Viewpoint: The time Britain slid into chaos [BBC]

The social unrest, economic gloom and austerity in Europe today mirrors one of the greatest crises in British history, says the historian Michael Wood.

An article comparing the favorite TOD topic of comparing current scenario and Roman collapse! I am surprised that this fell through the crack and landed on an MSM website.

Further comments are sought on what was discussed in the last drumbeat on where the difference between BP Statistical Review production and consumption comes from:

BP doesn't include biofuels in production figures, but they are included in consumption numbers, in addition refinery processing gains are included in consumption (when measured by volume rather than weight), but not in production. If you compare the production to consumption numbers in millions of tonnes, only the biofuel difference is relevant. When you look at the EIA numbers for biofuels and refinery processing gains they add up to 4.4 million barrels per day for 2011 or 1606 million barrels per year.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9260#comment-899851

My post is here (including a stacked graph on exports)

14/6/2012
BP Statistical Review 2012: oil production deficit around 4 mb/d
http://crudeoilpeak.info/bp-statistical-review-2012-oil-production-defic...

A year ago Rigzone had this artice:

Global Deficit Between Oil Consumption and Production Remains the Norm
Monday, June 13, 2011

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=107979

Here is more natural gas for the already oversupplied North American market. The only solution is to ship it to Asia where prices are much higher. Rockman is not going to terribly happy about this additional supply from northwest Canada, though. Not only is it going to further depress NG prices, but it is additional fuel for the oil sands plants not too far away in northern Alberta. So much for the hypothetical limits on oil sands production caused by shortages of natural gas.

Liard find ‘best reservoir in North America’

One of the energy companies planning a liquefied natural gas terminal at Kitimat announced Thursday “an outstanding” new shale gas discovery, the best in North America, in British Columbia’s remote and largely unexplored Liard Basin.

The find by Apache Corp., one of three partners in the $4.5-billion Kitimat LNG terminal and pipeline proposal, is estimated to contain enough gas in itself to justify doubling the size of the Kitimat terminal. The company is calling it the best and highest quality shale gas reservoir in North America and says its wells are the most prolific in the world, based on the volume of gas three test wells are producing.

Based on the production from those wells, Apache announced it has 48 trillion cubic feet of marketable gas within its Liard Basin properties. By way of comparison, all companies active in the Horn River Basin, one of three other major shale gas basins in B.C., have marketable gas of 78 trillion cubic feet, giving one company alone a natural gas find that is two-thirds the size of the entire Horn Basin.

One well alone produced 21 million cubic feet of gas a day over a 30-day test period.

“This is enormous,” said Gordon Currie, senior oil and gas analyst at Salman Partners. “Those are big, big numbers.”

Based on Apache’s results alone, the Liard should provide B.C. with enough gas to export “for many, many years to come,” Currie said.

Re: Apocalyptic Map Shows San Francisco After 200 Feet of Sea Level Rise

More impressive (at least to me) is the large inland sea that California acquires as a result of such a rise. This elevation map gives a good idea of its size.

"China is hoarding crude at the fastest rate since the Beijing Olympics four years ago as the slump in international prices prompts it to import unprecedented volumes even as refining slows."

Still a rather small volume compared to the 700 million bbls the US is currently hoarding. But give China time and they'll probably catch up eventually.

Security Forces Surround Parliament in Egypt, Escalating Tensions

CAIRO — Egypt’s military rulers formally dissolved Parliament Friday, state media reported, and security forces were stationed around the building on orders to bar anyone, including lawmakers, from entering the chambers without official notice.

The authorities set up checkpoints overnight and contingents of riot police were moving around the city to prepare for any disturbances.

“What was beginning to look like a coup in slow motion is no longer moving in slow motion,” ...

... Electing a president without either a constitution or a parliament is like “electing an ‘emperor’ with more power than the deposed dictator. A travesty,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and former presidential candidate, said in a comment online.

US official: Russia sends troops to Syria as peace hopes fade

Russia is sending armed troops to Syria amid escalating violence there, United States military officials told NBC News Friday, in a move certain to frustrate Western efforts to put pressure on the regime of President Bashir Assad.

