 | Jamais Cascio: Peak Oil vs. Global Warming | The Oil Drum | Peak Oil and Economic Growth: Where Do We Go From Here? |  |
DrumBeat: March 28, 2008
Posted by threadbot on March 28, 2008 - 9:29am
Russian Oil Output to Fall for First Time in a Decade
``Two years ago, we said the growth rate was falling, and we said this was bad for Russia, remember?'' Trutnev said in televised remarks after a government meeting in Moscow today. ``Now we're saying the production rate is falling this year. This is not a bogeyman, unfortunately, this is real,'' Trutnev said, without giving a specific forecast.
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Young reporter talks to NYMEX traders about peak oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_UlFH47YTw
Note the trader stumble on the
finite/infinite question.
Surprising anyone even went on the
record though.
'nuff said.
EDIT: RBM, looks like you beat me to it! I guess that was the highlight of the video. That other kid seemed a little more sensible about it though.
Not to worry - there's enough hydrogen in the universe to power the universe.
/sarcanol
At least for the next several billion years.
You can get a pretty fair picture of how much Wall Street is recognizing peak oil by looking at their call options pricing. There is a math method of calculating an implied probability that oil will be priced at certain levels at certain points in the future by just using the market prices for the option costs. I did this recently for pricing out to 2011:
This looks at how much peak oil theory has been priced in just since 2006, and the answer is none. If there were an increasing amount of peak production probability being priced, the curves would be progressively tilting out as shown by the hypothetical thin red curve that shows higher odds of higher prices by 2011.
The curves are not very sensitive to time frame. You can plot the 4 year numbers for the 2 3/4 year curve and get about the same curve. In fact, you can cut the time frame all the way down to 1 year and plot the mid '05 to mid '06 probabilites and it closely coincides with the 4 year curve shown for Dec '06 to Dec '10.
This noncorrelation with time is also very evident if you just look at the futures contracts tables for any given year for oil. In '06, the table showed $60 something oil (what it was back then) out for as many years as the table would go. Now, with oil at $100, the futures strip shows $90 something oil out as far as the table goes. This apparent cluelessness seems to be only moderated by the fact that the option cost you must pay goes up a little for the farther out calls allowing more volatility risk for the writer of the option.
The general public seems to be wising up to peak oil faster than the MSM or Wall Street. If you'd take a sidewalk poll on the price of oil in 2011, I can't help but think you'd get a higher average answer than the options numbers.
This jives with what the floor traders were saying on the video link above. A couple of floor traders said they expect peak oil th happen in about one hundred years.
Ron Patterson
We should use this incredible ignorance by Wall Street to make some money: That will certainly help our individual peak oil preparations ...
We should use this incredible ignorance by Wall Street to make some mone
This point crops up quite frequently on TOD and I think it somewhat misses the point. The underlying assumption of all such trading is that the counterparty is going to pay up when the losses materialize. This assumes that counterparty risk is negligible - a rather foolhardy assumption IMHO.
What I am saying essentially is that we are in a "tails you lose heads they win" type of situation.
If you would like to see a relatively recent example of this phenomenon check out what happened the last time, 10 years ago, the Hong Kong stock market plummeted.
Yes, and the people who shorted the Hong Kong market made a lot of money.
The counterparty risk is negligible. If you own a future contract, you are automatically leveraged, but if the price moves against you, you are required to come up with more money or the contract is sold. It's not like the markets just trust you to pay up on big losses.
Here is the thing to be aware of when you're considering using investments to help hedge against the difficulties of peak oil.
The peak oil investment decision is essentially a classic gambling decision, and people are hard-wired to make the wrong decision in this situation. There is an entire field of neuroeconomics that has looked into the propensity of people to make the wrong decision in this situation.
What that means is that the correct thing to do is going to be the extremely scary thing. And people will find all kinds of ways to explain this fear to themselves and rationalize making the wrong decision.
In poker tournaments, there is a predominant type of amateur player that I've come to think of as the Scared White Guy. These tend to be well-educated types--doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers--who are all afraid to take risks and who tend to sit there waiting for "strong cards". They know just enough about the math and odds to be able to talk themselves out of any moves that would actually give them a prayer of winning.
In the current economic situation, these guys are the ones with all their money in T-bills, getting slowly eaten away by inflation as they wait for deflation to bail them out. They are going to believe anyone who tells them it's not safe to invest in oil, or that the recession will bring oil prices down, because the reality is they just don't have the nerve for anything but T-bills no matter what is going to happen. And it's not really their fault: They are making the bad gambling decision their neurons are hard-wired to make.
People who understand peak oil should get hedged for it. You can hedge with a big garden in a good location with good water, or you can hedge with financial instruments, but you had better get hedged.
Yesterday, I posted that yesterday was not the time to buy--that we'd want to see a better set-up. There is no change today. If you're not already in, I'd advise you to continue to wait for a better set up.
Moe
The recent spike due to bombing in Iraq indicates to me a nervous tight supply. With this in mind I predict a lot of upward pressure in the couple on months receding the Olympics. I may be completely wrong but I get the impression that the Chinese have been buying cheaper sulfurous crude but when they are "on show" they will want to clean up their act. Maybe somebody in the refining industry could educate us on the differences? Can you simply push sour crude through a refinery not designed for it and suffer the consequences, This also raises the question as to what the global impact of the ever increasing sour/sweet crude split is going to go (in terms of refinery upgrades), sweet crude is declining more rapidly, not plateauing at all
Neven
Loooong time lurker, first time poster. Awesome website, great information, and writers. It is my go-to site for PO.
I remember when I bought my first crude contract back in May 2004. I wanted a Dec 2008 contract, which was $29/bbl, because I was pretty convinced that oil would hit the unheard of price of $80/bbl before Dec 2008. The broker asked why I was getting such a long term contract, and I told him that it would hit $80 because oil production would fail to meet demand. He was flabergasted... "but sir the experts say that oil is going back down to the low 20s, you will just be throwing your money away. I am not going to enter your order, you need to think about this sir". And he hung up.
I should have called back immediately, but I waited until the next day. Now the Dec 2008 contract is $29.50/bbl (asking price). Again he balked, this time I told him to either enter the order or I give me his supervisor. Well, I got my Dec 2008 contract at $29.50... and I still have it, along with another I bought a few months later at $35.50/bbl. Unfortunately, he was fired around the time oil hit $60/bbl, so I couldn't have a followup conversation with him.
Oh yeah, I am an engineer (ChE) who doesn't mind taking risks. However, most of my engineering friends are in mutual funds.
Keep up the great work.
One of the advantages of online brokers like Interactive Brokers (which also does futures) is that you don't have to talk to a person, and thus there's no emotional consideration of what they're thinking. This is especially true for amateurs who feel that the broker (a full-time professional) knows more than they do.
I guess 'scared white guy' labels me pretty well. I started becoming peak oil aware in early 2006, and although I've made a lot of little household changes to mitigate coming problems, I've been very cautious about making changes to my investments (401k & IRA). I am overweight energy, particularly in oil services, but this level of hedge is not really proportionate to my level of confidence that big energy problems are coming soon. I don't really know what's holding me back. I guess it's very hard to pull one's self out of what Kunstler calls the 'consensus trance.'
A question to those who have hedged with a robust Plan B:
It occurred to me that at some point a Plan B will turn into a defacto Plan A if planning for a post-peak world becomes one's primary blueprint. Even if you expect that a near peak is a foregone conclusion, do you then hedge that expectation with a new Plan B in case by some miracle the cornucopians turn out to be right?
As a product of my times, I am a techno-cornucopian at heart but I am preparing for the worst and preparing for the best simultaneously.
As Dickens famously put it,
"It was the best of times and the worst of times."
My first priorities are physical hedges of the basic requirements to not only survive but to thrive in a post-peak environment. I think moe is imparting some excellent observations on financial hedging but as he indicated, financial hedges are only part of an overall hedging strategy. One cannot eat digital money or specie and one must be nimble to escape the just-in-time-collapse of financial structures.
IMO we are entering into terra incognita at the end of an age here.
We have scenarios of what the end-game might look like but
no one can predict the twists and turns of how it will play out.
I am reminded of a sticker a student had plastered on her laptop:
"Blessed are the flexible for they shalt not get bent out of shape"
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
A Tale of two Crises..
I think rather than being hard wired to make the wrong decision most people are trained to do it. it's IMO a form of social conditioning heavily exercised in public schools and religion, the fact that the human species has been so successful tends to suggest (at least to me) that it's not hard wired.
My own experience has been that I knew what decisions to make and would make exactly the wrong one, in a win, lose, draw situation I was losing far too frequently for it to be coincidence.
imo, the other type of guy you can beat in poker is the one who has it all figured out.
This assumes that counterparty risk is negligible - a rather foolhardy assumption IMHO.
I had read somewhere that fear of counterparty default (e.g. by Bear Stearns as a NYMEX clearing member) was a factor in the recent commodities meltdown. So I agree - the risk (real or imagined) does exist. And these futures contracts are, after all, just derivatives for the ordinary investor.
theautomaticearth has a link to an article about the credit default swaps bought by Wall Street banks being worthless because the other party didn't have the money to pay up.
It's my understanding (based on reading Taleb's "Black Swan," not on any deeper expertise) that option pricing is still derived largely from application of the Black-Scholes formula, which basically just uses a "normal" distribution for price movements and then calculates the probability that the price will move to the strike price by the expiration date. This method completely ignores trends, and tends (as Taleb argues) to dramatically underestimate actual rare but extreme price movements. The baseline assumption via Black-Scholes is that the future price of any commodity will be the same as the present price, impacted only by the probability of "normal" price volatility over the time period in question. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Two notes of interest:
1. I purchased some 2010 and 2011 calls a few years ago, but have been trying to purchase more 2011 and 2015 calls recently (e.g. CLZ15100C, December 2015 call at a strike price of $100/barrel). No takers. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it--the markets report some volume on these options, but no one seems to want to sell me one or two, even when I offer a premium of as much as 20% the last traded price :( Anyone with actual pit trading experience that can shed light on this? I had no problems buying similarly long-dated options in similar quantities in 2005.
2. There are "interesting" tax consequences of buying non-equity (e.g. oil) call options: you are taxed on your capital gain mark-to-market at the end of each year, regardless of whether you've sold the option or not, at a 60% long-term capital gains, 40% short-term capital gains rate, regardless of how long you've held the option. So if your option has made money this year, you have to pay taxes on that capital gain, even though you haven't sold the option yet and don't have the money in hand. I'm NOT a CPA, so do NOT take my word on this, but I have been told that this is what I.R.C. Section 1256 says. Just a heads up.
Jeff, this is a formula that a lot of traders use to determine the "fair price" of an option. By using this formula they can determine when an option is either overpriced or underpriced. However option prices are not "set" by any formula. The price of any option is determined by what traders are willing to pay. That is the "bid-ask" price.
You are trying to buy calls by placing limit orders and getting no takers. This is not unusual in very thinly traded markets as far out options usually are. But if you placed a market order your order would get filled in minutes. But of course it would be filled at a price far above what you might be willing to pay.
In 2005 far fewer people were aware of peak oil and most really expected the price of oil to fall in the coming years. Now that the cat is out of the bag you will have a lot harder time buying those far distant out of the money options. And because so many more people are now expecting the long term price of oil to rise this has driven up the price of those far distant out of the money options.
Ron Patterson
Yeah, I seem to have no effective way (without more direct access to the pits than I have) to communicate how much of a premium I'd be willing to take. That or I'm just not offering enough of a premium to compensate for not buying a larger block of options. Do you know, when a limit order is placed, if the pit trader receiving the order routing sees merely a buy that then won't execute above a certain level, if they see the limit and you're just hoping that they won't be greedy and always execute exactly at the limit, or something else? I have, in the past, had limit orders on NYMEX CL execute at prices below my limit, so that seems possible, but I don't know the mechanism. Either way, I'm not willing to place a market order and gamble that I won't get burned!
Your view of the Section 1256 treatment of futures options (and futures) is correct. I have worked in the accounting department of a major Wall Street trader and I am familiar with these rules.
Section 1256 also applies to broad based exchange trade contracts on stocks, such as the S & P index funds, and not surprisingly exchange traded funds based upon futures such as USO for oil.
The disadvangtage of reporting gains/losses yearly is somewhat offset by the favorable partial (40%) capital gains treatment - even if you hold the futures contract/option/ETF less than one year.
