Stat Review has Inter-area movements data. Total African export destinations for 2008:

US	Canada	Mexico	S. & C. America	Europe	Africa
30.34%	3.46%	0.06%	4.93%	        37.09%	1.34%

Australasia	China	India	Japan	Singapore	Other Asia Pacific	Rest of World
0.06%	        13.15%	5.31%	1.57%	0.10%	                   2.55%	0.03%

Now, the data is broken down for North/West/East & Southern Africa. For these regions China accounts for 2.56%/17.06%/59.64%. But the big producers are Angola/Nigeria/Algeria/Lybia/Egypt. Sudan is the only east coast producer they deign to include, with only 0.6%
of total African production.

The past is not necessarily a good predictor of the future. China used to be a net oil exporter, but their experts have been running the numbers past their computers ... and they know what's coming.

Rocky,

I'm not disagreeing with what you have said but I would put it differently.

I would rephrase the first part as the standard "Past performance is not indicative of future results" or "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." And, although I'm certain their experts have been crunching numbers, I stubbornly maintain that you don't need to be an expert to "know what's coming."

My whole angle in this debate is that we should should spend much more time reviewing the past (i.e. historical data on production, consumption and import/export balances). And I'll go out on a limb in asserting that anyone can "know what's coming" if the data are presented to them in the right manner. That's what the Energy Export Databrowser is all about and China is a perfect case in point:

It is my hope that it doesn't take an "expert" to interpret this graphic. Yes, China's performance as an oil exporter in the 1980's was no guarantee of future exporter status. But we humans, as story tellers, can understand why: Consumption increased as China began to urbanize and industrialize into the "world's workshop". (My 13 year old son, looking over my shoulder, just summarized this information from the graphic for me.) Someone familiar with China's recent history could certainly add more detail like why consumption jumped in 2004.

The other human trait Energy Export Databrowser tries to harness is our innate ability as pattern recognizers. As one flips through the different charts available one recognizes China's production pattern as "leveling off near the peak in production". The transition from importer to exporter is also familiar among developing nation oil exporters as "Export Land Model". Humans are excellent pattern recognizers.

Every human on the planet is hardwired to be both a story teller and a pattern recognizer. My sincerest hope is that we can take available data and convert it into data graphics that allow regular folks to do their own interpretation. Listening to experts is one thing but I came of age in the 'Show Me' state of Missouri and I won't believe anyone until I can see it for myself. I expect and hope that our recent experience trusting financial experts will make us all a little more skeptical going forward.

Best Hopes for the resurgence of 'Show Me' values,

-- Jon

We're all Canadian (although many of us have multiple citizenships)

I have an intense - and possibly irrational in the eyes of some - dislike of multiple citizenship ... it is one area of life where I think you should have one bet, and one only. Others might like the "flag of convenience" aspect of more than one passport, but I think it sucks. And yes - I have listened to all the arguments about emigrating from one culture, into another, and our kids should have both, etc, yada yada ... but it doesn't wash for me.

Equanimity on doing this? You lost me.

Craig

I think we equanimity on doing this

Yes - please explain.

Anyone can use any screen name or e-mail address they want. You don't know who is really behind it.

Good Point! I have previously asked about the individual who claims to be Steven Chu, do we know that he is who he claims to be? I continue to be very skeptical of the tone of his comments.

I'm sure someone at TOD is able to trace an IP address.

Yikes. Needless to say, good call in promptly deleting the post. I talked to someone with another Peak Oil related blog a year or two ago, and he said that they had been the target of very sophisticated cyber attacks.

Leanan, being someone who runs a peak-oil related site and not having seen the post, I'm interested in knowing what to keep an eye out for.

What tipped you off?

This is just a scheme for a hydrogen battery. He'd have a fair old bill for the required 30 square metres of solar panels though! Trying to store hydrogen in millions of small amounts is a sure recipe for disaster IMO, it's very leaky explosive stuff.

BTW the average American uses about 270 KWh of primary energy per day (about half of it is used on their behalf by Government) if there are around 2.6 people in the average US household then the average daily domestic total energy rquirement is ~350 KWh ie: about 10 times what would be produced by this scheme. This just proves to me once again that FF alternatives like solar PV don't even come close to meeting our BAU energy needs.

