Dr. Chu, Dr. Aleklett, and the Price of Oil
Posted by Heading Out on October 22, 2009 - 10:05am
There are a number of us who write about the situation in regard to the world supply of liquid fuels, and the future availability of those supplies. In general we began by gleaning our information from the internet, or each other, and from those relatively amateurish beginnings a community has developed to study the condition of “Peak Oil.” That community was immeasurably helped coalesce and grow by the conferences that began under the ASPO banner, with ASPO standing for the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. Kjell Aleklett began these conferences on the study of peak oil some years ago, and has watched the growth of the community (shepherding, as International President, where necessary) since then.
He has recently reviewed the papers given at the ASPO – USA conference in Denver, providing the type of coverage I would have liked to provide had circumstances been different.
Kjell is located outside Stockholm, in a University that I almost made it to earlier this year and has shown, through his graduate students' dissertations, that it is possible to acquire and publish a wealth of information about the condition of the various aspects of future energy supply that cast a relatively realistic view of what we might expect in the future. (And if I don’t always agree about some of the conclusions – that is, after all, the underlying basis of scientific discussion.)
I look at what he has been able to accomplish, and then I contrast this with the current U. S. Secretary of Energy, an individual who has the vast resources of one of the larger Departments in the United States Administration at his disposal.
The Energy Department's request for funding this year totaled some $25 billion. The imperatives of the Department are listed as:
• Support deployment and expand research of cost-effective carbon capture and storage,
• Accelerate technological breakthroughs with the Advanced Energy Initiative,
• Provide additional energy security expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
• Foster scientific leadership with the American Competitiveness Initiative,
• Advance environmental cleanup and nuclear waste management,
• Maintain the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile and continue transforming the weapons complex, and
• Work with other countries to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Today the Secretary noted that the rise in the price of oil to $80 a barrel was “making him nervous.”
Folk such as Dr. Aleklett have studied the real situation in regard to the future of oil. Based on detailed studies of the actual rate of oilfield discoveries and oilfield production individuals such as Rembrandt Koppelaar (ASPO Netherlands) have been able to produce high quality analysis of the reality of the global oil situation that has caught the attention of groups such as Global Witness, who have in turn produced a report “Heads in the Sand” that documents some of the issues that the global economy faces as future supplies of crude oil are unable to meet demand.
The evidence that forewarns of a problem has been out there for a long time. Sites such as The Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin have documented the evidence that has come to show that non-OPEC production of crude oil has already likely peaked, and the ability of OPEC itself to much increase their production beyond another couple of million barrels a day or so is in serious question.
There is, in short, a problem, and in the United States the responsibility for resolving that problem sits at the desk of the Secretary of the Department of Energy. Who with all due respect should not be surprised at all by the current rise in the price of crude, and the path that the price will take in the future, yet he is!
At least it would if he were paying attention. Unfortunately, however, the listing of the priorities of the Department – given above – show that peak oil or the related issues over the supply volumes and prices of natural gas – are not that great a concern. Climate change seems to be of much greater concern than the coming crisis in fuel supplies.
Even the British Government have recognized that, while making the politically correct genuflection toward the motif of global warming, that they are responsible for the ultimate fuel supply security of the British Isles, and have gone ahead and permitted more coal mines. Reality has a nasty way of intruding into the discussions of ideology and mandating actions that provide realistic, rather than merely ideological, answers.
Unfortunately at the moment the United States does not seem as well served by its Administration in this area, since the Secretary seems woefully unaware of the underlying fragility of the energy supply situation. Sweden seems better served in this regard, since Dr. Aleklett does provide information to that government, and they seem more aware of the problem, and the steps needed to meet the situation.
Our Secretary sees the problem in a different light
"We've repeatedly said what the world wants and needs is stable prices," Chu said. "They have been inching up recently and it's a little bit concerning."
Oil price volatility can also harm the alternative energy sector, Chu said. He said the fall in energy costs after the oil price shocks of the 70s and early 80s wiped out many clean energy companies.
To help stabilize crude prices, Chu said the administration is working to improve market transparency. In particular, he said the Energy Department is focused on teaching developing countries how to compile energy data.
Um, yes I know, this is one of Matt Simmons pet peeves – but you know what – I don’t think it is really going to help assure our future energy supply, which might, just possibly be something in his job description.
There is a meaning to the current rise in oil prices, control of which has now been passed to the OPEC nations, at least in the short term. If the Secretary is not aware of this, it would be extremely unfortunate not only for him but for the nation. This particularly the case if Dr. Chu's on-the-job training meant that he was unprepared when the next phase of this rolls around in the next year or so. Maybe in the meantime he might sit in the odd seminar at Uppsala.
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Looking at the US DOE goals above, the Energy Secretary appears to be responsible only for reducing fossil fuel use in the US and replacing it with nuclear energy.
Dr. Chu is, therefore, likely very happy that oil is above $80 per barrel again. He would be even happier with oil above $150. It achieves his Departments goals.
The Secretary appears to have no responsibility for keeping fossil fuel prices affordable or low.
There is a mention of "Accelerate technological breakthroughs with the Advanced Energy Initiative". When I look at the booklet describing the initiative, it has these goals:
So, in total, the goal is to maintain BAU, one way or another. I see hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is still on the list!
Aren't energy prices unstable because we are at a transition point between declining abundance of liquid fossil fuels and the less abundant supply of "alternative energy" sources?
Prices only remain stable when supply is abundant relative to demand.
Until alternative energy sources become abundant, price volatility will continue and may even increase.
Gail wrote;
One should note that the vehicle fuel economy standards have been accelerated to 35 mpg by 2016, instead of 2020, much less left completely unchanged like the GOP wanted. Yes, much more should be done, but even at this point the political opposition was screaming that millions of jobs would be lost, so unless the country becomes a dictatorship, we can't expect our leadership to make us all act like grownups.
We need to be better at communicating the situation to both the leadership and the electorate.
The booklet is dated February 2006.
If one looks through the web links, it is hard to find anything recent. Has anyone else been able to discover current objectives?
You mean the administration reneged on its promise of high tech, timely transparency. I'm shocked.
That's some list Gail - is this why you are so dooooomerish?
If you guys are going to use all your energy making "fuel", then you are well and truly burned. This is even worse than the UK governments agenda.
_
Circumstances are driving events, not planning or policy. Chu and the rest of the Obama team may be well- meaning, but they are far too late off the mark. Nobody seems to ever think outside the 'vehicle' box.
At this point there are three outcomes; oil prices will rise, forcing the hands of central bankers to raise interest rates to prop up currencies. Oil priced is dollars is the laggard so simply 'catching up' the dollar to other currencies will add almost $10 to the price of each barrel.
Raising rates would be the undoing of last- year's banking rescue. triggering the return of the banking/finance unwind.
Alternatively, the price will go up without central bank interference and and the economy will return to the condition of generalized recession on top of the effects felt already. This will trigger a flight to dollar liquidity as was the case last summer; the dollar will rise again and oil prices will finally plummet back to ... $40 a barrel. (Higher highs and higher lows.)
A third option is the dollar will rebound to a higher level against the euro because it is oversold and oil prices will retreat below $80 as a consequence. A large part of any outcome lies with currency speculators (and central banks which are in cahoots with them.) Keep in mind that + $50 is wreaking havoc and that a more lurking @ $70 is just as deadly as high rates or $150 oil.
In any evert, 'for the good of the people' is nowhere to be seen. Welsome to Las Vegas!
:)
PBa (Lead-Acid) will do this already. Next!
I don't see lowering the price of carbon as the right action.
Price rise slows usage. And besides, the methane is bubbling...
I don't think we'll be able to cope with a methane atmosphere, if for no other reason that it burns in the oxygen. Until the oxygen is gone. Anyone know the lowest O2 level at which methane won't burn? Is it below what humans can breathe?
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/aug/30/troubling-bubbles/
WTF?
How is it possible that someone with a Nobel prize in physics and his ancestry could be unaware of the truth?
His parents are Chinese,They studied at MIT, his father studied chemical engineering, his mother economics, and his great-grandfather studied civil engineering at Cornell.
He is either lying outright or under considerable pressure to toe the party line and keep his mouth shut.
Yeah, I'd be nervous too!
I suspect most of the comments today will reflect FM's point above: 1)Is Dr. Chu lacking a basic understanding of the situation (as most at TOD view it)? 2)Does he see the problems ahead but considers them minor/controllable compared to environmental concerns? 3)Does he understand exactly what risks we face but has to follow a politically directed position?
Which ever the situation might be I see no potential for change until serious events develop...what ever "they" might be. Even then we'll see a period of denial/punish the guilty IMHO. This thread will certainly be a good opportunity for many to vent their frustrations. I think TOD serves as a valuable tool for such conversations. I'm sure many of our friends/family are glad they don't have to bear the brunt of our rantings.
LOL! I'm sure my family and friends have even stopped opening my emails and reading the links I send.
At parties, I fell like a sheepdog herding sheep--people form clusters and move away from me when I approach them.
you paint an ugly picture and the truth hurts..., why not simply kill the messenger??? or simply ignore him.
There is a truism which I think applies to Dr. Chu's comments:
Dr. Chu has lost sight of the fact that he needs to drain the swamp, at which point most of his other problems will go away. As a result, his eventual fate is probably going to be a severe ass chewing.
The only thing I can say it is an improvement over the Bush approach, which was to deny that there was a swamp, and even if there was, there were no alligators in it.
Fmaygar,
I think it's safe to assume that he is toeing his party line-and there is something to be said for that in the short term-no immediate panic and economic implosion.
Of course this toeing the line probably means that barring a miracle the panic will just be worse when the truth does become obvious to the public.
We all have a lot of fun ridiculing the economicists but they do know a FEW things and the law of supply and demand seems to adequately explain oil current prices as far as I am concerned if we make one simple assumption:
The producers who are in a position of having to sell are not able to produce enough to force the price down and from what I read on this site the ones who MAY HAVE some reserve capactity can be numbered on the fingers of one hand with lots of fingers left over.
I believe it has become obvious to them that in the current situation thier oil will appreciate faster in the ground than any investments they could make with the money if they sell it.
I hereby predict that the the nom de plume (please excuse my spelling)"Westexas" will be better known and of greater interest to the people of this country that the name of the two most talented professional athletes COMBINED and rising fast-this within three years.
