. But if you read the linked page you will find the numerous press releases of passenger lists from several different news organizations, all with conflicting information. Conflicting spelling of names and genders it seems. Passenger lists which conflict because they change as the authorities reach more and more of the victims' families. Passenger lists which contain mispellings and confusion because of miscommunication between airline and police, police and police press spokesman, spokesman anre reporter, and reporter and editor. People are human. People miscommunicate. Totals don't match, go one way then another. Because the authorities will reach one relative, consider their work done, then change their minds and ask the press to withold a name for a while longer while they reach other people more qualified to be regarded as kin. (The press do honor police requests and pull a victim's name when that happens. Ask any reporter in your town's newspaper.)
You claim that in your experience this and that, we call that "pleading to authority" around here. doesn't hold water. Call the police in your town and ask them for their policy, i.e. how long they will withold the name of someone deceased if they have difficulty reaching his kin.
What you didn't do was explain why all the information was incorrect, and unusable because it was never ever consistent. The information was consistent. Each passenger list was the list of people the publishing organization felt confident in publishing at that particular time, under standard press procedure.
Why go on believing that 16 men with box cutters took over 4 aircraft, with little or no training experience and did moves that even trained pilots and tower employess whistled at.. I don't. It was 19 people, with considerable flight time, doing moves that trained pilots would never dare do because trained pilots are in the business of delivering their passengers alive and well, not in the business of killing them.
These men understood also, or were damn lucky, that a training operation was going on that day that allowed the air traffic controllers and even the mightiest fighting force in the world to be rendered useless during their attempt. They knew, as would anyone else, that standard operating procedure would not anticipate their suicidal intentions, and that this would buy them enough time to carry out their mission. They were wrong. Their window of opportunity ended before they could get Flight 93 to the target.
Your response to why the passengers list should be conflicting is bogus.
Passenger lists are compiled before a flight takes off. No one flies without being on the manifest. It is checked by flight attendants via boarding pass and then by seating charts before take off.
This is not an explanation you give for the release from American airlines to have been so corrupted. Waiting for relatives is not an excuse. It does hold up against scrutiny.
Your desire to see and make excuses that violated company procedure and policy on that flight are not shown in your response. Why because it then invalidates your case even more.
In explaining the information about the passenger lists you were not consistent, you showed no examples. You just said it. Why, you have zero evidence to make your claim, because then that shows flaws in the system, and you don't want to go down that road do you, because there is something besides company failure down that path for you. Talking about what data is correct and what data is conflicting about "flights" and their numbers.
As to your reply about flight skills that they didn't care. Doesn't explain it, and is a weak argument. You obviously don't understand the flight skill needed to do what happened that day. Care to hear what a test turned out when Trained aircraft pilots that fly for the airlines happened on ONLY the path into the buildings. How many were able to do it,"after five attempts" each. Care to guess in a group total. To clarify, it was an attempt into a tower, not the Pentagon. If you wish to know what the fight data recorder show about that, please let me show you a simulation that was done by Airline Pilots.
Your statement,.. nobody thought they would be willing to commit suicide does not answer the question, and has no basis on responses of government resources, and much more. It does not explain the lack of response for how long Apul, do you even know. I don't think it matters in your tiny little box you live in. Its hard to explain your position Apul if you don't have any facts or data to back it up that a reasonable person would understand.
Good grief man, in attempting to explain your "pleading to authority", you try to use it, to make it true. Wow, and your looking for people to look up to you for your position as a debunker, Im feeling even better.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
This is not an explanation you give for the release from American airlines to have been so corrupted. Waiting for relatives is not an excuse. It does hold up against scrutiny. The release from AA was not corrupted. AA did not release the manifest to the public. AA released it to the FBI, and the FBI released names gradually as families were notified. AA was under no obligation to release the manifest to the public. Hence the varying victims lists.
In explaining the information about the passenger lists you were not consistent, you showed no examples.No need to show examples, you blithering idiot. We both know the media released inconsistent lists. You think it's because of your fantasies about that day. I know it's because that is how the media operate.
As to your reply about flight skills that they didn't care. Doesn't explain it, and is a weak argument. You obviously don't understand the flight skill needed to do what happened that day.
It did not take strong skills to carry out 9/11. The Pentagon was the hardest target and novices hit it each time.
Your statement,.. nobody thought they would be willing to commit suicide does not answer the question, and has no basis on responses of government resources, and much more. I (Sigh. Against stupidity the Gods themselves toil in vain.) The first thing the FAA had to respond to was 2 planes veering off their flight plans and turning off their transponders. The usual cause for such an event is onboard electronic failure. The usual response is to send a plane to find the wayward craft and escort it to an emergency landing. The second thing was evidence of hijacking. Again, the standard procedure pre-9/11 was to get the plane to a tarmac and start negotiating. That approach worked for everything except the hijackers of 9/11.
Explain why they released lists that were not consistent. Thats the issue. That the lists did not total correctly and that names changed. this is the issue and you avoid it. You give a opinion again and not a fact. Either show evidence that explains why names were mispelled, left out, changed, and total do not add up. This is reality no matter what you say.
this is nothing, and you present it as evidence. Releasing gradually is not what happened, They were released over a period of days starting the day after, and nothing ever matched up and you do not address that as being unusual and not procedure.
I'm an idiot because you can't explain your position and give only an excuse without touching the underlying problem in the argument. Getting desperate now aren't you. Whose being uncivil and losing their cool,..ummm
\
this little outburst from you
You're telling me how the media operates. Really, you know that the media changed the lists, because you now say 'they were responsible". So the media changed the lists, is that your latest attempt at deception to prove a point. Go ahead tell me how do you know the media 'Operates". what is your experience in this field. Are you saying the media did the manipulation that day, so wheres the proof. Extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary proof. Bring it forth ohhhh one who has experience with the media.
Now for your big finale you give a link to a site with someones home flight simulator from the screen graphic. And on top of that, the link is invalid and doesn't work anymore. The video has been pulled, I wonder why.
As to how the FAA responded that day. Good grief, here have the last word after this. Your so bad and have so little to back up what you offer I won't respond unless you give something thats real.
don't tell me what procedure was, I have studied this so I understand what it was. What I know is it wasn't followed. Your response in what should happen contains things that DID NOT HAPPEN, are you just unable to reason. Then you claim that the approach was to get the planes to the tarmac and negotiate. This implies you have evidence that negotiations were held with the hijackers. Where is the proof of this..
usual response to send a plane, and duh, no plane was sent. and when it was it was to late and long after procedure called for.
So it escorts, yea, but it has to get there first, no such thing happened so why do you even state it as a sign that things were followed.
then come the negotiation thing, which didn't happen, unless you can show proof, and even then, there is an old saying Apul,
fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
So first, then long wait and.. nada, yet you claim there was.
You are delusional, is this you delusional is apul your sock puppet.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Explain why they released lists that were not consistent. The press released inconsistent lists because, you yammering boob, they received names from the FBI in a steady trickle, and from that they released lists of different lengths at different times. It's that simple. Notice the manifest had nothing to do with it.
Since you need repetition, I will repeat: different agencies released different lists AT DIFFERENT TIMES because they were collecting the trickle of names coming from the FBI.
I'm prepared to accept your position, Apuleius, but I'm having trouble understanding it. Surely, if there had been errors made on a particular list, the reporter [editors?] would have notated that corrections had been made upon reissue, especially ones released a year later. But there is no attempt to do so, nor any investigation of the differences. Why not?
-
James Gervais
Hope was the last ill to escape Pandora's box.
PrisonerX, you incompetent moron, I will explain one more time: police agencies in the United States have a policy of witholding the names of victims of public tragedies until they have notified their kin. Media organizations also have a policy of also not publishing the names until they are told they may do so, by the responsible authorities. This is common knowledge to anyone who is not a delusional boob. You are a delusional boob, but surely you know people who aren't. Now, on 9/11, the FBI, with help from police agencies all over the country, had the task of locating the families of the people on the passenger manifest, and asking them to corroborate the passenger manifests, to avoid cases of mistaken or stolen identity, and to enable publication of the names. This process took several days, and during those days the media only published the names they thought it was okay to publish. Hence , inconsistent lists. Those lists had nothing to do with the passenger manifest, which was given from the airlines to the FBI and not from the airlines to anyone else.
Capisce? Or is this too much for your pea brain to comprehend?
Now for your big finale you give a link to a site with someones home flight simulator from the screen graphic. And on top of that, the link is invalid and doesn't work anymore. The video has been pulled, I wonder why. No, you incompetent maroon, that is a standard flight school simulator, not a home simulator, and it confirms what was already known: crashing a passenger jet onto the Pentagon was a doable task. By a novice.
usual response to send a plane, and duh, no plane was sent. and when it was it was to late and long after procedure called for. No, you ignorant baboon, planes WERE sent. They did not make it in time.
then come the negotiation thing, which didn't happen, unless you can show proof, You halfwit, every plane hijacking before 9/11, every single fucking one, was followed up with negotiations on the Tarmac. Look up Entebbe for starters.
Apul,
Your childish answers will not work for you on this site. Those that understand do, and some now thanks to you know even more and have questions. You could have stopped at any time, but you didn't. You kept on, even with a last word you used it to berate and attack the poster with again no evidence, just wudda cudda shudda.
I bet you chew tobacco and have a pickem up truck apul.
Talking about what should have happened that it was supposed to end as negotiations, does not address the issue.
for this to happen you insinuate that people were expecting negotiations.
apul, news flash, They didn't know they were hijacked, they didn't know where they friggin where after transponders went off. And everyone but you knows it.
Also if they were hijacked show me the official FAA notification of that decision and to treat the missing aircraft as hijacked. Show us that decision, show us the response times of the agencies that were responsible and when they were accomplished.
That kind of stuff works best around here. Of course if you can't provide it, then you look silly.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Just read this, you moron. It shows exactly when and why the FAA, the 9/11 dispatchers, and NORAD detected planes straying, came to suspect hijackings, and dispatched planes.
If you can read something that long.
I get the feeling you feel pretty strongly about this issue. I'm not that emotionally invested, myself.
But I am honestly curious.
Given that assumption, do you have a citation of why the owner of the WTC's is on video explaining his concern for more deaths is why they decided 'to pull' Bldg. 7 ?
Where IS that 'Theory of Everything' ?
Here
it is !
He did not "pull" the building. That was not his decision to make. He is taped on video giving his support for the NYFD's decision to pull out the remaining ladder company in WTC7.
And the most probable:
e) The media cannot get their facts straight and/or have trouble spelling.
Conspiracy loons are such fun. If two newspapers spell a name differently it must be a conspiracy.
In my personal experience, the times I've been personally involved in "making news" (or being a bystander), the media almost always cannot get their facts straight. The big picture might be correct, but details might be based on quotations out of context, or by asking someone who guesses etc.
The media is lousy on details, as you will learn if you make news.
There are as many truths as their are journalists. Two journalists standing next to each other at a press conference might write totally different things. The same thing goes for eye witnesses. Not to mention spelling of names when communicating over the phone...
Police interrogators at least know this, but Joe Conspiracy Nut only sees conspiracies.
Is this really relevant?
"When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI's web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't believe it's in the jurisdiction of the FBI to gather information on foreign criminals residing in foreign lands. So I don't think they would have the best current information on such a criminal.
Isn't the CIA responsible for that work? Maybe the NSA?
You obviously haven't read the story or info.
He is listed for some activities and bombings WHICH ARE OVERSEAS on his most wanted list. OVERSEAS CRIMES which were committed against US property or structures (embassy etc.)
This crime was committed in the jurisdiction of the United States also.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Hey, hey! Don't let facts get in the way of a good-sounding opinion.
Why aren't the more snarky claiming the FBI needs to be shut down due to their incompetence in finding O BinLaden as masterminding the jet planes crashing into stuff on Sept 11, 2001?
(Or perhaps there are non-snarky people making these claims. I don't know what's going on everywhere, so perhaps there are such somewhere, someplace in the big bad world)
Perhaps they understand that the FBI knows how to do its job most of the time like all human endeavors Eric.
So I can't follow your logic, do you think the FBI is competent or not.
Because if they are competent they are doing the right thing when looking to charge someone with a crime since they don't have enough evidence.
Or
Do you think they are incompetent and their is evidence you think they didn't use that is clean.
Or
Do you think we just should have an FBI that does the will of the President or other legislative branch, depending on who is in power.
Or
Should we just give up the FBI and have the SS do the will of the President.
Or
Should the FBI now consider opinion in place of fact, because you can't understand the difference between them.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Perhaps they understand that the FBI knows how to do its job most of the time like all human endeavors Eric.
Oh come now, when one can kick about some government group, you should be able to find SOMEONE who'd make such a statement. And it ties in so pruuuty with the Kurt Cobb 911 truthers.....
So I can't follow your logic, do you think the FBI is competent or not.
You are defining FBI as one entity when its made up of 1000's of people, with any one of 'em screwing up on any given day. Some screw ups are bigger than others. And if competency is a binary function, what is the !competent function?
Because if they are competent they are doing the right thing when looking to charge someone with a crime since they don't have enough evidence.
Ah but then the people who are claiming O.BinLanden has something to do with 9/11 are either lying or not competent.
Thus here begins what Mr. Cobb spoke of.
Either the statements about FBI statements about O BinLaden not being sought for 9/11 is true/false.
If the statements about FBI statement is true, then this is in conflict with other statements made about O BinLaden being the mastermind behind 9/11.
Mr. Cobb is asking the 'peak oil' movement to just do the same basic questions - are these 'official statements' about the energy situation true?