Moscow has sent a ship carrying a small contingent of combat forces to guard Russia’s deep-water port and military base at the Syrian city of Tartus, the US officials said

Tartus is one of Russia’s most strategically-important assets, giving it military access to the Mediterranean Sea.

Wheat yields are levelling off, even in some developing countries

Wheat yields have levelled off in many countries around the world, even in regions of greater food insecurity such as India and Bangladesh, say researchers in the US.

Of the 50 regions that Lin and Huybers tested for yield stagnation, 27 show yields that have levelled off when performing the test at the 80% confidence level. Using 2007 numbers, wheat accounts for 19% of the total calories of food produced, and the 47 countries sampled in their analysis account for 75% of total global wheat production.

The 27 regions with confirmed plateaus at the 80% confidence level account for 35% of global wheat production. "We prefer to report values at 80% confidence to reduce the probability of false negatives, but note that 18 regions have levelled off with at least 95% confidence and that they still account for 28% of global wheat production," said Lin.

... Peak Wheat?

Insight: drought and flooding in the upper Amazon

The Amazon basin has been suffering from extreme hydrological events since the 1980s. These have been particularly intense at Tamshiyacu, the most upstream gauging station on the Amazonas River.

Droughts affected the Amazon region in 2005 and 2010 while record flooding was observed in the basin in 2009 and 2012. What's more, at Tamshiyacu there was an abrupt transition from the extreme September 2010 drought (just 8,300 m3/s of discharge) to one of the four highest discharges on record (49,500 m3/s) in April 2011. These extreme events have had dramatic impacts on people living near the watercourse and on surrounding ecosystems. Access to clean water is limited and the incidence of disease is increasing. The transport system is also under pressure and crops have diminished.

Amazon basin sees shift from burning forest to savanna fires

The Amazon basin has seen a shift in biomass burning from relatively more forest fires in the early 2000s to a larger proportion of savanna/agricultural fires in the late 2000s.

"The increase in savanna/agricultural fires in 2007 and 2010 is due in part to drought conditions during these years, but also to increased agricultural and pastoral development on already degraded land rather than newly deforested land, a change which has been shown in other recent studies."

"Fire ignitions are largely anthropogenic but fire spreading is mainly affected by natural factors such as drought," he explained. "Another implication of this study is if droughts worsen over the Amazon with climate change – two of the worst droughts in the last century occurred in 2005 and 2010 – the increase in forest-fire spreading may offset current and future reductions in anthropogenic fire ignitions."

Insight: precipitation frequency regulates summer soil moisture

Future precipitation patterns will typically be characterized by more intense periods of rainfall and longer dry periods. It is therefore important to understand how these patterns will affect ecosystem processes.

Map of Low Impact Communities in Britain

... a map of the location of a broad selection of low impact communities in Britain. These are all actually existing projects which have been completed except for LILAC (Leeds), which is in the process of being built.

For the purpose of this map I have defined low impact communities as constituting those projects which:

1.Seek autonomy and self reliance, and thus seek to generate all that they need
2.Often have mixed goals but tend to include becoming more socially, economically and ecologically sustainable
3.That tend to share values. Thus some are intentional communities, others less so, but most have community agreements by which all occupants agree to abide
4.That the ethos is self-build and do-it-yourself
5.That are structured around living and building collectively and often include sharing communal space
6.Involve a care and consideration for others. This can include deliberately seeking to reconfigure existing relationships, such as practicing gender equality
7.Are low-cost and often build affordability for perpetuity into the long-term design
8.Can requires a change of lifestyle and/or income generation
9.Seel minimal resource use (in construction and life-cycle)
10.Have low visual impact
11.Are built from local, recycled or natural materials
12.Are often small scale

... Overall such communities are concerned with much more than just the architecture, instead it is about the way people live, and live together, which is significantly more important. In terms of how these communities compare to eco-housing per se, the novelty is the way in which they bring all these different aspects together in one place.

