Drumbeat: December 30, 2011
Posted by Leanan on December 30, 2011 - 10:34am
Tight oil rises to front of mind
Just when it seemed the Earth was serving up its last drops of oil, squeezing from tough spots such as the oil sands in northern Alberta and the deepest seas offshore Brazil, a new oil age is emerging.Tight oil, a catch-all for oil trapped in shale, carbonate or sand formations recoverable with the type of drilling methods that revolutionized the natural-gas side of the business, is reviving the oil sector on a scale that only a couple of years ago would have been unthinkable.
“It turns out there are a lot of big piles of oil in North America,” said Denver-based John Schopp, vice-president for the North Rockies and new ventures at Encana Corp., one of the companies in a hurry to turn it into new revenue.
The recent press about the potential of shale gas would have you believe that America is now sitting on a 100-year supply of natural gas. It's a "game-changer." A "golden age of gas" awaits, one in which the United States will be energy independent, even exporting gas to the rest of the world, upending our current energy-importing situation.The data, however, tell a very different story. Between the demonstrable gas reserves, and the potential resources blared in the headlines, lies an enormous gulf of uncertainty.
Oil Heads for Third Yearly Gain on Iran Tension, U.S. Economy Speculation
Crude was little changed, heading for a third yearly advance, on speculation escalating tension in the Middle East may disrupt supplies as a recovery in the U.S. economy bolsters demand.West Texas Intermediate gained yesterday after U.S. jobless claims fell to a three-year low. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman yesterday called Iran’s threats to shut the Strait of Hormuz “irrational behavior.” About one-sixth of global supply travels through the seaway. The country faces sanctions on its crude exports and a possible boycott by European buyers.
Natural Gas Falls Below $3 for First Time in More Than 2 Years in New York
Natural-gas futures in New York dropped below $3 per British thermal units for the first time in more than two years as mild weather and rising production contribute to a growing U.S. stockpile surplus.
Commodities Poised for First Annual Decline Since 2008 on European Crisis
Commodities headed for the first annual drop since 2008, paced by declines in cotton, copper and cocoa, on concern that the European sovereign-debt crisis and a cooling Chinese economy will sap demand for raw materials.
Slowing Chinese Growth Means Ore-Vessel Rates at Lowest in Decade: Freight
The weakest growth in demand in at least a decade for shipments of iron ore, the second-biggest commodity cargo after crude oil, means rates for the largest vessels will plunge to the lowest level since 2002.
Russia cuts Sakhalin-1 2012 funds to $2.89 bln-source
(Reuters) - Russia has approved a 2012 budget of $2.89 billion for the ExxonMobil-led Sakhalin-1 oil project, down from $3.26 billion for this year, an industry source told Reuters on Friday.
BP has confirmed its intention to exit a huge gas joint venture with Rosneft off Russian Far Eastern coast, in part citing the “challenging economics” if the project, a report claims.
Ukraine asks for $9 bln gas discount from Russia to form joint transit consortium
Kiev is seeking a $9 billion annual gas discount to reach agreement with Moscow on operating the Ukrainian gas transportation system, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Friday.
Russia pushes ahead with South Stream project as talks with Ukraine stall
MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday instructed gas giant Gazprom to speed up the construction of a gas pipeline under the Black Sea in an apparent attempt to put pressure on Ukraine, the current chief export route for Russia.
Natural gas firms among top stock winners of 2011
Despite the fact natural gas prices have been falling this year, producers such as Cbot Oil are gaining appreciation with investors due to their ability to boost production, says Gabriele Sorbara of Caris.
Silver Price: Attention All Crybabies, Get the Checkbook Out!
Who is Stephen Leeb. He’s not the marquee name in Google’s search results. He is not as well-known as Jim Rogers; he’s not Marc Faber; and he’s not Peter Schiff.Leeb is, however, a prolific author and researcher who’s looked at China’s multi-decade economic plans—plans that require a monstrous amount of critical industrial metals, including silver, to fulfill a national, strategic goal of reducing fossil fuels consumption within the People’s Republic. Leeb predicted the oil price would top $100 when it traded at $27. Now, he’s more alarmed at what he has discovered about China’s future consumption needs for the new energy commodity, silver. (See Robert Hirsch interview (audio) on the subject of Peak Oil on Financial Sense Newshour of Dec. 15.)
Mexican candidate sees possible Pemex listing
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A leading presidential candidate of Mexico's ruling conservatives raised the possibility on Thursday of listing oil company Pemex on the stock exchange to help revamp the state-owned giant.
Brazil passes key mark on second sub-salt oil development
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A second major sub-salt oil development in Brazil passed a critical milestone on Thursday when operator Petrobras and its partners declared the Guara field commercially viable.
Protesters in Syria 'Crawl to Freedom Square'
Cairo (CNN) -- Large-scale anti-government protests and more violence unfolded across Syria Friday as opposition groups called on demonstrators to camp out in public squares to protest the al-Assad regime -- nationwide rallies dubbed "The Crawl to Freedom Square."
Civilians in Syria face fight for supplies
(CNN) -- In Homs, Syria's third-largest city and a focus of resistance to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, snipers pose a direct threat to civilians. But the risk of being shot is just one problem they face -- their daily challenge is finding food, fuel and medical care.One foreign journalist and film-maker who was recently in Homs said trash was piling up in the streets and fighting has led to a shutdown of basic services.
Iran adept at chipping away at bigger enemies, analysts say
Iran's latest threat to seal off the Strait of Hormuz is probably a bluff, but its ability to slowly escalate tensions in the Persian Gulf with small attacks on commercial shipping or other incidents is a genuine danger, military analysts say."If they are going to do something to us, it makes a lot more sense to raise the level of tension without getting into a fight," said Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
It's 2012--It's Just Absurd That We're Still Addicted To Middle-Eastern Oil
So, to reiterate:• We're highly dependent on a finite fuel source controlled by crazy people who hate us
• We've done next to nothing about this problem for four decades
Chinese court accepts case of oil spill-related compensation claims from aqua farmers
BEIJING (Xinhua) -- A maritime court in the northern coastal city of Tianjin on Friday accepted a case of compensation claims from the aquaculture farmers who believe the oil leaked from the ConocoPhillips-operated oil platforms in Bohai Sea resulted in their businesses losses.
Bitter Twist in Louisiana Family’s Long Drilling Fight
In a lawsuit, the Broussards argued that the contamination was so bad that Texaco had breached the lease and that they would try to kick the company off the property unless it was cleaned to their standards.Less than a month later, the family received a surprise: Sabine, a company that seemed completely unrelated to the contamination suit, offered the Broussards a little under $1 million to buy most of the land in question. If the offer was not accepted, the letter said, Sabine would expropriate the land and pay the family the fair market value.
That Sabine had been operating a pipeline across the street since 1964 the family knew. They knew that in 1990 Sabine began managing the so-called Henry Hub, an interchange of gas lines so crucial that it is where the prices are set for natural gas futures based on the traffic there. What the family did not know is that part of this hub had migrated onto their property. And they are still unsure of just how much of it is on their property.
Cut Heating Costs, Live Closer Together
In the not-so-distant future, the only energy-affordable private domicile for people having trouble paying their heating bills may be within a large apartment building with central climate control and sharing exterior walls. This conservation strategy works, as proven by the lower per capita heating costs of cities relative to isolated homes.Those who can afford to live the American "dream" of a stand-alone home losing heat on six sides will likely opt to do so. But those who cannot may want to reconsider congregate housing.
The Future Needs an Attitude Adjustment
This basic desire for more has meshed beautifully with a growth-based economic model and a planet offering up its stored resources. The last few hundred years is when things really broke lose. And it’s not because we suddenly got smarter. Sure, we have a knack for accumulating knowledge, and there is a corresponding ratchet effect as we lock in new understanding. But we have the same biological brains that we did 10,000 years ago—so we haven’t increased our mental horsepower. What happened is that our accumulation of knowledge allowed us to recognize the value of fossil fuels. Since then, we have been on a tear to develop as quickly as we might. It’s working: the average American is responsible for 10 kW of continuous power production, which is somewhat like having 100 energy slaves (humans being 100 W machines). We’re satisfying our innate need for more and more—and the availability of cheap, abundant, self-storing, energy-dense sources of energy have made it all possible.
It's time to cut our fertility rate
Only children were the objects of pity within my extended family when I was growing up. It was assumed that no-one could possibly want to have only one child – there had to be a physiological reason for not having more.It was not until I became a mother myself that I met a couple who were very assertive about only having one child. They were both healthy and could have had more but chose not to. Indeed, they were angry with those who put pressure on them to have more than one. Part of it was economic – by only having one it meant the wife could stay home in their smallish house and not go out to work. But it was also psychological – they felt they had fulfilled all their parental urges by having just one.
Early last December, Bill Flynn of Troutdale sat down to knock out a story that had been percolating in the back of his head since fall.When he finally looked up Jan. 11, he had written a novel.
Titled “Shut Down,” Flynn’s self-published fiction is about the collapse of an oil-dependent society.
3. Fracking — Hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method of extracting fossil fuels from otherwise unreachable places , has turned into a hot-button issue dividing ultra-capitalists and environmentalists.
Top 10 Most-read News Stories of 2011
The Peak Oil Catastrophe-in-waiting: The United States continues to slumber while a catastrophe lies in wait. Increasing numbers of analysts and policymakers are warning of another super price spike for oil and the likelihood of "peak oil" more generally. Peak oil is the point at which global oil production reaches a maximum and then declines. The speed of the decline is a key unknown and if it is relatively fast, the results could be truly dire for economies around the world.
Are the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf flops as some naysayers claim?
An article from 24/7 Wall Street published yesterday on Yahoo Finance lists their picks for the worst product flops of 2011. The list includes some understandable big flops such as Netflix's failed decision to change their business model, and curiously listed the Chevy Volt as one of the flops. Given the number of naysayers (many with apparent political motives) who are railing against the development of electrified cars it's worth taking a look at the reasoning by which they call not only the Chevy Volt, but the Nissan Leaf, flops (or worst).
No-man's land attests to Japan's nuclear nightmare
For those who lived on the perimeter of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, fliers used to come in the mail every so often explaining that someday this might happen. Most recipients saw them as junk mail, and threw them away without a second glance. For those who did read them, the fliers were always worded to be reassuring — suggesting that although a catastrophic nuclear accident was extremely unlikely, it could require evacuating the area.Never was it even hinted that the evacuation could last years, or decades.
Incandescent light bulb phaseout begins Jan. 1
The nation's light bulbs begin facing new efficiency and labeling standards starting Jan. 1, but don't expect old-fashioned incandescents to suddenly disappear from store shelves.
4 U.S. Makers of Towers for Wind Turbines File Complaint Over China’s Steel Subsidies
WASHINGTON — Four domestic companies that make most of the steel towers for wind turbines in the United States filed a trade complaint against China and Vietnam on Thursday, seeking tariffs in the range of 60 percent. The action is a significant new skirmish in an emerging green energy trade war.
Europe’s Biggest Solar Park Completed With Russian Bank Debt
Europe’s biggest solar park was completed today after its Vienna-based developer, Activ Solar GmbH, obtained financing from two Russian banks.
In Solar Power, India Begins Living Up to Its Own Ambitions
KHADODA, India — Solar power is a clean energy source. But in this arid part of northwest India it can also be a dusty one.Every five days or so, in a marriage of low and high tech, field hands with long-handled dust mops wipe down each of the 36,000 solar panels at a 63-acre installation operated by Azure Power. The site is one of the biggest examples of India’s ambitious plan to use solar energy to help modernize its notoriously underpowered national electricity grid, and reduce its dependence on coal-fired power plants.
China Proceeds on Plan for Disputed Yangtze Dam
BEIJING — The Chinese State Council has removed a crucial roadblock to building one of the nation’s most contentious hydroelectric dams, dealing a decisive defeat to environmentalists critical of the project — and showcasing the clout of one of the most powerful and ambitious politicians in China.In a little-noticed ruling made public on Dec. 14, the council approved changes to shrink the boundaries of a Yangtze River preserve that is home to many of the river’s rare and endangered fish species. The decision is likely to clear the way for construction of the Xiaonanhai Dam, a $3.8 billion project that environmental experts say will flood much of the preserve and probably wipe out many species.
$6 billion-a-year ethanol subsidy dies -- but wait there's more
America's corn farmers have been benefiting from annual federal subsidies of around $6 billion in recent years, all in the name of ethanol used as an additive for the nation's vehicles.That ends on Jan. 1, when the companies making ethanol will lose a tax credit of 46 cents per gallon, and even the ethanol industry is OK with it -- thanks in part to high oil prices that make ethanol competitive.
Solazyme's Modern Alchemy: Expanding Global Food Supply
When people think of Solazyme, the first instinct is to immediately group it together with all those other not-yet-functional biofuel concepts that sound great if they worked in the real world. Indeed, those who know better might even go as far as distinguishing it as an advanced biofuel maker, separated from the heavily subsidized conventional biofuel makers that rely on food-based resources as the input costs to its chemistry.Yet those who truly understand Solazyme see more than just a part of a solution towards the Peak Oil crisis. Solazyme’s potential stretches beyond the realm of big oil companies. It holds the power of modern-day alchemy.
The desire for a bee that will look after itself may seem pretty basic. But with as many as one-third of honeybee colonies routinely dying off each year and the rest requiring extraordinary care, the quest for a better bee has become critical.
Hawaii: Our Very Own Island Nation, Battling Climate Change Via Innovation
While people continue to argue over whether human activity is affecting global temperatures, no one disputes the fact that many of our most fundamental resources – water, energy, clean air – are increasingly constrained as the planet’s population grows. Given its isolated location, Hawaii is in a particularly precarious position. Currently the state imports 90 percent of its energy and has the highest energy prices in the country.
Record Surge in CO2 Credits May Hamper Rebound
More than twice as many new carbon credits were supplied to the world’s second-biggest emissions market this year, damping prospects for a recovery from record- low prices in 2012.
Federal judge blocks Calif. low-carbon fuels rule
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – A federal judge moved Thursday to block California from enforcing its first-in-the-nation mandate for cleaner, low-carbon fuels, saying the rules favor biofuels produced in the state.The lawsuit challenging the state regulations, which were adopted as part of California's landmark 2006 global warming law, was filed in federal court last year by a coalition that includes the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and the Consumer Energy Alliance.
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I had the misconception that spot natural gas prices in the US had a strong influence on the viability of ethanol. Others might have had similar misconceptions so I post ->
US spring 2011 fertilizer prices were close to 2008 prices and exceeded 2009 and 2010 (USDA). The prices are more than 150% higher than a decade ago. At least in the short term, fertilizer prices paid by farmers are independent of US natural gas prices which should mean that companies that make N should be highly profitable this year.
From an excellent 2010 blog post at Grist:
Our other addiction: the tricky geopolitics of nitrogen fertilizer
Roughly 2/3rds of the energy content of corn ethanol is used in the refinery. Most of that is natural gas and electricity. The price of natural gas has a direct impact on the viability of most U.S. corn ethanol production which is greater than any indirect effect on ammonia fertilizer prices.