From there, the 'peak oil' "movement" splinters just like the 9/11 movement. 9/11 truthers have micronukes, thermite, some government(s) serving X adjenda, rogue government(s) agents serving X adjenda , energy beams from space, just plain old incompetency or even malcompetency. And whatever else I've forgotten. (like the 'spot the alien spaceship in NYC' while the towers were standing)
Peak Oilers have US dollar breakdown, overpopulation, overconsumption, under-thinking (meaning that humans will just innovate the way past the problem), overthinking (any time humans do something, other things get to take it in the shorts), currencies based on growth, corruption in government, eMergy, Technocracy, global weather change, its all the fault of X religion/government model, and I am sorry if I forgot your particular model.
Do you think they are incompetent and their is evidence you think they didn't use that is clean.
Wanna try again with English?
Do you think we just should have an FBI that does the will of the President or other legislative branch, depending on who is in power.
A question with bias. Who has the power in the relationship and what effects on your paycheck does sucking up to power VS not sucking up have?
I'm sure with 1000's of employees I can get a big enough sample to say 'looks like you mis-typed. Strike "Do you think we just should" and you've just stated a fact'. And if I went through a bunch of logs on some mass shooting case I could say "nothing weird going on here." Beyond the weirdness of a mass killing.
Should we just give up the FBI and have the SS do the will of the President.
I don't know, should "we"? Your question seems to have a bias.
Should the FBI now consider opinion in place of fact, because you can't understand the difference between them.
Oh pray tell, what *ARE* the 'facts' in the case of Usama BinLaden and what input he had WRT the events on Sept 11th 2001 as you MUST have them as you are willing to judge what others grasp/do not grasp.
Or is the phrase "In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world." good enough to cover any involvement in 9/11? Seems rather weak verbage given the events, reactions and money spent thus far.
The FBI does investigate offshore cases. But that is besides the point. Rex Tomb did not say what Prisoner X claims he said.
Prisoner X did not make any claim to a statement I linked to a page that reported this.
Nice try though skippy..
My claim is that OBL is NOT CHARGED or WANTED in connection with 911.
This is the answer that is reported to have been given. You claim otherwise, can I see a statement that rebukes this from the FBI. Have a link to that.
I have seen the poster, it does not contain 911 as a reason for his capture.
The FBI has been asked as to why this is. A very legitimate question is it not.
If this is a lie the reporter made up, show me the statement as to why it is not listed.
Waiting for a fact from all the debunkers showing up using statements as fact from their own opinion.
I have seen this statement as to the reason it is not included on numerous sites, and have yet to see it challenged except by innuendo from a poster. So show me a fact, until then, I have to accept the one I have read, because, he is not wanted according to his FBI wanted poster. Why is it excluded.
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
a link to his poster.
note: the addition of the "other" is non specific and makes you go, what does that mean.
the addition of the outside moneys, should in no way be an interpretation that this shows anything about 911, because it to does not mention it.
it is however interesting that they are there. Wonder when they made it onto the poster.
Eric, are you going to answer the question.
The supposedly biggest and most horrific exploit is missing.
seems a tad odd doesn't it.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
What it means, PrisonerX, is that the FBI already has indictments on OBL for pre-9/11 crimes, and pursuing other indictments would not gain them anything, and would only complicate future activity as OBL runs the clock out on existing indictments.
Not that I'm eager to get into these discussions, but the kind of misinformation you are putting out here needs to be addressed and nipped in the bud. So let's address these one by one:
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI's web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." Reported by a crank, that is. What he actually said is this: "There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it."
Regarding Robert Mueller, here is what he actually said at the Commonwealth Club, which is very different from what this selective quote implies.
In fact there are no Arab names on the partial list of passengers on the 9/11 flights. A final list is not available.
Yet on September 12, 2001 ABC News reported that "investigators have identified all the hijackers". Among those identified was "Satan Suqami, a Saudi national on American Airlines Flight 11, whose passport was recovered in the rubble." Utter poppicock. By Septermber 12th the FBI had already used the passenger manifests to identify the hijackers and trace them to their flight schools and piece together what had happened. The lists themselves were not released to the public for many days later because names are not released to the media until the next of kin are formally notified. The manifests have since been released, and guess what: they contained the names of the hijackers.
The evidence against Bin Laden, promised by Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 23, 2001, has yet to be made available to the public. Far too broad a claim to be even remotely meaningful. Plenty of evidence has been released. Much more will not be released for years until there is no danger the release would pose to sources and agents in the field.
Do I also have to post the BBC pieces and other news organizations that have found many of the "listed" hijackers by the US alive and well. Arabic men's names come from a very limited set because boys traditionally are named after Muhammad or one of his companions. Arabic surnames are also not very diverse. It should coem as no surprise that people with the same name popped up afterwards.
9/11 was carried out by pissed off Muslims. If you want to argue otherwise, try to come up with evidence that was not debunked years ago.
Your statement from Rex, and you lead me to a web forum, what was it something to do with James Randy, know con artist turned media boster as the source. Here let me help you.
the Washington Post reportedly asked FBI spokesman Rex Tomb to explain why 9/11 wasn’t mentioned on the Osama bin Laden Most Wanted poster, but failed to ask him to explain his “No hard evidence” quote made on June 6th to the Muckraker Report and on June 7th to Claire Brown at I.N.N. World Report. Instead the Washington Post quotes Rex Tomb as saying, “There’s no mystery here. They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don’t need to at this point…There is a logic to it.” Apparently Washington Post writers, Eggen and Horwitz, find this acceptable. Hopefully the readers of the Washington Post will not..
so you see its a story with an answer to the question. It was asked because of the internet and the Quote reported by muckracker, and the SECOND reporter that called and asked if it could be verified, she reports that they did confirm the statement.
So now time passes and it becomes a story on the internet.
Note what was asked, and WHAT WAS NOT ASKED.
big difference in how the story was written and the answers given.
An article is published. here Apuleus
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR200608...
So the questions still remain. You have proved nothing until you can prove two separate sources make the claim are both lying. Pretty hefty charge for them to make, is it a conspiracy between the Apul,..:) going that route now.
Muellers statement, OK now they claim there never were.
So if you follow the links in the releases from the New orgs they were getting from official sources, are you saying in the first few days in a myriad of releases that this is correct. All the releases are on the site and linked, I'm helping you here. Go find out if you think this statment helps or hurts your story.
"then this statement from your post
"By Septermber 12th the FBI had already used the passenger manifests to identify the hijackers and trace them to their flight schools and piece together what had happened. The lists themselves were not released to the public for many days later because names are not released to the media until the next of kin are formally notified. The manifests have since been released, and guess what: they contained the names of the hijackers."
Is that not just an amazing statement. Ol Apul, swallows its hook line and sinker. It was solved the next day. Man, and all that confusion with releases to the press were intentional. solved the next day. yet a proper press release could not be given. Boy to solve it, and PREPARE a fake media outlet that was "perfect", wait nope it only did nothing, so what was its purpose.
Oh I know, the "guys" in your piece say, well, its smart if you think about it. See it makes sense that we don't put his name on the poster,
he might sue us if we were wrong is what they say.
Thats the mighty defense of why his name is not on the poster.
And by gollly James randi is all over it. He can smell a fraud a mile away that guy. What is his background again,
oh yea "con man".
Oh yes, If its what could happen if ,.they are wrong.. or something "smart" like that, is the reason why. WHY are they worried that that could be a possibility about that. Does that mean the evidence is not as strong as the other cases.
hmmm.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Your statement from Rex, and you lead me to a web forum, what was it something to do with James Randy, know con artist turned media boster as the source. Here let me help you. You, Prisoner X, are in no position to cast aspersions at James Randi. At least not until you learn to use proper English grammar. James Randi is a magician, i.e. someone who deceives people in order to entertain them. Like many magicians, Randi works pro bono to teach people, primarily kids, how to be wary of those who deceive in order to defraud. In so doing, Randi is following a tradition that begain with Harry Houdini himself. For this, Randi is acclaimed and respected. And you, sir, are not.
the Washington Post reportedly asked FBI spokesman Rex Tomb to explain why 9/11 wasn’t mentioned on the Osama bin Laden Most Wanted poster, The Washington Post says it asked this of Tomb. Unless you have actual cause to believe the WP didn't ask, leave out the "reportedly" part. It makes you look dumb. As to why the Washington Post didn't ask about his quotes to INN and the Muckraker, that most likely is because Tomb did not make those quotes.
Especially given Tomb's other quotes, which make the Muckraker and INN look like utter idiots.
Now, as to the passenger manifest, well, let's see. It's 1 PM, 9/11/2001. 4 planes have crashed, 3 of them into important buildings. You have the passenger manifests. You have thousands of agents ready to follow every lead. How long does it take you to reach teh flight schools? Gee, I wonder.
Apuleius, you wrote:
Can you post links?
-
James Gervais
Hope was the last ill to escape Pandora's box.
As posted above, here is a link to the manifest.
biologist,
Its actually not that big a shift, we don't have to give up a belief that America is powerful. Instead we need to shift beliefs so that people see our collective conservation, our acceptance of great efficiencies through new technology (IE electric rail and cars), our cutting loose of imported oil, our build-out in lternative fuels like wind and ethanol, are expressions of the American Can-do spirit. Its patriotic to conserve!
Blame the current situation on a conspiracy of big oil, the auto companies and their bribed politicians in Washington. Americans love to blame anyone other than themselves. They've made us weak and at the mercy of terrorists disrupting our supplies and evil OPEC overcharging.
Our biggest cornucopian opponent is CERA. Ask them which oil companies and government agencies are funding them by purchasing their reports, and accuse them of taking money from Aramco and Exxon-Mobil, the Pentagon, the big media companies and biasing their results. It doesn't hurt that this is true. And the poor American consumer is being milked by the big corporations that don't want us to be patriotic and conserve.
the beliefs that we need to stop believing in are as follows.
nations are beacons of light.
a powerful nation must be good.
a nations government will not harm it's own citizens.
one nation will not take the lives of innocents in another nation to influence that nation's policy's.
corporations will not put out a product willingly that will harm people.
corporations will not willingly harm it's own emplyee's or people at large.
Elected officials will do as they promise once elected.
Comparing 9/11 alternative explanations, peak oil, and global warming: the mainstream media, particularly in the US, will brand all the pro-these topics types as loonies, with of course nuances, and changes over time; notably global warming, or ‘climate change’ is gaining respectability. (Note that for a long time it had none.) The reasons are not far to seek: all these topics cut to the heart of world domination of the West, ‘globalisation’ and Gvmt. or military-industrial - corp’ stranglehold on ‘the people.’ (The people pretty much work for the corps, or have their pensions etc, paid by them, but never mind that for now.)
That doesn’t mean they are the same in other respects.
Global warming has characteristics that make it at least palatable for a mainstream breakthrough - it is highly complex, its effects are not the same for all, it is ‘global’, not particularly the fault of any group, but of humankind, the solutions are impossible, again because they must be ‘global’ - there is a kind of ‘naturalness’ or ‘fatality’ about the whole issue, it concerns the earth, the sun, chemistry, possibly God, the Universe, etc. Not so for PO, which is scientifically, socially, pragmatically, much simpler. As for 9/11, that is the easiest of all, as it is a localised ‘crime’ or ‘terrorist’ action, which should, in principle, have been or be easy to describe and lay out in all its details. Which it was not, as the above discussion shows.
I do feel however that Prisoner X is facing the same kind of stone walling that peak oilers experience, blind belief which cannot be influenced at all. Odd that. I guess its each to their own pet belief! Apparently the idea of radical Muslim terrorists is part of the whole ‘oil’ picture. Or the two - 9/11 and peak oil - are not ever to be related...hmm.
They laughed at Thomas Edison. They laughed at Galileo. They also laughed at Bozo the Clown. There's no denying that 9/11 and Peak Oil are related. Peak oil leaves the US far more vulnerable to, well, anything, and that placed Al Qaeda in a better position from which to carry it out. But the nonsense about it being an "inside job" is just that: nonsense, and easily refuted nonsense at that.
Here's another article about the "true price of energy":
Some say gas prices not high enough
A quote from the US Senate Commitee On Energy and Natural Resources from the January 10, 2,007 hearing:
"General WALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, for the opportunity to discuss the global oil balance and
its impact on U.S. and national security.
I recently retired from the Air Force after 35 years of service and
during my career had the opportunity to fly combat over Vietnam,
Cambodia, Iraq and Bosnia and learned much regarding how to use
military assets to effectively solve national security problems.
But I also learned that many believed the U.S. military is solely
responsible for security.
I like to call this the ‘‘Dial 1-800-The-U.S.- Military’’ syndrome, because it reflects how people assume the U.S.
military is a toll-free resource that can be called on to perform
tasks that no one else has either the capability or will to execute.
I recall a recent meeting with several major global oil company executives in Kazakhstan. Before we began our discussion, one of the executives thanked me and the U.S. military for protecting the free flow of oil around the world.
The executive’s world view included the expectation that the U.S. military will be there to provide worldwide security and to ensure the free flow of oil without
any assistance from others. This struck me, and frankly, does not seem like a good model, particularly for the United States.
The U.S. cannot and should not be everywhere to protect all the vulnerable components of the global oil infrastructure.
With regard to the oil dependence issue, military response and capabilities are by no means the only effective tools available and in many cases are not appropriate.
In fact, the single most effective step the United States can take to improve its energy security is to increase transportation efficiency.
The transportation sector is responsible for nearly 70 percent of the oil the United States consumes."
General Wald states later:
"Then the last thing I’d like to mention on this, on the security aspect, is since 1980, the U.S. Government, through military application, has put about $50 billion to $60 billion a year into the Persian Gulf.
That doesn’t count the current Iraq war or the 1990 Iraq
war.
And that’s good for our country, for security interests, but the problem is, we’re subsidizing world energy.
There is nobody else in the world doing this, and really, if you look at how much we’re paying per gallon, me, as a U.S. citizen today, for gasoline, you could almost say it’s $7 a gallon, based on the fact that we’re subsidizing
world security on this issue.
So I think none of these things are silver bullets. We have to do all of them. And I would appeal to you, as the U.S. leadership and as Senators, to do something comprehensive,
across the board, as soon as possible."
