Drumbeat: March 28, 2010
Posted by Leanan on March 28, 2010 - 10:05am
Washington considers a decline of world oil production as of 2011
The U.S. Department of Energy admits that “a chance exists that we may experience a decline” of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 “if the investment is not there”, according to an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on oil market in the Obama administration.This warning on oil output issued by Obama’s energy administration comes at a time when world demand for oil is on the rise again, and investments in many drilling projects have been frozen in the aftermath of the tumbling of crude prices and of the financial crisis.
Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the DoE, does not say that investments will not be “there”. Yet the answer to the issue of knowing when, where and in which quantities additional sources of oil should be put on-stream remains widely “unidentified” in the eyes of the most prominent official analyst on energy inside the Obama administration.
The DoE dismisses the “peak oil” theory, which assumes that world crude oil production should irreversibly decrease in a nearby future, in want of suffisant fresh oil reserves yet to be exploited. The Obama administration of Energy supports the alternative hypothesis of an “undulating plateau”. Lauren Mayne, responsible for liquid fuel prospects at the DoE, explains : “Once maximum world oil production is reached, that level will be approximately maintained for several years thereafter, creating an undulating plateau. After this plateau period, production will experience a decline.”
Power crunch looms for Britain
BRITAIN faces the worst energy crisis in Europe, according to the boss of one of the biggest power companies.“The country has to build two large plants or more every single year,” said Volker Beckers in his first interview since becoming chief executive of RWE Npower two months ago.
“This has never happened in Britain’s history, so there’s no time to lose.”
Homeowners will end up footing much of the estimated £200 billion bill for the new plants through higher energy prices.
“The government faces the biggest challenge in Europe,” said Beckers, whose company supplies power to 6.4m British homes. “In a world where capital is scarce and the economic case is unclear, it’s not an easy sell to my board. Right now, I can’t do it.”
Dissecting the disconnect in oil sands stocks
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada's oil sands producers aren't feeling the love.There's no question that Alberta's huge unconventional crude deposits hold some of the richest potential for supplying North America and even Asia with oil.
Investors don't seem to care right now.
Sinopec gets upstream foothold with $2.5 billion deal
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Sinopec, Asia's top oil refiner, will buy a stake in upstream assets in Angola for $2.46 billion and said it wanted more such deals, which could shield it from high oil prices that hit margins in the fourth quarter.
Nigeria's Former Oil Rebels Frustrated at Stalled Niger Delta Peace
Nigeria's acting President Goodluck Jonathan and ex-militant leaders are to meet in the coming days amid threats of renewed violence in the oil-rich south.Activists say the Nigerian government is not keeping the promises it made during an amnesty period last year and that the nation's southern region, which is home to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, risks returning to violence.
Loadshedding continues to hit Lahorites
LAHORE - Prolonged and unannounced power outage continue to hit Lahorites which is causing massive nuisance and panic not only in the residential localities but it has also marred the business of the markets in the City here on Saturday.
The Texas-sized, resource-rich Balochistan, with 750 km of strategically significant Arabian Sea coastline, is the largest, but least developed, of Pakistan’s four provinces. Balochistan shares a sizable and strategically significant border with Afghanistan’s southwest, volatile provinces and Iran’s Balochistan regions.The conflict has recently turned more critical, as Pakistan officially incorporated the Balochistan crisis into the high-level Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh on July 16, 2009. Afghanistan, in unison with the international community, unabatedly claims a Taliban presence in the province’s capital city of Quetta.
'Interlinking of rivers key to food security'
CHENNAI: Interlinking of rivers is the need of the hour as most of the southern regions are starved of water, said Union Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Saturday.
US Following USSR Into Collapse? (audio and partial transcript)
In a recent interview with Russian born Dmitry Orlov, he gave facts to back up his view that the U.S. is headed down the same road that led the former Soviet Union into collapse. He explains the stages of collapse and what stage the U.S. is in and which country did a better job with their propaganda machines.
"This Week's Green House" sells power back to the grid
Despite 20 inches of snow earlier this week in Jamestown, Colo., Jeff Hohensee says he never needed a furnace or a wood fire. His home remained toasty all by itself.Hohensee turned a 197os energy hog into an net-energy producer through a two-year renovation. That's why his home has earned the title of "This Week's Green House" -- a new Friday feature in this community.
Gazprom denies eying British energy sector
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom denied a media report on Sunday that it was preparing to invest 1 billion pounds ($1.48 billion) to become one of Britain's biggest fuel suppliers.The Sunday Times reported on its website that state-run Gazprom is expected to lodge an offer this week for a network of 800 petrol stations and the Lindsey oil refinery at Killingholme, Lincolnshire.
Steve LeVine: China, $165 Million, and Kazakhstan's Second Son-in-Law
Awhile ago, I received an email from an old source about some documents that could be had in London. They regarded a well-worn story, he said – the business dealings of the first family in Kazakhstan. I flew out, and walked into a conference room, where I was given a four-inch-thick stack of contracts, loan documents, and emails surrounding the country’s leading oilman, Timur Kulibayev, the powerful second son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The leaker was a former executive of a Kulibayev-controlled company who had a falling-out with the 43-year-old official. He asked not to be identified out of fear for the safety of his family.Many of the documents involved Chinese oil companies, and the Kazakh portion of Beijing’s resource buying binge around the world. For years, China has swept up energy assets, paying tens of billions of dollars for prize oil and metals properties, including a half dozen Kazakh fields totaling 1.7 billion barrels of oil. This has provoked allegations of market manipulation and fears of resource shortages. But a transaction described in the documents illustrates one of the techniques in the Chinese arsenal – cutting locally powerful political figures into the windfall profits.
Sinopec Net Doubles on Fuel Prices, Lower Crude Costs
(Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, reported profit more than doubled last year after the government allowed it to increase fuel prices and crude oil costs fell.
Dubai debt plan meant to show emirate back on feet
Dubai's plan to avoid drawing on fresh funds from wealthier neighbour Abu Dhabi in its debt restructuring proposal for Dubai World may be more about presentation than the reality of its balance sheet. Not taking new cash from Abu Dhabi was meant to show investors that Dubai can still stand on its own feet. But analysts say the hard reality is that the emirate could never navigate its current troubles without Abu Dhabi's support. Abu Dhabi, which holds over 90 percent of the United Arab Emirates' oil wealth, may yet have to help out Dubai again despite the message of Thursday's plan for the conglomerate.
Defenders of the Land: Indigenous Survival and Liberation in times of Collapse
Recently Waziyatawin has been intertwining her interest in decolonization and Indigenous liberation with research around climate collapse and peak oil, and believes that we can't simply wait for an end to the extreme destruction caused by industrial civilization - we need to take action and help bring it to and end, so that our chances for future survival are the greatest.Waziyatawin offers something very important with this interview, by connecting a recognition of the great changes upon us with an anti-colonial perspective as an Indigenous woman.
