Meanwhile Xenophobia catches on..

Well, those might be rather harsh words for what is a perfectly natural phenomenon. When any population grows so large that the resources found in their territory will no longer provide enough food for them to survive, they migrate to areas where the resources are still plentiful.

Quite natural.

And those who occupy that territory where the resources are still plentiful fight tooth and nail to keep the intruders out for fear that they will deplete their resources also.

Quite natural.

Why do people get so upset when they discover humans behaving just like all other territorial animals. It is just in our nature, an evolutionary adaptation, and it will not disappear.

Ron P.

Edit: One of the best books ever written on the subject: The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations The original edition of this book was written in 1966 and I read it soon thereafter. Needless to say it made a lasting impression on me.

Although I was not alive in the 1930's, it looks almost like a repeat telecast of history. Sadly this will recur throughout all the bankrupt nations of the world.

In the 30s two nations used social credit to grow their economies 100% with zero interest payments. This was a danger to the global bankers and the two nation were destroyed. Gaddafi was involved in creating three banks in Africa that would have covered all African banking this was a danger to the global bankers. Is this the repeat of the 30s you are talking about? The global bankers against any free people who want to stopping paying them interest? That does describe Iceland well. Not as clear for Greece.

Meanwhile Xenophobia catches on..

You know one large part of Darwin's definition of evolution was 'competition between groups over limited resources'.

Nobody forced the immigrants to go to Greece, which is tanking. That doesn't mean they have the right to take their lives, but 'xenophobia' is a modern, fairly useless, word for competition out of resources most of the time.

Of course, in the 1930s, there was no such thing. Then it was just pure scapegoating, but in this case there's a serious situation. Imagine one country taking 90 % of all illegal immigrants(caught, but still) into Europe.

It's easy to sit here and sermonize about tolerance as their nation is getting swamped while they are going down the drain. Pretty? No. But as Darwininan pointed out: human nature.

By the way; I predict that as the dual crises of sovereign debt and peak oil intensify, we'll see Darwin's phrase of 'competition between groups over limited resources' full at play. Evolutionary psychology always was way more serious rather than the bankrupt, pseudo-intellectual house of cards that is modern anthropology('critical theory', Boazian thought etc).

I think the flashpoints is certainly Southern Europe, especially in wake of the deeply corrosive Arab Spring which has decimated those nation's structure and stability. And one more area is actually around India. Especially Bangladesh, parts of Pakistan and inner India itself. I always thought people overanalyzed the China-Western struggle. History suggest that India-China will be far more probable as both nations are close to each other and they're already in conflict over water supply from Himalaya.

India's way behind China in many respect(once you count out the IT sector and a few boutique companies), everything from military to the manufacturing floor(China has very high tech industries in far more areas to be self-sufficient, India still imports a lot of technology and high-tech goods).
India and China also share the same space, they even have common borders, so that's another point I'd watch if I were an Indian. It'll be interesting to see if the West will throw India under the buss to appease China under the coming decade.

I read the complete interview two days back, really good stuff

??? What interview?

Yeah. It helps that the interviewer was so sharp and well informed about these issues. Never heard of him before, seems like the ideas of Hagens and TOD are spreading.

Add to that the ripple effects of the drought in Texas. Much of its production is for export.

@Darwinian
Someone mentioned about India splitting apart owing to resource pressures, there's your trigger right there. Water usage and distribution in India is highly disparate, while the North of the country is always running out. The Far-East and the South are far better owing to better management and higher rainfall.

And the best part is that this isn't even discussed at a national level as a threat, if hordes of people start moving from one region to another in search of water, expect a civil war to break out soon enough. Here the commentators are so obsessed with growth they can't even see the ticking time bomb.

What he said as quoted in the article is

If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we're a dying civilization.

Which is obviously correct. I think his concern is driving American White European birth rates below the already none replacement level of 1.5 will speed up the end of White European Americans.

The quote you used I do not see anywhere in the article. Where is the quote from?

Steve King is one of the saddest demagogues of our times. It seems like most of his issues are based on racial, ethnic, or nationalist divides.

No mention of credit and debt, especially defaults and loss of trust in markets.

I find it remarkable that all of your listed processes and effects are already well underway, on some level, somewhere.

I'd say the info is OK, but a list that long and wordy begs to be skimmed or skipped. I'd say organize the info into pillars of society, and have a short list of 3 or 4 main areas at risk, and then under another paragraph detail the failure modes for each. Maybe section headers like security, infrastructure, social support, and commerce?

