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Drumbeat: September 29, 2010
Posted by Gail the Actuary on September 29, 2010 - 9:25am
DOE: Big Utilities Can Get Reliable Power from Small Solar PV Arrays
Massive utility-scale solar projects under development in the deserts of California and the Southwest have been in the spotlight in recent months as they win slow approval from state and federal regulators. But a study released in September by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that smaller solar photovoltaic (PV) installations may collectively offer similar promise for increasing the amount of renewable power on the grid.
Traditionally, the reliability of small PV systems’ power output has been a concern for utilities, project developers and grid operators, since all it takes is a few clouds to disrupt the power flow of a small array. But the Berkeley Lab study suggests that when PV plant arrays are spread out over a geographic area, the variability in power output is largely eliminated.
This means that for utilities, the distributed generation of small PV arrays could mean increased efficiency, reduced costs and a quicker path to a cleaner energy portfolio.
Energy Security: an annotated military/security bibliography (2010 update)
2010
- Campbell, L. Cdr. Douglas, Running on Empty: How Peak Oil Will Influence the Future Viability of the Canadian Armed Forces, Master of Defence research project, Canadian Forces College, 2010, 85 pgs. POc
- Center for German Army Transformation, Group for Future Analysis, Peak Oil: Implications of Resource Scarcity on Security, July 2010, 99 pgs. POc
- Leckie, Maj. Cameron, Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology, Australian Defence Force Journal, No. 182, July 2010, p. 44- 56. POc
- Lovins, Amory, DOD’s Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity, Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 57, 2nd quarter 2010, p. 33- 42.
Parthemore, Christine and John Nagl, Fueling the Future Force: Preparing the Department for a Post-Petroleum Era, Center for a New American Security, Sept. 2010, 29 pgs.- Tettamanti, L.Cdr. Ryan, The Impact of Peak Oil on International Stability and Security, Master of Defence research project, Canadian Forces College, 26 April, 2010, 72 pgs. POc
- United States Joint Forces Command, The Joint Operating Environment 2010, Feb. 2010, 76 pgs.
This document reiterates the energy security concerns which were expressed in the 2008 JOE (ie. those concerns have not diminished) and includes a new text box on Peak Oil (pgs. 24-28). POc
US military must stop using oil in 30 years, defense think tank says
"Fueling the Future Force", by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., makes a set of recommendations for the Department of Defense about how it can move toward running without any petroleum in 30 years' time.
However, it seems to have a poor grasp of where biofuels come from, the energy required to make them, and how to estimate the future availability of oil.
Sharon Astyk: Back to school month: Peak oil 101
Looky, a peak! It goes up, it reaches a peak, it goes down. And if you really needed me to do so, I could put up graphs for 15 or so other countries that look strangely like a peak. It turns out that oil production pretty much always follows a bell curve. And it also turns out that once you pass that peak, no matter how much better your technologies get, you can't actually reverse the peak. Nothing the US has ever done in extraction technology has made that happen.
So yes, you believe that oil production occurs in a curve, which means it will have either a peak or a plateau. See, we agree!
Richard Heinberg: Economics for the Hurried - Part 1
One such error is of course the belief that economies can and should perpetually grow.
But that error rests on another that is deeper and subtler. The subsuming of land within the category of capital by nearly all post-classical economists had amounted to a declaration that Nature is merely a subset of the human economy—an endless pile of resources to be transformed into wealth. It also meant that natural resources could always be substituted with some other form of capital—money or technology. The reality, of course, is that the human economy exists within, and entirely depends upon Nature, and many natural resources have no realistic substitutes. This fundamental logical and philosophical mistake, embedded at the very heart of modern mainstream economic philosophies, set society directly upon a course toward the current era of climate change and resource depletion, and its persistence makes conventional economic theories—of both Keynesian and neoliberal varieties—utterly incapable of dealing with the economic and environmental survival threats to civilization in the 21st century.
Crude Prices Rise, Spurring Oil ETFs
Crude oil prices were rising to a two-week high after inventories unexpectedly dropped last week.
The Energy Department said on Wednesday that crude oil stockpiles fell by 0.5 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 22. That was more bullish than the 2.2 million barrel build projected by the Platts survey of analysts. But the decline was less than the industry's own estimate. The American Petroleum Institute estimated that crude stockpiles decreased by 2.42 million barrels.
Crude oil for November delivery was rising $1.03 or 1.4% to $77.22.Gasoline and distillate stocks decreased by 3.5 million barrels and 1.3 million barrels respectively. The Platts survey was projecting an 800,000-barrel increase in gasoline stocks and a 400,000 barrel build in distillates.
The closer we get to peak oil the further it goes away. As high prices collapsed when the global economic system fell apart the world is now awash in oil. Back around the beginning of this decade Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan warned that peak natural gas production in this country could put us in a competitive disadvantage. Now it appears that some of the same ideas that took us from peak natural gas to an abundant supply could also change the supply outlook for oil. The Financial Times is reporting that, “A band of entrepreneurial oilmen have found an economic way to extract oil from shale rock, fuelling a frenzy for prospects that has pushed up lease prices and lifted hopes of the first rise in onshore US oil production in decades”. The Times says, “These small independent oilmen had used hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to triple estimates of US natural gas supplies and are now applying that same technology to get oil from shale rock”. The FT says that the method could add one million barrels of oil a day to US supplies in five to eight years replacing 10 percent of US crude imports. And that might just be for starters. Experts expect that those technologies are only going to get better.
Shell to add platform to Gulf oil field
Shell Oil Co. said Wednesday it plans to install a second production platform for its Mars field, about 130 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new platform is not an exploratory rig and won't be affected by the U.S. moratorium on deepwater exploration. It's expected to begin production in 2015 and will be able to produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
US Senate bill would expand parties liable in oil-spill lawsuits
US Senator and Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse introduced legislation Tuesday that would make all companies involved in an oil spill vulnerable to lawsuits filed by victims.
The Whitehouse proposal faces high hurdles this year, as Congress still has to approve a series of bills and measures pertaining to the fiscal year 2011 budget, which take top priority before lawmakers close the 111th session of Congress this year.
Nigeria's oil field insurgents rearming
Insurgents in Nigeria's southern oil fields are reported to be rearming amid a faltering peace agreement with the government as Africa's most populous country prepares for a January presidential election that could split the nation.
Natural Gas Futures Decline on Easing Gulf Storm Concerns
“There’s a lot of talk about the weather pattern showing that hurricane season is over,” said Mike Rose, the director of energy trading for Angus Jackson Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Prices may stay within a range of $3.75 to $4 per million British thermal units this week, Rose said.
Natural gas for November delivery fell 1.4 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $3.937 per million Btu at 10:04 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen 29 percent this year.
Wind will power fossil fuel-free Denmark in 2050, report predicts
The falling cost of renewable energy and rising cost of oil and gas will allow Denmark to develop an energy network entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050, according to a report published by the government's climate commission.
The committee predicted that wind and biomass energy could meet the bulk of the country's energy requirements.
It also argued that switching to renewables would be cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels, particularly if predictions of soaring oil and gas prices are borne out.
Musings: Marcellus Shale: Good News Critique
Are Marcellus gas producers all lemmings looking for a cliff? A number of people are beginning to seriously question the gas shale phenomenon given the continuing, and projected to continue, low gas price outlook. These critics recognize that many producers, especially the publicly-traded companies, are being pressured to engage in group-think by institutional investors. In fact, several friends have compiled a list of reasons why this group-think exists and we list them below. The authors of the list suggest it does not include all rationales and welcome any additions.
1. Bravely defend the leases
2. Add reserves
3. Grow production and be a good employee
4. Grow production to prolong the illusion that this is profitable
5. Grow your bonus and the value of your stock options
6. They made me do it (the investment bankers)
7. An investment in the future when gas prices are higher
8. Technology will save the day
9. Optionality
10. The land is the play
11. Greater fool theory: live another day to flip the company
12. Cash flow to pay debt service
13. Playing God: I think I’m flying
14. I can’t admit that I was wrong
15. No better ideas
16. Charles Prince at the Dance
17. Market share
18. Relatively low rate of dry holes (makes field operators look good)
19. Fear of litigation when the whole game ends
20. Continued access to capital
21. Peer pressure
22. Vast number of enablers (bankers, analysts, accountants, service companies, etc.). This is similar to “they made me do it”, but different in my mind
23. They have not yet run out of scenes for the moving circus (still more shales to declare “great”)
24. Government encouragement (allowance); seem as source of tax revenue, jobs
25. “I am an E&P company”; what else would you expect?”
Cleantech Stimulus Still Not Stimulating
While stimulus supporters and the press love to focus on the selection of award winners for grants and loans, funds appropriated but sitting in the U.S. Treasury have zero potential to stimulate the economy irrespective of whether a winner has been selected. As of September 10, 2010 and about 19 months after the stimulus became law, according to the Obama Administration’s Recovery Act web site, recovery.gov, the Department of Energy had paid out just over 23% of the $31B of funds appropriated to the department for various cleantech activities under the stimulus bill. At that rate it will take roughly six years for all funds to be dispersed. According to DOE’s more detailed numbers, in the past 12 months, the department has awarded (i.e. selected winners) for about $14B in grants. Less than 10% of that amount has actually been disbursed to date. In addition, there are over 730 awards representing $1.2B that were made in 2009 for which no funds have been paid out at all. Many of these likely still are trying to get their contracts in place, an often-arduous process that can take many months.