So, 7 bucks a gallon was the General's rough estimate based on tax dollars subsidizing "oil security" provided by the US military.
Add in health care costs, global warming contribution and other environmental degradation, and the true cost could easily exceed $10/gallon.
"True Cost" or "Full Cost" accounting for energy seems to me to be a powerful way to understand our petro-problem.
Note that the NYT and the rest of the media did not pick up on the General's comments. Neither did the Senators in terms of policy development.
whatever the us is "spending" on "energy security" , it is borrowed money.
tax and spend is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more responsible than borrow and waste.
I believe that Marine General Smedly Butler covered all the ground of US interventions overseas on behalf of US business interests in his short essay entitled 'War Is A Racket'. Gen Butler retired prior to WW2 but his essay is available through Google. As one can see by the title of Gen Butler's essay, he was disallusioned and sickened by the orders he had given his Marines on behalf of US business interests and the death and destruction that he had witnessed.
I believe that if military conscription was absolutely required for every American, without exception, that there would be far less stupid wars. Those conscripts that are not capable of fighting could do other work in the military, such as working in a mess hall or cleaning for a couple of years, so that they would have exposure to the 'military experience', which would be an eye opener for all. The draft was dropped after Viet Nam for reasons that became apparent during that conflict. Some wars are necessary, some are definitely not. Wars fought because of political expediency are definitely not necessary. If every moronic chimp president that we elect decides to start a war to assure reelection to a second term, we are finished as a nation.
... put the Government in the oil bidness...
ah yes - and I have no doubt that it will come to this during the heaving and thrashing as the price goes up.
This is a good Canadian proposal:
"This whole oil thing is the Government's fault, and the Government's responsibility! " Gosh darn it!
we will look for someone to blame:
- the oil companies
- the government
- foreigners
... oh almost forgot - we tried the government thing in Canada in the 70's... not a huge success, but hey lets give it another shot -
Polytropos,
I didn't get the idea the general was asking for the govt to get into the oil business. I think he was asking why the US govt continues to spend what amounts to SEVEN dollars a gallon to protect the oil supply to the world. No one else does this.
He is saying we are giving the oil industry and other countries a subsidy through our military being used as a security force.
I brought this up as a consideration when people jump and scream about the subsidy to the Ethanol industry. Its minor to that. Doesn't change the facts about ethanol and its current EROI, but why should I pay for that via a military cost through taxes. If you scream about that one, why don't you scream against this one.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
What makes you think that, as of January 1 2006, for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing new unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems it previously produced? (Diamond, 505)
What makes me think that my electrified rail proposals will be a net social, ecological and economic good ?
Because of history and modern examples.
Urban rail creates communities that, by every reasonable standard, are better than what the automobile created post-WW II. Urban rail will create the opportunity to "do it right" this time.
Railroads did create the massive coal mining in WY and MO. But without WY & MO cola, higher sulfur and mercury coal from IL, KY, W VA, AL etc. would be mined in larger quantities, with more acres strip mined and higher energy inputs.
Transferring freight from heavy trucks to electrified railroads seems quite benign and I have trouble seeing any negatives.
We did railroads once, and then went on to ICE rubber tires. Going back to rail should not create some new disaster that is larger than the manifold benefits. It retraces social steps back to earlier known forms.
Personally, Diamond looks not for a fair assessment, but the darkest possible interpretation. This is needed as a counterpoint to the generic optimism of our culture. But it is not "fair and balanced".
Best Hopes for "Back to the Future",
Alan
Strongly disagree. Diamond is a cockeyed optimist, in my book.
Just goes to show ya'
One person's pessimist is another person's cock-eyed optimist.
"... what a world, what a world..."
I'll just click the heels of my ruby-red slippers now and get some work done!
Happy pessimism, optimism, and peakism as you understand it.
Sorry. Diamond seems to like using Technology as a broad-target whipping boy. Others blame capitalism (or less subtly, 'Money', 'Greed').. Finding the blame, much like finding alternate transp energy sources (not that any of them or any combination promises to bring us back to today's bountiful levels) doesn't get the luxury of having a simple, silver-bullet answer.
"Technology", like Terrorism is a grossly underdefined term, and when we use it, I think we get a little picture of 'The Borg' in our mind, as if all of our tools and systems have made us less than truly human.
I think the factors that have actually dehumanized us are cultural and psychological, to the point where we do actually suffer from 'mechanical thinking', 'robotic behavior'.. It's not the machines, but our own minds doing the typical simian act of 'mimicing', in this case copying our creations. I think the way people have Anthropomorphised their great Corporations and Institutions, for example, have given these entities a life of their own, precisely because we WANT them to be alive.. so that a GM or USA or Disney can grow to become a living, breathing Monster, because our collective unconscious not only allows but insists that it do so.
Bob Fiske
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"
Technology cannot be separated from culture and society. The terms of trade by which we feed the machine is technology. When Alan talks of electric rail, consider the cultural and societal implications - and the implications on terms of trade. They all move together - one big Machine.
Who's separating them? I'm saying that there are cultural responses to our creations that are a more useful target than 'the technology' itself, which covers too broad a range of human learning and invention to class the way Diamond has. I don't think it's the technology, but the ideologues that follow it around like devoted supplicants, so that the application gets distorted into Eugenics or 'Corporate Personhood'
In fact, I don't think 'one big machine' is that useful an image in this context. I don't see the range of things that might fit into the term 'technology' as one big smorgasbord offered up at the altar of The Machine.
There are lots of varied technological contributors, lots of systems, political, economic, technological.. etc that they are applied to.. some have serious side-effects, some might be really good ideas, if some critical factor is revised. As I look at Alan Drake's proposals, I wonder how to prevent the Monopolies that were a hallmark of early rail. I don't know if Sherman Antitrust (RIP) was effective at curtailing that, or if there are other models that would make the plan more stable and abuse-proof, but as I think Einstein said, 'Just because intelligence caused a problem, doesn't mean we need ignorance to solve it'
Bob
"Who do I have to sleep with around here to get Impeached already?" GW Bush, eyeing his golf bag..
As I look at Alan Drake's proposals, I wonder how to prevent the Monopolies that were a hallmark of early rail
Railroads are not yet at this point, but you are correct historically. I am interested in the EU rail changes that are coming on-line now.
Basically any rail line can use any other railroads tracks provided technical requirements are met (with set payments). AFAIK private operators can get the same deal.
One issue is how to get RRs to step up investment from the current $10 billion/year (IMHO, rolling stock will meet demand with a short delay, track is the issue). One is set track use rates high enough to give a very good return and give the "native RR" a significant cost advantage over it's own tracks.
Another related issue is to make it profitable to add tracks to existing ROW, improve signals, build new rail lines, drill new tunnels, build new bridges, etc. Add new regs to make it easier to build all new ROWs.
This means valuing existing track at close to replacement value (figure $2 trillion range) when setting track use rates. (I would let RRs negotiate rates lower than the regulatory set track rates, a feature missing in EU).
RRs will be hugely profitable and they will have to be to attract the needed investments. Think 1/4 to 1/2 ExxonMobil profit levels at Union Pacific. Monopolistic pricing ? Some will see it that way. I see competition in service on high rent tracks.
Best Hopes for Fast RR growth,
Alan
Clearly, Leanan, you need to listen to more zydeco music and eat more:
Char broiled oysters
Crab cakes (properly done)
Crawfish pasta in cream sauce
Bread pudding
Chicory coffee
Beignets and
Papaya sorbet
and scare & fascinate good heated teenagers :-)
It all does wonders for optimism :-)
See my Sunday Afternoon in New Orleans" post below.
Best Hopes for Laissez les bons temps rouler !
Alan
Now I'm really worried that you want to introduce these kids to underaged drinking... O_o
Our President may have had his introduction in New Orleans (based on some comments he has made) and see how well he turned out !
Alan
You can call me irascible, repetitive and obsessive about the Export Land model, but the question is, am I wrong?
The Export Land model suggests a more rapid decline, after exports have declined to 50% of Peak Exports, and the real life examples are not encouraging--about a 37% annual decline rate in exports by the UK and a current 16% annual decline rate in exports from Mexico.
A question that has been raised is whether exporters will attempt to curtail internal consumption in order to maximize their exports. Nigeria is an example of this process in action. Clearly, there is an unmet demand for petroleum in Nigeria and clearly we can outbid poor Nigerians for petroleum products. But look at what is happening in Nigeria--rampant guerrilla activity and rampant attempts to siphon off petroleum from pipelines.
IMO, Alan Drake has by far and away the most sensible plan for transitioning into an era of rapidly declining oil exports, with a real life example of where it worked, Switzerland in the Second World War. Clearly, the US is not Switzerland, but in order to survive, we may have to become more like Switzerland. But the transition is going to involve, IMO, wholesale abandonments of large swaths of suburbia. In a lot of cases, we won't be able to maintain the roads.
So WT, how bad is it going to be for the USA? 3% per year decline in total product supplied? (228M barrels annual reduction, every year for the forseeable future)? I think you can adapt to that. Monbiot is calling for at least that kind of reduction to fight global warming.
What is the highest decline rate that the USA can cope with? It's a bit like asking when does demand destruction kick in, $3 gas, $4, $6?
What's your gut feel? 1%? 10%? Or?
US Expectation:
http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/28/Data_4weeks.png
The New Reality:
http://static.flickr.com/97/240076673_494160e1a0_o.png
For US crude oil imports to stay flat, our consumption has to fall at the same volumetric rate that our domestic production declines.
For a post-peak exporting country's crude oil exports to stay flat, their consumption has to fall at the same volumetric rate that their domestic production declines.
Worldwide, IMO, we are facing an epic collision between the expectation of an exponential increase in exported crude oil and petroleum products versus the quickly developing reality of an exponential decline in exported crude oil and petroleum products.
WT, thanks for your reply. ASPO shows a 56% decline in all liquids from 2010 to 2050. This is on average 1.4% per year. Let's double it (to allow for your ELM) to 2.8% per year (about 2.5G barrels/yr globally).
Can we handle a 2.8% a year decline without economic collapse? I think we can. As for exporting nations consuming more, consider it a form of wealth transfer :)
We are going to attempt to model some outcomes for the top 10 net oil exporters, but I don't think you are taking into account the effects of increasing domestic consumption in exporting countries--look at the real life case histories of 16% to 37% export decline rates.
IMO, we are going to rapidly transition into a world of rapidly declining crude oil and petroleum product exports.
The monetary and financial systems of the US and the globalized economy cannot survive any sustained decline of energy supplies. It is based on exponential growth of everything.
All the economic problems of the 1970's were triggered by a one-time cut in oil supplies of just a few percent.
Edit: see more about this in Gail's answer to Q.8 on her "quiz"
Worth deeper consideration. To what extent might this be true?
--
Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?" (video clip: 8.5 min)
Can the US "handle a 2.8% a year decline" in imports? I think not. We import about 65% of our petroleum - that amounts to some 14 mbd. We've had, since the 90's, an increase each year of abut 3.75% (eyeballing the chart). So the first year of the Export Land decline would result in "our share" (at 25% of production) droppping by 600,000 b/d (one quarter of the 2.8% reduction in the world's 85 mbd) instead of increasing 500 ,000 b/d as our economy expects.
I suspect that of decrease from our expected supply of 1 mbd (which is about 5% of our current use) would certainly be noticed, if not the first year, then after three or four of progressively lowered supply. Exponets, you know. That's a lot of conservation and conversion for our prolifigate society to undertake.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_m...
This graph shows that during the 'embargo days' oil imports to the US were 30%-40% of total consumption. Today they are over 60%. That is one reason why those gasoline 'shocks' are going to seem like childs play compared to what's coming.
Also WT's 'collision' is all the more significant due to the decline in US domestic production coupled with Export Land. During the previous crises the US was able to produce around 8mmbpd of her own oil. Today that number is cut in half.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus1A.htm
The destruction of 40%-50% US demand in the next ten years only requires imports to be cut in half and consistant domestic production declines. (If you counted expectations I believe it would be higher)Based on FSR, Saudi, Venuzualan and Mexican export estimates this looks possible.
Define "cope with", please. Is "cope with" no recession at all? Then I think we lose right there as I expect recession for a prolonged period. Is it an outright depression? There is genuine risk of that. Is it dissolution of the US government? There is genuine risk of that above a certain level of decline.
Stuart has given strong argument to the idea that the US cannot turn over its vehicle fleet more rapidly than 4% annually without intervention outside the market. I believe that Stuart has also suggested that he believes something like 11% is the upper bound for the US holding together cohesively (though that would be a martial law, rationing scenario for sure). In my own opinion, I think anything up to about 4% can be managed, with increasing government involvement because I expect higher and higher decline rates to involve larger and larger economic contractions. Those contractions will inhibit market activity to turn over housing and transportation towards more efficient models such that even a 4% decline will need extensive government intervention to assist the market processes along.
The only analogous period we have for a large scale oil contraction is 1979-1982 and during that time the US economy contracted in a serious manner. I am aware that others argue the 1980s were a period of growth and they were, but only after the contraction of the oil supply stopped did growth resume (1982 and later).
I do not have a model to predict where the cutoff point is but my gut feeling is that 11% is too generous and the failure point for national government in the United States might be somewhere between 4% and 11%, possibly around 8%. However, what is unforeseeable now is the impact on imports, not just of petroleum, but of all raw materials and finished goods. What happens to titanium imports when titanium exporting nations can no longer afford as much oil? Do we really expect the cumulative imports to the US to remain constant in the face of a declining global petroleum base?
I do agree that if world decline rates hold close to steady near 2% or 3% annually that the world may manage a soft landing from that process (barring the declines triggering other political events beyond the scope of just peak oil). But rates above that will probably start to really test the cohesiveness of the US.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Greyzone,
Your's is really a key post. Unfortunately, it seems that only a few of us carry things to their logical conclusion. This is what I tried to do when I posted about post-peak education the other day.