The trouble with such topics is that there are few solid metrics, and for those who like numbers that means you're painting in watercolors where an Excel graph is desired. This sort of approach is great for an intro, but probably needs more meat for each point to illustrate current energy dependency and therefore risk. The aggregate view is important though, because it will be continue to be true that we'll have plenty of energy for any given thing we really need to do, just not EVERYTHING we'd like to do. It is comfortably easy for any advocate (and each of us individually) to assume we'll be in the privileged minority and therefore the hard decisions and coping will fall to others, but not us.

Hi Alan,

Politically and socially intolerable levels of unemployment and underemployment

I believe that this topic is key in that all else falls from it. If folks don't have work then it follows that the remaining list will be inevitable in one sense or another, either from lack of revenues to funnel into the military structure, or the need to re-task the military into maintaining control at home as a priority. To start with, this would/could be individual state National Guard units controlling cities, then other Guards on loan, then regular military units, etc. If you can use National Guard units/soldiers in foreign wars, who is to say the reverse won't be required?

after all, any soldier toting a machine gun on a street corner looks the same to a civilian.

How much longer will it remain quiet re: the disintegration of hopes and dreams? In fact, I would bet that there are plans being dusted off to subvert the dysfunctional political system of today with a military option if the rails start to buckle. Illegal? Of course. What scares me if people like the Koch Brothers end up actually controlling the military, then what happens? There are reasons that this has been the source of thriller fiction for years.

I believe that most military personel are professional and follow orders with a conscience. (I say most...obviously not the Lt. Calleys of the world), but it is the folks that give the orders that have me scared. When does military professionalism become subverted by Washington weasels? Look at Rumsfeld. Who was the better man...Rumsfeld or Colin Powell?

This whole topic is frightening.

Respectfully,

Paulo

The basic tasks of National Security would seem to be:
- maintaining public safety and good order within the borders,
- controlling the borders by regulating/monitoring the flow of persons, goods, services, information and money across the borders,
- countering any external threats to the country, and
- perserving access to critical imports by contributing to the maintenance of global order.

The immediate effects of Peak Oil are that it reduces a critical import which cannot be offset by an increase in domestic oil production. This in turn has the effect of:
- raising the price of transportation fuels used by National Security organizations,
- decreasing domestic economic activity, which reduces government revenues and ability to support National Security organizations, and
- lowering the standard of living and increasing domestic discontent.

The secondary effects are to:
- increase international competition for a scarce resource, with increased international commercial, financial, political and military tensions,
- provoke resentment among the least well-off global propulations, which increases non-state attacks on US assets abroad, and
- increase pressures on US borders.

Alan, this is fascinating -- I've been working on a related project, exploring modes of military failure that could become live issues in the wake of peak oil, and it's been suggested that I submit one of my articles on the subject to a journal in the military field. If you don't mind saying, which journal is taking your article?

Hi Alan.
I did a little edit/rewrite- please excuse the presumption, it was easier to copy and tweak than explain. My thought is that you might consider breaking down the failure modes into smaller bites (the overlaps which caused you to make a single list should probably be addressed if you choose this route.)

My edit:

There are several benchmarks for military, economic and societal failure modes:

Economic
- Politically and socially intolerable levels of unemployment and underemployment
- Loss of reserve currency status – US Imports can no longer exceed Exports in stressed international markets
- Losing the ability to maintain complex manufacturing and distribution

Military
- Inability to support military forces already deployed
- Losing the resources to train and maintain military readiness
- Military power cannot be effectively projected overseas

Societal
- Inability to maintain infrastructure in proper working order
- Inability to support established social institutions such as universities, hospitals, libraries, welfare, pensions, etc.
- Food deliveries and critical utilities are no longer reliable
- A breakdown of both social order and legitimacy of civil authority

As for content, I like the list with the exception of the military section. "- Military power cannot be effectively projected overseas" is perhaps a little Amerocentric; many successful nations cannot fight outside their borders. It is, perhaps, more about the end of American exceptionalism than societal failure. "- Losing the resources to train and maintain military readiness" might be restructured to suggest the inability of a nation to defend itself is the central issue. Not addressed in the list is the rise of militias, warlords, pirates, and other non-state military organizations, which I would suggest is an excellent indicator of societal breakdown.

Lloyd

- Inability to deploy due to fuel constraints.

Alan, I also am impressed, as I always am, with your thoughts and look forward to the published work.