In the Smart Grid segment of stimulus, where stimulus actually slowed spending because utilities stopped work to wait and see whether they would win a grant, less than 8% of the over $4B appropriated has been paid out. People in the utility industry who have received grants have told me about calls from DOE staff “virtually begging them” (in the words of one source) to spend money against the grants that have been awarded more quickly. In other words, the government seems more concerned about optics of getting the money spent than having it spent wisely.
Norway concerned by power supply ahead of winter
Norway's oil and energy minister said he was concerned about electricity supply this winter due to lingering troubles at Swedish nuclear reactors and low reservoir levels at hydro power plants.
Riis-Johansen said that one of key reasons Swedish nuclear reactors have had problems with maintenance is a lack of new recruits in the sector due to earlier plans to phase it out.
Early this year Sweden's center-right government, which won re-election this month, agreed to replace aging nuclear units with new reactors, but there has been little clarity about the details.
US Military Needs to Get Off Oil by 2040: Report
The United States military must entirely get off oil by 2040 if it wants to reduce operational vulnerabilities, reduce costs, stop new security risks caused by climate change and avoid the coming peak oil supply crunch. That's the word from the Center For a New American Security, whose Fueling the Future Force report details the hows and whys of the situation.
China drives a hard bargain for Russian gas
Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia, is in China this week for talks aimed at cementing a new partnership between the world’s biggest energy producer and consumer.
But China, despite its hunger for new oil and gas supplies, is playing hard to get.
“Russia is ready to meet China’s full demand for gas,” Igor Sechin, the powerful Russian deputy prime minister, told reporters in Beijing on Monday.
But within hours, state-owned Chinese National Petroleum Corporation announced a major gas discovery in Turkmenistan that will help boost deliveries of central Asian gas to China, reducing its need for alternative supplies.
Sandia Researchers Study PV Output Forecasting
The effects of clouds on small PV arrays are well-documented, but there is little research on how large-scale arrays interact and function under cloud cover. A small system can be completely covered by a cloud, which drastically reduces its power output, but what’s less well understood is what happens when only part of a large system is covered by a moving cloud shadow, while the rest stays in sunlight.
“Our goal is to get to the point where we can predict what’s going to happen at larger scale plants as they go toward hundreds of megawatts. To do that, you need the data, and the opportunity was available at La Ola,” said Sandia researcher Scott Kuszmaul.
Oil Rises as China Manufacturing, Stockpiles Boost Demand Bets
Oil rose to trade close to a two- week high in New York as an increase in Chinese manufacturing and a decline in U.S. supply bolstered speculation fuel demand is rising in the world’s two biggest energy users.
Diesel Europe-Asia Spread Reaches 18-Month High: Energy Markets
The biggest gap between Asian and European diesel prices in 18 months means an increase in shipments of the fuel to the U.K. from South Korea, shipping brokers say.
BP Plans $3.5 Billion Bond Sale, First Since Spill
The energy company may sell as much as $3.5 billion of debt as soon as today, according to a person familiar with the offering. London-based BP plans to issue 5- and 10-year notes through BP Capital Markets Plc, it said today in a regulatory filing that didn’t specify the sale’s size or timing.
BP has regained its investment-grade status in the eyes of credit investors more than two months after containing the leak, which was caused by an April 20 explosion on a rig in the Gulf. Credit-default swap prices, which soared to levels implying the debt was junk-rated after the explosion, last week declined to imply a rating of Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service, the lowest step of investment-grade.
Dudley’s Safety Risks Hobbling BP Exploration Success
Robert Dudley, who becomes chief executive officer at BP Plc this week, will try to convince investors he can improve safety without hampering the industry’s most efficient oil exploration business.
BP has the lowest costs for finding and developing oil and gas among its peers during the last five years, averaging $7.70 a barrel, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It replaced more reserves through exploration --rather than acquisitions -- than Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., according to research by JPMorgan Cazenove.
Sinopec Group Stops Exploration at Sakhalin-3, 21st Reports
China Petrochemical Corp. has stopped exploration at the Sakhalin-3 project in Russia, the 21st Century Business Herald said, without citing anyone.
BP PLC's incoming Chief Executive Bob Dudley launched a major shake-up of the troubled oil giant, firing a senior executive at the center of the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill and creating a new division to improve safety across its operations.
In a statement, BP said Andy Inglis would step down as head of BP's exploration and production arm. He will leave the BP board Oct. 31 and quit the company at the end of the year.
BP to Create New Safety Division in Wake of Spill
BP will set up a new global safety division and make other changes to the way it operates as it seeks to absorb some lessons from the explosion of a oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, the soon-to-be chief executive Robert Dudley said Wednesday.
BP said the new division would aim to improve risk management and safety, and also review how the company manages agreements with contractors.
Germany Approves New Energy Proposals
Germany's cabinet approved Tuesday a broad slate of new energy proposals, including extending the lifespan of the country's nuclear plants and billions in levies the operating utilities will be obliged to pay in return.
The government's energy strategy also includes targets for drawing more power from renewable energy, renovating power grids and improving efficiency by 2050. "I admit, our targets are ambitious," Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
Tehran Touts Its Exports of Gasoline
Iran said Tuesday it has started exporting domestically produced gasoline, drawing skepticism from oil-industry experts but representing Tehran's latest show of defiance amid international sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions.
French Fos-Lavera Port Strike Ongoing, 34 Ships Delayed
The Fos-Lavera oil terminal near Marseilles in southern France was still blocked Wednesday due to a rolling wildcat strike that began Monday, preventing 34 tankers from offloading their cargo, as port workers protest French harbor reform, a port spokeswoman said.
Shell's Brazil Unit Finds Oil In Santos Basin Well
Shell Brasil's first well in the BM-S-54 block showed indications of hydrocarbons, the company said in a statement emailed to Dow Jones Newswires.
Drilling Agency, Facing Decision on Ban, Gets Lobbied
On Tuesday, Louisiana Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle plans to meet with the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement to make a case for regulations that vary depending on the type of well being drilled. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.) said that she had met with the chief earlier Tuesday to push for a quick resumption of drilling.
Oil rises to near $77 on unexpected US supply fall
Oil prices rose to near $77 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after a report showed U.S. crude supplies dropped last week, suggesting demand may be improving.
Crude inventories fell 2.4 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had forecast an increase of 2.2 million barrels. Inventories of gasoline rose while distillates fell, the API said.
ConocoPhillips rep: No wavering on Alaska gas line
ConocoPhillips isn't wavering from its support for a proposed natural gas pipeline in Alaska, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
Spokesman John McLemore's statement of support came after CEO Jim Mulva told The Financial Times of London the company would reassess the economics of the project it's pursuing with BP PLC amid a rise in shale gas opportunities because of advancements in drilling technology.
Lukoil, CNPC Sign Accord on Supplies, Projects, Swaps
OAO Lukoil and China National Petroleum Corp. plan to expand cooperation on exploration and production in Central Asia and may swap assets in Russia and China as they each seek to expand internationally.
The two companies will also discuss fuel supplies to China, under a partnership accord signed yesterday during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Beijing, Lukoil said in a statement.
Brazilian government boosting Petrobras stake to 64 percent
The Brazilian government will boost its stake in oil giant Petrobras to 64 percent of the common stock following a massive share offering, the firm disclosed Tuesday.
OPEC oil supply falls for 2nd month in September
OPEC crude oil supply has fallen so far this month to the lowest level since November 2009 due to reduced output from Angola and smaller declines in the United Arab Emirates and Iran, a Reuters survey showed on Tuesday.
The decline is the second consecutive monthly fall in supply from OPEC, many of whose members have been relaxing adherence tosupply limits since last year as oil prices have stayed withinits comfort zone of $70 to $80 a barrel.
In Russia, BP Sees a Second Act
Russian companies are talking to BP about buying billions of dollars in oil fields and other assets to help it pay its gulf cleanup and compensation costs. Along with a partner, BP is planning to explore the rich oil fields in Russia’s Arctic waters, a region that is off limits in the United States and Canada.
And BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, who is turning over the reins this Friday to Robert Dudley, is being welcomed onto the board of TNK-BP, the company’s 50-50 joint venture in Russia.
BP’s warm relationship with the Russians is a startling turnaround given how grim the situation was two years ago.
New taxes would harm fragile US economy, economists agree
New oil and gas taxes that the White House proposed in its fiscal 2011 budget request, and reduced domestic production because of the deepwater drilling moratorium would effectively be act as a “one-two punch” to the US oil and gas industry, API’s John C. Felmy suggested during a Sept. 28 briefing at API’s headquarters.
Felmy said gasoline demand during 2010’s June-August summer driving season averaged 9.22 million b/d, 0.25% less than the comparable 2009 period but 1% more than the same 3 months in 2008. Ultralow-sulfur diesel deliveries, which are a general US economic indicator because they reflect the movement of goods on the nation’s highways, averaged nearly 2.9 million b/d during August, down 0.1% year-to-year, API’s latest monthly statistics showed.
Senior CPC official meets Iranian leaders on bilateral ties
Visiting senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Li Changchun met here Tuesday with the Iranian president and vice president to discuss bilateral relations.