Industrial civilization now threatens not just our individual landbases, but the entire earth, and more than ever we are in need of people who are willing to be defenders of the land. Waziyatawin talks about some of the cultural myths that colonialism has infected all of us with to varying degrees, myths about the legitimacy and permanence of the US and Canadian governments, myths of technological prowess, myths of passivity to authority, and myths of the moral purity of non-violence. In a time of such dire need, she urges us to re-consider all of these and seriously consider how we can best serve our landbase, and best prepare our community for an end to an industrial way of life.
Green energy can spur Ireland's return to growth
(Reuters) - Renewable energy should play a major role in spurring Ireland back to growth now the government and economy are both showing signs of stability, Ireland's energy minister said in an interview.
Charge towards electric cars begins
A major step into the future was taken on Friday when Energy Minister Eamon Ryan and ESB chief executive, Padraig McManus, launched the country's first electric vehicle (EV) charge points.The charge points were unveiled in Dublin city centre and mark the beginning of a nationwide infrastructure.
Big Isle turbines to tower 156 feet
Two 100-kilowatt wind turbines are planned for two separate installations on the Big Island, marking what is to be the largest wind-power projects by individual businesses in the state.
Shipping Rules Will Cut CO2; Some ‘Weak,’ Japan Says
(Bloomberg) -- New regulations on greenhouse gases from shipping will help cut the industry’s emissions, even though some of the proposals are “weak,” according to a Japanese envoy chairing a UN working group this week.
Global Warming Making People More Aggressive?
Global warming could make the world a more violent place, because higher temperatures increase human aggression and create volatile situations, a new study says.
GAO: Preliminary Observations on Geoengineering Science, Federal Efforts, and Governance Issues [PDF]
Substantial uncertainties remain on the efficacy and potential environmental impacts of proposed geoengineering approaches, because geoengineering research and field experiments to date have been limited. GAO’s review of relevant studies and interviews with experts to date found that relatively few modeling studies for solar radiation management (SRM) approaches have been published, and only limited small-scale testing—primarily of carbon storage activities relevant to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches—have been performed.Consequently, the experts GAO spoke with stated that a sustained effort of coordinated and cooperative research would be needed to determine whether proposed geoengineering approaches would be effective at a scale necessary to reduce temperatures and to attempt to anticipate and respond to potential unintended consequences—including the political, ethical, and economic issues surrounding the use of certain approaches.
Specifically, just as the effects of climate change in general are expected to vary by region, so would the effects of certain large-scale geoengineering efforts, therefore, potentially creating relative winners and losers and thus sowing the seeds of future conflict.
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Wow...the article up top, Washington considers a decline of world oil production as of 2011, comes to us from a French newspaper (online). Just reinforces my thoughts about the American MSM....pathetic because this is news from our own country and we will not cover it. If it were not for blogs, there would be no decent journalism in this country.
I still think it would be easier just to have a war and blame production cuts on that. People don't understand that things run out. The grocery store is always full.
Yes it is a shame that US MSM has not picked up on that story. I think that is just ignorance on their part. They simply don't consider it newsworthy enough to cover. That will definitely change in the near future however.
Notice that the DOE gives themselves an out; “a chance exists that we may experience a decline” of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 if the investment is not there”. How much investment would be needed. Well the IEA has estimated it will take $26 trillion by 2030. That is 1.3 trillion per year. Fat chance of that happening. Every country and every major oil company is now investing all that the price of oil will afford. Ane the world is already paying all that it can afford to pay without sending the world into a far deeper recession. Anyway:
I think that statement is basically correct. That "undulating plateau" began about mid year 2004 and has been "undulating" for almost six years now.
But hey, coming from the DOE this is a real bombshell. I would advise everyone to read it. This is really an about-face by the DOE.
Ron P.
The whole gestalt in the media now is how to acknowledge peak oil without acknowledging peak oil.
First we had "peak demand," ludicrous when you consider that when supply peaks, demand peaks by definition. It's what I've referred to in the past as the "distinction without a difference" fallacy.
Now we have "a chance of decline if the investment isn't there." Once you grant that money is magic, then declining extraction rates must mean the "investment" wasn't there. Infinite investment equals infinite oil, but who can afford infinite investment?
No matter when oil peaks and how fast it declines, it will always be attributed to either "peak demand" or "lack of investment."
"According to our economic models, 'peak oil' shouldn't exist; therefore, it doesn't exist."
Old news but still significant.
Greenspan Admits 'Flaw' to Congress, Predicts More Economic Problems
And don't forget.
Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m
And how could I forget this one
Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008
Hmm, how much earlier I wonder...
Speaking of the media...I happened to be looking back on some old notes this morning. In the fall of 2008, Fox News had some talking heads on the air to talk about oil prices. They said that the extreme volatility was a sign of a "market top," and signaled a fall like the dot-com crash was soon to come. They predicted oil would be $20 a barrel by 2010.
I wonder if they're standing by that...
Leanan, Hi. When George W moved the troops into Iraq Rupert Murdoch himself on his own news stations said "and now we will see oil go back to $20 a barrel where it should be". I think at the time it was around $32. Fox has never changed their view that the real price of oil should be $20.
Murdoch's view of oil is that there is tons of the stuff and its price is manipulated by OPEC.
They will NEVER acknowledge Peak Oil.
Isn't it a bit strange then that the Murdoch owned Sunday Times (of all papers) should rush to break the alleged news that no significant oil has been found in the Falklands - after one test drill supposedly - is that even news? Nothing to see here. No attack subs. Move along.
I suspect this is correct. There are people that would never admit it no matter what evidence you came up with. There would always be a reason. OPEC, speculators.
Environmentalists would be a favorite scapegoat. In particular there are all of these urban legends (or perhaps rural legends) about how environmentalists are preventing drilling in certain areas. I have no doubt that oil from shale production will never amount to much, and people will again blame the environmentalists and not the economists.
I agree environmentalists will be a favorite scapegoat.
Just fly over Oregon - the tress are ALL gone - they left little strips of tress along the highways, so it seems like a lot of trees are still there. Ask anyone and they will say the Spotted Owl killed the timber industry- it's just taken as gospel. What I hate to see is just beyond the tree line is a complete wasteland - no replanting, nothing but scorched earth, it's a complete joke and they blame the environmentalists.
But there are, Blanche, there are tons of the stuff left.
But we can't get all that goopy shit out fast enough.
mikeB: "ludicrous when you consider that when supply peaks, demand peaks by definition. It's what I've referred to in the past as the "distinction without a difference" fallacy." "
Nope, not so. Picture: supply of coca cola stays constant, supply of pepsi dries up; extra demand for brown sugary fructose corn-syrup-based drink is now sloshing about; some goes to coca cola, proportional to elasticity of substitution between them. In fact, that's what you rely on when you want e.g. high oil prices to stimulate innovation in other energy sectors: demand looking for other outlets.
