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Drumbeat: July 14, 2010
Posted by Leanan on July 14, 2010 - 10:12am
The Peak Oil Crisis: A Mid-Year Review
Nearly everyone will admit that continuing oil shortages and that high (above $100 a barrel) oil prices would be devastating to the prospects for economic recovery and that persisting very high (say above $200 a barrel) oil prices would send the U.S. and many other economies into a deep, long-lasting depression. The problem is that few are willing to consider seriously the accumulating evidence that increasing oil prices and eventually oil shortages within the next few years are as inevitable as the sunrise. Most of us have no thoughts about the issue other than the current price of a gallon of gas. Among those who appreciate that the world's petroleum resources are finite, few understand the proximity of the crisis.
US oil refining capacity down first time since 2003
(Reuters) - U.S. oil refining capacity fell for the first time since 2003 as the weak economy reduced demand for gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.There were 148 refineries at the beginning of this year with an operating capacity of almost 17.6 million barrels per day, down 87,760 bpd from last year, the Energy Department's analytical arm said. It the was the first decline in total U.S. refining capacity since 2003.
Shortly after being sworn in, the President of the United States is briefed on secrets of national security... secrets of our nation's frailty... secrets that aren't revealed to anyone except top government officials.But what Obama let slip — and what commentators on NBC, Fox, and MSNBC completely missed — could send the price of oil skyrocketing... and a nation into panic mode:
Chesapeake may attract Asian investors to assets
Alberta (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp may attract more Asian investors to its banking group or as buyers of interests it has on the block, but the U.S. natural gas producer has no immediate plans for another stock sale, an executive said on Wednesday.
Alberta upgrader talks uncertain
Negotiations between Alberta's government and a joint venture seeking to process bitumen paid to the province in lieu of cash royalties may not yield an agreement, the province's energy minister said today.
Italy mulls new offshore drilling rules
Italy is considering new rules to tighten permits for offshore oil and gas exploration and production after BP's oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Industry Ministry Undersecretary said today.
EU plans to strengthen rules for offshore drilling
BRUSSELS - The EU’s executive is planning to toughen rules covering accident prevention and liability for offshore oil drilling in response to BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill, Europe’s environment chief said on Wednesday.
BP may skip pressure test on oil well cap
BP might skip a highly touted pressure test on a cap at the gushing Gulf of Mexico wellhead if experts determine it could risk another leak by damaging the blown-out well, a company executive said Wednesday.
Birds flying right into oily morass of Gulf
The piping plovers already are flying toward peril. The endangered birds are among the first of millions that will migrate this fall to the Gulf of Mexico— and the oil leak that could kill them.Some birds, including the common loon and lesser scaup, spend winters along the Gulf Coast. Others, such as the blue winged teal, use the Gulf as a staging area where they stock up on food before flying to Latin America.
"There are millions of birds at risk," says Ken Rosenberg, conservation science director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "It's safe to say thousands will die."
Offshore Drilling: To Pause or Not to Pause
Three weeks ago, William K. Reilly, the newly named co-chairman of the presidential commission appointed to investigate the BP oil spill, said he thought the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was necessary – and maybe even too short.
Eighty four days after it began, with probably 180 million gallons spilled, the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may be at an end. BP’s new cap should stop the flow. But the questions over the oil giant’s record endure. Company insiders, past and present, say the Deepwater Horizon disaster was all too foreseeable. They describe a culture of arrogance and risk-taking spanning decades. Profits, it seems, always come before safety and whistle-blowers are intimidated, pressured out, or fired. Though CEO Tony Hayward promised to make the company safer when he took over in 2007, the pressure to cut costs intensified as he struggled to please shareholders amidst an economic downturn.
Watch out: Beijing's resource policies can be predatory.
Scientists say Gulf spill altering food web
NEW ORLEANS – Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment.
BP explores B.C. coal methane reserves
BP has set up its first test well in B.C. to explore the possibility of extracting methane from coal in the Rocky Mountains of the province's southeast.
U.S. Wary of South Korea’s Plan to Reuse Nuclear Fuel
South Korea, which has no oil reserves, derives 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors and is running out of space to store the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.So the South Korean government wants to reprocess the used material — both to provide fuel for its next generation of fast-breeder reactors and to reduce its stored waste.
But South Korea is prohibited from such activities under a 1974 agreement with the United States. The plutonium that results from reprocessing spent fuel can power nuclear reactors — which South Korea insists is its only goal — but can also be used to make atomic bombs, as North Korea has done.
Utah firm nixes plan to import Italian nuke waste
SALT LAKE CITY – EnergySolutions Inc. said Wednesday it is abandoning its plans to dispose of nuclear waste from Italy in Utah's west desert and instead will try to help open a disposal facility in that country.The Salt Lake City-based company had been seeking to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy's shuttered nuclear power program. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would have been disposed of in Utah.
Exxon says growing its algae biofuels program
(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp said on Wednesday it opened a greenhouse facility to grow and test algae, the next step for its nascent biofuels program.
Manure helps power new army barracks
LONDON (Reuters) – Bio-fuel pellets made from horse manure will help power the new barracks of the Royal Horse Artillery, the Ministry of Defense announced.
Obama pushes electric cars, battery power this week
President Obama will travel to Holland, Mich., Thursday for the groundbreaking of a Compact Power Inc. factory. The company received $151 million in federal stimulus money to open the plant, which will make lithium ion cells for plug-in hybrids and employ about 450 people by 2013.Obama has promised to bring 1 million plug-in hybrids to American roads by 2015. The administration has pledged $2.4 billion in federal grants to develop next-generation electric vehicles and batteries.
ANALYSIS - Sanctions tighten pressure on Iran's oil industry
(Reuters) - A new round of U.S. and European sanctions targets Iran's dilapidated oil sector from top to bottom, making it even more difficult to maintain output capacity and domestic supplies of fuel.The United States, seeking to halt Tehran's nuclear enrichment activities, passed unilateral sanctions earlier this month that for the first time allow it to punish the U.S. operations of international firms who supply fuel to Iran.
Although the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, Iran lacks the refining capacity to meet domestic fuel demand and relies on imports to meet up to 40 percent of its gasoline needs.
Nigeria: Officials backpedal on state oil finances
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Two Nigerian government officials say the state-run oil company is on sound fiscal ground, a day after a finance minister called the firm "insolvent."Information Minister Dora Akunyili told reporters Wednesday that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. "does not have solvency issues." Finance Minister Segun Aganga also said the insolvency claim didn't look at the "comprehensive picture."
Indian Oil, State-Run Refiners to Review Gasoline Prices Once a Month
Indian Oil Corp. and other state-run refiners will review gasoline prices once a month after the government freed rates of the auto fuel to reduce subsidies.
More oil added to Brazil's recoverable reserves
RIO DE JANEIRO (UPI) -- First tests at Brazil's offshore Franco field added another 50,000 barrels a day of crude oil to the Latin American country's reserves amid a mixture of celebration and caution in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico environmental disaster.
Minister delays decision on floating LNG project
A DAY after the federal government froze $30 billion worth of investment in Queensland's liquefied natural gas sector comes news that Royal Dutch Shell's $5.7 billion Prelude LNG project has also suffered an environmental setback.
France doubles exports to UK power market
(Reuters) - French power exports to Britain have more than doubled in three months as ample supply due to strong nuclear power production and two-year highs in water reservoir levels kept French spot electricity prices below British equivalents.
Norway wealth fund shrank to $447 bln in June
(Reuters) - The value of Norway's sovereign wealth fund fell by 0.4 percent in June to a preliminary 2.790 trillion Norwegian crowns ($446.6 billion) from 2.802 trillion at the end of May, central bank data showed on Wednesday.
Analysis: Looking Ahead to GOM Snap Back
Arguments favoring a recovery in Gulf of Mexico rig activity are plentiful (once we get past the politics surrounding the oil spill) and include:
Oil still flows as BP delays cap tests
The plan to start choking off oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was suddenly halted as government officials and BP said further analysis must be done Wednesday before critical tests could proceed.No explanation was given for the decision, and no date was set for when testing would begin on the new, tighter-fitting cap BP installed on the blown-out well Monday.
BP Would Be Barred From New Offshore Leases Under House Bill
The House Natural Resources Committee adopted the amendment by voice vote today while considering legislation to toughen safety standards for offshore drilling after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico
BP Must Halt Libya Wells, Say Senators Seeking Lockerbie Probe
"Evidence in the Deepwater Horizon disaster seems to suggest that BP would put profit ahead of people," Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York wrote in the letter to Clinton yesterday. "The question we now have to answer is, was this corporation willing to trade justice in the murder of 270 innocent people for oil profits?"Menendez, Schumer and Lautenberg held a press conference in Washington this morning "to call for BP to suspend its oil drilling plans in Libya," Mike Morey, a spokesman for Schumer, wrote in an e-mail.
The lost legacy of the last great oil spill
Some ecosystems bounced back after the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill, but research quickly withered.
Surge seen in number of spill-eating microbes
WASHINGTON -- The number of naturally occurring microbes that eat methane grew surprisingly fast inside a plume spreading from BP's ruptured oil well, an oceanographer who was one of the first to detect the plumes said Tuesday.Samantha Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia at Athens, said it's good news that the microbes are eating the methane. However, the microbes also use oxygen in the water, and Joye said the repercussions of the resulting oxygen depletion aren't yet known.
FDIC: Ease loan terms for borrowers hurt by oil spill
The nation’s top banking regulators told financial institutions to go easy on customers affected by BP PLC’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sicily plant offers Italy new impetus on solar front
PRIOLO GARGALLO, Sicily (Reuters) - Italy's largest utility Enel on Wednesday opened a long-delayed solar plant boasting new technology that could help Italy partially catch up with more advanced solar markets like Spain.
Biodiesel an option for 2011 cellulosic shortage
The U.S. EPA has issued the proposed production volumes for the 2011 RFS2, calculating biomass-based diesel for 2011 at 800 million gallons. To formulate the production number, EPA examined both industry capacity and recent production rates. “As of April 2010, the aggregate production capacity of biodiesel plants in the U.S. was estimated at 2.2 billion gallons per year across approximately 137 facilities,” EPA said.“The biodiesel industry stands ready, willing and able to produce the wet gallons required to comply with the program,” said Joe Jobe, National Biodiesel Board CEO. “By 2011, much of the uncertainty that has accompanied the start up and transition of the program in 2009 and 2010 will have been eliminated.”
Consider Nouriel Roubini, the economist who shot to global gurudom after he correctly predicted the meltdown of 2008. Every time he is interviewed, every time he is introduced to an audience, Roubini's famous call is mentioned. What is never mentioned is that Roubini also called for a recession in the United States in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Or that after the crash of 2008 he said oil would stay below $40 a barrel throughout 2009 (it doubled in price). Or that he said stocks were going nowhere but down (they soared).
Energy crisis? We’ve been here before
Around 400 years ago, Britain faced another problem of dwindling energy resources: ‘peak wood’.
Jeff Rubin: Oil must rise to make oil sands economical
It’s not its carbon trail that stands in the way of the Alberta tar sands’ picking up the supply ball dropped by deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, tar sands fuel is no dirtier than coal, and Americans haven’t let that fossil fuel’s carbon trail stand in the way of its generating almost half of their electrical power. If America is going to ban tar sands fuel, why doesn’t it ban coal as well?Double standards aside, though, Congressman Henry Waxman and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger needn’t worry about growing American dependence on dirty tar sands fuel. TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, connecting as much as 900,000 barrels a day of oil from the tar sands to Texas refineries, isn’t going to have much flowing in it if oil prices stay where they are today.
Oil dips below $77 as US crude supplies rise
LONDON – Oil prices dropped below $77 a barrel Wednesday after a report showed U.S. crude supplies rose unexpectedly last week, suggesting demand remains lackluster.
U.S. Import Prices Fell in June by Most Since January 2009 on Oil's Slide
Prices of goods imported into the U.S. fell in June by the most since January 2009, led by declines in costs of oil, business equipment and consumer goods.The 1.3 percent decline in the import price index was more than projected and followed a revised 0.5 percent drop in May, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists forecast a 0.4 percent decrease, according to the Bloomberg News survey median. Prices excluding petroleum fell 0.5 percent, the biggest decline since March 2009.
Oil Imports Dropping From Record as China Curbs Refining
Chinese oil imports may decline from this month’s record high as waning energy demand reduces refining profits.Monthly imports may decline at least 19 percent to 18 million metric tons in the second half, from a record 22.3 million tons in June, according to Wang Aochao, a former Exxon Mobil Corp. marketing official who heads China energy research at UOB-Kay Hian Ltd. in Shanghai. Refining profits at state- owned China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, sank almost 90 percent from May to June, a company official said.
Russia promises Iran fuel despite sanctions
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian companies are ready to supply fuel to energy-hungry Iran, despite unilateral US and EU sanctions targeting Tehran's oil and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said on Wednesday.
Rhine Freight Rates for Refined Oil Products Rise as Water Levels Recede
The cost of shipping oil products on the Rhine River advanced after water levels fell in the last three weeks, reducing the amount of fuel that can be carried on barges.
BP Plans to Start Drilling Off Libya as U.S. Senators Seek Lockerbie Probe
BP Plc plans to start drilling off Libya’s coast in the next few weeks as its links with the North African country come under scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers.The London-based company has a rig in place to start a well in the Gulf of Sirt after completing a seismic survey last year. BP also plans to drill onshore in the 13,000 square kilometer Ghadames basin by the end of the year, Robert Wine, a spokesman for BP, said today.
US officials order delay in vital oil well test
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP was poised Wednesday to carry out a make-or-break test on the integrity of the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well, following a delay imposed by US authorities.The former Coast Guard chief leading the US response to the disaster took the decision to put the test off until Wednesday at the earliest after meeting Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel-winning physicist, and other experts.
BP sells strategic oil storage assets to Magellan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – BP Plc said on Tuesday it sold its Cushing, Oklahoma, oil tanks, a major tool of its renowned trading arm, in its first asset sale since the Macondo well blowout saddled it with multibillion-dollar liabilities.
Oil Spill’s Impact on Gulf Seafood Remains Uncertain
As the spill reaches more of the food supply, the government steps up monitoring to try to keep the local seafood industry from collapsing.
Putin Providing BP Investor Haven as Yields Tumble on TNK-BP Dollar Bonds
The worst oil spill in U.S. history is proving a bigger risk to debt investors than Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as BP Plc bonds yield more than those of its Moscow-based affiliate TNK-BP.
And Now, Bring On the Engineers
The National Academy of Engineering has appointed a panel to investigate the technical failures that resulted in the gulf oil spill.
Action-Figure Jindal, No-Party Crist Gain on BP Spill Response
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal says he delivered an ultimatum on the Obama administration’s handling of the BP Plc oil spill to Vice President Joe Biden: “Lead or get out of the way.”The Republican recounted the June 29 conversation, held during a Biden visit to the Gulf Coast, to reporters at a subsequent press conference. Jindal, whose state has been hit hardest by the disaster, has been a vocal critic of the federal response, and it’s paying off. His approval rating has jumped as much as 10 percentage points in state polls.
BP well may be capped, but oil's damage is far from over
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP may be on the verge of capping the well which has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but the cleanup is far from over and the damage to the region's environment and economy could last decades.
How Much Does a Gallon of Gas Cost?
Most of us would call the BP spill a tragedy. Ask an economist what it is, however, and you’ll hear a different word: “externality.” An externality is a cost that’s not paid by the people using the good that creates the cost. The spill is going to cost fishermen, it’s going to cost the ecosystem, and it’s going to cost the area’s tourism industry. But that cost won’t be paid by the people who wanted that oil for their cars. It’ll fall on taxpayers, on Gulf Coast residents who need a new job, on the poisoned wildlife.That means that the gasoline you’re buying at the pump is — stick with me here — too cheap. The price you pay is less than the product’s true cost. And it’s not just catastrophic spills and dramatic disruptions in the Middle East that add to the price. Gasoline has so many hidden costs that there’s a cottage industry devoted to tallying them up. At least the ones that can be tallied up.
Drilling woes may creep onshore
Restrictions on new oil and gas drilling could soon spread from the Gulf of Mexico to onshore operations as the BP spill highlights the dangers associated with energy production.There's currently a moratorium set to last until November 30 on drilling rigs used for deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The moratorium is designed to halt new operations until the causes of the BP accident are known and new safety procedures can be put in place.
But the incident has heightened concerns over other forms of oil and gas drilling - specifically drilling in the prolific but controversial shale formations.
Drawing the Horizon line: Public apathy and the oiligarchy
Despite the recently - or temporarily - ended Gulf of Mexico oil spill debacle, governments, oil companies and the public are not going to get serious about shifting away from oil or really clamping down on the industry any time soon.
Activists want more restrictions on natural gas
WEST TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Activists are calling for a complete moratorium on any permits that have to do with drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River basin.
Energy bill to debut as shadow of itself
The energy bill likely to emerge in the Senate won't look like the one Obama has sought since taking office. He wants to charge utilities and other companies for a portion of their greenhouse gas emissions as a way to reduce pollution and pay for clean energy alternatives."I'm not sure the votes are there to do that in this Congress," says Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "You need to do whatever you're able to do when you're able to do it."
What Most Peak Oil Believers are Failing to Consider
A lot of otherwise normal, well-functioning persons are firm believers in the idea that global oil production has irrevocably peaked -- or is soon to peak irrevocably. Whether such a peak will result in total global collapse, or simply lead to widespread economic hardship, is a point of contention within the peak oil community itself.But the essential reasoning upon which most peak oil believers appear to base their quasi-ossified expectations is inherently invalid. The past production rates of national oil companies cannot reliably be used to predict future production potential for wells that are controlled by national sovereign oil companies -- and yet that is exactly what is being done by peak oil prognosticators and associated grifters.
True, oil production is likely to decline, causing oil prices to rise. But the reasons for the decline are critical to understand, if one wants to comprehend what is happening.
Scientist urges government to address peak oil risk
Peak oil presents the world with an energy crisis once supplies start to dwindle any time from 2015. But another growing crisis is looming, with potentially devastating consequences for the world's food supply.Phosphorous is an essential nutrient for plant growth, along with nitrogen and potassium. It is a key component in DNA and plays an essential role in plant energy metabolism. Without it, crops would fail, causing the human food chain to collapse.
The New Doom: A Second Wave of Economic Pessimism Spreading Outside Wonkdom
Last week, not very far from the hedge fund manager's ranch, the billionaire John Malone gave a little-noticed interview to The Wall Street Journal from Allen & Co.'s annual Sun Valley conference. Asked about the biggest risks to Liberty, his media conglomerate, Mr. Malone said his concern was this country's survival. "We have a retreat that's right on the Quebec border. We own 18 miles on the border, so we can cross. Anytime we want to, we can get away."His wife is more concerned: She's already moved her personal cash to Australia and Canada. "She wants to have a place to go," said Mr. Malone, No. 400 on this year's Forbes list of the richest people in the world, "if things blow up here."