also Community Energy

... The report from Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative Group is a comprehensive guide to a new movement of communities who are taking action for greener energy into their own hands by investing money and together installing solar panels, large wind turbines or hydro power. The report shows that: • There are 43 communities who are in the process of or already producing renewable energy; • Together local residents have invested £16m •Green economy co-ops are the fastest growing part of the UK co-op sector, having grown by 24% since 2008. More negatively, the report also highlights barriers facing communities trying to develop projects: shifting government legislation, planning hurdles and bureaucracy making it hard for local schemes to get established: e.g. 250 people have been involved with the £200,000 River Bain Hydro project in North Yorkshire, but had to spend a large proportion of its limited time negotiating with power companies because of a lack of co-ordination. As they explain: ‘Between the power house and the grid, a distance of a hundred yards, we ended up with five different organisations involved in delivery.’

and http://www.uk.coop/resources/Reports%20and%20white%20papers

and Green Building Blog

New Model Suggests Ocean pH Falling More Rapidly

A new computer model developed in Switzerland shows that the pH of the ocean waters off the west coast of the US will fall over the next four decades faster than previously thought. The region studied is on the eastern boundary of an upwelling zone, and is important for commercial fishing and for its diversity in marine life.

The model predicts the saturation rate of aragonite may drop to below 1 (an undersaturated state) for over half the year by 2050. When aragonite is at undersaturated levels shells made of calcium carbonate would begin to dissolve. At present, Gruber estimates undersaturated levels exist in the region around 2-4% of the time. When the saturation rate is below 1.5, as it would be for much of the year by 2050, shell-building animals such as oyster and mussel larvae and sea snails such as the tiny pteropods (sea butterfly) may find it difficult to harvest sufficient calcium carbonate to build their shells.

City by city, here's your guide to the painfully slow economic recovery

The good news: The economy improved in April in every region of the country. Not a single state remains in recession. If someone in your family is out of work, that label may require a bit of clarification: While many have not recovered the jobs lost in the recession, no state is still in a sharp decline. In other words, one can be climbing out of a hole and still be in the hole. And looking more closely at the nation's 384 metro areas, nearly 90 percent have moved out of the recession into at least a modest recovery. The share of metro areas in recession in April was the lowest since the previous July.

The bad news: Only two states have entered a robust economic expansion. Among metro areas, only 6 percent are in expansion. The rest are stuck in a weak recovery, making small advances and not gaining much economic traction.

Interactive Map

The map has some useful data - like U6 (total unemployment figure) - that are 2-3 times higher than the MSM unemployment figures

First study of its kind finds rapid declines in worldwide physical activity

A new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers finds a global decline in activity levels and predicts a continuing rise in inactivity in countries around the world. When viewed in the context of physical activity levels throughout human evolution, the global decline in physical activity in just the past few decades is particularly abrupt.

Historically, Ng said, adults have been most active in their jobs. Now, she says, “whether you live in China, India or the U.S., computers and many forms of automation remove physical exertion at work. Changes in the types of work people do have greatly reduced our overall activity levels over the past half-century.”

The forecasts are bleak. Using a physiological measure called metabolic equivalent of task (MET), which describes the amount of energy spent in accomplishing a task, the study determined that by 2020, the average American adult will expend about 190 MET hours per week. In comparison, a person who slept 24 hours in a day would expend 151 MET hours per week, and an active adult who did vigorous activity for 30 minutes to an hour every day, but otherwise had a desk job, would expend between 240 and 265 MET-hours per week.

Article: Time use and physical activity: a shift away from movement across the globe

... and what will happen when all our busy little energy slaves leave the stage?

Interesting article for a Friday. PDF Warning.

Disease in Human Evolution: The Re-emergence of Infectious Disease in the Third Epidemiological Transition

"For millions of years, humans and their ancestors suffered from diseases -- both the kind caused by
infectious pathogens (e.g., bacteria, viruses, parasites) and the kind caused by our own bodies as they age and degenerate.