Lets say Saudi oil dried up tomorrow, not very realistic either but that would certainly reduce demand. The additional cost would no doubt reduce demand by 10 MBD.
Dan, your hypothesis about Coke, Pepsi, brown sugar and proportional elasticity of substitutes is an entire different ball game and has no relation to peak oil. While it is true that high oil prices stimulate innovation in other sectors, that does not negate the fact that peak demand is exactly the same thing as peak oil. As Mike points out, they are the same thing by definition. When oil peaks demand must peak. The price will rise to meed supply and there supply peak meets demand peak.
When oil production peaks demand must peak also. That is the price of the remaining oil rises so high that some cannot afford oil, therefore their demand drops, often to zero. The price of oil always dictates that demand matches supply. Of course there is always swings in any market. Price and demand are always chasing each other up and down.
The fact that high oil prices will stimulate the search for alternatives is a totally different subject. Crude oil will peak regardless of whether other sources of energy are found or not. Peak crude oil is peak crude oil oil, it has nothing to do with ethanol, palm oil or coal to liquids.
Ron P.
Ron - Why is there such little talk about the fact that conventional oil supplies have peaked long ago? Within the last decade we are now using tar sands (they've known about them for decades) deep sea oil drilling and ethanol production on a large scale. All of those forms of "fossil fuels" have one thing in common. They are only practical to the extent that the price of oil remains dear.
It is my guess that the govt. knows this which is why ethanol subsidies (deeply unpopular) remain in place. U.S. security depends on the availability of oil...lots of it. A nightmare at the defense department is an Israel/Iran conflict or an insurgent attack on the refineries in S.A. which would easily shut down the pipeline of middle east oil. It is my understanding that they have national security plans already in place in the event of any of the aforementioned events occurring.
Do you think that technology will extend the plateau of peak oil (where we are now) to the end of this decade or do you think that the price continuing to rise will create demand destruction?
Joe
Joe, sorry but I did not catch your post until early Monday.
I do not think the plateau will continue much longer, a couple of years at most. Yes, the price will always rise in order to drop demand to the level of supply. However that price will not be nearly as high as some people seem to think. I don't think the price will ever reach $200 a barrel.
Yes, conventional oil peaked years ago. But the EROI thing is something that the average person simply does not understand. To Joe Sixpack, oil is oil. We cannot change perception, only live with it.
Ron P.
Ron P: "peak demand is exactly the same thing as peak oil. As Mike points out, they are the same thing by definition. When oil peaks demand must peak. The price will rise to meed supply and there supply peak meets demand peak."
I'm still not getting this. Yes, as supply constricts, the price will rise until supply and demand re-equilibriates (not that it ever quite achieves that in reality, but it's a good enough model.) But what we're saying there is, the supply and demand prices have converged.
I'm still not seeing how peak supply and peak demand can be the same thing 'by definition'. Either two of them can still change independently to the other. If I was modelling it, that would mean I could not treat them as the same thing at all. Supply could continue to constrict - as it does, if demand remains constant, the price goes up. Or demand could increase - e.g. if population continues to increase, some government decides to go crazy with credit - the particular driver isn't important, the point is, you can still analytically treat demand separately from supply, even in a one-commodity market (as most partial equilibrium models illustrate), and it's useful to do so.
Am I missing something? Does 'peak demand' have a different meaning to normal demand?
supply = demand + delta storage.
or alternately, demand = supply - delta storage.
if supply = demand at any time it is purely a coincidence.
storage has many components, which would include such quantities as crude oil in the spr, storage at sea, crude oil and refined products in storage at refineries, distributors, retailers, oil and products in transit in all the pipelines everywhere, oil in transit in trains,planes and automobiles (and ships and trucks), gasoline and diesel in every fuel tank everywhere, oil in storage at every stock tank in every field and well everywhere.
demand is determined at the carburator or fuel injector.
I take my cue from the "economists."
Their definition of "demand" is "ready, willing, and able" to buy a good. If one's money or credit is in short supply, then one isn't "able." Likewise, if the "good" itself is in short supply, one is not "able" unless one has more money than one's competitors. Someone has to lose out.
"Demand" can never exceed "supply." Now that the supply of oil has stagnated--probably "peaked"--the "demand" simply cannot exceed it, and, yes, the price rises as a way of knocking down that demand. More and more buyers are priced out of the market.
As supply declines, so will demand. How can one be "ready, willing and able" to buy something that is increasingly not there?
One can't.
Some of us call it "peak supply." Others euphemise it as "peak demand." Supply is physical and much, much more readily measured and accounted for than "demand," which is partly psychological.
You sure didn't do the same Economics 101 that I did in the 1970s ... who on earth told you that demand peaks to match supply peaks? Consumption cannot exceed production, of course, but un-met demand remains a real market force (obviously - either pushing up price or agitating for substitutes to fulfil the need). In the context of peak oil supply, "peak demand" is a mere distraction.
It gets to a point when talking about "economics" that we start splitting hairs.
But it's not "demand" until the money is put up. Unmet NEEDS or WANTS are real, but just because poor grandma wants more heat than she can afford doesn't mean that she counts as "demand" to the "economist." She's simply not "in the market."
And, yes, "peak demand" IS a distraction. I would call it a "euphemism" for "Oh F! Supply has peaked!"
Well the 1970s had price controls. Today, the price will go up until the demand = supply.
During the price controls of the 1970s, governments discovered that if you introduce price controls, the price will always be below the market clearing price, demand will always exceed supply, and you will always have a shortage.
On the other hand, if you just ignore the problem, the price will go up, demand destruction will eliminate the excess demand, and the price will go back down to where supply and demand are equal again.
And if people complain about it, you can always blame it on speculative trading and demand the traders give you a convincing explanation of why they raised prices so much. You already know why they did, but it's always better to be able to blame someone else instead of yourself.
"The whole gestalt in the media now is how to acknowledge peak oil without acknowledging peak oil."
This verbal dance by the Energy Dept and MSM around the peak oil thing remindes me of the conversation the doctor had with my mother and me about my father's cancer. He'd had several bouts with various cancers over the years, responded somewhat to ever increasingly expensive (and invasive) treatments. There was a point that the doctors began using terms such as "good days and bad days", "possible improvements" and "justifiable expenses". This time he used terms such as "making him more comfortable" and "taking care of unfinished business". In an aside he finally told me that the old man likely had about three months. He was accurate within a week.
I agree mikeB. It's the obvious gestalt of a media that held fast to Yergin's viewpoint for too long, and is now trying to nuance their way to acknowledging peak oil in a round about way. Steely Dan in one of his songs has the lyrics, 'as she rises to her apology'. Well, MSM is doing just that.
Hi Earl,
A minor quibble, but the lyrics you reference are from the song "What a Fool Believes" which was jointly written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins.
Cheers,
Paul
However, I did see Michael McDonald sing that song AT a Steely Dan concert in Vegas, not four years ago.. so there is a very small, one degree of Kevin Bacon there..