As a civil engineer I build targets, so my observations may not help the military, but here are a few:

1) Maintaining infrastructure is a task that government/military will need to segment. Our bridges, for example, are in much worse shape than our highways. Truck loadings on roadways will likely go down in a peak oil pre-collapse. The asphalt or concrete will likely be good for at least 10-15 years provided drainage systems are also maintained. We aren't going to suddenly have potholes randomly appearing. In fact, we may find traffic volumes going back done to design levels or better. Much of the most recent stimulus money seemed to be scattered with little advanced planning. A system-wide strategy for maintenance in a post-peak world needs to be established now, with priorities set and data collected.

2) Public transit expansion plans need to be in place to utilize available vehicles, putting truck drivers and other CDL users out to establish a practical mass transit network. Carpooling on a major level is just not going to happen for a lot of practical reasons, but existing carpool matching systems in most urban areas can be expanded to match persons where possible. Individuals are going to start private "taxi" services, so government might as well acknowledge the fact and find some way to provide some degree of oversight to protect the public.

3) Airlines will be under great pressure to maintain service to markets that no longer make sense, and the drop both in flights and in seats filled will be shocking to some. At the same time the military will need a reliable supply of aviation fuel. Some level of overseas flights will have to be subsidized, but domestically the family flight to Disney World or to grandmother on the opposite coast will become economically unviable for many. At the same time, long distance driving will also become unaffordable for a single person. Thus, we need a quick ramp-up of rail and intercity bus.

4) Right now the intercity bus service nationwide is at its lowest point since early in the automotive age. Cities as large as Owensboro, Kentucky (50,000 population) have no intercity bus or rail service. Getting the tour buses oriented to intercity service will be key to maintaining our social network in terms of reaching families, major medical centers, etc. That system needs to be drawn up now.

5) Amtrak needs authorization for a serious study in expansion. Even if GM can turn their auto factories into passenger coach factories in six or nine months, the rail infrastructure to support a quick expansion of service is not there. We would need at least 300 new stations, another 20,000 miles of rail upgraded to passenger train standards, and a route plan. The easiest thing will be adding more trains on existing routes where stations are already in place, and that would need to happen first. Second would be to select the critical new routes (such as Chicago-Atlanta-Florida) to get in place. High speed rail and positive train control will not be in the mix for the first decade of the post-peak world.

Best wishes for a better tomorrow than we anticipate now.

DFT

So far, increasing US onshore Lower 48 production seems to be offsetting production declines elsewhere, especially Alaska, resulting in basically flat US C+C production, which has been between 5.4 and 5.6 mbpd since the fourth quarter of 2009:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=4

Incidentally, I think that we have previously talked about it, but the difference between what the RRC shows and the EIA shows for Texas crude oil production (which in both cases I believe is C+C) is striking. The EIA is showing 2010 annual production as about 20% higher than what the RRC shows:

http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/data/production/oilwellcounts.php

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfptx2&f=a

In 1990, the EIA was about 5% higher than the RRC. I am reminded of the gap between the JODI reports and EIA data for global production.

Net imports over the last 4 weeks are 9.257 mbpd. As you said earlier, they've come down.

http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/overview.pdf

We've become a slight net exporter of refined products, either because of refinery problems elsewhere or because of the cost advantage of WTI as an input.

Alan,

Some points:

Making things that go boom in the night has some problems:
1. It's a highly consumptive but not a very productive use of oil.
2. You've lost the opportunity cost of building something useful and then fuelling it with the lost oil from 1.
3. The country you've bombed now hates you; making it's oil ultimately more expensive.
4. The bombing is probably to establish a corrupt puppet government that will be:
a. Unstable (Read expensive to support)
b. Require financial support(bribes) to ensure the smooth flow of oil.
c. More interested in cash than in exploration.
d. Is unlikely to be humane.
5. You've altered the composition of your own country to ex-grunts. This may be good for some who have received skill training, but not so good for constructive approaches to social structure during limitations brought on by the above.
6. All the genius's designing your weaponry could have been working on socially more constructive items. Talent too has an opportunity cost.

Paul from Ontario

Hi Alan.

Since 2006, the United States has absorbed almost half of the reduction in Since 2006, – a pattern that may continue.

Since 2006, world oil exports have declined by (x). In that same time period, United States oil imports have declined by (y): we have absorbed almost half of the export reduction. If this pattern continues(your thoughts here.)

Domestic crude oil /snnip/Oil imports dwarf any potential domestic new production, net of depletion.

Domestic crude oil production is 5.5 million b/day, and all established production areas are in decline. Production from deep water Gulf of Mexico, as well as oil shale, is increasing; however, potential increases in domestic production (optimistically, a net gain of 1 million b/day or so) - cannot significantly reduce our fundamental strategic exposure to imported oil, which is currently 11 million barrels per day.

