Looks like the options for future archeologists may be quite limited. No more King Tut's Tombs.

This may sound crass to some, but "the American way of death" should be negotiated. We don't have the resources (or even the land, in some areas) for the traditional methods. And certainly dead bodies don't need elaborate boxes to be buried.

True VK. I can't beleive Fox beat the ACLU to the punch. Maybe they hit the holiday eggnog a little too early this year.

It's probably safe to assume that Fox News has a dog in that fight. I would be willing to bet that it is more money than truth that they are after. Good, though.

I expect Fox News to sue the government much more often after January 20th...

The pricing mechanism of the markets is woefully short-sighted, because the players are short-sighted. The price is falling because short-term demand is falling. In the long-term, because of our massive worldwide oil-dependent infrastructure, the price will come back up.

Hi

Id guess you are right on a few points. Some poor guys are sitting on oil contracts, and have to sell now.
Oil companies (US) dont really need these contract, thus price gets very low (selling sand to people in Sahara or something, comes to mind). Look at brent crude and the asian price for other indicators than WTI.

And "peak oil" is taking a beating, yes; but notice, peak oil is about the maximum extraction (per day/month/year) of oil.
I believe the current low price, might make less new oil production come online -> stronger cause to think that
the last few years of oil extraction might be hard to beat say 2013...
The price has less to do with peak oil than one might think, (at least in the middle of wild price swings). The trend over 2-3 years periods is probably up up and away. But who knows? Nobody...

Two thoughts on oil prices -

1. Lower oil price does not negate Peak Oil. Peak Oil is a max production number of barrels per day. Lower price may actually cause production to drop faster because new projects and infrastructure will be cancelled without funding from oil profits. After the recession is over and demand rises again, prices will rise fast.

2. Lower oil prices may be a strategy to cripple Iran, Russia and other non-friendly powers. Their governments depend on oil profits to survive. Iran is cutting all exports while the price is low and saving it up for later.

P.S. - Until new alterntives come online, oil prices will be in a continual see-saw of ups and downs. A very risky investment.

No one is ever going to believe oil production is declining, any future price rises will be blamed on something else.

Of course, this will largely be true no matter what. Part of the problem is that price information is instantaneous and accurate. Production data tend to be noisy (especially in the short term), delayed and subject to revision.

Also, the finite world concept violates most people's concept of how the world works--which is that we can have an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil fuel resource base.

So, despite the fact that we are going to almost certainly see three years of net oil exports below the 2005 rate, three years of flat crude oil production and two years of flat total liquids production, with a bump upward in 2008--which Simmons attributes to dying oil fields, as their gas caps are being blown down--the increase in oil prices was "speculation" while the decline in oil prices is due to Peak Oilers being wrong. IMO, oil prices went up as importers bid for declining net oil exports--until demand fell in the second half of 2008, when the bottom dropped out of the economy.

Our best case is the top five net oil exporters, who (net) exported about 24 mbpd in 2005, will be down to about 18 mbpd by 2012.

So if demand has dropped a little and that last barrel isn't need price starts dropping. But doesn't that mean that relatively little change in consumer behavior has a major impact?

Yes, little changes have major impact on prices.

Doesn't that mean that little to moderate actions have radical impacts on mitigating peak oil?

Not really. It's true that on the demand side there are few things that could alleviate the situation in the short to medium term, but the problem will aggravate in the future as the decline continues. It's like getting a small pay cut every year - the first few years you may forego going to movies or an a vacation; but sometime in the future you may not be able to afford the essentials - housing, food etc.

Its early so I may come off sounding like a jerk...

This nonsense has got to stop. Declining oil production is not the tooth-fairy or Santa Claus. It is not something you "believe" in. It is a cold, hard fact. The numbers dont lie, people do. They will lie to themselves to make themselves feel better. "Oh look, oil production seems to have reached a plateau. But hey oil prices are dropping so everything must be ok!".

No, everything is not ok. Millions of people have lost and are going to lose their jobs. The Saudis and the Russians are going to lose their ability to subsidize all that they do. There will be many cascading events resulting from declining oil production.

STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE PEOPLE OF PEAK OIL! IT DOESNT NEED YOUR HELP!

shawnott -- there are different ways to look at the situation. Of course the day's headlines get most of the attention. It's that 24 hour news cycle beating us every time we turn around. First, current oil prices are not cheap. Nor are the expensive. They are $X per barrel. I have oil projects that will work just fine at $40 bbl. Many of the very expensive/risky projects won't. Companies don't change their plans based upon daily changes. They use a pricing model that projects value over a 7 to 10 year time frame. Certainly those projections are lower today then they were 6 months ago. But 6 months ago companies were typically using $60 - $80 for the initial price of oil when a project came on line. In fact many actually lowered the price projection for years 2 and 3 about $10 per bbl and then allowed a small inflation factor for the following years. Current prices are lower then expectation but not as much as many would guess.