Of course, Yergin and the train of fools will be able to point to the last five years AS their magical 'Undulating Plateau of Several Years' .. and confidently march off to their next interviews as vaunted "Oil Experts"..
MM sang backup on a couple of Steely Dan albums, most notably on the song "Peg".
He talks about it here, about 6.5 minutes in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waIBA6_0GQc
But it's hard to top his(MMs) gig with the Doobies. (BTW, Steely Dan isn't a "he", nor is Pink Floyd. "Oh by the way.... which one's Steely?")
Hey Bob, ya sure you don't mean "Chain of Fools", 'cause the lyrics kinda fit.
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Breakout the mini-skirts and go-go boots and take a trip down memory lane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ffl3KxY3g4
Cheers,
Paul
You got me.
Vamping too fast, and my 70's pop-rock literacy is a tiny bit better than my R&B repertoire..
See, now I've got "Jan Brady taking her driver's test" in my head, but it's Dan Yergin doing the Saturday Night Fever dance, who has thus been summarily redressed for his overbearing role in all this. The Travolta dance, one will notice, bears an undeniable reference to someone making conflicting slope-predictions along an imaginary, but very colorful graph-chart. But noone can deny that it's clearly undulating. (I'm really hoping Fred Magyar will just happen to have Photoshop open this afternoon, and take my oh, so subtle hints!)
Bob, being very productive with his time today.. clearly.
(Actually, I'm thinking about Bob Shaw, as I'm supposed to be drawing up some of my wild and rangey designs for a sort of 'life-size' erector set, for prototyping various mechanical notions that deserve to live and be mocked for their clear aspiration to maintain BAU, BAU, BAU! I miss Toto. Hope he's ok)
This site is a order of magnitude above google when it comes to squeezing out obscure information.
I beg to differ on "peak demand". Demand is not limited to the available supply of a good, and therefore, the amount of demand for a good can easily outstrip the available supply. The world might demand 100Mbpd of oil, and producers might only be able to supply 90Mbpd. In a completely free (and efficient) market, the result would be that the price of oil would increase until those least able to afford oil would decrease their demand for it. However, it is problematic to assume that oil trades in both a completely free market, as well as an efficient market, especially since we have a Cartel involved in the supply chain, as well as subsidized oil prices in many producer countries.
There are several different possibiliies, one of which is that fuel (gas/diesel etc) might simply not be available at the gas stations. There might be a long lines of cars waiting to fill up, but when the station runs out, it doesn't matter that there is still consumer demand for fuel, there might just be none available. If the Middle East decides to show us the middle finger, and chooses to send the available supply elsewhere, any country not able to meet it own oil demand with domestic supply is at risk of having greater demand than supply. In fact, as oil becomes more scarce, we could actually expect demand for oil to go UP, because people will react to the shortage by "hoarding", and trying to keep their gas tanks as full as possible, as well as filling up a few extra containers of gas to keep in their personal emergency supply.
In short, "peak demand" is a concept that doesn't really make much sense when supply is limited. Lets say I had a giveaway where the first 200 people who shook my hand got a free $100 bill. After 200 handshakes I run out of cash, but people are still wanting to shake my hand for $100. It is a bit facitious to then say, "well, peak demand was 200 people", just because I ran out of money. Lets say 10000 people heard about my giveaway and wanted to participate. The real "Peak demand" is 10000, the demand I am able to actually meet is 200, and the "unmet demand" is 9800. At any given price point, supply and demand do not have to be equal. Demand can be higher than supply, and the result is shortage, which is what "peak oil" is all about.
"Peak demand" only makes sense as a concept if supply is unrestricted. Lets say instead that I choose you persoanally for my next giveawy. Every time you shake my hand (in one sitting), I will give you a free Oreo cookie that you then must eat, and there is no limit how many times you can shake my hand in a row. You might shake my hand 100 times, or 1000 times, or whatever, but eventually you are going to give up, puke, or otherwise decide it isn't worth it to shake my hand anymore because the thought of one more Oreo isn't worth the effort anymore. The number of Oreo's you eat could then be described as your "peak demand" for Oreos.
Thus "Peak Oil" is purely a problem of supply, and "peak demand" really has nothing to do with it, as at the peak of oil supply, there will be plenty of UNMET demand for oil.
Runeshade, I see we're discussing the same point. Your examples were far better than mine (above)!
I've already discussed definitions of "supply" and "demand" above, but your two passages below sound contradictory:
The whole point is that supply IS limited. Therefore, demand cannot by definition exceed supply because with limited supply the "able" component of the "ready, willing and able" definition is, well, disabled.
And then you end up almost agreeing with me:
Except that, to the "economist," there is no such thing as "unmet demand."
One's wish to buy--one's NEED for a good, like fuel--does not count as "demand." "Demand" is only what one is "ready, willing, and able" to buy.
The whole concept of "peak demand" is, at its core, utter cold-hearted.
There definately IS such a thing as unmet demand to an economist, which is why supply and demand are both plotted as curves on a graph. If we operate on the left side of a typical supply and demand chart, the price for the good is low, the demand for the good is high and the difference between the two prices is the unmet demand. If we move to the right side of the chart supply is high, demand is low and the difference between the two is excess inventory or a supply overage. It is only at the so called "equilibrium price" (the price at which sellers together are willing to sell the same amount as buyers together are willing to buy, also known as market clearing price) that supply equals demand. All of this assumes that market is both perfectly free and efficient (its not).
For example, gas prices (a proxy for oil in this case) are subsidized in several producer countries (Venezula, Turkmenistan, Iran & Saudi Arabia all sell to their citizens for less than $0.50 a gallon)... there was even a great article in The Oil Drum: Europe titled "the Cost of Gasoline around the World" on June 15,2007 which listed the extremely different gas prices in nearly 50 different countries. (lowest price $0.19 in Venezula, highest was $7.76 in Norway). The point is, since the market is NOT efficient, the price of oil is therefore not necessarily at the "equilibrium price", which means that demand can in fact exceed supply.
The only reason these sematics are really even important is that the term "peak demand" carries the implication that the demand for oil will voluntarily peak because we have found an suitable alternative, and not due to the reality of the situation, where producers are maxed-out and the price of oil starts skyrocketing. The other problem with "peak demand" is that since it assumes a free and efficient market for oil, it assumes that oil will be available to all at the "equilibrium price", and misses the possibilty that there might not be enough oil available in some places at ANY price, due to subsidies that exist in producer countries.
Summary:
Peak Demand: You go to the gas station and gas is $20 a gallon.
Peak Supply: You go to the gas station and there is no gas available.
I think the key point is that, as long as there is a choice, demand will be moderated by price. The scary part is that if the access to the product determines whether you live or die, the price becomes as matter of life or death.
