Felix trending to non-issue for Oil Production

The most likely path has the eye grazing the coast of Honduras (which will mercifully be on the good side). Substantial power will be lost by friction with the coast, and then a long path over the Yucatan with no time to regain strength on the other side.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/205023.shtml?5day#con...

Subject to change,

Alan

Bolivia on Verge of Civil War

Since convening on Aug. 6, 2005, the Constituent Assembly has been plagued by confrontations as a re-emergent opposition—organized out of the city of Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia and which has at its core the Santa Cruz elite, gas transnationals, large agribusiness, and the United States embassy—has attempted to derail the process of change.

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2911.cfm

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/31-08-2007/96567-bolivia-0

http://www.newswithviews.com/Spingola/deanna60.htm

Re: China to build 31 refineries in 8 years! And we think steel prices and fuel prices are high now. John

The article Kids, Kids, the Future in the Napa Valley Register has the following quote, in an artlicle dated Spetember 3:

Last week the U.S. Department of Energy quietly released a report saying that in less than 30 years we will exhaust the planet’s supply of oil.

What is the author talking about?

Devastating Disease from Middle East Threatens US Forces

And the third notable outbreak was in troops from the United States deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Kala azar has thus joined malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya fever as insect-borne threats to the health of American men and women in uniform. Over 2,500 military (and civilian contract workers) have now been diagnosed with the parasitic infection.

http://www.bnd.com/living/health/story/118398.html

NATO or Shanghai?

Now that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has become a political and military reality, and now that NATO has stretched to our regional borders and has exerted its influence in powerful ways within these borders, should not Arab governments begin to consider formulating a new foreign policy?

Should they not start thinking about which international camp to side with: the Russian-led Eastern one or the US-led Western one? Or, alternatively, should they plan on founding a third camp consisting of countries that do not wish to align with either the East or the West?

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/860/op1.htm

I would like to see some detailed data on oil consumption in the US. What we see are average figures, which are cast in such a way that it appears that the high per capita oil use in the US is due to a bunch of SUV owning people living in McMansions. I don't doubt that this is a factor, but how big?

Much of the energy used in this country can be traced back to things that have little to do with the average person, and over which he has little control or say. How much energy is used by the military sector? How much is used making things in the death and destruction industries? How much is used keeping our military moving around the globe? How much is used in maintaining our 750+ foreign bases? How much is used in our current wars?

How much is used making things for export? For example our agriculture uses a lot of fuel, both for mechanized farming and to make fertilizer and other agricultural necessities. We then ship much of this produce elsewhere. We use the fuel, they get the final product.

I'm not saying that Americans aren't profligate, we are, but we need to see the whole picture if the public is going to understand the issues and be persuaded to push for change.

Re: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single e-bike

The title seems to say e-bikes are a good start, but it's mostly a critique - and it is full of factual inaccuracies. It also slides into a critique of battery-powered vehicles in general. The basic assumption is American-style mobility:

Consider the problems: you own a Chinese-made e-bike and wish to travel 50 km. After the first 25 km, you have to stop and recharge for 2-3 hours...

- in a post-oil world,people will not set out on a 100-km roundtrip based on a "wish". And when such a trip is justified, they will not use an e-bike:

I asked a city transportation official, “What if someone needed to travel a longer distance. Where could you recharge along the roadside?” His response was “Take the bus” – and this puts us back to the peak oil debate.

- I don't see the "debate". You drive nails with a hammer and turn screws with a screwdriver. E-bikes are for short trips - and most trips are short, even in the USA. Mass transit, where it's been set up, works quite well for longer distances. And it can be electrically powered too - without batteries (electric rail). But even if powered by fossil fuels, a full bus uses far less energy per passenger than a Single Uccupancy Vehicle.

Perhaps some cheaply made Chinese e-bikes have trouble climbing hills and even ramps, but more likely that's the case only when the battery runs down. Some e-scooters are powerful enough to climb steep hills without pedal assist.