Over this long period, humans constantly created new ways of living and eating, and actual physical or genetic changes evolved to minimize the effects of these diseases. From the point of view of a bacteria or virus, however, any shift in the physical makeup or behavior of its human host represents not only an obstacle but also a challenge to be overcome.

As a result, new diseases emerged with each major change in the human way of life."

Discusses the impacts of increasing technological advances on disease. Not that recent, 1996, but relevant, as we undergo population shifts and environmental change.

A sea of broken promises: Avoiding empty ocean commitments at Rio+20

World leaders have made pitiful progress on their guarantee to protect global oceans from overfishing and other threats. In a paper published today (June 15, 2012) in Science, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and world renowned researchers have reviewed commitments made by governments to protect the world's oceans and shown that there has been little success over the past 20 years.

Professor Jonathan Baillie, Director of Conservation at ZSL, says: "Our analysis shows that almost every commitment made by governments to protect the oceans has not been achieved. If these international processes are to be taken seriously, governments must be held accountable and any future commitments must come with clear plans for implementation and a process to evaluate success or failure."

New from Congressional Research Service [CRS] ...

Alternative Fuel and Advanced Vehicle Technology Incentives: A Summary of Federal Programs (pdf)

A wide array of federal incentives supports the development and deployment of alternatives to conventional fuels and engines in transportation. These incentives include tax deductions and credits for vehicle purchases and the installation of refueling systems, federal grants for conversion of older vehicles to newer technologies, mandates for the use of biofuels, and incentives for manufacturers to produce alternative fuel vehicles.

The current array of incentives for alternative fuels and related technologies do not reflect a single, comprehensive strategy, but rather an aggregative approach to a range of discreet public policy issues, including goals of reducing petroleum consumption and import dependence, improving environmental quality, expanding domestic manufacturing, and promoting agriculture and rural development.

As shown in Figure 1, since peaking in 2005, net U.S. oil imports have fallen by one-third, and now represent 45% of domestic consumption, down from 60% seven years ago.1 Factors in this reversal have been the recent recession and the rise in petroleum prices in 2008, both of which reduced domestic demand, as well as a rise in the supply of U.S. oil and oil alternatives due to increased private sector investment and federal incentives, some of which are cited in this report. In addition, the U.S. has become a net exporter of petroleum products (while it remains a net importer of crude oil).

Water pacts re-examined amid Arab Spring

There are moves to rewrite contentious water-sharing agreements that are becoming a major source of friction in the Middle East as water supplies shrink.

... Rivers including the Euphrates, Tigris, Nile and even the Jordan River, which cross national boundaries and are a major source of water supply, could well become flashpoints for rising regional tension.

"Equally, governments' ability to manage their rivers and negotiate with their upstream neighbors could well, as is the case in Iraq, lead to growing unrest at home," the Middle East Economic Digest warned.

Thirteen of the 20 states that make up the Arab League rank among the world's most water-scarce nations.

India's capital in water crisis after supplies cut

NEW DELHI — Large parts of New Delhi were struggling with acute water shortages on Friday after a neighbouring state cut its supplies at the peak of summer, officials said.

The sprawling Indian capital, with a population of 16 million sweltering in 43 degree C (109.4 F) summer heat, relies on four neighbouring states for its water -- Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Haryana, the biggest supplier, cut its flow to the city on Thursday and about three million people have suffered shortages or been completely cut off, according to the Delhi Jal Board, a government agency responsible for water supply.

Nationalised Oil Can Deliver Output Growth

The 21st Century nationalisers may have good reason to believe they can do a better job than the foreign and private sector oil firms they see as careless short-termists

Veteran oil men point to a decades-old example of a well-run state company overseeing steady, efficient, modern production - Saudi Aramco. The one-time joint venture between U.S. companies and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now strictly a state entity.

Fed up with Big Oil's mentality, a Saudi ruling class with a strong sense of ownership oversaw a nationalisation of Aramco that was completed in 1982.

In the mid-2000s Russia nationalised its biggest private oil firm YUKOS and put its main owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky behind bars.