Lloyd

Watch out for the SPR going the way of the HRE (which was said to be neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire). I don't think its actually 50% corn ethanol yet, but "strategic" and "reserve" have taken quite a hit recently.

In a military context, you lose when you have committed your reserves and the opposition has reserves remaining. If you are not about to win when you start drawing on your last available reserve (which is what the strategic reserve is), then you are about to lose.

2008 redux is more probable with each passing day...

Global stockmarkets continue to slide

"Until last week, people have been saying the US debt ceiling was the problem. Now they talk about worries about the health of the economy."

This was underscored by official data released on Tuesday, showing a fall in US consumer spending for the first time in nearly two years.

The figures also showed that incomes had barely risen, indicating that the economy was stalling in the first half of this year.

In addition to the US, eurozone debt worries are continuing to unsettle investors.

Spain and Italy are under renewed pressure because of concerns that the eurozone bailout fund is not enough to protect their larger economies if they can no longer pay their debts.

"It's a pretty bleak picture," said Justin Gallagher of RBS in Sydney.

"The implications for the Italian market and economy going through something similar to Greece is pretty frightening. People are suggesting it's not bailout-able. That's how big it is."

Nor has the President signing the debt ceiling deal into law alleviated the danger of a credit mark down for the U.S.:

US shares fall as spending data ignites economic fears

Ratings agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's were both cautious about the agreement.

Moody's upheld the US's prized AAA credit rating, but the agency added a "negative outlook" on the rating, saying a historic downgrade could still come if US economic growth deteriorated significantly.

Standard and Poor's managing director Moritz Kraemer told the BBC that "the probability of a downgrade should not be discarded".

He said the firm needed to "analyse the deal in detail rather than just looking at the headline figures".

Which leads me to say that if you're a doomer long enough, you eventually get to be right.

The coming year is going to be a great time to load up on mining stocks. There are also going to be good opportunities in the metals themselves, should they be liquidated in another panic that leads the sheeple to the "safety" of fiat digital dollars and Treasuries.

At this point, I personally plan to have mining shares make up the greatest percentage of my savings, with an allocated metals storage account and physical metals themselves making up most of the rest. All held outside the banking system, of course.

Bernanke and Geithner and Obama and Boehner can kiss my a--.

3.6 million barrels were released from the SPR last week. Total crude stocks including SPR declined by 1.9 million barrels. Crude stocks at Cushing declined 1.1 mb to 36.0. PADD2 refineries operated at 96.9% efficiency.

Usual totally unexplained upwards adjustments. About 2.5 million barrels of crude appeared from apparently nowhere last week in addition to the 3.6 million from the SPR. 1.2 million barrels of product also appeared via "adjustment".

Declining US oil demand and SPR releases of high quality crude are obscuring a fairly significant fall in oil imports and the net balance of oil product imports/exports (the US having switched this year from a net importer of oil products to a net exporter of oil products). In the latest four weeks, this balance of net oil plus net product imports/exports has fallen by 1.1 million barrels per day. Even if US demand for oil products is down 2% from last year (as it was recently), imports are dropping much faster than the fall in demand.

Without the SPR, total US oil inventories would have dropped again this week, as they had almost every week during three months before the SPR releases started.

Many oil analysts are now stating that the price of oil should fall further due to the apparent trend of declining US oil demand – which has recently been reinforced by shutdowns by some state governments and even at some federal agencies (such as the FAA). However in the long run demand would have to fall significantly further – into deep recession territory – for US oil demand and available supplies to balance.

If so, probably these weekly oil supply reports will become the least of our worries.

plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose...

I purchased a phillips LED 60 watt replacement (not sure if it is exactly the same as the model here because it is rated at 13 watts draw) and it works really well. The plastic casing is yellow and you would never guess it puts out a nice white light, but it does!

I don't know if your circulation fan still works or if you can conveniently turn it on or off at the thermostat, but I would periodically run it for five or ten minutes to help distribute the coolth throughout your home as needed.

Cheers,
Paul

Russian oil production has been on a relativelyflat plateau since last October. Here is what the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook is predicting. The figures in bold are past production. The figures not bold are what is predicted. In millions of barrels per day.

2010				2011				2012			
Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
10.1	10.14	10.14	10.13	10.22	10.23	10.13	10.09	10.23	10.14	10.03	9.94

As you can see the EIA is predicting Russian production to slightly fall off the current plateau. Reports out of Russia, from Putin and other Russian officials, say they hope to hold the current plateau. Most oil analyst that follow Russian production, say they will not. But nobody is predicting Russia will increase production above the current plateau.