I think that is incorrect. The net cost of corn is a far greater cost than energy used by refining (CARD Ethanol Margins).
Natural Gas vs. Energy Innovation
I wonder if ethanol produced from ethane in hydrocarbon formations , can be used for the gasoline mandate or is it just corn ethanol that can meet the legal requirement.
Only ethanol from biomass. The law specifically excludes ethanol produced from petrochemical routes.
Thanks
So farmers are paid a large subsidy to grow corn. To do this they use large amounts of fertiliser which is made with a lot of natural gas. The corn is then processed to ethanol, using natural gas and electricity, some of which is made using natural gas. The ethanol is than added to petrol. You can make ethanol directly from natural gas, but this gets no subsidy.
Remind me, why is there a subsidy in the first place?
CORN farmers. Any other questions?
"Remind me, why is there a subsidy in the first place?
Iowa caucuses
To be fair, it is possible to make ammonia and corn ethanol entirely without fossil fuels.
Possible Yes, but what other sources for huge volumes of (relatively speaking) cheap ammonia are there.
Very cheap electricity. Federally funded hydro or geothermal, especially in locations where transmission is not cost effective.
Federally funded hydro or geothermal electricity would mostly be going to California these days. Locations with very cheap hydroelectricity potential where transmission to population centers is not cost-effective would mostly be limited to Alaska.
Lots of what they thought was oil in Alaska turned out to be natural gas. The oil had cooked too long in the ground.
I guess they waited too long to drill, eh? ;)
It's not that the oil had cooked too long, it's that it had been buried too deep and gotten too hot. Temperature depends on depth - the deeper you go the hotter it gets.
There is a temperature window within which kerogen (the precursor to oil) gets cooked to oil. Kerogen-bearing shales have to be buried to at least a certain depth to produce oil. However, if they go too deep and the temperature goes too high, the oil will get cooked to natural gas. Geologists draw what they call a "hot line" on their charts to indicate the level below which they will find no oil, only natural gas.
What has happened in the Arctic is that most of the oil has been buried too deep and too hot at some point in geological history, and most of the oil has been cooked to natural gas. This is certainly true of the Canadian Arctic, and from what I have heard from Russian geologists, the Russian Arctic as well. And that's most of the Arctic. Russia and Canada are the two biggest countries on Earth.
Thanks!
Those of of who lives in land that are under the ice in glacial ages are well aware of the ice cycle and what it does. It is therefore a natural amaturs guess that adding up to 3 Km of ice on the ground sinks the land down so much that it causes the shales to over cook. Meaning it is the ice ages that are the culprit in this drama. Any comments on that?
The bottom of that ice will still be cold so it is not the same as adding 3km of dirt that can heat up but it will increase the pressure and I don't know how that affects cooking kerogen.
NAOM
Well, the problem is not ice, it is additional layers of sedimentary rock. There has been too much tectonic activity in the Arctic. The geological history of the area is extremely complex and I'm not sure anybody really knows very much about it because the Arctic is extremely difficult to explore in detail.
I have no objection to the price of power in California coming down due to additional hydro in the PNW, but yes Alaska and various islands were what I was mostly thinking about. Transmission is not all that cheap in some places, however. There's a lot of geothermal/solar/wind not happening in Nevada and California due to transmission not being in place.
Perhaps to help "people" like Monsanto.
And oh, hey - did you know the bugs are getting used to Monsanto?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45807933/ns/business-retail/#.Tv5bNji1k1M
Net corn cost and nitrogen fertilizer cost are rather different animals. I agree the corn cost is much more important than the refinery energy. I disagree that the ammonia cost is more important than the refinery energy, but it is comparatively higher than the last time I did the math (probably because efficiencies have gotten better in the plants, but not in the field, and anhydrous has come unglued from gas).
"Ethanol plants in 2008 used an average of 25,859 Btu of thermal energy and 0.74 kWh of electricity per gallon of ethanol produced – that’s 28 and 32 percent less than 2001, respectively. Ethanol per bushel of corn, meanwhile, increased 5.3 percent to 2.78 gallons per bushel."
http://www.nebraskacorn.org/news-releases/corn-ethanol-plants-using-less...
At $6/MMBTU (I'm assuming ethanol plants pay a low industrial rate, not a wellhead rate) that's $0.15/gallon for natural gas and at $0.08/kwh it's $0.06/gallon, so $0.21 for raw energy cost.
At $6/bu, corn is $2.15/gal.
At $800/ton for NH3, and a 1.25lb NH3 per bushel of corn application rate, NH3 is $0.50/bu or $0.18/gal
Probably time for the Iowa corn/ethanol co-ops to put some of the money they've been printing into cooperative ammonia production. There are probably significant co-location efficiency benefits of ethanol and ammonia production, plus it'd increase local base loads and let them add more wind generation.
That's not the case right now with Phosphate. Prices are in a quandary recently, and the feeling is demand will be lower by spring. From what I can tell, alot hinges on India, seems they are pulling back on their purchases, can't afford it. Brazil may be backing down too. Also both Morocco and Saudi Arabia are expanding their phosphate mines.
I had the misconception that spot natural gas prices in the US had a strong influence on the viability of ethanol.
There are really two factors; the price of corn and the gasoline/natural gas ratio (and the natural gas also impacts fertilizer prices). If the latter is high -- as it has been for the most part for several years -- then that obviously helps the viability of corn ethanol. Natural gas is still a major cost for ethanol producers, but as long as that ratio remains high they can stay profitable. I look at corn ethanol as a partial gas-to-liquids process.
"Oil will decline shortly after 2015, says former oil expert of International Energy Agency"
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2011/12/30/oi-will-decline-2015-according...
@LionelBadal
He expects the decline in oil production (crude?) to begin somewhere between 2010 and 2015 then he expects a decline of all forms of of liquid fuels sometime 2015 and 2020.
Unless of course that happens to be a typo. Might be because of the reverse dating, (2015 and 2010).
Ron P.
This silly typing mistake is now corrected.
It's "between 2015 & 2020", of course !
Last night I fell into this topic that I think is flaming in a lot of the financial pages and blogs. There is a paper being referenced by tons of people on all sides of the discussion. It is called:
"THE LIQUIDATION OF GOVERNMENT DEBT" by Carmen M. Reinhart and M. Belen Sbrancia
It can be found online on the IMF site at:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2011/res2/pdf/crbs.pdf
I read the TOD most days. Sometimes I have to take a break so maybe this is old news and has already been hashed over. The date of the paper was March 2011 but a lot of the links I found last night that are buzzing about this topic are days and hours old. I am pretty hip recently about financial stuff, particularly Europe's crisis, and this is the first that I have heard about this term, "FINANCIAL REPRESSION". It is a pretty ominous sounding term and was first coined by a Stanford professor back in the 70s and has recently resurfaced on the heels of this paper.
I cut the excerpt down. Please be considerate of bandwidth, especially early in the thread, with a topic only tangentially related to energy, and dating from almost a year ago.
Lots of historical comparisons (in your linked paper) to where we are today. While I'm not an economist and certainly not an expert on macro-economic history, I've posited that there are factors in play today that limit the validity of these historical comparisons:
Economies are far more complex and interconnected than at any point in history. Economies are less able to divorce themselves from other markets. Our current level of globalization is unprecedented and individual governments implementing "financial repression" policies may have equally unprecedented effects.
Hard limits, especially limits to the availability of finite resources which underwrite any recovery, are also unprecedented, limiting these policies' effectiveness, even rendering them counter-productive. Attempts to regroup will likely fail.
Levels of population and consumption are exponentially higher than at any period in history. The global economy is structured (locked in?) to this paradigm. Backing out equals contraction. Decades of increasing debt levels to provide growth have artificially elevated GDPs, etc.. Methods of measuring growth have been "modified" to counter the reality of where we are. We've been lying to ourselves about the realities of our situation, and acting on those lies, again, for decades. In a nutshell, our overall situational awareness sucks. It's impossible to develop valid responses under these conditions.
Technology has increased the ability of policy makers to respond to these issues far faster than ever before. Invalid responses may result in equally swift negative consequences. We have outrun our ability to test our responses and make adjustments.
Biospherical tipping points are being reached. How can we refurbish a house which is burning?
This time is indeed different in many ways.
I just took a quick look at the link.At first glance it appears to be well worth serious study.The most important point it seems to be making is that inflation, deliberate or not , wipes out the real value-the purchasing power due the holder of the debt-rather rather quickly, especially when true interest rates are in the negative.
The second major point, perhaps just as important, is that a govt in a bind can force institutions and entities such as pension funds and insurance companies to purchase such debt, or roll it over,either of which is a sure loser for the holder of it, when it is eventually paid off in nominal money, assuming it IS paid off at all.
If I have it all wrong in respect to this link, I apologize in advance.It's going to take a while to read it carefully.
This stuff is not news to those of us who take inflation seriously;I have seen read and heard these arguments many times over the years.
I for one have never been able to get my head around the reasoning behind ANYONE or any institution run by rational men wishing to buy three or four percent mortgages;There has never been a time in my life when the day to day affairs of living costs didn't inflate faster than that;if gasoline and groceries weren't going up that fast or faster, real estate, medical care, higher education, and capital equipment WERE going up FASTER .
Something is obviously fundamentally wrong when somebody buys a million dollars worth-or a billion dollars worth-of low rate mortgages expecting to make money by doing so.I do understand how this is possible within the context of a Kafkaesque banking and tax system such as we have now, but it is still economic insanity when inflation exceeds the interest rate.Whoever is the true owner is in the last analysis losing his butt year after year, at least over the last few decades, excepting the period around Carter's time when interest rates were high enough to actually outpace inflation-for a while.
In the very end, if the system stands, the grasshoppers-the ones of us who have borrowed recklessly-will get over on the ants-the ones of us who were prudent, because all this debt is going to go unpaid, or be dumped onto the back of the taxpayer.
Dividing a grasshopper's bad debts up among one or two grasshoppers and three or four prudent ants is a very good deal for the grasshoppers;it's not so good a deal for those of us in the ant community.
In the end, eternal growth is just the grandest ponzi scheme of them all.
We all know where the debt snowball is headed-it will last about as long as a real snowball on a red hot stove in the economic conflagration that is fast approaching.
We do hear a lot of discussion about what is going to happen; some say inflation, others say deflation. Not very many say we are going to be in a good place.
I think the take away has to be that we really cannot say for sure whether or how much inflation we may have; nor can we say there could not be a deflationary cycle ahead. Now would be a good time to take a deep breath, relax, and watch as events unwind. I am not really sanguine about our near term (or long term) future, but I am ready to be pleasantly surprised. So far I would say the decline has not been nearly as great as I would have anticipated. Whether that means that the PTB have done a good job, or that they have been lucky, I am not ready to say. And this is about as optimistic as I can get today.
Best hopes for hopes.
Craig
Wether or not a country has inflation, and how much it has is a political choice.
It is hard enough to forecast natural phenomena (when is peak oil?) and economical consequences. Forecasting political choices gives an entire new meaning to "hard".
There is a lot of room for deflation in stocks, bonds, and real estate.
There is no room for deflation of any consequence in essential commodities as is see it, excepting the ones that are highly dependent on bau on propping up demand.
The price of fruit can decline to less than the cost of boxes to ship it in at the TRUE wholesale level-at the farm.
But even if all the apple growers in the country were to give their apples away, except for the cost of boxes and shipping, the price of apples would not go down much at retail, maybe fifteen to twenty percent max.
Standing timber can go to next to nothing, but the price of 2x4's doesn't fall nearly as fast, nor nearly as far.
Coal in the ground in nearby coal mines may be worth five dollars a ton, or less, if you want to buy a piece of ground, but after mining and delivery are added in, the price rises to sixty dollars at the mine, and up to about one hundred twenty five or so delivered by the truck load.
Now I am not opposed to the idea that prices for many things can come down for a WHILE, as companies with no choice wear out machinery without replacing it and trim their workforces and so forth.
But in the end, the relevant price of commodities-the processed and delivered price- is floored by the cost of processing and them.
There may be some serious deflation in commodities-there is still a lot of cheap oil to be produced, and it will be sold for fifty or sixty dollars a barrel if demand falls off far enough.Tanker owners would rather make fifteen thousand a day and lose another forty thousand, tan lose the whole fifty five thousand.
But in the end, no government in extreme distress will do other than print money.When that happens, any savings in the form of dollars or paper convertible only into dollars will be lost.
Whatever business costs must be paid in real time will go up as fast as the value of the dollar declines.Long term loans will be impossible to get.
But there is room for deflation in the short term for sure.Two hundred dollar a pop hairdressers will probably be glad to cut laborer's hair for the price of a beans and bread lunch.
Corporate lawyers will likewise be probably be glad to wash dishes.
All the chain restaurants will go busted, and local folks will serve hamburgers like they used to-for less money, using real plates and spoons, no advertising or in house corporate delivery truck or central office full of drones needed. The lights will go out in the big signs on tall steel poles, and the poles will be recycled.
.
The lead sentence in this article dropped a word; it should be $3 per million British thermal units. At $3/BTU, my body's average output of 250 BTUs/hour would make me a rich man :^)
Based on that price, I would think that the $3 is per "Therm" and a Therm is 100,000 BTU?
No, later in the story they give the actual price, $2.991 per million BTU (roughly 1,000 cubic feet). From my last utility bill, I only pay about 45 cents/therm for the NG itself, and that's at retail.
For comparison, a gallon of propane ($3 retail around here) yields about 90,000 BTU, and a gallon of heating oil ($4 retail) about 140,000 BTU.
So, if in a year or three NG prices double (as the shale bubble pops), what's going to happen to ethanol?
The prices quoted are $/mmBtu (= million Btu, ≈ 1,000 cubic feet).
Natural gas futures contracts are traded on NYMEX and are ten thousand times larger than the price typically quoted. CME has a full contract specification which includes:
The contract unit is thus equal to 10,000 Therms (1 Therm = 100,000 Btu). Depending on the mix of hydrocarbons in the natural gas, this is approximately equivalent to the energy found in 9.8 million cubic feet (mmcf) of natural gas (1 cubic foot ≈ 1020 Btu).
Note that there is much confusion because the abbreviation for thousand cubic feet is "mcf" while the abbreviation for million cubic feet is "mmcf". Billion and Trillion, you ask? Why that's "bcf" and "tcf". And don't even think about converting to LNG units!
Units for natural gas are about as convoluted as they get.
If you're interested in current and historical prices for natural gas futures you might check out the Market Futures databrowser. Just select "natural gas (NYM)" and peruse current and historical futures prices ($/mmBtu).
To see just how wrong the futures market can be, check out the first futures chain in the databrowser from January 1'st 2010:
Two years ago everyone thought the future price of natural gas in December 2010 would be $6.50 and in December 2011 (now) would be almost $7.00. Boy, were they ever wrong!