There is also a special loss carryback rule if (and only if) you had a Section 1256 gain in an earlier year. So if you report an unrealized gain one year, and a similar loss the next, they could offset each other - resulting in no tax effect.
There is also a special loss carryback rule if (and only if) you had a Section 1256 gain in an earlier year. So if you report an unrealized gain one year, and a similar loss the next, they could offset each other - resulting in no tax effect.
Would the investor have to file an amended return in that case for the prior year?
I just want to clarify for people that they will not be paying 60% of their profits in taxes!
Here's how the taxes on your profits work:
60% x 15% (maximum long-term capital gains tax rate) = 9%
40% x 35% (maximum short-term capital gains tax rate--your own rate may be lower, depending on your income) = 14%
Net maximum 60/40 blended tax rate = 23% (no matter how long you actually hold a position)
All commodities futures based investments (ETFs, specialty mutual funds, options) get the 60/40 tax treatment mark-to-market at the end of each tax year if you haven't sold it. It's an outrageous act of greed by the IRS, but at least they are nice enough to treat 60% of your profit as long term at the lower tax rate.
The new ETNs (exchange traded notes) are actually debt notes, not funds with forced distributions each year, and can be held for years with no tax due untill you sell them or the debt obligation reaches maturity, usually 15 or 30 years. This gives you full blown compounding. But ETNs are merely promises by the issuer to pay you what the underlying commodities are worth upon demand. If they default, your investment is worthless. So these days you must be very carefull who the issuer is. They are haggling over whether ETNs will keep their tax-exempt status. They may be forced to do a distribution thing like the funds even though they are notes if the mutual fund industry has their way (they don't like the tax-free competition threat that ETNs present).
This all applies just to commodities. Things like currency are taxed differently.
It's actually the result of an overzealous and overbroad attempt to close a tax loophole that was being aggressively marketed many years ago whereby individuals would take simultaneous positions in a market at a near and a distant expiry date and essentially be able to perpetually declare a short-term loss and a long-term gain, thereby offsetting their tax liability while effectively shifting the date they'd need to pay their tax perpetually into the future. Again, I'm not the most knowledgeable in this area, others can probably explain exactly how this loophole worked and how 1256 closed it, but that was (as I understand it) the impetus.
Yes, I think there was some slickery going on by traders that was fixed by some political slickery back in the mid '80s. As Green Trader Tax tells it:
Above I said that my comments about relative tax advantages applied to commodities, not stocks, currencies, etc. Actually the capital gain distribution part applies to all things other than commodity futures. If a fund has holdings in futures contracts that expire (are bought and sold) each month, that investment is all taxable short term capital gain by Section 1256 and is tabulated mark-to-market each year. The 60/40 thing was something of a compromise for longterm fund holders.
I am a novice: I learned just enough to do what I wanted to do, and that was to buy long-term naked crude call options with 5% of my savings, which I decided to risk, while moving most risk out of the rest of my savings as well as I could.
My wife has been exasperated at the fact that despite the fact I haven't sold them, we owe a lot of taxes since they're worth a lot more than they were. Not so exasperated she wishes I hadn't done it, though.
I decided to pay an actual agent since I found a place which had kind of a 'flat fee' to get in and out of each trade, and I wanted someone to answer my questions... since my strategy was "buy and hold", the per-option fees was less of an issue for me, since the volume would be low.
Back last year, the options prices were darn cheap, though hard to get more than a couple years out. And there's the "theoretical" value of them, and then there's what someone is actually willing to sell you. Like last year, my agent could only get 'ask' quotes from a single trader named "Brutus" who wasn't always there or in the mood to deal with one or two contracts at a time. That underscored the silly-human nature of how these things actually play out in the NYMEX pits. I also got a couple of 2011 calls filled at below the theoretical value, my agent guessed it was because "they got tired of hearing you wanted just two and filled it to make it go away".
I'm currently trying to get some options for 2012 and 2013, even though the prices are pretty high for 100 calls now.... and I have been unable to snag any. My agent notes that "the guys who sold the naked calls last year got hammered". So I've hung out some GTC orders at a price I'd be willing to pay, and that's that.
I really like the fact that with options you never risk more than you have on the table. Still, I have toyed with the idea of getting a future or two, to be able to get into the 2012-2015 timeframe. I dunno that I'd be willing to buy farther out than that.
I think crude options are still a great play.... it's like being able to invest directly in human ignorance & arrogance while shorting the dollar, and bidding up the prices can't do any harm to send "conserve" signals, either.
YMMV
Time to cash out.
Good song for you:
EJECTION , by Robert Calvert, ex- Hawkwind.
From Capt. Lockheed and the Starfighters:
Ejection :-0
There's only one course of action
left for me to take
I've tried every switch selection
that might control this state
I think for my protection
I'd better make it straight
into EJECTION
better tell base - EJECTION
that I think it's a case - for EJECTION
protect my face
EJECTION
The screen's projection
tell's me I'm too late
to make a course correction
I'm about to meet my fate
no time for reflection
I'd better make it straight
into EJECTION
bust through the sky - EJECTION
the air rushing by - EJECTION
it's a case of goodbye - EJECTION
I'm too fast to die
EJECTION
When a ship meets with destruction
the captain stays to drown
but no tin contraption
is going to drag me down
my reference intersection
tells me that I'm bound
for EJECTION
eight times my weight - EJECTION
abandon this crate - EJECTION
only one move to make - EJECTION
I've got to escape
EJECTION
:-0
PS - I forgot.
The stern faced estate agent lady came round today to value our family home.
Hereabouts in Aberdeenshire: not yet in nose dive. In England, you can kiss 30% of your YOY Equity goodbye.
Hereabouts (her words!):
''roughly at peak, a kind of a plateau, if priced right, will sell''.
We are looking to cash out and get mortgage free by downsizing and right now, we think we have just enough equity to achieve this objective.
But it will be tight.
Plan may work.
But to dither for two months may kill all hopes.
Have fun on TOD.
Will be busy for a while.
Painting rooms in a pleasant neutral shade for prospective buyers...
Magnolia...
Dorme Bien.
PPS:
YOY Equity?
Means:
''Why oh why didnt we sell last year''....
pppsss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd0CbIwRd1Q
Not ejection , I'm afraid, but from the Calvert / Hawkwind album.
Nighty - night.
This is incorrect.
Options are not based on themselves as a standalone instrument, but based on the matching underlying futures. Since 2006, long dated futures contracts have skyrocketed, 80%, which indeed shows that peak oil has been, at least partially priced in. The 'probability' you refer to is just implied volatility matched with the futures strip - it has nothing at all to do with option traders - options are just a different risk profile way of expressing a view of the future.
Redo your analysis incorporating the change in futures strips and you'll have a clearer answer. But what you'll find is that volatility has gone up (based in part on ACTUAL volatility going up and expected volatility increasing due to more people in CERA camp and more people in Simmons/TOD camp - meaning less people in the middle...e.g. market realizes we could have big move in EITHER direction), and price has gone up. At any time if you give me an average implied volatility and a futures price, I can tell you what the options will trade for - it is not related to peoples expectation of peak.
If more people believed that peak oil was a reality, you would expect to see distant contracts in steep contango compared to the typical backwardation we've had in recent years (front months higher than back months). And in fact this is exactly what has happened. We are almost flat out to 2016 in prices, meaning THE MARKET DOESN'T EXPECT THESE HIGH PRICES TO BE SHORTLIVED. In 2006, long dated futures were $20 under spot, which was about 35%. That 35% discount has all but disappeared.
It will be very interesting as we reach and pass peak oil what happens to futures. Because, via arbitrage, long dated futures can't get too much higher than current futures - otherwise people would just buy the current and store it - which is why many hedge funds have taken out physical storage space for oil -the worlds limited private oil storage capacity will limit how large of contango the oil market can have.
“FELM” (Food Export Land Model) in Action:
I think that we are going to increasingly see bilateral trade between food and energy exporters. It's not a good time to be both a major food and a major energy importer.
From Drudge:
Financial Times: Jump in rice price fuels fears of unrest
By Javier Blas in London and Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok
Published: March 27 2008 18:30 | Last updated: March 28 2008 09:06
Perhaps we should compile a list of countries that have imposed export bans on rice and other edible commodities?
I predicted some time ago that the world financial crisis brought on by PO would cause a rise of nationalist sentiment and probably trade barriers (protectionisim). The 'globalist movement' cannot co-exist with nationalisim. My predictions were met with some derision. Nah Nah Na Nah Nah. :) Trade barriers are at times leading indicators of wars.
Indian rice export ban to hit Bangladesh imports - traders
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-32379220080309
Cambodian PM bans rice exports to halt spiralling costs
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.cambodia/browse_thread/thread...
I bought rice yesterday.
No, not contracts.
I took possession of the physical commodity.
Too bad brown rice does not store as well as well as white.
Local Retail
Indian Basmati: $.60/lb
Texas Long Grain White: $.32/lb
California Organic short grain brown: $.88/lb
Back in 2002 I bought a very large quantity of organic brown rice. I'm still using rice from that stock, and it both cooks and tastes fine to me. Now maybe if I tasted it side-by-side with fresh rice I'd be able to tell the difference. But it is more than good enough for the apocalypse. Based on that experience, I recently bought another large quantity of organic brown rice, which I've stashed in air tight bags in my basement, against said apocalypse. Apocalypse or no, I fully expect to be eating that same rice in 2014.
I love rice, so I too keep a good bit stashed away dry for bad times. According to the packaging it is expiring next year but if I have to choose between no food or this rice, which is not rotten or fungus-infested, it's a very easy choice.
BTW don't forget the dried beans. You can't live solely on rice but you can on beans.
You can't live solely on rice but you can on beans.
Yeah, but what about those downwind?
Surely someone has invented a methane capture device. Where's Antidoomer when you need him?
I'm afraid he's trapped in my todban killfile. :-)
There is in fact such a device and it was used on the Science (I think) channel awhile back to measure the realtive amount of methane from different people on different diets. It was essentially a baloon type device with a tube. They showed people walking around with this big balloon coming out of their asses. Vegetarians emitted the most amount of gas.
Weirdly, the people on this show didn't seem all that embarrassed. Their were even two people on horseback with this baloon coming out behind the saddle.
Wouldn't it be wierd if you have just described our future?
I have been stocking up on Beano. Besides the reduction in gas production, I figure it will also let me capture more of the nutritional value of the beans/cabbage/whatever.
I buy brown rice in 50 lb. sacks, store it in 5 gal. plastic buckets and eat it 'til it's gone. I've never had it spoil this way, or had insects or mice get into it. I do the same with other grains and dry beans.
We keep our brown rice either frozen or in the fridge or in a pail if it's to be used within a month.
My wife can easily smell rice that's gone rancid. To me it tastes swampy when cooked - but I don't
notice any smell before cooking. We've given up buying brown basmati. It cooks in 20 min; but it
seems that all that we find is rancid stuff at the stores.
We tend to use short brown from California too. I can only get 12kg (about 25lb) sacks. Local organic
oatmeal, ground / rolled, can be had in 50lb bags easily though. It's much harder to get the oats though.
For breakfast we eat between 1/2 to 3/4 lb per day. So a sack/bag can last a while.
We, of course, have the same problem with organic stone ground wheat flour. Mind you; with a bread maker
it's cheaper to make whole wheat bread (raisin, rye, whatever) than it is to buy the day old stuff at
the monster box grocery store down the street - that's even using organic raisins/flour! A bread maker
uses just pennies in electricity per loaf. It's 1/4 the power consumption of baking in the oven. But
when I bake in the oven I do 4 loaves at a time.
For years I've bulk ordered food from Tucson Cooperative Warehouse. They sell grains and legumes in 50 lb. bags. Recently, due to increasing fuel costs, TCW has discontinued the route where I live. I'm not sure how I'm going to obtain wholesome bulk food anymore.
Perhaps I'm more tolerant of stored food, but I can't tell the difference between recently purchased grains and grains stored for five years or longer in sealed plastic buckets. (The buckets originally had peanut butter or honey in them.) I cook rice and barley in a pan on the stovetop, but cook beans, rye and wheat in the pressure cooker. I've given up on maintaining a freezer. I preferred bread baked in the oven, but my wife has discovered the bread-making machine and won't give it up! :)
Our's is always very heavy. What are we doing wrong?