Ron P.

The net export numbers are interesting (BP, total petroleum liquids).

The 2002 to 2007 rate of change in Russian net oil exports was 7.0%/year (on track to double in 10 years), but then. . .

The 2007 to 2010 rate of change in Russian net oil exports was zero (with 2008 being slightly below the 2007 level and with 2009 being slightly above the 2007 level). The bottom line is that Russian net oil exports have averaged about 7.1 mbpd for four straight years.

Here are the (2005) top five* combined net export numbers for 2005 to 2010 (BP, mbpd, total petroleum liquids):

2005: 23.7
2006: 23.3
2007: 22.7
2008: 22.5
2009: 21.0
2010: 20.8

*Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway, Iran & UAE

Sam Foucher's most optimistic projection is that oil importers worldwide are presently consuming the (2005) top five's post-2005 CNE (Cumulative Net Exports) at the rate of about 8%/year.

Life can always find a concentrated energy source. Clever critters ;-) The bacteria were isolated from industrial tanks that store ethanol. Never thought it was possible to live in pure ethanol myself.

wt - Hey...they only missed the estimate by 94%. Guess that's why they have that disclaimer at the bottom of their reserve reports. To paraphrase: This is our estimate. But we could be completely wrong. Thus you can't sue us if you lose money.

The BBC appears to have a problem. Funny that they approve of demagoguery though. Makes their image look bad.

Be fair, Top Gear is far more Peak Oil aware than virtually every other show out there - particularly the business or politics ones. They often make reference to 'the oil running out'.

However, they support hydrogen as a replacement fuel because it enables cars to behave as before (fill up and go). They don't like the batteries.

If they were honest they would cover the issues with hydrogen production, transmission & storage; but they aren't there to be fair minded, but to make entertaining TV.

Long may they say things that others consider 'inappropriate'; talking about the oil decline is inappropriate to some.

Its not as if they were parked on top of a building that was about to be demolished to see if they still started after the building was blown up, or used as target practice for tanks on Salisbury Plain. There are far worse possible fates for cars on Top Gear than running out of juice in Cleethorpes.

US: 'It was horrifying'! New Yorkers describe seeing baseball-sized hailstones fall in freak storm

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/232940-US-It-was-horrifying-New-Yorker...

I don't doubt that between the size of these, and the various diameters/speeds they rotate, that there are some valid problems created with vibrations, rhythmic shadows, etc.. but it's also become a popular target, and put up against unusually high standards.

'You can drown in milk', as they say.

This summer, my wife and I were driving through Roscoe, Texas -- one of the biggest wind farms in the world -- surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of large wind turbines. I pulled off the road, perhaps 100 meters from the nearest wind turbine, to see what they sounded like.

We could not hear them.

I didn't turn off the car engine, but the noise from cars on the highway from half a mile away drowned out whatever noise the turbines were making.

Maybe some turbines are loud, but these turbines, hundreds of them, were less loud than ordinary traffic.

"only up to 90,000 million rays or 90 mSv"

How I hate spin.
They'll probably be fine though.
Any industrial accident like.that angers me. I've worked in so many situations where the greatest danger is often someone sitting elsewhere.

That situation was roughly equivalent to working inside a pulp beater in a papermill - those guys had to move quickly to survive.
I wonder where they differ from US procedure.

Please will someone take the trouble of explaining these bums the difference between "reserves" and "resources" .

I think this data over a long term from U.S. car and truck sales for 1931-2010. is much more interesting than looking at such a narrow slice of the data.
http://wardsauto.com/keydata/historical/UsaSa01summary/

Things start to look interesting in the mid to late 90s when truck sales start to overtake car sales in volume.
Also you can clearly see the hit the economy has taken over the last couple of years.

And we will have solved the energy crisis permanently.

Right. Sure.

The 70 new LFTRs

Which need cooling water, not in active fault locations, it seems away from Tsunamis, plus a few other considerations.

Where are these 70 a year locations to be found?

And what about nations like North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe? Are they to be included or excluded from this "permanent energy crisis solution"? What's the criteria for being allowed/not allowed?

The time scale is 10 years. By 2021 it will be clear what is happening.

So we remain, teetering on the edge, until something happens.