This exciting new project from The Telegraph and Shell will attempt to chart the way forward into a challenging but immensely promising new age of energy
On Thursday 30th September we will be holding an Age of Energy event here at the Telegraph offices. Get involved with the debate and pose your question to a panel of energy experts including Secretary of State; Chris Huhne, TV Presenter; Philippa Forrester, Shell Chairman; James Smith, Leading academic; Professor Gordon Mackerron and WWF Chief Executive; David Nussbaum.
Energy crisis to stymie growth
“For enhancing the growth prospects, power and gas shortages need to be addressed. Transport sector issues, including better road network, railway capacity and efficiency improvements, and raising port efficiency are critical for the economy to perform well,” said Kandiah.
He said: “It is also important to pay urgent attention to improving urban infrastructure including water supply and sanitation for raising the economy's productivity and dealing with urban population.”
Hunger Set to Become a Key Issue in Global Politics
Over one billion humans are already malnourished. Every day, 16,000 children die as a result of malnutrition. Even a moderate increase in the price of food would significantly worsen the nutritional status of the poor, who typically have just $1.25 per day or less in purchasing power, with approximately 75 percent of that dedicated to food. This serious situation is set to worsen dramatically as our food needs look set to double in the first half of the 21st century.
Japan reacts over rare earths ban
China’s imposition earlier this year of new general quotas on rare-earth exports had already sparked efforts in the US to revive production of the minerals.
Beijing has denied that it imposed any ban on rare-earth exports to Japan. Traders say, however, that shipments from Chinese ports have been repeatedly delayed without explanation, this amid tensions following a clash between a Chinese fishing boat and Japan coast guard in the East China Sea. “In reality there is an export ban on rare earths,” Mr Kaieda said. “It’s important that China stop this extremely abnormal action at the earliest possible time.”
40 states bank on rising tax revenue in 2011
Overall, states raised taxes and cut spending to eliminate budget gaps that totaled $84 billion for fiscal year 2011, which in most states began July 1. The NCSL forecasts a total gap of $72 billion in fiscal year 2012 and $64 billion in 2013. That means more job cuts and tax increases could still be needed.
How is Dubai fixing its finances? Speeding tickets
Dubai’s government revenues fell 13 per cent in 2009 compared to 2008, but they are now being bolstered by an almost 50-per-cent increase in police fines, according to a prospectus issued by the government, as it drums up interest in a $1bn sovereign bond that is expected to be priced by Wednesday.
In an Otherwise Slash and Burn Budget, Mayor Proposes $13 Million for Alt-Transportation
Mayor Mike McGinn announced his grim budget plan (be sure to read Erica’s summary). Amid the news of reduced services, hiring and salary freezes, and scaled-back library and recreation funding, Mayor McGinn sneaked in one promising proposal for alternative transportation: a $13 million funding increase for walking, biking, and transit over two years.
Shell plans rapid North American growth
BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster and weak natural gas prices have raised concerns about the outlook for the industry in North America, but Shell intends to make the region the focus of its global expansion in the coming decade.
By 2015, 80 percent of South Africa's fresh water resources will be so badly polluted that no process of purification available in the country will be able to make it fit for consumption.
Russia as a raw materials appendage to China?
Here is this month’s information about coal. According to Russia’s Ministry of Energy, China is planning to give Russia a billion worth target-oriented loan for developing coal deposits in the Amur area and other eastern regions. The loan is guaranteed by Russian coal supplies to China. What is more, the loan is repayable within not 15-20 years, as is usually the case in this kind of intergovernmental agreements, but within a far longer period. Under the agreement, Russia is to annually supply at least 15 million tons of coal to China in the first 25 years, followed by at least 20 million onwards.
Contact
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Where is the oilwatch monthly report for september? Have I become too spoiled?
I will check with Rembrandt, but I know he has talked about a very heavy course load this semester.
For Drumbeat:
European cities hit by anti-austerity protests
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11432579
What's amazing is that nobody thought of it before.
Go visit him in prison and he how he came up with the idea!
Investment newsletter writer Porter Stansberry is still badmouthing peak oil. This article was published by The Energy Report yesterday and it was picked up by and published by "Seeking Alpha" as well as the "International Business Times". It seems that when Porter Stansberry speaks, other blogs listen.
We have been wrong about oil peaking in every single region? Well no, oil production peaked in the USA in 1970, it peaked in North America in 1985, OECD production peaked in 1997 and the North Sea peaked in 1999. And at least 20 individual countries have peaked as well. (I haven't counted them lately but far more than half have peaked.)
Stansberry then goes on to point out how we once showed charts of natural gas peaking but natural gas has now surpassed that peak. The charts and peaking arguments however were all about US gas production. I have never seen a chart of world natural gas production and would have no idea if world gas ever peaked or not, or when it might peak.
But then Stansberry goes on to say something astonishing.
Got that, the ability to produce oil and natural gas is not limited to the supply of oil and natural gas. We will continue to discover new ways creating, extracting and using hydrocarbons. Well if we could create crude oil as fast as we can use it then oil production... errr... oil creation will never peak.
Ron P.
Of course, he redefines Peak Oil as production ceasing.
But in regard to creating hydrocarbons, technically he is correct. If we assume an unlimited energy source--which is apparently his assumption--we can of course synthesize hydrocarbons from water and CO2, with the volume of synthetic hydrocarbons limited only by the volume of water and CO2 and by how fast we can build the synthetic hydrocarbon facilities. Of course, I suppose that we also have to assume unlimited amounts of other critical components like iron ore.
In any case, this is basically the Peter Huber concept--that our aggregate energy consumption will increase forever.
Morning , Darwinian,
Methaphorically speaking, I am sure the Gods watching with opera glasses from thier personal boxes are mightily amused.
I wonder just what this guy Stansbury does that he considers research-if anything at all.
The world has always been full of idiots useful to the people in control.
I have never read this guy,but the odds are that he is either an idiot or a mouthpiece- probably more mouthpiece than idiot.
If I could have a look at his personal business dealings, I could make up my mind pdq.
Well I would not call him an idiot, meaning one with low IQ. But I would call him ignorant. By ignorant I mean one who is totally uninformed on any subject to which they attest great knowledge. And the subject in this case is Peak Oil
No, I don't think he is a mouthpiece for any industry or anything else. I think he is just out to make a buck by selling subscriptions to his newsletter. Newsletter writers must show some success or they go out of business after a short time. And the average lifespan of a investment newsletter is shorter than that of an NFL player. NFL in this case means "Not For Long". But Stansberry has had some recent success, that is why he is getting published by other blogs when he spouts some advice.
Stansberry & Associates, Investment Research
He offers nineteen different newsletters on everything from Penny Stocks to Options to Retirement Advice. I doubt seriously that more than a couple of them have anything close to the success listed above.
But this guy believes Peak Oil is a scam and bases his investment advice on that belief. Which means his ship will hit the rocks sooner or later.
If you go to the upper left hand corner of this Drumbeat page you will see the "Advanced Search" block. If you type in "Porter Stansberry", (use quotation marks as I did here), then search, you will find eight other Drumbeats where his rantings have been discussed. They make for interesting reading.
Ron P.
Expanding further on this subject. I am not one to see ulterior motives in people's words and I don't really believe in hidden motives in movements or concepts such as Peak Oil. For instance Porter Stansberry states:
In other words Mr. Stansberry believes "Peak Oil" is a scam created for the benefit of oil and gas speculators as well as investment bankers. How many times have we read other such statements in the past? Such a statement shows sheer ignorance of the subject of peak oil.
Not being a huge conspiracy theory advocate, I do not believe Peak is a conspiracy or even a scam. A scam could be described as kind of a con game conspiracy. Likewise I do not believe those who think Peak Oil is a scam, or a con game or any kind of a conspiracy, are engaged in any kind of scam themselves.
I really don't believe that people like Porter Stansberry, Michael C. Lynch, Daniel Yergin, Raymond J. Learsy or any of the other dozens of peak oil deniers are engaged in any kind of scam or conspiracy. They actually believe the garbage they spout.
I always try to apply Occam's Razor to every question or controversy. The theory that these people are engaged in some kind of scam or conspiracy is far too complicated. A far better theory is that they truly believe what they say. After all some people, most people, really believe some very silly things. I don't think anyone would deny that.
Ron P.
Which in general doesn't much matter. However when people in a position to influence public policy believe silly things then, Houston we have a problem... It sounds an awful lot like Mr. Stansberry is seriously channeling some Julian Simon.
http://old.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/645
Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy (transcript)
Now there is a real reason, if ever there was one, not to trust Washington!
“Don’t worry,” he said, “if it’s ever important, we can make copper out of other metals.”
And I've seen people who argue 'lets take all the organic matter and make Carbon for Carbon/Zinc batteries' address concerns about the micro nutrients being removed from the soil (not to mention removal of Carbon from the soil) with 'if it is important, the market will figure out a way to return those things.'
Now there is a real reason, if ever there was one, not to trust Washington!
I would think the demonstrated deceptions in the past would be why.