I am of the opinion that a very large shakeout is coming to the US natural gas industry sometime in the next two years unless prices miraculously rise above $6.00/mmBtu. Unfortunately, many producers continue to drill as they burn through investment cash while selling natural gas at below the cost of production. (The phrase: "Making up for per unit losses on volume." comes to mind.) This is unlikely to continue indefinitely.
Jon
With the bankruptcy of Delta Petroleum and this news, I am guessing the shakeout has begun (I am really reaching now, though).
Chesapeake Hasn’t Yet Closed Utica Joint Venture
Nice catch. The important quote is here, though:
Chesapeake is not some new startup trying to buy equipment. They have been in this business for years. Something is seriously wrong if they "need capital to fund drilling".
jon - As you know it usually comes down to cash flow. Given the high decline rate of most of CHK's recent resource wells they have to keep plugging capex into those plays as fast as the cash flow comes back. And given that most leases expire in 3 to 5 years they can't sit back and take their timer drilling the Utica. IIRC about a year or so CHK was negotiating with Statoil in the Marcellus. Statoil would fund a NG pipeline gathering system but only if CHK put up enough drilling capex to assure a sufficient volume of NG. Don't recall how that trade effort turned out. And then about 6 months ago CHK sold a 30% interest in its Eagle Ford Shale position to the Chinese for around $2.3 billion. Not only a nice cash infusion but also took hundreds of $millions of drilling obligations off their back. Depending on the trade that might have let CHK cut their EFS budget by $200 million for the next couple of years.
Although they closed today at nearly the year low, maybe they have been trying to clear debt. Selling to subsidiary units. Seeking alpha did a piece:
"Effectively, CHK has moved development costs and debt burden into CHKU. This again decreases the liability of the parent company, but it does not really decrease its potential gains....
This is huge, and it shows CHK’s true value. CHK lost very little overall in these deals, but it gained huge amounts of cash. CHK still has 15.1 million net acres in excellent oil and gas fields. 6.1 million net acres of these are in prime oil shale fields."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/316710-chesapeake-energy-managing-its-wa...
I don't agree with the projections of the author, rather with Rockman below. The big shift to natural gas the author envisions will be awhile in lifting prices.
jon - "...unless prices miraculously rise above $6.00/mmBtu." From your lips to God's ear. Actually he was listening and he's laughing his butt off right now. I avoid making predictions, especially about the future. BUT (granted it may be a big "if") but if the economy slips back into a recession (or even just muddles along) in a couple of years we could be talking about the good ole days of #3.50/mcf NG. As long as commercial NG consumption is in the dumpster and the pubcos keep poking shale wells to replace their reserve base it's difficult to imagine NG moving north very much anytime soon.
ROCKMAN,
I'm in full agreement and this is the message I'll be taking to an investment forum in Austin in January where I'm supposed to be an "expert" on oil and gas. I'd like to give plenty of credit for my "expert" status to you. Most of what I pretend to know about natural gas I have learned from paying careful attention to your always-insightful comments and filtering the news based on that insight.
Jon
Jonathan,
Encana's 2010 annual report might make a good slide:
Looking at the consolidated statement, I see an interesting trend.
2008 2009 2010 Net Earnings (including DD&A,tax) $6.4B $1.8B $1.5B <== Capital Exp $6.8B $4.6B $4.7BFinancials look much worse than 2008, 4x more capex relative to net earnings in 2010. It was 1:1 in 2008.
What that due to high NG prices in 2008? Were investors fooled by high NG prices? I'm curious to see if they can borrow another $4B this year to keep the music playing. Oct 2012 will be telling when they have to extend the credit line.
Here are some more clues:
What is a "shelf prospectus"?
Hey, all of you nat gas experts: I have a question. Does it seem likely that the current NG glut in the US is something of a byproduct of the production of NG liquids? I.e., is the production of gas becoming secondary to the production of liquids?
As Art Berman pointed out, another contributing factor to the continued drilling in these shale plays is more liberal treatment of proven undeveloped reserves, combined with the mythical 6:1 ratio for converting natural gas to barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). On a cash flow basis, the ratio between natural gas to oil is something like 33 MMBTU to one barrel of oil, but under the new reserve rules, I think that a company can drill a few wells on large lease block and show everything in between as proven undeveloped and convert the gas reserves to BOE on a ratio of 6 MMBTU per BOE ratio. So, even though the wells might not make much economic sense on a per well basis, companies can show a large increase in BOE proven and proven undeveloped reserves, but on a net cash flow basis, the actual discounted present value of the proven and proven undeveloped reserves may be negligible, especially at current prices.
The problem is that once the companies are on the shale gas BOE treadmill, it's impossible to get off without crashing the stock price. They have to keep replacing rapidly depleting reserves.
Incidentally, this might be a useful graphic showing the Barnett Shale Play:
http://205.254.135.7/oil_gas/rpd/shaleusa1_letter.pdf
The area shown with an airplane symbol is the DFW Airport Lease. Projected cumulative production was supposed to be about 1,000 BCF from this lease. It looks like it will be more like 100 BCF, and it looks like late 2011 production will be about 10% of what Cheseapeake projected it would be. And the last numbers I looked at indicated an accelerating decline rate.
Thanks for the excellent graphic!
Heard a senior Cheseapeak production manager give a talk, and their message is certainly upbeat on Tarrant, though some more expensive wells aren't being drilled as rapidly as once would have been the case. Modest enhancements to frack tech will help some, and of course in-fill drilling still has a long way to go. Whether that results in 100BCF or 1000, I have no idea, but I do think it is worth tracking both rates and ultimate recovery, as the trade-off is a function of technology and evolving economics.
The presentation I saw was a talk to "friendlies", and he seemed pretty level, though of course he knows which side of his bread is buttered. He did say you wouldn't see him drinking his frack fluid, even the non-hydrocarbon green fluids. One of the best presentations I've ever been to, really, and to have a person of this caliber doing presentations makes clear that there is strong support of such tech-marketing efforts.
So, does that mean that some of the shale gas players will go bust? And if they do, or even if they only cut back on drilling, will NG supply decline enough to force the price up?
The US natural gas market is an oddity as far as world norms. It has a plethora of tiny and mid-size players, and the worldwide majors do not own a majority share, and there is no state-owned entity here. So yes, it is inevitable that some will go under.
NG is cheap because oil is expensive, and those producers who can do so focus on the wetter plays, so as to maximize production of associated liquids. Dryer shales like the Marcellus probably won't do quite as well as the Eagle Ford and such in a low-NG market.
Until consumers swing from oil to NG, or LNG exports arise, NG is likely to stay cheaper than oil on a parity-energy basis.
The new EPA regs on mercury, etc. will close down a lot of coal fired plants in the next couple of years. To be replaced by new NG plants in most cases.
Subtract a trickle of LNG exports and Canada using more NG up north (tar sands + Ontario is firing coal plants with NG by 2014).
Population growth of 0.9% as well.
I can see the NG overhang being burned up.
Alan
"The new EPA regs on mercury, etc. will close down a lot of coal fired plants in the next couple of years."
Thank heaven.
Unless one of the pandering republican presidential candidate whack job de jour gets elected and carries through with their promises to their whack job base and abolishes the EPA.
I wouldn't bet on it. I'd bet most of that coal capacity stays open with environmental retrofits. I didn't think they'd close Mohave, though, but that was a singleton decision. If uniformly applied EPA regulations are at work, only the most marginal plants will close. The power producers will have the price effect of natural gas demand in their economic model. Closing most coal plants and replacing them with the minimum amount of combined cycle would eliminate a lot of spare capacity by causing existing gas plants to run more, and roughly triple the amount of natural gas burned in the power industry.
Hawaii may have it bad, but everyone forgets about other parts of the U.S. that have it even worse like the CNMI.
Where and what political entity is CNMI?
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Better known as Saipan, where every single garment factory has now shutdown, the population is cratering, and the price of power makes Hawaii look good.
Mitsubishi working on light-duty electric truck for farmers, contractors
An electric version of the Kei Truck would suit me fine:
These little trucks are already lightweight and efficient and seem like good candidates for electric conversion.
Several years back already, the car lot in town picked up 4 of these used. Or very close to them. Japanese, fuel efficient, dump bed in the rear. They still sit there. Two biggest reasons folks cite for not wanting to get near them are parts, and clearance. To a lesser extent payload. As stated for the Volt downthread, the low clearance makes them worthless for all but a paved feedlot. And a paved feedlot requires much more payload.
Looking at them in the lot, I thought, yea, that might work. I like that dump bed. But when you stop and try them, they're not worth the money, 7K if I remember right.
A guy near my daughter has a Mazda Scrum (my 3YO granddaughter calls it the 'scum'), 2000 model IIRC. It has 4WD and even a granny gear, and he loads it down pretty good with alfalfa bales for his horses. Seems to have plenty of clearance. The only parts he's needed so far were brakes which he mail ordered. I see him buzzing around the county occasionally; top speed about 40-45 (with a tail wind), but he got tags for it. It's a bit noisy. He was an oil guy in Indonesia. There's also a similar Suzuki scooting around these parts.
Comparing these small vehicles (or their electric counterparts) to today's beasty trucks will be pointless in the near future, IMO.
Isuzu P'up diesel got 44 mpg (cruisin') in 1980 and would do pretty much anything you could do to it. That's a monster truck compared to these things, though.
I wasn't comparing it to monster trucks. In my case, a little gas wheel tractor with a bucket does more, faster. Less than 2K used. Without the clearance issues-the ones I looked at were maybe 4 inches off the ground. And I'm sure you've seen the links on electric conversion of small tractors. John of New Hampshire had a you tube link up on this site often several years back. I'm still wondering what the market for this vehicle was--small urban truck, sure, but why the dump bed? Not many things I think of that require small urban deliveries with a dump bed.
Long while back we had a tiny Subaru FF1 sedan, front wheel drive, that scurried all over. Used it alot for a couple bales piled into a relatively massive trunk, lidless. In SW MT, there are still guys putting up hay in stacks, using homemade beaverslides. Which are essentially a catapult to sling the hay up atop the stack. Often I've seen them using these and similar little sedans, just chassis, to pop the slide. If they should get stuck in wet ground, it's a second for a couple guys to lift them out.
http://art.mt.gov/folklife/folklife_beaverslide.asp
The mini truck really is too small to justify owning it in most American business settings.Registration and highway travel are problematical, and nearly anybody who would have use for one would also need a larger truck which could be used to do anything the mini truck does.
There is no way to recover the purchase price and operating expenses under these conditions;it's much cheaper to just put a few extra gallons of gas and a few more miles on an ordinary compact or regular size pickup truck.
I have seen a one put to good use on a large construction job hauling small amounts of materials or ferrying around supervisors and visitors.
The dump bed feature is nearly worthless- the load capacity is too small to bother with it to go anywhere after sand or gravel or mulch or just about anything else needed in quantity.
The 4x4 vehicles mainly intended for off road use such as Ghung mentions are great if you can afford them, capable of doing real work, but they are not well suited to highway use.
There are several in my neighborhood, but none of the people who are serious farmers own one, as they find it considerably cheaper and far more practical to own an old 4x4 compact truck.Such a truck truck will do almost anything the utility vehicle will, and a heck of a lot it can't.
Once there are enough of these utility vehicles around to buy a used one cheap, they will become popular tools on small working farms.
Yair...The the little truck shown above (I think) is a Honda. Over here they had one of Honda's 250cc aircooled motorcycle engines...not so good in that application.
On the other hand the Suzuki's had an automotive type ohc liquid cooled engine of around 800cc and went very well indeed. We had three of them as workshop vehicles and they were excellent for accessing crowded wharfs with welders and equipment.
I often took one on the ten hour trip from the gulf coast to Cairns and they would cruise at ninety kays. All these little trucks fell victim to the Australian Design Rules legislation.
Hopefully they will make a comeback as a lot of times they are all the truck you need. Tarted up with big wheels they were the weapon of choice for shooting tips after "the wet"...if you did get stuck three blokes could just carry them out.
Cheers.
"The mini truck really is too small to justify owning it in most American business settings."
My employer bought a bunch for maintenance to use as run-abouts around the chemical plant. They have their good points, but parts availability is nearly nothing. They were all bought used, and had been ridden hard and put away wet.
They seem to be getting replaced by ATV style utility vehicles. At least I see fewer and fewer little white trucks and more and more Kawasakis, and a few Polarises.
Polaris builds good machines, with good parts availability.So do all the Japanese companies such as Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, etc.
God help anybody that buys anything of this sort coming out of China.
Chinese power tools bearing well known American trademarks are ok- they are cheap enough that you can throw them away, and sometimes you can fix them.
Personally I wouldn't pay more than ten cents on the dollar for a Chinese off road utility vehicle a week old, but there are people putting new ones on credit cards -a local farm supply chain store has them for around four grand, whereas a comparable Japanese machine is twice to three times as much.
I learned the hard way about Chinese atv and scooter parts by wasting a huge amount of time trying to buy some.You can always get "anything you will ever want", except the exact item you really need.Shades of Alice!
Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never today.
There is not a single shop that I know of that will undertake to repair a Chinese motor scooter-certainly there is not one within a hundred miles that you can find with an internet search.
Polaris and Bombardier both are making good stuff. Bombardier (Can-Am) makes or plans to market electric and hybrid on and off-road stuff:
Can-Am electric side-by-side vehicle:
http://corp.brp.com/en-ca/innovation/advanced-concept-vehicles/can-am-el...
Can-Am Hybrid Roadster:
http://corp.brp.com/en-ca/innovation/advanced-concept-vehicles/can-am-hy...
Our sail transport co-op uses a 3-wheeler, discontinued (2008) Zap Xebra electric truck for short-term drayage. When the sailboat arrives, the e-truck meets it at the city dock to pick up the load.
On a practical urban city use note, it's worked fine for under 500 lbs. load, maxes out at 40 MPH, trusted for about a 10-mile range (we have these things called hills...) and charges overnight on a 120-volt (our Port of Seattle marina also offers a free charging station). On a too cute note, it's bright green and a head turner. It was easy to get tags and insurance. Not so good on window/door quality and a butterfly could produce more heat than the, ahem, "heater". That said, we're upgrading it for 2012 season with lithium batteries and Kevlar tires. We're also looking forward to renting it out to neighbors when Relay Rides arrives someday in Seattle. :-)
Warm winter brings bumper vegetable crops amid shortage fears
also Mild weather could spell vegetable shortages from BBC
I picked my brussel sprouts about 2 weeks ago. I could have easily let them go. Here in Wisconsin (south) it still hasn't come anywhere near 0F.
Interesting, couldn't find any sprouts round here for Christmas. I wonder if this was the cause?
NAOM
We have dropped a couple degrees below freezing only a handful of days so far this winter. A few years ago we had 0 Farenheit a few days. That's zone 7a, so that's what I plant to. But the temperatures so far this winter are zone 10a!
One of my apple trees still has not gone to sleep- it worries me. I would imagine the trees need their dormancy period to function properly. Our number of "chill hours" is becoming completely unpredictable, and it makes a big difference which varieties to plant. I read somewhere that the term "climate chaos" is a better description than climate change, and it is certainly beginning to seem that way.