It is an interesting period in which the plateau of oil production has stretched on now since 05, stagnating growth. The results are a variety of fancy fiscal footwork efforts like QE's to keep BAU going. So it appears there is a tough struggle that goes along with a plateau of high priced oil, and that it will probably take a clearcut reduction in oil flow to cause collapse. Which gets back to the question of how long this plateau can be maintained. 05-11 = 6 yrs. Maybe 10, which would be 2015. 10 years at a plateau of oil production sounds like a reasonable time period in relation to the time it took to get to that level.

Gosh, Ron, I challenge you to come up with something optimistic for a change :-/

I've tried and the only good news in my life is purely local, as in many of my preps are paying off, though it's hard; a daily struggle. Better than waiting... waiting. At least that's the plan.

I know this site is The Oil Drum, but we spend a lot of time here discussing the knock-off/knock-on effects of peak oil. Cliches such as 'perfect storm' are hard to refute. While oil, the great enabler, begins to decline, virtually everything else upon which our hyper-complex systems rely is going critical. Climate, population, finance/debt/banking, housing, agriculture/food, fresh water, healthcare, politics, environment, education, energy in general... virtually all systems are stressed to the edge.

Question: If there was a huge discovery, a super, super giant field of perfectly light, sweet crude discovered-developed-producing tomorrow, would it make much difference? Cold fusion? Benign aliens?

Conservation between 3-7pm? Isn't that the hottest part of the day? Usually the high hits about 3-3:30pm, but then the Sun gets lower and shines through the windows until it sets. So let's say it's 105-110F. How does one conserve energy during that time period? Turn off the AC, Go sit in a bathtub of cold water and dunk one's headneath every few minutes while the house increases in temp to 120? But then the overnight low is 80-84, and you've scorched the inside of your domicile, so getting the house cool overnight is not happening and you start the next day wrapped in a chilled wet towel.

I'll take northern California. In our neck of the woods it gets into the 90's in the day, but the high 50's at night. We just go downstairs in the afternoon and turn off the AC, then open the windows at night and saints alive it works. No outrageous power bill yet we stay cool enough.

Heat waves pushes Texas power grid into red zone

(Reuters) - The Texas power grid operator has scrambled this week to meet soaring electricity demand in the face of a brutal heat wave, and residents of the second most populous U.S. state are one power plant shut-down away from rolling blackouts

On Wednesday ERCOT came within 50 megawatts of interrupting flows to industrial customers. That's equal to the output of about 25 industrial-scale windmills.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/03/shell-oil-spills-niger...

I hadn't heard that this 2008 spill was so large. Evidently it was about a fifth the size of The GOM, but much larger than Exxon Valdez. The devastation is beyond remarkable. I think Shell has claimed thieves tapping into one of the pipes was the cause of one spill.

Department of war to monitor and control the thoughts of the people. Folks can we all say Fascism.

home-grown threats such as Anonymous

LMAO

The establishment is running scared.

And all the good sheeple bleat...."If you haven't done anything wro-oo-onng...what do you have to hii-ii-dde?"

Here's a scenario to consider; how about a biological or chemical attack on a subway system killing 5,000 people that, in retrospect, could have been prevented had the Pentagon been monitoring and investigating leads through social networking channels. You'd be OK with that? There's a huge difference between, say, reading my [e]mail and harvesting signals intelligence from a public, or at best semi-private, channel like Facebook. The NSA would be completely derelict in their duty if they did not cull everything they could from the huge stream of intel that social networking provides.

First of all, speed does not always lower MPG for may vehicles in real-world driving conditions. My '91 CRX HF used to get 50 MPG at 78 miles per hour on the highway, cruising, if I avoided any acceleration or deceleration. Now it gets about 44 at the same speed.

I support the idea of lowered speeds in suburban areas, or even 55 miles per hour on some city interstates. But most cars on the road today will not run very well at 45 MPG. Also, vast differences in speed on the highway can contribute to highway crashes, and a 45 MPH speed limit is unenforceable.

I think we would do better eliminating all electronics from cars to eliminate distractions-- have cell-phone blocking technology built in, get rid of navi, even electric windows, just eliminate every button and knob we possibly can except, perhaps, the stereo. I worry much more about distracted drivers than I do about speeders or drunks.

I enjoy fast driving and own a sports car, but I do not drive it many miles a year, avoid speeding unless I'm working a crisis and conditions permit, and will be happy as this gets phased out of modern life. It will become something that is done only on specified roads, at great expense, perhaps with a special license.

I am very sorry for your friend's loss.

The speed limits on New Orleans streets are 25 mph, except for divided streets at 35 mph. A handful of exceptions.

It makes it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists and changes the ambiance.