Cheers
Some people cannot detect the smell or taste of rancid oils in grains like brown rice - my husband is one of them. Other people find them very noticeable. But the truth is that brown rice does go bad, long stored brown rice is almost always rancid, and rancid oils are very bad for you. So if you can't detect it is worth following guidelines for storage and storing brown rice no more than a year - and six months is probably better.
Sharon
Exactly what do you hope to prove by your post? That you live in a first world country and that the cost of rice is a tiny fraction of your income? Well, you have made the point, more than once.
Would you have the same cavalier attitude if 60 cents represented 60% of your daily income?
I appreciated the information. Perhaps you don't concern yourself with the price of food but I do. I was just thinking it might be time to stock up on some bags of Basmati from Costco. I'm also considering storage in a steel drum filled with CO2.
People who stock up (hoard in your words) grains are people who won't be driving prices up when shortages occur.
I think this kind of behaviour is both sensible and decent. The grains we store are basically futures we intend to consume rather than sell for a profit later.
It's obvious that now is the time to stock up on Basmati if India is locking the price at $.65 a pound for wholesale. That means Costco will be charging $1.20 a pound in a few months.
I completely fail to understand your comment about "cavalier attitude." Apparently you are so well off that even talking about the price of grain is in beneath you. You'd rather wring your hands about the plight of people you don't even know.
After Katrina I also became interested in keeping a stash of food in the basement. For the last two-plus years I've been purchasing stocks of relatively inexpensive groceries (beans, rice, canned meat, etc.), storing it until it nears the expiration date, and then rotating it out and donating it to a local food pantry. To me, it's a win-win system: we have some food on hand in the event of a real emergency, under normal conditions we don't have to feel obligated to eat a lot of plain brown rice, and at the end of the cycle the food goes to people who need it while it's still in good condition.
A good approach stclair - both pragmatic and thoughtful of others.
Another approach to ofsetting any concerns that storing food is harmful to others, those who are less fortunate (such as by creating shortages, making food unaffordable), is to reduce the amount of fuel you consume.
Reducing fuel consumption can almost be seen as reducing your food consumption (dramatically). The difference with storing food is that it is available for the future, to help feed either yourself, those around you, or both - it hasn't been eaten by a 747 flying to Club Med.
Today, Vietnam announced a 22% drop in rice exports for
this year, to ensure sufficient local supplies at affordable
prices for the Vietnamese. And India will increase the
minimum export price for rice, so that only the highest
quality rice is available for export; again, to ensure
that the local population can afford it. For countries
exporting key products (oil, rice....what's next ?),
resource nationalism is the only way forward.
Biogasoline idea refined by Dutch Shell, U.S. firm
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/5652001.html
Refer to WT - FELM above.
No food for fuel...no food left.
There are some good ideas...this isn't one of them unfortunately.
We shall see, just because WestTexas says it, doesn't make it so. Perhaps the process will be refined to use general biomass. Besides in the case of food Food Exporters could simplly use this process to create their fuel instead of trading food for fuel. :)
Perhaps we could rank biofuel powered SUV's in terms of SVPY (Starvation Victims Per Year)?
BTW, regarding the Russian article linked up top, following is a post from my original ELM work regarding oil. I probably did overestimate the overall Russian crude oil production decline, because of additional production from frontier basins, and as I have said several times, I am certainly not an expert on Russian production, but my guesstimate is that frontier Russian basins are to Russia as Alaska is to the US, i.e., it helps, but it's no panacea.
From “Hubbert Linearization Analysis of Top Three Net Oil Exporters” (January, 2006):
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/1/27/14471/5832#210
WT, we have to admit. You nailed it!
Things are happening almost exactly as you predicted.
I was hoping against hope that you were wrong :-(
I'll reply the same way that Matt Simmons did in Houston at the ASPO-USA conference, when I told him that we were of course building on his prior work: "Thanks, but I wish I had been wrong."
IMO, we are looking a geometric progression in oil prices: $50, $100, $200, $400. . .Leading to a geometric progression in petroleum product and food prices.
In the six months since October 1, 2007, oil prices have gone from $80 to about $105, which is an annual rate of over 50%/year.
Sure, the world will run on switch grass and corn stalks. Of course those left overs from food production will no longer go back into the soil to enrichen the soil. Yeah, 86 million bbl per day of crude to be replaced by ag byproducts. Do you know how many equivalent man hours are in a single gallon of gasoline? Your predictions are not logical.
BTW, sounds like you have a personal axe to grind regarding WT. Whats with the attitude?
So I'm NOT the only one with that perception !
I actually opened a reply window to theantidoomer's post to articulate such ... and then ... said 'Why bother?'
I think that over time WT has branched out from his ELM stuff into posting links to articles about the financial meltdown and the possibility of a depression. Perhaps this is what drew Antidoomer's ire, since he seems to love technology not as genuine transformation but as a bandaid to perpetuate Cheney's American Way of Life. Non-negotiable.
It's just a hangover from a former life (as Hothgor).
HaHa, forgot about that distinct
possibility here on 'the interweb'.
The article stated non-food crops were the focus like switchgrass. Please read the article before posting links or comments.
Goghgoner, when I said general biomass I meant leftover crap from the food processing plant, leftover sawdust from woodmills, etc. Sorry I should have been more specific. But you're right non-food crops such as swtichgrass were a focus of the article.
Switchgrass still requires farmland that could otherwise be used to grow food.
I have already read countless articles, written mostly by those seeking grants or start up money, about _____ (fill in blank) to fuel production. Why would I waste time reading another article about a dumb idea? Switchgrass, biomass, et al, are not going to replace FFs. They might provide enough fuel to run emergency services, but at what cost? What is the EROI?
Personally, I would rather have a mule that convert the switchgrass (or what ever grass) directly into energy than to build a complex system, dependent on outside energy sources, to operate.
Technofixmaniacs...I am coining the term for all that believe that some replacement miracle for FFs is on the horizon. When you show me... With a scaled up, operating, fuel producing, non food using, money making plant...Then I will read the article. Otherwise these 'inventions' are the rants of snake oil salesmen or day dreamers touting bs. All, so far, have set off my baloney detection module.
The general thinking still is that you can apply technology to create energy. To a certain extend, that is true, like in drilling for oil and pumping it (still, you don't "create" the energy, you're just relocating it to where it can be used)
But the opposite is always true: you have to apply energy to create, and run, technology.
IOW technology and energy are 2 entirely different things, which is poorly understood.
From what I have read, I don't think it is probable that growing crops or non-crops for fuel will mitigate problems from oil scarcity, so I agree with Mr. River. However, there will be improvements in the technology and crops being used and it is within the realm of possiblity that those improvements are significant. I think it is best to keep a liberal mind in these matters.
It isn't going to solve it, but production of biogas might help out in an integrated power production systems in rural areas:
http://www.solarserver.de/solarmagazin/anlage-e.html
The Combined Power Plant: the first stage in providing 100 % power from renewable energy
Biogas should definitely be part of the mix. It isn't a silver bullet, but is definitely a cost-effective and feasible BB. The technology is here now, and already implemented in many places -- especially in many POOR 3rd world places like India, that can't afford expensive technofixes. That in itself should speak volumes about the cost-effectiveness of this technology. It is just plain stupid and wasteful not to develop biogas to the extent we are able to do so. Capturing all that methane will help a great deal with GCC, too.
Some of the sources will not use agricultural land at all, just utilise waste from landfill and all sorts of inputs:
Boston is giving it a go:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/26/urban_decay_redefined/
Actually, I would be fairly optimistic relative to a lot of people here for power supplies in America, as the usage is just so poor that you don't have to do very well to vastly improve things.
For instance, residential solar thermal is mostly used for pool heating, when it could provide most of America's hot water
Biogas should definitely be part of the mix.
The big issue with biogas is mixes of Sulfur and Nitrogen in the gas. Tends to make the burning corrosive, so it becomes expensive to run in an ICE.
I am a liberal and I do have a liberal mind. I also come equipped with a baloney detection module.
I will not waste my time reading about every hair brained scheme that comes down the pike. Sorry, I have better uses for my time.
Some day another 'eureka moment' might occur in the field of bio (or what ever) to fuel. When that day comes I will read about it on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Untill that day I am content to spend my time on more productive pursuits. Thank you.
Off to run some errands...back later.
I could be wrong and Mr. Rapier can correct me, but I believe this sort of technology (first mentioned by ls9) was called a "Holy Grail" type of technology that could make a difference and I believe Mr. Rapier knows a thing or two about biofuels!
Ha, I guess Robert already blogged about the link here:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/03/biogasoline-from-shell.html
Make no mistake...I think the TECH is WICKED!
ONE word - POPULATION!
FINITE LAND MASS, FINITE RESOURCES...
Not even a silver bullet in that context...sorry.
There are solutions (silver bullets), but any that try to compete with food will fail or cause massive food disruptions and hardship(or worse).
Unless you can fix the issue of population growth, somehow humanely....ummm...errr...sure.
Here is an interesting factoid.
The number of people six years old and under in the world is now 6,000,000 fewer than in 1990. The decline in population has begun.
It started officially in about 2002 at the same time the supply of oil slowed, and the decline per capital accelerated noticeably. Over the same time frame the supply of grains has declined every year but one. In response the global population is having fewer children.
The demographic momentum keeps the trend of population rising, but if this trend holds by about 2045 population flatlines and starts to fall. How much? If it is at current levels it will be something like .5% per year. Something like what russia experiences today.
Got a link?
Thx.
Sounds pretty Malthusian to me.
That is a fascinating factoid (if it is accurate). Link? Certainly sounds improbable enough.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83307/phillip-longman/the-g...
In the linked article, the author anticipates serious problems arising from the ongoing aging of the world's population and from an impending population decline.
"Yet a closer look at demographic trends shows that the rate of world
population growth has fallen by more than 40 percent since the late
1960s. And forecasts by the UN and other organizations show that,
even in the absence of major wars or pandemics, the number of human
beings on the planet could well start to decline within the lifetime
of today's children. Demographers at the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis predict that human population will peak (at
9 billion) by 2070 and then start to contract. Long before then,
many nations will shrink in absolute size, and the average age of
the world's citizens will shoot up dramatically. Moreover, the
populations that will age fastest are in the Middle East and other
underdeveloped regions. During the remainder of this century, even
sub-Saharan Africa will likely grow older than Europe is today."
I can't see the specific data re <6 yrs old, but a good deal of other information is available at the following link. See in particular probable changes in the mean age for discrete regions and for the world.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/POP/proj07/index.html?sb=5
Goghgoner writes: "However, there will be improvements in the technology and crops being used and it is within the realm of possibility that those improvements are significant. I think it is best to keep a liberal mind in these matters."
I don't think agfuels will every replace fossil fuels. I do think that implementing the use of agfuels will make a significant number of parties and significant amount of money.
Question is should we allow that? And the answer I get is that I don't know how anyone could stop the attempt to implement the massive use of agfuels.
I think that a liberal mind is a discerning mind, as opposed to the conservative mindset that appears to latch onto the latest techno-fix without critical analysis. This is more akin to a mind of faith. A well-developed discerning mind appears to reduce critical analysis to an intuitive level, but the necessary analysis is occurring, nonetheless.
There are a lot of ways to look at lib and con, I try not to confuse them with the current assumptions about the Parties.
I think classically, 'Liberal' means to let go, set free, while 'Conservative' is to hold on.
Liberals can be very conservative about hanging onto cherished ideals, just as UNcritically as any Conservatives can. The place where change happens is in the movement across the center, where you can test the waters of holding on, letting go, trying a different grip.. but as we've seen, the 50%/50% camps are entrenched, and those closest to the center take the risk of being called traitors to both extremes. Any position that says 'Maybe I'm wrong' is in immediate danger of being pummeled by all those at the ends who are far too sure that everything outside their narrow band is completely false.
As with our amazing Human Hands, it's BOTH being able to hold on tight, then quickly and fluidly letting go as well, and doing it with the right timing .. that allows us uniquely among most animals to accurately lob a rotten tomato at the stage. (Typo was 'at the Sage' .. just as good)
My other analogy for L and C is our feet, where one has to be planted and the other reaching out in order to be able to walk. But the way the words Liberal and Conservative are slung around today? As my wife says, 'What's a better word for euphemism?'