I come to this conclusion because I have been trying to seperate my own wishes and desires from the evidence and look at the whole situation as an in progress board game or war in which I have no interest except betting on the eventual outcome.
Say what you like about the last fifty years of American foreign policy-It looks as if our leaders-in the pocket of big biz or not, as you prefer,long ago recognized the reality of the energy situation and chose the "us" option when confronting the "us" "them " choice.
So now we are on the ground "the fustest with the mostest" and I suppose that we will remain there until it becomes impossible to stay-and no matter how high the cost, the cost of NOT KEEPING that oil flowing in THIS direction has been deemed far higher in Washington.
There are those who believe that the local people can drive a super power out of a third world country.I refer them to the Chinese policy of getting rid of thier opium policy, the soviet policy of forced collectivization of thier farms ,the nazi policies for getting rid of the Jews and Gypsies, etc.
Super powers lose fights in third world countries for one reason or two reasons only-fear of the consequences of escalation-drawing other major powers-and squeamishness.
When ts is really in the fan if it becomes necessary the air force will carpet bomb the areas having oil infrastructure with notices that everybody who does not leave will be dead, and start at one side or edge making them dead a few days later.
I realize just how barbaric this sounds but I can't see ANY political pary or administration allowing the American dream to crash and burn if it can be prevented by murdering a few million innocent people-there will be priests and pundits in plenty to reassure us that we have done the right thing and that it was for the good of the WHOLE HUMAN RACE.
If anyone has trouble accepting the possible truth of this scenario, I ask them to contemplate the effects of unemployment in this country at thirty or forty percent which could easily happen if there is a sudden crash in oil supplies as envisioned by Memmel and suggested by the ELM and shark fin depletion profile if the super giant fields in sand country do indeed deplete that thay way.
The people either die in riots here where the voters don't need television and the internet to see the carnage-or much more conveniently overseas.
I'm not saying that this WILL happen -but saying it WON'T is niave at best.
from wikipedia: Sources of electricity in the USA, 2006
many on tod like to talk about the shtf and falling off a cliff with pity for the ignorant and the unbelievers (and to be truthful, the dire warnings on this site have spurred me to take some precautionary measures), but if cheap electricity is still available for decades into the future, won't there be significant opportunity -- and importantly, a great deal of time -- for a purposeful nation-wide evolution to a new and less resource- and energy-expensive way of life?
Bert,
What might be possible from a technological pov and what will actually happen dealing with with the public is as far seperated as the East and the West.I myself am somewhat of a LONG TERM techno optimist.
But we have a rather spoiled boomer generation expecting it's old age handouts and a class of youngsters coming along who are entitled by birth to clean hands,dry cleaned clothing changed daily, big houses and flashy cars.
No politician or party will be able to stand against this once the crunch hits for real.
The short to medium term is where the shtf.
I hear all the people with a little or a lot of money yakking about helping out the less fortunate on a daily basis-but every dentistI know still charges at least a hundred dollars per hour netand my liberal friends who work for the govt never help me take a load if firewood to a crippled up and broke nieghbor-as they see it they have done thier part by being liberals and supporting food stamps and medicare.I'm not knocking that-they have done a lot but they have made ZERO PERSONAL SACRIFICES.
They and everybody else almost will be looking to the govt for solutions-and the only workable solution in the short term is the business end of the armed forces.
Conservation and effifiency initiatives if vigorously enough pursued could probably enable us to turn the corner and achieve the so called "soft landing" but I can't see such initiatives being carried out until after the lights go off at least a couple of times over a large part of the country-and it may be too late by then.
That makes sense.
A lot of us keep forgetting that our civilization is primarily supported by electricity and, in the US, that means mostly coal, NG and nuclear.
Oil is about transportation and foreign exchange. Period. That is laid out pretty plainly on the EIA website for anyone who cares to look. And transportation is the most incredibly inefficient part of our culture. Unfortunately mobility with wild abandon is probably more "expected" in this country than even clean hands and big houses.
And therein lies the rub. I can see pretty wild reactions to a long term shortfall in gasoline. I remember 1973 pretty well. At some level people can pretty patiently bear fuel rationing and a little bit of curbed "privelege". But I'm afraid there are more crazies in this country now than there were in 1973. And at some point, as we all know, a few crazies can make it bad for all of us.
And the kind of responses I expect from the government(s) will keep deferring the possibility of real solutions until a lot of people have really suffered and even more are really mad.
This is unfair. How is supprting social services that require higher taxes not a personal sacrifice?
Planned rolling blackouts. People have learned to not water their lawns on even days. They can learn not to run their A/C every other hour. Which is likely to make them plug up holes in their house. And buy a backup battery for the freezer. And maybe a smaller freezer. Etc...
There are lots of simple conservation steps often overlooked. I can't see here today/gone tomorrow coming to pass that quick.
Andrew,
As it happens just about every liberal friend I have obtains his living FROM taxes and rebates a little of his income-and every last one of them is overpaid in relation to what the same job pays in the private economy-of course none of them are bankers or mds or dentists.
Example-cousin delivers mail-earns approximately three times what a local dump truck driver earns.
Cousin -teacher-earns only forty thousand but that is in two hundred ten days with out the ying yang benefits-private school here- under twenty five housand with minimal benefits-I could go on all day-there is a reason there is a term "going postal" in our language and it ain't that govt doesn't look after its own.
So I am never impressed with liberal arguments coming from sources to turn the saying around "where the man must understand the truth to collect his salary".
I would be a "practical" liberal too if I could push for ten percent higher taxes in reasonable confidence knowing that I would wind up with a twenty percent higher salary ,and that is the general trend,but exaggerated for clarity.
These people except in rare instances never get dirty or sweaty on the job-mostly they never do any useful work at all, excepting teachers ,cops, firemen, etc.Our govt is about as productive a our banking sector-it shuffles paper and the more it shuffles the prouder it it gets of the "work " it does.Half the teachers don't teach and half the cops are so fat they can hardly get in and out of thier cars.Up until recently the firemen who do have serious jobs mind you-spent about eighty five percent of thier payroll time playing checkers and watching reruns-now they take thier trucks to every little fender bender in most towns.
I'm a believer in efficiency and conservation but the safety margins in all our essential systems is growing smaller by the year-unless really serious changes are made soon rolling blackouts and lawn watering bans will not get the job done and will not prevent real blackouts and water delivery failures.
Such measures are way too little and way too late in a deteriorating situation-sort of like terminating the cable tv and cutting out restaurants after losing your job with no savings-you still won't be able to make the house payment, the car payment, the credit card payment......
I hope I'm wrong...but if the economy continues to unravel and real conservation steps are not taken sooner rather than later....
If these things come to pass we should have plenty of short term warnings and I my guess is that they are still several years away if they do come.
I've worked construction, commercial fished, logged, worked assembly lines, tailsawed at mills, outfitted, operated equipment, but the hardest single day of work I had was the first time I substitute taught public middle school.
You ought get out and give teaching in the public schools a try if you think it is such a gravy train. In my neighborhood subbing only requires you have some sort of degree and don't come up real dirty when they run your prints.
Teachers work weekends and long hours before and after the classroom is full. I had a heck of a time trying to keep my 35 paid hours a week from topping 60 when I had classes full time. $40,000 isn't overpaying for that. $25,000 sounds like about $16 an hour (not counting the hours beyond full classroom time), good money in a worn out coal area maybe (that would be West VA, but I think you indicated that you were from western VA). Private school used to be run by priests and nuns in my neighborhood, don't think they got much more than an allowance. I don't think you would have got married folk to work for that. $25,000 a year barely pays rent, food and transport here (the cheap rent is for cabins without running water and they are too far out to make walking viable so a vehicle that will start and run consistantly at -20 to -40F becomes a necessary part of the equation).
I personally got out of teaching, 'digging ditches' paid my efforts a lot better. Teachers are more missionary than mercenary and that doesn't describe me very well. I have lived where the town fathers fought successfully for years to keep the minumum wage below $2.00 an hour, so I know about low wage areas, fortunately roots hadn't actually sprouted from my feet so I was able to find good areas that had decent pay--I believe that is how Virginia was settled in the first place was it not. Even if things get real tough some areas will be better than others (barring the breakdown of MAD that is), luck and temperment will allow some to get to them.
It must be another of those regional things. You are right that asking a government bureaucrat whether more taxes is a good thing is like asking a dairy farmer whether milk is good for you, but up in this part of the country that is pretty far from the dividing line between liberal and conservative.
The fact of the matter is: when it comes to services you gotta pay someone or they go away, and American Corporations have proven to be misers to an extent that would make Scrooge feel guilty without any ghosts needing to get involved.
This is contemptible. First, you are claiming all postal workers and teachers are liberals? Bull. I know from first hand experience. Teachers, as a group, are hardly liberal. I'd wager the opposite. Second, you imply those living off of government, i.e. taxes, are liberal. What a pile of crap! Third, *anyone* who thinks teachers are overpaid is a damned fool. There are no two ways about it. They DO NOT get overtime. They DO work very long days while school is in and they DON'T get all the time off that students get. 2 - 4 weeks less, generally. They DO pay for supplies, parties, etc., out of their own pockets. They do have to teach your children what you will not: how to be human.
Etc.
Keep to farming if this straw man BS is the best you can do.
Cheers
As far as teaching goes - I've been there and done that myself.Six years!Couldn't stand the bullshit any longer-went to work in a nuke.Personally I am one of the ones "who can, do".
I would refer you to the well known state of the schools in this country if you really think over half of teachers are teaching.I put in the ot myself-but so does the guy at the private school-and while many teachers do,most don't-not after they learn thier jobs.
You twist my words substantially-I never claimed that all teachers or govt employees are liberal-just that my acquaintances who are liberals are.
In the sixties and seventies the ed. establishment was prety well taken over by what can only be termed the current liberal establishment-less than ten percent of faculty in ed. depts are self identified conservative republican-teachers are taught liberalism in schools of education like little kids are taught Jesus in Sunday school-yes teachers are overwhelmingly liberal.Check the positions of all the education unions and organizations and who they vote for.
I farm part time mostly as a hobby-I could earn a better living as a school bus driver.My family used to earn a good portion of the family income from the farm-but there was always at least one full time outside job held by somebody in the household.
I will shut down the farm as soon as my Daddy is gone, except for maintaining it as a fall back position in case of teowacki.-it keeps him happy to see it running.And he doesn't use a computer so he won't see this.