International law - the challenges facing future legislation
“When military conflicts and secret intelligence and counter terrorism become involved there is a close link between the law and politics and international relations. If there is torture by UK soldiers in Basra then a UK enquiry is required, but often it can take a political decision to actually make this happen.”And of course the worrying risk is that as international relations become more pressurised by things like peak oil, and governments’ commitments to provide power and resources to their citizens become strained, so the willingness to make such decisions might diminish.
Sustainability group takes council to task
Karen Walshe, of Future Footprints, said individuals and businesses were behind many sustainability projects, but the council showed little interest despite constant prodding.The threats of climate change and peak oil, discussed at a seminar on Transition Towns, were not high in the consciousness of this community's leaders, she said.
A new way to look at the value of minerals
Authors of the “Peak Minerals in Australia: A review of changing impacts and benefits”, explored the questions of the future global need for minerals and metals; how to ensure that benefits outweigh costs; and what to do with the proceeds of mining to sustain long-term benefit. The report suggested that peak oil offers a useful conceptual model for understanding the impact of going from ‘easier and cheaper’ to ‘complex and expensive’ resource processing, and critically, to planning a transition to new ways of providing energy services.
$200 Million for Smart Grid Ideas
General Electric, in partnership with four prominent venture capital firms, announced a $200 million competition for clean-energy innovation funds on Tuesday.
Spain overtakes US with world's biggest solar power station
Spain has opened the world's largest solar power station, meaning that it overtakes the US as the biggest solar generator in the world. The nation's total solar power production is now equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station.
Will ‘Solar Trees’ Sprout in Parking Lots?
Envision Solar will announce on Wednesday that it is trying out a "solar tree" that could track sunlight east to west and north to south, harvesting more energy.
Texas Oil Baron Is Promoting Solar Energy
J. R. EWING returned to the small screen on Tuesday, and the boys down at the Cattlemen’s Club just might need a double bourbon when they hear what he has to say.Larry Hagman, the actor who played the scheming Texas oilman on the long-running (1978-1991) television show “Dallas,” is reprising his role as J. R. in an advertising campaign to promote solar energy and SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker.
Trying to Stop Cattle Burps From Heating Up Planet
Australia contributes more greenhouse gases per capita than just about any other country, with its coal-fired power plants leading the way. But more than 10 percent of those gases come from what bureaucrats call livestock emissions — animals’ burping.
Cooling caused wars and drought in China - study
(Reuters) - As Chinese policymakers grapple with an expected increase in extreme weather due to global warming, a study has found that periods of cooling between AD 10 to 1900 also caused a wave of disasters, war and upheaval.
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Link up top: What Most Peak Oil Believers are Failing to Consider
The points in this article have been argued over and over again. To claim that peak oil believers are failing to consider them it the height of ignorance. But just to point out a few of them:
1. Most of the world is not produced by publicly owned oil companies but by national oil companies.
And we peak oil believers were not aware of this? Give me a break! But the argument is that these national oil companies spend money on their economies instead of their oil fields so they are only getting a fraction of what they could get with more investment and expertise.
This is somewhat true for Mexico, Venezuela and a couple of other nations but not for most. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and even China and Russia know exactly what they are doing. The argument that these nations could dramatically increase production with more investment and expertise is just silly.
2. Peak oil is more an economic and political phenomenon than it is a geological phenomenon.
Well, no doubt economics has a lot to do with it. A bad economy keeps demand low and prices low. A long term recession may extend the plateau for several years but the rest is entirely geology. More money cannot create more oil in the ground. Also, peak oilers have been aware of this fact for years.
3. There are technologies, as an example, miscible CO2 flooding to recover oil from allegedly depleted oil fields.
Allegedly depleted oil fields? Prudhoe Bay is only allegedly depleted? Texas is only allegedly depleted? And how the North Sea. Even Saudi’s old fields are not depleted, where hundreds of new horizontal wells have slowed the decline rate of 8 percent down to almost 2 percent, (as of 2006) are only declining because they have not injected CO2 into them yet? I sure am glad we peak oilers were informed of this fact.
4. If prices are high, but oil is plentiful, either the world will move on to cheaper forms of energy and fuel, or technology will be spurred by higher prices to achieve more efficient economies of production in the more difficult oil (and oil equivalent) fields.
Cheaper forms of energy? Cheaper than oil? Just what form of energy would that be? As was pointed out in a thread a few days ago, It's not just the scale of the task but its nature. Energy-dense liquids are valuable, and oil is uniquely valuable in its combination of density, ease of storage and transport, and, believe it or not, safety. Every alternative is worse on all metrics... There are no cheaper forms of energy.
More money and better technology will pull the oil out of the ground a lot faster but it will increase the percentage of oil recovered by only a tiny percentage. And, the fact that all those new horizontal MRC wells pull the oil right off the top of the reservoir, it will make the decline much steeper when it does arrive.
These are things that peak oil deniers are failing to consider.
Ron P.
Thanks, Ron.
That article was just loaded with "FAIL".
And I'm very glad that I wasn't the one to have to waste my time explaining why:)
Further to that it does not matter one bit if the finances cause the flow to dry up or if the costs of production do because of decline. It is all the same as far as getting it to the consusmer.
I was also interested to see I belong to a religious following. I guess now that the spiritual is taken care of, and the garden is doing well....I'm all set!!
Paul
If Peak Oil is a religion can we get a tax exempt status?
Joe
Only if you're one of the preachers...
PostPeakLiving.com is always looking for new courses...
;-)
Because most religions believe in a Here-After.
And we keep talking about life after the Peak.
Join your hands and voices in celestial prayer my Brethren...
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Peak Oil, I fear no loss of fuel, for You art with me O' Lord. I wilt find comfort in the land of utter gloom as darkness itself envelops us and electrical grids fail and gas stations shutter their pumps, Of deep shadow without Google or Microsoft to drive the internet, And which shines as the darkness, as I knowest I have been righteous with my fuel sipping Prius, ten speed bike and productive vegetable gardening.
Amen
Amen!
Paul, being a religion we also have denominations. There is the wind (solar, electric car, technology) savior denominations. There are also the Duncan/Olduvai apocalypse denominations (that's my niche). Actually there is much in any human behavior that mimics religious type thought and behavior.
But he writes "Peak oil is a religion. And like most religions, the majority of followers do not have a clear understanding of exactly what it is they are supposed to believe. They only know that they believe it, and they are right, dad-blame-it!"
Of course Peak Oilers are in fact pretty much quite clear about what they think the science tells them. Facts are constantly being sought out by Peak Oilers. Experts in geology, oil industry (especially if retired and having no vested interest in the industry any more) are respected. His expert, Rick Rule, is an expert in investments and clearly has a vested interest in getting people to believe what he says just because he says so. http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/1/16_Rick_... We know from the financial bust that the investment advisors will lie to anyone they think they can fool to make a buck.
I wanna be at least a Duncanist Deacon. Hey, Rich!?!?
I clicked on the profile of the blogger who wrote it. The blogger Al Fin says "About Me Primary interest is seeing that the best of humanity survives long enough to reach the next level."
I can guess that this blogger includes him or herself in the "best of humanity" category. I guess admitting peak oil doesn't leave enough time for the next level to be reached thus it must be denied.
"Primary interest is seeing that the best of humanity survives long enough to reach the next level."
Oh, you mean like 'Super Mario Brothers?' So, Humanity is like a video game then. How insightful...
I really hope he gets to j**k off with his flying car some day. A good deal of his site seems to be devoted that particular toy/fantasy.
Pete Deer
"But at the rate that biomass and microbial fuels are progressing, it is likely that demand for oil and oil equivalent for fuel will begin to decline quickly after the year 2030."
Ah.
Actually Ron, there are other energy sources which may be "cheaper" than oil. If one is living out in the woods far from a town, wood is likely to be cheaper than oil, especially if an individual has free time to harvest the wood himself to feed a wood stove. Of course, one must define the costs involved, such as labor cost, and for one living in a third world situation where the average pay is a few dollars a day, gathering wood (or cow dung) is certainly "cheaper" than oil. It's just that one can't power a modern car or aircraft with it...
E. Swanson
Wood is cheaper than oil? You have got to be kidding! Just try ordering a cord of wood and heating your whole house with it. Wood is about $200 a cord and it would heat one room for about a month if that long. I would bet fuel oil would be a lot cheaper.
Then there is the environmental cost of wood, which is the major consideration. If everyone heated and cooked with wood then all the wood in the world would be gone in after one winter. That's just a guess of course, but even if I am wrong.... what... two winters?
Black Dog, when people talk about replacing oil with something cheaper they are making an argument against peak oil. That is, they are talking about something that could realistically replace oil for everyone. If you are a hermit living in the woods, no doubt you can gather wood for free. But that is not the subject being discussed Black Dog, therefore.... Never mind.
Ron P.
People in my neck of the woods have returned to heating with wood as oil prices have risen and income has declined but Darwinian is basically right about the price of purchased wood that has to be hauled any significant distance.
But a room that requires a cord a month must either be built like a hay barn or else located in Siberia.Our fairly spacious old house is only moderately well insulated, compared to a new modern house built to up to date energy standards , and a cord will last us for two weeks in ten to twenty degree fahrenhiet weather.
He is also right about there not being enough woodland to supply the country with wood for heating purposes.I have seen articles by forestry professionals on this subject but I don't save the links.
The consensus among them seems to be that the woodlands would last well under a decade if we tried to burn wood for heat on a national scale.Of course a lot of the country is burning natural gas;presumably they intended to substitute wood for the gas too as most of the country is now usung gas for heat.
There are nevertheless still a lot of people who heat with oil where piped gas is not available, as in the area I live.Gas delivered by truck is not necessarily a bargain compared to delivered oil.
I think Nate Hagens did a post last year on substituting wood for natural gas. The conclusion was that the US would be completely deforested in 4 years.
4 years? maybe if we keep going in our present highly stupid way. But we don't have to do that.
I have always heated with wood, and every year I use less because I keep adding insulation to my house. I aim to exceed passive house effectiveness, and maybe get to the point where I have to pump heat out to stay cool in those January blizzards ( note, this is an attempt at a JOKE, please don't tell me I don't have to worry about it kuz all I have to do is open the door-- sigh.)
And as for oil being cheap-- Ha! only if you don't add up all the cost, like we have not been doing from the beginning of agriculture.
Oil, coal and nat gas are VERY expensive. In fact, they cost the whole world, right?
"What doth it profit a man, that he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul". "Soul" of course, meaning our future.
What IS really cheap is insulation. I have found a great supply of free insulation- all those super sized plastic bags full of shredded secrets, packing foam, styrofoam cups and such like that I find vast numbers in the dumpsters. I take 'em home to stack around my above ground cisterns so as to have nice summer-warmed water all winter. You can also stack them around the outside of buildings, and cover with a thin veneer of graffiti so as to blend perfectly into the background.
PS- my new junk-based solar water heater is working great, nary a scream from the shower stall.
Wimbi;
I want an eroei assessment on your water heater. It was probably net-positive after three showers.
I'm jealous.
Bob
OK, here we go. First, I take the mass of plastic pipe, multiply by 3 to get a WAG at the total energy used to get the total heat energy from the whole pile of stuff, mostly petroleum derived, and from the making of it, if burned to heat water. Then I take my hot water usage per day, multiply by specific heat and delta T, and divide into the total petroleum equivalent above derived.
I then get 273.8976456873 days of hot water plus or minus maybe 70% before I break even on that eroei. Or 200%, take your pick.
Then, unhappy with this result, I write a ponderous paper pointing out that the eroei is precisely something divided by zero, a nice round number, as follows.
1) the stuff all actually existed before I started with it,
2) It was destined to do nothing but slowly revert to max entropy over eons of time anyhow so
I probably made it happier when I put it back into the ratrace again, from whence it came.
3) And, to boot, I didn't do any "work" to put it together, since otherwise I would have spent that time trying to think up a neat, non-shocking way to off myself when the day comes.
4) so with that analysis, prettified with lots of eqns looking as formidable as possible within the time allowed, I shoot it off to the journal of irreproducible results, and get yet another pub. to my already quite impressive dossier.
Private answer, not for publication-- dunno, but what the hell.
Thanks for the effort, W.
your point 1) is my reason for asking. There is so much viable material in the waste stream that could go directly into Solar Heating setups, and I would like to find a good metric for simply showing how favorable the EROEI is with materials that have already served one purpose, and are being acquired cheap and used in what can be extremely durable systems to offset burnt fuels.
Solar Ovens from Used Aluminum Throwaway Pans is one I might be able to discern some of the high potential for return with very cheap or free (to the end user) inputs.
Bob
When that fat lady sings.. just give it a minute and enjoy before you go doing something drastic. It might be worth seeing the other side for a spell, before you go to the other 'other side.'
jokuhl- your Q deserves more than the mockery of standard eroei people that I gave it. I spent 50 cents per day of propane to heat my water, and it would take a lot of solar water to even break even with a solar made of junk during my recreation time as actually did it. But that's not my point of it all.
My thinking is that conventional $ counting has lost meaning in the present circumstance since we don't count the most important costs- the environment. My Q is- what do I do HERE AND NOW to make the world a better place for the future? It seems to me to be obvious that if I have a chance to cut fossil fuel use by gathering some already-moldering away junk into a widget that works, then I should do it.
Fact is, we have so much still workable stuff sitting around doing nothing that we could take a ten year jubilee and quit everything but essentials(food, etc) to devote our collective time and wits to thinking about what we would want the world to be, and getting going on it.
PS. Thanks for the kind thought on the other side. But I gotta be consistent, I recycle things when they wear out, and so I should do the same for me. Besides, it's cheaper.
It can't possibly be working! We all know that solar energy is something not worth doing because its only a fossil fuel extender and none of us can afford it anyways >;^)
Best hopes for a new mindset.
Cheers!
That was my thought when I read it. Now ... I have to paraphrase the post from memory, but I'm pretty sure he was talking about replacing all use of natural gas for heating and not considering anything like insulation or closing off half of the house or any other obvious measures that we'd do when gas got to be unavailable and it got bloody cold outside. It was just a straight-line BTU for BTU swap as an exercise in seeing how sustainable wood might be.
An eye-opener, for some of us.
I understand and agree that wood can not replace oil in the present industrialized world economy. But, to make an absolute statement that there are no cheaper alternatives to oil is to ignore the fact that in many parts of the world people live outside the industrial economy and thus, for them, wood is already cheaper than oil. In other words, oil can not replace wood for those people who are currently using wood as a fuel for cooking in places such as Central Africa or the Amazon, since the consumer hasn't enough "money income" to be able to pay for the kerosene to cook with.
From the Doomer world view you so often point to, as oil production declines and thus becomes unavailable for more and more people, one likely result will be that wood will replace oil. That's because the few millions of people left behind after the collapse won't have any other alternatives...
E. Swanson
Jeepers! Do you mean to imply that there will be a catastrophic worldwide population collapse due to Peak Oil? That's a stretch.
Joe
I think the reasoning is that, if energy availability does collapse, humanity in general won't progressively reduce population down to sustainable levels but will continue to consume any and all energy yielding available resources (probably for several decades) trying to maintain current population and lifestyles until collapse to levels significantly below what we currently think is a "sustainable" level.
(Over time, I've become much more binary in my views. I'm not a "confirmed" doomer, but I do think that if things go wrong, they'll go very, very wrong. )
How much wronger can it get? The U.S., supposedly the leader of the Free World, is fighting two wars (losing both by any reasonable definition), has collapsed it's economy with Tarp Bailouts and economic stimulus programs designed to protect a greedy oligarchy, is frozen politically to deal effectively with any existential crisis, even a catastrophic oil spill. Sure we're a lot poorer than we were a few years ago (at least on paper) but I don't see anyone starving and last time I noticed the cars were still lined up at drive-throughs for Lattes and cheeseburgers.
What brings discredit to Peak Oil arguments is this false alarm that the sky is falling. It's not!
Joe
Now that's just plain ridiculous! No one in their right mind is saying that the sky is falling. Sheesh! We're just running out of cheap! cheap! cheap! oil... or in other words, that it's the ground that's rising, there's a huge difference.
If I look up-thread there is a reference to the collapse where there will only be a few million of us left. Those kind of blanket proclamations does put peak oil arguments into the looney guy on the corner with cardboard sign group.
We need to frame arguments over what is happening in the here and now and near future. Cassandra predictions (which may eventually come true) only serve to strengthen adversarial arguments.
Joe
The human population will collapse if there isn't enough food - sadly, behind the food we eat in OECD nations is a lot of oil (without any adequate alternatives), so halve the amount of oil and you potentially halve the amount of food, halve the amount of phosphorus or water or nitrogen - all of these will be declining too with similar adverse results - to say nothing of unstable climate.
If you import any of the inputs for food ELM will ensure you take the full decline hit - and that means your population does too.
The discovery of fossil fuels is the main cause of the unprecedented rise in human population, with other species population collapse due to lack of food is dramatic and typically initially falls below the long term population.
Peak oil does not exist in isolation, it is part of a humungous clusterf**k.
Please prove to me that the timescale for population collapse is decades away and of absolutely of no consequence to my children and grandchildren.
Humans have been around for something over 100,000 years.
We've been farming for, what, close to 10,000?
There were about 1 billion people in the world when coal started getting burned for industrial purposes, a little over 200 years ago.
There are well over 7 billion now, the majority of whom would not be alive without the food output that is courtesy of the "green revolution", which is mostly just the application of natural gas-derived fertilizers and petrochemical-derived pesticides on a massive scale.
Those inputs will end. Peak Oilers tend to believe sooner rather than later, but the fact of eventual depletion is not in question.
You do the math.
Don't forget that in much of the world the green revolution also depends on drawing down limited "fossil" aquifers which are now falling fast.
Im wondering, we followed the way of the yeast on the way up, will we follow the way of the yeast on the way down?
Will our population crash like any other animal that overshoots? 200 years to get to the top, 100 years to get down again?
If so, that leaves us with some very nasty numbers.
I'm thinking these days that 100 years may be optimistic.
I suspect a human population collapse would drag the entire planet's ecosphere down with us causing damage at the level of a mass extinction. Imagine the damage in Haiti extended around the entire planet as ~9 billion people consume everything of value in a desperate attempt to survive while anthropic climate change wreaks havoc. In its scope it would be unique as instigated by a species. It might happen sometime this century after global peak natural gas.
We are already the sixth mass extinction of life on earth.
However, barring runway greenhouse, we are unlikely to be the worst. Life will bounce back, perhaps in as little as 10 million years.
What other species in all of Earth's history has been responsible for a mass extinction? The theories refer to meteor impacts, super volcanoes, gamma ray bursts and solar variability, none of which are a species. Even microbes are so specialized that they attack no more than a few species.
There may indeed be a shark fin shaped curve rather than a more rounded curve as the population de clines.