Bob
Well, here's a 2007 research paper from UC Berkeley discussing the use of palm oil (non-food feedstock) to produce biodiesel economically in (and for)Panama for about $2.50 a gallon with crude palm oil at $700 per ton.
www.bigideas2.berkeley.edu/BBB%202007/Battacharya_PanamaBiofuels_Open%20... -
[.pdf download]
Panama is blessed with lots of juicy, oily plants and is currently taking a hard look at going into the biofuel business big time.
[edit: fixed previous bad link]
I too doubt that biomass can fuel America. It can fuel states like Iowa. You folks on the east and west coasts will have to figure something else will get the job done. There are just too many people crammed into those coastal cities for them to keep using any liquid fuel for much longer. NYC alone has over twice the population of Iowa crammed into only 322 sq mi vs the 56,000 sq mi of Iowa. Don't worry about food. We in flyover country can easily grow enough biodiesel to keep raising enough crops to keep everyone overfed. We may even have enough biodiesel left over so you bankers and brokers (are they called brokers because many of their customers end up broke?) can drive to the nearest train station.
Whatever intellectual capital and other capital we have left would be better spent planning for something approaching the worst case scenario with regard to oil. Thinking we can do anything meaningful with respect to biofuels could very well divert us from the necessary work, thought, and investment which must be done to get us through the next 30 years without massive dieoff. Pissing in the wind would be better than placing one's future on biofuels since that which doesn't get on one's self could at least be used as fertilizer.
I'm pretty sure that's already happening, its called ethanol. And even at this early stage, it has already resulted in global grain stores trending towards zero. Somehow, I think a big ramp up of "biogasoline" is going to result in lots of hungry people.
First rule when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.
Time to drop the shovel.
If you dig from the side and put it under your feet then you can dig your way out. Same tool, different direction.
One way or the other - it will eventually boil down to :
Available mass, energy content and speed of processing - and actually all 3 premises are suffering as we speak.
In 2005, according to the US agro watchdog, the weight of grain produced worldwide was only half the weight of the worlds pumped crude oil. All (most) of those grains were consumed, because the world stock for the same got reduced .And BTW world grain stocks are about halved since 2000 or so.
Cellulosic biomass will not scale either B/C ... ahh never mind.
Where do you get all your energy from TAD... you impress me, sort of
and goghgoner, I don't need to read any links where the the bio-fuels are stated as saviors to our energy troubles. It’s about scalability which in turn demand from you to be able to use a calculator and then some !
agreed, the more I hear from the bio-stunt-lab-gang the more I have to reflect on David Copperfield. Did he really penetrate the Great Wall of China ?
Stretchable silicon
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20481/
Improved silicon cell efficiency
http://www.physorg.com/news125842769.html
Solar power to irrigate and provide water in Benin
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=51912
Carbon nanotubes improve fuel cells
http://www.physorg.com/news125836368.html
Lightening electric supercar
http://www.gizmag.com/britains-lightning-gt-electric-supercar/9059/
$10million prize for 100mpg car
http://cleantechblog.com/
(Progressive Thinking, second post down)
Carbon Capture
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4256184.html
Boston Compost Power
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/26/urban_decay_redefined/
Popular Mechanics Says We're Saved!
Actually, oil looks to be the main topic of the April Popular Mechanics. A number of those articles even mention Peak Oil (of course, they give CERA the last word). There's a very good article on the book "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence", which I think is the one Robert wrote about a short while ago.
In typical Popular Mechanics fashion, they get that oil alternatives aren't going to save us, it will take decades to turn over the auto fleet to reduce demand, and even with tremendous amounts of expensive drilling in the gulf, US production is still going to keep falling, but machines will save us! We're getting so much more efficient at drilling that the plateau is years away!
I just wish there was a way for society to go back and sue all the cheerleaders if things don't turn out that way.
Another perfect example of the general assumption being that energy and technology are interchangable. See my post upthread.
Prophets of doom have caused less harm than optimists with fiduciary interests.
Unfortunately ... let's look at the list :
-> bolsjeviks ... 86 million dead
-> hitler ... some 30 million dead
-> saddam ... some 20 million dead
All of these came to power on prophet of doom predictions. On negative ideologies, which were "necessary" sacrifices.
Oops.
The reason that the auto fleet takes a long time to replace is that automobiles have long economically useful lives. If their economically useful life shortens, due to higher fuel prices etc., then they will be replaced quickly. In the extreme case, if there was no more gasoline for sale tomorrow, then the automobile fleet would be "replaced" in about two weeks with some alternative, like riding a bike I suppose.
Re: Lightening electric supercar
Batteries with:
- 250 mile range
- 10 minute charge time
- 15,000 cycles retaining 85% of original charge
- none of Li ion safety risks
- 4000W/kg power density compared to a good traditional cell's 1500W/kg
Going into a production car! Wow. The pieces of a solution are really falling into place.
Errrm...f they can manage to get the price down a leeeetle bit lower than $296,000, I'll be more impressed. As it stands, this car is clearly not going to save the age of the automobile, and I suspect that the production process needed to make those awesome batteries is necessarily expensive, energy intensive, and dependent on precious metals. That's what the hefty price-tag suggests, at least. So this would hardly amount to a scalable solution, as it stands. Maybe they will improve on this technology and bring the cost of production down, though.
I posted this on the Natural Gas story yesterday, but perhaps it is better to post here:
------------------
Watch and hear Schlesinger's comments on natural gas and more speaking at the
The National Academies Summit on America's Energy Future - The Geopolitical Context of America's Energy Future; Day 1, Part 3, March 13, 2008
He opens his speech with the following:
A little further:
James Schlesinger's Speech at The National Academies Summit on America's Energy Future - The Geopolitical Context of America's Energy Future; Day 1, Part 3, March 13, 2008
Unlike the peakists, they do not attribute this to the limitation on resource but they attribute it to the limitation on access.
That's the biggie. Acknowledgement of the the problem, denial of the cause. War propaganda. Peak oil itself can be used to justify war: there's a limited amount left, let's go get it. But it's "morally" easier to sell this: there's plenty, but they're withholding it from us, let's go get it.
The payoff for plug-in hybrids: 95 years?
I tend to follow car stuff but am trying to ween myself from evil ways. So, don't shoot the messenger ;-)
Pete
Payoff for dvd player: infinite. Payoff for having too big of an engine: infinite. Payoff for having a 2000 watt audio system: infinite . Payoff for leather seats: infinite. Why are hybrids held to a different standard than all those other useless options?
Good point. A similar point could be made about debates surrounding home efficiency upgrades. If one wants to install a new heating and air system, there's a lot of hand-wringing about the number of years for payback. No one seems to bat an eyelash if the money is blown on fancy kitchen cabinets and granite counter-tops.
hehe he said messenger....
Sprawlville out here is a nice enough place, but the forced joblessness and inactivity are driving me nuts!
I'm seriously planning to move back to the SF Bay Area and maintain a internal-combustion-free life. Out here, the more vehicles you have, the better! Out there, with just a light singlespeed bike, you're king of the road. And yes, I may look at messengering, if it pays the bills why not? I already know a hella lot about riding in traffic, and $7 gas may cut that down....
Bright future for those of us with big thighs and small brains!
"With the conversion running around $15,000"
So they are pricing prototypes.
Increased knowledge about global warming leads to apathy, study shows
If valid, the results would probably apply to understanding of Peak Oil too. But something smells funny in this release - the conflation of "care", "responsibility" and "apathy" stands out.
The study, "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States", by Paul M. Kellstedt, Sammy Zahran, and Arnold Vedlitz is here, though I can't say how long for free.
cfm in Gray, ME
"Increased knowledge about global warming leads to apathy, study shows"
IOW, we're doomed.
Which means we might as well be apathetic.
Which means we're doomed.
Which means we might as well be apathetic.
(etc.)
An alternative approach, and one that enables a person to escape from the logical insanity of the above endless feedback loop, is to have the personal integrity to do the right thing and resolve to not be part of the problem, regardless of how little difference this might make to the ultimate outcome.
One would have to know what the "right thing" to do is, in order to have the personal integrity to do it. Knowing what the right thing is depends on one's values. Some of us may value biodiversity and the integrity of ecosystems over the continuance of human civilization and maintenance of inflated human census numbers. For some, pushing the envelope 'til it ruptures, hastening the demise of human civilization and extinction of Anthropus ecocidus, might be the "right thing" to do. Liberate the carbon!
May I commend "first, do no harm" as a pretty good starting point?
By refraining from harming the bunnies (hoping the red-tailed hawk would get 'em), many of my young fruit trees were destroyed this winter.
Were that it was easy to know if, when, how much, to whom... one's actions or inactions would cause harm.
So how did tbe bunnies get through the the 3/8" wire mesh collar that EVERY nursery and gardening book tells you to install?
Let me guess...
Reminds me of a bit from David Langford:
AKH
Darwins - you obviously didn't know those bunnies were meant to be assassinated with a pellet rifle and cooked up, did you?
I've had to kill to defend a fruit tree. In my case, the potential tree killer was some sort of a fat ground hog sort of thing, the bugger looked just like Rush Limbaugh, it was an easy deed.
There's a great line in a movie with Alec Baldwin and Ben Kingsley called "The Confession." Lawyer Baldwin visits confessed killer Kingsley in jail and telling the Kingsley character that he did the right thing by turning himself in.
Kingsley gives Baldwin this long, piercing, scary stare and says, "It's easy to do the right thing. What's hard is knowing what's the right thing to do."
That was, of course, my point. Thank you.
Sometimes repackaging the product is all that is needed. The Chevy Nova (No va. = No go in Spanish.) had to be rechristened to sell in Mexico.
So, repackage PO as GW and environmental activism... viola! Stop talking about what people will lose. Also, push harder and harder on the money angle. Make it all about profit, jobs, economic security.
Cheers
I can't be bothered to be apathetic.
Information about global warming is usually conveyed in a rational yet piecemeal way.
With personally relevant, demonstrable pains and pleasures associated with the consequences of climate change, that might generate the fear or desire necessary for "care" or "responsibility" to emerge on a personal level.
But "care" and "responsibility" also require:
(1) an existing foundation of empathy (the person can't already be dead inside, a sociopath, or a psychopath)
(2) knowledge of what can be done to address the problem personally, or the time to figure it out (such as how group efforts have more impact, or how to build a community)
(3) resources to address the problem, or the time to acquire them (such as having community already available, or the time to build a community)
What then is to be done about existing sociopaths and psychopaths, many of whom pull the levers of our cultural industrial machine? Or the legions of those emotionally deadened by the media and by lack of connection to the living world?
What to do about the general poor critical thinking skills and lack of scientific or logical training, products of a dismal education system?
What then is to be done about an 8-, 10-, or 12-hour workday and the following recreation and downtime, which are necessary just to stay in place, survive, and to stay sane, time that consumes nearly all the waking hours which could be used to figure things out, gather resources, plan, and act?
This is where the apathy is coming from.
The problem is systemic.
And Americans are taught to be dead early on, well before high school for instance.
Why am I not dead inside? I'm amazed I'm not. Firstly, a beloved pier was ripped out when I was a kid, and I saw environmental destruction firsthand. I loved that reef and saw it die. (It's come back to *some* degree since.) Secondly, I'm a child of the 1970s and for just a bit there, we had kids' shows on TV about the environment, Ranger Rick magazine, stuff like that.
Even then it's taken until the improbable age of my mid-40s to start really caring about this stuff. I say improbable because while born into the middle class, we fell to the working class when I was a kid, and working class Americans don't generally last this long without being burned out by drugs, alcohol, trauma (fighting, beatings) or just flat out dying. My class, the working class, are by far the majority in the US and we have everything possible militating against our giving a damn about the environment.
I get tired of hearing this bullshit. The biggest problem our schools have? It's the world around them. It's the culture and society around them. Nothing done in the schools is going to succeed when there is no accountability at home, no role models, no continuity, no cohesion, etc.
What do children do when they *know* there is no meaningful consequence awaiting them? Whatever they damned well please.
Do you not see the irony of saying this:
then blaming the schools for apathy?
Ironic that you blame everyone but the people truly responsible: the parents, and thus, the society in which the children learn. Try teaching a couch potato's son/daughter that hard intellectual work is where it's at.
Criminy...
I'm sorry, I was also trying to make the case that the problem is systemic. Didn't mean to get your feathers ruffled.
'US Household Dept Increased by 1 Trillion Dollars Per Year From 1999-2007...Or, Very Close To It...' It was a heck of a party...and it left a heck of a mess.