But that wasn't my point- my point is that every single job locally available and most other places pays better for govt employees if we are talking about ordinary jobs-the myth of the poor helpless under paid overworked public servant doens't pass muster with me.
Not a single one of the ladies who work the offices at the govt complex where I pay my taxes has quit within memory.
I never said teacher cousin was overpaid-just that he is much better paid than a private school teacher.
If you think that govt employees don't have it made in the shade in comparison to private enterprise -except in mangement -you've got your head up your butt-people rarely give up a job in a govt office to do the same work in private enterprise-I have in been both places myself.
I have numerous friends- teachers-who have retired with govt pensions that are three to five times the pensions that local people earned working in private industry in this area.That is , for the ones who actually have pensions.If you will stop and think for a minute you might just come to understand how locals around here have come to view our "public servants" as our masters.
Im maintain social contact with lots of people-and when the chips are down, those who make thier living from govt BELIEVE in govt -especially as the self organizing effect gives them more and more power-in rural areas the best paid and most numerous single easily defined group of working people are generally the govt employees-certainly this is true here.And whatever one of them gets-they all get.
Starting with first class cradle to the grave medical insurance.
Half a dozen extra holidays.
And that pension.
They know how to vote to look after themselves.
But my rant was about the ever increasing tendency of people in general to take the position that they should not have to get involved PERSONALLY in righting problems and wrongs-that there is or should be "a program to take care of that".
The problem with such programs is that they take care of themselves first.All the social workers around here make more than I do currently-not a single one to my knowledge visits sick nieghbors on her own time.My former teacher buddies have pretty well made it clear to me that although they are retired they don't feel any need to help me take a load of firewood to my nieghbor who had a stroke and lives on food stamps and a disability check -after all there's a "program for that".
But all this is a useless digression to one side of what I wanted to emphasize-which is that our govt is terribly inefficient and not nimble enough to take the actions necessary to save US-meaning the citizenry in general-because it's primary driving incentives are to SAVE ITSELF-itself being, essentially , all the people who are part of it.
So we want the govt to fix our transportation problems in relation to gas mileage-but the govt belongs to Detroit and big labor in this respect.
The govt cannot and will not fix the problems with the schools because the teachers will not stand for thier monopoly being endangered.
The govt may not even be able to switch from the war on drugs to taxing pot-because the law enforcement branch and the criminal law indusrty has too big a stake in the status quo.
The govt is helpless to finance a hundred billion to build a new hvdc grid that could save many times its costs over it's lifetime because it is unable to quit passing out money to the banks "too big to fail"-I would rather think of them as too tightly entwined in an incestous relationship.
First, what you need to look at are the services currently provided by oil. Oil accounts for approx. 40% of world energy needs. The majority of that is used for transportation which is powered by over 90% liquid fuels derived from petroleum.
It has taken the better part of a century and an unimaginable amount of resources to build out the vast global infrastructure needed to build, service, and fuel the hundreds of millions of internal combustion engines that quite literally make the global economy go around.
What exactly would it take to completely retool all of that for electricity? And where exactly will that magnitude increase in electricity supply come from? On what time scale? At what cost? Despite the plentiful supply of gibberish about "alternatives" there has been a conspicuous absence of even remotely realistic answers to any of those questions. The sunk costs of our current system are simply too great, and the availability of resources (not least of which is time) simply too limited to affect change on the scale required.
Second, given those facts, what you need to ask is what are the likely consequences in the event of a near term decline in liquid fuel supplies? Or, more to the point, in the event liquid fuels soon become prohibitively expensive?
Will airlines fail?
Will the automotive industry fail?
Will expectations of continued economic growth collapse?
Will the over-leveraged financial system collapse?
Will industrial agriculture cease to be viable?
Will trucks stop rolling into your local supermarket?
Will a climate of fear drive hoarding behavior?
Will nations with commodity surpluses stop exporting?
Will military superpowers compete to lock up available supplies?
Did we already see a preview of some of these events after the summer of 2008?
Finally, what you need to consider is that our declining energy supply is only one of several global ecological crises that we currently face, all of which are driven by a combination of extreme overpopulation and gross overconsumption, and any one of which is capable of overwhelming the ability of our complex industrial society to effectively cope with it.
Not that we are in any way exceptional in that predicament, many other civilizations have collapsed for much the same reasons in the past, although not quite on the same scale that we have accomplished. Rest assured, however, that at some point in the distant future, when enough resources have been re-accumulated and enough wastes have been re-assimilated, another complex society will arise to do it all over again.
Cheers,
Jerry
Jerry what our civilization has accomplished is extraordinary. We almost fried ourselves depleting the ozone, we have managed to deplete several oceans worth of fish, deforest on a scale never seen before, change the world climate perhaps irretrievably in the next several million years, stockpile weapons that could extinct humans and most other creatures and leave the world a radioactive wasteland, etc. We sure have accomplished more than previous civilizations which only deforested and wore out land in rather localized areas before they crashed. One can guess then that our crash will also be a spectacular accomplishment, the biggest, most through civilization crash ever and the last one as well for planet earth. We are a very accomplished civilization. I do not believe another complex society will arise out of the radioactive ashes of this one and I sincerely hope that if humanity survives this crash, that no human ever try create another civilization. Read Canticle for Leibowitz, read Dereck Jensens Endgame
Thanks, sometimes I forget little details like nuclear annihilation.
And to think I was worried that someone would indignantly demand to know why I hadn't considered that solar satellites, thorium reactors, giant kites will save our asses; or why I was so willfully ignorant of the latest developments in some obscure and arcane aspect of behavioral science, brain chemistry, social evolution; or how I could be so pessimistically close minded to all of the super-duper-world-changing eco villages, transition towns, permaculture gardens, Amory lovin' hyper-cars...and so forth, ad nauseum.
Emphasis on the nauseum.
Cheers,
Jerry
I'm pretty confident that the promoters of electric cars have not thought through all the details, as witness this article on the Bloomberg site today: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aInA9qsgcNpU
On of the technical points they missed is that the utilities rely on low overnight demand to let their transformers cool down. If people recharge their cars overnight, the transformers will still be hot the next day and unable to handle the peak daytime loads without overheating.
I really don't think anyone should be surprised that substantially raising demand for electricity will bring higher electric rates. Of course the general public has no clue how cheap oil has really been so suprised they will be.
Maybe they can do a SolarLease from SolarCity, put in a home fuel cell or implement rolling conservation. Interestingly in the state of Pennsylvania for 30+ years they tried to move load to the evenings, that goes away next year. Is this due to overheating infrastructure?
Of course not. They want to take all the load during peak price time!
Well Bert we could have converted off of coal in the 1800's when it was obviously killing people and polluting the environment. Before then it was fairly obvious we where cutting our trees and and unsustainable rate.
And we can work our way forward. And what about population ?
Not once in the upward trajectory of our technical revolution have we ever stopped and done the things we could have done at any route on the path why stop now ?
The more I learn the more I realize its pedal to the metal right into the wall not only are we not going to stop we are going to try and run as fast as possible until the system blows up.
And worse given a world economy does not crash in a day as the entire thing is blowing up everyone will pat themselves on the back and talk about all the things we can do so we don't have to change.
For electricity how much of a industrial base is required to support our current electric grid ?
Whats its condition ?
How much to maintain and expand it ?
How about phasing out fossil fuel powered plants for real ?
Nuclear ?
How cheap will cheap electricity be in the future ?
It seems less that eight years ago the world was swimming in cheap oil. Times changed pretty quick. I'd argue that this confidence in a future of cheap electricity and even extensive grids is almost certainly misplaced.
Of course its almost senseless to argue that a real solution should consider expensive electricity and a fragmented grid unless we aggressively use our current abilities to future proof our electric grid.
If we do nothing except assume that cheap electricity won't be a problem in the future the only certainty is it won't be cheap and probably not available.
This is what you are so confident will easily allow us to avoid the problems of peak oil ?
http://www.electricityforum.com/news/oct09/Overworkedgridneedsagreensolu...
Real information about our grid beyond pretty pie charts is easy enough to find and its not pretty. The only burning question is which suffers massive failure first our crumbling highway system our the electric grid. Thats something I don't know how to answer its a close race.
And all of these issues we have ignored for decades don't go away just because oil runs more probable even keeping what we have now becomes impossible.
thanks for your thoughtful responses. as i said, i'm not "so confident [current electrical infrastructure] will easily allow us to avoid the problems of peak oil" (memmel). i confided parenthetically that i am taking precautionary measures as possible, hoping they are never necessary and that even though "a few crazies can make it bad for all of us," (jjhman) they won't have reason to.
i'll respond to a couple arguments in hopes of spurring further discussion. via that discussion, i aim to develop a clearer expectation and forecast about the nation's and world's future trajectory. i think, in the end, that's what we're all trying to do for ourselves... and then to act to respond in accordance with that forecast.
i think this is untrue. we use petroleum for lots and lots of other products (plastic, rubber, etc.), mainly because it has been plentiful and cheap... BUT I believe given some time, we can turn to vegetable products. will they be as cheap? no. will they be as available? no again. will people be able to make tires for bicycles? yes. will those tires last as long? perhaps.
exactly right! that's what we're all considering. my thinking is, many of these questions can be answered with 'yes'. then what? electricity buys us time, not infinite time, but a decade or two in which changes can be made. and in the case that major industries do crumble or collapse and food stops flowing, what will we do? many will be out of work and hungry. our government could (COULD) take a whole host of actions to provide stability. will it? i have a lot more faith in the current administration than the one prior, though that faith is tempered with what i believe to be healthy skepticism. instead of thinking about crying babies and roving mobs of machete-toters, i tend to think of government actions that could pave the way to a new and less energy-expensive society given major societal challenges. land giveaways? work for food programs? we have a ton of land. a ton of natural resources. a ton of ready labor.
and as for your post, memmel. dewd. i'm not so sure we're really on the same page. you talk about failing to convert away from coal, deforestation, population trends, crashes and blowing up, the highway system crumbling, the electric grid failing. i suppose if there is a theme to your message, it's...
i'm sorry for your hopelessness. i hope you're wrong. there is certain to be a great deal of pain and woe; perhaps we're seeing some of that now. i'm doing my best to think of actions that will as much as possible mitigate a decline into total societal oblivion.
for the moment, i've got to watch obama at MIT talk about energy.