If you overstock a pasture with cows, they mostly tend to live about the same length of time, and starve in a fairly short time frame.
A few of the cows that were the toughest ones will live thru the famine and survive on the grass that begins to grow out again once the grazing pressure is off.
Some parts of the world that still practice local subsistence agriculture may not experience such a sharp decline, but if the bau economy collapses, taking down big ag and big transportation with it, starvation on a very wide scale is a given, and it may come about over a period of days or weeks in some cases.
More prosperous countries might have large enough staple food reserves to prolong the agony.
.
Note in my comments I was speaking in the conditional tense: if there's a dramatic collapse in energy availability. I'm not convinced of this, and if it does happen as mentioned I expect there to be several decades of using any resource to generate energy before things go wrong, but at that point my honest expectation is that things would go very, very wrong. (In your metaphor, I don't think the sky is falling, I think that should the sky start to wobble in the future there's no way the whole thing won't come crashing down. It's an incredibly poor metaphor because we can't choose by acting now to reinforce the sky.)
As to how "wrong" the US is, I see it still at the very start of the spectrum of "wrongness". Even if things get to the level of the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war, that'll still be relatively mild:
http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/articles/ArticleView.cfm?AID=65
Why would peak oil cause a collapse? Isn't the more likely scenario a couple of decades of stagnation followed by decline unless nuclear, wind, solar, and biomass forestall the decline?
One of the big uses of oil is transportation. Air transport is one of the uses that depends on a high-density liquid fuel. However, the airplane load is about 2/3 "leisure travel" and around 90% of that is discretionary, and the discretionary part can be eliminated without any dire effect on society. Of the 1/3 of air travel that is "business travel", about half of that could also be eliminated - a lot of the intra-company meetings, marginal convention going, reward travel, etc. A lot of business trips involve multiple people, when "one riot, one Ranger" should be the rule. So we could get down to about 1/5 of the current volume of passenger airplane fuel usage without any real harm to society.
Gasoline consumption by autos is another major category. But a lot of auto traffic is also discretionary -- vacation travel, travel to entertainments, a lot of sales calls, and a lot of shopping trips that are really "entertainment", kids driving to/at high school/college, etc. Furthermore, when there was a big push on car pooling in the '70s, it was complicated to match up people who were good candidates to car pool. With geographic information systems it would be easy for large corporations and/or cities to set up a web site where you could register an interest in car pooling and find others who have similar trips.
Rationing gasoline would also be much easier these days. You could just have people register on a web site and designate the credit/debit card that they would use to buy gas. They would get just so many gallons on the card each month before the self-serve pumps shut off.
The above are just a couple of examples, but I think that there are a lot of creative coping mechanisms that can be invented to deal with a declining supply and much higher energy prices.
So, just trying to follow the thought experiment a little further;
If air passenger travel is one-fifth what it is currently, would that mean that 80% of the airlines would go out of business? Or if, say, half go out of business and the remaining half split the remaining traffic, albeit at reduced size, what happens to the people who worked in those jobs (pilots, flight attendants, desk personnel, baggage handlers, mechanics, maintenance, etc)? And could we assume that all those businesses that directly service the airline industry will also decrease by 80% (cleaning, food service, fuel supply)? What happens to the folks that worked those jobs?
And what happens to the airports? I guess two of the three NYC area airports close? I'd expect, of course, that the remaining travel would be mostly between major cities - so what about those airports in places like Omaha, Racine, Schenectady, Eugene, etc? And I would then expect that the attached parking lot companies would also go under, is that a reasonable assumption? What about the people who work at these places?
Of course, these are just first level impacts. What would happen to Boeing and Airbus? (and the companies that build pieces of the planes for them?) What would happen to "vacation destinations? (I somehow don't see Disney World surviving an 80% cut in their attendance). What about the hotels? convention centers? and the attendant restaurants and shops that service the "tourists"?
I'm thinking that "no real harm to society" might be an underestimate. (Not that reducing air travel is a bad idea, I just wouldn't want to pretend that doing so would be "easy" or without substantial disruption to the way our society is currently organized)
The last time that the airlines flew 1/5 of their current passenger-ton-miles was in the early 1970s. My recollection is that most large cities had airports, there were more airlines than there are now, there were more employees per passenger, and service was quite a bit better. So I don't see that there is a need to have airlines go out of business, just get smaller, with perhaps 30-40% of the existing staffing for the remaining airlines, terminals, and associated terminal businesses. I doubt that airports would shut down, but terminals and gates might well be mothballed due to the lower traffic. There would certainly be a lot of jobs lost, but it would probably not be a lot more than the people who have been let go by the auto industry and associated suppliers.
There is quite a large air freight industry. For those shipments where time is critical, this might persist in the face of even quite high fuel prices, perhaps maintaining 1/2 to 3/4 of its volume. So Boeing and Airbus could continue to supply replacements and efficiency upgrades to this market. But a lot of their market is outside the US. Emirates might be still buying.
Vacation destinations, such as Disney World would be severely impacted. Coney Island, the Catskills and the Hamptons would prosper, as would close-in amusement parks and resorts. Vacation homes would be sold off or stand vacant. The time share business would suffer. Retirees would not retire far away from their children and grandchildren, thinking that they could fly back to visit them frequently.
As you point out, the economic adjustments would be severe. However, they do not amount to a collapse, since decrease in air passenger transportation to 1/5 of today's volume need not affect the production and delivery of food, clothing, shelter, health care and other basic necessities.
There is a rather big space between "no real harm to society" and " collapse" (neither of which were my words).
The problem for the economy is not, however, the impact of removing just one "slice" - the problem is that any particular slice removed undermines the rationale for the economy (namely, growth). We could all live nice lives without growth being our "god," but remove growth from this economy and much of what is held dear as contemporary values will be endangered. In short, its not the ability to provide goods that will measure our descent, it will be the social aspects of the reduced number of goods (most of which are admittedly poor quality and unnecessary - but, hey, we gotta fill our garages with something!).
Still, your 1970 baseline is probably a good starting point - it was a time when they're were two kinds of people. Those who had flown and those who had not, yet. In another ten years it will be those who still fly and those who will never fly again.
The cost of flying was a lot higher in the early 1970s. I could get a round-trip coast-to-coast standby ticket (half price) for $300. In nominal bucks, same price I paid 2 years ago for a full fare.
So take that 1970s $600 full fare, inflate it about 5 times and you're looking at a current cost of $2,500 to $3,000 for that round trip. We sure won't be flying the family to Disney. It'll put a lot of people back on the Greydog. Or staying at home.
As far as airports, they were a lot smaller in the 1970s. We've had nonstop expansion at the ones I've flown in and out of. I think you're right about mothballing terminals and about the reduction in staff.
Somehow, we managed to get by before FedEx. I think it must have been by getting stuff done early and sending it in the mail. I can't possibly conceive of myself doing that these days. :-)
And as long as we're going back in time, here's a quote from my dad when I asked him how they ever managed to do library research without Xerox machines: "We took notes!!!"
The reality of diminishing oil flows 'doesn't care' about the consequences. We can, however, be smart and brave enough to anticipate future situations and plan/act ahead of time to adapt.
You're assuming that the US will experience a relatively mild reduction. The US has about 4.5 percent of the worlds population and suppose that in the future the US gets roughly that proportion of the worlds oil exports (not from anything to do with fairness, but because that's the most "useful productivity" you can back your currency with, relative to other nations. After all, even now I'd try and avoid being paid for anything in dollars [or GBP or Euros, before anyone objects] in preference to other currencies.) Now if oil production declines by 50 percent from current levels in, say, 20 years. Then you've got the equivalent of 2.25 percent of current production to use at that time. I can't find a definitive number, but it looks like the US uses around 23 percent of current production. So you need a reduction in oil uses of a factor of 10.
I can believe that might be possible, and if it were to happen I'd think the options were less binary. But what worries me is if, in an attempt to maintain "lifestyle" energy usage at equivalent of 23 pc of current production, the US (and equally other nations) starts burning as much lumber as necessary, gassifying as much miscellaneous biomass as necessary, grows as much grain as it can for ethanol regardless of soil degradation, damages irrigation patterns by adding new hydroelectric dams, etc. Remember, some influential people think "The American way of life is non-negotiable". Additionally suppose that other nations -- like China, India, Africa, etc -- do the same not just to maintain their current levels but to ramp up to US levels of per capita energy consumption that they see on TV. It's in that possible situation that if dramatic oil output drops combine with an attempt to use anything to maintain current lifestyles that, when things finally can't be continued things go really wrong.
I was thinking of something more like a 10 year planning horizon, let's say by the 2020 presidential election.
By 2020 the world oil production might fall more modestly, say down 20% from 87.5 mbpd to 70 mbpd. And the US percentage of world oil consumption might fall from 23% to 12%. So we would go from 20.1 mbpd to 8.4 mbpd, or 42% of current consumption. This seems about right for planning purposes, since if the numbers got a lot worse, we would invade Canada and Venezuela.
So some reasonable 10-year objectives are to:
Those are all consistent numbers contingent on what you believe will happen physically and behaviourally place, as I believe mine were conditionally consistent. Your original question I was addressing was "Why would peak oil cause a collapse?" If you're right about both the purchasing power of the US and energy reduction actually happening, then no it wouldn't cause a collapse. However if my post is more accurate, thats where you might get a really serious collapse in 30-40 years time.
I have doubts about future US purchasing power, about the US (or any nation's military) actually being able to invade a foreign country and successfully get a net oil surplus to be sent back to the US over an extended period, and most of all I doubt that people will actually reduce energy usage if there's some resource that can somehow be used to maintain current energy usage. Consider
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/expired-unemployment-bene_n_632...
an apparently normal, intelligent woman didn't cut back on non-essential items upon being made unemployed (instead using the fixed-resource unemployment money to replace lost earnings) in anticipation of the future and didn't even keep track of when unemployment benefits ran out; the first time she'll not pay those bills is when there's no way that she can pay them. I really hope that both society-en-masse and the "governmental class" are better at acting now to avoid future problems. Do I think it's actually likely? No.
In the 30-40 year time frame, the global energy production should have shifted almost entirely to breeder reactors, solar, wind, geothermal, etc., with fusion coming on for the future, and with biomass and the remaining gas replacing oil's role as a "petrochemical" feedstock. Otherwise, the end of oil would coincide nicely with the expected end on the current interregum between war in "War Cycles". The previous interregnum was about 100 years from Waterloo to the outbreak of WW I. If the current interregnum is also 100 years, that would place the next outbreak of total war at 2045. However, the length between episodes of total war may be decreasing.
The United States should be very focused on both conservation at home and working with others to build out nuclear and other advanced energy sources. If the world is unsuccessful in developing enough energy resources to see it through the demographic peak mid-21st century, then total war is very likely. Unlike WW I and II, when the US experienced very light casualties, the US is likely to be a principle combatant and suffer great casualties in a mid-21st century conflict.
On the other hand, with the experience and technologies tested in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US Department of "Defense" is well prepared to occupy other countries. They would be especially keen to secure oil, since it is vital to the military machine.
Again, your plans are all perfectly consistent if you can actually get people to act in advance in anticipation of those future needs. "As a plan" it's a reasonable approach, but will enough people to matter actually follow the plan?
Likewise, I'm sure that the US is prepared to occupy a country and are keen on securing oil. The military is undeniably good at destroying stuff and human beings, and that's traditionally been what has been important in a war. However, the point about Iraq and Afghanistan is that, whilst the coalition has not been driven out in either place neither are they showing much evidence of being able to make what they want to happen actually happen, much less make complex processes analogous to successfully shipping oil home happen. Can you find enough soldiers to both reliably spot and willing to shoot to stop all saboteurs wanting to stop frustrate the occupiers succeeding in attacks anywhere in the well/tar sands plant, pipelines, and shipping system? As an analogy, the military has been designed as a screwdriver (to destroy stuff), and whilst it would be nice to think you can use it for a chisel's tasks (running securely industrial infrastructure to ship oil back home), will it produce successful results in practice...?
I'll leave the discussion now, again stressing the issue I see is not in drawing up plans but in getting the timely-executed at all, let alone successfully .
Somewhat around the time of the 4th Turning
4th Turning is too US centric. The US was unimportant globally until after the Spanish American War.
Kontratiev waves also have four phases in a long economic cycle.
The current War Cycles appear to have started in Europe with the Black Death which reduced the population and destratified it. This lead to a period of opportunity, prosperity, gradual restratification and discontent. The Reformation and the associated wars stirred society up again to allow the process to repeat up to the Thirty Years War, which was really a second total war about church and state. Since then the pattern has repeated, with different leading powers falling with each episode; the Hapsburgs in the Thirty Years War, France in the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, and the British Empire in WW I and II.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of China seem to parallel the revolutions of 1848 and the rise of Prussia leading to the Unification of Germany in 1870. The economic position of the US appears similar to that of Great Britain in the Long Depression of 1873-96.
A suspension of the Laws of Energy might be necessary for the US to be able to "secure" a net oil surplus via the invasion of a foreign country. The system is not sustainable over the long-term, requiring ever increasing amounts of energy input.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9670
“The U.S. military is the single largest consumer of energy in the world. The American GI is the most energy-consuming soldier ever seen on the field of war. In 2005, The U.S. Navy was the largest diesel fuel user in the world.
[the cost of an oil-based military system]
“Delivery of Fuel: Over 70 percent of the tonnage required to position today's U.S. Army into battle is fuel. The Air Force spends approximately 85 percent of its fuel budget to deliver, by airborne tankers, just 6 percent of its annual jet fuel usage." … Of the top 10 battlefield guzzlers in the U.S. Army, only 2 are combat vehicles (the Abrams tank and the Apache helicopter). The other eight carry fuel and supplies. Over half of the fuel transported to the battlefield is consumed by support vehicles, not vehicles engaged in frontline combat. … The Army has 40,000 troops involved in either the distribution or movement of energy.”
"The Army has 40,000 troops involved in either the distribution or movement of energy"
And the rest of them are devoted to securing energy from unwilling countries that happen to have our oil under their sands'-)
Hi Merrill,
I'm interested in your thoughts about our efforts to ask the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to do an immediate investigation into global oil supplies, including the impacts (of decline), and policy options, since it seems you're thinking along these lines. (www.oildepletion.wordpress.com).
Then, concerning your proposal for objectives:
1) "decrease oil use to about 40% of current use"
How would you go about analyzing the impacts of this decrease on the economy?
2) "replace some of the oil use with a combination of coal, gas, nuclear and renewables"
How do you determine which of these rely on oil use in order to be put into place?
In other words, if you plan to "replace" oil use with, say, coal - how do you figure out how much oil you'd use in the process of making the "replacement" available?
3) "reduce energy use per capita to the 60th percentile of OECD countries"
Could you possibly expand upon this, to include some details of how to get from here to there?
Perhaps you could write an article that expands upon this point and includes your objective proposal "position the economy for a further 40% cut in oil and some cuts in coal during the next decade"
I think that the NAS could usefully provide a description of the science behind oil exploration and discovery, oil field development, and the prospects for extending production in already exploited oil fields. They could also address how the aggregate production from fields nationally or globally would result in a global peak and decline in oil production.
However, they probably could not put dates and numbers on the global picture. And asking NAS to look at impacts and policy choices gets into a morass of politics, global trade, economics and foreign policy that is beyond their area of competence. These broader studies are likely to already exist in some part of the National Security establishment. They are likely highly classified, since estimates of dates, production levels, and reserves would have to depend on a lot of data that is proprietary or obtained as a result of intelligence efforts.
Even analyses using the best available data may have pretty large "error bars" since the ability of the US to buy oil, the reserves in places like the Arctic Ocean, and the policy decisions of state-controlled producers all influence the abilty of the US economy to acquire and use crude oil in the next decades. It would be unwise to assume a free market model where oil is produced as soon as it is economic to produce it with a reasonable economic rate of return. Production may be delayed strategically, and trade in oil may be influenced by economic and political factors. High-cost oil in stable areas may be produced before low-cost oil in unstable areas.
To decrease oil use by 40%, one would first have to have a detailed understanding of how crude oil and its products flow through the economy to various end uses, not just at the level of this much went to a gas station, but also why the driver burned various gallons. The reduction can be achieved by raising prices, rationing supply, or destroying demand. As examples, one can raise taxes on jet fuel, restrict the pounds of jet fuel each airline can buy, or reduce the number of landing slots at each airport. Raising prices is probably too blunt an instrument, and the other approaches may be needed to ensure that critical uses of oil products get enough fuel at reasonable prices to continue funtioning.
The amount of fuel needed to operate a mine, process the coal, send it by rail to the port and barge it to the power plant is something that one should be able to get from the coal company, the railroad, the tugboat operator, and the power utility. To the extent that oil-based liquid fuels are needed for other means of energy production, they would have to take some share of the remaining 40% of oil production.
Since energy is a large input to the US economy, and since the market for energy is global with global prices, the US cannot continue a strategy of achieving economic competitiveness by exploiting cheap domestic energy supplies. We no longer have a national advantage of cheap, abundant energy, and have to pay the same prices as the rest of the world's economies. Therefore, in order to not disadvantage our competitiveness by excessive expenditures on energy, we have to reduce our energy use to amounts similar to our competitors. Again, there are three was to do it: raise prices, reduce supply, and reduce demand.
I'll think about writing an article.
Okay, just for planning purposes, let's assume you invade Canada.
The next day, all the 400-ton truck drivers and power shovel operators fail to report for work in the oil sands. Meanwhile, a plant operator turns a valve the wrong way, and tosses a burning rag into the ensuing pool of oil. *PHOOOM!* A 10-billion dollar oil sands plant goes up in flames. The fire department fails to show up because all the firefighters are at home cleaning their rifles.
You go looking for workers to build a replacement 10-billion dollar oil sands plant in the trackless boreal forest, and fail to find any because they are all hiding behind the trees with high-powered rifles, looking for a clear shot at your head. There probably are more guns up there than people, and the average gun is capable of knocking a moose off its feet at 600 yards, mainly because the average worker likes shoot a moose from time to time.
You may want to factor that into your invasion plans because you don't won't a repeat of the war of 1812. Particularly not the part where Canadian forces captured Detroit and Chicago, and burned Buffalo. Of course American forces burned Toronto in retaliation, but we like to let bygones be bygones.
RMG - I don't think it would work out this way at all. These people will still have mortgages/rent to pay, families to feed/clothe/shelter. They are tied to their income, which is tied to the productivity of the oil patch. After all, they see what they work in, and they still work there. Why would it change because of invasion?
This is Canada, we couldn't even muster national outrage over the suspension of the constitution in advance of the G20 meeting.