'Wall Street Journal writing about the "US Debt Reckoning". They report that "American household debt has more than doubled in a decade to $13.8 trillion at the end of 2007 from $6.4 trillion in 1999, the vast majority of it in mortgage and home equity lines, according to Fed data.'
'The answer, finally wrought out of sweat and blood, is that household debt went up by $7.4 trillion in eight years, which is close enough to say that this one subset of consumer debt increased by a whopping 1 trillion dollars a year for eight years! I involuntarily shout, "Yikes!" at the revelation!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JC29Dj01.html
This new money, produced by borrowing it, was the fuel that made the boom. Now it's gone, and it ain't coming back. And so what is going to power the boom that is supposed to get us out of this bust and make everything alright again? Oops!'
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JC29Dj01.html
($13.8x10^12)/(3.00x10^8 persons) = $46,000/person
Does that mean the average 4 person family has $184,000 of debt?
Err, my solar powered calculator needs a good dose of sunlight to begin functioning again. :)
That was actually just a question about the definition of US Household Debt, and whether I infered the correct definition from its name. I also wanted to highlight the number.
I think that is correct. After all, it does include mortgage debt. It's not your calculator, River.
It looks right to me. Even as housing prices have gone up, equity has gone down, as people refi or HELOC the equity into cash (i.e. debt) to fund consumer spending.
All you have to do to understand the mess we're in is plot GDP over median income over the past 20-25 years (rising slope over flat line). The large majority of our economic growth over the past two decades has been debt growth, and the majority of the debt has been in houses. As house prices decline, we're going to have to give back much of that economic growth. And that's before you take PO into account (except for whatever effect rising oil prices had in puncturing the debt bubble).
Another way to look at that same graph is:
Our wages were held flat, but we increased consumption as though the old wage increases were still occurring. This is the dream scenario for employers: they don't raise wages, yet their customers spend more. That's why no one in our ruling elites lifted a finger to stop the growing bubble.
This country cannot afford to give back that much growth without breaking the political system. They'll try to inflate some of the problem away. But since the CPI is rigged, workers' real wages will actually fall.
So economic inequality increased as the bubble went up, and it will increase as the bubble shrinks. Repeat the cycle as many times as you can until you can't take it any more.
I continue to be amazed at Americans' willingness to "take it". I suspect that that when the break comes, and people refuse to take it any more, the change will be sudden (and violent). My gut feeling is that the break will happen before this cycle completely unwinds.
$184,000 per family. Yup. And that's not including a similar amount in public debt - the debt that government at all levels has taken out in your name, whether you like it or not, and that you and your grandkids will be taxed to pay off.
One thing I have a hard time understanding is: who do we owe this money to? Is it to those who had money to lend, or to those who made the money out of thin air (banks), or what? If we don't pay it off, who loses? How much of the debt is "to ourselves", in the sense that normal people, via owning stocks and bonds and pension funds, are the "lenders"?
Back as far as the 1970s, the answer you used to hear to that question was always "we owe it to ourselves". It has been a long time now since I've heard that.
We owe it to the voodoo gods of economics.
Look at where the money has been going and the incredible wealth re-distribution that has occurred in the last few decades. The end result is that the money has been moving from you to them.
A little help from wind power experts?
I have a small hill which on 1/3 of which resides my garden. Right now I water it with 5 connected 100 foot hoses from my cottage well. I would like to install a small windmill on the top of the hill to pull water up (we have very high water table here - probably 30-50 feet would be plenty deep enough). The intent would be to have windpowered pump that pushed the water into a holding tank which I could then have a valve that would turn on/off a gravity fed drip irrigation system. Anyone have any links on what sort of windmills would accomplish this? Or knowledge to that effect? Thanks. Nate
Don't know if this can be of any use, but I would like 2 of these. They come in different sizes.
http://www.windside.com/
Durable, efficient, low maintenance, zero noice. A bit expensive.
This is old technology and has been in use in Texas for over 100 years.
The rural landscape is still dotted with the old units, many still in service. I think the brand was Aeromotor? The windmill mechanically operated a downhole pump, very similar to what is used in the oil field
today. I bet you could find one of these old units at a reasonable price. I had a friend who purchased one some time back to put on his farm, not to pump but to just watch it spin.
http://www.airliftech.com/index.html
Not cheap, but looks like good material.
I once owned a piece of property that had the remnants of an air pump windmill. The only reason to use one would be if your windsource was not near your well. In my case, the well was at the base of a hill, and the wind was much better on top, so the previous owner had installed one. I don't remember the brand name, but the wind on top of the hill was too good, and the windmill itself flew apart.
I was just in Batavia, Illinois, and there are several large old farm windmills in that area that are used as sort of an icon for what the area was before it became a suburban wasteland. At one time Batavia was supposedly the world center for windmill manufacturing. Someday they'll be wishing they had retained that title, I suspect.
I grew up in the Midwest, and old dilapidated windmills were everywhere. Most have been relegated to the scrapheap now.
When I asked about a similar desire I was directed here.
http://www.dankoffsolar.com/
(and I got this when looking for dankoff....)
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterPumping/waterpumping.htm
'Member - if you go electric, you'll be able to use the infrastructure in the winter. Or if you collect your rainwater - you could move that instead.
Now, the permiculture way would be to follow the ideas of http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/ Was lead there due to wack-job MP3's that claim 2 years of water can be stored *IN* the soil via redirection and keeping the soil high in organics - the case example was a gent in botszawna
Nate,
How about a solar pump? I have one that I use to aerate my duck pond. It has a 150 solar panel that pumps water to the top of a water fall when the sun is shining. Cost was about $700. You could probably rig one up to pump water to a storage tank of some sort that could gravity feed the water to your garden when you need it. If you google solar water pumps you should find something.
Or go to www.bisonpumps.com and install a manual pump and pump water yourself whenever you need it.
Agreed. I don't know anything about your location, Nate, so I don't know if wind is a better option for you than solar. But as I understand it the cheapest and easiest way to fill a storage tank is with a direct DC pump...If I recall correctly it doesn't even need to have a battery. When the sun is shining sufficiently to start up the pump, it runs. When the tank is full, a float valve shuts off the power to the pump. Dead simple and relatively cheap.
Hi, Nate. Here is an inexpensive solution to create electricity to run an electric pump:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Hong-Kong-Micro-Wind-Turbine-Arrays.htm
After you get a price for a wind powered system compare it to a solar setup. You'll need one or more PV panels, a deep cycle lead acid battery, matchbox sized voltage regulator, high lift 12 volt water pump and cutoff switch. Maybe a mesh filter so drip lines don't clog. Such a system can run trouble free for years.
Take a look at this 12 wind generator/turbine plans on one CD
Nate, I think the most efficient solution to watering your hilltop garden is 5 lengths of garden hose joined together. It's probably also the most reliable.
CARBON TARIFFS AGAINST DEVELOPING WORLD
The move away from dollars is garnering more and more attention, and headlines, around the world. In it's attempts to bail out the US financial system the Fed has made the dollar suspect, or worse.
'Dollar Departure For Chinese Exporters'
'Global industries are looking for ways to operate without the help of America's erratic currency.'
'Alibaba.com, a company parly owned by Yahoo (YHOO) that hooks up international buyers with Chinese suppliers, says the vast majority of its 700,000 suppliers are moving to pounds, euros or even using China's own renminbi to complete sales.'
'The Federal Reserve's money printing operations and a stumbling U.S. economy have sent the dollar on a wild ride. The short dollar trade is so crowded, and currency traders are so nervous about central bank intervention into the currency markets, that the dollar's moves have become increasingly volatile.'
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index.php?a=16456
Also the US has a budget defecit to finance. Selling bonds at present interest rates isn't going to be easy, especially with the falling doller. Bond yields set to soar?. In Britain we have a similar problem of a bidget defecit and a sinking currency. So far the Bank of England has only cut rates by 1/2%. They have been criticized but it be the best course.
This might be a little off topic, But I thought I would post about an experience I am currently having with the FBI.
As part of my plans to form up a decent ELP for myself(which is hard for someone making 26k per year paying off debts) I decided to get to work building a post peak starter kit. I am a paramedic so I started with bandaids. I have spent about 500 dollars on all manner of medical supplies to help deal with the first year of a potential collapse( IV solutions and catheters, antibiotics, bandages, suture supplies etc) I felt pretty good about that portion of my prep work and wanted to next focus on getting my self armed like a good patriotic American. I have never owned a firearm before so I didn't know much about the process. I live in New Mexico which has some pretty lax gun restrictions so I thought it would not be that hard.
Boy was I mistaken! I went on down to the local gun shop to browse the faire and decided on a Glock .40 pistol. Something with decent stopping power that I could practice with at the range. I had the clerk pull it for me and then he had me give some information for the instant background check(NICS). He got on the phone while I walked around pretending to be interested in an AR-15 when the clerk came back and told me I was denied. Denied. I have absolutely no criminal history, I have always payed my taxes, I don't use nor have I used drugs, and I have good credit. I was astounded! The clerk told me that some times there are mix ups in their system and that I may have a similar SSN to a felon. He gave me some information for the appeals process and refunded my money and sent me on my way. I really felt embarrassed! I sent in for the reason and 3 weeks later I get a response. The reason I was denied was due to: Poor moral Character! Maybe they found out I have been reading TOD?! :P So I have to prove that I am not nuts to the government so that I may purchase a firearm. To think all this time the government thought of me this way!
I share this because I want to alert you aspiring gun owners to watch out! The government knows more about you than you do. So I decided to buy a wheat mill and canning materials instead while I wait to get this Snafu sorted out.
Good Luck!
You have the legal right to purchase a firearm from another individual selling same.
If you watch the classified ads or read bulletin boards you will eventually come across what you want.
There could be advantages to having a firearm that no one knows about.
I am really starting to consider that alternative. I really wanted to do this in the most legit way I could. It is a pity that the government makes this so difficult that I have to explore other less legal means of exercising my second amendment right. In their eyes they can do no wrong I suppose. I am also thinking of having a friend make the purchase for me.
Paramedic. 26K per year. Yup! Poor moral character!
All kidding aside(it's pretty shocking actually), how long do antibiotics keep? Just curious.
Arms are also on the top of my first PO preparedness list(Febr. 2005), but guns are outlawed here in Holland. So I'm stucking up knives, axes and crossbows. Plenty of arrows with that. And I have a few other usefull defences ready, which are secret.
Heh, I am currently working part time. Antibiotics(Mexico) can keep for a decent amount of time asuming they stay unexposed, with humidity and temperature under control. I am hoping 1-3 years. Most expire at 1 year and start to loose potency. There is no way to check the potency other than to take it with an infection. I figure if a couple years go by ill just toss these out and get some more. That is of course I got decent quality stuff. The FDA doesn't really know about my little stockpile. I should look into getting a crossbow! A lot of us in America take gun ownership for granted, considering it is illegal in most countries and possession can get you stuffed away in a hole somewhere. With that in perspective I should be thankful that I just need to prove that im not a mental defective. A buddy of mine sold all of his firearms when he went to work in South Korea.
"Poor Moral Character"??
That's fishy as hell.
I'm sorry, but what's it, several drunk driving arrests? Because the only thing I can think of is fiddling with kids, they just can't deny you with something vague, there has to be SOMETHING and something serious. Not meaning to impugn anyone or anything, I just *believe* they have to have something concrete.
I think.
OK here's what: I'm going to see if I can buy a gun tomorrow. Not that I want one right now, but my credit is shot, and for experiment's sake I want to see if that affects anything. I'll report my results in tomorrow's Drumbeat because this has me really curious now.
More on 'poor moral character'
http://cryptogon.com/?p=2289
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Zer0nerve,
I ran into a similar problem. Well not that similar, but... I attempted to purchase a handgun not too long ago and was denied. After undergoing the appeal process, I found out I have a 'attachment' (like a warrant apparently but they won't pay to extradite me) in a Louisiana Parish. I attempted to call the Parish and they told me that I couldn't take care of it over the phone (it involves some fines) and that they couldn't even tell me anything about it. So my only choice is to hire a lawyer or just show up in court and hope they don't lock me up. So it looks like as River said, my only hope is a private seller.
Actually on a kind of similar subject, I heard a little while ago that Canada had denied entrance to several people who had once been arrested for protesting the Iraq war. This is a little scary to me since I've had a few run-ins with the law, but so far I've not had trouble crossing into Canada or European countries. But I have also driven across the Canadian border and I don't think they really paid much attention to my passport then so....