Also consider income instead of a daily price. They aren't sitting around in OPEC crying too hard at the moment despite what the headlines might say. From 1 Jan thru 30 June of this year OPEC income exceeded more than their entire 2007 income and way more then their 2006 income and way, way more then their 2005 income. Essentially, OPEC could have been giving their oil away for free since July and they still would have made more than last year. Sure, plans have been changed. Just like you'll change your spending plan because this year's Christmas bonus is only $50k and not the $100k you thought it was going to be.

There are other aspects that will surprise most: potential significant increases in NG prices over the next couple of years. The economic downturn has put the skids on much of the unconventional NG plays in the US. I consult for one of the biggest players and they just cut their 2009 budget from $1.4 billion to under $700 million. We’ll be cutting loose about 40% of our drilling rigs over the next 2 months. We’ll be spending from cash flow only. We have a good credit line but don’t want to combine that expense with pricing uncertainty. If you’re not familiar, the big increase in unconventional NG drilling over the last few years has significantly increased supplies. But there’s a big downside to these plays: they decline very rapidly. Wells can drop 60% to 80% in the first couple of years or so. It has only been the ever increasing drilling rate that has kept production up. But with the decreased drilling activity we’ll see a rapid drop in NG deliverability. Probably won’t be too noticeable this winter but during the next couple of heating season it will be IMO even if demand stays down or even decreases. That’s not a good prospect for the future: a worsening economy meeting increased NG (and all its associated products like electricity) prices.

So what did you think Peak Oil was going to look like?

I know I guessed wrong on everything but the timing(Drumbeat Oct 22 2007 I predicted Jan-Mar 2009). It's looking like we will find out what the world going looks like with 5mbpd less oil being exported within the next 6 months.

Will growth ever return to Oil Production?

Yes, I think the world is going to follow the Russia example (see chart Oilwatch monthly, page 18). Falling off this level (74mbpd C&C), down as much as 40%(i hope not) in the next few years and then it will start growing again but never reaching above 70 mbpd.

It's going to be a E ticket ride, have fun.

Ed

shawnott:

First, let me just say that I think it is a good thing to question your assumptions. However, I really think these are some things you need to consider:

1. The oil that is left in the ground is increasingly expensive to get out.

2. As the economy recovers (eventually), demand will have to come back.

3. As developing economies grow, their growing middle classes and industries will demand more oil.

4. Keep in mind that oil is a "boom and bust" cyclical industry. What is happening now is typical for this sector.

5. Seventy percent of all oil is used for transportation. Therefore, even if you use the maximum capacity of alternative energy sources available, it will not alleviate the central problem unless we can change the transportation paradigm.

I still think that Peak Oil (namely that oil, as it becomes more expensive to extract and refine, will go up in price), is correct. The analysis of EROEI is still relevant.

You may want to take a look at this post from Calculated Risk and the comments:

Calculated Risk: Oil Prices: Cliff Diving

In the short term, prices probably will stay low due to the destruction of demand with high unemployment and the bursting of the credit bubble (which makes finding funding for oil exploration next to impossible). Don't let the short term issues take your eyes off of the Big Picture and long-term problems with energy.

But doesn't that mean that relatively little change in consumer behavior has a major impact? Doesn't that mean that little to moderate actions have radical impacts on mitigating peak oil?

Relatively little change in consumer behavior has a major impact short-term on price, because you get about a 15% change in price for a 1% change in demand relative to supply.

But the crash in our economy isn't really a relatively little change in consumer behavior--our manufacturing, for example, is grinding to a halt. Our diesel consumption has dropped to negative 4.5% yoy, and that drop has been over just a few months. If I remember correctly, it was up 2ish% yoy as of last summer.

The only thing holding the price up even as high as it is right now is 1.) the decline rate, 2.) OPEC cuts, to the extent people believe they will actually be carried out, and 3.) producer resistance. If you watch the markets all day, you can see pretty clearly that there is only trivial commercial demand in the markets right now.

The problem with peak oil is that as the decline rate gets higher and higher, reduced supply soon catches up to reduced demand. Then you have to find another way to reduce demand further. Essentially you wipe out low-utility (low usefulness) uses of oil and sustain high-utility uses of oil. The higher the utility of your remaining oil usage, the higher the price can go.

Or, you can do what we're doing in the U.S., and just shut down the lives of the bottom income tiers. Then low-utility uses of oil can go on cheaply among the upper economic classes. When supply gets tight again, just cut off the lives of the latest group on the bottom.

Peak oil is always a function of price and utility/politics in combination with geology, not just geology.

Smart, high-utility uses of energy will tend to lead to a steadily increasing price of oil and a better outcome for all people. Stupid low-utility uses of energy will tend to lead to low oil prices and a steady increase in impoverishment and misery. The one thing you're not likely to get in either case is an increase in oil supply, which is why it's called peak oil.