Regards, Al
Your estimate of 1/10 consumption in 20 years is far too low. During the next 20 years, U.S. domestic production will probably be around 4 Mb/d to 5 Mb/d after ANWR, the outer continental shelf and national parks are open to oil production. Sunlight, coal, natural gas and crude oil will be converted into ethanol and biodiesel at a rate of ~3 Mb/d and imported crude oil (by your estimate) will be about 73 Mb/d * .045 / 2 = 1.6 Mb/d. I suspect the import of syncrude from Canadian tar sands will be higher than that. The total consumption of liquid fuels will probably be around ~10 Mb/d by 2030. This reduction from ~21 Mb/d in 2007 can be accommodated by demand destruction caused by rising unemployment, improved efficiency, partial conversion of personal transportation to PHEV's and conversion of semitrailer trucks and commercial automobile fleets to natural gas.
These same people support destroying the American way-of-life through short-term planning, preserving crooked bankers, neverending war, deficit spending, globalization, relocating U.S. manufacturing to China and giving U.S. jobs to illegal aliens. They only care about their own way-of-life which relies upon destroying the American way-of-life.
Yea, most likely BAU will continue until it can't. Since there is much waste and many substitutes available for transportation fuel, I suspect global peak natural gas circa 2040 is more likely to break the world economy than global peak oil.
I'll preface this post with stating that I have no doubt
that Peak Oil Theory is correct ..
The only outstanding questions are
1) How much will maximum extraction be in mbpd ??
2) When will peak extraction occur ?? ..
What are the implications for the points above
if this fellow is correct ??
====
From June 2003. The amount of hydrocarbons in the GOM might be huge:
http://www.geotimes.org/june03/NN_gulf.html
Please don't post entire articles. Link, and post a small excerpt, or paraphrase the information.
This is for copyright as well as bandwidth reasons.
It would be worth pointing to the issue that the (admittedly ridiculous) article was trying to make as well, which is that Oil's price would have risen, and so other alternatives would THEN be the cheaper choice. And of course he doesn't say what those will be..
and you can't win any point against Ron, because he'll jump from Extreme and Absolute statements into 'Of Course, Nuances' as it suits him in order to get the ball over some theoretical net.
Jokuhl, please read my reply to Black Dog below. When we, and by we I do mean the vast majority of people on this list as well as virtually all MSM reporters, when we speak of there not being cheaper alternatives to oil we are speaking, obviously, of nothing being cheaper than oil for the whole world, hermits and Bedouins notwithstanding.
Your post is very childish Jokuhl. You can do better than just throw stones and say na-nana-na-na.
Ron P.
I read it, Ron.
You get to impetuously change the context of anything you will have as your next outrage. Your critique of the article was really great.. UNTIL you jump into this mode of yours where you're just sputtering at some misinterpretation, and then you just dig at that hole for a half a day, making sure you've created boundaries that contain your misreading.
RON: "There are no cheaper forms of energy."
You don't have to buy his argument to at least remember the point he's making when he says..
"either the world will move on to cheaper forms of energy and fuel, or technology will be spurred by higher prices to achieve .." yada yada yada..
He's proposing that oil's price WILL rise, and another, maybe NG, biodiesel or CTL or Woodgas would have the price advantage. He doesn't say forever or for everyone.. it's way out of his scope. He's saying "Markets will follow price signals, and Oil will lose advantage". Which is very probably true. Some such fuel may very well sell for less. It doesn't have to even have as much Energy Density as OIL, just needs to be more available THAN oil at a given place and time.. and we all know there aren't any that can 'do the whole job' to replace Oil.. but that there could be price swings that leave other fuels at the advantage is certainly a possibility, and will make his argument seem right, until that source is also constrained..
.. and then of course. Sunlight is free.. it's way Cheaper than Oil. ..and it's not really going to run out until long after our species has probably even run it's natural course, if we let ourselves get that far..
You and your absolutes. It's like red meat for a moderate.. I need more salads.
I apologize Jokuhl. Wood, for hermits living in the woods and gather your own, is cheaper than oil. Camel dung, for Bedouins, is cheaper than oil. Old tires, if you can cut them up and use for fuel, is cheaper than oil. My mistake, I should have known about camel dung and old tires. My mistake, sorry.
I am going to write the authors of the two articles I quoted and tell them they are being dogmatic, that they are making absolute statements that cannot be supported. They should know that camel dung and old tires are cheaper than oil and that they should have pointed that out in their articles.
Next time I write about the price of energy I will point out that camel dung and old tires are very cheap, even cheaper than oil. I will also point out that wood is very cheap but only if you are able gather up stray sticks or driftwood lying around.
Ron P.
One of the inevitable consequences of increasingly rare oil is that at some point it will not be the cheapest option, regardless of the street price of a gallon of gas.
Your argument that it could be otherwise is not present, let alone convincing.
When people make forward looking statements indictating that the situation will change, castigating them because it isn't that way right now does not help communication in any way.
Jeeeeezus, let us not get reeediculous. Old worn out tires are a lot cheaper than oil if you can find them.
The context of my post was obvious just as the the context of the article I was replying to was obvious. We were both talking about this quote from the article:
THE World Black Dog, the whole damn world!
You are nitpicking and you know it. However I am reminded of a statement once published in the Boston Globe, many years ago. It goes something like this, from memory...
There are several grammatical errors in this paper. They were put there intentionally. Some people are always looking for errors in other people's work and we do try to please everyone.
But let me repost the quote from another article posted several days ago: We Need To End Our Addiction To Oil! LOL_Candyland
Every alternative is worse, including cost! You should write this guy Black Dog, and tell him about wood.
Ron P.
Many homes here in south central British Columbia where I'm currently working heat with wood and do so for $300 to $400 dollars per year. These houses are above and below 2000 square feet, well insulated and have access to natural gas. The stoves are all high efficiency wood burners. The owners have generally, if my conversations with some can be generalized, figured out how to affect the most efficient internal air circulation without the use of fans.
In this part of the world, wood is readily available. Folks often buy a logging truck load every few years, and then saw and split the wood themselves. So the real cost should include that labour, minus the gym membership they don't buy.
The 84 year old on the small spread across the road from me will probably still be sawing and splitting for another decade if his current fitness is any indication.
British Columbia is somewhat atypical in that it has a disproportionate share of the world's wood supply.
I remember driving down a highway in rural BC and coming upon a huge tree that had fallen across it, blocking the road completely. Was this a problem for the highway maintenance people to solve? Not really. The first half-dozen drivers on the scene pulled their chainsaws from the back of their pickup trucks and went to work. The entire tree was fireplace-sized logs in about 10 minutes. Then, everybody filled up the back of their trucks with wood and drove away with their next month's fuel supply.
However, most of the rest of the world reached Peak Wood long ago, so I don't think this is a general solution to the Peak Oil problem. It's definitely not going to work in Southern California, and even in rural BC, it wouldn't work if they didn't have gas for their chainsaws and diesel fuel for their trucks.
Toil, though wood is $200 a cord here in Northwest Florida and natural gas is cheaper, it just may be cheaper to heat and even cook with wood in British Columbia. I will not argue that point because that was never my point. And the point you appear to be trying to make does not address anything I stated in my original post today.
I quoted from the first article:
I disagreed, that was my entire point, not that some folks in various parts of the world can find something cheaper.
So if you disagree with me, and agree with the author of the article, please explain.
From the second article I quoted:
The scale the author is talking about is the entire world. I agree with this article. That was the same point I made earlier. Nothing can replace oil because all alternatives are worse on all metrics. So if you disagree with this author and me, then please explain.
(It should be obvious from the context of both those two articles as well as my post that we all three are talking about replacing oil for the world, not that camel dung in Egypt or wood in British Columbia might be cheaper.)
Ron P.
If one accepts that the supply of oil is in any way limited, then a mere 2X multiplier on real cost is only the beginning. Heck, we've had that in the last 5 years, and then some.
Once it gets expensive enough, everyplace in the world will have cheaper alternatives, and anything that cannot be done without petroleum will in most cases simply not be done.
If price controls or other factors conspire to keep the actual transaction price down then there will be vast regions where it will simply be unavailable at any price.
The scale of the problem means that no single solution can possibly fix it.
The nature of the problem means that many of the solutions are not going to result in anything that looks like the way we do things today.
As RockyMtnGuy points out BC is well endowed with wood, more than enough for local heating requirements if the rivers run dry disabling the hydro generated electricity, and when the province's methane supply declines to zero. And even enough in those conditions to continue the growing bulk export of wood pellets to Europe. There is an interesting observation to make on this point: it doesn't make sense costwise for people here to burn pellets, and it doesn't make sense for the Europeans to import wood fuel other than in the form of pellets.
As it is, the rivers will not run dry for the foreseeable future and more and more homes in the milder and more populated areas of the province will install air to air heat exchangers making more efficient use of electricity than the currently popular resistance heaters. And more and more buildings will be made ever more energy efficient as walls are thickened and ceilings weighted with increasing amounts of insulation.
I fully expect that the world wide supply of tradeable energy will decline in the decades to come. What a wonderful opportunity to improve the quality of life of billions of people. Less pollution, less red meat, more exercise, to name just a few of the benefits. More jobs in creating durable buildings with minimal energy requirements. More work for Paul in Halifax and all his saintly spawn changing the way we light the night. Hopefully less light at night. Less work in cubicles and on production lines, more work tending soil and plants. Less noise on the lake as we come to our senses about the waste of critical resources on self-indulgent motorized watercraft. More work for bicycle mechanics and wooden oar and paddle makers. Far fewer airplanes, though the number of dirigibles will probably increase. Far shorter lineups at Disneyworld for those parents who've never figured out that the best thing for kids is a little sand, some rocks and sticks, and water.
As I see it the point that you've never grasped is the extent to which oil, energy dense and cheap as you've explained, has engendered a culture of waste, especially in its own use, but also in the waste of other resources, including renewable resources. Oil has engendered and sustained an economic order that makes other living arrangements non-viable.
Nor do I think that you've grasped the implications of the communications revolution of the past decades. The capacity to disseminate information today is only matched by the capacity of people in almost every corner of the world to assimilate useful information extremely rapidly. So now, in the village in a remote corner of Africa where my daughter is today, students are able to go on-line and study agricultural techniques that are of use to them as they work to increase local food production. This was not the case, even ten years ago.
I can understand your despair. You live in the heart of the monster and it's hard to see beyond the fangs and drooling saliva of the beast. Moreover, the US is in decline and the general level of ignorance and learnt stupidity precludes an effective response. So your country will suffer more than most. Still, the end of the world is not nigh. Suffering will continue, though not necessarily as much as in previous episodes of transition. It's not all good, nor is it all bad.
As toilforoil pointed out, the rivers of BC are not going to run dry any time soon. I could add some technical detail explaining why global warming would make no difference to this (or might make northern BC even wetter), but the whole AGW debate has gotten too tedious for words.
I could also mention the vast shale gas deposits of NE BC, and the coalbed methane here, there, and everywhere in the province, but the details are somewhat irrelevant. Suffice it to say that BC is not going to run out of natural gas anytime soon. The same applies to the coal deposits, which are vast in scale and vastly underutilized. There's no real market for it other than Asia, but with the growth in China and India could attract some interest in the future, the way things are going.
I would summarize it by saying that BC abounds in energy resources that are cheaper than oil, and the lights are going to keep burning in Vancouver indefinitely. Oil is not really a problem, either, because as long as BC keeps sending natural gas to Alberta, Alberta will keep shipping gasoline and diesel fuel from its big oil sands refineries the other way. Alberta will also keep shipping oil from the oil sands south to the US, but there will be a question of how long the US is going to be able to pay for it, particularly since the Chinese seems to be buying up as much of it as they can.
And, like toilforoil, I can understand Ron's despair. In Vancouver you can ride the hydro-powered SkyTrain, the innumerable bicycles paths, or just walk. In Calgary, you can ride the wind-powered C-Train, the innumerable bicycle paths, or just walk. All of them are relatively cheap. This frees up more expensive resources to sell to the US or Asia while we use the cheap and plentiful alternatives ourselves. But if you're in Florida and your country has just had a big blowout which is staining your beaches and imperiling your future ability to drive on your elaborate freeway system due to lack of oil, what do you do?
I don't know, but fortunately it's not our problem. Vancouver doesn't have any genuine freeways, and Calgary only has one. It makes driving anywhere difficult, but fortunately both cities have been doing major expansions on their electric rail transit systems, so you don't really have to drive much. You can if you like frustration, but you don't have to.
Ron, you have been the continual doomer around here, claiming massive die off after Peak Oil. So, when you wrote: "THE World Black Dog, the whole damn world!", did you mean Today's World of some 6 Billion people with oil at $77 a bbl or the world post Peak with oil ballooning to $300 or $1,000 a barrel? Or, were you referring to a world some time after "post Peak", after the massive die off had reduced the world's human population from 6 Billion down to a sustainable level, perhaps 1 billion or 500 million or less (insert your expected sustainable population)?
Yes, I'm nitpicking. I focused on wood, but there are other alternatives which may become cheaper than oil, if oil's price rises faster than the alternatives. Solar thermal is already less expensive than oil for low temperature space and water heating applications. High temperature solar thermal may be less expensive than new nuclear in some areas blessed with lots of sunshine. I'm sorry to say, I can't accept your absolutist statement, since I'm an engineer and understand much of the technology. As for me writing to Mr. Mills, he works for Forbes and that article appeared in the WSJ. No thanks, I've tried that route before...
E. Swanson
The continual doomer? You flatter me Black Dog. There are many doomers on this list. I would bet that half the people who post here are also doomers. Perhaps I am more articulate in my doomerism. ;-)
I am astonished by the question. Yes of course I meant today's world and I did mean 6.8 billion people. That is the whole point, can the whole world be saved by some cheaper form of energy? That was the point of that line in the article Leanan posted above, that was the point of my reply to that line in that article, and why in God's name was that not clear to anyone who read the article and my reply to it?
And if oil does balloon to $300 to $1,000 a barrel then my point will have been vindicated. Nothing cheaper would have replaced oil. If something cheaper had by then replaced oil, then why in hell would anyone be paying that price for oil?
Oh, one very important point. I may often speculate as to how many people might survive the die-off but I never speak, or write, as to what conditions they may live in. After all, how in the hell would I even have a clue. So no, I was not speaking of conditions in a post die-off world. I never have and never will. Though I often comment on what I think life during the collapse may be like. Nasty, poor, brutish, and short!
I was being sarcastic about you writing to the author of the article. I am really shocked that you have actually tried that before. ;-)
Okay, I grant that you believe that solar will one day be cheaper than oil, and replace oil and save the world. I simply do not believe that. And I would bet that all the other doomers on this list, and there are a whole hoard of us, do not believe it either. But that is nothing new. That is what we have been arguing about for all these years.
Ron P.
Since the author of the article mentioned religion, your comment:
Sure sounds like religion, which to me is anti-rational and ignores any facts which contradict the prevailing dogma. The difference between religion and science is that science uses various methods to gather data and is thus able to calculate answers to questions such as whether solar thermal is less expensive than oil. My comment wasn't based on belief, it was based on hard evidence as to the price of solar thermal equipment which I considered selling last year, in addition to my recent experience taking a course in solar thermal systems. Add to that is the fact that I built a house with solar heating and have a good handle on the cost of that system as well. I also know that the consumer doesn't pay wholesale price for heating oil, but the price includes delivery to fill his tank, thus the cost can be about that of diesel at the local pump.
Your assertion that you "believe" something to be true is not supported by facts. If you have such available, please provide them for us.
E. Swanson
I wrote:
You replied:
Rolling in the floor laughing my ass off. You are saying that the fact that I don't believe solar power will save the world is religion! If that is religion then there is nothing that is not religion.
But if I did believe solar power would save the world.... Well no, that would not be religion either but it would be one hell of a lot closer to religion than disbelieving solar power would save the world.
Black Dog, I know you were hurting for a comeback but you can do better than that. Hell my 11 year old grandchild could think of a better comeback than that.
Anyway, there is no way to give a rational reply to your irrational claim that my disbelief that solar power can save the world is religion. So I must just continue shake my head and laugh.
Ron P.
Your "belief" that solar power can not "save the world" is not rational. There's much more solar energy hitting the Earth every day than is supplied by all our sources of fossil origin. Thus, technically, it's reasonable to conclude that solar energy could be harnessed to provide all the energy required by humans, although perhaps not all that we might wish to use as individuals and not as fast aw we now use it to drive or fly. Whether doing so would be cheaper than the present or future market price of oil is another issue, one which you have deftly side stepped. Apparently, you have no data to support your claims.
As it is, all civilization is ALREADY POWERED by solar energy, since our food is derived from plants and plants grow by capturing sunlight. The fact is that plants as food capture only a few percent of the sunlight which hits them, which tells us that the total amount of solar energy used is much greater than simply the energy contained in the plant as food. That the production and distribution of those plant based foods depends on fossil fuels is another issue as well, but the fact is, without the sunlight, the plants simply don't grow. Quite a bit of what our American economy does involves conversion of agricultural lands to other uses, called "development". Thus, we are destroying the collective ability of our agricultural lands while using that oil to build ever more "civilization". as a result of this conversion process, I think we may be cutting off the branch of the tree(s) of life upon which we are standing. I suppose that will make you laugh some more too...
E. Swanson
Black Dog, do you understand what the word "rational" means? Of course all food is grown with sunlight, but also with fertilizer made from fossil fuel and with the aid of pesticides made with fossil fuel. The soil is tilled with fossil fuel, the food is planted with the aid of fossil fuel, it is cultivated with fossil fuel, it is harvested with fossil fuel, it is transported with fossil fuel and the perishables are stored in refrigerated areas with the aid of fossil fuel.
It is absolutely irrational to believe that all this could be done, to feed 6.8 billion people, with draft animals.
But that is only half the story. Fossil fuel provides surplus energy. With this surplus energy we can build cars, trucks, tractors, airplanes, radios, refrigerators and a thousand other things. Building these things provides employment to millions of people. Without fossil energy these people would be out of a job.
It is not just the food that fossil fuel provides, but also the employment of billions that fossil fuel enables. There would be a lot less food a lot less employment without fossil fuel.
It is not necessarily religion to believe all would be well without fossil energy, but to many that is exactly what it is.. That is they believe "God will provide". Being an atheist I just do not believe that.
Seriously, I think that people who believe we can continue to provide food, clothing, shelter and employment for all the world's people without the aid of fossil energy are incapable of deep rational thought. Shallow rational thought... perhaps.
Ron P.
While I agree with you regarding the importance of fossil fuels in today's economy and agriculture, I think that other sources of energy could replace enough of those fossil fuels to provide much of what the world's peoples need for survival. I do, however, doubt that it's possible for the entirety of humanity to live as do most people in the US. But, that's not the point, is it?
We were discussing whether or not there are renewable energy sources which are less expensive than oil. I offered a couple and you have not refuted my claims. For example, one can buy a solar hot water system in my area for around $6,000 installed. Pay for that with a 30 year second mortgage at 5% costs $32.21 a month. Depending on where one lives this is close to the cost of electricity for water heating. If these were installed in new construction, the installation cost would be less because of economies of scale. As Peak Oil kicks in or as new nuclear power plants are built to replace the older power generating systems, these systems would still be providing hot water at a fixed cost per month. If one expects inflation, solar thermal is a bargain.