My only disagreement with you is that I do not think society can survive even a 2% decline. For the sake of arguement, let's say the economy contracts proportionally to the decline rate, i.e., -2% oil/energy = -2%GDP. (Perhaps, someone has some real numbers.) What I foresee is a cascading collapse as various segments of the economy cease to exist. This in turn will reduce taxes flowing to government coffers. This in turn will limit the actions governments can take. Further, people will see their incomes declining which is likely to prevent them from moving to a more sustainable lifestyle.
My guess is that the first industry to go will be tourism and this will cascade into auto manufacturing, etc., etc.
The future will not be pleasant.
Todd
let's say the economy contracts proportionally to the decline rate, i.e., -2% oil/energy = -2%GDP. (Perhaps, someone has some real numbers.)
Here are some real numbers:
"When the U.S. last paid attention to oil, in 1977–85, it cut its oil use 17% while GDP grew 27%" - Executive Summary, Winning the Oil Endgame.
Best hopes for a pleasant future :)
That is highly misleading. The cuts were achieved by switching power plants from oil to natural gas, and by moving heavy industry overseas, where energy was cheaper.
Obviously, those were short-term solutions, suited for a local peak but not a global one, and cannot be repeated. The low-hanging fruit on energy efficiency has been picked, and we will have a lot harder time of it this time.
Todd,
Tourism is already suffering some in Galveston. The cruise lines have reduced the ships from 5 to 3 this year, and our hotel tax revenues are up only 2% from last year in spite of price increases. This is according to a Galveston Daily News article, their website is http//:galvnews.com.
Subjectively, our Seawall traffic seems lighter to me than last year. Since we are only 50 miles from downtown Houston, its a traditional place for many working families to come on the weekends. My guess is that going from $10 roundtrip worth of gas to $20 is hurting a lot of folks. There budgets are already tight.
Yes, but that assumes a replacement rate of 1:1. That probably isn't going to happen, unless you assume that an increasing percentage of the replacements include bicycles and scooters. Most likely, Peak Oil also means Peak Automobiles. The decline in the number of OPERATING passenger vehicles (as opposed to those being kept in yards to be scavenged for spare parts) should closely correlate with the decline in liquid hydrocarbon supplies.
Increasing numbers of people will "cope with" no longer being able to afford to operate an automobile by no longer operating an automobile. What will they do instead?
-Walk
-Buy a bicycle or scooter
-Use public transit
-Carpool
-Relocate closer to work
-Change jobs to one within walking or public transit range
-Find ways to work out of their home (in the "official" economy if possible, otherwise in the "unofficial" economy)
-Change from daily to weekly or monthly or longer commute cycles, and find a cheap place to stay overnights near work.
The truth of the matter is that most Americans COULD do this. And the country could survive if most people did this. Yes, the economy will take a huge hit and require massive restructuring, but that is going to happen anyway, one way or another.
I think the most quick shift will be changing 'duty cycles'.
Simply put, people will try to choose the most economic vehicle they have access to, instead of choosing the most comfortable.
People will still have their trucks, but they'll try to avoid driving them as much.
I have no problem with people driving SUV's, when they're taking the entire family camping twice a year. (and most people ought to rent, not own but that's their own business).
I have a problem with people commuting alone in a 16 mpg vehicle in entirely urban traffic---day in and day out.
Also, the scooter/motorcycle-for-mileage-not-macho market might take off fairly quickly. Look at 3rd world countries---entry level vehicle is a cheap Chinese scooter.
And it gets better mileage (but worse emissions) than a Prius.
For those with money, the list includes:
As vehicles wind up on the used market, the cycle continues. This would be accelerated by the greater lifetime of electric vehicles; they'd hang around longer.
One thing the Export Land model doesn't take into account well, and that is that oil exporters tend not to be either big agricultural producers or big manufacturers. Even if the price of oil goes sky-high, they are going to have to give enough oil to farms and factories to keep stuff coming back. This will keep the oil-importing economies going for a while. In the mean time, sky-high oil prices mean that it will be attractive to use an EV or PHEV even in the oil-exporting country. As agricultural and manufacturing economies convert to electric propulsion or biofuels (and perhaps buy back second-hand electric vehicles from the exporters), the balance shifts away from the oil producers. Once it shifts far enough in favor of electric propulsion, photovoltaics, etc. advantage goes back to the First World and stays there.
WestTexas,
You are not wrong. Your model is clearly rational and logical. If a nation's oil production shrinks or the population grows and demands more, then necessarily something must change.
They could do as the Nigerian government/kleptocracy does and simply let their people starve and wallow in the environmental damage, or they could, as the Iranians may do, slow down exports.
As you note, the Nigerian people are not taking this lying down. People who see their leaders enriched and their own lives despoiled from the extraction of national riches will not peacefully stand by. They will fight.
I have to say, your model is fine example of some of the clearest thinking on this site. It also shows an awareness of knock-on effects often lacking here.
Good work.
To me, the mathematical case for a quickly developing oil export problem has been obvious since January, 2006. What is amazing to me is that this is not the #1 issue worldwide. The world economy literally moves on a steady supply of exported oil and petroleum products. What if that supply is fading away?
I am reminded of a scene from the movie "All the president's men," about the Watergate scandal in the US in the Seventies--which caused Nixon to ultimately resign. In the movie, one of the Washington Post editors, quoting a question from a White House staffer, said something to the effect that if Watergate is such a big story, why are only two very junior reporters at the Washington Post reporting on the story? (Not that I am comparing myself to Woodward & Bernstein.)
If the Net Oil Export story is such a big deal, why is the #1 Google item on Net Oil Exports an article by some geologist in Texas who studies Peak Oil as a hobby?
Perhaps the answer in both cases is a combination of laziness and denial/cognitive dissonance.
Peak Oil is bad enough. The prospect of rapidly declining oil exports is really bad news.
WT, see my post up the thread about the true cost of gas.
I quoted from General Wald's testimony from the US Senate's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing of January 10 on the Geopolitics of Oil.
ELM did not come up, but it does present an interesting question in light of Wald's testimony that the use of the US military as Global Oil Security is a very expensive and failing paradigm.
ELM will ratchet up tensions very significantly. Already I hear the occassional person say -- "Do you hear what they pay for gas in ... (Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, SA, Nigeria, and so on) We should be getting it cheap, too!"
Such intentional ignorance will be used by The Establishment to push for more war for oil.
ELM does go against the intentional ignorance cultivated in the service of War. It is another inconvenient truth, and so needs to be swept under the rug of wild fabrications which will lead us to more war.
War is The Answer for the US Establishment.
TINA -- "There Is No Alternative."
begger, I would agree with your assumption that 'intentional ignorance will be used by The Establishment to push for more war for oil' if the outcome of our current adventure in Iraq had proven successful, but it has not up to this point. An empire is a business and if empires do not produce a ROI then they are just another unsustainable business model. Look at our ROI in Viet Nam and now Iraq. The only sector of the economy that has profited (so far) from these two wars are the manufactureres of war materials and various contractors to the wars. I have not seen a flow of funds returning to the US Treasury from either of the conflicts and I have not seen, so far, as predicted by Wolfowitz, 'oil paying for the war in Iraq.' How can we continue to fight wars for oil if they fail to produce the desired result, ROI? Our war in Iraq makes no sense if you look at it as a 'war for immediate oil', it makes some sense if you look at it as a 'war to keep Iraq oil off the world market until we decide its needed.' Perhaps that is the desired result? What will it take in Iraq to acchieve a ROI? If we stay in Iraq and keep Iraq oil off the market until we deem it time to export that oil, if we continue to fight a slow and protracted war, if we continue to displace Iraqis from their homeland as refugees, if we slowly subdue or coerce the various militias, if we install and maintain a government in Iraq that will do our bidding and allow our oil companies to get the PSAs that they desire, if we stabilize the country enough for oil extraction, and if at some future time our oil companies begin to export Iraqi oil to the US or to other countries to pay down our various debts, then the war in Iraq might be considered a success after many years of military expenditures and who knows how much death and destruction. Then comes the question of will some of the oil revenues from Iraq be used to refill the US Treasury or will it all go into the pockets of the oil companies (I am betting on the oil companies). If the oil companies reap the profits then the US Government has just made another transfer of wealth by borrowing to fight a war to profit the oil companies. This entire Iraq war is one hell of a gamble with long odds that few governments and no prudent businessman would take. Of course if the oil companies can use the US Military and US funds to fight a war to get them oil then they have risked nothing. If we fail in this endeavor in Iraq I dont think that we will see another gamble like this. I am not a fan of Machiavelli or McCain but McCain was right when he said that the consequences of a failure in Iraq are beyond imagination. I think few Americans realize what a desperate gamble Iraq is. I also think that since the US is willing to risk so much on such a desperate gamble makes a good case for PO. Too bad the effort is so poorly managed.
Yes. Cooperation - as with Saddam in the early days, or the Saudis today, say - would, in business or EROI terms have been the better choice. (leaving the happiness or safety of global humans out.)
However, the need to maintain military superiority and intimidate with it, with a view to the future, the nexus of military power, oil power, etc. dictated this choice. Or one might say, as many do, that the gamble was idiosyncratic: the take over by the neocons, the weakness, madness, personality etc. of Bush junior, Israeli and /or Zionist influence, etc. etc. (That of course is a side issue.)
In short, seeing the ‘Iraq war’ as something that could or can be reversed; a strategic mistake that can be repaired. I think not.
Hello Westexas,
Well said. I like your last sentence too--sums up the situation quite well. All the more reason to have successful grassroots growth of Peakoil Outreach to try to optimize our FF-decline.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Uh oh. If Cherenkov agrees with something, it's probably nonsense.
But the problem is that no matter how correct you are in assessments and how a certain systems approach may work fails to consider the most basic factor on the ground. People.
What worked or may work in one society is guaranteed not to work in a much larger society with totally fragmented demographics.
I believe many of the technical data on the site, but it blows my mind how very highly educated people fail to see that in the US we are way beyond the point where we could have all the people pulling in one direction. Trust me, when TSHTF in the US it will be worked out in the streets, and not nicely.
Surviving first contact will be a defensive position.
You can see it just reading the posts.
Mus: I have no idea why so many cling to this "doomer", "when TSHTF in the USA" position. The "revolution" is always right around the corner. Look at the large US city of Detroit- declining for 40 years. The place has no future objectively- anyone unlucky enough to be stuck there has a house that declines in value every month. The place is not in a recession- it is in a depression. When does the Detroit "revolution" start? 2007? 2017? 2067? 2117? Never?
Never, as long it's part of a larger polity that has not yet collapsed.
Diamond argues that Montana has already collapsed, but as long as it's part of the U.S., people in Montana don't have to worry about going Easter Island or anything.
No, Diamond explicitly says that he does not mean that Montana or the USA has collapsed or will collapse. He also says that he uses the Montana example to draw parallells to historical cases, and to get some contemporary understanding to the choices done in the past. Yes, there are problems in Montana, as well as almost everywhere. He chose Montana as he spends holidays there and there is a stark contrast between the beauty and seemingly pastoral landscape and the real problems Montana is facing (according to Diamond).
An example of the paralells is the comparison of a modern cow farmer in Montana and the ruined barn of the Greenland Norse bishop's farm.
Let me put it this way. By nature I'm a very peaceful and even lazy person (at this point in my life), I would much rather lay on the beach with a good cigar and an umbrella drink then fight.
Unfortunately after being stationed in over a dozen countries watching how civil unrest develops under various demographic mixes, living through the LA riots and watching the images of NOLA, one has to come to the conclusion that even without TSHTF we are living in a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
From a professional point of view my favorite for of combat is the preemptive strike, but now from a personal point of view I just hope that my tactical read puts me out of reach of first contact. After that we have to take another read and move accordingly.
Even if I were wrong, the preparations and precautions cost very little, so if they turn out to be for nothing no big deal. Sort of like car insurance.
BP should be releasing its 2007 Statistical Review tomorrow. This is will probably be the most complete, up-to-date presentation of the numbers. It will include the entire world, not just the top 3 or top 10.
The EIA and IEA will also be releasing numbers tomorrow that should show Saudi production has been stopped at the lower limit of their OPEC quota requirements for 4 months. This would tend to suggest that Saudi reductions were voluntary rather than geologically-induced terminal decline.
Are you wrong? I don't know. Your theory seems pretty straight-forward. Simple algebra and logic. But that's not what the problem with it is, if there is one. It is with the actual numbers, what actually happens.
The latest numbers for the FSU(which are somewhat hard to parse since Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are combined with Russia) show exports rising for that entity. These are layed out in a table on page 25 of last month's IEA OMR. I think Russian exports are probably flat, which means production is keeping pace with domestic consumption.
Norway is pretty clear. I don't think there's much disagreement there. But as far as you using the top 3 exclusively to model the world, I think you might at least delve into numbers 4 thru 6 whose levels are pretty close to number three and will likely surpass Norway soon.
You now are predicting declining Russian production this year, next year at the latest. Yet I seem to recall you saying the exact same thing last year. In fact I was surprised to see you claiming an export crisis in the 4th quarter during the 4th quarter. I think a better question then 'are' you wrong? would be 'were' you wrong? And if so, I would ask why you think that is. What has changed that will make things turn out differently this time around?
One of the problems I have with peak-oil or at least the way it is presented is that the 'crisis' or 'effects' are always purported to be just around the corner, but they never seem to appear. Supposedly we peaked in December of 2005, but I'm still not seeing what everybody here seems so excited about.
Total net exports by the top 10 net exporters (probably accounting for 75% to 80% of total net exports) are down from 2005 to 2006 (EIA, Total Liquids). So, if Angola is showing higher production and exports, we don't have a problem?