Alan from the islands
Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. "Peak oil" is dismissed but "undulating plateau" then decline is accepted. But somewhere along that plateau there will be a peak, so isn't an undulating plateau followed by decline equal to peak oil?
They are trying to thread the needle (or would walking the tightrope be a better analogy). They want to warn about PO, while avoiding touching the third rail (saying peak oil is real). Sounds like they are using coded language to signal the truth, while avoiding the consequences of doing so.
Hello! Every description of Peak Oil I've ever found included the "bumpy plateau" as volatile oil prices around the peak would cause alternating periods of recession and recovery as supply and demand dance around until the ultimate permanent decline. Doesn't it look like the Peak Oil predictors have gotten it right?
My question is whether the money trust will dump more debt into the system trying to defibrilate the economy and thereby inflate the money supply to collapse or accept the inevitable, decrease the stock of money as the capacity to do useful work declines. Just wondering.
The global peak oil plateau "meme" didn't really start to circulate widely until about 2004 as a quick search of Google news archives will show. Before that articles, which discussed the issue at all, all tended to assume the Hubbert curve downslope.
Yeah, I think in Richard Heinberg mentions a plateau in the 2004 doco "End of Suburbia" (the others PO guru's seem to espouse "doomer" scenarios in the film).
Oh phooey! An 'undulating plateau' vs a 'peak' is very simply a matter of how small or large the x-axis years are graphed.
ET, that is exactly what Frugal is saying. We have been on that undulating plateau for almost six years. And unless there is an uptrend in the future we are at peak oil right now. Exactly what month, or even what year, the actual peak occurs is within the margin of error of the guesswork by the EIA and the IEA. We are at peak oil right now and this peak has lasted almost six years. Barring a future uptrend of course and I would give ten to one odds that such an uptrend will never happen. The next trend will be a downtrend.
Ron P.
If the average annual oil price in 2010 exceeds the $62 that we saw in 2009, and if global crude (C+C) 2010 annual production does not exceed the 2005 annual rate, then we will have seen five years of global crude oil production at or below the 2005 rate (2008 being within the rounding error relative to 2005), with four of the five years showing year over year increases in oil prices.
To paraphrase Michael Lewis, so far the Peak Oil "Oddballs & misfits" (notably Deffeyes) have been right about a near term peak.
Speaking of Deffeyes, does anyone know what happened to him, his now long-quiet web site or his planned third book on Peak Oil? I hope it's just writer's cramp and nothing more serious.
Yes, ho ho, the plateau is a sure sign of peak supply, and with the proper graphing it will make a nice sharp peak in a few more years (assuming the internet and we are all still here to enjoy looking at it). I recall awhile back WebHubbleTelescope showed several oil production peak modeled outcomes (discussing his Shock Model), among them the peak plateau. Since the global inventory is finite, the longer the extraction rate tries to maintain the plateau, the steeper will be the eventual decline.
It looks like the release date for this third book, "When Oil Peaked," is September 28, 2010:
http://www.amazon.com/When-Oil-Peaked-Kenneth-Deffeyes/dp/0809094711/ref...
Maybe "peak" wasn't a very good choice of words, as it tends to imply something pointy. Something like "Max Oil" maybe would have conveyed the same idea without necessarilly conveying such a pointy mental image.
But wouldn't people then miss the ... ummm ... point?
It's classic: they'll never say "you're right." But they will adopt your position.
In a hundred-year perspective, the "undulating plateau" will look remarkably peak-like.
Exactly. If one were to move forward in the future and look at a graph showing the history of oil production, the peak plateau would be easily discernible with a rise to the left and a drop to the right.
I keep wondering how long this plateau can be maintained, and wonder what will transpire once it starts.
Oh, I imagine not long. As we fell off the peak the major declining producers would pretend it hadn't happened and announce increased production. The US and the UK would go along with the deception and invade a supposed source of untapped oil. Those that couldn't easily invade an oil producer would massively increase their coal production to compensate if they could and we'd all bumble along for a few more years until the strains forced a partial crash of the system. Then we'd all blame Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan would retaliate by leaking the truth from time to time. Then maybe a partial recovery before...
Q: Why did coal production massively surge starting about 2003?
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/
With Memmel's lead-foil hat firmly in place... Could it simply be that the ultimate goal of the sociopaths who hold too much power is to resolve this in one global conflict and they actually relish this? Unfortunately they're rather clever and most of their little helpers who aid them in this deception just can't grasp what the real plan is. But if they do there's always "Bring on the Rapture" I suppose...
The world production fuel production graph you link to is pretty amazing.
If a person didn't know better, one would think there had been an agreement to reduce reliance on oil and increase production of coal (and a little more gas) starting in the early to mid 2000s. Perhaps what we are seeing is the less developed nations working around a lack of reasonably priced oil.
I describe it as "Going to the endpoints."
Thermally mature fossil fuels can be viewed as a continuum--from natural gas, to natural gas liquids, to condensate, to light/sweet crude, to heavy sour crude, to bitumen, to various grades of coal. Note that there are three fossil fuel categories on either side of light/sweet crude, and note that this is a progression from gas to liquid to solid and from cleaner to dirtier fossil fuels. What the world wants are liquid fuels, and we get the most bang for the buck--the highest yield of liquid fuels for the lowest expenditure of money and energy--from refining light/sweet crude.
So, it makes sense that light/sweet crude is the first fossil fuel category to peak, and then we move to the endpoints, which require greater inputs of money and energy to transform them into liquid fuels. And to the extent possible, the endpoints will be used as substitutes for liquid fuels.
And so it goes, it's only the "Oddballs and misfits" who think that we are going to have problems with maintaining an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil fuel resource base.
You know I just saw a correlation to water. We have about run out of prefectly clean drinking water in a lot of places. But we can still get loads of Clean Water Vapor, and Loads of Clean Water solids. (discounting the liquid water in the oceans, as you can't drink that water). We can harvest water from vapor or ice, but both are hard to do.
I was telling someone about how I make 4 foot flaming tornadoes. And how the Wax goes from a solid to a liquid to a gas, and H2O has the same three states, vapor, water, Ice.
Flaming tornado is made with a 6oz Tuna can, small stick fire, and feeding in wax till the vapor cloud gets to the top edge, then blowing on it. You can get down close to the can's edge and with a long steady breath get the funnel cloud going really neatly. Do NOT TRY at HOME.
But I guess the water problems we are going to have will not have solutions as easy as just finding a new Substitute for oil. Headlines at Evelen, World finds a new Substitute for Water, and learns how to drink Oil.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better future.
Gail
In a few articles by Henry Goppe over the past few years, he has been claiming that more than 20% of the world's oil is used for non-transportation uses mostly for electricity generation in the developing countries. And since the price for oil has been rising over the past about 10 years, these countries have been switching to cheaper sources for electricity generation such as coal. He further states that this switching will keep oil prices fairly stable (in the $65-$85 range) until about 2015. http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=105
Q: Why did coal production massively surge starting about 2003?