You mention buying out of the money calls. The thing you have to realize is that you're betting not only on the reality of peak oil, but more importantly on what the key players in the poker game will do in response to peak oil.

As far a peak oil goes as noted by a number of posters if we are reasonably correct about depletion rates and assuming that if prices rise again they won't spur as much development we can be pretty certain that peak oil production is now behind us. Other posters noted this. More worrisome is actually Natural Gas which is the real problem. Its suffered the price drop and most new NG sources have high depletion rates. Other posters have noted this.

Understand that we where running flat out to stay on a plateau any pull back in extraction efforts for both oil and NG should create a wedge that we won't be able to overcome.

Next whats important is the change in demand and this one is really hard to calculate esp going forward into the future. In my model collapsing industries play a large role in the decline in demand. Thus the collapse of the general construction industry played the predominate role in actual demand changes since 2005. Residential Real Estate is effectively dead further changes in the number of homes constructed will have little effect on oil usage going forward. The associated pyramid of support industries is still collapsing. However countering this we are seeing buying pick up in areas that have dropped into the affordable price ranges. Plenty of demand seems to exist for houses that are priced withing traditional 3X income price ranges. This will place support under some of the associated housing industries. Commercial Real Estate is just now starting to really crash and it really has no support as it goes down expect a further increment in reduced demand.

The next industry thats going down is of course the auto industry again as it collapses it will remove a increment of demand.

Now these are generally big ticket industries in the sense the products are expensive and financed with long term debt and they fall the financial industry takes a huge hit and the nominal GDP drops like a stone. Defaults on these expensive items as you have seen are bring the financial industry to its knees. The fact we where in a large bubble simply amplifies the effect.

However a counter current exists that will amplify over the next few years. As consumers pull back from purchasing big ticket items their cash flow situation improves dramatically.
Where I live in California the difference between purchasing a home and renting it is 2000 dollars a month. Thats a lot of money lots of places have varying degrees of fairly extreme differentials between owning and renting. And in a lot of places rents are falling as the combination of people attempting to hold real estate and get some cash flow and unemployment flood the rental market. Thus even as housing prices fall the ability to profitably purchase a house and rent it falls. Also of course a lot of the newer homes are McMansions which make poor rental properties.

In any case although at first we see a pullback in Consumer spending what we should see as the stretched out consumer repudiates its current long term debt and refuses to take on new debt beyond his means is a increasingly good balance sheet. Their ability to purchase small consumer goods improves and day to day living becomes manageable for most.
Maxed out credit cards are a big problem but generally if someone defaults on their housing debt they will default on their credit cards and move to cash. This dash to cash makes it difficult to track the status of the economy but overall even as we continue to get dire info about the economy the consumer is rebuilding his ability to purchase items that don't require debt.

So wither demand ?
Well it seems that as the collapse of housing construction, commercial real estate and the auto industry fade then we are left with a economy that spends a lot less money but its not clear that demand has changed that much. The consumer still goes to the mall but buys one item at half price vs filling the car with junk. The wealthier consumer buys junk in the mall and not a house etc. The poorest go to discount stores and into the cash economy of used goods and becomes difficult to track.

And of course as I said earlier as housing becomes affordable all evidence is that purchasing picks up. The biggest problem with housing is simply affordability.

So using this model of collapsing industries what we see is a large slowdown up front as the big long term debt based industries collapse some permanent demand destruction then a increasingly robust "day to day" economy form certainly spending a lot less money but with demand changes for oil difficult to determine and basically flat as you take into account all the factors.

So in my opinion given today price the trend of falling production is pretty much set in stone. While the purchasing power of the consumer for small ticket items is improving thus their ability to handle expensive gasoline prices is actually improving not declining as they reduce the amount of long term debt they carry.

That seem to be the big picture trend and price will be determined as the supply and demand curves shape up. Right now they could literally be anywhere on the curve the uncertainty is enormous and worse given the financial problems a total collapse is a real possibility at the moment these expectations coupled with a obvious short term glut in oil that is still being worked through will control prices under the short term. Although hard to calculate one would think that given the chance of effectively the end of the world as we know is now on the table it would have a big damper on all markets. Fear uncertainty and doubt are at the moment the biggest driver in all the worlds markets not just oil. A lot of people are claiming speculation but its deeper than that many transactions that are reasonable in a stable economy are not happening right now. Low risk transactions that are profitable for all parties and make sense by any standard business metric that are not bubbly are failing to occur. I lived through the dot.com crash and I say the same thing happen companies with excellent cash flow paying customers and good products where denied credit along with the most ridiculous ones. The baby was thrown out with the bath water.

This will clear over time.