Texas and US Lower 48 oil production as a model for Saudi Arabia and the world
Jeffrey J. Brown & "Khebab", GraphOilogy
Based on EIA data, world crude oil production is down by about 1% from May, 2005, and Saudi crude oil production is down by 11%.
In the comment thread to the Net Oil Export post in January, 2006, I commented on the HL model that Khebab did, at my request. The results are summarized in the following post from the Russian Car Sales thread. Note that Russian crude oil production has basically been flat since October, 2006.
From the "Russian Car Sales" Thread:
BTW, the EIA shows that net exports by the top 15 (all those with exports of one mbpd or more) are down by 2.5% from 2005 to 2006. Note that a couple of countries changed, which is why I have been focusing on the top 10. Also, annual average numbers can obscure some declines. Mexico is flat from 2005 to 2006, on an average annual basis. But because of the Cantarell collapse, their exports are declining at 16% per year since January, 2006, on a monthly basis.
I expect to see the decline in exports by the top 15 widen to 5% or more next year (average annual decline)
In regard to the top three, in 2005 they accounted for 46% of the net exports by the top 15 net exporters. That's why I think that they are sort of important.
Global exports probably dropped in 2006, because, by some accounts, production dropped. It only follows. And this has happened before. In and of itself it is no reason for alarm. It also doesn't necessarily mean the same thing will happen next year.
Yes, the top 3 account for roughly 50% of the top 15, but not of total exports. In the context of total global exports, 2.5% isn't necessarily a large fluctuation for one year. I'd like to see the fluctuation in say a 20-year timespan. What does that look like?
Angola is a great example. Its production is going through the roof. It ranks something like 13th on the exporter's list. Consider this. In 2004 Angola had production of 1,050 kbpd with 48 kbpd consumption. That's pretty amazing. By the end of this year they will be pumping double that - 2mbpd. How much will their consumption be? Any guesses. They have a relatively small population and I don't know much about their car-buying habits. Stories of Russian auto purchases are purely anecdotal - what does it translate to in oil numbers? We'll have to wait. But you don't even see stories about Angolans buying cars at all. So I'm guessing the net increase in Angolan exports in just three years being on the order of 850,000 bpd. 10% of Saudi production.
So back to your question. Angolan production is up and we don't have a problem. Is there a correlation? You tell me.
I still question your use of different time blocks to come up with decline figures. Yes Russian production is flat since October. Why October, though? I think I know why. It was a good month. So subsequent months look worse. If you actually measure year-over-year percentages (any month, EIA C+C, or IEA all liquids) you get increases of between 2% and 3%. I think that is a more accurate, standard, and fair way of doing things. Keeps everybody honest. Bloomberg actually reported a while ago that March Russian production was up 3.4% year over year.
You may end up being right about huge increases in Russian domestic consumption, but remember typical increases over the last few years have only been 2-3%. Since production is roughly 3 times greater than consumption you need a 6% increase in consumption to keep exports flat with 2% production growth. And that has to continue for your theory to get the huge draw-downs you're talking about. You can't assume that consumption is going to stay at Chinese-like rates for 10 years.
Look at the Chinese. We don't even know what is going to happen there in 2030. But all these people that trash CERA and the IEA for their production forecasts 20-years out(and rightly so)don't stop and think twice about projecting continuous huge consumption increases out twice as far.
As far as whether Russian production will shortly fall off a cliff - that's pure speculation. With Hubbert Linearization and 75-90% depletion according to various reserve figures, one would have been saying the same thing ten years ago. Look where that would have gotten you.
Global exports in 2006 dropped because of of lower production and/or greater consumption in exporting countries--despite the highest nominal crude oil prices in history. What we witnessed was reduced export capacity being auctioned off to the high bidders.
The significance of the flat Russian oil production since October is that the year over year increases in Russian production have been getting progressively smaller as Russia gets closer to where it should be based on the HL model. They "caught up" in 2006. Before production starts falling, it stops increasing.
So, as I warned in January, 2006, net oil exports fell in 2006, especially net exports by the top three exporters.
I predict that the declining export trend will continue, especially since it's a near certainty that every oil field in the world that has ever produced one mbpd or more (crude + condensate) is now in decline.
You predict that the declining export trend won't continue. Time will tell.
What we know now is that in aggregate the data are supporting the HL and Export Land Models.
So far, the people who believe that a finite world has finite limits have been correct. What a concept.
It all depends upon how much the ruling elite in each country needs to use the oil internally vs. how much they need to use the oil to generate money by selling it. The answer will be different for each country, depending upon the particulars of each ruling elite's situation.
As a general rule, they all need a cash flow, but they also need to stay in power and keep on feathering their nests. I would expect them to retain as little for domestic use as they could possibly get away with, and to sell as much for foreign cash as they could possibly get away with.
If this premise does not match up well with typical behaviors observed to date (and past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior), then I would be obliged to anyone that can point out the exceptions.
I expect that oil prices will rise fast enough that even exporters with declining production and exports will show stable to increasing cash flow from oil export sales.
Note that in the "Phase One" decline, domestic consumption will probably be increasing, because of high cash flows from export sales. We saw this in Russia in 2006, when they showed a decline in oil exports, but vastly higher cash flow, because of higher oil prices.
The crunch will come when higher prices won't offset the decline in exports.
My simplistic Export Land Model shows the Phase One export decline is about 16% per year. The Phase Two decline is about 37% per year.
wt,
On the contrary, you seem quite patient and calm while explaining your export-land model. Thank you for warning as many people as would listen.
There is one thing I don't understand.
First, let me say that I loathe the decline in US public life caused by the automobile and the segregation of suburbia. I enjoyed "Place Matters" and Kunstler's work, and Jane Jacobs. I love cities built before the auto.
We live in the country. Our population density is about 20/km^2. It makes sense to me that we would need to live an essentially local life here as oil-powered transportation becomes impractical. We would farm and we're close to a rail line.
The nearest city has giant suburbs, it is in fact a donut city, and its suburbs' population densities are about 2,500/km^2. This number, while not comparable to the subway-enabled 10,300/km^2 of a New York, is not far from the 3,100/km^2 of Los Angeles. (all numbers lazily gathered from wikipedia).
It looks like Zurich is about 4,000/km^2, Basel a more compact 7,500/km^2.
So it seems to me, assuming that people in suburbs are willing to walk or bike a few blocks, that we could build a fine transportation system and leave the suburbs alone.
Yes, the houses will rot five times faster than a properly built house, and yes they will leak air and require many repairs. But that's what people wanted when they moved in, right? I mean they decided to move in with their own minds.
So why and how do we abandon suburbia? People are going to need a place to live while we adjust to our new reality. I don't see just shifting 100 million people or so to flats downtown in any reasonable amount of time.
(Oscillating from doom to cautious optimism)
So why and how do we abandon suburbia ...I don't see just shifting 100 million people or so to flats downtown in any reasonable amount of time.
See United States of America from about 1950 to about 1970 (or 1948 to 1980) for how quickly we can completely transform our Urban Form.
The US is building giant homes today. Average (from memory) was about 2,850 sq ft (260 m2). We can build more homes with less materials if we build smaller (say 50 to 90 m2).
We will not be as rich tomorrow as we are today.
About 30% of Americans want to move into TOD today. Just satisfy that market demand and SOME suburbs will be dotted with empty, then abandoned homes that will chase away many others. Most suburbs (IMHO) do not have enough cohesive community to prevent decline once the ball starts rolling.
IMHO, some suburbs will survive. Those with a commuter rail stop will be high on that list. But many others will decline precipitously.
Best Hopes for Transit Orientated Development,
Alan
(Alan and WT thank you very much for all your work here and elsewhere)
I'm sure I don't need to point out to you that the shift in population from the urban cores to the suburbs happened while the US was the peak oil producer in the world and before we hit our energy wall.
(It is a measure of the energy we dissipated that we created $45 trillion suburbia at the same time we built a $7 trillion nuclear armageddon-making infrastructure, fought two major land wars (to a draw and a loss), landed and recovered 12 people from the moon, and generally made quite a ruckus).
The point being that we are going to have to use some of this energy we encapsulated, in the form of cheesy houses, over the next 20 years while we adapt to our new, lower energy reality. If we don't freak out first, that is.
We just don't have the means to re-house 100 million Americans in optimal housing while we adjust to a zero-growth (actually, negative growth) scenario.
-s
We just don't have the means to re-house 100 million Americans in optimal housing while we adjust to a zero-growth (actually, negative growth) scenario
A few points.
Many inner cities were abandoned and some of that housing can be rehabbed (high labor, low material to rehab an existing structure).
Adaptive Reuse. Taking industrial, commercial & church buildings and converting to residential is also possible (Again high labor/low to medium material).
Increased density housing. Take a single family residence in a prime location and break it into multi-units (an art form in New Orleans).
New construction. Timber keeps growing whatever the economy. Less steel and copper are needed for smaller homes and Chinese demand will likely slacken. Salvage materials can be of limited use (cheap labor required). As I noted a few days ago, two blocks away, they are filling a parking lot with a duplex, about 1,100 sq ft for each. (Duplexes use less material per unit than single family residences, 3 and 4-plexes even less).
With less materials, we can build twice as many new homes as we do today.
I have seen what can be done.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Agreed. In a time where there is the loss of the FF underpinning that created this vast wealth it is unlikely that Americans will abandon the ,47 trillion dollar, investment that is suburbia. Whether neighborhoods are located on rail lines or not a defacto adaptation of existing resources could look like this.
Abandoned homes become either, warehouses, stores, schools or community supported or unsupported crash pads for the homeless. Otherwise multi-family units become the norm. Lawns and burn-out lots become gardens. Uninhabitable buildings literally become building material garage sales.
Supply runs for agric staples can be made with consolidated trips in any one of thousands of 'nearly useless' vehicles pulling one or two trailers. It will be necessary to pool funds for this and the other FF burning activities.
The abandoned vehicles will be used first for their fuel, batteries, oil and wiring and then for sources of metals, rubber, and limited spare parts. Some will certainly be converted into semi-stationary intermittent generator, heating, and power units to substitute for failing power grids. Occasionally they will be converted into solar concentrators, storage units, and starter greenhouses.
Other resources currently sequestered in suburbia in homes gas stations and stores such as large amounts of asphalt, concrete, glass, metals, and plastics will be 'recycled', sold, scavenged, stolen and burned as inputs for the survival of the various group homes.
The few remaining trading centers, vendor lots, and growers markets will coalesce around centrally located hubs probably where surface water is available by functioning municipal, manual or solar operating wells reachable to walkers, cyclists, and EV 'commuters' within a suitable radius.
People will have to adapt somehow b/c the alternative will be no alternative. Even the rail system will not be maintainable everywhere and the law of attraction will make the attractive less so. Sure there will be cultural, religious, and racial attraction as now.
Suburbia will continue to support life wherever those certain sustaining combinations still exist. Communities will re-form around new activities based on common survival goals of food and security. A lot of this will be in what is now considered suburbia. Whether this is a good idea or not won't matter. Sorry JHK.
In a land of scarce resources and even scarcer energy inputs we will certainly not abandon huge stores of embedded FF inputs any more than we would walk away from a Ghawar or Athabasca. It might not be pretty but it will be somewhat familiar and therefore help provide transition to whatever comes next.
I think the problem is that when we come up with a new technology, we focus on all the positives without considering all the other consequences. Even if we had a system in place to consider the negatives, we would still be left with those pesky unintended and unforeseen consequences.
In the case of the railroads, we are basically going back to a previous, tested technology, which is easier to assess. In doing this, we will partially abandon the technology that has caused so many negative impacts, the automobile and the truck.
I think Diamond is mainly talking about new, untested technologies that are intended to solve problems created by previous technology.
I also think that Diamond is trying to warn us away from the attitude epitomized by George Bush, his apparent belief that technology will fix everything, no social or behavioral change required.
There are a lot of areas where improved technology seems like a good thing. Better solar panels, better wind mills, more efficient engines, better batteries, etc. But we shouldn't wait for those technologies; nor, if we made the necessary behavioral changes, would we need them.
Further, as long as we refuse to recognize limits to growth, we will always grow to make any new technology insufficient. Unfortunately, the planet cannot afford this treadmill approach.
Best hopes for getting off the treadmill.
That sounds like you're making a broad generalization of the works of Jared Diamond on the basis of one quote. Are you really saying that in general Diamond looks for "the darkest possible interpretation"?
Let's look at the statement again. He didn't say "technology always causes disasters", he said "What makes you think that ... for the first time in human history, technology will miraculously stop causing new unanticipated problems while it just solves the problems it previously produced?"
Let's look for potential "new unanticipated problems" in electrified rail. They aren't hard to find, particularly since Diamond isn't saying they will be "some new disaster that is larger than the manifold benefits", just problems.
- Housing away from the rail lines will drastically fall in value as housing near rail lines increases in value.
- Rail lines are a more enticing target for terrorists than roadways.
- Travel times increase for people until development patterns concentrate goods and services close to rail lines again.
- Disease transmission slowly increases as people share common space.
- New suburbs spring up along rail lines.
- People will have to give up their "piece of the country".
- Hundreds of thousands of people formerly employed in the truck and auto transportation sector will be put out of work.
- Some mayhem will result as people who were compensating for something with a bigger vehicle find some other way to compensate.
None of these, in my book, mean that switching to electric rail is a bad idea. Diamond isn't saying that in the quote either. However, if people really thought that there were no problems with switching to electric rail, we would have done it already. They thought they were "doing it right this time" when they built the interstate highways and the suburbs.
Good Points !
However, I anticipated every one of those except:
Some mayhem will result as people who were compensating for something with a bigger vehicle find some other way to compensate
I also have considered the railroad monopoly issue (posted an hour ago). For better or worse, I have thought about these issues from a holistic as well as a detailed POV.
They thought they were "doing it right this time" when they built the interstate highways and the suburbs
Actually I do NOT think that was what "they were thinking".