Unlike most cities where traffic averages 3+ or 5+ mph above the speed limit, here the average is just below the speed limit. No one (except tourists from Texas) gets impatient with someone going 20 mph in a 25 mph zone. So bicyclists "fit in" doing 15 mph or so. Comity in both directions.

Best Hopes for "Big Easy" driving :-)

Alan

Most are aware of safety, mpg justifications for lower speed limits, but no one today has the political will (and is willing to take the hit) to say what needs to be said.

Carter, 1977 Statement Urging Compliance With the 55-Mile-per-Hour Speed Limit:

Since the lower speed limit was adopted nationally 3 years ago, there have been approximately 9,000 fewer highway deaths each year than in 1973. The reduced speed limit has been the biggest single factor in this 17-percent drop in highway fatalities.

Unfortunately, highway speeds are again creeping up. Highway safety officials tell us that enforcement is difficult as average interstate speeds again approach 65. Worst of all, the numbers of people being killed or seriously injured in highway accidents are rising again with the increase in vehicle speeds. In July, 169 more Americans died on our highways than in July of last year; for June, the increase was 175.

This is a matter that deserves, and must have, greater Federal attention. General Davis, as special representative to Secretary Adams on 55-mile-per-hour speed limit education and enforcement, I hope you will redouble your efforts in communicating the importance of the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit to the safety leaders of our States and the people of America. Let it be clearly understood that by exceeding the speed limit, we are wasting fuel and, in too many instances, lives as well.

In your meetings with State law enforcement and safety officials, please convey my concern and assure those responsible for the safety of our highways that Federal support will be supplied and appropriate Federal actions taken to assist them in their programs. I will expect a report in 30 days on the status of speed limit compliance throughout the country, along with recommendations from the Secretary of Transportation on any additional measures considered advisable to save fuel and stem the tide of fatalities on the Nation's roads.

Carter, 1979 Energy Address to the Nation:

I'm asking all citizens to honor, and all States to enforce, the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. This is one of the most effective ways to save fuel.

I will set targets for our 50 States to reduce gasoline consumption and ask each State to meet its target. The timetable will be strict. If States fail to meet their targets when gasoline shortages exist, then ! will order mandatory steps to achieve the needed savings, including the weekend closing of service stations.

If these savings are not made, we will almost certainly have gasoline shortages as early as this summer.

In addition, I ask each of you to take an important action on behalf of our Nation. I ask you to drive 15 miles a week fewer than you do now. One way to do this is not to drive your own car to work every day. At least once a week take the bus, go by carpool or, if you work close enough to home, walk.

This action can make a significant difference for our country. For each day that we do this, we can save hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. This will help to hold down the prices of fuel, and you obviously will save money you otherwise would have spent on gasoline.

Read more at the American Presidency Project: www.presidency.ucsb.edu http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32159&st=speed+limit&st1...

If a maximum national speed limit was set extremely low, maybe 45 mph (maybe lower?) for high ways and lower for local roads, I wonder how many lives it would save?

It would also save a tremendous amount of energy (and thus lives expended to get that energy). There is a fantastic article on Low Tech Magazine about how cutting speed in half would drop fuel usage by 75%.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/09/speed-energy.html

There are a whole series on old electrics. If the speed limit was around 20 - 25 mph then an old electric car with a modern battery would get a 400 mile range.

Much is possible once we give up speed and the high horse power engines needed to reach those speeds. After all, the original trolly lines here in Minneapolis had 1 horse power propulsion.

Actually it was down day before yesterday, and up just a tad yesterday (first up day in 8 - an unusually long negative run). Today just continues the slide.

Regarding the "Interesting Times" in global markets this morning, I am reminded of an Ayn Rand quote, "One can deny reality, but one cannot deny the consequences of denying reality."

I think that most governments, most of the media, etc. are attempting to deny the reality of resource constraints, especially the reality of constrained global net oil exports.

@Darwinian

Is this the preferable "beginning of the end" we often hear so much about?

Are you witness to the beginning of the end?

Dow now down more than 400 points.

RBOB wholesale gasoline has fallen 11% this week. Would amount to a fall at US pumps of about 30c per gallon if sustained.

Down 500 points today. Just a few weeks ago I had mused that we had not seen the volatility of 2008 repeat. Perhaps now we are.

If the pattern repeats, there will be some significant up days and more bad news before we're into the big slide. This would just be pre-shock activity.

But history rarely repeats itself precisely; it just rhymes. These changes are fast and deep, so it will be interesting to hear what Bernanke has to say. Makes one wonder if the some of SPR sales were an attempt to prevent this occurrence, but like the tropical storm that evaporated over Texas that also is far too small to make a difference.