The move sparked predictions that the world's top oil producer would lose its dominance and Western investors flee. Rosneft, the Kremlin's main oil firm, took over most of YUKOS's assets and grew production by double digits - allowing Russia to hold its ranking and pump more than 10 million bpd.

In a world of finite hydrocarbons and high prices, host governments would be irresponsible to do anything other than drive a hard bargain.

Argentina will be hoping to emulate Saudi Aramco's record

Fracking for oil and gas poses little quake risk: study

The fracking drilling technique used to tap shale oil and gas is unlikely to trigger earthquakes, but underground injection of waste water from drilling offers more risks for seismic activity, a new U.S. study said on Friday.

The National Research Council study, which also examined the risk of earthquakes associated with tapping geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage, found that the total balance of fluid injected or removed underground was the biggest factor in causing earthquakes related to energy development.

While waste water disposal wells pose more seismic risks, the report said cases of these wells causing earthquakes have been rare and typically less than 5.0 in magnitude.

The Senate energy committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on examining the link between earthquakes and energy technology on Tuesday.

Dallas Texas pummeled by extreme June hail storm

Dallas residents set to work Thursday cleaning up and repairing damage from a sudden hailstorm forecasters called one of the city’s worst in 10 years. Tennis ball-sized hailstones began to shower down with alarming speed around 6 p.m. Wednesday, smashing windows and skylights, tearing apart trees and denting cars — although no injuries were reported –The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday.

North Dakota is hoping to get oil into pipes, out of trucks

With more than 6,000 oil wells pumping out crude oil and natural gas, officials see a pressing need for more local and long-distance pipelines.

North Dakota has surpassed Alaska to become the nation's No. 2 oil-producing state behind Texas. It has more than 6,000 producing wells, pumping out 600,000 barrels per day, a fourfold increase in five years.

But the pipeline capacity hasn't kept up. Three-fourths of the state's crude oil now must be trucked from wellheads, clogging local roads. And natural gas is burned off, or flared, at one of every five wells because of the lack of pipelines.

Drilling on new pipeline tapping Lake Mead for Las Vegas claims a life, shows project perils

.. the perils of tunneling beneath the lake bed were cast in stark terms this week, when a veteran tunnel worker died on the daunting $817 million, five-year project that officials compare with building the dam itself. They cast the so-called "Third Straw" project as the most complex current effort of its kind in the U.S.

The Lake Mead Intake No. 3 project has already had several setbacks. The tunnel flooded in July 2010 when a drilling machine hit a geologic fault. It flooded again in December 2010, forcing contractor Vegas Tunnel Constructors to abandon the tunnel and start a new one in a different direction. The completion date was pushed back several months, to summer 2014.

Ninety percent of Las Vegas water currently comes from Lake Mead, which has shrunk in recent years due to ongoing drought and increasing demand from seven states and more than 25 million people sharing Colorado River water rights under agreements dating to 1922.

In a city that averages just over four inches of rain per year, officials say they have no choice but to press on with the Lake Mead project.

"A human life was lost," said Stephen Coffield, chief of the Nevada OSHA office in Henderson. "We need to know what happened and get it corrected so it doesn't happen again."

But, "the lake is dropping," Coffield added. "The first straw is going to be sucking air."

Fluxing Around

Sun Tzu (of The Art of War fame) coined the term "shi," (pronounced "shee") which roughly translates into English as, "the art of understanding matters in flux."

There's two interesting aspects to this term; First, that the Chinese see this as an "art." Second that they see it as something to be studied and understood, long before flux produces change.

Over here in "wide-eyed" land we see only what's smack in front of us at any given moment. We become accustomed to things the way they are. And when flux threatens change we fight like holy hell to keep things the way they've been. We see only the past and have no interest whatsoever in "studying" change, even as things begin "fluxing" like crazy around us.

To say that we are in a state of "flux" right now would be an understatement. Nevertheless, even as flux causes mounting structural, fiscal and social disarray, not just here in the US, but around the globe, all you hear from public officials, here and around the globe, is how important it is to get things "back to normal," or "back on track."