A: China. Surfing around the databrowser shows that the steep increase in coal is almost entirely Chinese, and they're using every bit of it for power generation and their steel industry. The country's oil supply could not expand as quickly, so coal has become the primary fuel for China's massive 21st century expansion.
Ah, but the key is not so much that their oil production couldn't keep up, but that the world's couldn't, at any price.
And that, my friends, *is* Peak Oil.
Cheers
Yes, we are supposed to believe China just decided they hated the environment in 2003 and made a dash for coal. An alternative explanation is that China (the world's factory) consciously kept the world spinning with more or less BAU for a few more years after the true date of Peak Oil ("sooner and lower than expected" - Greenspan). Anyone like to guess what the oil price would have reached if China had met these energy needs with oil? As former UK Energy Minister Brian Wilson has said it's easier to change course to deal with peak oil if you are a dictatorship.
"The fundamentals don't support this price they cried". They did if you believe Memmel's estimates of the true fundamentals strangely enough.
A comment from ArmaGideon on Memmel's blog says
Were we all taken for a ride?
I am a Gloomer, not a doomer, but I am hopeful that with enough little bits of effort people could if they were willing to change their habits in places all over the world we could get to where we don't use as many FF if any at all, and still feed ourselves, because of my background in design and gardening and positive mental attitude.
But I am also standing back against a wall with a sharp knife in my hand held low, waiting for that nasty big wolf in my house. I have all the lights off, and have put out a few strings with bells attached in the rooms as I moved out of them. The wolf might kill me, but I'll do it as much harm as possible.
That is why I am a Gloomer, I want to change as much of the world's bad habits and nasty selfishness toward good habits and helpfulness. But am prepared to get dirty in the process.
As far as being taken for a ride, Those that got on the bus, yes for a ride around beautiful countryside with big houses and you got to see all the pretty sights, though not allowed to get off the bus, after showing you all the pretty things, getting your hopes up, they dumped you back off on your street and went away laughing at you having paid them for the tour. Out here they have high tall fences where all the rest of us are and they are in there, having a blast in the pretty places.
Haves with a bit of food producing land and safety and gates to protect them, and the rest of the world in the desert and death places.
Gloomer, going to go back to bed soon (legs have swollen a bit more than they should be to be comfortable, had to get my TOD fix(damage due to blood clots)).
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better future.
what pxib said...
Has anyone gone to google earth and looked at all the pipe yards east of Houston between San Jacinto river and the East belt along US 90? Yes thats all pipe and I suspect much of it is old US scrap turned into pipe in China.
I don't need Google to see them chip...I live amongst them. I mentioned some time ago that my owner isn't just investing in oil/NG. He also owns a steel salvage operation in this same area. How ironic: about 6 months ago we cut up 6 offshore oilfield service boats. And where did we ship the scrap? We slowly chew up our industries, sell the scrap to China and then buy back the finished products. This has been the faith of our heavy industries for decades. About 20 years ago it was the Japanese who sold us oil field tubulars made from our scrap for less then domestic production could produce.
It's inevitable I suppose. I assume if we dug deep into the archives we would find stories about the US in the early 1900's hurting European industries with our booming economy.
Where's George Mobus when we need him? Given the recognition that we are at some point in the 'undulating plateau' then it follows that we are into decline in net energy. The shaky world financial situation is strong evidence that less work is being performed when you subtract the energy required to get energy. The graphs confirm that substitutes for oil are increasingly in use to prolong oil's availability and compensate for its price rise. But we're getting less net return and exacerbating other problems for our efforts.
If humankind manages to survive ten thousand years as something more than just hunter-gatherers, then they may speak of our time as "The Oil Moment".
Methinks cracks are beginning to appear in the denier/cornucopian facade! The story up top quoting this Glen Sweetnam guy when added to the one, Oil reserves 'exaggerated by one third' from Thursday could be considered to be two body blows in four days IMHO. As I see it, Sir David King et al, call the EIA/IEA/CERA bluff on Thursday and by Sunday this not so good rebuttal from Glen Sweetnam gets published. This could get interesting!
And, talk about doublespeak (BS), as others here have pointed out, "the DOE dismisses the Peak Oil theory" and then some spokesperson goes and outlines a concept I first heard described by none other than Colin Campbell, founder of ASPO, that he described as Peak Oil. Huh?
Alan from the islands
edited for some spelling/typos
The article links to a presentation which will be made at an EIA Conference in Washington DC in a little over a week. I plan to attend the conference, and hope to ask some questions.
Correction: The presentation is from last year's EIA conference. There will be a similar conference in a little over a week, and Sweetnam is one of the speakers. I expect he will be talking about something very similar then.
No.
They are saying we are running out of investment, not that we are running out of oil.
'Peak oil theory', the logistical curve says that production is a function of geology(URR)--period, not investments.
More investment can lead to reserve growth and new discoveries but they don't translate into endless oil.
The peak probably happens at the begining of the undulating plateau and then investment must try to keep up production. In mineral economics they talk about
reserves available at a certain $ price, a recovery factor on the entire resouce.
I think I read somewhere that the total world petroleum resource is ~6 trillion barrels of which we have used up 1 trillion barrels.
It seems improbable that the economics of oil is so terrible that we would give up on our richest source of energy.
Supposing it took another 1.3 trillion dollars a year to return 30 billion barrels a year of oil. That's only $43 a barrel more, ~$1 per gallon more at the gas pump.
Here is a curious model, slightly different than the usual logistic. There are two variables - the amount of petroleum remaining (R), and the scale of human resource available to extract it (P). The model captures how human capability expands as there is lots of petroleum remaining, but then as petroleum gets scarce, human capability shrinks because there is just not enough energy available to maintain it:
http://peakoil.com/depletion-modeling/logistic-equation-model-for-collap...
This model predicts that some petroleum will be left in the ground. This is very easy to believe - some of the deepest off-shore fields, for example, may remain out of reach because the big technology boom goes bust before we ever get to them.
I have visions of the days when EROEI approaches unity or goes fractional. Decision makers saying, "why waste all this good energy that we've got, going after that oil that might exist six miles under the ocean?" A bird in the hand being worth two in the bush as it were. Actually they might start saying that long before EROEI approaches unity. If you're going to use more energy extracting the oil than you'll ever get from it, what's the point? Even if some really cheap and convenient renewable source of energy becomes available, why waste it going after this stinky, toxic stuff? I can see a lot of oil eventually being left right where it is.
Alan from the islands
Oil as feedstock for plastics, medicines, pesticides,etc.
From reading ASPO there is only about 2.5 Trillion barrels of OIL, maybe with Tar sands, oil shale, coal and NG converted to Sweet Crude there might be ~6 trillion barrels worth of total FF.
If we had 6 Trillion barrels of Crude Oil, then we would be in heaven, and 5 dollar oil, and have a pump in every backyard. 228 cubic miles of OIL, imagine the CO2 from all that.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better future.