After WW II, there was GREAT fear of falling back into another Depression, so, as one example, it was almost impossible to get a 1940s/early 1950s VA loan on an existing home due to "standards" that only new built homes had. This guaranteed economic activity.
And once Suburbia and auto-centric development became the standard, a massive vested interest wanted to promote it's growth "for the common good". And school integration prompted more movement to the much whiter suburbs in many cities.
The Interstate and Defense Highway system was sold as a defense measure that would promote intercity, not suburban, transportation. Eisenhower wanted to bypass innercities and toll them originally. But GM's Engine Charlie (his Secretary of Defense) and others pushed for different results and interstate highways "evolved".
Robert Moses destroying the Bronx was not a deliberate choice to destroy the homes of millions, but a much more narrow focus, with economic activity being a large part of motivation.
So I think that economics, and not desire for a better transportation system, was the driving force.
Best Hopes for Better Choices,
Alan
The unintended consequences of railroads (off the top of my head):
1. Pollution - from the trains' power sources, from the manufacture and maintenance of the rail cars and thousands of miles of rail line
2. Resource accumulation of transported goods - promotes hoarding, fiefdoms, and abuse of power (typically the domain of corporations, governments, and the wealthy)
3. Non-local resource acquisition - promotes expansion and growth
4. Unsustainability - promotes the use of finite fuel sources and finite materials
If solutions to these problems involve strapping some more technological solutions on the end result, the symptoms, then the solutions will have their own unintended consequences as well.
Almost without exception, our technology is applied in a wastefully linear fashion in a nonlinear world. The more expansive and non-local you are, the harder it is to deal with the nonlinear consequences of the application of technology.
I have been in the RR industry for most of the last 28 years. Top of the head assumptions are usually just that: "off...your head"
1. Trains pollute only 1/4 as much as trucks on a per ton mile basis. Because railroad cars last at least 40 years, sometimes 50 years the embedded pollution is much less than for cars & trucks. RR wheels last 200,000 to 400,000 miles. Passenger train cars travel 5 to 8 million miles in their lifetimes and recieve major rebuilding only every 1 or 1.5 million miles. Scheduled service maintenance every 50,000 to 100,000 miles.
2. Resource accumulation? This is absurd, as this country was built by people pooling their money in entities called corporations, which are held in check by the government (SEC, EPA, OSHA, Federal DOT, etc.) Without use of natural resources we are all back to 1700, before steam power.
3. Expansion & growth? We need to expand those portions of the economy that will use oil more frugally like RR's. We need to curtail those current big users of oil that are very inefficient like airlines and automobiles.
4. Unsustainability? Electric powered RR's are unsustainable using hydro, wind, PV, concentrated thermal solar, nuclear (breeder reactor or thorium as fuel), and gas from biomass???? Learn about technology!
Better to have a linear (predictable) path on the downward slope of energy availability than a nonlinear (chaotic) one.
1. Railroads pollute, and the processes that produce them and their infrastructure also pollute. I didn't say they were the worst, I said it was an unintended consequence.
2. Check out the video of The Corporation. You'll have a better understanding of the harm ("externalities") created by corporations, such as harm to workers, the biosphere, and human health. The long-term viability of the corporate form is highly doubtful.
3. Read "Overshoot" by William Catton, and check out Dr. Bartlett's video, "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy".
4. I'll agree that theoretically it is possible for electricity to provide all the energy necessary to drill, mine, extract, refine, process, and transport resources. That level will be far, far lower than what is provided by our one-time use fossil fuels. Compared to our historical use of fossil fuels, solar is too diffuse, and robs the ecosystem of photosynthetic production. Wind, geothermal, and hydro are all limited, non-scalable flows of energy. Breeder reactors require another finite resource, such as non-fissionable Uranium-238.
Regarding my "learning about technology", I'm not as experienced as some of the posters here. On the other hand, I majored in actuarial mathematics, have an MBA, I've been a network engineer for 14 years, have 30 years experience with computers, and on my own have researched chaos theory and more than a smattering of chemistry, biology, and physics. Yes, take that with a grain of salt, because I might actually be a cocker spaniel. And so might you.
Giving it a simple definition, in deference to the neophytes, "technology" is the application of knowledge toward a useful goal.
"Technology" also, almost without exception, increases the rate of energy and material use and production, but never creates more energy or materials.
Technology thus far has been unable to solve the problems which technology itself creates, as each new solution creates new problems.
The more technology we have, the faster we use our resources, and the sooner they are gone.
We dont know how much it will cost to run most of the economy on solar or if it will even impair growth. As for it robbing the ecosystem of photosynthesis production, there are enough patches of barren land with lots of sunlight to run a global economy many times as energy hungry as today before we even get into the issue of if we even have to care about it.
Wind is scalable up to several terawatts; Thats not bad at all.
Its finite in the sense that if you burn it as fast as you can without melting the planet it will only last sixteen million years. I think that ought to be enough lead time to move to the next technology, unless you believe technology cant possibly advance any further.
Sort of. Technology improves efficiency of use of resources and ability to exploit resources also, so it makes more resources avaliable at the same time. Eventually we'll chew up every rock orbiting the sun, but thats a long long time from now.
From: Biofuels or Bio-fools?
Then, a few years ago, a small company called Celunol Corporation, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, licensed a handful of patented genetically modified bacteria developed by scientists at the University of Florida.These flexible E. coli strains can convert the cellulose in a wide range of substances into ethanol quickly and cheaply,Why do I remember Klebsiella planticola:
http://www.saynotogmos.org/klebsiella.html
Thanks for that link, Eric;
Pardon my ignorance, but would there be any reason for concern over the use of E. Coli mentioned in the article? All of these poisons that we look to for a great cure.. This all starts sounding like a Poe story after a while, doesn't it?
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
would there be any reason for concern over the use of E. Coli mentioned in the article?
The normal gene transfer issue.
Low tolerance of plants to alcohol.
The E. Coli spinach outbreak had claims the E. Coli was able to become incorporated INTO the spinach itself. And, while E. Coli thrives 'in vito' it can grow and multiply 'outside'. If it lives on complex sugars like cellulose ... the newly dead plants and the older dead plants in the soil should be able to keep such an E. Coli going for some time.
Perhaps it's totally safe and a good plan. But what are the failure modes?
fearmongering.
Bacteria have lateral gene transfer, however wherever they get dumped they will quickly die off as they use up ALL local cellulose and poison themselves very quickly.
in liquids the waste becomes diluted, but in drier environments the waste will accumulte very quickly.
fearmongering.
Really. Then go ahead, explain how the Klebsiella planticola case got as far as it did.
however wherever they get dumped they will quickly die off as they use up ALL local cellulose and poison themselves very quickly.
Interesting claim. Now show how that still doesn't kill the plants before the death endpoint you claim as justification in the Klebsiella planticola case.
So is E Coli the same as the organism you linked to? I might have missed the connection.
In either case, I share your concern. Part of the Technocopian mindset that I fear most is the refusal to acknowledge the opportunity for a development to start a chain reaction, be it genetic mods, radioactive>genetic, mutagens, carcinogens and teratogens. I keep going back to that accelerator that was proposed on Long Island to make a 'Little Black Hole', just a little one .. 'What could possibly go terribly, terribly wrong with that? I checked my numbers twice!'
Bob
..put that in your exponential function and smoke it, man!
small black holes evaporate near instantly due to their hawking radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
only larger black holes will ever get big enough to accumulate mass. secondly the upper atmosphere has orders of magnitude larger particle collisions than could ever be seen on earth, and the earth is still around.
chain reaction is what ignorant people think of. Once you become educated enough on many issues, there are no self sustaining chain reactions (nuclear fission typically requires great control, and yes i am aware of the only natural nuclear reactor in africa, grey goo from nanomaterials is impossible, sustained expoential growth is impossible!)
By ignorant do you include those who choose to ignore inconvenient side-effects?
I don't claim to know anything about nuclear physics, but I have to worry about those who say they know something about it thinking that they know enough to take prodigious leaps with it. When I say chain reactions, I'm not just referring to radiological ones (while your assurances haven't assuaged my concerns any), but chains of collapse in the ecosystem after the decimation of key species or a critical mass of certain habitats.. The chain reaction of a modified crop that 'could' wreak havoc when mixing with related strains or intoxicating the wildlife that feed on it.. or even the diplomatic chain reactions over a nation that is convinced it can prevent any other army from challenging it (compelling many small armies to join, perhaps?)
I don't want to meet Hawking in heaven just to hear him say 'Oops, my bad, bro. Did my best. The Zero Gravity was fun, though.'
No, Repercussions (or externalities) are what the arrogant and self-important too often fail to think about.
By that measure, why haven't those pesky corn-sugar-eating bacteria (pre-genetic modification) converted all the corn (maize) planted over the world into goo?
Generally genetic modification by humans turns organisms into ones less able to survive in the wild absent special human-created conditions (such as the fermentation reactor).
Consider that wild-type organisms have evolved a balance of capabilities that evolution found necessary to survive in a complex environment.
We have genetically modified yeast and other cells producing large quantities of pharmaceuticals everywhere. And yet none has escaped and started to make drugs in large quantities in the wild. Indeed, the process engineers have to work very hard to keep the drug-producing ones happy and keep out all other contamination from their growing reactors.
There are certainly problems to worry about over biofuels. This isn't one of them.
We have genetically modified yeast
Yeast is not E Coli.
and other cells producing large quantities of pharmaceuticals everywhere.
And the effect of these pharmaceuticals on plants is?
The effect of small amounts of alcohol on plants is known.
And yet none has escaped and started to make drugs in large quantities in the wild.
None? Large?
Huh. Rather absolute on BOTH ends of the scales.
This isn't one of them.
So your whole proof is by saying "none" and "make large quantities". Do you have some links to the extensive DNA typing being done on all kinds of in the wild microbes to check your position for correctness?
alright here.
i work for a regulatory agency in canada, we regulate every chemical imported/exported/produced in the great white north, as well as all micro-organisms. as well i am a bio-engineer who has to deal with stuff like bioreactors optimization when im at school.
to modify an organism and release it into the wild is very tough, super tough, because that organism is specialized to the lab environment, usually maximally producing some drug.
This reduces its fitness in the real world, and not by a small margin, by a huge margin. These organisms are grown in bioreactors which are sealed and tightly monitored for invasive yeasts/bacteria(depending on what you are growing). If a couple hardy bugs of e coli (regular ecoli) get in, typically the entire tank is ruined, as the regular ecoli outcompete the specialized ones, which are using significant energy reserves to produce your product.
simple selection pressures will force anything which gets wild to repress the genes responsible for a given product. most products are at best energy drainers from the organism, and at worst toxic to the organism.
i would also ask you to forward some evidence of genetically modified organisms getting out into the wild and causing havoc (bacteria and yeast plz we are not talking about corn or tomacco or the triffids here)
to modify an organism and release it into the wild is very tough, super tough, because that organism is specialized to the lab environment, usually maximally producing some drug.
And yet, the modified Klebsiella planticola this was not the case.
So please explain how your postion is still correct, given past evidence?
This reduces its fitness in the real world, and not by a small margin, by a huge margin.
And yet.....still wrong. See the GMed Klebsiella planticola case.'
i would also ask you to forward some evidence of genetically modified organisms getting out into the wild and causing havoc
I've already asked for evidence of DNA testing of 'in the wild' strains of GMed microbes for evidence of escaped bio-reactor critters proving none have escaped.
If no one looking, how can you show it is not happening?
You should already know about Klebsiella planticola
http://www.saynotogmos.org/klebsiella.html This case shows how close the world was to your "wild and havoc" you want to see to accept the failure modes can be bad.
"Generally genetic modification by humans turns organisms into ones less able to survive in the wild absent special human-created conditions (such as the fermentation reactor)..."
- but we're working on it!
"There is NO unauthorized breeding at Jurassic Park."
They don't call them cautionary tales for nothing.
Bob Fiske
"Generally genetic modification by humans turns organisms into ones less able to survive in the wild absent special human-created conditions (such as the fermentation reactor)..."
- but we're working on it!
-------------
Actually, we're working on the opposite: making bacteria do something quite inimical to their usual evolutionarily successful lifespan.
------------------------------------------
"There is NO unauthorized breeding at Jurassic Park."
They don't call them cautionary tales for nothing.
-------------------------------------------
Jurassic park animals went back to evolutionarily successful wild-type and genetic modifications went out.
If we let out genetically modified bioreactor E. coli, they're toast.
Promises, promises.
Since they've done so well keeping simple mutagens like Lead, Mercury, Dioxin, DU and scads of pesticides out of the environment, why should I concern myself when we start making modifications into DNA, which *could*, in some far-flung, 'noone ever expected a breach of the Levees' kind of way become a growing, mutating hybrid that we didn't expect.
The Exponential Function meets Murphy's Law..
making bacteria do something quite inimical to their usual evolutionarily successful lifespan.
points at Klebsiella planticola
Go ahead, explain how that example fits your claim of plans?
Loved yesterday's link to the MIT project on solar trough generators. Can't recall who posted it, but thanks. This goes to show that the amount of solar energy and the possibility of harnessing plenty of it aren't a problem. The tough ones are storing it and transporting it.
Do we move the people to the energy or the energy to the people? What do we do with a zillion megawatts at noon and diddly at midnight? Low cost, simple, and high conversion rate storage systems are the problem -as I see it. Photovoltaics are fine for charging your batteries for the TV and so on but pretty puny fpr heating your hot water or house. Solid state is great for on site and I can see central generating stations operating on solar thermal.
The fact that such devices can be owned and operated by what is referred to as the third world adds to their appeal, unless you are a corporation looking for something that you can patent and control and generate usurious profits from licensing. But they wouldn't do that with energy, would they? This isn't like drugs and seeds after all.