Zone 10a... maybe I should plant some banana trees!
I saw some mushrooms yesterday in the forest. Swedish name is interestingly enough "Kantarell", but they have nothing to do with mexican oilfields. Also they have nothing to do with december either; they are gone by the end of october. But there was a second go around this year. Kantarell is the number one popular food mushroom in Sweden due to taste and some other qualities.
U.S. Court OKs immunity for telecoms in wiretap case
White House Refuses to Inform Lawmakers About Drone Operations
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"
"Wall Street published yesterday on Yahoo Finance lists their picks for the worst product flops of 2011. The list includes... and curiously listed the Chevy Volt as one of the flops."
I think most people can understand that Wall Street is friendly to those that would love for our addiction to oil to continue.
A flop? It won around 10 awards and has in many cases, after a year in operation, produced ridiculous mpg values of over 200 mpg.
Anyone who knows even a tiny bit about engineering and manufacturing can understand that it takes time to ramp up a completely new product like the Volt. Of course, if your intention is to make GM, the government or any alternative to oil look bad, well, I guess any data or "expertise" can be twisted.
Is the Volt expensive? Yes. Are the costs going to come down significantly once serious volumes are reached and successive design improvements are made? Of course. How about we don't judge things too quickly and give a little slack for serious attempts to help at least provide a slight possibility of allowing humans the ability to move around without a non-renewable resource that has mountains of evidence showing that the end of the ride up the bell curve may not only be coming to an end, but may have already occurred years ago.
So, dear Wall Street journalist, go ahead and fling your poo around. When the free bananas stop being delivered, don't give us that sad, lost look.
I'm certainly not going to try to provide cover for the Wall Street Journal, but I had a conversation with a friend last night that might be interesting to pass along. His father in-law had just purchased a Volt and this friend of mine had a number of opportunities to drive it. He mostly liked it. He said the pickup and the handling felt good (as good or better than his 2008 Prius or Honda Civic - non-hybrid), but he said that there was no way that he'd ever buy one for use in rural Vermont.
This friend of mine has driven a Prius since 2002. He lives off-the-grid in a solar PV and thermal home. This is not an individual that has a problem with products that are designed for efficiency rather than power.
The show stopper for him was the ground clearance. The fairing beneath the Volt flys a mere 3" off the ground. This is very low. For comparison, the Prius has almost twice the ground clearance (5.5"). He lives at the end of a dirt road that get's soft in the spring and often isn't plowed very well in the winter. The Volt would likely wind up plowing mud or snow for half the year, and he didn't figure that that would do much for his fuel efficiency.
- Jeff
Nobody has ever said the volt or any electric car is right for everyone. An battery loses a lot of efficiency in cold weather, so it's unlikely to useful for folks in Vermont. But there are 10s of millions of people in warm urban areas that would be a perfect fit.
As gas gets more expensive electrics will catch on. That could be years or decades. Car companies know that and are gaining experience.
Wired gives the Honda Civic Hybrid a back-handed compliment ...
As Good as Good Enough Gets
In addition to driving 1/3 as far to work as the average American, the average Canadian lives within easy walking distance of a bus, streetcar, light rail, rapid transit, commuter rail, or subway line and could just take transit if things got tough. Canadian cities have 2 or 3 times the transit ridership of American ones, for good reason.
Why buy an expensive electric car when you can take an electric rail vehicle or electric bus provided by your friendly local government? (Only a minority of buses are electric trolley buses, but they could be converted.)
People who have to drive on the highways could buy diesel TDI's. They have a far longer range than electric cars, and intercity driving distances in Canada are huge.
"Why buy an expensive electric car when you can take an electric rail vehicle or electric bus provided by your friendly local government?"
A few questions, though. Two or three times the typical American ridership (note - New York City is a mere and highly unrepresentative 3% of the US population) is still a very small minority - it's not Holland. If significant numbers try to commute on the tab of the local government, where will the extra transit vehicles, and in the case especially of trains, the extra slots in which to run them, plus the extra subsidies to run them, come from? Also, one needs transit to access both ends of the trip - as one tries to scale up, how many folks will prove to be so rich that they and their employers both can afford the obscene rents in the downtowns, where transit service is actually effective? What happens as finances tighten up and usage expands (diluting the subsidies), so that local government can no longer afford to give away rides practically for free, as has already happened in some places in Europe or Japan where $3 gets you pretty much nowhere? Or when, maybe, the non-government downtown employers, lacking unlimited taxing power, can no longer afford the obscene rents? Among those folks who do remain employed, how many who can't afford to live downtown will have all day to wait for a bus, or will need to commute at odd hours (often it's the not-so-well-paid janitor, not the well-paid lawyer, working the graveyard shift) when the buses are barely running, if at all?
I know that many Canadians smugly believe they're immune to the global financial crisis, but I do wonder. There sure is one gargantuan property bubble fixing to explode in Vancouver, for example.
IOW, while I imagine there's indeed some relative value in the situation, I question whether it will really prove to be quite such a facile slam-dunk. The tar-oil will help in Alberta, but of course to say that is not really to discuss getting off of oil.
BTW, do you have anything to substantiate that the average Canadian really lives within reasonable walking distance of a useful transit stop providing rides where and when he or she actually needs/wants to go? Is this really the case even in the Greater Toronto Area - never mind the smaller places where many live? If it is in the GTA, then why is there so darned much traffic?
As I noted last week, Toronto is really two cities: a heavily populated transit-serviced core and a semi-suburban outer ring. The outer ring has transit within the 10 to 15 minute walk zone that is the TTC's stated mandate, but the service may be hourly, as opposed to the 5-7 minute spacing on the Streetcar line in front of my house. I've been commuting to Grad school this fall, and have split the travel (8k) between my bike and the streetcar, depending on the weather. Only drove in once (had about 60 pounds of toolboxes and supplies that day; spent almost $30.00 to park.)
As for why there are all those cars, a big part of it is because people drive into the city from the outer suburbs: lots of people live in Mississauga or Oakville and drive into the city every day (both my sisters, for instance.) Also, there are jobs that require you to drive to several places in the course of the day, frequently with samples or tools. I know sales consultants who can't get on the TTC with, say, commercial video tripods, or lighting fixture samples for 3 different customers.
There is also a lot of freight moved, everything from bike couriers to semis leaving factories and warehouses.
Of course, if you really want to see a traffic jam, take away the TTC for a day...
Lloyd
"The outer ring has transit within the 10 to 15 minute walk zone that is the TTC's stated mandate, but the service may be hourly..."
That's kind of what I figured - possibly the average highly affluent urban Canadian gets metro-level service, with most others getting an occasional desultory bus, even if overall the level of service is more than in the USA (but still fairly low.) And anybody who has a family or even just a life simply doesn't have time to fritter away an hour waiting for a bus, and another half hour walking to and from it, plus a mind-numbing eternity as the bus creeps along stopping at every bloody corner. Plus there's a good chance that a person needs to go, say, north or south but the hourly bus only goes east-west.
And really, it's not necessarily very much better in Holland, France, or even Japan or New York City, if you live someplace safe and affordable. You might get a bus or tram once in a half-hour or hour that goes along one axis and no other. And with European public finance going pear-shaped, this can't improve (they seem to have utterly forgotten that before you can distribute stuff, you have to produce it.) Frequent comprehensive (metro-level) service is often for affluent urbanites who can afford eye-popping rents, not for the average person in a peripheral cité; and it may become even more so.
The fundamental trouble with mass transit remains that it requires masses of people crammed together at fantastic expense in order to function really effectively. An added trouble, of course, is that Manhattanized landscapes such as have been described for Calgary will become highly dysfunctional the moment the electricity supply becomes even a little bit dodgy due to primary-energy considerations or to needed power plants being shut down upon the demand of "environmentalists". Who wants to board an electric train or even an elevator, knowing that he or she has a decent chance of being locked in it for hours (and possibly wetting or soiling him- or herself)? Oh, and I was forgetting: there's also the endless blackmail from the unions.
No. The streetcars run through areas of low to upper-middle income, including public housing. There aren't enough really wealthy people in Toronto to make up the whole TTC ridership; there are about 550,000 two way trips a day. With only 2.5 million people in the city proper, that would require 20% of the population to be very wealthy, and to be displacing not-rich people from the system. Happily, this is not the case. A diverse cross section of people use the TTC; rich people live further downtown and take cabs (or limos or ridiculously expensive sports cars.)
The areas with that sort of bus service tend to be low density, and predicated on automobile use. If they were high density, they would have transit. That's not just a glib phrase: new high density developments in Toronto are positioned only where transit is available (nothing else would sell). Anything more than 20 years old with high density (which is essentially all high density) is well serviced by transit (with the exception of the Finch corridor. A fully-funded and approved light rail system for Finch was cancelled by the current Mayor for ideological, rather than financial, reasons.)
As always, you ignore the expense and subsidies inherent in the suburban landscape. Neither suburb or large city is sustainable; the issue is which does less harm. You could build a condo tower in the farmland 40 miles from the city; you couldn't charge half a million dollars for it. The housing costs are the result of being near the jobs the city provides; we pay them because overall, it's a good deal. It's the cost of getting into the Toronto employment market on one hand, and built environment on the other. Those subway and streetcar lines were built with tax dollars over the past 80 years, and have raised the value of every property in the city. Your city or town didn't build subways or light rail over the past 100 years? Or zone for density? Or did sell all the farmland for McMansions? That might have something to do with why you don't have transit. It's not magic; it's careful urban planning.
I know...isn't it wonderful that there is no union labour in automobiles? Or in oil production? Or housing? Or road building? And the cop unions... no blackmail there. And I'm sure you never tried to get a raise either.
possibly the average highly affluent urban Canadian gets metro-level service, with most others getting an occasional desultory bus, even if overall the level of service is more than in the USA (but still fairly low.)
No, the rail systems tend to go through higher-density neighborhoods, which generally are low to medium income (a lot of multiple unit dwellings). The highly affluent tend to live in low density districts with single-family houses on large lots, which generally don't have as good transit service.
And anybody who has a family or even just a life simply doesn't have time to fritter away an hour waiting for a bus, and another half hour walking to and from it, plus a mind-numbing eternity as the bus creeps along stopping at every bloody corner.
Look at it from the perspective of the post-peak oil era, when only the affluent will be able to afford fuel. The less-than affluent will have to take transit, because that is all they will be able to afford. It would be better from their perspective if they had frequent, convenient transit service. In the US, they generally will not get it, but in Canada they have a better chance of getting access.
Manhattanized landscapes such as have been described for Calgary will become highly dysfunctional the moment the electricity supply becomes even a little bit dodgy due to primary-energy considerations or to needed power plants being shut down upon the demand of "environmentalists".
Well, for one thing Calgary is a conservative kind of business-oriented city in which "environmentalists" don't get a lot of respect, and for another, there is a natural gas field underneath the city and it is ringed by NG burning power plants. It's true that most of the electricity comes in from elsewhere, but the Conservative government of Alberta is not noted for letting people get in the way of industry.
Alberta is a very conservative, very organized, very controlled kind of place where the authorities don't let things go wrong. The nails that stick up get hammered down. It doesn't even have any rats, for gosh sakes. The government killed all of them, and there is a $5,000 fine for anyone found in possession of a rat.
Oh, and I was forgetting: there's also the endless blackmail from the unions.
Oh, and it's an anti-union kind of place. The government doesn't like unions and even the union members don't like unions.
BTW, do you have anything to substantiate that the average Canadian really lives within reasonable walking distance of a useful transit stop providing rides where and when he or she actually needs/wants to go?
Statistics Canada Study: Public transit
I know that many Canadians smugly believe they're immune to the global financial crisis, but I do wonder.
Canada has been relatively immune to global economic problems, but that is because the Canadian government kept its spending within reason and didn't allow the banks to become overextended lending money to marginal borrowers.
If significant numbers try to commute on the tab of the local government, where will the extra transit vehicles, and in the case especially of trains, the extra slots in which to run them, plus the extra subsidies to run them, come from?
Governments will have to buy more buses and trains, and lay down more tracks. This is not rocket science, they just need to increase fuel taxes to cover the additional public transit costs.
how many folks will prove to be so rich that they and their employers both can afford the obscene rents in the downtowns, where transit service is actually effective?
Why would the rents downtown be excessive? Why would transit not service the suburbs of a city?
What happens as finances tighten up and usage expands (diluting the subsidies), so that local government can no longer afford to give away rides practically for free,
In Toronto, transit fees cover 67% of the costs, in Calgary, it's 50% of the costs. Most Canadian cities fall within those ranges. And why would local finances tighten up, since government financing in Canada is in good shape. If local governments need more money, they raise taxes.
Among those folks who do remain employed, how many who can't afford to live downtown will have all day to wait for a bus, or will need to commute at odd hours (often it's the not-so-well-paid janitor, not the well-paid lawyer, working the graveyard shift) when the buses are barely running, if at all?
The Canadian unemployment rate is significantly lower than in the US, and in fact some parts of the country are starting to experience labor shortages. And, *NEWS FLASH*, Canadian GDP per capita is now higher than in the US. Canadians have a lot of money to pay for this stuff.
The key to effective transit is to run vehicles frequently and at all hours of the day. The Calgary LRT trains, which I took to work for years, run every 4 minutes on-peak; 15 minutes off-peak; 22 hours a day, 7 days a week. They shut them down for 2 hours a day from 1:30 to 3:30 am to do scheduled maintenance on the track.
It costs them very little to run the system in the wee hours of the morning because they need only two guys in the control room plus one driver per train to operate the system, and they buy the electricity for the trains at off-peak rates.
No car will be perfect for everyone. And, by extension, I completely agree that the Volt may be a great car for a lot of people while a lousy choice for others. Time will tell and the Washington Post doesn't have enough data yet to make any judgement at this point. As I said in the first line, I wasn't really trying to lend any support for the WP article. I just thought I'd pass along the observations that I'd heard from a friend that had spent some time time driving a Volt.
The point that I was trying to make, was that not everyone has the same needs or sees design attributes (the fairing improves aerodynamics but lowers the ground clearance) in the same light. That's all.
By the way, this friend thought the Volt would be a great car for his father in-law who would be driving on well maintained roads in southern Michigan.
Volkswagen Beetle: Living rural, an hour from town, mom wants to go and you can't leave the kids, and it's time to do a month's shopping at Costco. The Beetle wont do at all! The Beetle sold really, really well.
That clearance would finish it around here. First tope and you've lost the floor.
NAOM
Unless it is part of an aggressive national plan of action to build our way toward sustainability (and hence radically reduce the place of automobiles in everyday travel), the "electric" car is simply a very dangerous technology. If it gets promoted and adopted without a surrounding transition effort, it will be a colossal waste of scarce resources and a major distorter of the required rebuild of the electrical grid.
When it comes to using 3,500 pound machines to take individuals to work and the grocery store, etc., slightly better is not close to good enough.
Meanwhile, I don't buy the "it takes time" excuse. Neither batteries nor "electric" cars are new technologies.