The claim that major infrastructure is needed for recharging e-bikes is overblown. A typical e-bike charger needs about 100 watts of power - half a dozen could easily and safely be plugged into one outlet via a "power strip". Recharging electric cars is another story, but the whole point of the bicycle (electric or not) is that we do not need to carry 2 (or 3) tons of metal around in order to transport one human.

Transport in a crowded city is always chaotic and involves some risk. But the opening words of the article denigrate the solution that works for hundreds of millions of Chinese (including non-e-bikes):

Stepping off the curb to cross a street in Chinese cities, sounds of squeaky brakes are the only signal you hear to warn that you are about to be hit by an electric bicycle. They travel quite quickly in comparison to foot travel, but congest traffic because they don’t move as fast as cars.

Bikes congest traffic? How many bikes can you fit in the road space used by one car? More than enough to make up for the somewhat lower speed. Besides, as soon as cars were added to the Chinese streets, that's when congestion multiplied, and bikes get around a congested city faster than cars. And you can look before you leap into a crowded road. Try crossing an American SUV-conduit without looking? How many Chinese are killed by automobiles each year? (Many more than the 40,000 Americans killed each year.)

Lead is lost back into the environment as you use a battery-powered vehicle. Christopher Cherry at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies puts the loss of lead at that contained in an entire e-bike battery for every 10,000 km travelled.

- This statement is very misleading. The quoted statement is comparing the lead lost from an electric car to the battery size of an e-bike. And lead is not spewed into the environment as the vehicle moves. Some of the lead undoubtedly is lost during the recycling of used batteries. How much lead is dumped in the form of solder in discarded electronics?

A litre of gasoline provides at least 100 times the energy of a battery taking up the same space.

- OK, but what we've done with that bonanza is to move 2 (or 3) tons of steel along with the 50kg of gasoline. An e-bike only needs about a 5kg battery.

[editorial note] Riding a real bicycle seems classier to me. Healthier and a lot less hassle.

- yes, but if the distance and hills reach a point where it becomes difficult (in my case, an 18 miles hilly round trip), the e-bike makes the trip much more feasible (somewhat quicker, and much less tiring). Models that require pedaling give one plenty of exercise too.

The e-bike is not a panacea. The batteries are expensive and their manufacturing may be polluting. And the expense represents embedded energy. E.g., the NiMH pack on my e-bike costs $300. If it were to last 300 trips (say 60 trips per year for 5 years), that's $1 per trip - or about the (current) cost of gasoline for making the same short trip in a small car. Perhaps the battery life can be lengthened, especially if used more than 60 times per year. (In the example above I assumed that the 5 years of elapsed time deteriorates the battery as much as the 300 charge cycles.)

Here in Vermont (and in much of the "temperate" parts of the globe), an e-bike is rather uncomfortable and risky during the dark and cold 5 months of the year. That is one reason e-bikes are only one component of the transportation solution, albeit a useful component.

Europe photovoltaic capacity seen tripled by 2010

{Tripling in 3 years amounts to 44% per year.}

We would like to go forward to have, in 2010, an installed capacity in Europe in the range of 3 GW, (up) from about 1 GW last year," Winfried Hoffmann, president of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), said on Monday.
...
Hoffmann dismissed worries that China can fully overtake European solar energy equipment production, which has been automated and thus does not require a lot of costly European labor.

via Google

I just noticed that production from the OPEC 11, (does not include Angola), is exactly two million barrels per day below its peak of September 2005, 28,410 kb/d in May 2007 verses 30,410 kb/d in September of 2005. Whatever that bit of knowledge is worth. ;-)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t12.xls

Ron Patterson

Russia:
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article139871.ece
Production up 100,000bpd on July
exports down 40,000bpd?

From the US News article

They have the money, all right. Revenues have roughly doubled in the past four years. But their governments see high prices for us as meaning more income for them, while they see investment in new capacity as risking the kind of sharp price decline that occurred in the 1990s. So the national energy firms are obliged to dedicate a big chunk of their profits to support national treasuries and various political constituencies.

Note the persistent implication that the money exists to extract sufficient production to avoid the problem.... the only reason it is not being spent is that higher prices are so attractive.