I would agree with that but I also think it is very important to take into consideration the evidence that not only have our leaders been disingenuous with the public by not telling us the truth about what they knew but more importantly they themselves were led by the nose into promoting public policy measures based on purely false premises. Their advisors at the highest levels were basing their advice on pseudoscience, they were no better than voodoo priests squeezing goats testicles in order to make their predictions. Alan Greenspan, for example was not much better than the Wizard of Oz might have been in steering the economy. His policies as chairman of the Fed, were at the end of the day, based on smoke and mirrors and hocus pocus. His economic theory eschewed the realities of biophysical economics for the free market ideologies of Ayn Rand.
Well that's nice and all but 'reason', in and of itself, without detailed and consistent analysis of empirical evidence used to test or flesh out a well formulated scientific theory is pretty much useless. Reason by itself won't get you to the fundamental laws of physics. You have to actually do the experiments and see if the results support your theory. If they don't, then you need a new theory!
To this day the majority of our economists are working from non scientific principles and continue to be not much better than astrologers with their complicated calculations of astral projections and their pretty colored charts and wheels which they use to tell fortunes. These emperors are standing butt naked before us and we can't seem to bring ourselves to accept that very obviuos truth, that they are not wearing the finest and the sheerest silk undergarments. We can very clearly see the exposed crack between their buttocks and it isn't pretty...
Their advisors at the highest levels were basing their advice on pseudoscience,
I was thinking the advice was more based on "how does this line my pocket". Plenty of evidence of such. Follow the money was someones mantra, was it not?
To this day the majority of our economists are working from non scientific principles
And yet Bachelor of Science in Economics on google gets About 1,230,000 results. Plenty of evidence exists that the masses think it is scientific.
(bachelor of arts in economics About 1,060,000 results)
I have no intention of disputing that and I'm sure there is a large component of greed involved but that misses my point that we are for the most part still following false prophets.
And there is plenty of evidence that the masses think pretty much the same about astrology.
http://science-astrology.blogspot.com/
All you have to do is substitute the word economics for astrology in the above quote.
we are for the most part still following false prophets.
How much is people who can supply the authority in appeal to authority arguments AND will give you the answer you want?
If you are being hired to justify position X and don't give the paymaster the justification of X, how often will you be hired?
(see mortgage fraud via inflated house prices given by appraisers as contemporaneous examples)
Is it significant that the acronym for that is BS?
If you start to dig, you find that they have applied the math of statistics to an evolutionary theory grafted into what they now call the "science" of economics. In fact, BS is the best I would call it. These guys are all guessing! They do not have a clue!
Craig
ps. full disclosure: I don't have a clue either; only thing is I admit it!
c
That's exactly why general opinion does matter. Only general opinion can prevent the possibility (nowadays the predominant possibility) that we will be subject to the opinion of a few people who will be in a position to influence things.
Only general opinion can prevent ....
Opinion without action isn't useful either.
What action can be taken that will get noticed, yet not incite a reaction of force?
Because just being here, a place outside the norm of though about topics that could topple governments may just indicate you, dear reader, are a terra-ist. A rather low bar to incite a reaction of force.....
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article201702.ece
So how obsessive are you, dear reader - posting/reading day after day about peak oil? If you are, are you a terra-ist?
Are you referring to this
http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/life-sentence-proposed-fo...
Well said, Fred!
As a realist,I recognize that we must necessarily have and support at least a basic or rudimentary welfare state in today's world.
Social security, medicare , and school lunches are ust as necessary today as a strong military establishment;all are necessary to our survival in the short to medium term;and the long term is only an academic question until the critical short term issues are dealt with.
But I still consider myself a conservative for a very basic reason;liberals as a group don't seem to recognize that there are limits to what govt can and should be doing;the typical liberal solution to damned near any and every problem is another govt program and another layer of non productive bueracracy.
Twain described congess as our only truly native and unique criminal class;things in my opinion haven't changed all that much.
We are hung on the horns of a dilemna sure enough-we are stuck with problems the market can't solve, at least not in a timely fashion if at all, and a govt that is almost certainly going to do the wrong thing most of the time.
This should be sufficiently clear to anybody who spends a little time contemplating the fact that our current president who was elected to change things is surrounded by (for practical purposes) the same crowd of advisers and hangers on that surrounded the last president.
I suppose we are due for a large dose of the simplification or loss of complexity Tainter predicts for societies that have reached certain limits.
Of course numerous businessmen who DESCRIBE themselves as conservatives, or who are lumped in as such with the rest of the business establishment by left leaning writers and speakers, find it lucrative, as individuals, to go along with such programs.
So today we find ourselves saddled with dozens of laws that serve mainly to choke the life out of the economy while accomplishing little or nothing useful, other than to make it possible for some people to work at what are essentially make work jobs.
I don't have time to write an essay on the income tax code and the army of people who make a make work living out of it, but consider the mess health insurance has become in this country for the simple basic historical reason that people get it as an employment fringe benefit for tax purposes rather than simply buying it.
Now to be truthful, I don't know which camp is more to blame for a hospital being legally able to charge six thousand dollars for a particular operation BILLED to Blue Cross Blue Shield and charging eleven thousand dollars to an individual prepared to pay cash up front for the same procedure;this very thing happened to my personal attorney who had no insurance at the time.
I do know however that the law industry does everything in its power to make life as complicated as possible for the rest of us,and the last time I checked the lawyers were spending thier lobbyist money mostly with the democrats.
historical reason that people get it as an employment fringe benefit for tax purposes
My understanding was the events were more like this:
Sometime in Dec, 1941 the government slapped on wage freezes. Firms still needing to compete for talent offered up non-wage ways of getting talent and one was health insurance. And it stuck.
charge six thousand dollars for a particular operation BILLED to Blue Cross Blue Shield and charging eleven thousand dollars
Someone should nut up and sue. Charging different prices for the same thing smacks of discrimination or collusion.
law industry does everything in its power to make life as complicated as possible
With many of the people in Congress being unemployed lawyers - it helps keep the others at the bar fed.
You sound like me, OFM. I quit being a Republican b/c Bush was not truly conservative. I am uncomfortable with Dems. I call myself a Progressive-Libertarian, reflecting our nation's roots and values, and mine!
Keep the faith, Mac.
Craig
But doesn't it seem fairly obvious that Simon has half of the puzzle and Bartlett has the other half?
Much of doomer - cornucopian argument seems like both sides screaming at each other that the half truth they like is perfect and the half the other side likes is worthless.
In other words Mr. Stansberry believes "Peak Oil" is a scam created for the benefit of oil and gas speculators as well as investment bankers.
Given the past history of various people WRT oil and investment bankers - if they 'scammed' in the past to make a buck, why is this time different?
(is anyone going to deny scamming in energy like Enron?)
After all some people, most people, really believe some very silly things. I don't think anyone would deny that.
As you asked for a comment - somepeople is, in theory, a lesser number of people than most people. So which is it - most people really believe some very silly things or is it the lesser number of some people?
Eric, I don't doubt that you may believe that the concept of Peak Oil is a scam created by bankers and speculators. I cannot prove it is not. But I believe peak oil is a real geological fact. That is what this list has been debating for five years. But you go right on believing it is nothing more than a scam created by bankers and investors, no one can change your mind.
some –adjective -unspecified but considerable in number, amount, degree, etc.
No, you are dead wrong here Eric. Some is not necessarily a lesser number than most. But to make it clearer for some folks I should have said "Some people, in fact most people..." Both descriptions are true, it is just that the latter clarifies that some, in this case, means most.
Which statement is true? Some people are over 6 feet tall, or Some people are under 6 feet tall? Both are true of course, but one "some" includes "most" people while the other "some" includes only a minority of people.
But the larger question is: Why, dear God why do you nitpick every post I make? You could have just posted your opinion that Peak Oil is a scam created by bankers and investors without that silly nitpicking nonsense about the meaning of "some".
Ron P.
You could have just posted your opinion that Peak Oil is a scam created by bankers and investors
Nice baseless charge there.
You gonna retract it?
I wrote: In other words Mr. Stansberry believes "Peak Oil" is a scam created for the benefit of oil and gas speculators as well as investment bankers.
Eric replied:
Nuff said.
If you don't believe something Eric you should not imply that you do.
Ron P.
Nuff said.
That's your reaction to being called out when you make a claim that is just not true?
Nicely done demonstration of your theory that some people really believe some very silly things, using yourself as the believer in a very silly thing.
And, of course, Ron's position of why do you nitpick every post I make? A simple check shows that claim isn't true either. More sillyness it seems.
I always try to apply Occam's Razor to every question or controversy. The theory that these people are engaged in some kind of scam or conspiracy is far too complicated.
And yet - evidence shows that 'scam' and even 'conspiracy' is the answer to some questions or controversies.
Claiming "they really believe it" doesn't address things like BP photoshopping oil spill photos. But, hey - if there is a non-"scam" answer, I'd like to see that pitch to the BP photo question.
Does someone have to pull you two apart?
Play nice, share your toys.
I can make plenty of mistakes all on my own without the creation of silly beliefs by others then attributed to me.
So what you're saying is 'He started it..'
Big Deal.
Not at all. He misrepresented reality and got called on it.
Just like he said "But the embargo was not calculated to cause an attack." and I was able to show actual text
http://www.stardusted.net/nhd/mccollum.html
showing that claim was also wrong.
OK, here it is. BTW I have actually worked in digital art departments at number of different venues in the past so even when I first saw those photoshopped images I just knew they were too poorly done to be part of a real conspiracy. Whoever did them was just basically trying to fill some empty space on a board.