You have to understand that a lot of people out there - including a lot of people who really ought to know better - misunderstand what is meant by "peak oil". The mental image they have is of a right triangle, with production going up and up, and then when oil is all gone, it immediately crashes to zero. They really do think that "peak oil" means the same thing as "running entirely out of oil".
Set up that straw man and it is really easy to knock down.
Re: "if the investment is not there”
I wonder what the total global investment was in crude oil production, in the 2006-2008 time frame, inclusive, that resulted in a cumulative shortfall in global crude oil production, relative to the 2005 rate (EIA)?
1.3 trillion/yr is 52 cents on the dollar investment for 85MBD @ $80 Brl. Don't leave much for anything else after Gov's extract all their production taxes.
Or looking at it from the other direction... With 25% of total revenue reinvested in exploration, the price of a barrel of oil would need to be $167 to get to $1.3 trillion/year.
Anyone got a figure for how much of total revenue is currently being reinvested?
No, however I can assure you the amount of investment dollars required to maintain our current oil production will inject too much negative feedback to maintain the economy at its current level.
The losses in this circuit are rising and the Q is collapsing.
What is Q?
Well speaking in non-electronic terms it would be the effort required to maintain BAU.
Or the ratio of the energy required to maintain a pendalum in motion to the energy required to bring it to a stop in a single cycle. Or in a resonant circuit xl or xc over r
Q = Quality
Something that is immediately obvious from one of the charts in the linked article and powerpoint: even if the amount of investment capital available stays the same, that is not enough, because bringing new resources on line now costs a lot more - and gets more and more expensive with each marginal addition from here on out. Or, to look at it another way, you get less "bang for the buck" (or maybe barrels for the buck) with each additional dollar invested.
Yeah, we should expect to start seeing more and more stories in the MSM about the "oil investment crisis". It will be noted - surprise! - that finding and extracting new oil now costs a lot more than it used to. Most of the articles will conclude along the lines of either: "Where will the extra money come from?, or "Oh, dear, the extra money isn't coming forward, what do we do now?"
There will be people denying peak oil all the way to the bottom, just like there are people still denying that we went to the moon or that the earth is round.
As I recall, the paper, Le Monde, is one of the top news papers in France. Think of what would happen if an article similar to this were to appear in the New York Times or the WaPo...
E. Swanson
Nothing. Or may be they will start talking nonstop on how Governement is going to take over big oil.
You know, it is an interesting phenomena going on in this country. Even though the MSM and the government are not saying these "bad" things directly, like Peak Oil, economic dysfunction, the descension of the USA as the world leader, climate change, I think most people are having gut feelings that all is not how it used to be and may never go back to how it was 10-20 years ago.
It's how we get surveys showing 70-80% saying they think the whole system could collapse. Fewer and fewer folks "trust" the official line being touted as their reality does match what they are told it should be.
One of the most fascinating threads in oildrum.com history, bar none. The day the DOE denied, yet the White House admitted, 'Peak Oil'.
What's going on in the Falklands? Note that Desire Petroleum is apparently denying the Sunday Times press report below. Also for some reason The Times website has removed all readers comments from the article including ones denying the story and even those just asking why they are deleting comments.
Ocean Guardian: The rig was towed from Scotland to the South Atlantic to drill for oil near the Falkland Islands
Falklands oil fever cools as Desire Petroleum well flops
But this was reported recently.
Argentina threatens to ban firms operating in the Falklands as Royal Navy sends attack submarine
More Falklands Oil and Gas (FOG) at http://www.fogl.com/
A company denying a story which would suppress its stock value. Hardly suprising.
Falklands oil and gas, just like any of the hundreds of 'interesting new developments' around the world aren't going to put a dent in the decline rates of the major fields. The trend for new discoveries has been set for decades - and barring some miraculous and absurd event such as stopping US military expenditure and putting it all in oil and gas exploration and development - we're going to peak and decline.
As for Falklands development - most oil&gas in the world is on politically sensitive areas (nigeria, middle east etc.) so having a new patch open up on a disputed territory is the same old..
And sending in an attack submarine is just saber ratling - the Argentine military has long been under funded - with outdated equipment - and is more suitable to its current role in international peace keeping. Not to mention that Argentina is more than ever dependant on good foreign relations, international commerce - and as part of G20 and being a major-nato ally - will have no desire to engage in anykind of conflict - be it political, economic or military.
I know, sometimes reality is more boring than one would wish.
Wow. Looks like an Aesop's fable of an Eagle and a Crow, fighting bitterly over what turns out to be a rubber chicken.
Kinda funny.. and maybe it'll bring a few more people into the thought that
'maybe, just maybe..there isn't really all that much left to drill, baby.'
Or as Borges said of the Falklands/Malvinas War: "Two bald men fighting over a comb".
Leanan, what happened to the "Advanced Search" function? It seems to be missing. Or was that discussed during the last two days when I was out of pocket from Drumbeats?
Ron P.
The advanced search was a free trial, and the trial has ended.
It will be very expensive if we decide to keep it. Like, $5000 a year. SuperG is trying to figure out if we can host our own advanced search for cheaper.
Very possible.
I'll drop him a note to see how he's doing on it. I had collected a couple sponsors for it, too, to help defray the costs.
We would like to bring it back, but it's pretty costly to maintain as Leanan said above. We're also looking into other options that might be a little less costly.
I know what you mean, I was rather enjoying a good search function as well.
Would that be a new type of oil or geologic province: "Suffisant"? Perhaps, it is like its close phonetic kin the Sufi, who are Islmaic Mystics? Or perhaps it's a Yerginism?
It seems to me the EIA accepts Peak Oil Theory so long as it contains an undulating plateau.
The article is translated from the French original
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/03/23/washington-envisage-un-declin-...
It's just a translation error.
It was sufficient for a good cynical laugh, given the following mantra--There will always be enough oil as long as we have enough money.
It's a valid English word; it's just not used much anymore:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Suffisant
Darkness descends as Earth Hour tolls
Millions in Canada expected to hit the lights to raise awareness about climate change, joining participants around the globe
See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/darkness-descends-as-earth-...
The comments posted in response to this article and the one in our local paper are disheartening. I sometimes wonder if they're truly representative of public opinion or if there's something more minacious at hand.
Cheers,
Paul
Dear Paul
Just finished having the last quarter of the basement insulated and having an insulated cold closet (connected to outside Sask. winter via vent) for winter spuds built. Still have to finish off last quarter of attic insulation once I find courage to belly flop thru attic (sorry Honey, it's taking me a while...spousal guilt;^))(I'm worse than usual about finishing projects). With the new windows and added insulation, house is much warmer and much more comfortable and the furnace seems to running much less. We are pouring over veggie seed catalogs and thinking of what to grow this summer. Have bike up and running now that snow is gone, will try to use it to get to work half the days in the warm season (my spare tire needs some work). Am trying to convince Fundie in-laws to try some of this energy efficiency stuff as "it saves money".