Exactly wrong! By taking one paragraph of my original comment totally out of context all you've really done is vividly illustrated the rampant myopia that is in evidence here and elsewhere. By selectively ignoring the first question of "What electricity?" , and the third question of "What then of our global ecological overshoot?" you rendered your entire comment moot.
Just to be fair, I also believe we will achieve a "new and less energy-expensive society", but where we part company is our view on just how involuntary and painful that transition will be.
For example, here is one more thing to consider: What if we wanted to reduce the global population to the level last seen in 1980 which has been identified as roughly the point where we first overshot the Earth's long term carrying capacity. About 4 billion people, a number we have already almost doubled. Let us further suppose that given the severity of our ecological overshoot it becomes imperative to get to that 4 billion number in no more than another 40 years from now, or about 2050.
Guess what? About 100 million people would need to die EVERY YEAR for the next 40 years. That's roughly twice the number that died in all of WWII, a global catastrophe that lasted for several years. And let's not forget that extreme rate of death would only be effective if there were no babies born during that time. Not one.
Any volunteers?
Cheers,
Jerry
hey Jerry, i didn't ignore the first "question" (i tacitly agreed with its thrust.), and sorry, if by responding to issue number two i did some disservice to you. based on your tone, one might think i insulted you. strange. you asked "questions", which i answered in the affirmative.
i'm not suggesting our electrical infrastructure can be retooled to account for all our (growing) energy needs, but i'm not sure it needs to. i don't think we're living sustainably, so i don't promote the idea that we should go forward as we have in the past thirty, forty or fifty years. difficult circumstances spur action, innovation, legislation, cultural change, changes in expectations, changes in morality, changes in resource use, etc.
all i'm wondering is... if there were a significant rise in oil prices, maybe the country would not fall immediately into a deep dark chasm of anarchy. while some fit would hit the shan (as is happening now, as you pointed out), phones would still work. schools would still have lights and many will have heat. the toaster will still work. computers and email would still be available. tod, for example, will live on even after the price of a barrel of oil continues its terminal climb.
some critical services and capabilities will still be available even as capital (in the form of oil) is drained from our national/global economy.
OFM-You make some valid points, but the central problem is that this kind of strategy can only be carried out by a dictatorship or similar totalitarian regime. It is not a question of squeamishness- I'm sure Nixon wouldn't have blanched at a few megadeaths if he thought that the generals would carry out his orders and he could still be re-elected afterwards. The problem is twofold: first, getting the authority and/or public support, in a timely fashion, to commit war crimes on an almost unimaginable scale, and secondly, putting the troops on the ground to carry them out. You have to occupy and secure exclusion zones, and protect the ships carrying the oil. And you have to do it fast. No quagmires, just death on an assembly line basis.
I think that the situations that would provide public support for massive military intervention to secure oil supplies(like fuel and water depletion producing civilian shortages) are the same issues that make it impossible to carry such a mission out(And yes, it has occurred to me that a president might lie to start a war...but probably not on the scale you are suggesting, or with the foresight, intelligence, and ruthlessness to do it soon enough and in a thorough fashion. I think the current wars speak to these points.) I suspect that the EROI issues of military conflict (anybody done any economic analysis of this?)will become increasingly unfavourable as time goes by. There is a time lag between the theoretical signposts and public acceptance of complex problems like global warming and peak oil. I think that by the time this solution is acceptable to the public and politicians, it will be too late to actually carry out.
However, just because the US will probably not do these things doesn't mean someone else won't. My money is on the Chinese, because their political system will allow them to do it. The questions of re-election and public accountability just don't come up.
Canuck,
Your arguments are about as good as mine-as I pointed out I'm not predicting such a scenario, only pointing out that it is possible.
I agree that it will not come to pass so long as the US is still doing reasonably well maintaining itself as a working democracy without really and truly seriuos problems keeping the lights and heat on and keeping people housed and fed.
But it's easy for me to imagine a time when our leaders see chaos a few months away and a military solution as the only solution to the problem-aggressive war in the usual sense of the word.(We have invaded some oil producing countries but we still pay for the oil and are actually trying to train them and arm them so we can leave a friendly regime in charge-not that I'm optimistic about succeeding.)
Now I'm no military expert by any means but I like reading history and read a lot of military history.
I believe the guys who have actual expertise will back me up in the following.
Countries go to war over resources when the situation gets desperate because they feel they have no choice-and they go sooner rather than later mostly because the generals insist that LATER will be too late.
Second the losing generals have historically been criticized later with refighting the last (previous ) war using outmoded strategy and tactics .
Japan in WWII is a great example of the first general principle.
The southern armies in the American Civil War were guilty in the extreme of making the sercond mistake as when men were marched across open fields for long distances into fire from rifled arms, sometimes up steep hills.Such charges often succeeded in previous wars as the guns were not as accurate and took longer to reload but they were nothing more than suicidal against the better arms of the eighteen sixties.The Union generals made the same mistakes sometimes of course , but they could afford a war of attrition-the South couldn't.
If a super power not afraid of an escalation involving another major power wants to kill every body in a given country these days there is nothing to stop the killing-not if the POINT is to kill everybody.
Troops on the ground are obsolete unless the goal is pacification and governance.All that is necessary is that the superpower not be squeamish-a single neutron bomb will take out the entire industrial infrastructure of a good sized country. A few planes loaded with weed killer and equipped to spray it -or drop fire bombs on ripe grain-a few loads of smart bombs on the water and rail lines a few ships sitting outside ports making sure nothing comes or goes-
Noboby has anything to eat after a few weeks and only a handful of troops have been lost by the superpower.
A single tank can destroy a village in just a few minutes.
There is no viable way to defend against a scorched earth offense.Sherman figured it out a long time ago and broke the back of the southerners by this very means.
Modern military equipment if ruthlessly used is many times more destructive than the stuff used as recently as WWII.
I hope that that we will never engage in such a war of course.
But It seems to me that we should be aware of the fact that the technological rules
of war have changed and that the true capabilities of modern armies and air forces used ruthlessly are simply beyond the comprehension of the average person who has given such matters little thought.
Since nobody else mentions these possibilities in detail I point them out occasionally.
It would not do to get caught in a country on the receiving end of such a war-you would have only a very slim chance of getting out.
Of course launching such an offense would require some certainty that players not immediately involved but with substantial power and delivery systems would not find such launch a threat. How likely is that? Once the string is loosed on that bag, the winds will whip around in all directions, givers will receive. Aeolus' bag wouldn't have a thing on the one we have been keeping clasped.
I think the most probable outcome if a major power goes berserk is a combination of general economical collapse and multi polar MAD with nuclear and biological weapons.
General economical collapse since most of the world trade would stop and todays advanced production is much easier to sabotage then the production in nazi or sovjet slavecamps during WW2.
MAD with nuclear weapons worked during then cold war and seems to work for Israel and India versus Pakistan. About half of the worlds countries have industries advanced enough to build nuclear arms within a decade. We could get an extreme arms race if populations withouth MAD capacity have an increasing risk of getting eradicated.
The other realy scary MAD potential is biological weapons and they are more worrisome since the technology development trends to make it possible to build arbitrary organisms. Sects like Aum could for instance build variations on cereal funguses with future tabletop equipment if the trend holds.
Such a development would be extremely bad above the death and destruction in actual combat. The largest damage would probably be the wastage of resources on the arms race and the economical breakdowns pushing peple into powerty. Even the bad PR for nuclear power and advanced biotechnology would make mild MAD scenarios hurtfull for handling the transition period from fossil fuels to other fuel sources and habits.
This kind of scenarios dont make me a pacifist since having no self defence capacity encourages bullies. But the military should only be a small part of a healthy economy.
The most efficient local peace project is btw EU. EU is coherent enough to keep the members from hurting each other and might become strong enough to help protect major trade partners but I find it unlikely that EU could become strong enough for agressive war.
Magnus,You and Luke have done a pretty good job in my opinion of describing the extended consequences of a war such as the one I described.
Let's hope that mad continues to hold.
The deterrence power MAD is a heck of thing to have to rely on isn't it. It is even weirder if you look at it as a major contributor to overshoot, by keeping major growth stunting conflicts from springing up.
I would rather analyse the problem as a lack of aproriate tax incentives then a lack of medium scale war. And war is anyway not a way to save resources since they destroy them.
MAD is a crazy policy that perhaps due to luck worked to get us thru a couple of very dangerous decades. I would not want to see the world deteriorate back to such a situation if major powers turns a crazy as Stalins Sovjet.
I agree, going back is not an option to be relished. Here's to finding a way forward. To me things don't look as dark now as they did when ugly nuke aftermath shows ran on black and white TV--I was in early grade school, and they cast a very deep shadow. Under the desk attack drills when the sirens blasted didn't come until years later--around 6th or 7th grade (Cuban missle crisis time) when the most prevalent science fair project at my suburban Chicago school was the model fallout shelter. No, going back is not an option at all.
Totally wrong.
Those mass charges (the principle of concentration) won the battles. They were the 'secret' of Napoleon's greatest victories(like Austerlitz, Jena-Auerstadt, Friedland, Wagram-Vienna). Napoleonic armies were in the hundreds of thousands--US civil war tens of thousands.
His defeats at Leipzig and Waterloo were when he tried to knockout
armies before they could combine against him.
The idea was to route the enemy in the field.
Battles like Shiloh(A.S. Johnston), Franklin-Nashville(Hood), Antietam(Lee) and Gettysburg(Lee) for the South were all attempts to knock out the Union force. These were actually the right idea poorly executed.
Confederate attacks succeeded at Chickamauga(Bragg)against Rosecrans but Grant took command at Chattanooga and drove Bragg back with a series of well planned frontal attacks at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Earlier at Stone's River(the bloodiest battle of the war in percent casualties) Rosecrans barely beat back Bragg's assaults.
Union generals generally lacked the guts for frontal attacks until Grant and Sherman, leaving aside Fredricksburg(Burnside). Grant always sought to engage the enemy. Grant lauched bad frontal attacks at Vickburg and Cold Harbor and Sherman has a bad attack at Kennesaw Mountain. Grant viewed the Wilderness as a victory because he held off Lee's counterattack though at very high cost.