Anyway, I happen to get an ear to ear grin about solar thermal trough stuff. Maybe it comes from burning ants with a magnifying glass in my misspent youth. Culpa mea.
Actually, PV can be used for all those things even with a smaller system with work-arounds. For example, my PV system is 3.6kW nameplate. In actual practice, it typically puts out 2.6kW most days due to clouds and haze.
Yet, I am able to heat a 40 gallon electric HWH by the simple expedient of using a cycling timer (In my case, 10 seconds on, 12 seconds off) so as to not discharge the batteries excessively. Further, the incoming "cold" water is preheated with a solar system in summer and a heat exchanger in my wood stove in the winter.
I can also run my 2hp well pump. Again, it takes a work-around but doable if necessary.
As far as household heating goes, it makes little sense to use PV when direct solar insolation does fine. When I designed and built our house over 25 years ago, I designed it to get about 30% of its heating requirement from passive solar. I would have liked to go totally passive solar but that really isn't possible in my winter climate. Rather, I would have had to install a large active system.
Todd
Actually I'm a bit ignorant of the current state of output of PV but it it seems as though a three foot reflector will cook a chicken but the same area of PV collector would seem hard pressed to cook a wing! The infrared energy seems to greatly surpass the part of the spectrum that does the PV thing. However the PV is direct to electric. I'm interested in a comparo of watts to surface area of direct solar thermal and conversion to electric. the hybrid system that MIT came up with looks pretty good at both heating and electric.
Once you realize that you don't need or want a ton and a half of metal baggage with you whenever you go somewhere, the solutions are not that difficult and pretty cheap in the long run. Once it becomes fashionable and fun you won't be able to stop it.
Any links to good sites for figures on this?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Ride, and Recreate.
It was engineer-poet who published those links in yesterday's drumbeat. I liked them too!
It's easy to remember that bright sun puts about 1kW on each square meter of area, and if you use a concentrator, even a poor one, it is not so hard to get say 10kW on a chicken, or in other-words, set it on fire. So solar cooking in bright sun is no problem. When I went to India with a lot of this sort of hardware, I found they thought I was nuts, because, surprise! nobody wants to be out in the bright sun doing anything.Esp. women who didn't want to be any darker than absolutely necessary.
Ha, ha, Yet another damfool westerner.
But they did think it was cool to use that solar concentrator to burn bodies (human).
But PV just gets maybe 12% of all that energy into electricity, so if just heat is what you want, it is pretty stupid to use PV to do it.
The MIT people did a good job demonstrating a cheap, simple solar thermal machine, using very ordinary auto parts. This is an excellent example of one of my repeated themes- that there are lots and lots of thermal engines that could give PV a real serious competition if anything like that amount of money were put into developing them.
VC's are such pathetic herd animals. Pity.
wrong, its much less than 1kw per square meter
at the equator at noon you may end up with 400Watts/square meter, multiply that by the cos of your latitude for your max at noon, on the longest day in the summer.
take the longest summer day result at noon and divide by 4 for an approxmate value of average annual solar insolation.
(2 for night day, and another 2 for clouds/rain/winter)
Hey! Go outside in a bright day and measure the solar heat on a square meter facing the sun. 1kW is what you get, or more. Look it up. Try it out. I did. And not only that, cooked with it.
Average wattage is not what I was talking about. Nobody cooks with average wattage. They cook with peak wattage- 1+kW/sq. meter.
You're welcome.
The thing about the solar trough generators is that they have the potential to spread rapidly and do two things:
Right there you've hit the major energy consumers of the modern household and made them largely renewable. If the worst problem from an outright gasoline cutoff was that nobody could drive very far out of town, the collapse scenarios stop looking very likely.
My Letter Writing Campaign
I "mine" Leanan's exhaustive efforts in collecting commentary and send out eMails to several links each week.
I google an author's name and search for a way to reach him or her.
I found Gen. Wald under Securing America's Future Energy. So I sent them an eMail to his attention.
Good job, Alan! Keep up the good work!
Better to invest in light rail for energy security than pouring the same money into the self-destructive paradigm of Endless Resource War.
The current Resource War will end, of course. It is just that nobody will win it.
Alan,
Great work! Maybe we should have a letter writing campaign. Would it be practical to publish some of the addresses?
Or would it be unwise while we are having troll flame wars?
I for one am disgusted by today's exhibition, and would love to see their irrelevant, abusive posts purged and their authors banned. It really detracts from the message here. At the very least they need a stern reprimand.
President Vladimir Putin Fields Questions from G8 Member Countries' Newspaper Journalists
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17855.htm
And for the yuks, here's Pat Buchanan's comments:
http://www.vdare.com/buchanan/070212_putin.htm
Commence with the posturing!
This should make a nice addition to the TOD collection of quotes:
"You can look at the problem from any angle, but in all cases you see stupidity." (c) Vladimir Putin
This is what Fritz Zwicky used to call "spherically stupid".
Lots of that around these days.
The information clearing house transcript made me want to cry. It was the first time I'd read any of Putin's comments at length and disregarding the topics discussed what kept popping into my head is that this guy is a million (hyperbolic perhaps due to underestimation) times more capable than our lackwit leader. Amazing how many times in the past six years I've found myself shocked by the reality of where we are.
In more depressing news, more Americans believe in Creationism than Evolution. No worries, only 40% of Democrats are Creationists.
/despair
Ticketing the ticketers
It was nice while it lasted:
The ticketers in Burlington Vermont WALK between tickets. It's usually no more than about 50 feet.
What is the deal with so many small cars not being "street legal"? Is there some safety issue involved or is it just that some bureaucrats palm didn't get greased?
to my knowledge it is indeed a safety issue
Stories like this also highlight the stupidity of laws from circa 1910 that the state uses to claim that bicycles are 'street legal'.
Seems odd that minicars aren't street legal for safety reasons. I find it hard to believe that they are not safer than motorcycles.
Bicycles and motorcycles are allowed because somehow it's thought that the riders of said vehicles are aware that they're not going to be as protected as they would be in a car. However, 3-wheeled vehicles get to qualify as a motorcycle, and are exempt from the safety regulations.
These safety laws are designed to keep the stupid from getting themselves killed. My opinion regarding motorcycle riders who don't wear helmets. Don't expect any sympathy from me, as you should have been wearing a helmet! (Helmets are not required where I live unless you are under 18.)
I agree with others on here, that the meter tax enforcers should walk. It might keep their health insurance coverage lower.
Hello TODers,
Wild & Crazy Speculation ahead! I retain any and all patent rights, of course.
Most regular readers will recall my postings calling for a Strategic Reserve of bicycles and wheelbarrows to help prevent us digressing to a full Thermo/Gene rock-bottom survival level postPeak. I also think these tools will be essential to help speed the ultimate conversion to relocalized permaculture and 60-75% of our labor force employed by this new lifestyle activity. My greatest hope is that this will be an interim and supporting measure until everyone agrees that SpiderWebRiding is the most overall energy-efficient postPeak transport solution. Who knows what our future can bring if we do radical thinking?
Most will also recall my speculative posts calling for narrow gauge minitrains in case we unfortunately don't have the postPeak wealth, time, and energy to build the full-size RRs & mass-transit as Alan Drake wisely suggests. Ideally, these mintrains should be easily adaptable later in support of SpiderWebRiding. Time will tell.
I had a sudden brainstorm on how to save a lot of energy and time for these mini-railroads: build 'free-ride hitch-hikes' for bicycles; you pedal up parallel alongside the moving train and hold on with one hand. Or you could then engage a mechanism that will lift your front wheel a few inches off the ground, then you can just sitback and relax as the train pulls you along the sidewalk next to the track. Then when you near your exit point: you disengage the mechanism and pedal or coast away-- the minitrain never has to slow or stop at a station--anywhere along the track is viable for 'passenger' entry and egress. Every train is therefore an Express Train!
Since these urban and suburban minitrains won't go faster than 15-20 mph: a bicyclist should have no problem briefly pacing the train to make a smooth entry or a smooth coasting away exit. It reminds me of holding onto the bed of my father's pickup as he motored down the road-- no problem! Of course, I convinced my father to go faster, but we never told my mother!
So imagine a changing peloton of bicyclists alongside both sides of specially designed railcars for this exclusive purpose. Or even better, a series of mini-flatcars or mini-container cars that still can carry goods, but the railcrew has attached on both sides the bicycle-clamping mechanisms--now the Express Train is for both passengers and other goods simultaneously! Cool idea, right? =D
A uniform set of hand signaling and/or shouting out your planned moves should make it easy to prevent colliding bicyclists, but I would imagine some kind of license testing and training might be required. For comparision: a normal racing peleton has no problems with position switching and even unannounced rider or team breakaways.
For regular passengers that cannot bicycle: normal minitrains can be provided for them and the train can do the normal station stopping and starting routine. This train could also have a last railcar for those bicyclists not wishing to try the moving peleton coupling with an Express Train. But it neatly solves the problem of bringing your bicycle on a train to conserve your personal energy expenditure--you never have to get off it as you 'free-ride hitch-hike' alongside the train. It also removes the regular passenger complaint that a bicycle takes up too much space and the metal and rubber might injure a trainrider-- the bicycle never intrudes on the regular compartment.
Since mini-trains are low: there is never a need for elevated stations--any passenger, whether walking or bicycling is always at street-height, even wheelchairs only need a slight ramp for safe entry and exit. The sidewalk on either side just needs to be wide enough for adequate and safe peleton transfers. My guess is a normal concrete freeway lane would be sufficient, isn't it 10ft wide? I am not sure myself. But in my imagination that seems sufficient for functional peletons on both sides as the minitrain rolls down the track.
Now my Asphalt Wonderland would be ideal for this system because the heat factor of summertime long distance pedaling would dissuade many riders. My proposal thus offers a tremendous advantage to reduce the 'roadrage' from the heat and exertion; I think they would gladly hitchhike alongside a train as required, then have a short pedal to their final permaculture destination. If one considers the scale of most urban confines: many will have a very long pedal from city to the outlying community gardens and farmlands. Just imagine the millions in NYC trying to get in and out to the required daily gardening jobs spread out all over--> hitch-hiking your bike to a mini-train will make this task much easier and safer than the past practice of running alongside a regular train, then trying to pull yourself aboard without falling underneath the wheels of these huge railcars. Then, the next step of jumping off a moving train can be quite hazardous too.
During the times of snow, ice, or rainfall: the Express just reverts to a regular train with the normal starts and stops for increased rider safety. The bicyclist, after clamping the bike to the mechanism, then just enters a regular passenger car or climbs onto a mini-flatcar for the ride. If the clamping system is simple: it will just take them a few seconds to remove their bike, then wheel it away from the trackside. No more time than a parent herding her/his offspring off/on the train.
Finally, I agree that there is more risk with this proposal of mine. But I think our postPeak era will have much greater risks of violence, conflict, and other factors such as starvation and disease. The risk with this 'free-ride hitch-hike' system seems minimal compared to these other blowback forces, and might do much to ease the paradigm shift ahead for all.
Okay TODers, this is just a brief sketch of what I envision. As regular longtime readers of my archived postings understand: I have lots of outside-the-box Wild & Crazy Ideas as I seek to avert the fast-crash scenario for everyone as best as I can to optimize our decline.
I would be especially interested in what Expert AlanfromBigEasy thinks of my idea-->brainstorm or brainfart? Could this be applied as some kind of retrofit for conventional full-size RR & TOD? I can't see how, but I am not an engineer, therefore I value constructive disputation and elaboration from more informed others. Perhaps a 'capture & swing boom' for the parallel bikers, or entrance and exit ramps along the outside? I really have no idea!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
totoneila, sounds like a great recipe for population reduction. At least one in three hitchers taking a spill should fall under the wheels on the track, so we should have more human organs available for transplant too!
Totoneila: Oilmanbob raises some good points. I'd also add that if your mini railroad line is solvent, the lawyers will quickly make it insolvent. I would like to put your busy mind to work on a wild RR idea of my own. How about using cog railways to do some of our farming? Envision the types of contraptions which could run along these rails to do the work and/or carry the people who do some of the work. Infinite possibilities, I would think.
Hello Oilmanbob and others,
Thxs for responding.
I think you maybe vastly over-estimating the risks, speeds, and the size of the railcars. Think more along the narrow-gauge lines of small, low amusement park trains, 15-20 mph, and single file riders, not the cluster of a racing peloton.
I think that postPeak lawyers will be the least of our worries when we are dealing with martial law and/or neighborhood vigilante groups to enforce social order. Given the choice of a twenty mile pedal-commute to the permaculture fields, or hitch-hiking a bike to a mini-train: I think the choice will be obvious for most pedalers.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I thought about skiers and lifts when I read Bobs Idea. I know what it was like my first few times, and what I continually saw.
In the future, with what appears to be coming down the lane.,,, lawyers, guns and money. I think two out three will really play a role. One will be way off its game do to the later two.
The future imo is thinking about how to use human power in groups to make the basic transportation system works. The Japanese ride with humans power gave me an idea, and Bobs idea was part of it.
But as long as people in the US insist on cars, nothing ever will happen.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
The risks may be over-estimated, but, as has been mentioned, the compensation claims have probably been underestimated.
Or, if not that, then construction costs will be astronomic, as it will be legislated to death.
Example of the first: in Liverpool, in the UK, there is apparently a burgeoning industry in "tripping" over uneven pavements, and then suing the council for damages.
Example of the second (as a way of heading off the first): The tram in Croydon includes some street running. Despite the fact that most UK cities had tramlines up until the 1950s, which had street running, apparently now, the tracks can not be proud of the tarmac by more than 3mm (just under 1/8 inch) - a driver claimed his car went out of control because a section of track had exceed this.
Now, 3mm is kind of small - there are any number of manhole covers, road studs, pot holes, gaps in tarmac etc that are bigger than that.
So, to achieve the required clearances, the cost goes up and up.
Pity really, as it sounds like a neat idea.