Disclaimer: I have lost no love on BP in the past and still consider them to have been at least criminally negligent with regards to the Deep water Horizon spill in the GOM.
There is also no doubt that BP photoshopped images that they released for public consumption but if you look at the images that were photoshopped it looks a lot like they were done by a very low level amateur with very little thought put into the message and with very little skill in digital photo manipulation. If this was an attempt at some sort of scam it is very unclear to me what the true intent of it might have been. And sure everyone jumped all over them for photoshopping images... perhaps they deliberately made it so obvious hoping people would be distracted by the fake photo scam and some of the more nefarious things they were doing would slip under the radar?
I think the images posted by these commenters are a good response to the BP photo scam,
and this comment pretty much sums up my opinion on whether or not this was a scam. I conclude it wasn't.
http://gizmodo.com/5592836/bp-photoshops-another-official-image-again-te...
this was a scam. I conclude it wasn't.
Scam's definition is tied to defraud and fraud has this definition
a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual
Tie to things like Edward Bernays book Propaganda (and the reissue called Public Relations) - a simple explanation may also be they are pathological liars and got caught.
If scam is tied to financial loss/gain - that link would be hard to make without other documents.
In other 'scam or not' "news"
http://consumerist.com/2010/09/drug-rep-accidentally-emails-truth-to-pat...
I did comment a few weeks ago that "just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that other people don't think you are out to get them" to describe this exact phenomena.
As everyone here knows comparing things that are different drives me up the wall. Oil and natural gas are different even if they come out of the same well.
They can not be compared. This simple concept seems difficult for some energy analysts to grasp. I think it may be a fixation on the units of measure of energy.
If we think of BTUs of energy as similar to bushels of grain, it makes it easier to see the fallacy. Corn and beans come out of the same field. Both are measured in bushels.
But no one in their right mind would ever consider comparing them.
A bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds at the 15% moisture standard. A bushel of beans weighs 60 pounds at the 13% moisture standard. Corn is used for animal feed, ethanol and high fructose corn syrup primarily. Beans are crushed for meal and soy oil.
Corn yields are about 150 bu. and sells for about $4.30, Beans yield about 45 and sell for $10.50. They are processed separately and mixed later if required. They are stored separately. They are used differently.
Corn and beans can not be compared. The same is true of different forms of energy. Energy analysts who try to lump different forms of energy in the same analytical basket are nuts.
Forms can not be compared unless they are very similar indeed such as sweet crude from two different wells. The purpose of comparison is to discover nuanced differences between very similar things and arrive at new insight.
Things that are different are contrasted to show how different they are. There can be no insight obtained by comparing things that are different.
I have railed against comparing things that are different and treating abstracts like grain and energy as though they were concrete many times. But it never seems to stop in energy analysis.
As long as analysts insist on ignoring logic little progress in energy discussion can be made. Energy analysts seem to fixate on numbers thinking that all understanding lies therein. Analysing numbers data without valid logic is nonsense.
"Corn and beans can not be compared."
You just did, very nicely.
In fact, the argument might be made that you can ONLY compare different things. Why compare things if they're the same? Hell, we wouldn't even know that there WERE different things if we didn't compare them.
So, e.g., we compare ethanol and oil. We note the different energy densities, prices, uses, etc. You think that's illogical, but it makes total sense to everyone else, and the utility of making the comparison is obvious to anyone.
I'm beginning to wonder if you have a different meaning for the word "compare" than the entire rest of the English-speaking world. That would explain your utterly wacky insistence that you can't compare "different things".
sgaga- 10 points!
But never ever expect from Mister X to understand this, just let him continue to compare those different shapes of them maize cobs......
Corn And Beans -The Bittersweet Symphony Remix (Long Version)
The concept of engineering would disappear if X had his wish!
boss: "Make me a new gadget like that one, only better"
x: "b...b...but, you can't do that. If its better then it is different and then can't be compared. So I will have no way of knowing if I did a good job on making it better."
Mistah x is OK but for this little quirk of his.
Corn and beans can not be compared.
Sure they can. Oil production, calories and now even toxic death.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.20878/full
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/gm-maize-has-polluted-ri...
(ok, death was a bit over the top, but, shockingly, GMOs have knock off effects.)
X, X, X...
You must compare Gas and Oil (and electricity, Solar and coal, in the case of the following examples), because in many cases, you can choose any of them to do the same exact job.
Heating your home, Process Heating, Cooking, Running Generators, etc..
You compare them because they have BOTH a similarity and a difference.
Ever offer a kid 'Applejuice OR Orange Juice'?
Ethanol and gasoline can be directly compared.
Let's assume corn ethanol comes from natural gas and gasoline comes from oil.
1 gallon of ethanol requires 60 cf of natural gas costing ~50 cents and .38 bushels of corn($4.50) costing $1.73 minus 7# of DDGS costing $1? = $1.23
1 gallon of gasoline requires ~1.15 gallons of oil($75) costing $1.97.
In terms of ingredients ethanol should be cheaper, why is wholesale gasoline actually slightly cheaper?
Farming is less efficient than massive oil refining which benefits from economies of scale.
Now imagine oil production dropping--the economies of scale would vanish.
Google SEC versus Frank Porter Stansberry for good reading.
Thanks for the tip Merrill. Took your advice and found this one published just last month.
Porter Stansberry Of Stansberry Research’s $1.5 Million SEC Fine For Securities Fraud
So in the article I posted he gives his four successes and omits his hundreds of dismal failures... I suppose anyway. :-)
Ron P.
The truth is somewhere in the middle, and much of his claims are superficial.
Certainly, he IS right that there are strong vested interests in 'talking up the price', so this is not entirely wrong.
The fact that you can find peaks over a 40 year span, shows that focusing on the idea of an identifiable peak, is not the smartest. It is academic.
It is smarter to focus on finite affordable fuel
- and he is not strictly wrong here either, but scarily superficial as he avoids ANY mention of cost, so completely misses the point of finite affordable fuel
Which shows another danger of being distracted by 'Peak Oil Spotting' (POS)
- that someone can easily claim another peak, somewhere else, if they ignore costs.
People endlessly invoke this nonsense assertion. An example of groupthink voodoo like the "law of averages". If I call you a pedophile does that mean that I am half right? Propaganda techniques rest on this mentally deficient human tendency to assume some of the smear to be true, thereby allowing the smear effort to succeed.
Clearly there is no universal law about the validity of information or arguments. None, some or all of the information can be correct but nothing can be said about it a priori.
Regarding the article link above: Sandia Researchers Study PV Output Forecasting
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/09/sandia-rese...
Most folks understand that clouds normally have the effect of reducing PV output and I assume that Sandia is studying this effect on large arrays/PV farms. The article doesn't mention the opposite effect; the "edge of cloud effect".
This effect can cause a remarkable surge in PV output and systems should be designed to cope with this infrequent occurence. I have seen my arrays' combined production jump to 140% of rated output for several minutes, one occurance lasted 10-12 minutes and was quite exciting. Reflection from new snow combined with refraction from cloud edges pushed our PV output to as much as 5000 watts, not bad for a 3500 watt system. Our MPPT controllers and overbuilt system did a fine job of handling this surge.
Until now it hasn't occured to me that large array designers must plan for this effect as well. Total output may jump from near zero to well above rated output in seconds.
A short discussion:
http://solarhomenews.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/edge-of-cloud-effect-may-n...
Ghung,
I have seen the same effect, although my inverter seems to limit output to 2 watts below its nameplate capacity. I can think of two reasons for it:
(1) Clouds reflect (and drops refract) light, so for thin clouds you get a lot
of light coming at smallish angles from the the sun, say ten or twenty degrees.
(2) PV output drops as cell temperatures rise, if the panel has been under the shade of a cloud it cools off, and so will operate at higher efficiency until it reheats.
But, I think the Sandia people, are more interested in predicting output for utility arrays, for say the next several minutes to a few hours, so that utility operators can plan for backup power and grid stability type purposes.
Refraction is the cause. The edge of the cloud acts like a lens, bending and concentrating sunlight. Irradiance meters (unaffected by temp) confirm this.
Several months ago I played around with simulating this. If you assume cloud paricles are spheres of water (and ignore the diffraction effects that are caused because of the finite wavelength of light) most of the energy is refracted by the droplet lense. And most of the deflection angles are below abou thirty degrees. Of course some is reflected by the surfaces, and some may even be reflected within the drop many times, but in any case there is a strong preponerance of photons only weakly refracted. I suspect ice probably has a more democratic reflection angle spread.
But, some of the effect must be due to cooler PV cells, twenty derees C would mean about 10%, and I'm willing to bet the active part of a panel heats up more than 20C over ambient in full sunlight.
Interesting numbers, I guess this becomes an economic decision.
I'd expect most large systems to have some headroom in inverters, to allow incremental capacity addition.
What you gained here, was 300Wh, on ~14,000Wh (rough guess for a day), which is ~2% - so that could be commercially significant.
It may be that inverter suppliers, should specify a short term over-rating ?
Your numbers indicate ~+43%, which is quite high.
A case for good thermal mass in the cooling design ? perhaps even a deliberate burst cooling capacity. In a water cooled systems, this might be a smaller mass of chilled water, kept for the purposes of best "edge of cloud effect" harvesting ?