Best hopes for insulation, Paleo
I too despair, but the house is now so much more comfortable....
Hi Paleo,
Thanks for the update on your energy retrofits and congratulations on your achievements to date; it's great to see your hard work is paying off.
Our oil tank was last filled August 24th, some two-hundred and sixteen days ago, and the gauge suggests we've used about 100-litres since then. We don't normally run the boiler unless we have overnight guests and want to ensure there's sufficient hot water for multiple showers; otherwise, our small 1.5 kW electric tank is more than adequate for our needs. The only other time we'll fire it up is during especially cold weather, simply to prevent the pipes from freezing where they run through exterior walls, and during extended power cuts, and we had a couple of those earlier on this winter.
With respect to our electricity consumption, our rolling twelve month usage now stands at 12,466 kWh. With a little further tweaking, I hope to get that below the 12,000 mark, and if we were to replace the older of our two heat pumps with a high efficiency Fujitsu, we could theoretically break 10,000. That's the goal. (The oil savings related to this older unit can be found at http://freepdfhosting.com/d1c5875875.pdf)
As mentioned before, the previous owners of this home used 5,700-litres of fuel oil and I believe some 14,600-kWh of electricity in the year prior to our purchase. So, using that as our baseline, over the past eight years the various improvements we've made to our home have saved us over 37,000-litres of oil and perhaps 20,000-kWh of electricity, or nearly $35,000.00 at today's prices.
Cheers,
Paul
I turned off the most of the power between 8:30 and 9:30 last night and went on a stroll seeing if anyone was doing the same. There was really no difference. Some homes were dark but they just looked empty. Others were lit up like Xmas trees, especially with security lights and low landscape lights.
In the USA the people are just not energy literate.
I'd rather reduce my energy usage year-round (which I have made progress on) than participate in a ridiculous, utterly meaningless, one-hour stunt once per year.
I suspect that with the public concerts and people flying and driving around to give speeches and perform that "Earth Hour" probably generates more carbon dioxide than if people just did nothing.
From your local paper:
This sort of behavior may be OK for preaching to the choir, but not so much for communicating with the public at large. Of course I don't know for sure about Canada, but in many places in the USA, it would probably cause most people to dismiss those running the event as lunatics and move on to more important things. Sometimes the enviro movement just seems to have a pervasive incurable political death-wish.
Hi Paul,
It was -8°C at 20h30 last night with a wind chill of -14°C, so I suspect many folks didn't want to venture out in the cold, especially with winds blowing off the water. We celebrated Earth Hour by inviting some of our neighbours over for dinner; it was a good opportunity to reconnect with people we care about.
Cheers,
Paul
Damn, it got down to 45 degrees F last night in Pensacola, northwestern Florida, well below the 54 degrees F average low for this time of the year. We damn near froze. So I know how you feel. ;-)
But not to worry, it got up to 73 degree today, back to normal.
Ron P.
Hi Ron,
It's a shame the weather didn't cooperate. One of the bands performing at Earth Hour was Sons of Maxwell. You may not recognize the name, but one of their songs received worldwide media attention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Cheers,
Paul
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/28taxes.html?hp
States Seeking Cash Hope to Expand Taxes to Services
Interesting to watch, isn't it. States in trouble, federal government expanding. And any attempt by states to plug the budget don't work, because people are too poor! And if you tax them more, they become poorer! Which means that state services and government jobs have to be cut - the death spiral continues. If only states had a printing press.
It pains me to see all this happening to these blue states, especially since they have a long term future, being up north and all. It's a great tragedy of our time that the Sunbelt (apart from some housing problems in Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc.) is holding its own, especially since it has no future! The sunbelt is quite literally toast in 50 years, and yet people move from Michigan to Texas. Insane.
I just don't see it. Climate change will be slightly greater in the North. Its not like the south will become too hot for human life, the US south will remain cooler than most of the current tropics, and billions survive there. Climate change won't kill us via the direct effects of heat, but will work via changing patterns, so that neither the ecosystems, nor our infrastructure are well suited to the new local conditions. Some of the biggest changes will be in Alaska, whose warming will be much higher than further south, and which will be affected because of melting permafrost as well as other things.
Your analysis is a little off. First, the changes in the far north will help make things more livable for many, particularly in terms of more water and longer growing seasons. Yes, there will be trade-offs, but the overall temps, even with extremes, will be significantly cooler than the southern tier, just as they are now. In other words, it's all relative.
The southern tier, however, is already very hot in summer, and will be getting hotter. It's those extremes that are gonna get you. 100+ for three or four months out of the year? The thing about the tropics (the green kind) is, they don't get those extremes; it's always warm and sometimes hot. But the real story is that along the southern tier of the US, water is going to become a problem, most notably in the Southwest.
I'll take the Great Lakes region over the Southern Tier, period. I will be interesting to watch climate refugees re-fill Detroit.
Cheers
This is a typical mindless statement by the media. Getting back to so called "growth" is the core problem that is driving the planet towards oil and other resource exhaustion, ecocide, and global heating that will eventually make much of the planet uninhabitable at any sort of tolerable level. It just seems axiomatic to the typical reader of media that anything that gets any country back to so called growth is automatically a good thing and does not need to be questioned.
All schemes to moderate oil and resource exhaustion and global heating always needs to be couched in the context of growth as this seems to be the only way to sell it. The media needs to step back and reevaluate their own assumptions, especially the business media. All they are doing is perpetuating the myth that we can have it all, that we can grow indefinitely, especially as we use so called renewable energy to save the day. Renewable energy has become a cover for the presumption that growth must be continued at all costs, including the death of civilization and most of the planet's species.
Environmentalists have adopted this technique as well, selling the idea that a clean and viable environment can be bought while continuing business and growth as usual. Al Gore is one of the leading proponents of this madness.
Best hopes for Ireland not returning to growth as usual.
In addition, jobs need to be decoupled from growth. The threat is always that if we don't keep the growth machine going that jobs will not be possible. Support the machine or the wealthy powers that be will make sure that they keep all of the crumbs.
I'm not clear on how the DOE's "undulating plateau" theory really differs in any significant way from peak oil. The top of the curve will be/is bumpy rather than smooth? Seems like most peak oil theorists would probably agree with that statement.
Perhaps they are merely trying to get away from the psychological baggage associated with saying "peak oil."
Story #15 above, Defenders of the Land...
"the myths of passivity to authority; of the moral purity of non violence..."
This is an open declaration of violent race war, very carefully disguised with eco-verbiage...
And we haven't even fallen off PO yet!
I think "undulating plateau" has to be one of the most annoying phrases in the whole peak oil debate.
This sounds like a CERA/IHS report where they are finally admitting that there may be serious issues before 2030. Of course they will blame thing things using the 2nd most annoying phrase "Above ground issues".