Hmmm...someone else on TOD who has perhaps done similar to you re: preparations ought to test the instant bhackground check.
Would be interested to know if this is more widespread.
As for me - I am more or less all set thank you very much (personal security that is).
Pete
I used to not care about owning a gun, until the right was abridged. Now I want to get as many guns as I can afford just to exercise my rights. I am particularly interested that the second amendment is being debated by the supreme court. If things start to unravel I don't want to be caught with my pants down. Im glad you have a nice cache going ptoemmes. I feel like a kid that picked up a toy in wal-mart only to have it snatched away by mommy at the check out line...jeez maybe I am mental.
Well, you could consider black powder firearms. At one time someone made a black powder Gatling gun.
You can also check out pre-1879(?) guns that don't need a permit. Sounds stupid but there are some good old guns. You can find a lot of info at http://www.survivalblog.com
Todd
Actually pre 1899 [1898 or earlier] in the US are not subject to many of the provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968. In effect, for Federal purposes relating to purchase [background checks] and shipment [mail order] these are not considered guns ... but they are guns under many state laws governing sale and are obviously subject to restrictions concerning concealed carry and a host of other strictures [check your state laws.]
Some very functional firearms qualify as antiques. Some model 1896 bolt actions Mausers [including some Sweedish Mausers which are highly prized by shooters], some US Krag Jorgensens, very early 1894 and 1895 Winchester lever actions, and a few C96 Broomhandle Mauser pistols for example.
Hardware is not enough.
Without proper training, one becomes a menace to one's self.
Aside from the best schools http://www.frontsight.com/,
excellent and cost-effective training is coming soon to a location near you, http://www.appleseedinfo.org/as_schedule.htm, even to Harvard.
Since a tender age and thanks to the late Jeff Cooper,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Cooper_%28colonel%29&oldi...,
my daughter has had THE FOUR BASIC SAFETY RULES posted on her door:
Rule 1
All guns are always loaded.
Rule 2
Never let your muzzle cover anything you don't want to destroy.
Rule 3
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Rule 4
Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
When the pie-in-the-sky blots out the sun, do something practical.
I always liked airdale's posts before the renal problems. He was practical.
Best hopes for safe and practical preparations.
As moe just said up drum,
"...you better get hedged."
Consider this "moral" hedge:
Gunsite, a local shooting training center, has apparently recognized Jeff Cooper as the patron saint of shooting that he is.
And the Gunsite/Cooper/NRA safety rules shall be your Rosary, in any accident you can see that more than one of them was broken, that's right, not one, but at least 2 or 3.
Hell if I had my way going through Gunsite training would be required of all free citizens of the US, but I guess that's just me.....
If for some outlandish reason I stay out here in the doomed Southwest, I'll at least re-acquire my CCW through them. They have you start all training with a CCW course, and the price is very reasonable.
airdale's posts before the renal problems. He was practical.
Would that be the ones where he advocated going into the woods and foraging (and therefore surviving) or the ones where he talked about distillation of alcohol?
I was referring to airdale's attitude of being engaged more in productive physical work instead of endless intellectual speculation.
For me, theory is engaging to a point but it has to meet the road somewhere. Otherwise, pie-in-the-sky remains pie-in-the sky.
IMO, we are out of time.
Practical preps are the need of the hour for those who might want to pass the arts of civilization on to the next generation.
Practical preps are the need of the hour for those who might want to pass the arts of civilization on to the next generation.
If things get as bad as The Chimp thinks it will get - toss in some poor man's nukes of bio-warefare and while the will to teach may exist - there may be no pupils TO teach.
The reason I was denied was due to: Poor moral Character!
Welcome to TOD!
(if you ever get it sorted out via a FOIA request of your FBI record do post/place in your profile here so it can be tracked.)
On a mill - consider the products of C.S. Bell.
Low Moral Character, huh?
I wonder how they rate the President?
Don't forget to stock up on some good jokes, which can be usefully disarming.
I've been wondering about the 'civic-stability' value of interpersonal debts, too. As the creditor, you loan something to a neighbor and don't rush them for 'payback'.. generate a bit of goodwill, and a bit of a standing debt. The other way around, if you owe someone, it's kind of in their interest to keep you up and running and in the game, so that someday they can possibly collect. It's like molecular bonds, positive and negative charges, holding us all together.
Bob
'Never go hunting with someone that owes you money'...George Herter
'No good deed goes unpunished'...anonymous
Up thread there is a discussion about 'doing the right thing' and how to determine what is 'the right thing to do'. It is not as simple as most seem to think.
Doing favors for people, without the person receiving the favor realizing a favor is being done, is an art form. If one does not tread lightly egos become bruised and resentment begins. If one is not capable of doing favors in a serepticious manner, it might be best to leave it alone.
And paraphrasing from most 12 step programs... "don't do a favor with any EXPECTATION of a return (favor)". Unfulfilled expecations tend to lead to resentments, etc.
Pete
River, is the word you wanted surreptitious?
Don't ever buy a firearm from a dealer. You don't want Big Brother knowing you have it. If He knows He can confiscate it. Also, the SWAT squad will shoot first if they know you have a gun. There are plenty of guns available on the underground economy. The price may even be better if the seller is desperate for meth.
That made me chuckle. 100% guarantee that all purchases will be admissible as evidence for a crime I didn't commit!
Poor moral character hmm your SS must be close to mine. I've never understood why people go to parties to sit around and have one or two drinks or none at all. When I was in college in the south I decided that the world needed some serious sinners or the poor Southern Baptist preachers would have no one to talk about during their sermons. Eventually would lose their jobs and end up on the street penniless. So I've taken it on myself to ensure that the righteous always have and example of the effects of too much alcohol coupled with low moral character.
Its a thankless job but someone has to do it.
Cheers, memmel! Moral character is over rated. My nickname is Grifter... If those making the rules actually lived by the rules that they made for all, I might go along. Since they that make the rules consider themselves above the rules, why should others take thier rules seriously?
Being a life time motorcycle rider has given me a unique perspective on those who judge the moral character of others without knowing the person.
If the azz-hats prejudge, and assume one to have low moral character, why disappoint them?
How can they say that with no foundation. You need a lawyer. Do they have them in the US?
How can they say that with no foundation. You need a lawyer. Do they have them in the US?
Need a ref:
Can someone post a ref for me on the world wide known remaing oil. I got a email from someone who stated this from an article:
"Oil: the Earth has overall petroleum reserves of between 12-16 trillion barrels [depending on how conservative the estimate]. Over the past 120 years or so, we have used 1 trillion barrels. As the result of the unsophisticated extraction technologies used until the 1980s, most reservoirs considered "depleted", in fact still contain between 40-60% of their original volumes. Current oil prices [@US$100-105/barrel] adjusted for inflation, are no higher than during the oil shocks of the late 1970s. Several analysts have noted that this price level does not reflect market fundamentals but contains a security fears and hedging "premium" of some US$25/barrel."
Thanks
That reminds me of something released recently by OPEC if I am not mistaken. I remember that 12-16 trillion figure from something posted recently. [sarc]That includes the hydrocarbon discovery on one of the moons of Saturn right?[/sarc]
You might try the last set of British Petroleum stats. I'm at work and can't look 'em up right now... just have the BP Stats for 2005 which lists proven reserves at 1.2 trillion barrels.
Those numbers you mention seem to consist of proven, probable, possible, and impossible.
Don't forget the 'Reserves proved by sheer willpower'
I just gave a Peak Oil/Peak Exports talk (presenting Khebab's modeling) at a Casey Research symposium in Arizona. In that presentation, I showed a Texas/North Sea slide that Khebab did for me. It shows Texas, in 1972, lined up with the North Sea, in 1999. These two regions were developed by private companies, using the best available technology, with virtually no restrictions on drilling.
Result: Texas has declined at -4%/year, since 1972, and the North Sea has declined at -4.5%/year, since 1999.
In any case, if the cornucopians prefer to believe that we have 12-14 trillion barrels, I suggest that you correct them and suggest that 120-140 trillion barrels is a better estimate--and BTW, would they like to buy an SUV and a suburban home from you, to take advantage of temporarily low prices?
That sounds like that came from that idiot Salieri's article in the WSJ a few weeks ago. We all had a field day with that one.
Try this one:
http://images.pennnet.com/articles/ogj/cap/cap_070507ogj_4601.gif
It shows OPEC reserves to be 619.1 billion barrels.
Total FSU reserves at 102.5 billion barrels.
Rest of the world at 188.7 billion barrels.
Total 910.3 billion barrels.
NOTE: If one claims that the world has 12 to 16 trillion barrels of reserves then, on average, each of these countries reserves must be multiplied by a factor of 12 to 16 or more. Try it and the numbers look absurd.
Ron Patterson
What he is obviously talking about here is OOIP verses Recoverable Oil. That is about 30% depending upon the type of reservoir. And that figure, even with modern recovery techniques, has not been greatly improved upon. Oil is soaked into the very small capillaries of the reservoir rock and will remain there, regardless of the type of recovery. Oil can be drained from the larger capillaries but not the tiny ones, and of course most of the capillaries are very tiny. A slightly higher percentage of oil can be recovered from sandstone than from carbonate rocks like limestone or dolomite.
So whomever posted you is correct about the 40 to 60 percent of oil remaining in depleted reservoirs. And it will remain there....forever. (Actually it is closer to 70 percent.)
Ron Patterson
Thanks Guys for the help. I found this http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html.
Ron: Yea, I read abut that in Twilight in the Desert. Understanding some geology helped too. Aleady got that in my email back.
Thanks again.
Here is some added info published in late 2007:
Sadad al-Huseini of Saudi Arabia indicated a quarter of the world's 1200 billion barrel reserves were inflated.
http://www.energybulletin.net/36458.html
If in 30 years all these supposed 900 billion barrels will be gone will production peak before half of these reserves are gone? When will the hundreds of billions of barrels of tar sands be developed? EROIE for tar sands may be as high as 4X much better than biofuels. In addition biofuels usage encroaches on the world's food supply. Society lived for millenia without using petroleum, but not a day without food.
Pour a quart of oil in a box of sand and give your friend a straw and ask them what percent of the oil they can get out.
100% ? Ask them if they think it is practical/EROEI to take out each grain individually and wash the oil off to retreive it.
That is the mental picture of an oil field. Read Darwin's reply to your post about total returns.
Happy to report that my reply got into their email-newsletter, where the first one was.
Oil and money in perspective.
This is something that has been playing around my head for a little while now.
The worth of derivatives traded around the world is around US $ 519 trillion. Remaining URR of conventional oil is believed to be about 1 trillion barrels. At current prices this translates to a total worth of US $ 107 trillion.
Now, given the relation between energy and our monetary system, my guts tell me there is something wrong with this equation. Any thoughts?
Easy: I loan you a million bucks. You loan it to Joe. He loans it to me. We're all set. :-)
A follow-up to how useless Gold is.
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13545-nanomaterial-turns-ra...
According to World Gold Council
http://www.gold.org/
Industrial use for gold in 2007 was approx. 13% of total production. Not nearly as much as the percentage of silver ( `45%) that is actually 'consumed' by industrial processes, but still enough to make a difference in the market of a scarce element.
Something not quite kosher about this process. Electrons don't just "collect" somewhere.
"Radioactive particles that slam into the gold push out a shower of high-energy electrons. They pass through carbon nanotubes and pass into the lithium hydride from where they move into electrodes, allowing current to flow."
And how much gold are we talking about? Pounds?
As it involves electrons being liberated from a surface, you probably only need a thin film. Not a lot of gold, and not anytime soon.
I did find something on this. However, I hope he is a better scientist and engineer than writer. I challenge anyone with a decent background in physics to make some sense out of what he scribes in that abstract. Here's a killer:
HP/liter
Now there's a unit that we don't see much.
HP/Liter is not as crazy as it sounds. In motorcycle literature, it's a fairly common way to express power. As in, this "literbike" (1000cc motorcycle) develops this much power.
For better or for worse, I think the US unit of horsepower is pretty much the worldwide standard, unless you're getting really technical, in which case just remember that a horsepower is 746 watts.
No link yet as this is breaking news on CNN. We have known that he was leaving, looks official now. Interesting timing since Cheney visited and suddenly Iraq is destabilizing and that GWB is daily telling the sheeple that things are going great. Darn that Iran, making everything soooo difficult! If only we could stop them..oh wait!