Figure the inverter is 10% the cost of a PV system. My thoughts are to not worry about noon on June 21st and get an inverter that captures 98% of the power. You do have to make sure a surge doesn't blow the circuit breakers. If you need another 2% more power, buy more panels.
If you water cool the panels, you not only get more electricity but hot water besides. i'm thinking a residential installation here. I don't think the numbers pencil out though.
I don't think the numbers pencil out though.
That I believe is the case. You have to have a process that needs a flow of warmed water or some heat pump to extract the heat to return cold water in addition to the thermal expansion/contraction of the backing plus the vibrations of the water flow.
At least for my installation the inverter was not overpowered, about 2% above the nameplate of the panels. Clearly I occasionally lose via the cloud edge effect. In my case the next step up inverter size nominally had lower efficiency. Also I suspect that a bigger inverter probably has a higher MOL. My 2500watt PVpowered, shuts off around 40watts or so -presumably the standby power just to keep it running is in the ballpark of that? In any case, if an overlarge inverter did worse under low light conditions it might not deliver more overall energy over a year, and it does cost more. Since my inverter clearly clips off the cloud-edge peaks, I don't think overheating is an issue.
But, the upgradability is an issue, if I were to add panels (I have 7*2, so I'd have to go to 8*2) and add two panels, I would have to tradein the inverter for a more powerful one (or add another mini-inverter for the new panels). So it isn't a simple manner to grow your system whenevr you have the spare cash for a new inverter. Thats where the selfcontained inverters like the thing Lowes is selling sound superficially attractive. [I think they are too pricey, and would be concerned about the reliability and lifespan, but if I wanted to dabble with just one or two panels (175-350 watts), it would be the way to go].
Being off grid, the surge went to the batteries. MPPT controllers (Outback MX60s, in our case) work a little voltage/amperage magic and can deal with the higher voltages by reducing voltage and increasing amps. All UL/CE listed controllers are over-engineered by 20%+, and none of my controllers are maxed out.
I've seen some discussion on water cooled PV, or PV combined with solar thermal. I'm not sure how that would work because of the different optimal temps. Solar thermal needs to be hot for efficiency and PV likes cool. These guys claim 4x the energy from the same surface area by warming air:
http://www.archiexpo.com/prod/conserval-engineering-inc/combined-solar-p...
About edge-of-cloud effect; this is a fairly rare event and the event that we experienced was very rare. I actually have the logged data in raw form. I've been meaning to retrieve and graph this particular day because there were several events. I also have my weather station data for the same period. I never made a note of the specific date, so it'll take time to find. Maybe when I get snowed in this winter :->
Good point, my numbers assumed one of these a day as a benchmark.
If you get one every hundred days, that 300Wh falls to ~0.02%
I was a little unclear on water cooling : I was meaning water cooling inverters, not panels (tho that can make sense too), for commercial scale installs, where 1% or even a fraction of % might matter.
Maybe, but a leak might seriously damage an inverter. Also the heat dissipated by an inverter is about 5% of output for small scale residential, I'd bet it is a lot lower for large commercial installations. Whereas probably 80% of the solar energy hitting your panels is converted to heat (i.e. several times the electrical output). A good panel cooling system should be worth at least 10% electrical energy boost -you would be 10% with a 20C cooling. So if you can make it work safely and economically it would be a pretty nice increment.
I have an 8watt personal fan mounted to blow on my inverter. It drops the heatsink temperature (I have a thermometer attached to it) to about 10F over ambient. Otherwise on a good day the heatsink can easily hit 50F over ambient. I figure it should help it last longer. I do believe in babying my inverter!
Try a 4" or 6" computer fan, you will probably find they will shift more air at 1/4 - 1/2 the power. They are available in 12V 127V and more. If you want high reliability get PAPST brand, they are worth it.
NAOM
Thermal issues can kill electronics.
The weak link, assuming no voltage/current spikes wiping out the silicon, is going to be your capacitors. Electrolytic caps just don't last.
They will go long before dopant migration inside the chips kills them. (Older chips with wide traces will last longer than the new stuff with thin traces.)
No matter how much you baby, they are gonna die :-(
It seemed pretty commonplace on during cloudy conditions. Anytime you are getting direct sunlight, plus bright clouds not far from the solar disk you will be getting it.
Isn't this a big problem with concentrating PV? Take a triple junction little PV in high intensity concentrated solar. It will be subject to violently sudden changes in heat flux, and hence have some problems with thermal expansion and burnout due to low thermal mass?
I am a heat engine advocate, and I believe heat engines have an advantage in their huge thermal mass in comparison to PV. When I ask this question about response to enormously fast and high intensity transients, I haven't got a response from the concentrating PV people. What is the right answer?
Concentrating PV is not that common, but they do all using tracking.
So it would be relatively easy to add a thermal term into the tracking software control, if you decided thermal cycling had a higher lifetime cost, than the power
gained.
In my experience, the optical flicker, or intensity transient at a point on the focal plane, is way too fast for any tracker to follow by swinging any sort of mass, so we just added thermal mass/conductivity to our engine thermal receiver to soak it up by brute force. That seems to me to be not so possible with thin PV, so it might get hit by huge thermal stresses.
The flicker I'm referring to here is not just the cloud edge effect, but also the random ripple on the mirrors, vibration on their mounts, and such like.
But anyhow, if we were serious about solar energy, field trials designed to answer such little puzzles would be ongoing. But we aren't even remotely serious about solar. Proof. Look at fraction of GDP devoted to it. Then compare that with the fraction devoted to bailing out the goddam banks from the results of their stupid greed.
Perhaps, but the higher frequency components have much lower energies, and there is still chunky cooling needed on Concentrating PV - so thermal time constants so some seconds will exist.
All that means you can mitigate the thermal stresses, if you choose to.
Actually, Ghung, this is not quite true. The solar thermal collectors are actually more efficient (i.e. collect more heat) when they are cool - it's just that they don't give the high temp (60c) water that we want. You will get more btu per hour by feeding them cool water at a rate that minimises the temperature rise - solar systems for space heating and public swimming pools in Australia learned this one years ago.
Here is the efficiency graph for Thermomax solar tubes, you can see here that the hotter you want your water, the less btu's you are getting;
And in a cold winter, you start to pay severely if you want hot water on a cold day .
In theory, if you are using this in winter for hot water +space heating, you are better off to collect more btu's at mild temperature, and then use a heat pump or a combustion heater (like your wood stove setup) to boost the temperature just for DHW use.
In practice, it may be easier to just add 20% more collector and be done with it, but sometimes that may not be possible/practical/cheapest.
I admit that I was lazy making my point, which is that when using solar thermal to heat DHW, hotter is better. Considering a solar thermal storage tank with an integrated heat exchanger the difference between the incoming cold water and incoming hot fluid determines the efficiency. But you knew that.
Main point: PV panels won't benefit much from being cooled by 160 degree water.
Ghung,
Yes, what you meant didn't quite come across in what you said. Absolutely agreed that cooling PV with hot water won't achieve anything!
Still surprising to look at those charts (haven't for years) to see just how much the efficiency drops when you want hot water in cold weather!
Gail, low natural gas prices are the sign that the shale gas industry has done its job. Moreover, your long list of rather cheeky jabs misses really the most important and serious item.
1. Use natural gas to generate electricity instead of coal.
The coal industry, in case you have not noticed, produces more criteria pollution, kills more miners in accidents, dumps more toxic ash, destroys more landscape by strip mining and "mountain top removal", and uses more capacity of the railroad industry than any other industry. Only hydropower dam projects compete in terms of changed landscape.
With about 700 GW of coal-fired power plants in the USA alone, it would be no problem to use more natural gas. Especially considering that the current utilization rate of natural gas power plants is less than 40%. Granted some of these are open-cycle "peakers", they are still preferable to all coal power plants. Furthermore, many of these natural gas power plants are in fact base-load combined-cycle power plants that have exceptionally low emissions.
And your list by the way insults a lot of people in the industry who I dare say deliver results far and beyond anything the naysayers of shale gas have been saying the last 15 years. Perhaps an apology from you would help?
Are you talking about the Rigzone article up-top? If so why on earth are you asking Gail to apologise?
As Undertow noted, your comments are misdirected, but in any case I suggest that you read the entire article, especially the concluding paragraphs.
Todd do you think I should apologize for quoting the very stupid things Porter Stansberry wrote above? Do you really understand what a quotation is or why the passage is quoted?
Well hell, I should not criticize because I have myself, in the past, started criticizing an article before I fully understood the person's reason for the article. But I am trying to never do that again. You should make a similar effort.
Ron P.
I have to concur with Todd.
Using the long and snarky list as an excerpt does not capture the tenor of the article at all. The article talks about Marcellus Shale being quite successful at producing gas. "The Good News Critique" is all about gas prices being too low to justify continued drilling. If one reads TOD because of concern about future fossil fuel supplies then the following graph from that article is probably a better summary of the contents:
Regards,
Jon
Jon, it was a quotation for God's sake, a quotation!
And here is the first two sentences posted after the graph you posted above.