And back to supply and demand everything I can find thats credible points to demand and supply being basically in balance in general on the demand side the economy seems to have retreated to 2003-2004 levels relentless population growth serves to buffer the underlying demand for commodities used in day to day living making further drops difficult globally.

From this current article.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4875
This gives a demand change of 75 mbd of oil to about 72 mbd. Thus about a 3mbd glut if you will from maximum production. From current levels of about 73 mbd the remaining glut seems to be about 1mbd.

Looking back at historical prices.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_...

You can read off the price for 2003-2004 to be 32-42 dollars a barrel. Thus my guess that demand is down to 2003-2004 levels matches very well with current prices and current supply. And in 2004 we where seeing steep increases in production on the way up.

But now we are on the down slope so the difference between < 50 dollar oil and some unknown price point is a glut of 1mbd. This is well within the ability of OPEC and Russia to remove from the market if so they should be able to set the oil price at any level. The downslope will not match the upslope. In time given that investment in oil has slowed one would expect this gap to narrow and the need to curtail production to get a price to lessen.

The big variable is how low can demand fall from where its at today ? Using my above arguments I'm saying that its probably already in the flattening stage and further demand is more robust going forward since as daily expenses arise more consumers will simply defer purchasing big ticket items such as homes and cars and others will continue to default.
And again relentless increases in population will serve to bolster demand for food and oil.
Various government actions to prop up economies should prevent collapse in most areas.

Looking back to past postings I predicted we would see a sharp drop in oil production starting in 2008 on the order of 2-4 mbd without regard to price or any other criteria.
This prediction is impossible to figure right now given the recent economic collapse.
I also predicted our economies would founder this year. I'm not the only one who saw that coming and one could argue I got lucky. However we have the nasty problem that if I was right about a steep drop in oil production then we are in for a very nasty surprise in 2009 we quickly go from a nominal glut of about 1mbd that can be controlled via OPEC cuts to real supply shortfalls.

Now whats really interesting to me at least is this fits perfectly with my overall model of complex systems in collapse they will work to make their true state impossible to determine.
This means the world will never really know when we transition from a price level determined by OPEC production levels and one determined by real declines. The transition is perfectly hidden. This ability of complex systems to somehow manage to hide their true state is astounding yet seems to be a real and common result.

What we may have witnessed is the (short- to- medium-term) end of demand as the driving force in oil pricing. Prices soared because demand was bumping up against what could physically be produced.

As we enter this little correction (or decade-long crushing depression, if you prefer) demand has slacked off a bit and the rate of decline in demand is (briefly, I believe) exceeding the rate of decline of production.

My personal opinion is that a lot of the "low-hanging fruit" of discretionary oil consumption has occurred already. Some of that may actually reverse in the face of low fuel prices - not that people are going to line up to buy new gas-guzzlers, but they may drive more discretionary miles with that cheap gas in the vehicles they already have. They are probably already foregoing that plane trip to Grandma's house for the holidays. Business air travel has already been axed, all for reasons that extend beyond ticket prices.

New declines in demand will be mostly driven by continued contraction in the real economy. Any turn-around (however short-lived) in the economy will necessarily involve an increase in demand, which will butt up against constrained supply.

The peak of all liquids production may now be behind us, but until decline catches up to reduced demand we will see above-ground factors (such as OPEC production cuts, and how well they are enforced) play an even greater role in determining prices. I, for one, think this is a matter of less than a year, but what do I know?

Shawnott,

People, especially the media have a tendency to focus on the wrong aspects of the issue. Even today the media is still focussing on the PRICE of oil and gas, not on the productions figures. Everyone has their own theories and arguments to explain why we are seeing oil prices dropping drastically.

My own opinion is that we've already hit peak oil. Remember that Peak Oil isn't about prices. It's about rate of extraction. Peak oil merely states that once we hit our peak extraction rate, we'll never hit that rate again and it will decline relentlessly. This is based on geological and technological contrstraints. The price we see in the market place is a factor of many more things. Supply and demand being the main forces. Over the past year, as geological contraints limited the daily extraction of oil, there was more demand for oil that could be supplied. As a result prices spiked. Since oil=energy and economies run on energy, prices across the board shot up. The financial crisis we are in happens because we've mixed an economy based on perpetual growth with an environment that has real physical limits. As we approached the physical limits for available energy, the global economy hit a brick wall. There were some other things going on with our economy that make this situation worse. Those traits, such as the housing bubble and Madoff were there for years. Peak Oil exposed them. So now we're in a worse situation because other large problems have come to the forefront as well. Our financial system is effectively bankrupt. I believe that is why they Treasury is refusing to release detailed accountings of the bailout monies. If the FOIA suit wins and they actually release the truth, that will most likely disclose to the world that we're insolvent.