One Union general who didn't like frontal assaults was the timid McClellan who Lee despised--Lincoln finally fired McClellan after he let Lee escape following Antietam. Most Union generals were content to build up huge stocks of artillery and fortifications and just sit on their asses. OTH, Grant sent artillery back from the front because it slowed him down.
The only really good/aggressive Union generals were Grant, Sherman and Sheridan plus Farragut and Porter for the Navy. Meade was solid but lacked battlefield instincts. Many Union generals were politicians who didn't want to kill voters.
"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over." --W T Sherman
No, oldfarmermac is right. There was a major technological change during the Civil War - it was caused by the Springfield rifled musket. There were two factors involved - one was the vastly superior accuracy of the rifle compared to the smoothbore musket, the other was the Union's ability to mass produce them by the millions. With smoothbore muskets the rule of thumb was, "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes", but the Springfield rifles were accurate at 500 yards and lethal out to 1000 yards.
Both armies started out with a lot of smoothbores and few rifles, but the Union factories mass-produced millions of rifles during the war, while the Southern ones made about 1/100 as many. Rifles accounted for much of the horrific casualties of the Civil War because it took some time for armies to adjust their tactics.
The main mistake that Lee made at Gettysburg was to underestimate the lethal range of the rifles. With the smoothbore muskets previously in use, the Union soldiers would have gotten off one or two inaccurate shots before the enemy reached them with bayonets fixed. With rifles the Union soldiers got off seven or more accurate rounds, so the vast majority of Confederates didn't live to reach them.
Lee's attack at Gettysburg was the last of the Napoleonic-style charges. After that disaster, armies learned to dig trenches and keep their heads down.
You're suggesting men running into machine gun nests which is baloney.
The casualties at Gettysburg were almost the same (23000 each side)
despite Pickett's charge. After Gettysburg, Grant did not adopt trench warfare but launched the biggest attacks of the war against Lee, who fell back to trench warfare due to a lack of manpower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
At Antietam 12400 Confederate casualties versus 10300 Union casualties.
At Chickamauga, a Confederate victory 18454 CSA casualties versus 16170 USA casualties.
At Wilderness, 11000 CSA casualties versus 17600 USA.
There were few outright massacres/blunders--Fredrickberg, Cold Harbor, Franklin--but generals knew that to gain the initiative you had to knockout the enemy by hard fighting.
It's true that the South lost men they couldn't replace but Lee knew his only chance of winning was to get a Napoleonic victory which is why he invaded Pennsylvania in the first place.
Technology(new rifles) didn't win the US Civil War.
In many wars there is new and disruptive technology introduced which affects the course of the war.
Machine guns were World War I's disruptive technology, and accounted for much of the horrific casualties of that war. Two men with a machine gun could cut down hundreds of enemy soldiers in a short period of time. It made the frontal advance suicidal, but it took the armies a while to adjust to that reality.
The rifle was the Civil War's disruptive technology. It was much more accurate than the Napoleonic war's smoothbore musket, and as a result made the Napoleonic charge obsolete. The fact that the North could mass-produce them whereas the South could not also made a huge difference.
The Southern generals were arguably much better than the Northern ones, but in the end better tactics didn't help in the face of better arms and superior numbers.
Lee was doing well until Picket's charge, in which the Confederate troops suffered over 50% casualties. The South couldn't afford to take those kinds of casualties, whereas the North could. Lee was forced to retreat, marking the turning point in the war.
Other wars have their own disruptive technologies. In World War II it was the tank and the airplane. In the Iraq war, it is the Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Poorly equipped insurgents wiping out heavy tanks is an example of disruptive technology.
Superior Union numbers and roughly equal battlefield casualties meant there was a continuous drain on the smaller CSA army.
The generals on both sides were run by the politicians(Stanton and Jefferson Davis). The chief generals(Lee and Grant) were responsible for strategy which was decisive. Other generals weren't critical. Grant's division commanders(Wallace, McPherson, Sheridan, etc.) were as good as Lee's(Hill, Early, Longstreet etc.).
Technology was not decisive, manpower in the right hands was.
Lee was defeated at Antietam a year earlier which was probably the real turning point.
Grant's victories in the West needed a response--Vicksburg and Gettyburg were fought at the same time ~July 4 1863. Lee's plan was to invade Pennsylvania to draw troops from Grant. Four months after Vicksburg, Grant entered northern Georgia at the Battle of Chattanooga.
Pickett's charge was the last chance of the Confederacy; afterwards the South was continuously retreating.
Hood's diversionary attack into Tennessee was clearly suicidal--Sherman said he would happily send Hood supplies if he would go invade Tennesee while Sherman invaded Georgia.
The invasion of Pennsylvania was comparable to Hitler's 1944 Ardennes Campaign.
After Grant got the reigns the Union's top generals are arguably better than the South's before that I'd have to say the reverse was the case.
You both seem to be ignoring the changes forced by one area of technological advances. Reasonably reliable railroads and steamboats (telegraph was new too and by the end of the war telegraph lines were important battlefield tools) were the big new technologies of the Civil War. Control of railroads was decisive and forced big changes in overall strategy and in tactics. Those boys could rip up and rebuild rails at amazing rates. Grant could see the big picture and railroads were a big part of it. Living off the land campaigns were sometimes critical to gaining important new realestate, but maintaining rail and boat transport let you keep it. Sure maintaining supply lines are as old as war, but the railroads changed speed and distance parameters radically.
That sounds like a man who believes, or, perhaps more accurately, whose boss believes, that market manipulation and speculation are the primary drivers of price volatility in this market. Given the group of economists and bankers currently running things in DC, this view is probably thoroughly accepted as gospel. The solution, to free market believers, would be that more transparency would remove information imbalances and allow the free market to function efficiently, keeping prices stable.
Frankly, this view is bunk (although more information would still be nice ;). I don't think that anybody in charge is remotely interested in admitting that this is a supply-side issue and one that is going to get nothing but worse. Since they cannot broach this subject (assuming they are aware of it), they have to go in other directions... 1) ignore, 2) shift attention and blame.
Brian
Dr. Chu says --
And, of course, elsewhere in Washington, the Department of Defense is busy "bringing Democracy to the Middle East".
If we will only have patience with our elected (and unelected) representatives, we can look forward to a bright future for all.
I'm not sure this is sarcasm -- I want to believe it.
It's easy to read too much into one's comments.
I understood that he meant more about speculative price swings (i.e. volatility on the short term) and possibly some of the bubble formation over a medium-term. In that I agree that theoretically information transparency might reduce speculative swings, although I think the idea is ludicrous in practice: to think that you'd get transparent information from the oil markets, esp on upstream side - worldwide. That idea should make one laugh hard :)
I'm sure that even most physicist in policy positions have bow to the supply-demand price curves though. Most think that it's just a fuel, it can be pumped with increased efforts and if the price rises too much, there'll be demand destruction and substitution.
That's how policy wonks view the game - based on my experience. They don't have the time, the skill or the interest to look at the fundamentals (physics, geology, geopolitics). They just use the the fairly simple but often effective econ101 pricing models + some of their own regression analysis.
It worked before, why not tomorrow, etc.
As for oil price, I've tracked the following for some time:
Oil price divided by US dollar index bear fund (to factor out part of the devaluation of dollar)
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:UDN&p=D&yr=2&mn=8&dy=0&id=p67296321308
Oil price divided by gold in usd (to get an idea of non-dollar weighted price along with inflation expectations factored in)
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$GOLD&p=D&yr=2&mn=8&dy=0&id=p67296321308
I wish stockcharts had some economic data numbers. It'd be interesting to track oil to GDP, oil vs debt and some other factors. It's too cumbersome to start pulling data manually from various sources.
I think oil in nominal USD still has ways to go - even without a serious supply crunch, if China's stimulus packages continue to last and we get even the anaemic growth recovery, which most economist now see as most probable scenario. Then again, another leg down might also be possible in the interim term, if we get the double dip recovery or worse. I honestly don't know. This economy is so weird and the willingness to pump so strong that my crystal ball's gone all foggy.
Also, I encourage all TODers to invest in oil*: if it rises you win and can buy more guns&ammo. If it crashes for a longer time you don't mind losing your money, because the crises may have been postponed for another few years. Now that's a small price to pay for some peace of mind :)
* I'm not really recommending anyone to invest in anything, i.e. this is not advice and everybody should just do what they please and carry the responsibility for their deeds.
"Even the British Government have recognized that, while making the politically correct genuflection toward the motif of global warming, that they are responsible for the ultimate fuel supply security of the British Isles, and have gone ahead and permitted more coal mines. Reality has a nasty way of intruding into the discussions of ideology and mandating actions that provide realistic, rather than merely ideological, answers."
What is this supposed to mean? Is coal demand not being met in the US? Is the US doing more than politically correctly genuflecting towards the "motif of global warming" as evidenced by the priority given to the hopeless notion of carbon capture. (see V. Smil, NYTimes, Oct 2009)
Dr. Heading Out is a dissenter from the scientific consensus regarding climate change. He thinks that opening a few coal mines in the UK is a recognition of governmental responsibility for something called ultimate fuel supply security. He appears to believe that his outlook is non-ideological.
Should I have any faith in his version of "reality"?
In the United States plans for over 100 coal-fired power plants have been put on hold or cancelled. So that yes, I do see the consequence of some negative attitudes by the current Administration to that fuel.
I am one of those folk who believe the hundreds of peer-reviewed publications that record a Roman Warming Period, a colder period during the Dark Ages, a Medieval Warming Period, and a Little Ice Age, before the current warming, and as those papers show, that these were global, not regionally isolated events.
I do not decry the British Governments attempts to generate alternate fuel energy sources, rather I usually comment favorably on the different efforts that are being made. (They are putting a wind far outside the village my mother came from - a village that once won a title for being one of the most beautiful in Europe - and I am not tied to one of the fence posts).
The British Government have a Minister that has, as part of his remit, considerations of Climate Change - thus they recognize that ideology. However, as I noted, they still have to provide the power that their nation needs, and the options are getting narrower.
It's hard to take seriously anyone who speaks of other people's ideologies while insisting that reality will do this or that.
Is your analysis of the politics of US coal representative of the robustness of your climate change analysis? Maybe you can beef up the former by revealing the empirical evidence tying the decisions to put those 100 coal fired plants on hold to the current US administration.