And if you believe that, I have some waterfront property in New Mexico..

Better watch what you advertise. It does exist. Carlsbad has a few miles worth along the Pecos river. And there are several lakes, that are basically dammed rivers.

The Ge Brilliance 4000w Pv Package will set you back a cool $23,382.41 and is 334 Sq Ft = 31.0296154 sq meters. Let's see how the ground floor customers do.

This puts me in mind of E Fuels and their MicroFueler for homebrew ethanol. Seems they've found another niche for their moonshine:

With the imminent introduction of the Gridbuster, the Microfueler will enable homes and businesses to be less reliant on the conventional and more expensive electrical grid and generate their own electricity. The GridBuster is E-Fuel's revolutionary new generator to produce electricity from a unique blend of E-Fuel100 ethanol and 50% water.

$GRHU GreenHouse Holdings, Inc. and UAI, Inc. Form Strategic Alliance

Ghung: The voters in the U.S. can vote no. But, they have always refused to. Remember all Congress critters are evil, except the ones representing me (and me is every voter) and they are always re-elected.

If we did vote "no", the borrowing game and all the goodies from it would come to a crashing halt, pay-as-you-go cold turkey. We'll have to wait and see what the reaction is in Iceland when the government is less able to subsidize things because it simply can't raise the cash. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see a u-turn/climbdown in a matter of weeks or months. For perspective, imagine the screaming and yelling if, say, New Yorkers suddenly had to pay the real cost, somewhere around $10, for a subway ride because the Feds were broke.

My primary objection to nuclear. The materials and waste must be secured for generations (at great cost) and I don't trust continuity/integrity of government in many places were nuclear power is online, or is being pursued.

I don't see any option for the short to mid term, other than quickly building new nuclear plants. That is the fastest way to get started on the new paradigm of mostly electric, for transportation, heating, cooling, manufacturing, etc. Later, as things wind down, as they seemingly must, an orderly retreat to solar, wind, hydro, and geo-thermal electric may be in the cards. If there is a disorderly decent, it may be to water power, and animal power. The exact nature of this will be determined by us, and more by our children/grandchildren.

Many are dismal prophets of doom. I myself may tend in that direction, since viewing reality in icey cold calm, mankind just does not act in its own long term bets interests. We wait until an emergency forces us to do something. In this case, we have already waited too long for a best case change to sustainability. It remains to be seen how we do with the longer term, and the dire necessities forced on us in the next decade or so.

Others see the glass as half full. Good luck with that.

Strange species, homo sapiens. Wonder if they'll be missed.

Craig

Thanks Leanan. I went back to see what was said. But it was more Tom bashing than anything substantive about the calcium carbonate formation process. I thought sure someone on TOD would have some more definitive answers.

George

Thanks Eric. Sounds interesting. But my reason for mentioning corals is that living systems can accomplish the formation of CaCO3 from sea water and CO2 which is the basis of this company's claim. I was more interested in the thermochemistry than the coral.

George

Biorock

Got2surf,

If I understand the company's claim they are spraying sea water (or hard water) through the CO2 stream, not pumping CO2 through sea water. Also they do mention the alkalinity issue. I think the chemistry is OK. What I don't know is how much energy it takes to accomplish this reaction and I would also like to know how much external energy is required just to operate the process (running pumps, heating and drying the CaCO3, etc.) If I had to make a guess I'd guess that they are not yet considering the CaCO3 returned on total energy invested (CROTEI!)

George

"Why are you guys still concerned about what hacks like Friedman say? When they have been wrong time and time again, why pay any attention to them?"

I suggest you ask this question internally and really think about it. The answer could be told to you, but it won't mean anything unless you come up with it yourself.

HF,

Let me get this straight; cause sometimes the details flash by too quickly.

(1) So first you start with a tank full of pure clean water (H2O) which came into being exactly how?

(2) And then you add a mound of purified salt (NaCl) so as to dirty up that clean water?