Meanwhile, some are already fretting over where the funds for road maintenance would come from, if too many people start driving electric cars and thus avoid paying gasoline taxes.
Besides being grossly premature, as it will take many years before a large percentage of cars on the road are electric, if ever, this worry is leading in a counter-productive direction. Some states are seriously considering per-mile taxes instead of the tax on gasoline. Besides the big-brotherish intrusion of proposed GPS tracking devices on all cars, such a shift would mean that Prius (or Yaris) drivers would pay the same as Hummer drivers. I.e., it will be a disincentive for the transition to cars that use less or no gasoline. Problem solved, uh?
Meanwhile, the obvious solution, raising the gasoline tax to something similar to what it used to be many years ago (corrected for inflation), is not mentionable in polite company.
Of course, with a sane government, the gasoline taxes would be raised to european levels, and the funds used to build transportation alternatives to cars.
Or even back to where they were on an inflation adjusted basis in the '60's! Fuel taxes currently pay for less than 1/3rd of direct road costs in the U.S.
Governments have become conduits for transferring wealth from citizens to the elite. Beats me why anyone would believe that giving more taxes to the conflicted self-serving morons in government is a good idea. I'm one of the unfortunates in Europe paying high fuel taxes and I can assure you I'm seeing no benefits from it, quite the opposite.
Even if the taxes were entirely wasted, which I doubt, at a minimum you are seeing the benefit of lower average fuel use in your country.
Anti-depressant use soars in England, linked to recession
"..as well as as greater awareness of mental illness."
Yes, being in touch with a depressing reality is to be mentally ill,
while being in denial is to be mentally healthful.
I was thinking the same thing. People are increasingly aware that their unsustainable lifestyle is unsustainable, yet they see no alternatives. Sensing ones future fate, yet trapped and hopelessly unable to do anything about it tends to cause depression. Treating the symptom does nothing except make the situation worse by dulling the senses and creating a sense of optimism where there is none.
Depression is an awful disabling affliction and often requires a path to a new life to overcome it.
"
• We're highly dependent on a finite fuel source controlled by crazy people who hate us
• We've done next to nothing about this problem for four decades
"
Let me put my tin hat on for a moment and imagine myself as a top general for the US military four decades ago...
Hum, so, there is a place, on the other side of the world, that has vast amounts of black gold. The kind of pure liquid energy that powers war. I guess that could be a very dangerous situation, now that we have reached peak oil. If we were to have a war against Russia, China and friends and they were able to gain control of the Middle East reserves, they would have a serious advantage over us. Let's face it, oil is the key to victory in any major war, just look at WW II. Maybe it would be very wise to figure out a way to... burn up all those reserves before they can come back to haunt us. If we did that, we would then at least be on an even footing. How could accomplish such a strategy in a nice, friendly way? It might takes 50 or more years.
Forty years later and guess what? The Middle East is peaking in production and in a few more decades it won't pose any significant threat to us. Perhaps we should just burn it all, everywhere.
So, although it might seem silly, at first glance, to be so dependent on the Middle East for their black gold, after a second thought there just may be a good reason for this "madness".
You really think the Saud family hates you ?
How about below ? Have you read wikileaks cables for instance regarding Saudis/Iran feud (even if nothing new)
Are you aware of the US/KSA "deal" ?
Truth is that the saddest thing around peak oil is the cover up that has been going on around US peak in 1970/71.
For instance the fact of having managed to label the first oil shock "Arab Embargo" when US peak (US number one world producer at the time) is of course the key event behind this shock, and the embargo never effective from KSA towards the US anyway (see James Akins interview about that and the whole story in "la face cachée du pétrole" for instance, great doc available on youtube and dailymotion, James Akins being the guy that audited US capacity under Nixon at US peak, and that was then US ambassador in Saudi Arabia afterwards, unfortunately no English version of this doc in English to my knowledge).
And then also all the "political traction" that has been going on on the IEA, see for instance :
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/how-the-global-oil-watchdog-failed-its-mi...
Indeed the result is not only that almost nothing has been done, but that today the majority of Americans still beleive US peak is a myth and prod from 10 millions barrels/day then to 5 millions now only due to environmentalist, and all repub candidates today providing more or less a set of variations around "drill baby drill, we can be energy independent let's go" or even being able to say :
"If we were serious, we would open up enough oil fields in the next year that the price of oil worldwide would collapse. "
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8646
For sure had the news on US peak (already 41 years ago) been provided to US population and world in general, the story would have been different. Now basically so much time in these lies that apparently no way to get out of them ...
And of course US gas tax still barely above zero :
Clearly if the US was planning for total economic suicide it wouldn't do much things differently from what is done today.
Oh yes Europe or the world not much better, but still ...
Perhaps a better formulation of the claim that everybody in sand 'n oil country hates us would go something like this:
Everybody except the royal families, strong men, and their hangers on hate us; most of them find it expedient to at least pretend they like us, since without us,since most of the ones in power got there with western help, and remain in power with western help.
This would in my estimation not be too far from the truth, which is VERY complicated.
Silverado.. on Love.
Paden: "Can't you see that this horse loves me?"
Cavalry Sargeant: "I had a women do that to me in Kansas City. Didn't make her my wife.."
Let me guess - the author has led a very fat and happy, (insulated") life?
"Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I"
This is a film documentary about frankly carving up the middle east for the oil to run the western nation's machines of war. There is no nonsense about people, freedom, or democracy. Most of the battles, in many arenas, are presented as being against the surprisingly fierce and capable Turks. This word may refer to the Ottomans. The history is extended into the 21st century.
It's still there, on Youtube, only now in one piece. I am very surprised.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VWIdX4Rm1I
Thanks for the link.
Below also a great doc about oil history and geopolitics from the beginning (only existing in French and German unfortunately to my knowledge):
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj4ev9_la-face-cachee-du-petrole-arte-1...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj4eum_la-face-cachee-du-petrole-arte-2...
With plenty of archive footage and key guys interviews : James Akins, Gorbatchov, ex Saudi oil minister, Campbell, Simmons, etc ..
Amongst other things, especially Akins explaining that during the "arab embargo", tankers were going from Saudi Arabia to Vietnam for the US army through Bahrain (to make it more discrete for the Saudis).
And at that time some voices (especially from two US senators) were starting to ask for some "action" against the arabs regarding the embargo, Akins asked to be able to tell them the truth, he did, so they shat up and never any leak ...
Also the Mossadegh story.
And the story around the deal between Reagan and KSA to increase prod (oil glut starting 85) and put the last blow on the USSR (Gorbatchov interview on that, as it indeed cut USSR foreign currency revenues by 2 thirds)
Thanks for that. Looking forward to watching. Downloading now. For a humorous and still insightful treatment of the same, see Robert Newman's History of Oil, which may be more useful in opening other's eyes.
Thanks Kaliman, Ives and clif. I've seen and loved Robert Newman's history- will bookmark it now.
An Energy-Independent Future (Video)
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me eight times, am I a f&*!ing idiot?!?!?!? I must be an idiot!"
Good one ! :)
Too bad none of them talked about the only true measure available to accelerate the move: volume based taxes ..
(and end any subsidies on opex, only on r&d, investment maybe)
Massive dust storm closes interstate in Idaho
http://news.yahoo.com/massive-dust-storm-closes-interstate-idaho-0227255...
Last year I recall that hi-desert stretch had seemingly unending snow and blizzards from Thanksgiving on.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholds Cape Wind Energy Deal
The other day we learned China is going to build 8 gigawatts of new coal power. It looks like India is looking to match them...
Humans won't stop until everything flammable has been ignited.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/29/indian-essar-eight-coal-f...
China's was just ONE 8GW plant. They are building a LOT more than that.
Link up top: Silver Price: Attention All Crybabies, Get the Checkbook Out!
This link gives a link to Robert Hirsch on Financial Sense Newshour MP3 Podcast. This is an extremely interesting audio. Hirsch discusses peak oil, shale oil, and Daniel Yergin among other things.
Just a heads up for those who enjoy podcasts, as I do.
Ron P.
Ron...if you liked that one you should also listen to the Steven Leeb podcast from the same program..
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/in-depth/2011/11/...
Workers on an Offshore Oil Platform Toil at Length in Tight Quarters, Then Enjoy Long Breaks
related Deep Gulf drilling thrives 18 mos. after BP spill
S - Not as bad as it might sound. And much better than the old days. Thirty some years ago on my first hitch in the GOM I slept in a 9-man bunk room: 3 triple bunk beds. Being the newbie I got the top bunk. Still easy to remember the gap between the mattress and the ceiling: the distance between my knuckles and elbow. Had to decide before I slipped in whether I wanted to sleep on my back or stomach.
Most offshore hands actually work 7on/7off. As a well site geologist I would work 14on/14off or 28on/28 off overseas. Longest hitch was 46 days: my back-to-back's wife was having a baby so I volunteered to work over. That started to get to be a bit much towards the end. A case of food poisoning didn't help either. LOL. Usually 2 to 4 to a room these days. Food is almost always very good (except on a Russian drillship where I got food poisoning...twice). But the "crazy" part? Not really. A hand either has no problem with the schedule or he quits. Essentially a self correcting problem. Most actually enjoy the schedule for a variety of reasons. I liked it because my daughter lived a 5 hr round trip away. When I was off hitch I was able to be more involved in her weekday school/sports activities. Some guys have a business on the side or farming/ranching they tend to on days off.
And as I mentioned a few days ago, holidays and anniversaries aren't a problem. Birthdays aren't always on the same day every year and Christmas isn't always 25 December. In fact this year my daughter was very happy to have two Christmas': 25 Dec and 1 January. Except I just found out her Christmas with me will be 7 January...heading out to a rig tonight. Ahhh...the glamorous life of a petroleum geologist...wonder if Sonic will be open New Year's day?
I'd prefer that to some of the shite when I was wrangling computers. Never know when you will get off site, Oh! can you do a couple of hours on the weekend - bang goes that party you were going to, suddenly find yourself looking for a room in some distant part of the country and having to sleep in the car. Yep, food poisoning there too. Crashed out on the bed, no clothes, after chucking for the 199th time and in walks the maid and straight back out.
NAOM
WIMP! You should try supporting computers when you have to drive 500 miles through a blizzard at 55 below to get there, or when you your computer starts failing because toxic H2S gas has eaten the contacts off the circuit boards, or you have to evacuate the area because a forest fire is bearing down, or when you have to sneak past 5 bears on the front step to get to the computer room.
Not all at the same time, of course, because when it's 55 below the bears are hibernating and there are not many forest fires. But it's still stressful all the same.
;)
Sounds like a fun job. Must admit I am not a big fan of the 55 below but the other things don't sound too bad. I guess we just substituted searching for bombs and being evacuated because of other people searching for bombs for the bears. I would have preferred the bears.
NAOM
On days like today it is the best job on earth, I am sitting in an airport waiting for my plane home after being delayed a day due to snow. So I will be having New Years at 30,000ft.
Happy New Year to all.
We get a head start on this side of the world.
12 hour shifts for 14 days? That would be luxury compared to one of my youthful mis-adventures. Try working on a factory trawler in the Bering Sea, basically a floating cannery-cold storage-fish factory with a trawl deck on top.
I'll never forget the weather up there. Standing in the wheelhouse (or rather hanging on for dear life), watching the bow of the ship disappear into furious green water as we rode out 30ft swells all night long.
Talk about "concentrating the mind"...
Cheers,
Jerry
50 doomiest graphs of 2011
WHO "deeply concerned" by mutated birdflu research
That brings to mind the story earlier this week of Venezuela's Chavez speculating on how he got cancer. A plot? Off the wall, but apparently 4 other leftist SA leaders have gotten cancer this year.
Lot's of unfiltered cigarettes.
NAOM
Filters make any difference?
They should take out most of the tar and the larger particulates. So at least some classes of harmful stuff are reduced.
I think more recent research has established that the filters don't help at all. This, of course, has been the subject of lawsuits against the tobacco companies on the grounds that they mislead the public.
When I was a kid, the big advertising push was for "Kent" cigs with a "micronite filter" to make smoking healthier. It was asbestos.
No kidding? I remember those micronite filters only too well.
Gun sales at record levels, according to FBI background checks
It would be interesting to know what part of the country all these gun buyers are coming from. This is not going to end well for most of us.
Nah, the Christmas rush is just buying Daddy another toy that Mom told him they didn't have money for when he spotted it in May.
My niece and her husband gave each other shotguns and pistols for Christmas. They live in Georgia which has a bill pending to eliminate carry permits; any legal handgun owner can carry it concealed if the bill passes. I'm not sure how I feel about that, since I don't believe many folks are even emotionally equipped to drive a car.
In North Carolina I have to have a background check and an extensive training course provided by the Sheriff's Office to get a permit, despite having NRA certs and a background check when purchasing a weapon. Of course, as they say, the bad guys don't care about permits. I used to live in Kennesaw, GA, where every head-of-household was required to have a gun. Yeeha!
What movie was it where some guy on a subway pulled a gun and the other 30 passengers all pulled theirs?
Having an acquaintence with Bi-Polar, you absolutely shouldn't have a firearm in the household! And the prevalence of just this one ailment is 3%! Pretty scary to think that people will feel they have to have one. You have to soberly evaluate the risks versus the benefits. In a lot of situations the risks dominate.
Unfortunately there are people who are unaware they have BP and blame the swings on people around them.
NAOM
D - And that's exactly why you need to run down to Walmart and pick you up one. LOL. Actually it does give me some pause also. I used to be a NRA safety trainer. I turned away about half the folks who came to me after interviewing them. They just didn't have the right frame on mind IMHO. But someone eventually certified them and their out there now...maybe living right next door to you.
Sleep well.
"They just didn't have the right frame on mind IMHO."
In the old days we used to call these kinds of people, "cannon fodder."
In the middle of May this year my brother-in-law of 28 years and unemployed for the last 25 years (couldn't hold a job) father pasted away. His mother gave him his father hunting rifle (30 odd 6) after his death. No permit required.
Two weeks later, mine and my sisters father pasted away. He was a good man. The next month my sister informs my brother-in-law that she wants a divorce and he realizes she means it. My father had been hoping she would do this for the last 20 years. But, they had 3 kids that are now in their twenties. I think she figured out that life was to short to be baby sitting her husband and the kids where pretty much raised. So it was time to move on.
My brother-in-law had the red nose of an alcoholic and had a coke problem in the 80's. Now to find out that he also had a meth problem three years ago. His criminal record was clean as a newborn baby.
On anti-depressants on a Saturday morning in early August, he got up and went to the Big 5 sporting goods store and bought a box of bullets for the gun. Went back home with my sister sound asleep lying on her stomach in bed and he blow her head off. Then sat down on the bed with a second bullet and said good-by to the world.
People, guns are not a LOL thing. The chance of this type of thing happening to an American is many more times than a Canadian. When it comes to guns and peak oil Americans are clueless.
Sleep well and remember, it can happen to you and the more guns out there the higher the chances.