Your turn.
E. Swanson
No, I was never discussing that at all. You drug me into that argument but I tried, in vain I now see, to explain to you that this was not my argument at all. As I explained camel dung or old cut up tires is cheaper than oil but this has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
There is nothing cheaper than oil that can replace oil! And by replace I don't just mean replace for you at your home in the woods or some Bedouin in the desert. I mean replace oil for everyone, the whole damn world.
That was my point and I have no other point, on this thread anyway, to make.
I have no intention of trying to refute anyone's claim about solar waters heaters, corn stoves, or anything else because those things are not even remotely related to the original subject of the thread.
Ron P.
OK Ron, lets try again. You wrote:
You are looking at the world as if looking at a fixed instant in time. Consider this: There have already been many instances over the past 35 years where oil has been replaced by cheaper alternatives. As an example, in the US, we no longer find oil being used to produce electricity for utilities. That's because coal and natural gas and even nuclear is less expensive in today's dollars than oil. We know full well that boilers can be fed any source of burnable fuel, from oil to garbage or scrap wood.
These changes have occurred as the price of oil has increased. As the price of oil can be expected to increase again after Peak Oil, wouldn't you expect that the various alternatives would then become "cheaper" and thus the many users would turn to them instead of oil?
The problem has been that the world market price for oil does not include the so-called "externalities", such as the long term environmental impacts or the cost of the military systems and social disruption which support the oil flowing into the US from other nations. Furthermore, the playing field is not level in that the alternatives do not enjoy the same financing opportunities and government subsidies which are given to the oil industry. Your insistence on comparing oil and the alternatives on the basis of today's prices, which are a backward looking valuation, is thus meaningless unless you are willing to calculate the complete cost to the world of using that oil from a forward perspective.
So, how's your solar hot water system working? Living in Florida, you DO HAVE one, don't you?
E. Swanson
Black Dog, you are now getting really silly. You talk like we once used oil, on a massive scale, to produce electricity. No that was never the case. We have never used oil to produce electricity except for some private industries and colleges. There were some very small boilers that actually burned bunker fuel, but damn few. And of course there are some outlying areas that use diesel generators. Alaska has a lot of small villages in the bush that their electricity comes from diesel, usually flown in.
(I am not sure what the early Edison DC generators used in the late 19th century. They may have been diesel. But that was in the horse and buggy days so I will not even bother to look it up.)
Coal has always been the major source of electricity in the USA since boilers were put into widespread use. Oil never was. Therefore we did not switch from oil to coal.
How do you manage to make this crap up anyway???
No, we do not know that at all. A boiler designed to burn coal cannot burn oil or gas. Unless specifically designed to do that and I know of no such boiler though there may be a few. I have worked around TVA coal boilers in Alabama and in Saudi Arabia oil/gas boilers. They cannot switch from coal to oil or vise versa. The whole boiler system is designed to input coal and has systems to remove the ash. Garbage boilers are designed specifically for solid waste brought in on a conveyer belt.
Gas boilers can either burn gas or oil. The gas injectors are different from the oil injectors but they can be switched on the same boilers.
But what is your frigging point Black Dog. Or should I call you "E"?
You cannot fly a plane on coal or wood chips. Ditto for trucks and cars. There is no replacement for oil worldwide that is as cheap, as transportable or efficient. But a lot of people do believe solar or wind will do it.
But that is what we have been debating on this list for years. If you wish to debate that point take it to a new thread... today or tomorrow or the next day after. I am through here.
Ron P.
Sorry you feel so threatened Ron. Is it early dementia that has set your brain in BAU concrete? Of course, the way humanity uses oil is a function of it's characteristics and if oil wells had not been "invented" 150 years ago, we would likely not be seeing all the great things we have come to expect, such as automobiles and aircraft. But to say that "we cannot fly a plane on coal or wood chips" ignores the fact that we can fly planes on biofuels and we can power trucks on biodiesel. And, to base your comparison on cost in today's market is to ignore the basic flaws in that market. Lastly, I've never said that renewables can replace all the present uses of oil (much of which is needless), ever since I worked for Mr. J. Carter in 1976.
Maybe it's my mechanical engineering degrees that are the problem. I think of a boiler as separate from a burner. Boilers are quite similar and, as you mention regarding the Saudis, can be used for either oil or gas or, more generally, for coal. Boilers are being built to turn solar energy into electricity, but that's mostly being done by people from other countries, BTW. And, before the TVA became the largest consumer of coal for electric generation, it was mostly a hydro outfit, which was a common renewable source of electricity in the early 20th century.
I didn't know that you had worked within the energy industry. Perhaps you would give us a summary of your education and work experience. If not, send it to me in an e-mail and I will send my resume back. I hope that you aren't an industry shill bent on confusing the discussion. Your latest posts show repeated efforts to ignore any discussion of economics, such as how much of the US military budget actually goes to support the far flung interests of the international oil companies. Do you even live in Florida?
BTW, you could call me Mr. Swanson, instead of referring to me as "One Yokel"...
E. Swanson
You are even more confused than I ever imagined. Me BAU? No, that is you Black Dog. (I am not going to call you Mister.) The idea that I am BAU is hilarious and just shows me how really screwed up you really are. I am the exact opposite of BAU. We are about to see changes, and I do mean dramatic changes! Beginning in about five years... or less.
Okay, I lied, I am going to respond to your post, just for the fun of it.
Your engineering degree is apparently a waste. Again: Boilers designed for coal cannot burn gas or oil and boilers designed for gas/oil cannot burn coal. Coal burners are specifically designed to handle coal and have very complex fly ash catchment and removal systems. Gas boilers do not have that. There are no coal boilers in Saudi Arabia and TVA has no natural gas boilers. And nuclear boilers cannot be used for anything except nuclear fuel.
Don't inform me about TVA. I was born and raised on TVA. Of course the Tennessee Valley Authority was originally designed to provide cheap rural electrical power from dams on the Tennessee River and a few tributaries. Hydroelectric power was common in the thirties and later, not before. But there is more hydroelectric power in the US now than there ever was.
My energy experience in the US is sparse, only a few trips to service computers in power plants. But I worked for two years at the Gazlan Power Plant in Saudi Arabia. I was in charge of their computer department. Computers there, in the early 80s were used primarily for monitoring the equipment. There was no computer control there in those days.
No, I am not going to discuss economics with you, nor politics. Those subjects are too "squshey", that is there is no hard cold data to rely on. Everything is just political opinion. I try to avoid both subjects at all cost but on rare occasions I will make a comment on the economy, like the recession or coming depression. But that is the extent of it.
And yes I do ignore discussions of economy, and will continue to do so.
And perhaps you think I would lie about that? Why on earth would I do that?
Ron Patterson
1086 Gordon Av.
Pensacola, Fl. 32507
I lived in North Alabama for the last 17 years before I retired in 2004. Then I retired to Pensacola in Northwest Florida.
Send me your email address and I will send you a short bio I prepared a few months ago.
DarwinianOne at gmail.com
Ron Patterson
I'm not suggesting that it would be easy to jump from the present energy consumption pattern to renewable alternatives. And, I know that power plants are designed for a specific type of fuel, be it oil, coal, natural gas or nuclear. But, power plants don't last forever and newer ones are constantly being built as older ones are retired. The same is true for automobiles, which have a half life around 8 years in the US.
The future mix of energy sources is not likely to be like it is now or like it was 50 or 100 years ago. Yet, you seem to be saying that mankind must continue to enjoy the same services resulting from today's energy sources in tomorrow's world. That was the reason for my "BAU" comment. The way I look at it, as the mix of available energy sources changes, the engineers and the consumers will find different applications for these energy sources, building the machines as needed. As you say, I expect that these changes will be "dramatic", which may turn out to be too mild a description. I am a doomer, like you, but I still have some hope that maybe, if we try, humanity can solve these problems before things degenerate to a savage, dog-eat-dog world. However, we may already be too late...
My e-mail has been in my profile since I signed on to TOD. I've been out of work for most of the past 39 years after leaving the aerospace industry, where I did control systems work, finally giving up in 1998, moving to the mountains of Western NC to build a solar house. Along the way, I worked on an AI project for the ISS and later did work on railroad safety using computer simulations. I also worked on several political campaigns, which gave me some insight into the ways of politicians...
E. Swanson
No, that is not what I am saying at all. I am saying that as fossil fuels decline there will be a mad scramble to replace them with anything and everything. These things will work, but not very well. The actual energy available to humankind will decline dramatically. And this will cause misery and hardship for all.
I have no hope that business as usual will carry on. In fact even business NOT as usual will not even carry on. There will be oil hoarding by producing nations and the decline curve, beginning sometime around 2015, give or take a couple of years, will be sudden and dramatic.
The reason for my pesissimism rest on the fact that the world is already in deep, deep overshoot. There is no cure for overshoot, none whatsoever except die-off. You see we are already, with our present numbers, destroying our habitat. If we could keep business as usual for another two decades then the situation would just get much worse. Many more species would go extinct, the earth would be ravaged until it no longer resembled the earth we know today. And the population would be increased by another billion or billion and a half. That would mean that much more misery and death when the collapse finally did come. And it will come, beyond a shadow of doubt.
We are a plague species. And all species whose population explodes to plague proportions must eventually suffer die-off. It is as certain as night must follow day.
I know I have posted this link many times before. But if you have not read it you must. It explains everything. Energy and Human Evolution by David Price
Ron P.
Ron, I tend to agree with your point of view. I've been there for about 35 years, after joining the Sierra Club, then moving on to Friends of the Earth when David Brower left to start the new organization. I made the mistake of moving back to Atlanta in 1976, where the thinking was/is still "peddle to the metal, full speed ahead". That made things even clearer to me, that is, civilization as practiced in the US and the other developed nations is a dead end street (or should I say, cul de sac).
Whether that same situation applies to the whole of humanity is a much bigger question. There are still millions of people living subsistence lives who would continue to do so if all of Western Civilization simply evaporated. Of course, we could run the planet aground so hard that the whole thing could not support life, but I have a hard time accepting that. There is also the possibility that, given a large enough energy supply, a higher level of society could be maintained, but only if population were to be limited. The existential nature of these problems would require that those issues be addressed by politicians with such strength that the necessary major social changes are undertaken. One reason I spent so much effort working in politics was to try to find a way to address the situation. Instead, we've seen the situation repeatedly swept under the rug for more than 35 years, which suggests that, as you suggest, we are in fact doomed. Worse yet, there are many people who think that the end of civilization is a good idea and would try to make it happen even without the twin problems of energy and environment...
E. Swanson
Thanks for the exchange E. ;-) I hope we have a better understanding of each other's views now. Let's call this thread over. Be sure to read my bio I posted you via email.
Ron P.
Hoarding would be contrary to the prior actions observed when countries and regions have reached peak oil. There has always (usually?) been a flurry of drilling activity attempting to get production back up because the oil companies or governments are dependent on the revenue. When a country's exports approach zero, most countries will press their citizens to reduce their consumption by eliminating the subsidy on domestic fuel. They can not continue subsidizing domestic fuel without the revenue from exports. They will want to reduce domestic consumption to increase the amount they can export to increase their revenue. Financial issues will dominate their reasoning.
In 1977 petroleum produced ~17% of U.S. electricity. Due to the OPEC oil embargo in 1973, a U.S. law was created to reduce the use of fuel oil to make electricity to improve security. This caused utilities to switch to other energy sources. I remember a Southern California Edison electric power plant that converted from fuel oil to natural gas to comply with the regulation.
Journey to Energy Independence
Note the ~25% reduction in the use of oil to generate electricity from 1977 to 1982:
United States Energy Issues: U.S. Electric Production by Source
It is part of the reason there is a dip in U.S. petroleum consumption in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
History of Energy in the United States: 1635-2000 EIA
Yes, wood will replace oil, for those with access to it.
But, for how long will the wood be available before that region becomes another 'Easter Island'?
"But, to make an absolute statement that there are no cheaper alternatives to oil is to ignore the fact that in many parts of the world people live outside the industrial economy and thus, for them, wood is already cheaper than oil."
For how many? For how long? For what purposes?
Been to India?
Ive lurked a long time and never registered... but I felt compelled to just to reply to this point.
You must be thinking of open fireplaces or old "smoke dragon" stoves. Modern wood stoves are in the 70-80% efficient range and there are wood boilers that can do 90+. Today you can heat a typical entire house on around 3-6 cords a year.
As far as cost goes. BTU wise a cord of average hardwood has ~25MBTU. Doing the conversions that is equal to 180gal of #2 oil or ~250 therms of gas. At $200 a cord that works out to ~$1.10 a gallon. And in rural areas of the US you can get wood cheaper than that (especially if you buy green and season it at home).
Looked at another way. I cant figure national gas usage but I did find that national #2 oil usage is just over 300k BPD. Working out the math above that gives about 25M equivalent cord of wood a year. factor in efficiency and variability of wood BTU and lets call it 30M. I'ts accepted in wood heat circles that a well managed woodlot can sustainably deliver 1 cord/yr/acre indefinitely (replanting what you cut). So you need 30M acre of managed woodlands to replace all US heating oil use. Maybe tack on another 5M acres of space for seasoning the cut wood supply.
That about 4% of the total US forest area (~750M acres).
I agree its not a solution though. Heating oil is only a small fraction of our usage, not to mention that heating with wood is very labor intensive even at the end consumer level... I doubt even 5% of people today are willing to put in the effort.
Ron, sure if you go buy cord wood it is expensive. And even if you have a chain saw that requires buying the chainsaw, keeping it in repair, and buying fuel for it. But I have a small (800 sq foot) home with a Sheepherder stove in it. It has a small fire box and so we use small wood. This past winter I cut this year's fire wood by hand using a $10 handsaw. In fact if times got such that I couldn't saw, or get new blades from time to time, I could just break up sticks and get enough heat to cook on my stove and not freeze in the house. So SOME firewood is cheaper even for non-hermits.
If Americans combined households we could perhaps heat everyone enough not to freeze with wood. I figure push comes to shove we could sleep about 10 more people here and still not be as crowded as some housing in third world countries. And with 10 more people we could cut or gather a lot more wood. Think how many people you could sleep in a 3,000 sq foot house.
Disclaimer, I live in Alabama so we don't have to heat as much as in New England and I could kick those extra 10 people out most days without them freezing to death :)
The next link in the drumbeat is "Scientist urges government to address peak oil risk" for good balance.
If you look up the profile of this Al Fin guy, his favorite movies are "Groundhog day" and "Terminator I ". Telling, ain't it?
As for your nr. 3. I've seen a study done by Statoil, not the least of national oilco's, that CO2 injection is economically not feasible at present prices, as it increases recovery by a marginal 2% (must be burried at Statoils website somewhere). So even if it was economically feasible, it would raise recovery percentages a whole 2%! Not insignificant, but minor in the overall picture of peak and decline of individual fields.
Al Fin's webpage is phishing for one's google account password. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole, and nobody should link it.
I doubt it's phishing. It's hosted at Google, that's why it's asking for your Google sign-in.
If you believe it's actually got malware installed, report it. They'll take it down.
Leanan - I've become totally paranoid about accounts on the internet. Last week my server shut down all of my accounts as there were 1/2 a dozen new accounts created by unknown hackers who obviously were looking to defraud me financially. I know a lot of people who pay all of their bills on-line and I have to wonder why they feel so secure. My wife and I already went back to paying all our bills via snail-mail. Hackers are everywhere...
I pay all my bills online.
I take reasonable precautions, and have never had a problem. I've had fraudulent charges on my credit cards three times, and two out of three times, the number was stolen via offline usage. The third time was undetermined, but it was a card I never used, online or off. It may have been stolen online, but if so, it was stolen from the bank's computer, not mine.
It's snail-mail I don't trust. Anyone can swipe the mail out of my box, and thereby get my account numbers.
In any case, there's nothing suspicious about a blog hosted on Blogger asking for your Google sign-in. Google owns Blogger/Blogspot.
Paulus, if you (or anybody else!) can find a link to that Statoil study, I doubt I'll be the only grateful person. That's a useful statistic to counter the handwaving and incantations that so often pass for reasoning among cornucopians these days.
Agreed!
Don't forget Richard Nehring's presentation on reserve growth, too. It's no longer available on the ASPO site but I've posted a copy here:
http://files.me.com/aangel/pblt94
I don't think Peak Oil is a religious institution, but Cornucopianism does indeed look like a secular religion based on the twin premises that technology creates resources and that economic growth forever is a God-given state of Nature--not only possible but also highly desirable.
To be totally fair, the article is refers to "cheaper forms of energy"(than oil) in a world where we are assuming that shortage has caused the price of oil to significantly increase. The magnitude of the price increase is not specified, so for example, there might not be many cheaper forms of energy than oil at $75 a barrel, but if oil rose to, say, $1000 a barrel, then just about anything else would be cheaper. Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal... all of them would be more economical than oil, at that point.
Other than that minor quibble, your analysis was spot on, Ron. I thought the money quote in the article was...
So apparently, what "peak oilers" are failing to consider is that they/we are right, and that oil production is likely to decline, never to return to previous production levels, whereas worldwide demand will continue to grow, broading the gap. The whole mess will cause oil prices to (dramatically) rise, significantly affecting the economies of the world and potentially changing worldwide sources of energy, or potentially causing an energy shortage if we can't find enough replacement sources. According to Al Fin, in the future, we all apparently need to spend more time considering the fact that we are correct in our analysis.
I don't understand why people bring this point up as a positive about oil availability. Given the history of the past 100 years there's little reason to believe that we're getting better at modifying political/economic behvaiour long-term. The "Coalition" has been in Afghanistan 8 years, we're winding down in Iraq on the grounds we can't make actually succeed in our attempts to make the situation more to our liking, the Irish situation is flaring up again even after extensive reconciliation, North Korea and Iran are still doing things the international community condemns, etc, etc. Human nature may marginally more modifiable than geology, but I don't see any reason to believe those who want oil actually have the skills to "solve" the political problems. (They may have the ability to launch a war/conquest but I'm unconvinced they have the power and skill to end up in a long-term net gain in energy shipped back home.)
And I love how a guy who probably has absolutely no credentials in geology can just dismiss the entire field as inconsequential. These guys want to keep separating these issues out but the geology corner we've backed ourselves into is DRIVING the political and economic considerations - the complete exploitation of the resources from the "easy" geology (low hanging fruit) have resulted in much tougher economic and political decisions because we HAVE to go after the more difficult stuff. Wonder if he's heard anything about that little issue BP has had with the geology in the GOM ?
I agree, and would like to extend this thought to a broader statement:
I believe that, in spite of being a sentient species, one that is able to communicate and engineer civilization, that we will actually _not_ be able to do any better than any other animal on the planet on managing our population or use of resources.