As you look over the oil production data in the coming years, I'd be very surprised if you ever see the daily extraction rate surpass the record high that was achieved in the past few years. What happened is that businesses realised that they couldn't remain profitable with energy prices so high. Many of these businesses have folded or have made drastic changes/cuts in their operations. These operational cuts have translated into lower demand for energy. As the demands for energy drops below the available supply of energy, energy prices fall. The changes that were made in operations are not something that can be undone overnight. Everyone is weary of falling into the same trap again and thus are not ramping up production to take advantage of the cheaper energy prices. OPEC can announce all the cuts they want. The real productions number out there will determine what the market price is. Also, the more they ramp the price up by cutting production, the more demand for oil they'll destroy.

If we do see a "recovery" in our economy, the oil prices will rise again. But because we've already hit peak oil, we'll already know exactly where the limits are. In the long run, our economy is doomed because it can only remain healthy if it perpetually grows. Even if we magically solved the energy problem, some other contraint would take it's place....Peak metals, peak food, etc.

So to summarize, peak oil is a function of geologic and technologic constraints. It's about the maximum extraction RATE.

Prices are a function of supply and demand. The RATE of extraction can affect supply, but when there has been so much demand destruction, you'll see prices drop, regarless of peak oil.

TS

How they dropped so fast is because they went up so far due to speculators, it drained final dollar from American pockets so we car pooled, bought higher mileage cars, drove less, took mass transit that we dropped use so much oil
price dove. Don't think it's that low as it's not at $40/bbl and likely to hit $30/bbl soon.

A basic thing in economics is not to kill your
customers economy which the skyrocketing oil price was a large part of.

Hedge funds, speculators are what ran the oil price up in the first place. Then getting out at the peak and those who were not quick enough now selling to recover something has driven the price down.

Other factors too like the banking, mortgage mess happened the same speculator way sadly all at the same time.

If he is up for debate I am sure there are many educated TOD posters, scientists, geologists etc that he can debate with.

The question is, would he be open minded to change and have a fair dialogue? Are we facing skeptic or a denier? At least we have a chance with a skeptic, they are open to new facts, ideas and are willing to change when presented with new facts (flip flopping?). With a denier there is no chance.

Obama has stated on multiple occasions that this is not the time to get complacent about oil or energy just because we are currently experiencing a glut. The fact is that we will continue to be highly dependent upon foreign, including Middle East sources of oil, regardless of whether or not we have reached or will shortly reached peak oil production.

Even if Holdren is now skeptical about the short term arrival of peak oil, this changes little if we agress with Obama that we still need to cut down on consumption and pursue alternatives.

Regardless, of course, a large majority of the American people will become complacent, and Obama will have to move forward on conservation, efficiency, and alternatives despite the lack of push up from the peeps. Obama stated recently that we cannot repeat the mistakes of past Presidents, that this time we really need to do something to reduce our dependence. Given all his other priorities, I am skeptical that this time we will really, really take oil and energy seriously. Politicians respond to pressure; so if he actually follows through on his promises without the pressure to do so, it will take a heroic effort on his part.

I don't see why you think Holdren is a poor choice. I doubt that he is a skeptic on Peak Oil.

Here's a quote:

"The world is not running out of energy, as there are tremendous resources remaining of fossil fuels, uranium, and renewable energy in a wide variety of forms," said Holdren. "But, we are running out of cheap, easy, and accessible conventional oil and gas... and running out of the capacity of the environment to absorb energy's impacts without unacceptable consequences."

Holdren said that world leaders and industry must immediately begin to explore new, cleaner energy sources because "the world is running out of time to lessen the impacts of climate change."

"The energy system has a tremendous amount of inertia in it," Holdren said. "If you want a different energy system by 2050... you'd better start to change it now because the turnover time of energy facilities is typically 30 to 50 years."

Here's a couple of links (which might be behind a paywall?):

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/1218holdren.shtml

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/1029barnard.shtml

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/1227smithsonian_energy.shtml

E. Swanson

$13.4 billion more of tax payer money is now gone. This is a temporary fix that will only last a few months, then it will be Obama's problem to worry about. As long as we keep rewarding bad decisions, CEOs will keep abusing the system.

Clearly the Big 3 car companies had no long term strategy, and were caught off guard by high oil prices. If they had looked ahead and built energy efficient cars, they would still be in business now. However, Americans in general do not think long term, so suffering is inevitable. People will not buy fuel efficient cars as long as gas is still cheap at $1.50 per gallon.

Some web sites are now reporting $17.4 billion! CNN says $13.4 billion.
Where did the extra $5 billion come from?

As distasteful as it was, the short-term bailout seems right to me. This plan doesn't settle anything, it just kicks the can down the road three months to let the Obama administration deal with it.

If Bush at this late date had made a decision with grave long-term implications - either bailout or bankruptcy, the Obama administration would have no commitment to the plan yet be stuck with the fallout. Obama will have to deal with the problem in the long term, so he should probably be the one to make the decision about what to do.