I don't mean to seem insensitive to your personal tragedy, you certainly have my condolences and I'm sure the sympathies of of many here, but humans have been doing this sort of thing since long before firearms were invented. I agree that the gun-happy culture in the US is pretty crazy, but I help feed my family with a rifle similar to the one you describe. I try to not be flippant about my weapons and their uses, and discourage callous attitudes regarding weapons of all types. We even keep kitchen knives out of sight. I'm an American, and certainly not clueless about guns, or that there are folks who would gladly deprive me and mine of life and property. I have few expectations of a 'kindler, gentler' future.
Well said.
And I do get just a bit tired of "Americans this" and "Americans that". Yes, I know, there's something behind the caricature, but my friends and I do not in any way resemble the morons that the rest of the world seems to think all Americans are. The US is a big diverse country.
Been wanting to get that off my chest for a while now.
My, my. Aren't we defensive today.
I have to assume that cookie was talking about the rabid cold-dead-fingers Americans who can see no downside to our easy access to these very lethal weapons.
As Rock said, lots of people are not well equipped mentally or emotionally to handle the responsibility of gun ownership.
Of course, you can kill people in other ways, but look at the homicide rate in the US versus any other industrialized country. It is just a whole lot easier to kill someone, by mistake or on purpose, with a gun than with a knife.
I have very politically conservative uncles and cousins who have lived in Korea most of their lives. The one thing they can't go along with American conservatives on is the need that everyone have easy access to guns.
Koreans can be very hot-headed, and they pride themselves for being fierce fighters. The last time I went there, it wasn't ten minutes before I saw a fight break out in a park.
But their homicide rate per capita is minuscule compared the that of the US, and my relatives, and most other analysts, chalk that up largely to the fact that there is little easy access to guns, outside the military.
Perhaps some of us don't want to be penalized/stigmatized because others are screwed up. I pay ridiculous insurance rates because others don't pay attention when driving, even though I haven't had an accident in over 35 years of driving; not a single moving violation. I can't afford medical insurance even though I keep myself relatively healthy and have made less than $1000 in insurance claims in my lifetime. I breath nasty air every day because a vast majority of the population refuse to pay for clean, renewable energy and refuse to reduce their obscene consumption. I pay taxes to mitigate others' behavior in many ways. I pay property taxes to support law enforcement that shows up after the crime has been committed, so if someone breaks into my rural home in the middle of the night, I would be deprived of an effective means of blowing his ass away?
This has happened twice in my life. Both times I fired out the window into the ground. The cops said it was likely he wouldn't come back to my place; ("wish you'd shot him"), and I always wonder if the guy who broke into my last house went somewhere else and did harm to others.
The world we wish for and the world we live in are very different. Only fools outsource their own safety, so explain to me again why I should be deprived of my weapon because some meth head shot his wife; because some 15 year old shot a store clerk. WTSHTF, who'll cover your but? Your neighbor who refused to give up his gun? The cop down at the doughnut shop?
/rant
Well, it looks like I really whacked a stick into a hornets' nest on this one.
I'm not talking about prying your precious gun from your cold, dead fingers.
I just think it's way too easy for any wacko to get a gun in this country, and it sounds like rockman, at least, agrees with me.
I myself don't think guns have made us safer individually or collectively. But I'm not advocating breaking down doors and confiscating them from current gun owners, for heaven's sake. So calm down.
Nothing that I own is more precious than a human life; yes, even the life of some scumbag trying to steal from me. If you have a different view, well, you're the one who will have to live with having done whatever you do.
A little boy was just killed by a stray bullet not too far from my house, so I'm a bit miffed about this myself right now, I guess. He was walking down the stairs in his own home, and the bullet came through the wall and splattered his brains all over the railing. This has become an all too common occurrence here and elsewhere.
I'm one of those guys who carries a firearm "cocked and locked" - it's plain crazy to not carry one in this day and age, and especially because I'm me. I also follow Massad Ayoob, a well-known firearms trainer, with particular attention paid to his line:
There is indeed a cause for concern for those who hold a concealed weapon's permit and do not treat their firearm with the respect it deserves. To ensure the best outcome possible, I practice at least once per week at the range - I try my best to guarantee that if I ever draw my gun my target(s) will be the only one(s) subject to my self-defensive wrath.
To that end, there's but only one time a gun should be drawn and put to use - when AOJ (Ability, Opportunity, Jeopardy) has been satisfied. For example, someone one hundred feet away is not a threat. I feel that the majority of persons carrying concealed are not worthy of their permit.
Personally, I worry about where it's said that if one hasn't had a negligent discharge, it just hasn't yet happened. (There is no such thing as accidental discharge except where a gun has malfunctioned). I take great pains to avoid such an occurrence! Youtube is rife with people shooting themselves by accident.
Enjoy this one - a DEA agent shoots himself at a seminar - it's a hoot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmRN00KbCr8
Out of curiosity, why do you say that?
The rate of violent crime in the US has been falling for the last two decades, and is the lowest it's been in 40 years. It's fallen about 50% since the early 90s, including a 12% drop in the last two years alone.
Unless you were referring to a non-crime-related concern, this day and age does not seem to be a particularly bad one in which to not carry a weapon.
Thanks for reminding us of that, pte.
You should not carry a gun around, especially a loaded one, unless you are ready to become a murderer.
That does not seem to be a fair characterization.
In particular, killing someone in self-defense is not legally, linguistically, or (generally) morally considered to be murder, and my understanding is that there are differences in the psychological impact on the killer between murder and justifiable homicide.
dbl post
OK, unless you are willing to become someone who has killed another human being.
General morality is not a very high standard, by the way.
"The rate of violent crime in the US has been falling for the last two decades,...
...while gun ownership has been increasing.. Gosh, I don't suppose the two are related....
You are mistaken.
From the General Social Survey, the fraction of Americans whose homes had a gun in them (row "owngun", column "year"), average by decade:
1970s: 50%
1980s: 49%
1990s: 43%
2000s: 36%
2010: 32%
Pit - Not that it proves the survey wrong in general, but I've never answered such a survey question honestly. And I doubt hardly any of the many dozen of weapon owners I personally know have answered it honestly either. I would assume we have more weapons in the US then ever before but distribution is a diffrent matter of course.
Totally unscientific, but in the small parts of the U.S. social milieu I am familiar with, the number of gun owners seems to have dropped dramatically in my relatively short lifetime. I tend to think that fewer people these days have spent time in rural households or the military, where they became comfortable with weapons. I know plenty of folks who do have guns who don't fit into either category, of course. The number of hunting licenses sold in 1975 was higher than the numbers recently, however, despite the growing population.
ben - As you say, unscientific, but I would say the number of folks I know who are gun owners is at least 50% greater today than 30 years ago. But I do live in Texas. In fact, I'm not sure if I know many people who don't have at least one weapon in the household. Maybe a little chicken and egg effect since they passed the concelled carry law here some years ago. In fact, I can think of only one transplanted Yankee I know who dosn't own a weapon. Maybe it's something in the water in the Lone Star state.
dohboi,
Thank for your words on this subject. I get the feeling others views really might not be so much pointed at guns as they are about my description of my brother-in-law. It might have gotten a little personal. You notice the tone, demeanor, opinions and rants expressed above could all be my brother-in-law. I could almost hear him saying what others above have posted at a family holiday get together.
If guns where really that important to someone. Then they should go try living in a third world country like Iraq or Afghanistan. Let them feel first hand what life is about with more and more guns. I would prefer a more civilized society. And just because that more civilized society isn’t going to be perfect, doesn’t mean we have to continue down our current path.
I think my brother-in-law made a stupid promise to himself at some point in his life that if he couldn’t have her, nobody could. He said he loved her. The way he lived his life, he had nothing with out her. He used her for over 28 years. It was all too easy for him to do what he did and he never understood a commitment to discipline, focus and work.
With such little effort one can take another life in a tenth of a second with a gun. We all have the ability of anger inside us as a defense mechanism to life.
Anger and guns don’t mix well
Cookie;
I'm so sorry. I do appreciate your sharing this with us, though.
My heart goes out to those kids and to you. It's just a terrible loss.
Bob
"Anger and guns don’t mix well"
Yep, and no human can know when they may be driven to extreme levels of anger and passion.
Sorry to hear about your experience. Best wishes for a peaceful New Year.
I started the process to get a Possession and Acquisition License (a Canadian gun license) after the Arab Spring started in March. It takes 2 to 4 months to get a long gun up here; it's one of those things it's easy put off, especially since I hadn't had a gun in my hand in 35 years and had previously decided that I would never own one.
The first step is a fairly comprehensive 12 hour course in gun safety. My joke to my wife was that I may be the first left wing survivalist that this particular teacher had ever seen.
It turned out that two of the other attendees were there because of political uncertainty: three out of 6.
Lloyd
Canuck - I'll give you some unsolicited advice that I gave to all my students: Always leave the chamber empty and have a blank ready to pop in as needed. Despite what you see in the movies it's very difficult for most folks to drop the hammer on another human being. Hesitation is very good/very bad thing depending on the circumstance. But knowing you're firing a blank makes it easier. And if you point a weapon at someone and pop that cap they're aren't likely to hang around wondering why they're not bleeding. And if they don't run away you have pretty good motivation to chamber a live round and do what you think you have to do. And trust me: even then it probably won't be easy for you.
Some die hard gun enthusiasts won't like my blank ides. Try to avoid those folks. LOL. BTW: no...I don't carry a blank as a first shot. But I keep the chamber clear until I have a good reason to do otherwise. If hearing me rack a round in doesn't convince them to withdraw then they've made a poor decision. And my wife's revolver carries nothing but blanks. She acknowledges she's one of those nervouse types that should never touch a loaded weapon.
A cautionary note: if you go with a blank be very careful. Believe it or not, blanks can do a lot of damage to the human body...even kill if it goes off close to your skull.
Story in the Denver Post this afternoon about a 17-year-old girl up in Cheyenne who dropped her purse at Starbucks and her shiny new Christmas present discharged, narrowly missing some customers. My guess as to cause -- and it's just a guess -- is live round in the chamber, safety off, and something in the purse pushed the trigger. The girl was cited for underage possession of a firearm. All I can say is, if it had happened to me when I was that age, a citation would be the least of my worries. Lord only knows what dad and grandpa would have done to me when I got home.
Interesting idea. I think there is a lot to think about. Of course the poor schlock who has a bad day, and goes for suicide by policeman (point a gun at an oficier, and let him shoot/kill you), will still be just as dead -but the officier will probably feel worse about having been the instrument of his demise.
Here's an argument for why to carry with one in the pipe:
warning: someone dies in the video
http://www.ignatius-piazza-front-sight.com/2011/04/04/front-sights-monda...
Thanks for the tip on chambering a blank. Makes good sense.
Still a while before I get my papers here but when I do I will be applying for a permit and weapon. I'm not sure how things will roll along if the PRI get back into power.
NAOM
You can't put Humpty together again. I have a hard time believing any political event is going to unscramble this mess. Not hard to see it getting even worse, I suppose. If PRI wins I wouldn't be surprised by a PAN coup ala the attempt in Venezuela on Chavez.
Do you see any path to the violent death rate coming down to a U.S. level of mayhem?
No. What you need to remember though is that it is mostly gang v gang and within gang. Eliminate those from the statistics and the numbers are a whole lot better. Taking the army off would be opening a flood gate. The local police can't cope, they don't have the firepower and are totally open to bribes. It takes military fire power to take on groups of 40+ cholos, fuelled up on drugs/alcohol/testosterone and armed with AK-47s, grenades, Brownings etc driving around in armoured vehicles. When a policeman earns around 145$US a week it doesn't take a lot to get him to turn a blind eye.
NAOM
RE: "mostly gang v gang and within gang" That's true here, too. Over half the homicides in L.A. are gang-related. Only 14% of homicides in the U.S. last year were by strangers. Other than gang violence, murder in the commission of a robbery (cabdrivers, and liquor store clerks), domestic violence, and workplace violence, you are left with very small numbers.
Incidentally not sure if I mentioned it here but there was a workplace shooting by a middle-aged 7 year IT employee, behind on his mortgage, at my company week before last (guy shot 4, and killed two before taking his own life). He waved non-management employees out of the room individually before opening fire. He killed two managers and shot a 3rd, after being reprimanded (possibly inappropriately) and learning he wasn't getting a bonus, they had also recently laid off his daughter (contract worker and a member of his household). I speculate that he had already promised the bonus to the mortgage company to catch up.
Doubly nasty just before Christmas. Why is it that the USA seems to have so many of these types of incidents while they are rare elsewhere or is it that we just hear more about in from the USA?
NAOM
Average in the U.S. is fewer than 200 a year killed at work by people who know them (includes customers and domestic abusers), so I'd say this is mostly about how much attention we pay to it.
So see Arab-Spring, want to get a gun. Two obvious interpretations, shoot protestors, or start armed revolution. Neither sounds like it would have a happy ending.
Uh, no.
See world becoming unsettled, possible disruptions in oil supply, leading to disruptions in food supply, leading to unrest and possible insurrection. Knowing that it takes months to get a gun, and time to learn to use it safely and effectively. Don't see any indications that suggest a world of fluffy bunnies and unicorns coming before a time of crisis and shortage. Better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it.
Both wrong... more likely to shoot invading Americans ;) .
...while living in a country that is a major exporter of both, and is protected by oceans from direct effects of the unrest.
You're free to get a gun if you like, but realize that the Arab Spring isn't a sensible trigger for that - you're probably in the least-threatened place in the world.
While that may be an enjoyable macho fantasy, it's not very likely, for the simple reason that an invaded-and-damaged Canada is less beneficial for the US than an allied-and-functioning Canada. Any scenario where the US needed Canada's oil desperately enough to invade would be a situation where the US would be in no position to handle the immediate and long-term disruption of its largest source of oil imports.
It's easy to say that now. Less so in the moment. I have a longer-term view of things, and there's no telling when, or how, or if, things will break down. I don't want to be overtaken by events, and things with a 4 month waiting period can seem like an eternity when the world is in flux. I couldn't say with 100% certainty that Saudi Arabia wouldn't undergo a societal revolt (though I didn't think it likely.) I was also surprised that the removal of Libyan supplies didn't cause more trouble than it did.
As it turns out, I haven't purchased a gun, and haven't processed the paperwork for my PAL ($80.00 that I have better use for right now.) So a potential gun purchase is about a month away, rather than 3 or 4.
Here's a scenario: Canada builds a pipeline to Kittimat and starts exporting all the Oil Sands oil to China; the US refused to build Keystone and is buying oil from Africa and South America.
Suddenly, foreign prices go up and the US can't afford the oil.
No downside to invading Alberta there.
Or:
The US has split into 4 warring states: the northeast decides to "rationalize" the power output from Niagara Falls, and Ontario won't go along with the changes. They take Niagara Falls, the grid goes down on the Canadian side, we have rolling blackouts and civil unrest, and all of Southern Ontario degenerates into chaos. Then refugees from the Southwest decide they want the farmland on the other side of the border.