I would also like to hear your justification for exploiting the coal endowment even at the current rate? Are you among those who look to the future and say, "They'll think of something"? If so, please allow me to say on behalf of my progeny, fuk you.
I, for one, don't favour major investemts in alternative forms of concentrating energy. At least not until every means of curtailing current consumption have been exhausted. What real capital we have should be put to this purpose.
Toilforoil, I mainly agree with your argument, but not your tone or your language. A carbon tax and/or cap and trade would reduce consumption and encourage efficiency. As would an end to all energy subsidies :)
I don't think that any kids coming into the world over the next few years are going to very polite towards those who looted the hydrocarbon endowment fund and/or paved the way, ideologically, for endless paving and a myriad of other wasteful, degrading activities.
How do you think they will express themselves? Do you think that coalpushers should escape their probable animosity?
We are not unreflective chimps, as some appear to have concluded. We have, through evolution, self-reflective consciousness: we have hindsight and foresight and a faculty for moral reasoning. Coalpushers like to wrap their message in an apocalytic vision of non-functioning hospitals and economic turmoil. This is their moral argument. I find it inadequate, even pathetic. It is so short term, a reflection of a narcissistic, intellectually and physically lazy generation.
Adopt whatever tone you prefer; I feel only disdain for those who willingly steal the future.
Looking at the "global consensus", I'm not seeing a lot of consensus. What I'm seeing is much akin to herding cats: the scientists are all going in different directions and there are a lot of hissing contests going on.
Looking at the U.S. situation, I think they're out of options. Their oil reserves peaked in 1973 (about which they are in a state of denial), their nuclear option fizzled out, they've developed all the hydro they reasonably can, and while natural gas is doing relatively well a the moment, I wouldn't bet the farm on there being a 100 year supply.
As for the touchy-feely renewable environmentally sustainable stuff which is now in vogue - they better start building it faster than they are, because we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's a freight train coming the other direction.
China is now the #1 emitter of CO2 and India is coming up fast. Of course, they're "developing" countries, so in the goodness of our sensitive developed country hearts we can't expect them to go the green touchy-feely environmentally sustainable route. Black and dirty is what you get.
If global warming is a fact rather than a theory, then it's going to happen because the third world is going to make it happen, regardless of what we in the first world do.
Toil ,
If I read the situation correctly, the Brits may actually be face to face-within the VERY NEAR term-with thier gas lines empty and thier grid down in the middle of a nasty winter.
It also seems perfectly obvious that the renewables industry will not be able to shoulder the load in the short or medium term.
If the lights go out and the heat goes off for a week in the middle of the winter in two years time the country will be under the control of politicians who string up environmentalists the way they used to string up common criminals.
Environmental purism is no better a foundation for making policy that Christian or Muslin fundamentalism.
Tptb simply must have some sort of plan that keeps the patient alive in the short term, and the only realistic options seem to be coal and maybe some new nukes.Importing energy is bad enough here in the states but we might actually survive a cut off in the imports fail to materialize.
England won't-she has not enough local resources , excepting one-coal.
OFM
England (er, UK; a lot of the coal has been in Wales & Scotland) does not have as much coal as we used to when production peaked in 1913 at close to 300 million tons per annum. (We exported in those days something like 100mt of this, and exports helped pay for the navy and our food, not having been able to feed ourselves since around 1840 when the population was less than half that in 1913.)
Most of the coal we use today is in electricity production (~36% of electrical comes from coal) and varies a bit year to year with the relative price compared with NG. We have been importing roughly 50mt coal per year, mostly from Russia it seems, and producing less than 20mt. The latter is split between deep mines (almost extinct) and surface (we call it open-cast). Recent approvals are for surface mining and these and other sites seeking approval are said to be "sitting on ~85mt of coal". Not significant amounts in terms of our total energy requirements, or even electricity production.
We do have potential access to lots of wind and some tidal and wave energy, otherwise its imports for everything while fossil fuel imports grow by leaps and bounds following the ELM model.
Not very promising, I know. Nuclear build out, like wind, will be far too little and too late as an emergency measure. Wind might provide seriously increasing contribution from 2020, if we can afford it, but nuclear on the scale that France built theirs does not look remotely likely.
best
Phil :{
Phil,
I know that you are already importing coal in a big way and that the reserves are as you say not what they used to be bit even that eighty five million tons looks like positive action in the face of disaster to the voter , does it not?
I have been under the impression that the UK has enough coal-perhaps hard to get at- to run the domestic economy for a few more decades at least but maybe I'm wrong on that?
I expect that maybe we will be accepting a few million immigrants from the UK in a decade or so-there are certainly enough people here with the right complexions and family names to make it a political possibility.
Maybe there is some lonesome Irish girl-a long lost umpteenth cousin- over there pining for my little farm and worn out carcass right this minute.
Phil:
You have to distinguish between the coal that is there (the resource) and the coal that is economic to mine (the reserve). The coal that was there in earlier decades largely still is, but it is currently cheaper to import coal into the UK than it is to mine the British resource.
Whether it will stay that way (or how long it will stay that way) is a debatable topic. There are now considerable start-up costs to reopening mines that were productive on the day they closed, but where the shaft was closed, and the mine flooded. But it could be done if it had to be. (And remember that after the Second World War it had to be).
OFM & HO
Thanks for replies.
Advent of modern machinery has allowed access to 'open-cast' coal that was unthinkable even in WWII when desperate. The amounts of open-cast available just now on a yearly extraction basis, however, might not do much more than keep up with recent quite rapid rates of decline in output from existing operations that has been the feature of most of this last decade?
Post-war mechanization in deep mines briefly raised production (still well below 1913 Peak) but, I was told, left much more coal behind in the ground than picks and shovels. ('Steriiized' a significant amount of the seams.) Just recently one deep-mine that was kept open by miners (in a workers 'buy-out' more than a decade ago) has closed for obvious geological reason. I am told by research engineers that 'robotic' underground gasification seems as far away as ever. Ramping up ordinary coal production to 100s of million tons a year seems a non-starter.
I never got an answer yet from the engineers where these coal reserves actually are, and how they have been defined. Any notions?
(BTW OFM, I'm sure the right girl is out there. Just keep spreading the word.)
best
Phil
I have written about this in a couple of posts - try here and here . The latter defines what is currently considered in evaluating whether to count a seam of coal or not.
toil -- If you're looking for someone's version of "reality" you're more then welcome to sign onto mine: 1)global warming is real. It's almost certainly being made worse by man's activities. It may well cause severe hardships to many portions of the world. 2)As other sources of hydrocarbons become scarce/very expensive the economies of the world will swing more heavily towards coal because that will be the cheapest route...at least upfront. 3)The effect of #2 on #1 will be of no importance to most folks who are try desparately trying to maintain BAU.
I'm not a big Chu fan but our leaders frequently come out with warnings about oil from Bush to Carter. If it's too relentless you could end up being 'the boy who called wolf', especially with the built-in media 'echo chamber'.
The PO threat is still theoretical, like the train whistling over the horizon. You must see it before you jump out of the way.
Part of the problem with ASPO is that they are so vague about mitigation (produce unconventional oil or get off oil entirely?).
The US government is focused on batteries and cellulosic ethanol.
The Swedish government is focused on ethanol.
Yet ethanol is quite unpopular at TOD---maybe the group wisdom on ethanol is wrong?
TOD also is conflicted on unconventional oil(tar sands, heavy oil and oil shale).
I blame the TOD editors for this total failure(as usual). :-)
Just because it needs mitigating doesn't mean it can be - at the moment there isn't a single affordable solution or even a combination of solutions or we would be using them!
It would be wise to plan for the worst - but is globally unlikely to happen - this has consequences for all of us.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2009/10/lftr-ultimate-and-absolute-safe...
e.g.
"David has discussed lowering reactor costs by building them with stainless steel. Using CO2 instead of helium we could get about 175 MWe from each. You could easily mass produce 4 per day, 400 if you wanted too. LFTRs are very safe, and all you need is a steel shed with prefabricated concrete radiation containment barriers and a cement floor to house the things. Thus not only would the mass manufacture of LFTRs allow for the timely deployment of huge ammounts of post carbon energy sources, but mass manufacture is entirely consistent with greatly enhanced nuclear safety, while lowering nuclear manufacturing costs. That safety in turn would allow for great cost savings in the construction of nuclear housing facilities."
Do you want to go down the tubes or do you want to make things better? Why don't you look for solutions instead of constantly saying there are none to see?
Because there are none to see!
Why do you assume I haven't looked for affordable solutions?
You think we have problems, from my studies I'm pretty sure we are in a predicament.
... and your suggestion of LFTRs isn't a solution to anything ... they don't exist! Proposing things that don't exist as our saviour is faith not reality.
For 4,500 years on Earth nature has had all the solutions and likely will again.
What is 'better'? Better for whom? LTFRs certainly aren't better. Growth is unsustainable in a finite system, so continuous growth of anything isn't better either.
Most of the world already lives within the limitations of nature and a finite world, they can't afford to buy much fossil fuels, sooner than you might think you won't be able to either.
Vaclav Smil has offered some possibilities in this recent interview at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/smil-on-hummers-hondas-meat...
This might be worth a look as he is a pretty smart guy. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~vsmil/
You quote your environment professor, here's mine.
www.bravenewclimate.com
(Barry Brook).
and for that matter James Hansen.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_Obama_revised.pdf
where he endorses the IFR and LFTR.
Interesting cites. It certainly is going to take a portfolio approach to help humanity become less unsustainable.
I never said anything about continuous growth.
I understand the ELM thing. (Personally I think the TOD website should have the sharkfin as it's icon in the top of every page).
But arguing for going back to the so-called limitations of nature is being pig-headed, and in some sense advocating for the extermination of a very large fraction of the people alive today.
Saying that just because some technology that is not currently in place cannot be put in place in short order is absolutely stupid.
If the British had taken such an approach they would not have built radar in 3 years from 1936-1938 and saved the UK from German invasion.
The hard work has been done to put in place the cleanest most abundant and long term energy supply ever devised by humans.
Supposing ahead of time that it will necessarily be used unsustainably is not a good reason to condemn many to death, especially as their tax dollars were used to do the research in the first place.
I'm not arguing for a return to control by nature, I am saying because there are currently no adequate affordable alternatives to oil that has actually peaked worldwide (to say nothing of ELM) and that our current system, as designed, must have exponential growth forever, that is the most likely route.