Here on TOD we read that no (forseeable) amount of investment is likely to increase global production above 2005 levels.

Someone is deluded... I assume it is US News.

Then the second meme of the peak oil deniers in the mainstream media seems to be "We need more imperialism..."

The net effect of all this is that the world is going to be even more energy dependent on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia. Keeping oil safe for the West once meant safeguarding supply lines from the Middle East. Now we have to build alliances and deploy ships and troops to protect other supply routes outside the Middle East, going as far as the Caspian Sea, the Andean region of South America, and West Africa.

It is intended that we understand that those bad countries aren't spending enough to produce oil... but we can solve that problem at a reasonable cost and get the energy by military means... yes the US News article talks about "alliances" and "supply routes" but I assume we all understand the implication... if we can control, we can increase production.

My understanding is that this is completely deluded.... in fact, I would think that the cost of "military control" would hugely increase the cost of energy production.

I haven't seen a sober analysis of the cost of maintaining an imperial army as a component of the price of production. Have you?

But what this all adds up to in my mind is that the political market in the U.S. for "solutions" to the price of oil seems to gravitate naturally toward entrenched constituencies... whether the farmers or the military.... and the mainstream media just echoes these seemingly false solutions because... well maybe because of advertising, or maybe because of patterns of corporate media ownership, or maybe because of the good work that conservative think tanks have done (but have progressive think tanks done any better on peak oil? I'm not sure.)

No one seems to be conceptualizing responses predicated on TOD style projected maximum extraction and production curves.... everyone is too busy selling each other on what seem to be imaginary "solutions."

Hello TODers,

IMO, Dr. Duncan's Olduvai Theory is increasingly being validated by ongoing reality. For newbies, an essential read:

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1703/17_3_duncan_pri...
-----------------------------
The Olduvai Theory: Terminal Decline Imminent
----------------------------

In the US Southwest and Southeast, the heat and drought have been unrelenting:

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

...and Leanan has done a bang-up job of posting electrical blackout and brownout newslinks, but here is one more by me:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070902-9999-1n2hot.html
----------------------
Heat definitely not taking the Labor Day weekend off

Whatever the thermometer read yesterday, it felt like one for the record books, especially for an estimated 22,000 households without power in San Diego County.

“It's stifling,” said Donald Coleman, one of more than 500 residents of Mount Helix, near La Mesa, who lost power. “No one's (air conditioning) is working; we can't even use fans.”
----------------------
Most TODers are now deeply aware of the weather records being set daily, and my Asphalt Wonderland's heat island effect is common to many cities in the Southwest and Southeast.

As we descend the Hubbert Downslope & Olduvai Cliff, and the death of US millions from adverse weather extremes rapidly climbs: IMO, we need to carefully discuss, then amend our cultural death practices to minimize waste, and maximize the benefits for future generations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral

My hope is that the US funeral industry will become widely cognizant of their extreme postPeak growth opportunity through Peakoil Outreach, then seek low cost-ameliorative strategies that provides new, sensitive, and thoughtful family mourning practices for postPeak culture. Adoption of many Third World death culture practices can point the way, then be modified for American culture & infrastructure, rising energy costs, and future relocalization.

I believe we need to avoid the unnecessary stress and improper mourning now being exhibited in Zimbabwe whereby families use fake names to avoid the cost and responsibility for their soon-to-be-deceased family member at a hospital. IMO, it is better to let someone expire at home, then smoothly speed the 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' final process for energy decline optimization.

As relocalization proceeds from energy decline and widespread blackouts: the refrigeration of the dead makes no sense if an area has none/limited A/C for the living and/or essential refrigeration of vital foods. The coroner can make housecalls, then the funeral industry can adopt low-cost driveby, then dropoff rent-a-pinebox or body bag, rental artificial flower arrangements, and simple Meat&Cheese&Fruit plates for the family gathering.

Obviously, the non-refrigeration and non-embalming of the dead will microbially soon assert the reasonable mourning time period inside a house without A/C. The family, if so desired, should be encouraged to move the deceased to the frontyard to further extend their mourning period, and to receive condolences from neighbors. This can only help ease the mental adjustment and build further postPeak neighborhood cohesiveness and cooperation. Then a final call for the hearse to remove the remains.