How much would you like? Enough to buy a new car? a new house? to save your job? How would you become less likely to need a bail out in the future? I don't want you coming back in 3 months asking for more. Show us a reasonable plan.

Do you need a bail out because you are sinking or is it to get you out of jail while awaiting trial? If the latter what are the charges?

So what are we supposed to do? Voluntarily pay more now so that investments can be made in oil projects for oil that we can also pay more for later? In any event, most of this money will flow out of the country. Billions of dollars are being saved right now that would otherwise be spent in support of foreign countries and large corporations. In the long run, the amount of oil available for export to use will decrease regardless of how high the prices are. Perhaps part of the billions could be spent on making us less dependent upon oil. Or has all that money been sucked up by the financial institutions?

On a personal level, invest in a car with better gas mileage now and avoid the rush later. Most people will wait until the prices go up again, then start thinking about personal investments to save or create energy.

Probably they have teamed up with Rumpelstiltskin to develop a process to convert CO₂ to oil.

EDIT: Population overshoot isn't the problem, consumption overshoot is. Man can just be as happy with less. We dealt with scarcity for most of humanities existence except for the last 80 years. There is so much waste and needless consumption. I strongly believe that America could power down to 2.5 million barrels per day and still retain a good quality of life. Intelligent thinking can get us there.

VK it is not an either/or situation. You have both overpopulation AND overconsumption. Kenya, as well as the rest of Sub-Sahara Africa is desperately overpopulated. They are consuming so much bush meat in order to stay alive that they are diving may species into extnction. All Africa's great apes will soon be extinct because they are being killed for food.

Also you simply are missing the big picture. True, we do consume way too much and true we could be happy with much less. However all that stuff we consume employes millions of people to produce it. If we did not consume so much stuff we would have ove 50% unemployment because people that produce that stuff would be out of a job. And that is the case all over the world.

And it is the case especially in developing countries. In China, as mechanized farming drives people into the cities, they are employed producing stuff for Americans and Europeans to consume. If we stopped consuming they would be in for a real rough time. Ditto for India, Bangladesh and most of the rest of Asia.

The world is deep into overshoot and no amount of "return to the earth method of simple living" will prevent massive starvation in the next quarter to half century or so.

A lot of small and large banks are smart they diversified by investing in multiple commercial real estate ventures generally targeting the high growth bubble areas and new subdivisions.
To further ensure they would lose a lot of money in different ways hotels where also a hot investment choice.

And to ensure that they where not over extended in commercial real estate most of the rest of their loan portfolio was to builders building the subdivisions where the customers for the new strip malls would live.

So don't worry your bankers aver very smart and understand how to diversify to make sure the risk was distributed amongst several bubble markets.

Commercial real estate is next to tank, no doubt - buy SRS.

A bit of poetic justice that, when the world economy can get so hung up on an expensive birthday party for a non-materialist.

Someone should tell O'reilly that in that 'War on Christmas', that Christmas might be planning a counterattack.

Who would Jesus foreclose on?

The trade deficit is the bubble of bubbles. The trade deficit grows because the US does not manufacture and export as much as it imports by a wide margin. The money is 'recycled' back to the US through investment. This 'recycled' investment is basically an expectation of future productivity of the US economy, yet the relative productivity of the US economy keeps dropping. The only way I can see reversing the trade deficit tide is for US consumption to drop significantly below US productivity. This will be major painful and it might take decades to reverse the tide, especially since US productivity is dropping along with US consumption, or even faster than US consumption.

Fusion and hydrogen? You just showed that you aren't any smarter than the folks you are complaining about. Maybe you are just too young to know that fusion has been only 10 years away for the last 40 years. The same with hydrogen. Even if we had a working fusion reactor today consider how long it would take to replace the thousands of power plants in the world. For 50 years we have known how to build thorium floride reactors which produce only short lived actinide wastes and have failed to do it.

There has been discussions about the trade deficit in the past. As for why we run up such big deficits it is because that is what Wall St wanted. Wall St has repeatedly shifted centers of manufacturing from first the northern Rust Belt, closed shop, good wage states to southern, right to work for less, low wage states. From there they moved manufacturing to Latin America. When they formed unions they moved to Asia. They really like China because its dictators make no bones about killing dissidents like free union organizers. All in the name of free trade. We have these trade deficits because we no longer export enough manufactured goods to offset our oil imports. All the while Wall St has profited in the trillions.

There isn't any.

to eat everything in the Petri dish

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained.

- Mark Twain, Notebook

There isn't any.

Isn't it obvious?