Power is only one of of our unsustainable problems, but in any case you will find that supply of nuclear fuel has an affordable flow rate just like oil, gas, coal, phosphorus, North Sea cod etc.
The fact that you think developing radar in three years means we can find a solution to the problems of energy importing nations in a similar time frame is bizarre, I don't think you understand the scale of the problems we face in coming years.
No it is you who have not looked into it.
Perhaps you should look at what I cited for Jim MacInnes.
Of course power is only one of our unsustainable problems, but you don't understand fission breeders if you think the supply of nuclear fuel has an affordable flow rate just like oil, gas, coal, phosphorus, North Sea cod etc.
I'm pretty sure I do understand the scale, and until I read about the LFTR/IFR I would have thought there was no way out. Now I think it is incumbent upon us to develop these technologies with all speed. Even greenpeace thinks the LFTR can be developed to production for just $1B
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/the-ec...
"Of all six reactor systems, MSR requires the highest costs for development ($1bn/€761m)."
LFTRs are simple enough to be factory produced.
I will never understand the defeatist attitude that will throw away a solution rather than make a concerted attempt to preserve what we have gained.
Avoiding using helium is a good idea. Helium is expensive and it is a scarce resource at the earths surface that is very usefull for scientific instruments and it has some unreplacable uses.
I believe the cooling / heat extraction can be done with supercritical CO2.
What's wrong with ethanol? Either straight or on the rocks, works for me ;-)
Having seen a President of the United States ask the King of Saudi Arabia to increase his oil production, and then having him find that they could not means that this is a whole lot less theoretical than you might want to believe.
Of course I believe in Peak Oil but the public doesn't.
I doubt that there will be a Pearl Harbor/October 1973 oil shock moment either. It's going to be different.
I am actually a fan of Dr Chu.
Have been watching him closely and monitoring his programs and pet projects. So I can understand his dislike of hydrogen and his panic to get renewables in use and in sufficient volume to make a difference.
Unfortunately it strikes me there will be a time gap between near term deficiencies in oil supplies (summer 2012 I think) and the advent of viable electric car transport (summer 2015 I think). Even then it will be a further 10 years to produce PHEVs and BEVs in sufficient volume. I agree with T. Boone Pickens on the use of gas as a short to medium term expedient and I agree with the use of anything (bio-fuels or whatever) that will help with plugging the almost inevitable supply gap.
Just that the likely gap will be too big - ergo big price blowout perhaps?
And just that Dr Chu doesn't appear to have a "Plan B".
I also wonder whether he protesteth too much about oil prices. It may be that he sees higher prices as a necessry spur to change people into BEVs and PHEVs.
Many Western countries have considerably higher fuel prices and the USA may be in for a time of rapid rises - starting May 2010?
ei
But otherwise, the USA may not be able to continue with the lifestyle that most have become accustomer to.
Imagine a head of DOE that was at the table of economic stimulus that said for every dollar we throw away on cars I want
to throw away the same amount of money by installing PV, Solar Heating for space heating or hot water, wind on the roofs of
every public school, municipal building, fire hall, and every publicly owned lawn bowling, and horse shoe throwing facility in America but
restricting them to gear manufactured in the US. Until that money ran out.
After the 1st year of stimulus, then he could say for every first home buyer in the county will add $8000 to those places above, and for every new hire a company makes we'll add another $4000 (or whatever the number will eventually be).
I will bet you a dozen amish, qualifed to plow mules that the impact would be marginally better economically (but then again maybe we
don't need those manufacturing jobs), and might even have the side benefit of adding some alternate power to the grid, upto and including
an early retirement of a dirty coal plant somewhere.
No, our fearless leader at DOE is nervous about oil prices. Thank you, you have now achieved the level of enlightenment of my great aunt Betty who watches the price of fuel going up for her 85 nissan sentra. Imagine the return on investment of her high school home economics diploma when compared to our Nobel, PHD friend. I appreciate Aunt Betty's ability to plant and weed her gardens so that she can subsist year round from them, over yet another abstract researcher running policy and government.
I think I would tend towards John Michael Greer's view that this is not a "problem", but a "predicament". The difference being that problems are things with solutions (or potential solutions), whereas predicaments are simply situations that one finds oneself in and that cannot be changed. Jumping out of an airplane to find that your primary parachute is not working is a problem. If the emergency backup fails, now you are in a predicament.
Predicaments do not have meaningful "solutions". We cannot meaningfully do anything about the long-term decline in the oil supply (or any other natural resource supply for that matter) other than respond to changing and new limits as best we can. Politicians (and the people who work for them) generally don't want to discuss predicaments because they have no solutions to offer. Tell somebody bad news and the first thing they want to know is what you are going to do about it. If you can't do much of anything, politicians really don't want to bring it up. "Basically, we're in serious trouble," is not the kind of soundbite politicians like much.
Personally, I can take or leave Dr. Chu. He seems a very bright fellow, and probably well meaning. He may or may not fully understand the full nature of the predicament we find ourselves in. But whether he does or doesn't, he works for people who, frankly, have no political interest in even talking about the subject. Even Energy Secretaries have bosses and, unless they want to join many of the rest of us in the ranks of the unemployed, limits on what they can say and do. Perhaps it would be great to have an Energy Sec who stood up and shouted the "truth", but, given the nature of politics, you probably wouldn't have such an Energy Sec for very long. Before you hear this from any government officials, you probably are going to need a president with the will and ability to give them cover. To be kind, it's not clear that we have not seen that behavior from any president to date, nor does it seem likely that we hear any president present such a view any time soon. I remain hopeful, but not optimistic.
Brian
Brian -- As simplistic as the "predicament" vs. "problem" may seem to some, IMO it's one of the clearest statements regarding PO I've seen in some time. Congrats.
Problem: falling out of an airplane. Solution: Pull the ripcord on your parachute.
Predicament: falling out of an airplane with no parachute. As was once said: it's not the fall that hurts you but the sudden stop when you hit the ground. A good analogy to our current situation IMO: the approach of the serious PO problems isn't causing much serious/prolonged pain. But when we hit ground zero the nightmare begins in earnest.
Brian, your predicament/problem summary is one of the best comments this year.
Politicians answer to voters. We voters are the problem. Although it may appear so from the TOD, voters are in general unaware of our predicament with liquid fuel supply.
If you carried out a survey of the general population, my guess is that less than 5% are aware of peak oil/peak demand/end of cheap oil (different names for the same predicament).
I'll bet the figure is 1% or less from my conversations with people over the past few years. And, when you explain it, people still do not believe it.
Thanks! I have been using a variety of words to variously describe the current situation over time, and you have given me the word that best fits.
Will sound like a me-too choir member, but that's a very good description of our predicament :)
I've been thinking it's a Rittelian Wicked Problem, with multiple players, too many variables and no optimal solution. But predicament is much better, and unfortunately, much more likely to be true.
And we know that predicaments and politicians don't mix generally. It takes a true leader to face one and then really rally everybody to at least give it a shot, solution or no solutions.
Current risk averse re-election optimizing politicians don't fill these requirements. As James Schlesinger (ex-CIA, ex-US energy secretary) put it (in 2007):
So we the public wait. Wait for the brave ones or a time when it's perhaps slightly too late.
There is a solution to Peak Oil. It is "Power Down". Learn to live in limits. Consume less, save more. Build strong structures and equipments that are meant to last for centuries and decades respectively. Relocate half to three-quarter population to farms gradually in next two decades. Delegate all major taxes and responsibilities to local governments that govern a population of no more than 10,000 people leaving only defense and international relations in the hands of central government. Call back troops from foreign countries. Gradually increase tax on energy consumption every year so that people learn to live with lower energy consumption and not get false signals by reduction in fuel prices due to depressions. Stop printing money, it reduce trust on central government, instead adopt gold as the only currency as per the american constitution. It would automatically force governments to use money more wisely and efficiently as they can no longer loot people's savings by printing money. There is lots of unused farm land in america, government should give that for free to people who are interested. Very few people would be interested initially as people in general still hope for the economy to recover but gradually as things become more clear and situation become more worse there would be more takers of free land. Once food supply is ensured by atleast half americans having their own farms, america can build an economy again with whatever energy sources are left.
Powering down ofcourse means america would lose its status as a world level empire and become just a country again but that is the wise thing to do now. Turks were wise enough to let go the empire and save the country to avoid total collapse. British did the same 25 years later. Soviets did the same another 34 years later. Would americans be wise enough to do that or would america go for a final world war to try its luck in looting as much resources of the world as it can?
Time is hard for america. It has too many enemies to even live as a country if it let go its empire status, but it would be better to fight in homeland than abroad. Any war abroad eats up resources at a very, very fast rate per soldier, per bullet, per gun shell and per sq km occupied simply because of logistics and lengthy supply chain. America is naturally separate from most of the rest of the world. There is no real threat to america in north america and south america. All its threats are atleast an ocean away. Any country invading america would be facing the same logistics and supply chain issues america is facing now in its wars abroad. The difference would be, in an energy deprived world it would be nearly impossible for even a super power to afford that much expenses. In an energy deprived world, the defender is always in very more advantageous situation than attacker. It only have to pass a few years without getting occupied before the attacker run out of resources and have to go back.
War is hard on any country, Wiseguy.
You have to understand US psychology--the US is not a typical empire like Russia, Britain or Turkey, it considers itself 'first among equals' like in the Western 'High Noon' with Gary Cooper.
In the film, town in the old West is being threatened by a gang of criminals and the Sheriff(Gary Cooper) tries to rally the townspeople to face the bad guys down. But they won't--they all tell Gary Cooper to leave(even his wife). So Cooper sticks around to shoot the bad guys and kills them all--the climax is where Cooper's wife, a pacifist, shoots one villain as he is about to shoot the Sheriff in the back. In the end, Cooper and his wife leave the ungrateful town for good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon
This is how Americans see the world; we are the heroic boss looking to stop the bad guys (like AQ, Saddam,etc.).
The result is the USA has the biggest military machine in the world.
A rather juvenile fantasy, really.
Not appropriate for a increasingly sophisticated world.