Yes they talk about the success of the Marcellus Shale but they are highly critical of some of the outlandish future expectations of this shale play. For instance:
The article suggest that perhaps they may be lemmings but they may muddle through before the bust. And it gives a long list of that may prove that this "group think" may be the stupidest thing ever to come down the pike:
At any rate I will continue to post very quotations that I think are very stupid, and I hope Gail does also.
Ron P.
Ron,
I understand that it was a quotation. But every editor decides what to excerpt from an article and uses that excerpt to either:
I do appreciate the effort that goes into finding articles and extracting useful excerpts. Leanan and now Gail do an excellent job excerpting text that falls into categories 1 and 2 99% of the time. That's precisely why I devote time each day to reading the drumbeat.
The excerpt in question falls into category 3 in my estimation with the unnecessary consequence of pissing off at least one reader. I would have chosen a different excerpt. But I'm not Gail and I'm sure she will continue editing as she sees fit to provide fodder for TOD's wide range of readers.
Kudos to Gail for taking the time to do this. (And for doing it well 99% of the time ;-))
Jon
Jon, the one reader was pissed off because he failed to read the entire article and failed to understand why Gail posted the quote she did. The article was highly critical of the future expectations of the shale play. And Gail posted the part of the article that best conveyed this point of view. She could not have done a better job in my opinion.
And as far as pushing people's buttons, hell that is what we all are trying to do. Look at my post about Porter Stansberry and his comments on peak oil. I posted the stupidest thing he said in the article. That was intended to push people's buttons and hopefully get them to read the article. Should I have posted some bland statement of his, one that said nothing of interest to anyone and pushed no one's buttons? And no one would have read the article or learn anything about Porter Stansberry and his stupid opinions on peak oil?
Perhaps that is what you think I should have done, and what Gail should have done. But I have a different opinion. I will continue to post the very stupid things peak oil deniers say about the subject in hopes of pushing their buttons. And I do hope others do the same. It is what makes this list so special.
Ron P.
I am thankful Leanan will be back in a few days.
Yeah, what's the deal with that? Did she slip out of her chains again? ;-)
Todd -- You make it over to Houston I'll invite you out to lunch with a few of the thousands of folks in the oil patch over here who have lost their jobs due to the bust in the SG plays. In 2008 I was consulting for Devon, one of the top SG players in the US, who had commited heavily to the Texas SG plays. Had 18 rigs running in the east Texas alone. And then NG prices fell below $5/mcf. In less then 5 months they dropped the rig count from 18 to 4 in the play. And paid a $40 million cancelation penalty to do so. The bad news: companies spent billions of $'s they'll never recover from their SG wells. The good news: it added a nice uptick in NG production. The really bad news: Most of that acreage taken in the SG plays will expire long before NG prices rebound enough to allow their development. The hottest play in the SG right now is here in S Texas in the Eagleford Shale. And that actually has nothing to do with the value of the NG bring produced. There is a high level of oil production associated with this play: some wells are delivering 400 - 500 bopd along with the NG. Without that oil yield few if any companies would be drilling this play.
I've worked in the oil patch for 35 years in the US. I know first hand why we have low NG prices: it was the drop in consumption. When demand climbs above production capability I will push the price for my NG as high as the market can bear. And it won't matter how much or little SG is being developed. And BTW: most of those big SG wells put on production prior to 2010 have now declined 50% to 90%. I should also make you aware that two new supplies of NG greatly helped push supply above demand: the Independence Hub for offshore deep water production added over 1 BCG/day literally overnight. BTW: those Dw fuieds will bedepleted for the most part in the next 5 or 6 years. The other big gain was from a massive new pipeline bringing Rockie Mnt NG to the east. Fortunately those reserves will have a more significant life than the DW fields.
Hey, RM! Interesting statement there:
I have made the point many times that NG (and SG) have an extreme drop off in production. And, that when the peak in NG comes it will be swift and the impact much more serious than that of the oil peak.
At present I have insufficient data to even consider when that peak may come. I hope to be safely buried and out of the loop by then. Sadly, my grandchildren will not be. Regretfully, I have not advice to give them... We, which includes me, have failed them miserably.
Of course, then, there was a buck to be made, wasn't there? What was it Milt Friedman said about greed?
Gotta run off to bed now. Thanks for your, as usual, outstanding insights on this very complex topic.
Craig
http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
Most do not know this, but the last two EIA weekly reports, the EIA has made significant ‘adjustments’. It is not clear why they made these adjustments.
In the report issued on September 22, 2010, they adjusted the oil inventory upward by 2 million barrels and products by 1.5 million barrels. This week they ‘adjusted’ oil upwards again by 600,000 barrels. However they adjusted product inventories downward by 4.6 million barrels. Typically the EIA reflects in weekly report issued the last week of the month adjustments due to monthly report revisions.
In sum, this week’s report is much closer to reality than last week’s report.
Overall oil product demand has risen 2.8% as compared to last year. Distillate demand is up a very strong 13.4% over last year. The strong figures in distillate demand have now continued for four months. You may remember some posters here said that distillate demand wouldn’t last through the summer, but now fall has already arrived and there is no sign that demand is dropping.
The EIA and most all energy analysts have also consistently underestimated US product demand. The EIA must soon drastically revise upwards its remaining 2010 demand forecast to catch up with reality.
While I don’t have time to conduct a detailed analysis, in general it looks like the recent build up in oil inventories can be traced mostly, directly or indirectly, to the previously closed Enbridge pipelines. Oil that could not be transported to refineries had to be stored somewhere. The flip side of that is refiners couldn’t produce enough products, so that product inventories fell. These imbalances should be corrected in time as Enbridge slowly resumes normal pipeline operations.
Most importantly, the key factor going forward is whether crude imports will hold up.
So far in 2010, oil imports have been resilient and are only down 0.3% year to date as compared to last year. But keep in mind that 2010 import figure was helped by draining offshore floating storage and basically dumping it on the US continental market. Based upon reports from OPEC tanker tracker ‘Oil Movements’, oil shipments in October should fall slightly from September’s levels. On a more ominous note, product imports are falling while product exports (to Mexico and other locations) are increasing.
In recent weeks the price of US grades of oil on the spot market have been significantly lower than usual in relation to worldwide grades on the spot market. At one point, WTI, once the world's premium grade, was the cheapest oil on the planet.
So pipeline problems have almost certainly masked the tightening of the global market for the US audience. Today, spot prices are between $75 and $84, WTI is $77.
We are not back to the mid to high 80s we saw before the sovereign debt scares, but we are getting closer.
What do you suppose is going to happen when the next round of sovereign debt 'scares' include defaults? As we watch the general strikes in France and Spain, we might be tempted to take seriously the hyperbole of www.stealthstocksonline.com.
Craig
Alaska natural gas faces growing shale supply in continental US
An Alaska gas line may still be just a dream. However, the following article suggests that the "All Alaska Line" (gas line to Valdez with a LNG facility) may be back on the table. Up until now, all the big companies have said that the LNG option does not pencil out.
Who Gets Alaska's natural gas?
From the Reuters story;
When I was in Alaska last month they called them the "lesser 48 States"
Personally, I still think the best bet is the "over the top" route, under the Beaufort Sea to the Mackenzie River delta, pick up the Canadian natural gas field there (about 1/3 the size, IIRC, and then down into Alberta.
If they go the LNG route, I expect a good portion of that gas to head to Japan/Korea.
People around here often refer to them as just "outside" (as in anyplace outside of Alaska).
Some claim the cheapest route would be overland across ANWR, but that would no doubt run into intense opposition. If/when ANWR were opened to exploration, adding a gas line across the coastal plain might not seem so radical.
I'm a bit surprised that the one article seems to suggest that Transcanada & Exxon are reconsidering the All Alaska LNG idea. Some groups here have pushed that, but the producers have always claimed it was the least economic option. However, either route through Canada pretty much locks you in to the US "outside"....oops....I mean the US lower 48 market. In the face of competition from shale gas, I suppose the LNG option might have the attraction of flexibility, in that one could ship to either the West Coast or the Pacific Rim. However, so far that is the only article that I've seen that suggests that Exxon may be reconsidering the LNG option.
Another recent story reporting on a local meeting:
Alaska gas line projects, uncertain as ever, are still dogged by the same old issues
Maybe there will be an Alaska gas line in my lifetime...but maybe not.
Taiwan's Inventec to invest $95 million in solar cell
Vdara visitor: 'Death ray' scorched hair
Perhaps they could cover the facade with solar panels?
Or put a Stirling engine generator on a crane and move it as the focal spot moves?
See also http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/29/las_vegas_death_ray/
Schwarzenegger attacks Big Oil, Prop 23 & GOP Lies! - Countdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9oOFtmT_EA
http://gm-volt.com/2010/09/29/breaking-chevrolet-volt-gas-tank-is-9-3-ga...
32 MPG is pretty terrible. Is the series configuration really that inefficient?
There are European sports cars that get better economy than that! And this is supposedly GM's saviour for the green crowd? Mein gott.
Any Electric-End hybrid (hybrid is a continuum), used as a Gas Car, is clearly not going to make a great Gas Car.
My Mini Cooper gets 34 mpg around town, much better on highway
And probably a lot more fun than a Volt.
The serial hybrid seems a bad choicepoint to me. It was done that way so they can claim it can be used in 100% electric mode. But a parrallel system, with a really good battery could probably run 80-90% electric when the battery charge is high, and other than losing some green bragging rights, I think that is a better compromise.