We'll discuss it, point to things that refute my statement in a micro region of the world, but overall, nah.
I believe that eventually natural limits will constrain us, and not anything we discuss as self-limiting or self-correcting activities (i.e. conservation, technologies, behavioral change).
"Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave" -- The Penguins of Madagascar
and imo, publicly owned oil companies could also be called quarterly report whores*. i don't believe whoring for market cap is a viable response to peak oil. on the other hand(no pun intended) whoring for market cap is probably a viable response to infinite oil supply.
*my appologies to honest hard working men and women just "tryin' to make the rent".
There are many forms of energy which are cheaper than oil. The problem is that oil is much more convenient than they are, and convenience determines price.
I used to work for oil companies that ran all their vehicles and stationary engines on natural gas. However, they had natural gas everywhere as a byproduct of their oil production, and they had the compressors needed to put it in the fuel tanks. Most people don't have those things handy.
It is possible to run trains on coal (obviously), but the modern way to do it is burn in in a power plant and generate electricity for electric trains. That's obviously not the American way, but it works elsewhere.
And then there's my favorite, which I like to trot out to baffle people - Wind-powered electric trains. I rode them to work for years, and the transit authority estimated the operating costs at about 27 cents per ride.
However, all these solutions, however cheap they may be, require a massive conceptual leap for many people (particularly Americans), and many people (particularly Americans) seem to be reluctant to take that leap.
People just need to play a demonstration game I'd written for the same: http://peakoilgame.com/
Unfortunately, the game is tested to run only on certain unix variants (GNU/Linux, for sure). Ports to a flash based game will probably help.
I had no issues explaining the peak oil concept to folks, including 8 year old kids from the neighbourhood.
The game demonstrates how, faster drilling, will probably "take up" the peak but will eventually come down crashing.
Re: What Most Peak Oil Believers are Failing to Consider (uptop)
Just once I wish that one of these guys would directly address the Texas & North Sea case histories--two regions developed by private companies, using the best available technology, with virtually no restrictions on drilling that respectively peaked in 1972 and 1999. So, if Peaks Happen in the best of circumstances, why won't a peak happen globally?
Of course, generally the Cornucopians just deny reality. When I confronted Michael C. Lynch with the Texas case history he basically pretended that Texas doesn't exist. He asserted that Texas--which basically controlled the world price of oil from the Thirties to the early Seventies--was clearly a place where he would not choose to drill.
Regarding the "Peak Oil Religion," what we believe is pretty simple--oil companies generally tend to find the larger conventional fields first, and Peak Oil is really the story of the rise and fall of the large oil fields. Better technology can help improve recovery factors and help us find smaller fields, but see the Texas & North Sea case histories, with post-peak decline rates of about 3.5%/year and 4.6%/year respectively.
What? Texas really exists?
It's more of a state of mind, but in any case, despite rising domestic consumption--primarily by Rockman--the state of Texas is still a net exporter of Blue Bell ice cream. However, if we extrapolate recent trends, by 2020, the C/P ratio, the ratio of Texas (primarily Rockman's) Blue Bell consumption divided by Blue Bell production will be approaching 100%.
Uh-oh! Then I seriously doubt you will be able to significantly reduce your domestic consumption.
I see a massive ELM crisis in the making. There will be a need for importers to find alternatives, none of which have the same Ice Cream ROI. Texas may finally have to bite the bullet and put Rockman on a permanent diet. Good luck with that.
Sounds like the world as Texas knew it is already doomed! I see Texas becoming a net importer of Blue Bell Ice Cream substitutes in the very near future, if it can't find a way to break Rockman's addiction... Life in the Post Blue Bell ice cream world will be hard!
Several possible solutions: put Rockman on a diet, increase production capacity, or raise prices to curb demand.
Don't forget to include Dairy Queen in the reserves and calling it Blue Bell...
Don't worry. We're already building out SBBR. Add that to our share of the SPR we'll be OK.
yeah, kind of quite around here, rockman must be on the disaster chanel.
It's funny, but you know that while it kind of stings when someone says 'That's just a religion..', I have to step back and remember that when they are falling back on that line, it's because they are getting a bit desperate to disprove it and paint it as ridiculous.
Climate Change gets the same treatment.. and yet, so do the "Market Cornucopians" .. I guess you're prone to that attack when you are stating your 'belief' in anything.
"You believe THAT?! You Zealot!"
People sometimes tend to accuse you of what they have done. It's interesting that those who believe that a finite world has finite fossil fuel resources are labeled as religious fanatics by people who generally believe that we can have a near infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil fuel resource base, despite real life case histories like Texas & the North Sea. I call it CPSR--Cornucopian Primal Scream Response:
http://mentalfloss.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/munch.scream.jpg
"People sometimes tend to accuse you of what they have done."
It's called, "projection".
Well, no. Denying that there is something that will override the underlying geology of oil is tantamount to a belief in miracles. It is equivalent of those people who can see that they are likely to starve to death - if they don't do something to save themselves - saying, "God will provide."
Of course, in most such cases, God was apparently preoccupied by more important business, and the people starved to death.
Telling these kind of people about the oil decline curves in Texas, the North Sea, and elsewhere is a waste of time. They fervently believe that something will override the underlying geology - maybe economics, maybe politics. Maybe we'll all hold hands and chant, and oil will come bubbling out of the ground.
Geology and economics do interact in the sense that economics will always make supply equal demand regardless of geology. However, being somewhat versed in both, I like to point out that just means the price will rise to the point where you personally can't afford it, and someone richer than you will get your share. This is probably not the solution that the Cornucopians were looking for, but it is the one they will get.
Peak oil (in the peaker context I understand of course) is not as much related to the underlying geology as it is the convenience of, and need for, development.
Many peakers, like West Texas and his comments about Lynch and Texas, have their favorite (and usually the same) examples. These examples are well designed to make a particular point, and chosen carefully, and employed during the assembly of a "gotcha". Such a thing is perfectly fair of course, and sometimes even works if you use it on the unprepared or ignorant (of which we are all guilty of, on occasion, or topically). I certainly find it completely valid to use Hubberts own examples against his own ideas, for example. The obvious response to a targeted "gotcha" question is to understand as much about what it isn't, as what it is.
For example, wouldn't it behoove the "gotcha" author to know, how many similarly sized areas followed this ideal profile, and how many don't? Why don't we see work on THAT topic, instead of just a run of the mill "gotcha"? Wouldn't that make a nice little study for Peakers to publish as actual science? Heck, even for the cocktail party conversations we hold here? What stops THAT question from being answered? Fear of excommunication?
Geology simply defines the size of the container, the rate and duration of its extraction is entirely a human effect. Hubbert didn't actually model geology, he modeled the TRRC during a time of static real prices, predictably increasing demand, and an "outside the system" supply of cheaper product to balance against. Hubbert was a pioneer, we learn from pioneers, but endlessly repeating his ideas.....sounds a bit....Rosary like, doesn't it?
Peak oil is a religion, it requires belief and symbols, rituals and incantations. The all powerful bell shaped thingy, the actual veneer of science to make it seem like it ISN'T a religion, endless repetition of things which have nothing to do with the topic, the sheer factual errors and selective use of data and cherry picked time frames simply to prove a point when no such point actually exists. For some its pure zealotry of course, if there was no peak oil fantasy they would find some other trigger to their particular prognostication. Most are hoping for their own personal Rapture, for whatever reason, and peak is just the mechanism, and requires no more basis in reality than the stories in the Bible, which is to say, just enough to lend historical credibility here or there. Hubberts scientific credentials provide that same veneer for peakers.
Twaddle and nonsense.
You would do well to read the archives of TOD over the past four years before you repeat such silly and vapid statements.
Do you really want me to go find my favorite examples of bad technical work here so I can make endless fun of your recommendation, or would you prefer to refer me to, say, the top 2 or 3 technical articles which you believe do this place credit?
I know there are one or two I found interesting, but it was back in Stuarts day, and that level of work has been lean since then. Professionally speaking, the only one which I've ever seen referenced by others was the old Ghawar discussion. Nothing else has risen to a level which others have pointed out to me.
You are correct that there has been bad technical work posted on TOD. I share your admiration for the work of Stuart, and also for the work of Sam Foucher and others.
What I object to is the huge straw man fallacy that you have committed in your comments that Peak Oil is a religion.
I know what religion is, and I know what it is not. Why? Because I was educated in sociology and took an upper division course in religion as a social institution. IMO, your characterization of beliefs in Peak Oil being religious in nature is not only wrong, it is fatuous--and based clearly on the straw man fallacy.
Thanks for pointing that out Don, I agree 100 percent. Anytime some folks wish to demonize anything they just call it "religion". That is supposed to mean that the conclusions are arrived at by faith only, without rational thought. Such stupid accusations are usually the ones made without rational thought.
I have often been told that evolution is just another religion. Or that atheism is just another religion. One Yokel even told me that my belief that the earth cannot support its current population without the aid of fossil fuel a religion. His logic: All food is produced with solar power therefore solar power can support 6.8 billion people without the aid of fossil energy. Therefore disbelieving that solar power can continue to support everyone after the demise of fossil fuel is... a religion.
Ron P.
Everyone needs something to believe in... I believe I'll have another beer.
Amen!
When I see mindless belief and ritual necessary for group cohesion, I see religion. Certainly resource depletion as a science topic isn't a religion. The problem is those who disguise a belief system behind a veneer of science with zero regard for what science actually is, let alone the particulars of the veneer itself. And I consider a majority of peakers to be these believers, rather than honest debaters interested in resource depletion topics. Not necessarily a majority of this particular website mind you, but of peakers in general.
I must disagree of course. I don't attack peak oil based on its resemblance to religion, I attack peak oil on its technical misrepresentations, falsifications and speculative conclusions. Its resemblance to a religion, while interesting, is mostly irrelevant.
You attack Peak Oil (capitalized because it refers to a proper noun) "on its technical misrepresentations, falsifications and speculative conclusions." Who exactly are you attacking if not a straw man? Name some names, show some mistakes in calculations. And while you are at it, please show how "conclusions" about the future can be anything but speculative.
By the way, is AGW also a religion? Or is it science? Or is science just another religion, according to your broad and unjustified (and undocumented) definition? Or perhaps AGW and Peak Oil are one monolithic religion? Is the Tea Party movement a religion? Is the labor union movement a religion? Once you start overusing a term it loses all usefulness and genuine meaning.
As Socrates insisted, get your definitions right. And if you cannot or will not do that, you have nothing to contribute to the dialogue.
Well, how about an easy one for starters? Wiki is always a good whipping boy for garbage on this topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
"Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells."
Hubbert never used individual wells. Individual wells don't follow a bell shaped curve. Its utter tripe, and part of the mythology. I'm pretty certain Hubbert never used his profile for fields either, certainly haven't found it yet, but I'm willing to be shown the error of my ways. So, is this attacking a strawman? Its the first sentence in the peak wiki, and its nonsense, misrepresenting a foundation in science because....the writers are ignorant? Stupid? Wanting to make a "belief" point rather than getting the introduction correct?
As far as climate change, it is difficult if not impossible for anyone with geologic experience to deny it. The glacial sheets covering New England in the recent past are pretty well established in the literature. As to whether or not humans caused them to retreat prior to the invention of coal fired power plants...that issue appears up in the air.
As I have recently pointed out, albeit without a cute Socrates quote, I'm not the one deciding that oil I like is oil, and oil I don't like is something else. Peakers do that, so preach to them. :>)
So, in claiming that Peak Oil is a false belief based on faith rather than facts, what are you proposing as an alternative?
I'll boil down my understanding of peak oil to a collection of facts, if you would care to point out to me which of these you think are in error I would be most happy to reconsider them:
1. Earth is a roughly spherical body of finite extent.
2. Crude oil is only present in a relatively small percentage of the Earth's crust.
3. Only crude oil on Earth is of practical interest.
4. 1, 2, and 3 taken together means that there is a finite supply of crude oil.
5. When drawing upon a finite resource, eventually you will run out.
6. Oil deposits have not been discovered all at once, but the discovery has been spread out over time.
7. Oil recovery techniques are inefficient, we cannot drain an oil reservoir like we drain a swimming pool.
8. As a result of 7, production of oil deposits follows a characteristic pattern of rise and fall.
9. As a result of 6, the oil deposits available for production is spread out over time.
10. 5, 8, and 9 together mean that world oil production will increase for a period of time, and then it will decrease.
11. The inflection point between an increase and a decrease is commonly referred to as a "peak".
Therefore: I "believe" in peak oil, just like I "believe" that jumping up and down and flapping my arms will not enable me to fly like a bird.
Now, we can and do argue all day about particulars, but when somebody comes out and says "we have enough oil to last XX years" they are expressing a belief in peak oil whether they care to admit to it or not.
Everyone believes in peak oil. CERA, the EIA, Lynch, everyone except maybe the abiotic gang understands that sooner or later, the production rate of a finite commodity has a maximum rate. Your elaborate flowchart is quite unnecessary, and designed to defeat a strawman assigned to peak oil detractors, not a position anyone actually holds. The timing of when it happens is always in dispute of course, but the above-mentioned people all can be referenced showing or acknowledging a maximum rate at some point in time.
Your flowchart misses the point. Peak oil as a technical definition isn't what is in dispute. The consequences are. And in those, the aspects of religion are evident.
As far as my proposal of an alternative, how? Why? I believe peak oil (or its previous incarnations, "running out") is mostly irrelevant....certainly my proposal of an alternative is....its REALLY irrelevant?
Re-read your post that I replied to. In it you seem to be denying this very reality.
I personally strongly dis-(or mis-)agree with many of the more sensationalist posters here, but when looking at the picture with clear eyes there is no denying that something is happening right now that appears to be breaking historical patterns.
That something might be the hard peak, it might be a soft peak, or it might be some other thing as is frequently proposed.
My suspicion is peak [light-sweet-crude] oil production, with a possibility of peak [liquid-hydrocarbon-stock-out-of-the-ground] oil either currently present or within this decade. I am prepared to be proven wrong on this, but if the information I have gotten so far is anywhere near accurate we are soaking in peak oil.
As far as the consequences? I think we'll adapt, things will change, and we'll keep on keeping on. We might even come out ahead of the game on the downside of the oil curve, but it will be a bumpy ride.
Hey...maybe peak conventional did happen in 2005. Fine by me. Certainly I'm quite happy with our world 5 years post peak and the availability of fuel and such. Needless to say, recent post peak prognostications look like they are falling into the category of rationalization in my book, prior to the evidence of the event happening, people weren't quite as sanguine.
http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/article/2005/culture-change/lundber...
That's just because there are a few people who are disappointed that disaster isn't happening on their projected timetable. I remember hearing all sorts of disaster scenarios my entire life, most of them turned out to be rather damp firecrackers if there was any truth behind them at all.
Reality almost never resembles Hollywood, disasters happen every week somewhere or another, and people just keep on going for the most part.
I can agree with that.
I see a lot of name calling - and very little to back it up.
"Something will turn up" is not rational thought - it is just Adam Smith dogma.
reservegrowth, what is your religion ? or non-religion ?
are you claiming that reserves will grow forever ?
i took it from your previous posts that your religion was maybe decline curve analysis ?
i am reasonably certain that you are a deciple of holdich, the one you refer to as "steve".
i assure you that holditch is turning out engineers that the uber-capitalists want to hire. so maybe your religion is uber-capitalism*.
* uber-capitalists believe they can predict future oil and gas prices, produce gas from nanodarcy rock, create permeability, leap tall buildings in a single bound and drill wells in the marianas trench.
inquiring minds need to know.
Born again agnostic.
Absolutely not. But understanding their growth is critically important to estimating what will be available in the future for human use.
Steve Holditch is a damn fine engineer.
Steve didn't "turn out" this engineer. And I would go to more SPE nationals if the students in his department weren't always cluttering up the talks because they want to punch the "I need an SPE paper to my name" ticket.
I’d love to see that question asked and answered. Would you like to do it? A nice rebuttal to the dogma? It’s an open forum and I’m sure many would like to see such a presentation, especially backed up by specific dates, figures, and links to pertinent detailed information.
What was it that Keynes said - that when hew saw different facts he changed his mind? Done it may times, if the facts warrant it.
You mean, again? :>) To be honest, IMHO the results didn't strike me as worth publishing. I understand the local interest of course, but for a decent journal you need something generally more big picture.
Evasive as always RGR2. You never have laid out a clear argument for your case, either here or any other site you’ve posted at.
There is no point in reinventing the wheel.
This man:
http://www.csiro.au/people/Peter.McCabe.html
wrote this paper:
http://aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/11/2110
It is the best, and most thorough science work on the topic I am aware of. It should be required reading prior to anyone even attempting to become a peaker, IMHO.
And how to get the article? Always citing something that is difficult to get. Nice.
Bruce, I apologize for referencing actual science articles, in actual peer reviewed journals, which contain actual citations to other science articles in even more journals.
It is unfortunate that not everyone has easy online access to the tools and information used to do geoscience investigations and such, but much of the world is that way. I certainly don't buy all the tools needed to pull the engine on my Toyota and repair it, it doesn't break often, if at all, and the investment in all the tools is probably an investment as large as the toyota itself.
If I have a problem, I take it to someone who has experience and the tools to explain to me what is going on, and can repair it if necessary. He/She can afford the tools, because they see these problems 5 times a day, whereas I may have a problem only once in my ownership of 3 toyotas spanning 15 years.
Just think of me as your friendly, neighborhood toyota mechanic and geoscientist. My tools start with 50 years of the AAPG Bulletin right in my office, that I might reference them appropriately for those looking for answers to real science questions. Oil and gas resource depletion is a real science question, and people have published plenty on the topic spanning 3 centuries now. Peakers tend to think its a new topic, but maybe you can't blame them outright, if all they do is google around to see what they can see, they can't find the real science on the topic any easier than you, and I told you exactly where to look.
The rhetoric tactics on the comments section of TOD become pretty transparent after a while. Lay people apparently get to make the determination of who is and who isn't an "expert". Hence the surreal spectacle of one individual arguing at one moment that economics isn't a science and then approvingly noting the finance background of a favored "expert" in the very same thread. Of course, if another "expert" with a finance background offered a dissenting opinion, we'd hear no end of "finance isn't a science." Expertise in any area is only legitimate when it confirms the priors of "educated" amateurs.
The other favor tactic is to demand that contrary claims are "backed up." And since the lay man's ability to correctly identify "experts" is infallible, a quick google search will always allow the individual making the demand to present the "evidence" to support their own position.
Unfortunate, but basically true. Not everyone of course, but its a fairly common method to try and negate those who actually know something about the topic but don't draw the groupthink conclusion. (My favorite being, the reservoir engineer says X, but he must be lying because the ex-cop told me Y and ex-cops are always well informed on the nuances of reservoir dynamics in cop school) I would volunteer that this attitude isn't as prevalent here as it is at those other sites, certainly at other places they will actually say they have this confirmation bias outright. Amazing thing to watch in action.