No doubt its different with our empire (maybe more locked into the Hemmingway boy/man hero than into the High Noon Cooper), but with the real power in the multinationals the American taxpayers are fed the good guy myth from every corner (an Australian seems to broadcast it the loudest) so they will keep playing chumps while they man and fund the armed guard for the international elite's vault. Of course it is more involved than that, heck most of my income for the past few years has come from base and post buildups. Don't know that we can remove the military tumor with all its deeply intwined runners without killing the patient. That makes the U.S. military complex one sophisticated survivor. Maybe the most sophisticated in the world. It was reduced with a dose of post Vietnam chemo, but it came back bigger and stronger than ever.
maj -- And that "rather juvenile fantasy" is alive and well in Texas (and much of the south, for that matter). And you'll have to pull that "rather juvenile fantasy" from our cold dead hands to eliminate it. Not saying this is a good thing. But it's a reality that cannot be changed by debate IMHO. And that's very sad. Unfortunately I know what it feels like to haul one end of a body bag. A very sad state of affairs indeed. A sickening price to pay for rejecting serious conservation all those decades ago.
ROCKMAN,
The myth of the West is really total bullshit. Do all the gun nuts know that cowboys had to turn in their guns to the sherrif when they were in town? (What about those constitutional rights!). Take John Wayne for example--the man took every draft deferment there was, the Duke said he was afraid he'd lose his contract with Republic films if he joined up.
Probably the best thing for the country is the increasing irrelevance of the white male (I say this as a WASP).
In 30 years we'll be a MINORITY and that's fine by me!
Booyah!
What's more, people that have problems don't know the solutions. In case you know the solution, you don't have a problem any more, you have a task. And vice versa: If you have a solution, you don't understand what's the problem.
Scientists tend to have problems and engineers are trained to come up with solutions. The very meaning of science is finding some more problems. Once there isn't a problem, there is no need for basic science.
Cornucopians are people who think there is a solution to everything, in other words there are no problems on a global scale only people not knowing what the solutions are. Doomers in general don't see the solutions only the problems (i.e.: the predicament).
I think there isn't a solution to this problem. ;-)
for example you may know both the problem (overshoot) and the solution (decrease the number of humans [consumption]) but now you have a task that you cannot carry out. I.e.: a problem with no solution becoming a predicament.
Nature doesn't seem to have problems of any kinds though. She is going to solve this problem for us, rest assured.
"I think there isn't a solution to this problem. ;-)"
There is a solution in the long-term. If society can persist long enough and nuclear and renewables have high enough EROEIs, there can still be a massive increase in energy available and with it we can create fuel till our hearts are content. Carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide from combustion of biomass, or even from absorption from the air, can converted into methanol, dimethyl ether, or gasoline using hydrogen from electrolysis of water. The energy inputs are higher by the electrolysis pathway than by straight conversion from coal or nat gas; but it can still be done once FF are depleted. So electricity can become liquid fuel, its just predicated on there being plenty of electricity available. It all depends on EROEIs of renewables and the political will to build out.
Just like Will - E - Coyote on the train track pulling the blind over the window in the explosives hut :-)
Of course waiting until the very last second until moving is the human way. When did any government ever perceive a slow evolving type threat and then take precautions? Oh right, the great wall of China...
It doesn't matter really if the DOE thinks teaching developing countries how to compile energy data solves it. Just another example of systemic failure in action. China's exports are still way down but they managed to grow 8-9%. China has managed to decouple itself from the global system somewhat and it has massive foreign reserves. They have been soaking up the spare barrels using up some of those $US they seem to have laying around.
When the price shock happens the USA could find itself outbid, in every way. The competition for OPEC spare capacity will likely be intense. China will have secured its energy future running at a higher speed while we in the west could be struggling to stand up. Are the Chinese going to be satisfied with equality a superpower equal to the anglosphere? or do they think their system is better. Has our system come as far as it goes? or is there a way for us to still lead the pack?
From the Greeks to the Allies, Our response to a mutual threat has been to go into a war mode system. giving the government junta-like powers of the command economy.I hope the "enemy" will be AGW and energy depletion rather than resource competitors, the fight technical and philosophical not military, then we could maybe just maybe show how good we really are, and why we are the innovators to be envied and emulated.
The wisdom to follow in an energy deprived world is to avoid wars and live in your shell most of the time. Create problems for other countries to encourage them to attack you, then when there supply chains are long and soldiers tired and your country is bubbling up with patriotism go for an aggressive war with the enemy first in your homeland and then in that momentum in the enemy's land once they are at retreat. Other than that also go for wars with other countries, wars that you start yourself but not put all your resources in that war, only put a fraction of your active duty soldiers in that war and keep a lots of reserve.
The game plan is different for an energy deprived world than for an energy enriched world. For an energy enriched world the energy must be coming from some kind of fossil fuel and an empire work on occupying the mines where they are. For an energy deprived world the energy is not coming from fossil fuels, its coming from food. An empire fight to gain farm land to support more heads to bring more heads (men and horses) to the battlefield.
As we enter an energy deprived world america should shrink itself to its borders. Very few other empires would be interested in taking the pain of going all the way to americas to get farmland. In absence of america too rest of the world has enough conflicts of its own to fight for for a long time. America can sit in peace and build its defences and export its surplus food to still be rich and powerful.
Your last paragraph sounds like Pat Buchanan's presidential campaigns of a few years back. Maybe his time will yet come.
Here is a presentation in early 2005 by Dr. Chu that includes a graph discussing peak oil. There is no doubt he is peak oil aware.
http://www.lbl.gov/solar/ipfiles/plenary/chu_Solar_to_Chem_Energy_3-28-0..., CO2-neutral Source of Energy
Ah yes- he is aware but he works for a government department. There is this fabulous tradition in the civil service, the grace of masterly inactivity. and even if there wasn't the situation is long past being overcome by a government that has elected officials, who would have to overcome the sheer inertia of the system. They would need to be utterly foolishly courageous. Crazy-Eddie or Nessus. Alas, we must let it crash and then build a new one. I think somehow we will build a better one, something that suits it's environment better. The thing has been flown into the ground by people with parachutes but lets hope it glides gracefully eh? I'm hoping for a future- for my children.
But at that time - if you look at the last slide - he was selling the expertise of the Laboratory which he ran.
And his experts are the EIA, who are not raising the alarm.
Heading Out, if you were energy secretary, what would be the policies and mandates you set the first 10 days in office?
How about this:
"Promoting energy security" is government speak for addressing peak oil.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/2009fedleader_eo_rel.pdf
Yeah but burying those three little words in that monstrosity doesn't bode well for bold action. They need headline billing, page sized. That won't happen until a lot more than a couple burps hit the system.
This administration is at least addressing the issue. One year into office, Bush was saying, "We need an energy plan that promotes consumption"
No doubt these guys' attitude is a big improvement over one the last bunch had. Considering how long it actually takes to get things up and running in something the size of the U.S. Gov. it is possible that a more focussed mission will be forthcoming. It is good to hope...but 'political reality' does temper that hope.
Yes, this has been an amazing turn around in attitude between administrations. While the new policy may be happening later than we would have liked, it is at least a beginning. The issues that need to be addressed have been around for so long it is going to take time to turn the battle ship and get it moving in less unsustainable direction. My hat is off to Dr. Chu and President Obama for beginning this process.
get it moving in less unsustainable direction
love your tempered enthusiam :-)
Freedom and Independence? these ships promote neither...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_speedy_warship
I wonder how many miles these babies get per gallon?
By DAVID SHARP, Associated Press Writer David Sharp, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 22, 5:32 pm ET
BATH, Maine – The Navy's need for speed is being answered by a pair of warships that have reached freeway speeds during testing at sea.
Independence, a 418-foot warship built in Alabama, boasts a top speed in excess of 45 knots, or about 52 mph, and sustained 44 knots for four hours during builder trials that wrapped up this month off the Gulf Coast. The 378-foot Freedom, a ship built in Wisconsin by a competing defense contractor, has put up similar numbers.
I'd be careful about buying our (Aussie) warships. We still can't get the Collins class subs working, after all these years. ;p
The EIA are truly magnificent at compiling data, so long as they don't start giving lessons in how to forecast.
Have oil prices not doubled this year?
Yes, they have. However, oil prices traded in a narrow, boring band around 70 for quite a while. It has recently broke out of that band -- that is what he is concerned about and he is right to be concerned.
"We've repeatedly said what the world wants and needs is stable prices," - Chu
It maybe what the world wants, but I think what the world needs is a high and slowly increasing oil price. Especially if accompanied by a slowly increasing price in carbon to encourage clean energy.
Given they seem to know world oil production down to a few hundred kbd from their data and demand by about the same why does the EIA simply not send its excellent data back to these countries ?
Perhaps shudder there are huge errors in the global oil data ?
Put it this way theres a lot more info in this little comment in my opinion.
It would have been great to give a seminar for Energy Secretary Chu. I think that it will be hard for him to come to Uppsala and listen to my seminar, but I can offer him a seminar that I gave in Aberdeen in March. The title is: “Global Energy Resources - The Peak Oil View” and can be found on this address:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cops/events/energycontroversies/peak-oil.php#
Hejsan, trevligt att du har registrerat dig på TOD.
Ja, ser vi fram emot att se mer av dina artiklar och insikter.
Maybe TOD should put out a formal invite for a Q&A with the Energy Secretary?
As the predominant energy site in the US and on the web, it would be highly undemocratic and unsporting of the Energy Secretary to refuse.
The same questions could be put to energy ministers in other countries.
Thanks for the idea!
Gail
Great idea!
Maybe we should do the same with Malcolm Wicks in the UK.
Let's set series of the same questions for each energy minister. Name and shame! Who cares and who is unawares? Let them wear the shame of their grandchildren.
A TOD energy awareness score could be awarded each January for each nation. What's measured is tended.
Why is it that with all the town hall meetings Obama has done that he's never had to field a direct peak oil question?
Why don't we have a single quotable where Obama or Chu have to tell us what they think about peak oil? To me this is a complete failure of the peak oil community.
Richard Heinberg had his manifesto for Obama. What happened to it? Did it get put into the round file???
These guys are not as out of touch as BushCo was. Reach out to them, damn it.
Let's stop trying to read the tea leaves about what they think on these issues.
mos -- First off, town hall meets by both parties are not, for the most part, designed to answer critical questions. They are PR events IMO. As far as the PO community failing to communicate with Obama/Chu: since you're here I assume you include yourself in our community. I'm sure most here would be anxious to hear of your successful efforts bringing PO to the forefront with our political leaders.
The floor is yours.....