U.S. Central Command Adm. Fallon relinquishes command.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
It has been said by commenters here on TOD that Zimbabwe is a case study for peak oil and that the life expectancy drop has something to due with their oil supplies being cut-off. Also speculated was that the drop was due to the white people being kicked off "their" farms. I have speculated all of their problems started with HIV and I came across this article that agrees with my analysis (and has a great title). I think we can expand that solution globally to combat climate change, peak oil mitigation, water shortages, etc...
Maturbation the solution to HIV crisis [in Zimbabwe]
If you are curious about the rise of HIV/AIDS read: The River, A Journey To The Source Of HIV and AIDS. The book contains some sobering detail about the scientists that were working on oral polio vaccines and it puts into perspective the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the time period that oral polio viruses were being tested on African populations. The polio vaccines were cultured in monkey kidney tissue which contained a virus very similar to AIDS.
A documentary based on the book was produced by the BBC but because of various lawsuits the documentary is not for sale. Rights to the documentary were purchased by some Canadian company and they will not sell copies.
The book is our of print but I purchased a copy from a seller on Half.com for $40 (used). About 1,100 pages with some blk/wht photos.
The book also gives some detail about the roll played by germ warefare specialists at Ft Detrich, Md, in development of the oral polio vaccine.
Saw a documentary on this. Trusting chimpanze in cage holds out hands with big smile to scientist who injects the chimp and kills it for kidney tissue culture. We really are a disgusting species and I look forward to the Hell that approaches.
For those of you that didn't make it very far into the article:
How quickly could freight rail be electrified? All I've found concerning the subject are various permutations of Alan's article Electrified Rail: An Overlooked Mitigation Strategy for Peak Oil?, which starts off with this proposition:
That sounds impressive until you find out the Russians have been converting the T-SB to electric since 1929.
Where would we begin? Re-double tracking everything I imagine. Third rail or pantograph/trolley wire? What are some historical examples of conversions?
I worked out with John Schumann of LTK if we electrified with the same commercial urgency as we are exploiting tar sands. The results are:
Year 1 - 0 miles
Year 2 - 2,500 miles
Year 3 - 5,000 miles
Year 4 - 7,500 miles
Year 5 - 10,000 miles
The US would begin to run out of high priority lines by then and so we assumed 11,000 miles/year there after.
The rail electrification to the Arctic port of Murmansk went much more quickly. (Think Soviet Union, what happened between 1929 and 2002 ? MANY years zero work done. First electrification was to get trains over steep grades and that was all, not a grand plan to electrify it all).
Kazakhstan is spending $1 billion/year (and growing) on rail infrastructure. A standard gauge electrified rail link from China to Europe is a top priority (new ROW through Kazakhstan). (Russia Empire used a broad gauge). I am watching as the "build new" and electrify.
Also Darwin to Alice Springs in Australia for comparable.
Work doen today is being done for lowest cost, this may change.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I see where you posted about that in Drumbeat back in September:How fast can the USA electrify Freight Railroads?
Is he still working out of LTK's Portland Office? If so he's likely in my local dialing area. Wonder if he's hooked up with the Portland Peak Oil People.
More I think about it the better electrified freight rail seems from a political perspective. Creates jobs, saves oil thus "green," transparent to populace, simple and inexpensive to implement, provides national security. Would be great to have a full article on this!
In the Sept. Drumbeat you mentioned being only able to find one chart of the STRACNET. Here's another: http://www.almc.army.mil/ALOG/issues/NovDec99/MS455p4.gif
586k image! Good desktop wallpaper. Taken from Preserving Strategic Rail Mobility.
I have been working with Ed Tennyson on what would be required to upgrade the US rail system so that it can 1) carry the current and future ton-miles of trucks (inter-modal local delivery until all warehouses move to rail spurs) and 2) have the speed and reliability of trucks today.
Ed estimated $250 billion to transfer 67% of trucks to rail. I estimated $400 billion to move 85% of trucks to rail.
#2 would involve a network of CSX-like grade separated 100 to 110 mph passenger and express freight lines.
If you go to
http://gc.kls2.com
and cut and paste this into the upper left box
CA-RIC-CLT-ATL-BHM-MSY-LFT-LCH- BMT-HOU-SAT-AUS-DFW-HOU
CLT-JAX-ORL-MIA
JAX-ATL-CVG-OSU-CLE
CVG-IND-STL
OSU-DET-CHI-MSP
OSU-PIT-PHL
CHI-STL-MEM-MSY
STL-MCI
Chi-INd
PDX-SEa-YVR
ORL-TPA
SFO-BFL-BUR-SAN-PHX-TUS
JFK-ALB-BUF-CLE
BOS-PWM
You can get an idea of our current thinking, Amtrak's Northeast Corridor not included since it only needs to be upgraded some.
Alan
Nanomaterial turns radiation directly into electricity
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13545-nanomaterial-turns-ra...
Do you read before you post?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3779#comment-322678
My apologies Eric! I don't have time to refresh TOD 100 times a day!! It wasn't there when I looked at my latest screen!
Sorry isn't good enuf.
Seppuku is the only redemptive path left for you.
Note I tried to be nice. It is a shame your maturity level is so pathetic. Best hopes for Eric Blair growing up.
Note I tried to be nice.
No. You were being sarcastic.
Southern California Edison to install 250 MW of photovoltaic cells on southern California roofs
That's $3500 per installed watt, less than half of what it would cost on a typical residential rooftop.
I think you mean $3500/kW, but yeah, they expect that they can do their installations much more cheaply per watt than home installations. I don't know if that's due to them getting inexpensive solar cells, a good deal on installation or some other factor.
The California solar panels may last about 30 years thus $3500/30*365= $3500 kW/10950 days = 32 cents per kW?
Arizona was planning the worlds largest solar plant that might power 70,000 homes.
In 2006 the average cost of electricity was about 10.6 cents per Kw.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0810.html
Uh, you got your math wrong. kW is a unit of power kWh and electricity is priced on the basis of how much energy you use, not how much power you can draw. It should be ($3500)/(1kW*5.5hours/day*30 years 365.25days/year)= $0.058/kWh which is about half the average retail cost of electricity in California (which is higher because air quality regulations mean that if we're going to burn coal we have to burn it in Utah) and about the same as what California utilities pay for natural gas. Strictly speaking, we're both ignoring the time value of the money (a kilowatt 30 years from now is worth less to me than one I can have today), but even including that you still get a cost that is lower than nuclear but gas than coal and without all those nasty emissions.
Note: the 5.5 hours per day is the average insolation for Los Angeles expressed in sun hours.
Frankly, cost comparison does not matter because the reason the average national electricity price is subsidized to an absurd degree. Also the infrastructure investments in the grid and everything else is inadequate to the need and load.
This payback notion for efficiency is a strawman. What's my payback on my house I buy or my shoes. Do we talk about payback on anything bought at all except these precious solar panels that no one in their right mind would buy because they don't have a 'payback'
whats the payback of your SUV, your McMansion, your jacuzzi, your Xbox, a 12 lane interstate?
"the time value of the money"
imo, that is the reason for the low recovery of many an oil reservoirs.
well, that and rule of capture "conservation" practices.
"It’s a potentially game-changing move, one that could lower the cost of solar cells as manufacturers ramp up production to meet the utility’s schedule of installing a megawatt-a-week of arrays until it reaches the 250-megawatt target. That alone is more than United States’ entire production of solar cells in 2006 and will produce as much electricity as a small coal-fired power plant"
So let me get this straight. They are going to spend five years adding enough solar panels to equal one small coal-fired power plant? And this is a game changing move? What? Am I missing something? How many years at that "ramped up" rate would it take to power CA?
To get lower production costs, manufacturers need higher volumes. Thus, even though the amount of solar panels might not be much compared to a nuclear power plant, if it enables manufacturers to make quantum leaps in efficiency, and thus leaps downward in pricing, that would mean huge differences in the economics of solar panels.
Solar energy is an area where there is great potential for improvement. If the typical solar panel runs at 15% efficiency and costs $800 (for 120W), then, if they got up to 25% efficiency for $500, that would mean 200W for $500, which is about half the price per output. That would make PV solar very attractive, and thus capable of mass buildout. There are some rare metals in solar panels, but mostly they are silicon, which is to say, glass, or melted sand.
Am I missing something, or has there been a surprising lack of hair-pulling over this story?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/28/peak_oil_solutions/
I know it startled me a bit.
(Move along folks, there's nothing to see here)
No hair pulling here. I did have to laugh at this quote:
Requires? The author has it exactly backwards. It is far more likely that the looming catastrophe of peak oil will cause every environmental consideration to be thrown out the window. We will drill in ANWR. We will convert coal to gasoline and diesel fuel. People will burn wood and coal for heat.
When people get hungry enough, they do eat their seed corn. That they are "required" to save it for next year's planting is neither here nor there.
I found it pretty entertaining, especially this paragraph:
Another graduate of Yergin University.
http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to...
15 Algae Startups Bringing Pond Scum to Fuel Tanks
Antidoomer, The promise of new technology is sometimes the best part. How would that pond scum ever get scaled up enough to produce millions of barrels a day? It has to be grown in tanks, then processed - wouldn't we have to cover several states with the stuff to produce what the US uses in a day? I remember when the solar arrays in Nevada were first installed 30 years ago and everyone thought that would help solve future energy problems. And here we are today with almost the same number of them in Nevada - it never took off like people thought it would. I wouldn't rush out and throw all your hard earned cash on one of these start ups without knowing you'll probably lose it all. Maybe one of those companies will still be around 20 years from now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Hello TODers,
A little more info on what might keep sulphur and I-NPK prices rising:
http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news252718
-------------------------------------------
Climate change will enforce sulphur deficiency in crops
...Parallel to the predicted climate change in the next decades, the risk of sulphur deficiency in agricultural crops will increase, so the forecast of geo-ecologist Knut Hartmann and Dr. Holger Lilienthal, both researchers at the Institute for Crop and Soil Science of the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI)...
-----------------------------------------
Recall that Gazprom wants to increase sulphur pricing sevenfold this year. Sulphur may be the geo-strategic Liebig Minimum for agriculture and industrial infrastructure worldwide.
EDIT: don't forget that sulphur products are also key to your tapwater's purity [see earlier post in archives].
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Can sulfur pricing be a key cascading blowback that will inadvertently minimize the buildout of nuke reactors?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/26/news/international/uranium_kazakhstan.fo...
----------------------
Nuclear power's white-hot metal
An atypical mine
To get to Kazakhstan's uranium fields, you hop a short flight west from Almaty along the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains and land on a grass field in Shymkent that's strewn with Soviet-era planes. Three hours north by car, where caravans of camels roam an arid steppe, you come upon a series of ten-story windowless boxes. It doesn't look like a typical mine. The boxes are processing facilities that treat a slurry of uranium, sulfuric acid, and water. The acid loosens the uranium from its bond with the rock below - a process called in situ leach - and the liquid is sucked out through a giant straw, no digging required. Production costs as little as $10 a pound, a fifth the cost of open-pit mining.
------------------------------------------
Don't forget the sulfuric acid required for metals processing either. Will the desire to use postPeak sulphur for food outweigh the desire to use sulphur to generate electricity? Currently, most of the global sulphur is used for the food side of the equation; 60% [see PPT link in yesterdays drumbeat].
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=05BUS280308
--------------------------
Input costs drive up fertiliser prices
In February, the price of super phosphate fertiliser increased by 126 per cent to VND2.5 million (US$156) per tonne and the price of NPK fertiliser by 80 per cent to VND2.97 million per tonne compared with the same period last year, he said.
The price of potassium fertiliser has doubled to VND9 million per tonne and sulphate ammonia (SA) fertiliser to VND4.8 million per tonne. DAP fertiliser has even tripled to VND18 million per tonne.
Thuy said the price of coal, used for fertiliser production, had increased by an average of 10-20 per cent per quarter since February 2007.
The price of other materials, like sulphur, a primary component of super phosphate fertiliser, skyrocketed from $76 per tonne to $572, and apatite ore, the material for diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser, rose by 40 per cent.
--------------------------------------
http://indianaprairiefarmer.com/index.aspx?ascxid=fpStory&fpsid=32963&fp...