The highly evolved flying dinosaurs used their telepathic powers to capture our primitive knuckle dragger brains so that we could be fooled into digging up all the oil and coal, dumping it into the air. They did this by convincing us that by driving around in circles in fast machines, we too would live like the flying dinosaurs. The resulting emissions would warm the Earth so much that the other remaining land dinosaurs could attack and eat all the lethargic warm blooded mammals which replaced the previous populations of ruling dinosaurs millions of years ago when the Ice Ages made the Earth too cold. I expect that the most cold blooded killers will win out, as usual...

E. Swanson

An easy answer VK: the meaning of life is what you define for yourself. Just look at the diversity of answers you've gotten so far.

Kurt Vonnegut asked a slightly different question:

"Why are we here?"

He said that "My son the doctor" replied with what Vonnegut accepts as the answer.

"We are here to help each other through whatever this is."

A slightly different way to approach the meaning of life comes from novelist Walker Percy, who -- paraphrased -- put it like this:

The only question facing each of this is: "what am I going to do between now and whenever I die?"

These seem to me to be important clues about the nature of our existence.

I usually feel that we have reached Peak Wisdom over and over again, but every now and then, some bubbles up from the phenomenological landscape.

The universe is a ying yang of opposing forces. Energy, through entropy, attempting to dissipate, and mass, through gravity, attempting to coalesce. Life is the Universe's attempt to use complexity to achieve a sustainable balance between these forces.

OK, that may not be right, but it does discuss energy and sustainability, and thus is at least on topic for TOD.

Old geezer reply so disregard. I've had some time to think about this question. I have the stars at night and the wind in the trees, that's my standard answer. If you really want answers you must look at the stars at night. With your own eyes, and your own thoughts. We can see them differently, and be looking at the same sky But this is TOD so I need to go further. The meaning is the moment. Each one stacked on the next. They are very hard to catch as we think in a linear fashion, always looking forward to the next moment, not studying the existing moment.

We all have our moments and they define us. Births and deaths, we get those but there are times when we are not in what I call the "now", and we do not see. we think, we conjecture, we discuss, we plan, and yet we are not present as you might say. TOD does seem to miss "now". All about external forces and not what you muster within.

The meaning of life means something different to everyone, for me it is the birth of my children, the pine bough on the rafters of the house I built, the first fire in a chimney I built. I've built new for generations.

Moments, the dog, meeting the school bus, and running and protecting the kids in the woods.

40 below windchill and the mountain top.

Snuggling the one you love. That just perfect time.

Just sitting here petting the cat.

A touch of Jim beam after a long night.

Peace to you all.

Don in Maine

Life is a roll of the dice. Everything is random. Even if you believe in a purpose to life, and a 'purposeful agent' aka god, his existence is random, too. Ever wonder where god came from? His existence, or lack thereof, is random too. The first act of creation was to roll the dice.

But the question sure is fun.

Jon.

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely
in a well preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out,
shouting "...holy shit ...what a ride!"

- George Carlin

This act may be used as an convenient pretext for the Obama administration not to do anything about it. Being from a coal mining state I strongly doubt Obama is eager to impose pollution controls on coal; moreover he has been an open supporter of the "clean coal" boondoggle during his campaign. After this memorandum, he well always be able to pin it on Bush and his legacy afterwards.

The same section that allows Paulson and friends to do what they have done with "our" money. John

What this is about is the lengthy rule making procedures which Congress has imposed on the executive branch. To change the rules developed by one administration means restarting the rule making process which could take several years or new legislation from Congress which could take even longer considering the Senate filibuster rule. It is one of the ways we are more a republic than a democracy.

Could be referring to biodiesel and wind turbines or the gasification of biomass.

Simmons said all the same things on the recent round table w/ Hirsch on GPM.

Ominously, he said we have **weeks** to fix this problem.

All hell breaks loose sometime between now and, say the end of February, April at the latest. I'm thinking within 30 days of the inauguration... if we're even that lucky.

Cheers

You cannot edit a post once it has been replied to.

So far this month the highest rate for a 4 week T-bill was .09% and the lowest was -.01%.

Daily Treasury Bill Rates

Maybe someone could answer for me.

I don't understand why companies facing de-listing are unwilling to do reverse stock splits to bring the price back into listing requirements. Sure it will fall some more but so what better to be listed with a tradeable value then on the pink sheets.

I suspect that whatever the reason that companies don't take this route will lessen and we will see a lot of reverse stock splits in the future.

Maybe someone can fill me in on why it seems to be the last choice a company would make.

In particular I've followed Sun Microsystems for some time who did a lot of stock splits during the .com years I've always felt if they did a 10:1 or 20:1 reverse split to better reflect the real company price and lower the volatility of the stock on a % basis they would be better off.

Hello Leanan,

Thxs for the info, especially on the org: 'America's Second Harvest'. IMO, Obama needs to be moving full-speed on creating 'America's First Harvest for these people: relocalized permaculture, full-on O-NPK recycling, and narrow-gauge minitrains and SpiderWeb networks to support this direction. This could put millions back to work 'ribcage' building combined with the millions rebuilding the 'spine & limbs' of Alan's standard gauge RR & TOD ideas.