My view is more long-term than short-term. There is a smiley face after that comment, but it is only half in jest. All you have to do is look at the current slate of Republican candidates, and the past 30 years of American foreign policy (not just the wars, but the trade deals and Kyoto), to know that this is not a rational state that can be counted on to soberly consider it's long term interests and do the right thing. You're going to want our resources, and you won't play nice.
As for the "macho fantasy" part, I really don't want to shoot anybody, and I don't really want a gun in my house...the problem is that the sociological costs of owning a gun, that is, the increased chance of accident, suicide or family homicide, are starting to be outweighed by the negative opportunity cost (I hope I'm using that correctly) of being unarmed in the case of societal collapse or unrest. I don't really think I'll be the last man standing; I'm 53, and it is likely that Canada will be civilized longer than most places if a collapse occurs. If we go with the Meadow's Standard run, I'll be in my seventies when things break down, and even armed, I probably wouldn't last that long. If anything happens in the next ten years, though, I'm going down fighting.
Lloyd
Perhaps I should have specified "no plausible scenario".
The proposed pipeline to Kitimat will move 0.5Mb/d out of about 2.2Mb/d in 2015 (which is probably earlier than the pipeline could be completed; estimated production for 2020 is 3Mb/d; total Canadian oil production is about 50% higher).
So the odds of a pipeline carrying all of Canada's oil away from the US in the forseeable future are effectively zero.
Accordingly, a US invasion of Canada would still be an invasion of their major oil supplier, which would sharply cut supplies. Worse, though, is that invading a peaceful modern democracy for its resources would rightly worry every other advanced nation, and would make the US something of a pariah state. Trade would be sharply curtailed, leading to much more economic damage than simply buying less oil would have caused.
Your view is more fantasy than either-term.
If you're starting with "assume the US has split into multiple warring states, invades Canada, and starving refugees are pouring into my area", you're only marginally closer to reality than "assume the zombie apocalypse".
That's not to say it couldn't happen, but it seems like a less-than-rational basis on which to make firearms decisions.
If you're 53 and concerned about needing guns to defend your Canadian homestead from rampaging hordes in the next ten years, your biggest risk is probably the increased chance of cardiovascular disease from stress.
Seriously - "the Arab students protesting for democracy in Egypt are scaring me, so Imma get a gun to defend my middle-class Canadian home" sounds like a comedy sketch. Consider whether your fear may be doing more harm than good to your long-term prospects.
It's the "forseeable future" part we disagree on. If I knew with absolute certainty that we won't have a collapse, I wouldn't think about owning a gun. These scenarios are obviously not fully formed, but as you admit, "that's not to say it couldn't happen." Do you know when the drought in the Southwest will end? Unless you can tell me, I think considering the possibility of refugees from there is perfectly reasonable. We can't see the future. Period. That is my basis for starting this process. Boy Scouts and the Three Little Pigs: be prepared. I suspect that at some point in my life- hopefully later rather than sooner- it might be a good idea to have a gun. Your story is chicken little: nothing is going to happen in my lifetime, and your fears are not real. Are you telling me that you are convinced we'll have BAU for the next 30 years? That things will only change for the better, or in slow increments that are easy to react to? That there is no possibility of a sudden change in our society? If so, I don't buy it.
My firearms decisions are based on my belief that the world is deep into overshoot and that something is going to give in my lifetime. I don't know when or which of the many hazards we face will create a tipping point, or if we'll just slide down to 2025 and then discover an easy route to fusion reactors. I do know that there are hinderances to the procurement of a gun in Canada, and that I can do something about that specific problem. It is not a decision I have made lightly or that is based on a single event. My kid is not allowed to have war toys, and I decided in my 20's never to own a gun. This is a change I have considered for several years, and that weighs on me.
I made it clear that I was concerned about changes in the governments of the Middle East causing rapid changes in the oil supply, with unknown consequences.
Let me restate that: I was concerned about unknown consequences.
The time to stock up on staples is before the hurricane is detected. And I do believe that metaphorical hurricane is coming.
And to clarify: that metaphorical hurricane is overshoot and its consequences.
I use seat belts, bike helmets, smoke detectors...most of the time I don't need them. At the moment your bike gets caught in the streetcar track, you want to be thinking "glad I bought that bike helmet," not "hmmmm....maybe that wasn't a good way to save twenty bucks."
Lloyd
Mixed feelings as usual. On the one hand, people are starting to get it, and are acting to defend themselves. Can't say that I blame them.
On the other hand, try convincing Americans, who grow up with the myth of the rugged individualist conquering the frontier and then the world, that guns don't solve anything.
What an interesting country. So libertarian, yet has the biggest national military complex. So forward thinking and yet regressive. So free and yet we imprison the most people. So apparently brave and bold, yet everybody is afraid of each other and of ghosts around the corner.
Way too many have no idea what a firearm is all about. My father taught me long ago, I taught my kids. There are various hunter ed and safety programs, but they don't seem to reach people at all. I don't know what the problem is, whether it's tv and video games, no respect or what. In the last 6 years we've lost 4 cows to hunters. Ranch is posted, but it abuts government land. Just shot and left to rot. Standard reply used to be that they can't tell a deer from a cow, anymore I wonder if it's just they wanted to shoot something to see it die.
Stories like yours always amaze me. The utter stupidity of someone mistaking a cow for an elk or deer is beyond my comprehension.
But then again, each of the past two years over a dozen moose have been mistakenly shot here in Colorado by elk hunters. There are only 1700 moose in the whole damn state! Just incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ts4M3irWM
The desire (and historical right/rite) to hunt has been one of the primary justifications for essentially unfettered gun ownership in the US at least since Daniel Boone, I expect.
There are those stories of some frustrated "hunters" shooting other hunters, right at the end of their trip, because they hadn't bagged any other large mammal, and they'd spent a lot of time and money. "I thought that guy in the bright orange HiVis jacket was a bear, officer!". Sheesh.
We have accidents of that kind all the time in Sweden. 40 Km from where I live, a coupleof years ago a kid was killed. He was peeing, hiding in a bush. The bush moved, and the hunter fiered right into it, killed the boy instantly.
A hunter told me the story of an 80 year old hunter who planted 2 bullets at the trunk end of a Volvo at 400 meters distance. The car was driving, wich means the hunter was aiming dead center, on the car, on the road. Twice. Good for the drivers Volvo don't make small cars.
Big brave boys ... all those rugged individuals that go hunting, yessir. They have toys that will kill passive large mammals at 500 meters or even more. Oooh - I am so impressed by them, and their trophies on the wall!
Perhaps you are only familiar with trophy hunters. My 66 y.o. uncle doesn't have any trophy heads hanging on his wall, he believes they are silly. He has taken at least one deer every year for the past 50 years or so. He shoots it himself, transports it himself, dresses it himself and smokes or freezes it. That way he has cheap meat to put on the table or share with neighbors. I'm confident he's never wasted any of it. Some of my cousins do the same thing. He isn't traveling long distances (he usually gets his deer on his own property), or spending money on fancy scopes, or paying more to prepare the meat than the meat is worth, or paying a taxidermist to mount the head, or any of that. He's harvesting meat for personal use. It costs him less than buying hamburger, and tastes better, and that's why he does it. 97% of Americans eat meat. 99.5% eat some form of animal product. Hunting can be a productive local activity that supplies meat for the table at reasonable cost.
Last year, before Wisconsin's legislature passed the concealed carry law, we had a group of open carry advocates go to a regional hamburger chain outlet. Said they would be prepared if the restaurant was robbed while they were there. (Open carry had been legalized by an opinion letter from the state attorney general)
Quite frankly, I am more worried about a gun nut going off than I am about being robbed.
A Review of Annual Brent Crude Oil Prices
Here is a link to EIA data showing annual Brent prices, which is a good indicator of global crude oil prices:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RBRTE&f=A
Here are the annual Brent crude oil prices from 2005 on, along with the rates of change relative to 2005:
2005: $55,
2006: $65, +17%/year
2007: $72, +13%/year
2008: $97, +19%/year
2009: $62, + 3%/year
2010: $80, + 8%/year
2011: $111*, +12%/year
*Estimated
The 2011 annual Brent price is about twice the 2005 annual price, and it is the highest annual crude oil price ever, up 26% over the annual 2010 price, and up 14% from the annual 2008 price.
Note that we have had two price doublings since 2002, from $25 in 2002 to $55 in 2005, and then from $55 in 2005 to $111 in 2011.
In response to the first price doubling, we did of course see a substantial increase across the board in total liquids production (inclusive of biofuels), total petroleum liquids, crude + condensate, and in Global Net Exports (GNE) and in Available Net Exports (ANE).
In response to the second price doubling, we have seen a very slow rate of increase in total liquids production (up 0.5%/year from 2005 to 2010), virtually flat total petroleum liquids and and virtually flat C+C production (through 2010), and a 1.3%/year and 2.8%/year respective decline rate in GNE & ANE (through 2010). I estimate that the ANE decline rate will accelerate to between 5%/year and 8%/year from 2010 to 2020.
I estimate that the current CANE* depletion rate could be on the order of about 8%/year. This would be the rate that we are consuming the cumulative post-2005 supply of global net exports available to importers other than China & India.
*Cumulative Available Net Exports (post-2005)
Here are the observed rates of change for key liquids measurements for 2002 to 2005 and for 2005 to 2010 respectively (respectively corresponding to first Brent crude price doubling and to most of second doubling):
Total Liquids (EIA, Including Biofuels): +3.1%/year, +0.5%/year (83% decline in rate of increase)
Total Petroleum Liquids (BP): +2.9%/year, +0.15%/year (95% decline in rate of increase)
Crude + Condensate (EIA): +3.1%/year, +0.08%/year (97% decline in rate of increase)
GNE (BP + Minor EIA data, top 33 net oil exporters): +5.2%/year, -1.3%/year (shifted from increasing to declining)
ANE (GNE less Chindia's combined net oil imports): +4.2%/year, -2.8%/year (shifted from increasing to declining)
In round numbers, I estimate that the remaining cumulative supply of (net) exported oil available to importers other than China & India (CANE) is falling at an annual rate that is about three times the rate that the annual volume of (net) exported oil available to importers other than China & India is falling.
Think of it this way. Let's assume you have $100,000 in the bank and you withdraw $10,000 the first year, $9,000 the second year, $8,000 the third year and $7,000 the fourth year. The rate of decline in annual withdrawals is 12%/year, but the cash balance in the account is falling at 27%/year.
UK issues offshore drilling licences
Hungarian government abandons part of debt auction
Has America's stolen election process finally hit prime time?
Why must everything be electronic, including voting? IMHO the acceptance of electronic voting is proportional to the acceptance of voter fraud. We know computer systems can be hacked, so we also know this form of voting will be skewed towards the viewpoint of whomever is handling the equipment. America has embraced voter fraud.
It's starting to look like there's no basic difference between the US & Russia. Both have falsified National elections. Both have a huge divide between rich and poor.
Indeed - I have always been leery about "voting machines" that disturbingly look a lot like slot machines in a low-end Las Vegas casino. I think on-line voting could work better, for sure. Assuming it was run by a federal agency, with lots of checks and balances (including a few election observers from places like Libya, Namibia, and Iran).
Here is Australia - it is all still done on paper - with a physical ballot (one each for the Reps and the Senate), and a pencil.
I work on these things - run by the Australian Electoral Commission, which is scrupulously non-partisan (or rather it is totally partisan in the sense of ensuring every voter gets a vote, and that it is then counted accurately). And each of the political parties have zealous scrutineers looking over our shoulders during the whole process.
And the paper ballot system scales very easily, up to the district, state, and national level. Easy to do, not very expensive, and a good day for democracy each time.
So that helps explain the election of the Trojan Horse (aka "Hope and Change").
Is "hope and change" the same as "bait and switch"?
But I like Kunstler's way of putting it:
"change you won't believe"
Hydroelectric power for remote villages in Peru:
http://www.youtube.com/deutschewelleenglish#p/u/7/yld3rAS6O_0
On Farm Biodiesel Fuel Production:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOzWgyB1FSk
California's biofuel rules rejected by judge
That is the main issue. A US state does not have the authority to dictate what people can and cannot do in another state, nor is it allowed to give preference to its own producers over those in another state.
And that`s the second issue. They could achieve the same result by increasing their fuel taxes - so why don`t they do that?
Its virtually impossible to raise any tax in California. So clever end runs have to be concocted for just about anything.....
The Dems have been only a couple votes away from a super majority in both houses for years. Let's see what happens with independent redistricting in 2012.
Redistricting is the great white hope. By then will their still be a public school system to save?
Is that a joke about the second meaning of redistricting (school districts instead of legislative districts), and the racial nature of some of the efforts, or just a comment on the funding levels of California public schools?
In case I wasn't clear I was intimating the possibility that with redistricting of legislative districts in the state of California supposedly independent (rather than gerrymandered for the benefit of incumbents of both parties), and ten additional years of minority population growth, and turnout for a presidential election year, California might wind up with 2/3rds Democratic supermajorities in both state houses, as well as the current Democratic governor, making the 'no new taxes' Republicans irrelevant. I'd saw the odds are less than 50% of this actually happening, unless citizenship drives, registration drives, and get out the vote efforts go up by several notches. Did you know that 10% of the Voting-Age-Population of California consists of legal permanent residents who are eligible to naturalize but haven't done so?
The Green Regulation Machine: Saving the Planet or Killing Jobs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5J32_ba-y0
Trucker Twotimes fights back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-gKPJPdqo&feature=related
Needless to say, I'm delighted that there is a judge who can see through CARB nonsense.
This is already a finagle.. CA is legally allowed to regulate air emissions but not motor vehicle efficiency.
One of the oddball things you have to realize is that CA has a grandfathered right to enact stricter Clean Air laws and regulations than the feds (which other states do not) and that other states have the right to opt-in to the CA rules instead of the Federal rules. So this is actually a rulemaking exercise for all of the liberal states which will choose to follow it once it goes into effect.
He will be overruled on appeal to the 9th circuit (unless CARB has done a terrible job of drafting the mechanisms), but they better hope the Supreme Court configuration has changed by the time it gets there because they will lose if it hasn't. They will get what they want (a way to differentiate a product by production details) eventually, even if they have to re-write the law to get it.
Deep Gulf drilling thrives 18 mos. after BP spill
..... By early 2012, there will be 40 deepwater rigs in the Gulf, up from 37 before the BP spill, according to Cinnamon Odell of ODS-Petrodata. BP received its first permit to drill in late October. .......
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/deep-gulf-drilling-thrives-18-152055257.html
From Encana's 2010 annual report:
$4B in capital expenditures.
Net revenue from operations $1.4B.
DD&A (Depreciation, depletion and amortization) $3.3B
They also mention that $4 gas is unsustainable in the long run and forecast $5-$6 gas in the future.
None of the numbers seems to add up since adding DD&A seems mean that are losing money.
Can someone with accounting skills make sense of this report?
Looking at the consolidated statement, I see an interesting trend.
2008 2009 2010 Capital Exp $6.8B $4.6B $4.7B Net Earnings (including DD&A,tax) $6.4B $1.8B $1.5BFinancials look much worse than 2008, 4x more capex relative to net earnings in 2010. It was 1:1 in 2008.