Wasn't the Volt supposed to have an astonishingly low drag coefficient. I think its effective cross section was supposed to be about half of a Prius. The Prius is comparable to a mountain bike rider. If the all gas milage is really that poor, there must be some pretty big loses somewhere.
The main benefit of going the series hybrid route is that, in theory, you can run the engine at it's most efficient operating point, for almost all the time. For a gasoline engine that is around 25% thermal efficiency, but can be better - the Prius engine gets 33% at optimum, but it doesn't get to operate there very often.
Consider this map of Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (equivalent to thermal efficiency), it is for a Porsche;
The contour lines are the BSFC, with the lowest being the island in the upper middle of the graph. The shaded area in the bottom right is a shade contour of the where the engine actually operates on the Euro city cycle.
So you can see, this car is way overpowered for city driving, (that is why you wouldn't use a Porsche for a city taxi) The idea is to downsize the engine so that its optimum coincides with the driving area, and when it is producing more power than needed, you store the difference, and take it back when accelerating.
In this way, the engine's output needs only to be equal to the average power for the trip, which is typically less than 25% of the peak power needed, an usually about 10% of the peak power of the engine for the same vehicle in non-hybrid configuration. In highway cruise, most cars could get by on the power produced by just one of the engine cylinders!
Of course, if you are going to have a small, constant speed engine, and you are shooting for efficiency, then you can use a small diesel, and be really efficient.
Consider this "train";
It can carry up to 60 people, weighs 13 tons, does 40mph, and uses a 2L diesel engine from a Ford Fiesta and gets 13mpg!
It is a unique kind of series hybrid, using a half ton flywheel energy storage system (which, unlike batteries has unlimited charge cycles).
You can see the flywheel case in the middle of the undercarriage here;
More details at www.parrypeoplemovers.com
A road going example is this study , http://www.mira.co.uk/Case_Studies/documents/ProjectChoiceHybridBus.pdf ,
where they fitted a a 4cyl, 60kW engine from a VW Jetta into a 12 ton city bus! That engine has about the same power as the Volt's engine!
Another city bus by Designline uses a 30kW microturbine for a 12 ton bus, that is just 2.5kW per ton!
So the point of this is that if you really try, you *can* engineer a series hybrid to be very efficient. In fact, it will be the most efficient, that is why trains do it. A train takes well over a minute to go from 0-60. To bring that down to under 10s, which seems to be a "desired" number (the X-prize criteria was 15s), you need an order of magnitude increase in peak power to do it. Electric motors can go into overload briefly (5x power for 10-30s), but putting in a diesel that is 5x power is a whole different story, and it would then operate in the wrong end of its load range, like the Porsche example above.
With the series hybrid, you let the batteries and motors do the peaking, and put in the smallest size engine for the job.
Chevy should have gone diesel here, and then the 20% loss in the electric drivetrain is more than recaptured by the fine tuned diesel.
They will start to show up in Europe soon - Lombardini of Italy (owned by Kohler) is about to release this unitised 3cyl, 23kW diesel/generator, designed specifically for small series hybrid cars. Two of these could power that city bus, so one of them could power the Volt;
Chevy are scared that if they make the engine too small, people will think it is underpowered. The should optimise the design, and then let the performance numbers speak for themselves. Without any net electrical assistance, they should be able to equal or beat the Prius in both city and hwy mode - anything less is a technical failure. And, with the ability of electric motors to have short term overload (5x power for 5s) they can easily engineer it to give neck jolting acceleration, for a few seconds, which the Prius can;t match. If it drives nicely, who cares what the hp of the engine is? Buyers of this car are looking for economy, in an American made car, and they will not get it, as designed, but they could have.
And if you were able to have the turbo diesel mini cooper, you would get half as much again!
From Peak Oil Mirage above.
http://www.insidefutures.com/article/177018/Peak%20Oil%20Mirage.html
He draws on an FT article about oil from shale: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4f2cc0ce-cb1b-11df-95c0-00144feab49a.html
The spin is entertaining at first, but gets a little tiresome after a while. For example:
Professor Boak's quote hardly support's the journalists contention. And if you read the article, we see that perhaps oil from shale developed using fracturing and horizontal collection may deliver 1 million bopd in 5-8 years. That's a lot of oil, but would leave us well short of our 10 million per day peak. Wood Mckenzie estimates marginal cost of $50/bbl. We shall see.
The chart at the end of the FT article bothered me too. Same numeric scale for U.S. daily production and North Dakota monthly production could mislead the unwary as to the contribution of shale oil and ND in particular to U.S. onshore production.
Brazil Petrobras Operation to Cover Up Hole in Govt Budget
http://imarketnews.com/?q=node%2F19990
Interesting article explaining how the Petrobras IPO was rigged to help the Brazilian government meet it's budget targets.
DD
Thanks for posting this!
Yes it was an interesting piece of financial engineering. But it was completely legal, done by a democratic government which practices an interesting kind of "social capitalism". As for future fiscal austerity, the linked text raises nothing but speculative suspition.
Concerning Petrobras, it was a very successful operation: 5 billion barrels of reserves and cash for proceeding with its investment plan, all at once.
Finally, from a minority shareholder's perspective, if it were not a good deal, asian and middle-eastern sovereign funds would not have bought huge pieces of the cake. They know where the future lies, and it's below the presalt layer.
Yes it was an interesting piece of financial engineering. But it was completely legal
Just because something is 'legal' doesn't make it 'right'.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64833 is a fine example.
Sure. In the capitalization of Petrobras, it's neither right nor wrong.
PS even subctracting the money which came from the brazilian government, this public share offering would still rank as the 2nd largest in history.
Slightly off topic, but the documentary "Trash, Inc" airs on CNBC tonight at 8pm CDT.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-secret-garbage-20100929,...
"..A 21st century gold mine, according to Quintanilla's report, garbage is an epidemic and an opportunity. A $52-billion annual industry, garbage is not one-size-fits-all. Most of it is hauled to America's 2,300 landfills — many of which make handsome profits for their operators and some of which further capitalize on their dump sites by piping "trash gas" to factories that use it to generate electricity."
Germany Approves New Energy Proposals
Apparently nuclear power is to be taxed and the money earmarked for renewables. It sounds like best horse in the race has to carry lead in the saddle bags to give the others a chance. The likelihood is that if the Germans phase out nuclear they will have to build more coal plant or import more Russian gas. They should tax those sources as well so as to end up with no nuke, no coal and no imported gas. Then we can see how the 100% renewables approach really works.
Peak oil analyses: military vs civilian
I'm surprised that no-one seems to have picked up on the significance of what has been posted in the past 24 hours regarding military/security analyses of future oil supply.
First, this study was posted from CNAS yesterday, arguing that the situation is so serious that there may be "less than 50 years" of viable petroleum supply left, and that "DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040" (p. 3):
http://www.cnas.org/node/5023
Second, Drumbeat did provide the link to this morning's updated bibliography of research on energy security issues (including peak oil) which has been conducted by military/security analysts (almost entirely since 2005):
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-09-28/energy-security-annotat...
Third, the set of military analyses (listed in the bibliography) provides a context for recently-leaked German military report on peak oil.
That in turn prompted this review which highlights the significance of the Bundeswehr document:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-09-28/review-putting-bundeswe...
My central point is this:
Military analysts seem to be well ahead of civilian authorities on this issue, and the rest of us should take note of the increasing expressions of concern from the security sector.
Military analysts are uniquely positioned to address this issue in a well-informed, objective manner.
When the rest of us see such near-unanimity in their expressions of concern, we really should pay attention.
The political establishment typically expects solutions to difficult, large-scale scientific and technological problems to come from the military industrial complex. They would not expect solutions to come from the business world or from academic research.
They have been conditioned by the Manhattan project, jet aircraft, missile technology, communications satellites and space-based surveillance systems, and advanced communications networks like the Internet, to name a few examples.
Where did they turn following the Macondo well blow-out? To the Department of Energy, i.e. the nuclear weapons establishment.
The US Military's analysis of the energy situation has been clearly stated in the past three Joint Operating Environment reports (JOE 2008, JOE 2009, JOE 2010. These reports have been discussed on TOD and other sites including this EB post:
http://energybulletin.net/node/52029
Joe 2010:
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
More on the energy aspects:
http://www.executivegov.com/2010/03/the-joint-operating-environment-on-t...
This latest report is consistant with previous indications that the US Military and its allies are aware of and attempting to prepare for future energy shortfalls, and are considering the political, environmental and security ramifications, both near and long term.
It's prudent to seek clarity (and speak clearly) when you're the one getting shot at.
RickM
I think the civilian authorities are aware of the issues but they cannot react within the framework of the current government structure.
I reviewed a National Intelligence Council report http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Governance.pdf the other day at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6987#comment-725252.
Their observation:
So democracy or capitalism are failing. What then? Martial Law? I don't know.
aka vox_mundi
So democracy or capitalism are failing. What then? Martial Law? I don't know.
None of us can know, as it is in the future and (in theory) none of us have time travel to learn the future.
Smedley Butler claims the military/state is the servant of 'capitalism'.
And the State has the monopoly on force.
If Mr. Butler is right - there will be some reaction by the State at the behest of capitalism and as one of the tools of the State is force, force will thusly be used.