Bob
You should also check this out. I think you'd like it and it may have a role in our PO future. The example is in Norway, but I think there are others.
Bike Lift 'Trampe' Stimulates Cycling
'Trampe' works much like a ski lift except that it is integrated into the bike path. To use it one needs a key card which can be obtained from the nearby bicycle repair shop Sykkelbua (address: Øvre Bakklandet 35). At the bottom of the steep 130 meter long hill cyclists place their right foot on the lift and receive a push which transports them upwards at a comfortable speed of 2 meters per second.
Hello Kalpa and other TODers,
Thxs for responding. Yep, that bike lift looks promising. In an earlier posting I had mentioned something like this for snowy weather where you and your bicycle just flop down on a sled or inflated tube to safely ascend and descend hills.
As our freeways start becoming empty of cars: I think it would be easy to run a narrow gauge mini-train down a traffic lane to try out my idea. It might be possible now to find an amusement park train, then get some bicycle volunteers to try my idea out to work out any engineering kinks and further improve the safety.
These mini-trains are quite cheap, perhaps a test could be run where an abandoned airport runway or a big parking lot is leased to try the concept out.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
You don't have to hang on to the train - cyclists and swimmers know that you can draft effectively even without being directly behind something, especially something so much larger. If you put a bike lane near the tracks, a peloton could draft starting from the rear corners of the train without being attached or having to ride over the rails.
The Toyota Prius Pays Off; What Happens Next?
By Paul Niedermeyer
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=3922
The Toyota Prius Tips In at the Tipping Point
By Robert Farago
...
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=3925
Having just competed in a bike race yesterday with well over 100 guys I can tell you that your idea would be a lot of fun for the experienced cyclist. But even in a race full of experienced cyclist, there are crashes in just about every single race I enter. The risk is part of the attraction for us adrenaline junkies but for the average cyclist, your idea has to be categorized as a brain fart vs. brain storm. But it was an enjoyable read. Keep em coming!
Since bicycles and their riders are so light (relatively speaking), there's no reason to stay groundbound. What about something like a ski lift, but instead of seats there are racks for bicycles that you can just drive up into... maybe like a narrow cattle chute. It wouldn't let you drop off just anywhere (well, unless you have a death wish), but it could act as a sort of 'warp' to key points of a city. I don't know how much energy it would take to keep the cable going, but it seems like it would be fairly small.
Hello Bob, As a senior citizen that rides a bike daily I would hesitate to try your train. It has possibilities of some sort, I think, but hanging off it with one hand doesn't work for me. Some sort of ski lift idea would work. Like have a short section of moving track that paces the lift so you can get off your bike, stow it on a rack and have a seat on the lift before you run out of moving sidewalk. That would preserve the always moving idea. You would only be able to get off at a moving sidewalk point, but it would work OK. No frail people on this system!
An alternative that I am very familiar with are electric bikes. I have one bike with a NIMH battery of 13 amps at 24 volts. With one charge and a bit of pedaling to help it out I can go 20 miles. If I let the motor do all the work I can go 10 miles. All at 15 miles per hour. If you need to go further just pack a second battery along. Bring a charger if you can get electric at your destination. If you run out of power you get home by pedal power. A true hybrid system!
These bikes, or scooters, are available now. Google "electric bike" and take a look.
One electric scooter that I have is sold at egovehicles.com. For short trips it is faster than a car. With a little acceptance of some distance, speed limitations these will be great choices in the future for full transportation systems.
Until society has a radical mind shift, we are on our own and need to plan accordingly.
PS. If our oil gets cut off these bikes will turn into gold for their owners.
Hello Solar1,
Thxs for responding with your good ideas, but I am looking further ahead where we will be nearly at rock-bottom biosolar energy levels. Thus, I am thinking that any available batteries will be required for essential transport only, not in personal transport. Say the minitrains take the batteries, and its bicycles for the rest of us to get around.
Thus millions of us need to daily spread out to the permaculture plots; this will cover a huge geographic area around major cities. Imagine this picture over hundreds of square miles around NYC:
http://www.uni-kiel.de/sino/ar/sk/12a_1970s.jpg
We need an efficient way to move people to where the food will be grown plus an efficient way to move the food back to the city-- I am hoping mini-trains plus Alan Drake's ideas will be the best postPeak combination.
The more efficient we are, the greater the surplus energy and goods available to retain some measure of civility and civilization. My rough guess is 60-75% of us dedicated to food labor, but maybe it will have to be even higher than this amount postPeak.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The story that won’t go away. From Drudge:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181228588702&pagename=JPost%...
Jun. 10, 2007 19:37 | Updated Jun. 11, 2007 9:24
'Military plan against Iran is ready'
By YAAKOV KATZ
And it’s not going to go away anytime soon. Many predicted the attack occurring earlier this year. However, it was likely delayed as a result of huge internal dissent within the upper ranks of the military and diplomatic establishment as reported by Hirsh and others. The recent “talks” with Iran may have been done to appease the dissenters to a certain degree. In the meantime, the delay in attacking may be due, in some degree, to purging and rearranging in the bureaucracy. It may not be until sometime in 2008 before all of the pieces are in place to effect the attack. There have been reports that Bush is dead set on attacking Iran and that he will set the table in such a way as to make it virtually impossible for the next president to undue what he has “accomplished” in the Middle East. Attacking Iran between the election primaries and the national election would certainly set the table in such a way as to make it difficult to undue the mess in the Middle East and, at the same time, serve to skew the elections in favor of the Republican candidate, at least as viewed through Rovian eyes.
I decided to try to create an index that combines the information we have about oil inventories with oil prices. It seemed useful to me to combine both these factors together rather than focus on just one. The reason is that if we have rapidly increasing prices, we might attract a lot of oil, causing inventories to hold up quite well. On the other hand, if we ever get to a rationing type situation, prices would be depressed, but inventories would likely drop.
This is the way the index is calculated: U.S. total petroleum product inventories in terms of days of supply are multiplied by an inverse of price. That way, if supplies drop or prices increase, the index drops. If supplies increase or prices drop, the index increases. When the line goes down, it points to a more severe peak oil problem. A high value shows a relaxed supply situation.
This is the chart from 1970 to the present. You can clearly see the crisis in the 70’s, followed by something of a recovery, then new lows in 2005.
http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x259/nasaguy_2007/PeakOilIndex1970.jpg
Zooming in, this is the chart from 2000 to the present. Current value is 76.1, a bit higher than the all-time low of 71.2 reached in February of this year.
http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x259/nasaguy_2007/PeakOilIndex2000.jpg
Details:
(1) Prices are 12 month moving average of WTI spot prices adjusted for inflation (CPI) from 1986-2007. From 1974-1986 I used refiner acquisition cost rather than WTI spot.
(2) Days of Supply uses Total Products inventory minus the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Consumption is the EIA “Total Crude and Products from 1981-2007. Prior to 1981, I took data eyeballed from a chart.
(3) The U.S. oil consumption used to calculate days of supply is also based on EIA data, and again uses a 12 month moving average.
(4) This is all built automatically from an Excel spreadsheet, with the EIA as the source of all of the oil data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provided the CPI calculator.
(5) The calculation of the most recent three months is provisional and subject to change, because the consumption data lags a few months behind price and storage data.
This index is U.S. – centric, but since I adjusted for inflation it is a little less so (a falling dollar has an inflationary effect).
If anyone knows a good source of more accurate monthly data for U.S. inventories and consumption in the 1970s, let me know and I can improve the accuracy of the earlier part of the index.
I’ll update this index monthly if folks are interested.
NASAguy,
Great work, thanks! I'd love to see it updated regularly.
Its a pity its hidden below the barbarian flame wars, why don't you Email it to Professor Goose, because it needs its own thread.
It is very interesting. I'd like to see it updated, too.
RE: the Barbarian Flame wars. Knock it off, guys. Continue in this thread if you must, but if you try to carry it over to today's DrumBeat, I will delete the posts.
Thank you Leanan.
Todbanning one name got rid of the whole thing.
Glad you like it. I'll update it monthly.
Thanks, it is a real timesaver when I'm at work. After reading Monday's Drumbeat, I added another name, too.
It's a good idea, we are missing a good peak oil indicator that would integrate price, inventories and consumption.
About the inventories in terms of days of supply, I'm not sure that it is a reliable indicator because storage capacity is unlikely to grow at the same pace as consumption for practical reasons therefore the number of days is likely to drop over time.
Report: China starts dam generator
CNN's web site said they were going to re-broadcast We Were Warned today at 4pm ET. If that's true, it should be starting in a few minutes.
Dunno if it's true. CNN usually airs news at this time, I think. Plus, their schedule is all screwed up. They never show what they say they'll be showing.
Matthew R. Simmons presented "Autopsy Of Our Energy Crisis" at the The Pacific Union Club in San Francisco, California on May 29, 2007.
It appears to be a very top level summary of his previous work.
More interesting are the recepients/location of the presentation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific-Union_Club
However, it is unclear if Mr. Simmons was actually presenting to the club per se, or simply using their facility.
A front page article in the Indianapolis Star, 3 June, 2007. Mid-west refineries are producing at 89% of capacity now … …BP Whiting is attempting to minimize it’s vulnerability by investing $3 billion over the next four years to re-configure it’s plant to accept 90% of it’s supply from oil-sand sources in Canada…. (Sorry, no link)
From what I've read, other refineries are doing much the same. Is it possible that here in the Mid-west we’ll be getting 90% of our gasoline from Canada’s oil-sands?
(Location: NE Indiana) Had some problems logging on ... hope this ends up in the right thread.
Just hope that there are no strikes in Ft. McMurray !
Best Hopes for nice Canadians,
Alan
Here is the Indianapolis Star link to the BP Whiting oil refinery
"to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual"
I lived in Alabama for more than 20 years before I escaped and I'll be damned if I can figure out where the wheat growing region is supposed to be. Anybody know? Tiny plots of winter wheat are all that I ever saw.
This must be an error. I know there is a drought, but wheat doesn't generally come from dixie.
costa rica Johns,
if there's no wheat in Dixie, how come we have so many crackers?
Bad jokes aside, you're right, in Texas the wheat is raised on the high plains and its heavily irrigated from the Ogalala aquifer, not dependent on rain.
Better not tell these guys
http://www.alfafarmers.org/commodities/grains.phtml
Your comment made me curious:
Hope this helps, a map by county of all wheat in the US:
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/2005/Maps/aw-pl.asp
Measurements vary but it looks like in 2006 there were 45,000 acres harvested as 2.6 mega-bushels. That would be 4.5% of the 57.344 mega-bushels of all wheat harvested in the US in 2006.
http://www.nass.usda.gov/QuickStats/index2.jsp
I checked (because I spent much of my childhood in Alabama and could not remember any commercial wheat being grown) and only found statistics for barley, corn and cotton in USDA database.
The graphic shows Alabama as being pure white (NE Louisiana grows a little wheat in contrast).
I really do not think Alabama grows any wheat worth mentioning.
Alan
Yup, I stopped reading the article at that point. All too often I've come across European press output that is just absent of any real comprehension of the US, or even the whole hemisphere.
That, and its vice versa, are both often true.
ciao,
Bruce
I once lived and worked in N.Alabama. Still have a daughter and in-laws living there. Visit it often too and yes there is not much visible wheat that I have seen there.
But Ky. is in Dixie and we grow a lot of wheat here. Western Ky to be exact but still that is part of our 3crop/2yr rotation.
My understanding is that for some time now Alabama and particularly the northern part has been in drought off and on for some time. Last year was very bad.
Wheat from Dixie then. Well we raise 'soft red winter wheat' and thats what we make biscuits and other quick breads from as opposed to 'hard red winter wheat' as grown further north and I call bread flour. All-purpose flour being a mixture of the two.
You just can't make good biscuits out of high gluten flour.
Airdale-
I'm guessing it's an English versus American issue. American "corn" translates to English "maize," but English "corn" translates to wheat.
IEA monthly market report highlights released
http://omrpublic.iea.org/
Forecast oil demand has been revised upwards for 2007 and world total liquids supply fell by 565 kb/d to 84.9 mb/d for the month of May.
IEA actually used the words "marketable spare capacity" presumably to take into account Saudi's spare difficult to market heavy crude capacity.
Well, I took the test and I have to admit that I got 3 wrong.
However, I will contest these that I got wrong briefly:
> 6. If oil production in an oil-exporting country declines by, say, 5% per year, oil exports are expected to decline by a similar amount.
> Answer: b. False
I put true. The key word for me was "similar". For some reason, the authors want us to believe that the oil exporting country will tend to care for it's internal and presumed rising consumption first. Well OK. Nice argument. But I was considering a year-on-year decline. Will year on year internal consumption jump twice higher than year on year declines of output? I don't knnow... kind of a trick question if you ask me. Anyway, "similar" is the only way to answer it. Yes, if production declines 5% then a similar decline short term in exports. Who could say false if we are talking about one year? I don't get it. The other questions prior to this one were interesting and then suddenly we get a sneaky one like this. OK, so I got it wrong. I will stop complaining.
> 12. Technological solutions will overcome the likely oil shortfall.
> Answer: c. We can't know yet.
Yup, got it wrong. I assumed that there is no possible way that any technical solution will even come close to satisfying the coming "likely" oil shortfall. I got this one wrong too.
> 9. If there is a worldwide shortage of oil, the richest countries can be expected to get the majority of the oil, and within those richest countries, the wealthiest people can be expected to get the largest share.
> Answer: b. False
I assumed that wealthy and powerful people will take what they need by whatever force or coercion necessary. I cite Iraq as the prime example for forcing oil output involuntarily. And I cite Saudi Arabia as the prime example of coercion. So where do these guy think we live who made this quiz, Disneyland? OK, Russia will use for internal consumption because they have nukes. What other exporter has a strong military able to face down the west alone?
(sound of crickets chirping in the night)