(3) And then you add 146 kiloJoules per unit mass (per mole?) to that purified mixture so as to get NaOH which somehow must be separated (how and at what energy cost?) from that hydrochloric acid (HCl)?

(4) And then you have to bubble CO2 gas (at what energy cost?) through the purified NaOH to get back 77kJ per unit mass for the 146kJ plus you invested into the system?

Is that how the fancy energy accounting works?

Just wondering.

Half full,

Thanks for this response. I thought it might be something like this. But that was on the basis of dim memories of thermo-chem from many years gone by and just a remaining intuition about the work required, which in my mind includes such items as Step Back mentions in his/her second comment.

It would be really nice if the energetics proved to be more favorable than CCS appears to be at this stage. And sequestering calcium carbonate would appear to be much safer as a long-term solution. The fact that that product has commercial value does seem to provide an added bonus. But, as you point out, and I suspected, the energetics are marginal at best, just for the chemistry alone. Thus once you add in the peripheral support exo-process energies it starts to look like more snake oil. I hope this is not the case.

One more aspect, however, is that coal is not dirty just because of CO₂. The methods of mountain top removal will have to be cleaned up as well.

As the 2nd law reminds us. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And you won't make a profit on the energy side of wealth production.

George
PS. Sorry for getting back to you so late. I don't get a chance to read the DB posts every day.

Hmmm...that blog entry was an absolute joke, full of misinformation about peak oil and cruel stereotypes.

Granted the show may be something to watch, if only for infotainment purposes.

There something that I can't quite understand yet. So many people here continue to mention such and such stories coming out of somewhere, and invariably get excited like so many little children. NYT has story about peak oil! Richard Branson speaks out about peak oil! Inhofe accepts climate change! OK, last one may be impossible.

Remember, these people are 40 years behind the curve when it comes to peak oil, and probably 10-20 years behind the curve when it comes to climate change. Why do you need any validation from them about your ideas, when they are solid, grounded in science and nature, and confirmed by observation about everything that's going on around you?

Says alot about human psychology. We just can't stand being right about something, as individuals. It's too much to take. We need to be loved and respected by the wider mainstream society.

I suppose I need to work on being less negative about things, but I've decided that I'm never going to apologize, ever, for being a doomer. Moreover, there's alot in life to be positive about. I just don't see how if some famous person or some mainstream publication suddenly says something about peak oil, that this is anything to get worked up about, at all.

My impression is that it is different from the online game "World WIthout Oil".

The short video available online is scary--says that without oil, we wouldn't have food, and we wouldn't have electricity. Regard electricity, the video talks about oil being used for coal transportation, and for back up generators, and in some states directly--and mentions Florida.

Florida is a big user of natural gas for electricity--perhaps that is what they meant. All states use at least some oil in the lubricating of their equipment, so in that sense, electricity is dependent on oil. I would have named Hawaii as the most directly oil dependent state for electricity, since it imports oil and burns it for electricity generation.

The problem of release of methane from clathrates under the Arctic Ocean would seem to be much like Peak Oil. The problem isn't the magnitude of the source but the rate of the release. The clathrates aren't sitting on the floor of the ocean, they are buried at some depth below. That means there is going to be a time constant for the temperature to increase with depth. The effect would be much like that of the land surface, where the seasonal variation is attenuated with depth. At a depth of only a few meters below the land surface, the average temperature is nearly constant. Were the Arctic Ocean to warm a bit, the resulting warming below the boundary between water and ocean bottom would exhibit a similar time lag. The clathrates buried deeper in the sediments wouldn't see the change in water temperature for decades or even centuries.

As it is, most of the Arctic Ocean still freezes over in winter, which implies that the water temperature will not increase rapidly. The sea-ice actually works as insulation, keeping the water below from freezing, once the sea-ice thickens. Furthermore, in addition to being cold, the surface layer is very fresh and "floats" on top of the warmer, saltier waters which flow in from the North Atlantic or Pacific.

From this perspective, I doubt that the rate of release of methane will change very fast. Of course, I haven't any calculations to back up that conclusion. Methane emissions from land based permafrost would be a different situation, IMHO...

E. Swanson

"did you watch the Oscars?"
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