For Optimal Overshoot Decline and Minimal Undershoot: millions of wheelbarrows & bicycles are far better than lots of machete' moshpits. I hope Obama sees the need to move 60-75% of the postPeak workforce in this direction, but my Jay Hanson Thermo/Gene Collision background makes me very doubtful.

I would love to see my Phoenix hand-dig sixty miles of underground narrow gauge track just as Chicago did back in the late 1800s, early 1900s. When A/C gets too expensive for most people and companies: people will flock to travel/work in cool areas underground. Recall my earlier post where, as a young man, I worked in an uninsulated, uncooled building--after the end of a hot summer shift: my clothes would be totally soaked with sweat and exuded salt. It would kill me in short order if I had to do that kind of physically-exerting work again with no prospect of cool bedtime sleep for recuperation.

This was a pretty good job back in that recession. Prior to that I had an even more tiring job: I had a shoveling job in the blazing sun removing wet-mud & silt that was piling up underneath a rock & materials company's conveyor belts [with some underground]. For those that have never tried to shovel sucking silt: imagine a fifty pound weight added to the shovel end to simulate the 'breakout force'.
Next, I had to heave this shovel load unto the top conveyor belt; about chest high.

It was such hard, hot, and dangerous work that I was required to periodically make my self visible to the dispatcher in the yard tower. I had no car back then either: I pedaled many miles daily too [north central Phx to Litchfield]; even more on the days I had to also pedal to night classes at Az State University in Tempe.

So far the videos load up extremely fast even for dial up users like me.

TS

I think this is THE BIG QUESTION regarding oil prices. Answers please fom you all TOD experts.

Ideally, you would have a consumer (such as SouthWest Airlines) on the opposite side of every producer for futures trades. But speculators provide the "grease" to make the markets work better.

It is an open question if producers or consumers have a larger presence on the oil futures markets.

Alan

As we have previously discussed, Yergin was predicting, in November, 2004, that rising oil production would outpace increasing demand, causing oil prices to fall back to $38.

What we have seen is declining net oil exports, flat crude oil production and a slight bump upward in total liquids (resulting from dying gas cap oil fields according to Simmons)--which forced prices up, in order to balance supply & demand, until demand fell as the economy contracted, especially in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Maybe they are ignoring the 9.1% annual decline rate of production from existing crude oil wells as reported by the IEA.

My server has been sporadic at best all week. I barely posted the above before it screwed up till now, which means it'll go shortly again.

I wonder if CERA simply believes that there has always been 2-3 mbd spare. To this they add the total OPEC cut plus projected cuts from July 08 to present of 4.4mbd, and bingo, it's close enough to eight. Which again denies any depletion of existing fields going forward, static demand, and instantaneous restart of any mothballed production. I know, too simplistic, but is it?

Hello IanSF,

Thxs for the link, I hope to get it read someday [just scrolled through quickly]. The USGS has some later info on our native western resources:

http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/west/projects/phos.htm
----------------------
..Concentrated initially in Southeast Idaho, this study is enhancing our ability to evaluate additional phosphate mineralization and to anticipate, assess, and mitigate environmental hazards, such as selenium toxicity, that are spatially associated with the existence and societal use (mining and reclamation) of the phosphate...

The organic-rich black shales that host phosphate also contain significant concentrations of potentially toxic trace elements, including arsenic, cadmium, copper, molybdenum, lead, antimony, selenium, vanadium, zinc, and others.

In 1996, several horses pastured near a phosphate waste dump in SE Idaho were euthanized due to severe selenium toxicosis. Additional selenium problems are documented. These problems have occurred despite detailed, multi-agency investigations undertaken in the 1970's for an Environmental Impact Statement on proposed mining, which suggested that toxic element releases would be unlikely because the "carbonaceous" system is "buffered."
---------------
These toxic concentrations are obviously an ancient artifact of the previous geology, and process filtering these undesired elements to supposedly 'safe, usable' levels certainly adds additional costs to the beneficiation process. Even with this process removal, global topsoil loadings of cadmium, arsenic, selenium, mercury, etc, have continued to rise, most likely from burning coal and other industrial processes. This is worrisome for us since we are the apex consumer of the lifeforms concentrating these heavy metals.

Mind reading is not my strong suit...LOLOL
Are you implying that he is completing his crackup...or dying? Perhaps he and Steve Jobs will soon be touring the Great Hereafter?

Ya'll...Need to relax....Pssst...One word....Algae

He's been traveling a lot, too. That can wear a person down quickly.

... I think it's called ageing.

Well gee, I guess anyone in the financial and energy industries has had a few good reasons to be worn down a bit lately. I hope Matt can find a little time to recharge....