I will be curious to see of an undulating plateau of peak oil will cause a financial undulating plateau as well.

Either OPEC doesn't have that oil to ship, OR they are spoiled at the price oil has been selling for, and now its becoming obvious even to those investing in stocks that the world economy is slowing, the price of oil is in turn dropping, so OPEC in turn decides to lower output. For now I'll take the latter.

However, that scenario if it continues to play out that way will insure stagnant to slowing OECD economies.

I mentioned this two weeks ago (July 22):

In the last week, Mideast OPEC members have made few final arrangements to ship oil in August. Possibly they are just waiting to see if the IEA really means what it says about not planning another oil reserve release. But there is another possibility – the hot and sunny summer skies in the Persian Gulf region have also increased their oil product demand, where their recently increased oil output would be used domestically, to be refined and otherwise used for air conditioning, driving, and water processing. Ultimately their sunshine state may be more important to them.

The Sunshine State
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8174/822387

This trend is still progressing. OPEC exports appear to dropping further over the last week. Incrementally, the export figure used by OM is 270,000 bpd less than two weeks ago - mostly due to lower shipments from Mideast exporters.

The article appears to be confusing WTI with oil. Brent is down recently, but still well ahead on the year to date.

Bad news for parched Texas: La Nina may re-occur

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Climatologists said Thursday that the La Nina conditions that have contributed to Texas' worst drought in decades may re-occur later this year — troubling news for the state's beleaguered farmers and ranchers who also learned there was likely no relief in sight.

The Climate Prediction Center issued a La Nina watch on Thursday, just two months after declaring the last La Nina had ended. The phenomenon, which is marked by a cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, typically results in less rain for southern states.

Weather Underground has an interesting blog post series on heat waves. I thought this one that showed how a high pressure zone can sit over an area and essentially deprive it of rain, was really eye opening. It makes me wonder how quickly could the switch to desert like conditions happen in the central US?

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/comment.html?entrynum=200

I saw the CDC report on this one. The bacterial strain is a nasty Salmonella Heidelberg which is antibiotic resistant. Only 1 person died of the 77 reported cases so far affecting persons in 26 US states.

I was not aware that political descent was not tolerated in Saudi Arabia. I'm not even sure what it is.

Actually, come to think of it, I think that's what we have in the USA. What we need is political decent. Feel free to dissent.

That's 1100 EDT. Ouch! From your second link:

1500Z, August 4, 2011 - Great anticipation for the first of what may be three convergent shocks to slam the geomagnetic field in the next twelve hours, +/-. The CME with the Radio Blackout earlier today is by far the fastest, and may catch its forerunners in the early hours of August 5 (UTC) -- at earth.

Two impacts are expected; G2 (Moderate) to G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storming on August 5, and potentially elevated protons to the S2 (Moderate) Solar Radiation Storm condition, those piling up ahead of the shock. The source of it all, Region 1261, is still hot, so more eruptions are possible.

..."three convergent shocks" doesn't sound good.

Brilliant concept.

Certainly the way I see it, areas without local businesses just see all the money sucked out of their local economy.

Here in rural France the way the system seems to work is that government feed money into the local area (via benefits, pensions, grants, subsidies and work creation schemes) and corporations suck it all out again (via the large retailers, supermarkets, utilities, etc.). So life in the rural areas is almost (except perhaps for farming) wholly dependant on government spending. Cut that spending and the rural economy collapses and people will be forced into the cities. In fact farming is pretty reliant on subsidies too thinking about it.

Can rural areas adapt fast enough to survive collapse? Unfortunately I'm not seeing it, rural life has mainly been de-skilled. There doesn't seem to be enough skills, knowledge and will to create the local businesses needed to maintain rural village life without the aid of government spending.

One of the reasons I see the future for most people being in urban ghettoes.

S - And let's not forget it's also a numbers game. I was shocked when I saw the stats a while back. In the US: large companies (over 1000 employees = 100,000; medium companies (over 100 employees = 250,000) small busineses (less than 100 employees) = 8 MILLION). Small businesses represent more than 90% of all the companies in this country. I'm not sure if I remember correctly but I think small businesses employee 85% of all workers here. And I beleive a large percentage of small business have less than 10 employees. Obviouly almost small business are going to all local. The stats came from the GAO if folks want to dig them up directly. They are one of the few sources I accept at face value.

Worse news (U.S. job figures) set to be released tomorrow :-(

Let's see how the week will end :-o

The heat is on (and not just the weather in the southern/central U.S.A.).