I spent the time to acquire a doctorate degree in Economics at what was essentially a "neoclassical" school and have since moved on to a faculty position. I don't have any problem with non-economists questioning the expertise of economists (neo-classical or otherwise) or the status of economics as a science. However, what I find odd is the belief that reading an article on wikipedia or in Scientific American qualifies one to make sweeping statements not only about the shortcomings of the theory, but also about what "all" economists supposedly believe, and what is and isn't done in the research. If nothing else, academic economists know their theory and have some expertise in what kind of research is actually being done in, at a minimum, their own particular field. Why lay people, having no familiarity with the academic journals, think they are qualified to make any claims about the nature of research in a particular area is beyond me.
There's nothing wrong with lay people trying to get a sense of field by reading popular accounts, but presumably one should be critical enough to accept that such accounts may be incomplete or be agenda driven and offer misleading information. I've suggested that Jay Hanson had misrepresented neoclassical economics in a sweeping statement and was chided for it. Apparently because the wikipedia entry uses the word "various," the phrase can be used however one wants. The possibility that Jay is either ill-informed or deliberately creating a straw man is never allowed. In kindness, I will allow that certain individuals here are incapable of recognizing that there are areas where they don't know enough to provide meaningful commentary.
Maybe they don't understand what research is? Maybe they don't understand what science is? When being an amateur violin player qualifies one as a grand poobah of the Peak Oil Movement it becomes incumbent on anyone to ask, do the people who run the joint actually KNOW anything?
Look what happened in this very thread. I provided the exact location of one of the best pieces of resource depletion science work done in the past 15 or 20 years and because its actually in a science journal, written by a world specialist on just this niche topic, well hell, it must be my fault for hiding it in a science journal! If it hasn't been misrepresented in Wiki, it can't be real! Its a conspiracy! Oh yeah, and only us science trolls know where the actual science is hidden.
So tell me Mr. Jolly, am I supposed to take the word of someone who claims to be an “expert”, who makes a very concerted effort at remaining anonymous, who makes strong implications that those who don’t have his training are ignorant, and then who when asked for information either dances around the question or who knowingly gives links that are difficult or expensive , who then always pleads “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that” - like the bully who knocks someone down in the school cafeteria?
Were are being played by an accomplished troll. The weakness as well as strength at the Oildrum is a decorum that the members try to maintain. People like RGR2 have learned to use that to their advantage.
The sad part is I want to hear the other side of the argument. I’ve read almost everything accessible on the web, and from university libraries on the subject of peak oil for the last ten years. I’ve been a member on this site almost since it was created. When I first started examining peak oil information was much more difficult to find. As a historian and attorney I make a concerted effort to get all the information, especially that which damages my theory or my case. If I don’t, my peers crucify me or I get sued for malpractice. The big problem is that the detractors either pick at weak parts of the peak oil argument that do little to address the main argument, hide the ball claiming proprietary information or special knowledge, or fall back on economic theory. I have never come across a concise reasoned argument that clearly makes their case with facts and figures. It is always “trust us” or obfuscate the facts.
RGR2 has added nothing useful to debate on this site. He is a much more polished Hothgar.
And us scientists don't have similar consequences for failure? I consider it ridiculous that after your years of study, with a historians perspective, it requires a troll/geoscientist to actually point out the SCIENCE involved on the topic, 12 year old science I might add, the response to which has effectively been "oh its so hard, oh its so expensive, why isn't it handed to me wrapped in crinkly paper".
Professionals have tools. You have yours, I have mine. Mine are more relevant to the topic at hand. And actually involve the science and the history, without a streaming video in sight.
Bruce: If it wasn't obvious, it should be understood that qualifier "some" should be inserted before "lay people." I was responding to a series of ill-informed comments in the previous couple of days where unsubstantiated claims were made by a couple of commentators about what "most" economists believed and how they "never" explicitly modeled energy (despite the existence of journals specializing in the area of energy economics). Unlike you, I doubt these individuals have ever bothered to go to a university library to try to independently verify any of the claims that their favorite "expert" has made. I've certainly seen no evidence to the contrary.
Your law library is undoubtedly easy to get at. My geoscience library is no different.
If I asked you a legal question pertaining to whether or not I was required under US law to pay income taxes, would you quote the law and precedents which are well established and definitive showing that I am supposed to, or would you refer me to LegalDingbatsRUs who maintain that some amendment or another wasn't ratified properly and its a-okay for me to stop immediately?
You asked a question and I answered it with a seminal scientific work on the topic, not a utube video, I didn't use my finger to trace a bell shaped thingy on my forehead while speaking an incantation to distract you, and I didn't reference some ridiculous wiki's or a book someone is trying to sell.
The 1972 Texas peak (blue) lined up with the 1999 North Sea peak (black):
These two regions were developed by private companies, using the best available technology, with virtually no restrictions on drilling. Their combined cumulative production through 2005 was about 9% of total cumulative world crude oil production. In both cases, the initial production declines corresponded to rapid increases in oil prices, yet the industry--with virtually no restrictions on drilling--completely failed in their efforts to reverse the production decline.
How do the techno-cornucopians address this abject failure? Generally, they simply pretend that Texas and the North Sea don't exist. Or, in the alternative, they assert that TFD (Technological Fairy Dust) will bring production back to close to the peak rates. In addition, there is the "Infinite World" argument, e.g., the Texas State Geologist, in 2005, asserted that "Geographically limited" areas like Texas (and presumably the North Sea) could not be used as models for the world, the implication being that the world is not geographically limited. So basically, the techno-cornucopians engage in denial and/or they believe in magic fairy dust and the infinite world model.
In any case, world conventional crude oil production in 2005 was at about the same stage of depletion at which the North Sea peaked in 1999 (approximately 50% depleted, Deffeyes). World crude oil production, despite rising contributions from unconventional production, has so far failed to exceed the 2005 annual rate (EIA), despite annual oil prices exceeding the $57 level that we saw in 2005 for four years and for 2010 to date--"Deja Vu all over again."
Wow. Like dude, maybe a plateau? Or would those be interpreted as peaks?
Are you implying that all state sized, or large aggregations operate this way?
Why don't you graph oil production in Ohio and lets see how well your garlic/silver bullet/stake through the heart of Lynch profile holds up there? Hubbert used it as an example of a depleted and dead area, geologically speaking, back in 1956, it should be perfect.
From the article linked up top: What Most Peak Oil Believers are Failing to Consider
That's akin to a Christian Fundamentalist telling an Atheist, that he or she is a member of just another fundamentalist religious sect.
These people are morons of the highest order! They are not even wrong!
And the world keeps turning, "Don't Worry Be Happy!"
Smile or Die, running out of oil is actually a wonderful growth opportunity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo&feature=player_embedded
Well. No and Yes. as in, 'No is just yes to a different question..'
As with Faith, Fear and Hope, I think 'Positive thinking' can also be pretty usefully divided into 'Blind Postivity' versus 'Aware Positivity'.. the blind sort in all of the above is where you get those problems that Ehrenreich describes in that video. "We don't want to hear bad news! LA, LA, LA, I'm not listening!" .. and then you've got people who can face dismal prospects, big setbacks and insults, but find the ability to keep an eye on some worthy goals, and push onwards towards them.
.. Shackleton, for the time being, is my shorthand for this in the extreme example.
It takes a hard nosed realist to do that. It's the classic example of, if all you have is lemons then make lemonade, That is a far far cry from delusional we can do anything kind of mentality common amongst the technologists and cornucopians. YES WE CAN!
The realist can move on because she can adjust her expectations to what ever reality she finds herself in, she doesn't waste time and energy trying make reality conform to what she might like it to be. She takes reality at face value. If necessary she is able to walk away from a disaster with just a small backpack on her back leaving it all behind. Whereas the delusional positive thinker will die trying to hang on to that which can not be maintained any longer.
I hope to see you on the other side of the hill walking that trail with your little backpack.
Best hopes for meeting up with all the other surviving realists as well.
Cheers!
To be fair, sometimes the people who spend time and energy trying to make reality conform to their ideas succeed. (To quote Shaw, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress therefore depends on the unreasonable man.") My perception is that nowadays the actual spending time and energy has been replaced with punditry pointing out why there are economic and technological reasons why someone else will acheive the desired change.
Fair enough, as long as we don't fall into the trap of equating being able to build say a wind generator with being able to build a perpetual motion machine and think that success in either of these cases is only a question of making reality conform to our ideas...
Maybe the problem with that Shaw quote is the unquestioned value of "progress."
That's conceivable. Another possibility is that we're not making anywhere near enough actual progress these days.
The Idea of Progress (see J.B. Bury book of that title) is only a few centuries old. The classical civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome believed in an idea of Regress: From a golden age to a silver age to bronze and finally (contemporary to the ancients) an iron age. Also the idea of indefinitely renewing cycles of civilization was popular. Note that the world of the Roman emperors was similar in most respect to life four thousand years earlier in Sumeria, notwithstanding the facts that wealthy Romans had flush toilets and central (sort of) heating, and that all of Rome had access to good roads and a remarkable sewer system.
Ancient philosophers were fond of pointing out that the important things--such as moral rules--did not change. From Plato onward they bemoaned degeneracy in art, poetry, and debauchery.
Contrary to what many believe, educated Romans after about 200 A.D. perceived the decline around them, and none of them were surprised by it. Ancient Christianity had no idea of progress embodied in it--quite the contrary; it was and is an apocalyptic religion.
Aristotle used to worry about deforestation, decreasing fertility of the soil, and other environmental abuses; he was a keen observer who made no distinction between ecology and steady-state economics. The idea of progress never occurred to him.
"It was only a hopeless fancy,
It passed like an April day,"
That is Progress.
Not to be confused with Advancement of Station.
Which has been around long before and likely to be around long after Progress.
Or the definition of "progress", itself.
Perhaps we need to redefine progress to mean the achievement of a more humane equitable and benevolent society for all living humans. Unfortunately it means we probably won't have much real "progress" until there is a large contraction of the population.
Now doing that in a humane way would in my mind be the ultimate "progress"
The idea of doing things in a humane way (even minimizing collateral damage in warfare) is quite modern. See the Old Testament and the ILIAD for specific examples of unrestrained brutality and glorying in the suffering of one's enemies. Recall what Odysseus is alleged to have done to Andromache's baby--and why he did it. (OK, he threw the baby off the walls to dash its brains out, because the boy baby--son of Hector--might grow up to be an avenging enemy hero. Kill the men, kill the babies, and enslave and rape the women; that was life in the good old preindustrial days.)
I see a lot of the fallacy of nostalgia for a romanticized preindustrial past on TOD.
Well said Sailorman,
There are fundamental failings that prevent followers of either of the two main branches of political thought current in this country-liberalism as best characterized by the democrats and conservatism as best characterized by the republicans- from seeing and dealing with reality.
The liberals all to often don't seem to have a real clue as to the nature of the human beast.
The conservatives as a general rule don't seem to have any better grasp of the nature of the hard physical limits imposed by biology and geology, or more broadly speaking, nature as a whole.
So the typical arch liberal pushes for solutions incompatible with our physical nature and the typical arch conservative pushes for solutions incompatible with the remainder of the natural world.
Hopefully the liberals will win out in the near to medium term as the environmental situation is the most critical issue facing us as a species.
But they seem absolutely determined to throw out the baby with the bath water in respect to acknowledging the weaknesses of thier own philosophy and the strengths of conservative philosophy.
Unfortunately, mainline liberals and mainline conservatives both hold as an article of quaisi-religious faith the doctrine that Economic Growth is Possible, Necessary, and Good.
I don't think we need new ideas. We need to rediscover the ideas of Garrett Hardin, Kenneth Boulding, and others from the 1970s; there was a lot of clear thinking and writing going on then in response to the oil crisis that began in the fall of 1973. Coupon rationing of gasoline was seriously considered; the coupons were printed up and were ready to deploy. Serious discussions, such as Barkley and Secker, "Economic Growth: The Solution Becomes the the Problem" were published and widely read; the "Limits to Growth" book sold hundreds of thousands of copies, if memory serves.
Alas, I see a regress in the quality of public discourse since 1973. In 1976, the U.S. electorate chose Jimmy Carter, a nuclear engineer and peanut farmer, to be its president. When, I wonder, will we make an equally enlightened choice. Nowadays we elect lawyers to the presidency; engineers are widely held in contempt and I've heard it said by a psychologist with an advanced degree that "All engineers are more or less autistic." When lawyers thrive and multiply as we have to import our engineers and physicists from overseas, the nation decays.
The last two major-party candidates I voted for in a presidential election were Barry Goldwater in '64 and Jimmy Carter in '76.
As a big proponent of romanticizing the pre-industrial past, I think there should be a distinction made between pre-industrial “civilized” humans and pre-industrial “uncivilized” humans. Let’s count the characters of the Old Testament, The Iliad, and the fictional baby brain smashing Odysseus among the civilized. Let’s count all of the biological homo sapiens who existed for 95% of our history as a species until the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago (fossil records indicate our species evolved to its current biological state around 200,000 years ago) and all of the indigenous gathering-hunting cultures wiped out by civilization over the past millennia (with exceptionally violent swiftness since the industrial revolution) as uncivilized. The uncivilized, whose cultures did not exist to thoughtlessly exploit all available resources to grow power and wealth, represent the natural equilibrium point of our species. Us civilized, whose culture does exist to exploit all available resources to grow power and wealth, represent an anomalous departure from equilibrium that has been going on for about 5% of our species’ history and seems to be peaking. All natural systems tend toward equilibrium. I see no reason not to romanticize the equilibrium state of our species, particularly because of what that means for all other species on the planet– understanding of course that we will never see anything like it while we’re alive.
I see very little romanticizing of pre-oil life.
What I do see tons and tons and tons of every minute (that I expose myself to it) of every day--is the massive and constant romanticizing of consumerist culture, a culture that has destroyed the earth and hasn't even made most people much happier, and has made many much more miserable.
That is the only romanticizing to be worried about. Every other attempt to promote any other lifestyle is so massively and completely obliterated by the juggernaut of commercial promotion--romatanticism--of consumer lifestyle, it is not really worth mentioning.
Regarding the past, of course lots of horrible things happened. Lots of horrible things happen now. These do not necessarily represent the lived experience of most people in either era. What makes the news--that I spent a leisurely afternoon typing random thoughts, or that someone blew someone else up somewhere? What is news today is what becomes history (and much literature) later, not because it records what was usual, but specifically because these were relatively unusual events in the grand scheme of things--very bad if you happen to be in the midst of them, but not affecting most peoples lives most of the time.
Note that the Glory that was Greece and the Grandeur that was Rome depended on large parts of the populations being slaves. They both also depended on the subjugation of women. That was everyday life in the Good Old Days.
For a steady-state economy would you reinstitute Negro slavery in the U.S.? To control population would you take away all rights of women and children? Note that female infanticide was and is one of the most widely practiced forms of population control.
The industrial revolution and its consequences were by no means all bad.
That was everyday life before the pill and mass produced and distributed contraceptives.
The sexual revolution, like the green revolution, is tied to a consumer market predicated on petroleum. Pharmaceuticals, prophylactics, and safe medical procedures are available cheaply and everywhere.
Beyond oil, I suspect, gender relations and sexual mores would revert to more "traditional" ways.
".......to more 'traditional' ways."
What,,,,,like rape and servitude?
Yes.
Slavery exists today in our oil rich world. Yes, it will doubtless exist in an oil depleted world, too.
Women continue to be be oppressed in our oil rich world. So, yes again, I expect women will be oppressed in an oil depleted world, too.
Ignoring the former and emphasizing the latter is part of romanticizing the present and denigrating the past and potential futures.
What the present beyond-extreme over-exploitation of nearly all natural resources (and the concomitant destruction of living communities and the deep disruption of the climate...) has done is enslave all future generations--should there be any--to pay the price for our current profligacy.
Rape and servitude are not traditional ways. If in doubt, ask your grandparents or someone from that generation.
Men, traditionally, see themselves as protectors not predators.
The present gender dance between men and women is very recent. By and large, it is a by-product of separating a woman's sexuality from pregnancy, thanks to birth control.
If there is an upside to going back to traditional ways, it would be that women would hold men personally responsible for the material well-being of any off-spring they may sire. Sure beats the prolongation of a culture where lads are mere sperm donors to the gene pool and can goof off from any paternal responsibilities.
My point is this: without oil, all aspects of our contemporary "modern" life will go the way of the dodo bird, including our much vaunted sexual freedoms and loosely defined gender roles. They are a result of a material industrial complex predicated on cheap, abundant energy. If it goes, our much beloved lifestyle, including its quirky attitudes and assumptions, will go with it.
Sorry Z. Just being snide. While predicicting what future rolls men and women will fill is fun, I suspect that they will vary by culture, what stories they tell, and will eventually be determined by what works and what doesn't.
Exactly, Ghung.
Hormones and necessity will sort the details.
Cheers!
I agree with Ghung that roles of men and women will be defined differently in different cultures by what works and what doesn't in that local place - as it always has. Again, much of the focus seems to be on pre-industrial civilized humans. In this case, the predominate characteristics of the wider culture - control and abuse - oftentimes were reflected in familial relationships, and obviously often still are. However, I will again point out that civilized culture and the human psychologies and personalities it creates cannot be the only basis for understanding human nature and what our species is capable of socially. Consider the description of the sex relations of the indigenous peoples of Hispanola by Las Casas, a member of Columbus' crew who was able to write about what he saw of the natives before they were all systematically exterminated by the Europeans and their civilized culture:
"Marriage laws are non-existent: men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth. If they tire of their men, they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths, covering their shameful parts with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole, Indian men and women look upon nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man's head or at his hands." - from "A People's History of The United States" by Howard Zinn
I think it's more complicated than that.
Rigid gender roles and sexual restrictions are not necessarily "natural" for humans, any more than the current situation is.
But they are common when people are under population pressure. Control of females is control of fertility. The belief that women are inferior makes it easier to commit female infanticide.
Farmers kills the male animals and keep the females, because they want to increase their herds. But if the problem is the opposite - you want to keep the population from growing - you kill the females.
Yeah, Leanan, but nowadays women have guns and most can shoot straight ;-)
Jus primae noctis.
What a stupid idea.
The only thing gasoline rationing would achieve is the reduction in the use of gasoline.
I'm glad we kicked that billy goat Carter back to the curb where he belonged.
Good ol' Ronnie reminded us how to maximize our potential.
Ah, but I plead "Not Guilty", to the charge of: "fallacy of nostalgia for a romanticized preindustrial past".
I personally have no illusions about the fact that nature has always been both red in tooth and claw and will continue to be so into the far distant future, when giant scorpions and cockroaches will once again battle each other for supremacy of the earth while myriad disease causing microbes, viruses and other pathogens will infect both the cockroaches and the scorpions.
... Homo Sapiens by this time having long ago departed from the scene... C'est la vie!