This strategy can save lots of energy because no use of real flowers harvested from foreign shores, no refrigeration, no fancy caskets, no nonsensical long-distance gatherings inside large funeral or church real estate, no long vehicle queues to the cemetary, and so on. The energy saved can be used to help sustain the living in a time of decline, yet the funeral industry can thrive by sensitive economy-of-scale harvesting, and help protect public health.

I believe most Americans readily accept the passing of Grandparents, and others further down-rooted in the family tree: it is the natural decay process. It will be the loss of postPeak youngsters that will cause the greatest travail, yet even this tragically sad event must be energy-optimized in recognition of the need to continue for the survivors. Thus, I think the funeral industry has a great opportunity to provide temporary, plug-in, in-home casket refrigeration [for those that need viewings], then as energy prices rise further: trailer-portable, rented, on-homesite solar PV panels for those families that wish to extend their mourning process.

Now, I am not expert enough to determine if on-property burial of a youngster presents a postPeak public health risk, but I can understand how many parents [now without cars] would seek to keep these remains nearby as a emotional touchstone to our inevitable Peakoil Outreach and Entropic Thermo/Gene Decline.

Additionally, they would greatly worry about grave scavengers harvesting the bones for localized fertilization of relocalized permaculture if their child was in a normal cemetary. Recall my earlier posting on European bone-harvesting of the battlefields of Waterloo and Austerlitz. If NPK goes to $10,500/ton again, then IMO, the parents should personally harvest the economic or garden-enrichment reward, at a time of their own emotional choosing vs waking up to a gaping, ruthlessly disturbed and ransacked childhood backyard burial site.

If the final mourning is home-accomplished, and cultural acceptance of no new cemetaries and mausoleums is publicly achieved and/or legislated: then the discussion can move to what is best for the remains and future society when picked up by the hearse.

Local mass burials can achieve significant postPeak energy savings, and high ERoEI when later local generations return to seek the mineral harvest for topsoil optimization. It merely needs to have a few guards to keep grave robbers away, then no meticulously-maintained grass, landscaping, lighting, sculptures, headstones, crypts, etc. These items are all heavy-energy embedded, and society should discuss, then discourage such wasteful displays. Let Nature take its course both above ground and below.

As the death rate postPeak escalates: I am sure that scientists can determine the proper areal placement so that these mass burial sites will not overwhelm aquifers or runoff water. This should also be the preferred decay process vs massively energy-wasteful crematoriums, or the even more deleterious Ruandan Machete' Moshpit process of throwing the mangled corpses into the rivers. Even the crocodiles had to temporarily exit the river until the Overshoot overload passed by.

Finally, early community discussion and swift cultural acceptance of the best-in-class postPeak death practices can help mitigate much violence. If my speculation has merit, and can be further improved by TOD discussion: then maybe relocalized permaculture can be immediately successful enough that corporate human corpse-insertion into energy-efficient biodigesters can be avoided.

Feel free to elaborate or dispute. What is the best cultural funeral method for optimal decline and re-equilibration postPeak. Thxs for any reply.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece?Subm...

What would this do to oil prices?

Someone entered a peak oil-related sculpture in a sand castle contest.

Peak oil: the slime is running out

I would guess the increase in energy use per capita is for chinese production of garbage quality global consumption adn build up of their infrastructure through increased coal. They have alsoincreased theri oil imports.Basically other countries are cutting back on per capita energy consumption. Essentially Duncan's theory is nice but like PO theory generally it would be perhaps smarter to take it on a country by country basis due to the export land model as when the resources become scarce export bans, as we see stating up in Russia, will be put into place. When China runs out of coal they will be sorry they wasted it on airports, plastic garbage for US landfills,etc. and will not have any energy for themselves and their grandchildren. Global markets are nice and fine in theory(basis of a global e for Duncan) but after a while they will cease to exist due to generally growing resource nationalism and job protectionism.