------------------------------------
Rising Input Costs Reach Unbelievable Levels
Reports put anhydrous ammonia at $800 to $900 per ton if you have to buy it now without previous locked-in prices. How widespread those prices are isn't clear. The same reports peg various forms of phosphate fertilizer in the $700 per ton range. That product was considering extremely high in December when prices were in the $530 per ton range. Now it's into the stratosphere as far as price is concerned.
-------------------------------------
Sure hope we start my suggested 'Federal Reserve Banks of I-NPK' soon. Have you hugged your biosolar mission-critical bag of NPK today?
Hello TODers,
The following link is from February 29, and there is no mention of gardening/farming by this minister, but it makes one wonder if personally stockpiling I-NPK will be seen as a postPeak no-no; similar to the earlier days of Treasury Agents being posted to confiscate precious metals when the owner's safe-deposit boxes were opened.
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/staten_island_minister_rele...
------------------
Staten Island minister released after guilty plea over chemical mayhem
A minister from Staten Island accused of warehousing more than 2,000 pounds of chemicals was released today after pleading guilty to one count of first-degree reckless endangerment.
A massive police presence descended on Serrano's Ada Drive home last year, where they found potassium nitrate, sulfur, hydrogen peroxide and iron oxide, among 19 different types of potentially explosive ingredients during the raid.
Police also found 2,500 pounds of potassium nitrate, a fertilizer which is a component of gunpowder and can be used to make fireworks, at a nearby Public Storage Facility in Mariners Harbor.
-----------------------------------------
If he was actually selling this stuff to those with future violence in mind--that is one thing--but I wonder if the ATF and the MSM-spin is more concerned about people hoarding I-NPK for their postPeak gardens.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
This is why we need to learn to shit in our gardens (with perhaps "humanure" processing)
Hello Fleam,
Thxs for responding. I can't help thinking that this guy decided to stockpile the fertilizer to:
1. Have a ten-year supply of I-NPK for his postPeak garden.
2. Hoarding it for later exchange for grains/produce from a farmer.
3. or just as a basic investment. If bought earlier--he already tripled his investment!
Or maybe the sulfur deficiency is already occurring?
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=19&storycode=17172
----------------------------------
HGCA help growers determine need for sulphur fertiliser
“Sulphur deficiency has become more common in wheat, affecting both yield and quality,” said Vicky Foster, HGCA’s research manager. “However, farmers may have difficulty in assessing whether crops need an application of sulphur. The matrix is designed to help with this decision.”
..The trials carried out showed an average six per cent yield increase in response to sulphur application and that a quarter of the trials responded significantly to sulphur,” said Dr Foster. “Responses were particularly influenced by soil type, over-winter rainfall and sulphur deposition.”
-------------------------------------------
If It's Friday...
There must be some scandal.
WASHINGTON - The White House says a presidential aide has resigned after engaging in improprities using USAID grant money.
Wonder what this is about.
...
His previous employer was the Center for a Free Cuba, which describes itself as an independent, nonpartisan institution dedicated to promoting human rights and a transition to democracy and the rule of law in Cuba.
"Mr. Sixto allegedly had a conflict of interest with the use of U.S. AID funds by his former employer," Stanzel said. He said he did not know how much money was involved or the particulars of the allegations.
-Atrios 15:32
Moe Gamble...I don't know if you saw this info about the Fed jawboning the CME to raise margin requirements?
'Three things that caught my eye this morning:
The WSJ reporting that Valero (VLO) is cutting back refining output because of a surplus of supply.
Oil trading flat/down despite the announcement of a terrorist bombing of a major Iraqi pipeline.
The CME announced an increase in commodity trading marginrequirements.
While discrete events, all again raise the question of peaking consumer
commodity prices. Two things to keep in mind:
First, commodity price inflation has been cited repeatedly by the Fed as a concern. And given the view of many that the most recent price rises are a function of rampant speculation (versus fundamental demand) I would not underestimate
a) the pressure placed on the CME to increase margin requirements by banking regulators to curtail speculation
b) how stability in commodity prices (let alone price declines) opens up the Fed's ability to drop short term rates further without pummeling the dollar.
Second, while everyone will likely cheer commodity price declines as the savior of the US consumer, asset deflation, whether in housing, commodities or anything else is like Kryptonite to the banking industry. And don't forget, too, how much lending (particularly M&A related) has been done in the past five years in support of commodity related companies - particularly in Asia.
At least to me, commodity price deflation eliminates any notion of decoupling.'
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
Here's another example of MSM idiocy in covering energy issues: http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/03/25/1/a-conversation-with-john-h.... I don't know who Charlie Rose is, since I dumped my television a long time ago. But evidently, he was interviewing Mr. John Hofmeister, President of the US arm of Shell Oil. It seems that Mr. Hofmeister was asserting that drilling restrictions in the United States should be lifted immediately or the "hood" (meaning poor people of color in inner cities) might riot over fuel prices. Here's a transcript of part of his comments, courtesy of Grist:
"If we don't drill more in this country, I am quite concerned about civil disturbances in our urban areas because of the price of fuel...
"I was meeting in Los Angeles with mayor Villaraigosa and I asked him a specific question because I lived there during the Rodney King civil disturbances. [I] said, "How is the mood in the hood based upon the price of gasoline compared to the mood in the hood at the time of the Rodney King disturbances?" He said it's threshold." (snip)
Mr. Hofmeister is an insult to people of color. They are not the ones who bought useless McMansions in far-flung exurbs, with adjustable rate mortgages, nor did they buy "ultimate driving machine" SUV's to commute fifty miles from their McMansions to their jobs. We should be much more worried about what the McMansionistas will do when they can no longer afford all their stuff, when they start clamoring for political leaders who will do anything to keep their unsustainable lifestyle going a little longer, even if it means demonizing the poor and minorities, or invading another country to steal its resources. I have to say, I don't miss TV.
Hello TODers,
Gee, I wonder if this huge steel company has read my earlier postings on the huge need for postPeak wheelbarrows and SpiderWebRiding Networks:
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1214939/
---------------------------------
World steel giant, ArcelorMittal, has provided dozens of wheelbarrows to operators of make-shift rail wagons commonly known as "make-a-way" in Upper Harlandsville, outside Buchanan in Grand Bassa County.
The make-shift wagons are used to commute along villages as the major means of transportation by inhabitants to convey their produce to market in Buchanan.
About 250 local inhabitants along the 260 kilometers stretch of railroad linking Yekepa in Nimba County with Buchanan are involved in the commercial operations of make-shift rail-wagons as a means of their livelihood.
-----------------------------
Compare to the sad efficiency of tlameme in an earlier keypost by TopTODer Heading Out:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3286
----------------------------------------
He estimated that a single human porter or tlameme as they were known in Nahuatl, could carry a load of about 25 kg (55 lb) of maize. He calculated, however, that the per day overburden of a porter, taking into account the nutritional needs of the porter and his family, was about 30% of the value of the load, based on a round trip for the porter. This places an absolute limit on the transportation of corn of 3.3 days or 100 km (60 miles). In other words, if a porter carried a load of corn 100 km, he would have used it all to feed himself and his family. The effective limit for a commercial distribution system, of course, would have been considerably less, say 50% of the absolute limit, or 50 km. During the Aztec dominance in the Mexican highlands, basic foodstuffs, other than gourmet items, were normally drawn from within a restricted radius of one day’s journey or approximately 30 km.
------------------------------
Again, recall that the Chinese, the inventors of the rickshaw and wheelbarrow, considered these tools as topsecret, strategic, logistic weaponry.
Too bad the photolink showing tens of thousands of wheelbarrow operators is now error 404. My guess it was too realistic, therefore too controversial for what lies ahead.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Technology can save us here as well. For a gazillion dollars, the military can make a "Frankenstein's mule"
hint: I have have been hoping for the right opportunity to add this truly disturbing film:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
best hopes for letting nature take its course with humans..
Hello Pondlife,
Thxs for the video link, impressive technology, but I see very limited postPeak applicability. Still brings up the question: Who will bring the oilcan to the Tinman?
Cool!
That ought to be a significant advancement of the state of the art in control systems.
I draw somewhat different POV of this story.
After civil war, civil society in Liberia reverted to a more primitive form (as did Cambodia). In both, hand made "rail cars" were used on old rail lines to transport goods. In Liberia, locals prevented the rails from being ripped up and sold for scrap.
Apparently, 250 porters made their living transporting goods by rail (human power ?). Now Mittel wants to renovate the rails and reopen an iron ore mine, thus putting these porters out of work (and disrupting local trade). They are offering them wheelbarrows as compensation. Use the roads and wheelbarrows instead (and also offering them jobs as well it seems).
Even in doomer times, rails still have an important role to play.
Alan
CBC comedy skit about the oil industry. Very funny.
Click on the fifth thumbnail in.
http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/#696319836
Hey fellow Peak Oilers: Here is an article link from today - http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080328/venezuela_exxon.html?.v=1
Argentina sends all its heavy oil to China! No longer will Exxon be sending it to the Gulf for refining. In years to come this may be looked back at with much more scrutiny than it is right now.
Hello TODers,
Any speculation when similar events happen here?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/world/africa/29somalia.html?em&ex=1206...
------------------------------------------
MOGADISHU, Somalia — The trouble started when government soldiers went to the market and, at gunpoint, began to help themselves to sacks of grain last week...
-----------------------------------------
5 years, 10 years, maybe more? Or in much less time than we think?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Holy crazy comparisons Batman. You're comparing Somalia, A almost completely desolate desert Arab country to the US, with thousands of square miles of the most fertile land in the world?:O
To answer your question, most likely not in our lifetime.
I am living in the US's Mogadishu. So is Totoneila. This area is utterly dependent on large inputs from elsewhere, huge pickup trucks etc. Nothing is grown here any more. The soil and climate are right at Mogadishu levels for farming - it's basically going to work out better to eat your neighbor than to try to farm here.
This area, Yavapai County, is about a week's cutoff of supplies from becoming the US's Mogadishu.
It's a neat area, it's a beautiful area, the people are nice, but in 7 months I've made $5 total. TOTAL. I live with a friend who has military retirement and SS, and I have food stamps. It's a completely artificial economy.
Somalia is VERY comparable to areas like this in the US, with Somalia coming out better because people do know how to grow food there.
Hello TheAntidoomer,
Thxs for responding. From the CIA Factbook, Somalia's area is slightly smaller than Texas with pop. of approx 9.2 million.
For potential Overshoot comparision when ELM hammers home:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html
------------------------
Texas pop. = 23.5 million 2006 estimate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin_shrub_steppe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoran_Desert
Much less arable cropland than Texas, plus many more multi-millions of people who refuse to compost and garden, but instead like golf courses, fountains, swimming pools, long & hot showers, and frequent carwashes.
EDIT: I think you are making a dangerous assumption that coffee, sugar cane, antibiotics, NPK fertilizers, bananas, grains, Maine lobsters, Alaskan King Crab, hot house tomatoes, chocolate, milk & honey, and so on, will continue to postPeak appear in your locale.
I would wager that the average Somali uses energy [when they can get it] much more efficiently than the average 'Murkan. They are probably thrilled just to have a tiny fire to cook food vs the American millions of Jacuzzi spas cooking people.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
This report seems to contradict the notion that the Russians' alleged theory of abiotic oil guarantees sustainable production on an infinite basis. If oil is abiotic and is continually generated by the planet from deep underground chemical processes, and if the Russians know how to exploit abiotic oil as they claim, then it should be possible to maintain production indefinitely, and even to increase production with additional effort and predictable expense.
However, if the Russians are exploiting pools of biotic oil in geological formations as the West does, then their finite supply of oil will eventually peak and decline as it does everywhere else, and the abiotic theory of oil as espoused by JF Kenney and others (http://www.gasresources.net) will be proved false.
Stan Moore
Petaluma, CA
Hello, TODers! Look at the pace of growth of russian foreign reverves based on profits from oil export:
http://www.cbr.ru/Eng/statistics/credit_statistics/print.asp?file=inter_...
I am a financial journalist in Moscow, and as I am informed there is a growing concern about the real value of dollar. Some people think its better to cut export - the oil in the fields rises in price faster then the foreign currency reserves (mostly dollars), which are excessive and actually depreciating in terms of the real thing i.e. oil. Russia has a strongly positive trade balance and great export surplus (12 billions a month now), but we dont really need it - we need to sterilaze the surplus by dollars and Treasuries buying. So, in fact, we are just changing appreciating oil for depreciating dollars. That's ridiculous:)