What that due to high NG prices in 2008? Were investors fooled by high NG prices? I'm curious to see if they can borrow another $4B this year to keep the music playing. Oct 2012 will be telling when they have to extend the credit line.
Here are some more clues:
Can you explain the work "Capital Exp" and "Net Earnings"
Basically, do they spend more money than they earn? They could still have a lot of assets like proved natural gas in the ground.
In a first, gas and other fuels are top US export
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-gas-other-fuels-top-200739135.html
WTF??!!!!
I haven't seen a vacuum tube in 20 years. What's going on here?
I don't know if this is what's referred to, but almost every automobile today has at least one. The VFD(Vacuum Fluorescent Display) is just a fancy tube with phosphor on the anodes. There are still lots of devices based on the old principles. High Power Transmitting Tubes
Vacuum tubes in the 21st century
CRTs and various solar thermal collectors are vacuum tubes as well.
As an electric guitarist, I can also tell you with certitude that tube amplifiers are still the standard, still responsible for the plugged-in tones you hear on just about every commercially-released piece of music out there. Solid state just can't replicate the tone.
Just a guess, but i think they may be talking about LNG transport vessels. The shell of the 'tanks' are double walled, with a vacuum between for keeping the LNG cold enough to remain liquified. A big pressurized thermos bottle.
You may see some of these on the highway, they are also used for transporting such strategic products as eggs used in cake mix manufacture.
I don't believe it.
And the current version on Yahoo doesn't have the list.
I went off this one:
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/12/30/the-new-age-of-americas-e...
Having a hard time find the official census dept release
(damn press almost never gives a pointer to their source).
But electron tubes (North American Industry Classification System code 334411)
in 2007, had 6,415 employees and shipments of 1.1 Billion $.
http://www.census.gov/econ/industry/hierarchy/i334411.htm
NAICS 3344 (Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing)
had 371,623 employees and shipments of 122.7 Billion $.
I did find this:
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/
FT900: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (I used the PDF)
Version was December 9th, 2011
The numbers given in the DailyMarkets blog don't match anything,
either in the "By Technology Group", YTD - (which only goes to October!) on page 21
or the "principle commodity group" listing on pages 18 & 19.
I think there are several errors in the AP story.
(1) "vacuum tubes" should be either semiconductors or electronics components/devices
(2) the Jan - Nov should be Jan - Oct.
(3) the quoted numbers seem off.
(4) the version on daily markets says "semiconductors"
Anybody got the exact source?
They say that the stone age did not end because they run out of stone. Well, David have some opinions on that. It comes about 2 minutes into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-i3pFPhs9o&feature=g-vrec&context=G20bb8...
Updating my recent comments on Iraq and Petroplus: Iraq refills Kirkuk pipeline while Petroplus starts shutting refineries as it still searches for financing to purchase oil:
http://www.brecorder.com/world/global-business-a-economy/40686-iraq-oil-...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/30/petroplus-refinery-impact-idUS...
Report: Chinese man likely infected with bird flu
Critical H5N1 Case In Shenzen China
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/205992-freddy-hutter-trendlines-resear...
Does anyone have comments about this 'research'?
Oh my.... a blast from the past. He was refered to as "Fraudie Nutter" here at the The Drum on more than a few occasions. Always wondered when and where he would resurface....
Searches for: 'Skrebowski PS-2500 future megaprojects variable'
All lead back to the cited article. PS-2500 is apparently one of Freddie's creations.
Freddie's forecasts rely heavily on assuming an all encompassing decline rate. Clearly, history matching (backtesting to some) of the mega projects approach leads to the conclusion of either bad assumptions for decline or that not-so-mega projects are making up the difference.
It appears the holy grail of an all incompassing decline rate that can be used for forecasting anything specific is a monumental waste of time. I have porposed the WMG(or FOG) model as a short term pacifier for the obsessed. WMG gives an array of results, monte carlo simulation works as a short term super-pacifier.
In a first, gas and other fuels are top US export
http://online.wsj.com/article/APf917509ee61344a38638e2c08bc47090.html
NEW YORK — For the first time, the top export of the United States, the world's biggest gas guzzler, is — wait for it — fuel.
Measured in dollars, the nation is on pace this year to ship more gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel than any other single export, according to U.S. Census data going back to 1990. It will also be the first year in more than 60 that America has been a net exporter of these fuels.
Just how big of a shift is this? A decade ago, fuel wasn't even among the top 25 exports. And for the last five years, America's top export was aircraft.
The trend is significant because for decades the U.S. has relied on huge imports of fuel from Europe in order to meet demand. It only reinforced the image of America as an energy hog. And up until a few years ago, whenever gasoline prices climbed, there were complaints in Congress that U.S. refiners were not growing quickly enough to satisfy domestic demand; that controversy would appear to be over.
Still, the U.S. is nowhere close to energy independence. America is still the world's largest importer of crude oil. From January to October, the country imported 2.7 billion barrels of oil worth roughly $280 billion.
Perhaps a more honest headline would be: "US sets record for exporting products made from imported oil". Or, a little more extreme: "The US becomes Canada's outsourced refiner". Or even worse: "Canada gets the money and the US gets the pollution". Not completely accurate but we are talking about spin here. One more: "US consumers so broke they can't compete for refinery products."
(article sent to me in reply from my mentioning your 1st pt.)
a lot of my friends are driving 80's 300SD's & one is using restaurant oil (Technically illegal in maryland? ( so much for small entrepreneurs...))
In general msg is rotten oil comp's, opec,etc.. followed by false hopes?
When i 1st learned of peak 10 yrs ago I immediately thot about 70's crunch & zilch on US peak
(surely, refining doesn't pollute as much as tar sand mining?
Well, at least it's a reasonably accurate explanation of it, for a change. It does actually mention that, notwithstanding the fact that it is now a net fuel exporter, the US still imports most of its crude oil (almost 2/3 in fact).
The US had become a heavy fuel importer mostly because it had not built a new oil refinery in over 30 years, and domestic demand had increased considerably in that time (lots of big, new, gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups). Refineries in Europe and Canada stepped up production to meet US demand.
Since the crash of 2008, fuel consumption in the US has fallen considerably but the refineries are still running at the same rate, and now they have more capacity than they need. The reason is not that output has increased but that demand has fallen. They are exporting the surplus to other countries.
Refineries in the mid-continent area have had a price advantage over other refineries in that they had access to cheap supplies of new Canadian and North Dakota crude. This oil was stranded in the continental US due to insufficient pipeline capacity to take it to any coast and as a result forced the price of American oil (e.g. WTI) as much as $25/bbl lower than international oil (e.g. Brent). US refineries with access to this cheap oil could sell it in Europe and Asia at the same price as the European and Asian refineries, but had much higher profit margins due to low feedstock costs.
Not mentioned in the article is that a number of big US East Coast refineries will probably have to be closed and sold for scrap metal in the near future because they have to pay the same price for imported oil as European refineries, and as a result are losing money.
Also not mentioned is that Chinese oil companies are buying up big shares in the companies producing new oil from Canada's vast oil sands, and while they are quite happy to sell it to US refineries in the short term, their long-term objective is probably to send it to their own refineries in China.
The "no new refineries" is one of those "all regulations all bad" talking point memes that is (ultimately) FALSE, but just won't go away.
ultimately false, in that it is true that no _brand new_ "greenfield" refineries have been built,
but false in that refinery capacity has in fact been increased.
Operable capacity has increased in the last 30 years (well, 25 that the data were there):
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOCLEUS2&f=A
But gross inputs started falling in 2005.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGIRIUS2&f=A
Note that when distilling a barrel of oil, one gets a certain percentage of gasoline and certain percentage of diesel depending on the composition of the crude. Since that's not enough gasoline and diesel, the heavy residuals are cracked. To make decent gasoline, they have to be reformed in more expensive ways, for diesel it's not so costly.
Also note our refineries tend to have the equipment to handle heavy/sour oils (which are more prevalent on the global market) and to take out more sulfur (more places are implemented stricter rules).
U.S. demand is down, and foreign demand, particularly for diesel, is rising.
When one looks at the factual details of the fuel exported, we see that some gasoline is coming in, but more diesel is going out.
We import 2.4 million bbls/day of product, and export 2.8 million bbls/day of products.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_4.htm
On this last EIA link, note the week of 12/23/11 we imported 680 thousand bbl/day of gasoline, but only exported 525 kbpd.
But we imported 152 kbpd diesel (distillate fuel oil), and exported a much larger 1,041 kbpd.
What part of "NEW oil refinery" did you not understand in my post?
Due to environmental regulations and the annoying but true reality that the US was running out of oil, the oil companies did not build any NEW oil refineries. They closed old, inefficient, highly polluting oil refineries, and upgraded existing ones to handle Canadian oil sands bitumen and Latin American heavy oil, but they did not build any NEW ones.
Sunk costs are sunk costs, and they were willing spend money to expand existing refineries, and to modify them to handle heavier, high sulfur feedstocks, but building a NEW one failed both the government environmental regulations and investor economic viability tests.
Prior to the recession, there was what looked like serious progress (from the outside) on building a new refinery in AZ. I suspect that was mostly about starting to run out of capacity on the refined products pipelines from El Paso and L.A. that provide virtually all of AZ's petroleum fuels. I know Phoenix hasn't had N-1 capacity on those pipelines in years (last time the pipeline from El Paso broke the price doubled to over $5/gal and they were trucking some of it from Tucson (the break was between Tucson and Phoenix).
Your claim is the US became a heavy importer because of no NEW refineries.
If that's so, why are product imports and refinery utilization disconnected?
Refinery utilization:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOPUEUS2&f=A
Utilization peaks in 1998, went down more than 10%, and just now back up to 10% less than the peak.
Imports of Finished Petroleum products:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTPIMUS2&f=A
Imports go higher (post 2000) as US refinery utilization drops (and capacity increases - see my post above),
i.e. the U.S. refinery capacity is there, it's not being used for some reason.
I suggest the reason is that foreign refineries added capacity:
(a) foreign oil (refining/marketing) companies had capacity to spare, and
(b) oil producers are moving downstream, (wanting to be more sophisticated),
and getting a cut of the refining profit (as lousy as that might be).
Both responded to market demand, and underbid (somewhat) the U.S. refiners,
who saw utilization drop.
This hypotheses would be supported if gross inputs to refineries were replaced by imports of product. (total crude imports can be misleading, some goes to the SPR).
Total Products from all countries:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MPEIMUS2&f=A
Gross inputs of Crude to US refineries:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGIRIUS2&f=A
From 2000 - 2010, it's 15 Million bpd input to US refineries, except 2009.
range is a few hundred k bpd.
Products from 2000 - 2009 rise from 2.4 Million bpd peaking in 2005 at 3.6 Million bpd,
falling in 2010 to 2.6 Million bpd, a bump of a Million bpd.
OK, the hypothesis needs to be modified to say that most all product additions in the 2000s
came from inports, so that crude that could/would have been refined in the US was refined elsewhere.
If U.S. refining capacity is the bottleneck for the U.S., why aren't our refineries utilized more? Historical proof is they have a 10% demonstrated capacity increment, ready to use.
If one browses around here:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_EPP0_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
one sees that OPEC doesn't provide much product (400 - 800 kbpd),
but non-OPEC grew 1 Million bpd from 2000 - 2006.
Canada grew/remained stable from 2000 - 2010, though it's just 500 kbpd.
Russia is growing fast, 350 kbpd.
No one country stands out, but a lot of little sources add up.
Notice many of them have a 2000 - 2006/7 ramp up, then ramp down post U.S. crash.
Now that foreign demand is up (2010+), their refineries are maxed out, so our refineries are starting to ramp utilization back up.
Yes, it's a fact that now NEW refineries have been built in the U.S. for a while.
The enviros are a red herring.
The 2nd reason you give is what makes sense - why built a new manufacturing plant when the domestic industry has 20% spare capacity and the raw material supply is flat to declining?
Yo buddy, wanna buy a
bridgerefinery?In fact, the refiners think they have too many refineries.
http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/gas_prices/pdfs/wyden_oil_report.pdf
I have a simple question. The US imports about 2/3 of its crude oil, but you state it is "now a net fuel exporter", and then state "the US has become a heavy fuel importer ...". So what is the case - is the US a fuel importer or exporter, or have you used the concepts of crude oil, refined products, and fuel, a bit casually?
Further - why would more refinery capacity (new or upgrades - either) lessen "fuel" imports - refineries don't create their own inputs, do they? Even if you had 20 new refineries, why would "heavy fuel imports" decrease? Are you saying heavy fuel imports would decrease because the US would import more crude rather than refined product? So (again) are you conflating "fuel" and "crude oil" in this case as well? This is a genuine inquiry, not a bait.
Watch the verb tenses: I did not say "the US has become a heavy fuel importer ...", I said "the US had become a heavy fuel importer ...". It`s in the past perfect tense, indicating an action completed before something in the past. It`s over, it`s done, the US is no longer a heavy fuel importer.
Refineries do not create their own feedstock, but they can buy feedstock from all over the world. The Irving Oil refinery in New Brunswick, the largest oil refinery in Canada, imports nearly all of its oil from other countries and exports most of its refined product to the US. New Brunswick has only 750,000 people and can`t possibly consume its output of 300,000 bpd of products, so most of it goes to export.
What happened historically was that US fuel consumption was on an upward trajectory until about 2005, but US crude oil production was on a downward trajectory and US environmental regulations were tightening. Oil companies didn`t want to build new US refineries under the circumstances and failed to meet demand. However refineries like the Irving refinery in Canada and similar ones in Europe stepped in to fill the gap. They were, however, processing North Sea and OPEC oil.
The Irving refinery, for instance, specializes in low-sulfur diesel fuel that meets California environmental specs, and given the high price of fuel in California is willing to ship it there from Atlantic Canada. OTOH Many US refineries in adjacent states can`t or won`t produce fuel for the California market (if people in California are wondering why their fuel prices are so high).
In the past few years, things have turned around and US fuel consumption has fallen due to demand destruction. Meanwhile North Sea oil production is in steep decline and European and Atlantic US Canadian refineries are having to pay high prices for OPEC oil, but mid-Continent US refineries are getting a flood of cheap new oil from Canada, North Dakota, and Texas. They are making a killing on the crack margin (difference between feedstock and product prices), so they are maintaining production rates in the face of falling demand in the US, and exporting the surplus to Europe and Asia.
The European and Atlantic coast refineries, meantime, are facing permanent closure because they are losing money. They can`t sell fuel in the US any more except at a loss.
I`m trying to explain this stuff to you guys, but it`s not exactly simple and straightforward, and often counterintuitive. A word of advice - don`t ever take up oil product trading. You`ll lose your shirts.
I happily acknowledge the fact that you used the past perfect tense, rather than the present perfect tense, and the following explanation. Well done. I would certainly not countenance taking up a parasitic career trading oil products ... I have had a couple of worthwhile and valuable careers instead. Thank goodness.