However, I did make a statement as to what it was that I would have liked to redefine the idea of "progress" to be from what its currently accepted definition is... Namely, "the achievement of a more humane equitable and benevolent society for all living humans."
I then went on to clarify that with the following: "Unfortunately it means we probably won't have much real "progress" until there is a large contraction of the population".
Then I added this further clarification as to my expectation being, that doing this, (meaning population reduction), in a humane way, would in my mind, be the ultimate "progress"!
I thought I was being quite clear by italicizing the word "that" in my original comment, that I did not have, what could possibly be interpreted as having, even the slightest hope, that such a scenario might actually come to pass.
Therefore I would like to extend my sincerest apologies, if in my somewhat obscure way of expressing myself, I was insufficiently clear and if that consequently led to a misunderstanding of my true intent.
Isn't that sort of the opposite of the belief in progress? In one view, the past is dark, violent and poor, the future is bright, peaceful and rich? In the other view the poles are just switched? Both are forms of romanticism.
Seems to me we'd be better served to view each age on its own terms and not as part of some predetermined singular path of development.
One thing I have learned - when our ancestors made the move from living in round houses to living in square ones, the decision they made to rely on agriculture as the basis of their existence had the, perhaps unintentional, side affect of decreasing life expectancy for those who survived past infancy (the evidence is too scarce to say much about infant death rates). It took about 10,000 years of increasing centralization of agriculture, the rise of "civilization," the centralization of power in the "state," and finally the industrial revolution before we had regained the life expectancy of our pre-agricultural forebears. Not sure how that works, and it certainly is opposite to everything my culture taught me while I grew up.
Well said, Don. You don't even have to go as far back as biblical story or ancient history to see how hardened and unsentimental were people in "the good old days". A less humane age was more recent than that.
The industrial revolution, by freeing labourers from the farms, spared enough people to see the rise of police forces, insurance, worldwide access to distribution, and a coddled middle class of do-gooders. Prior to this, order was enforced by blunt force and the bonds of family and community. Squeamishness was to no-one's advantage in an age when everybody was subject to the dangerous whims of nature [think blight, disease, wildlife - including crows, slugs, insects, wolves, and rodents picking away at your livestock and produce - flood, and tempest] and neighbour [think robbery, arson, pillaging, marauding soldiers, etc.].
Deterrence was the main brake on social violence and disorder. Hence public executions were big crowd pleasers and a form of entertainment for the entire family (hanged-drawn-and-quartered being a particularly gruesome but popular spectacle). For lesser offenses, penal ridicule (branding, pillory, flogging) and exile were effective enforcers of the peace. Meanwhile, b/c nature was still something that had to be mastered for survival, blood sports (bear baiting, dog and cock fighting, fox hunts, etc.) emphasized in people's minds the constant vigil that had to be maintained over and against the wild forces lurking in the background.
Today we are protected by a bevy of professionals: police, wildlife officers, dog catchers, and even pest control agents who shield us from outside forces invading our lives. There was a time not long ago when every farm house had a dog (most present breeds were bred for a specific hunting or corralling purpose) and every household had a cat (to keep the mice out of the pantry). Since veterinarians were few and far between every time a batch of kittens or pups arrived it meant another trip to the local pond or stream to drown the critters.
Dogs and cats were not companions to be pampered and cuddled; they had work to do and had to earn their keep. Otherwise, they were dispatched to free up resources.
Be under no illusion. Back to any form of living reminiscent of the pre-industrial age means going back to a less protected and crueler world.
"The idea of doing things in a humane way (even minimizing collateral damage in warfare) is quite modern"
Not exactly true. Budhism comes to mind, for eg. But most people probably haven't heard of Jainism ... founded contemporaneously with Budhism before 5th century BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
I nearly married a Jain.
If you read their detailed history there are references to a period when there was a culture of militancy in some sects of Jain monks.
Most Jains respect and follow peaceful vegetarian lives, but no culture is constant.
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending July 9, 2010
Turns out my prediction of up to a 5 million drop in oil inventories turned out this week to be quite correct [see my posts in yestreday's Drumbeat]. Score one for the peak oil cultists, since apparently most media reports say this drop was "unexpected".
As far as I can tell, most of the distortions caused by Hurricane Alex have been reflected one way or another in the EIA figures - although the EIA figures still be to overstated by almost a million barrels (since the EIA appears not to have reduced domestic production figures for Gulf of Mexico shut-ins two weeks ago).
Strong US demand for oil, now running at about a 5% rate over last year for about two months now, will continue - based upon reports that US imports of goods actually accelerated over the last few weeks. The distribution of imported goods increases demand for diesel.
Related to what I posted yesterday is an article up top, The Peak Oil Crisis - A Mid-Year Review, all available information indicates worldwide supply is not increasing, therefore US oil imports may fall, and demand will continue strong - well, at least while the current wave of business restocking and inventory building continues. Therefore I am still looking for an uptrend in oil prices - as demand closes in on available supply.
TOD saves me money. Based on your earlier remarks and other info on TOD I gassed up this morning at $2.49 a gallon. This afternoon the price is $2.69 a gallon.
I note that gasoline inventories are up, so I expect falling prices in gasoline in the U.S. over the next few weeks to few months.
Here in Vancouver, BC, the gasoline prices are the highest they have been since the 2008 crash. Recently, prices have bumped above $1.18/liter here (for 87 octane). Quite a contrast to falling prices south of the border. Last summer, gasoline prices peaked around $1.15/l.
-best
Charles, what, if anything, do you make of the apparent huge fall in product supplied last week. 19,558 down to 18,777 for total product; gasoline down from 9,449 to 9,080?
Hello,
I've uploaded a new version of my free Peak Oil software to my website.
Changes:
* Added new Hubbert Curves for Congo, Lybia and Argentina
You can download it here: http://sokath.sourceforge.net/
"'Shine, baby, shine' is an inexhaustible source of energy," said Larry Hagman, who plans to address the Intersolar trade show today in San Francisco. "When affordable oil gives out, we're in real trouble -- I mean the collapse of civilization, within 15 to 20 years."
For the benefit of Oil Drum readers, I'd like to correct a false meme being reinforced by the New York Times in the above referenced article re concerns over plutonium from spent nuclear fuel being used for nuclear bombs. The quote:
Reactor grade Pu is useless for nuclear ordnance so this statement is a complete falsehood and serves only to conflate the horrors of nuclear war with peaceful application of nuclear power to the benefit of mankind. I can only speculate on the motivation for keeping this meme alive, but it is a very damaging one if you believe, as I do, that advanced nuclear technology will be essential in any effective move toward ridding the world of fossil fuels. For those interested in verification of my claim that this meme is false, I refer you to an excellent discussion and analysis at the Depleted Cranium, Why You Can't Build a Bomb from Spent Fuel.
Reactor-Grade and Weapons-Grade Plutonium in Nuclear Explosives
Plus, I could swear that I've seen references to separation of Pu-239 and Pu-240, but I can't seem to find them any more...
The point is that we are talking about hypotheticals, and it is my opinion, based on scientific information and analysis, that for whatever reason high-level policy has been to scare us with the "threat" of reactor-grade plutonium.
Give me an afternoon and I could come with many ways in which something potentially **really** dangerous and destructive could be done by someone. The point is that a threat must be realistic, with some reasonable probability of it actually happening. If its not realistic, then pushing a hypothetical scenario such as this is to peddle fear based on some other agenda.
We can also look to history of nuclear weapons to see if this "threat" has ever been manifest in the real world over the past 60 years. We have this fact from Ted Rockwell's Nuclear Energy Facts Report (Apr. 2010):
I'm quoting Mr. Rockwell as, from his bio:
We are able to separate U235 from U238 via centrifuges, or gasseous diffusion. It costs a great deal of money and energy. In theory you could do the same with isotopes of Plutonium. Note that the mass ratio minus one is about a third as much as with the Uranium isotopes, so it should take three times as many stages. Not, impossible. But, if you could do it, why not just make weapons grade Uranium instead. The later is easier to make, and easier to make into a Little-Boy style gun type bomb, than Plutonium, which needs a spherical implosion (i.e. very precise engineering). Note that the bomb droped on Hiroshima was the untested enriched Uranium bomb, not the Plutonium based bomb that had been tested three weeks earlier. The confidence in the untested Uranium bomb was higher than for the tested Plutonium weapon.
I had thought that we also used calutrons to separate U-235 and U-238. My recollection is reading that calutrons had also been used to separate Pu-239 from Pu-240. Calutrons were abandoned because they use large amounts of energy and are expensive. However, if you used superconducting magnets, the economics might be a lot different.
Any of you clowns who say we don't need AC come on over! 91F OUTSIDE with a dew point of 78F right now...HI of 106F...even warmer to the south... This is Wisconsin in summer :) Got the window AC cranked and me and the kids are hunkered down. This crap is worse then a driving blizzard. Bring on fall/winter.
Depends upon the definition of NEED. Fifty and a hundred years ago few to none had AC, and most survived. Many of your neighbors probably don't have AC (at least when I lived in Wisconsin in the 80's and 90's it wasn't all that common). But of course you got a lot of grumbling. And I heard stories that during 1934 when it was a really bad summer, people slept on top of their roofs to get some relief from the heat.
I remember trying an experiment, using fans to bring in air through the basement, and out the upper floors. Worked great for about two days, then I noticed the extreme amount of condensation happening in the basement!
Yes, I've looked at a dewpoint map. A blob of 75F and 80+F dewpoints is heading north. Looks like Iowa and Minnesota are getting the worst of it.
I remember a night in Minneapolis. The weatherman predicted no-one would sleep that night because the dewpoint was 82. He was right, but for the wrong reason. About a half hour later the sky erupted. Lightening strikes were hitting close enough to have less then a second delay every couple of seconds. And it went on all night long. No-one tried to sleep, but just stayed up and watched it. Perhaps you will be in for a phenomenal lightshow!
I remember that night! For some decades now I have had "tornado parties" in which we get together and drink Planter's Punch, made with Myer's rum. Nothing like a tornado warning to get the party juices flowing.
I'm in La Crosse...we topped at 79F for the dew point...low 90Fs actually temp.. Prairie Du Chien to my south was low 80's for dew points... Des Moines was upper 90s with high 70F dew points all day.
I feel moisture is way more ANNOYING with any sort of heat. Dry heat is a lot easier to deal with (kind of) because you can seek out shade/dig a hole... high moisture air its hot everywhere, even in shade it seem. Yesterday it was upper 90's in Denver...well the dew point was in the upper 30Fs! Wow..not!
I think the key here is CORN CORN CORN CORN CORN... Iowa is basically a corn field now, and corn likes to sweat...
I've done research on the 1930's heat wave... Most of what i found out was that it wasn't humid like this. Someone on one of the wx boards found some moisture obs and confirmed these beliefs. You have to remember years of drought lead to that heatwave. This year is the EXACT OPPOSITE. My city has had 10 inches+ of rain in the last 50 days...places in Iowa have had double. The whole upper midwest is a smelly wet biscuit.
I lived in Chippewa Falls just North of Eau Claire. LaCrosse is a beautiful place. Some of the only real topography in the midwest, and the Mississippi river to boot.
Up to a point. I've been in one hundred and teens heat a few times. Dry 115 degree heat can be pretty tough, wind just advects heat to your body faster. Most places with dry heat don't have very much shade. Denver, and Albuquerque ,and Reno have enough elevation that a little over 100 is tops. The problem where I live is insolation (sun, sun, sun), never a cloud, or a tree to block it. Even 75F with low humidity can feel hot in the California sun. In our usual mid nineties days, everything the sun shines on is too hot to touch (and with little shade, that means practically everything).
But, I think you are right, the 30's heat was mostly dry, due to dustbowl dryness. Lose ground and plant moisture and the heat can build up. Evaporation, removes heat from ground level, and the wind blows it somewhere else. Moist air also has a lower lapse rate (rate the air would cool if you lifted it up to higher elevation). This means that warm humid air can be more convectively unstable than hot dry air. And this convection will transport heat up into the higher elevations where the jet stream can move it somewhere else.
This year the moisture plume coming up east of the Rockies seems especially focused from roughly Texas to Minnesota and Wisconsin. I remember the year of the great Mississip floods (was it 93?). We got a lot of big rains that summer, but the really bad floods were very far downstream. I would think the Mississippi must be running pretty high these days.
Well, exactly. I think there was quite a long discussion of the brutality of pre-industrial life upthread. That discussion applies, to a lesser degree, to a hundred, even fifty years ago. Nowadays we are able to fuss endlessly over, say, "toxins" that might theoretically shave a whole immeasurably small 20 minutes off life expectancy. Our standards have become too strict for us to tolerate merely "most" surviving. Even in some of the not-so-well-off parts of the world, that's now considered too lax, not "safe" enough.
I guess it's sort of like saying we don't NEED diphtheria vaccine. MOST people once survived without that too. So the definition of NEED has indeed changed, often for the better.
Iced tea and screened porches (and talk real slowwwww).
And sleeping porches. Had one in my 1926 rowhouse in Baltimore. These days, in that neighborhood, though, the gunfire might keep you awake. :-(
Don't you guys have all kinds of glacier lakes in your state? Dang, grab the kids and head to a good swim hole for crimminies sake. Go camping by the shore. Go fishing or something! And NO, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WORK! that's only for people who don't know how to fish...
What's up with that?!
Telsa Is "Silly ... a Stupid Idea," Lindzon Says: Govt. Better Off Investing in Bikes
"But if the government's goal in supporting Tesla was to help wean us off foreign oil, Lindzon says (only half-jokingly) Uncle Sam would be better off backing a bike manufacturer and putting bikes all over American cities."
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/telsa-is-%22silly-...-a-stupid-idea...
MSM Alert! Don't know if this has been posted yet. New series on Discovery Channel, et al: "Powering the Future".
TOD for Dummies?
First episode:
Thanks for the heads up Ghung. I have the TVOE set to record both episodes of "Powering the Future". The first comes on at 7PM, CDT. As you said, the first hour is "The Energy Revolution" The race to power the future. The second hour is "The Energy Planet" Mankind's dependency on fossil fuels.
Hope is is worth watching.
Ron P.
I was going to post it Saturday, because I figured people would forget if I posted it too soon.
Charlie Hall says he's going to be in this.
We'll see what the BAU propaganda/reality ratio is.
Off to work!
Collapse Network (I think that is Mike Ruppert) has a very nice article on gold ownership...But it's much more than just an article on gold & investments.
He talks about the "dying paradigm" of our present economy and the rubble we will leave our children. I started crying when I read this article. In the past three days two fast food outlets near my home here shuttered. They have been here for 10 years at least (as long as I have been here). They are Japanese chains---I had been to one (a sushi place), not the other (a beef bowl place). You guys, even though I know what is going on here even I am getting upset. A landscape that used to be green and fertile, that offered water to drink, fish to eat, bounteous crops of rice...now offers nothing but boarded up concrete---tons of it. And everyday more of it. How can people face what is coming? Our grocery stores are still open but for how long? And what comes after that?
These chains offered food that was pretty cheap, by the way. But not cheap anough. Beef and fish are turning into luxuries again (that is fine with me by the way). The average people (who drove to these places) obviously couldn't afford to keep going there anymore and still keep driving. Gasoline is pretty expensive (at 128 yen/liter)and jobs are scarce. It's easy to explain what happened each small step of this disaster. But the big picture must be beyond understanding. This natural landscape used to be amazing and green and now it is all busted, dirty, paved, cracked---and empty. What have we done???
By the way, this year there are hardly any dragonflies in the parks here. The past three years they have been few now almost none.
I train down to Seattle fairly regularly to visit family. I often walk around downtown during these visits. The shuttering up of businesses since 2008 in the central business district has been phenomenal, not only in extent, but in rapidity. Many of the newer high-rises had shopping areas occupying the lower few floors. Some of these were left nearly completely empty by the summer of 2009. "Space For Lease" signs filled many a window. Having an interest in photography, I noted particularly the number of photo stores that have disappeared from downtown--perhaps these stores did not compete well with online sales, and the economic crash was the final straw (the few bigger "pro" stores are still in operation). Many restaurants, taverns, art galleries, furniture stores were also among the casualties, among others. I have vivid memories of downtown walks during the winter of 2008-09 of many, many people walking around in a daze. Also, tensions were higher. I encountered many more aggressive people than I was used to: This appears to have calmed down now.
I also love dragonflies. I spend considerable time observing them and getting photos. This year, the populations were quite suppressed during the typical April, May and June start of the flight season, apparently due to the persistent, wet, cold and stormy spring that we had. The larger dragonflies, that is. The damselflies did not seem to notice and were swarming thickly in many areas even in May. With the first serious heat wave last week, and a long period of warm temperatures, the big odonates--including darners, skimmers and meadowhawks--are now out in earnest. Seeing such a "buzz" of dragonflies along our waterways has been uplifting, along with the sunshine and warmth.
Here is a recent photo of mine, taken on 07 Jul 2010:
A Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) rests above an Eight-spotted Skimmer (Libellula forensis) during a hot afternoon. Unusual behavior, perching together: These are both males, and they typically defend their territories quite aggressively.
-best
I'll guess that one is getting ready to eat the other as I saw this past weekend.
In this case the smaller one got the drop on the larger.
Many dragonflies in both my locales this year.
Maybe with global warming and a few million years of evolution they will get back to the size of these...
IIRC, large prehistoric insect size is related to high oxygen concentration in the atmosphere.
http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182h/Vertebrate%20Evolution/HighO2.pdf (pdf warning)
Our oxygen concentration has been falling.
http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/atmospheric-oxygen-levels-fall-as...
Even more worrisome :-
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFasterThanCO2Rising.php
Those required more than global warming. I believe the Oxygen content of the atmosphere was something like 30 percent back then (fifty percent more than today). Insects method for breathing doesn't scale in size very well, but higher Oxygen content raises the size limits considerably. Also I think at those O2 levels, the threat/intensity of wildfire is hugely increased....
Thank you for posting the pictures!
Cheer up pal, you WILL survive Doomsday
Upthread there was some discussion on what pre-industrial civilisation was really like. For those with an interest in the topic, this article about how Mongolia is dealing with last winter's calamity is well worth a read:
http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50...
Mongolia is certainly one country where you can see people leading a very primitive existence, even though they have a central government that at least tries to help people in distress.
Years ago I was Resident Engineer on a project in Africa. One day I complained to the contractor that, although the contract said "clear" the bush, he had merely bulldozed it to one side. "Trust me" he said "it will clear itself". Well, he was right and within days the debris had all been carried away on people's heads.
I could write a paper on cooking and brick making in the 3rd World but we all understand the point: we are messing up the environment and there are no defendable borders. We have the technologies - solar, wind, tide, wave, nuclear ... but they are costly. Are we prepared to take a major hit on our standard of living? It's really up to us. Do we want a Marshall Plan to save the globe or do we want our children and grandchildren to live and die on a lousy planet?