Of course history records nothing that even approximates anything like "normal." All history records is change, constant, unremitting change. Those able to prepare and adapt to change, survive. Those who resist change or fail to adapt, become history.

Yes, things are in flux. Much shi is called for.

Worst-case scenario is ugly if Greece leaves the euro

Bankers, governments and investors are starting to prepare for Greece to stop using the euro as its currency, a move that could spread turmoil throughout the global financial system.

The worst-case scenario envisions governments defaulting on their debts, a run on European banks and a worldwide credit crunch reminiscent of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.

Contagion risks run high in Greek vote

... "The big picture item is contagion," said Jay Bryson, chief global economist at Wells Fargo, who was traveling in Europe Friday. "I don't think this euro crisis is over."

Italy Makes Plans to Cut Debt and Revive Growth

... Prime Minister Mario Monti announced Friday that his administration had approved an “organic and robust” package, equal to $101 billion, that would include the sale of state assets, a significant reduction in public spending with the abolition of some state agencies as well as staff cuts.

In regards to Illinois refinery shutdown, closings account for higher prices at Hoosier pumps up top, the article is fairly accurate.

Magellan Midstream Pipeline has reported that in the some parts of the Midwest supplies of certain grades of gasoline have reached low levels about June 7 - and have become progressively worse since. The premium of Midwest gasoline to the futures is the highest level seen in years (see link below), reversing a relatively good situation that existed just two months ago.

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GRP3G387:IND

Gasoline traders expect regional refineries to return to normal soon, although there is no specific projection of when downed regional refiners will resume normal operations.

End of an Era for BP in Russia

BP's announcement that it intends to sell its 50 per cent stake in TNK-BP, its troubled yet strongly performing joint venture in Russia, seals the end of the biggest anomaly in the Russian oil and gas industry of the past nine years. It also raises important questions about the future shape of the sector as a whole in Russia.

... Amid the excitement about the 2003 TNK-BP deal, one man offered a word of caution: then President Vladimir Putin correctly pointed out that running a 50:50 joint venture would not be easy. His words were prophetic.

... The question now is how easily BP will sell its stake and to whom.

Hydropower Continues Steady Growth

World hydroelectric power generation has risen steadily by an average 3 percent annually over the past four decades. In 2011, at 3,500 billion kilowatt-hours, hydroelectricity accounted for roughly 16 percent of global electricity generation, almost all produced by the world’s 45,000-plus large dams.

Much of the world’s recent growth came from China, where hydropower generation more than tripled from 220 billion kilowatt-hours in 2000 to 720 billion in 2010. In 2011, despite a drop in generation due to drought, hydropower accounted for 15 percent of China’s total electricity generation.

Approximately 62 percent of Canada’s electricity is generated from its 475 hydroelectric plants. The country’s enormous hydropower capacity allows for electricity export; Canada sells some 50 billion kilowatt-hours to the United States every year—enough to power more than 4 million American homes.

In Australia the MSM is starting to point out the hypocrisy of a domestic carbon tax (which starts July 1st) while praising booming coal exports. In this case it is a secondary point to the viability of CCS
http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-strategy-up-in-smoke-20120615-...

Other serious gaffes with the carbon tax include exemptions for some polluting industries, the ongoing prohibition of nuclear, increases in fuel subsidies, the doubled effect of renewables subsidies, reliance on questionable foreign offsets and domestic gas prices having to match the price of export LNG.

Wow, from the 65 comments, 22 are from Seraph. Must be a record high percentage. 'Peak one person comment'.

New Jersey Start-up Company hopeful to commercialize a process to take carbon dioxide and use it in a electro-chemical process to produce methanol.

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-startup-carbon-dioxide-fuels.html

This seems sort of similar to the 'Green Freedom' concept in a paper published by two guys at Los Alamos in 2007:

(PDF)

http://www.lanl.gov/news/newsbulletin/pdf/Green_Freedom_Overview.pdf

This certainly doesn't seem to be a salvation for hopes of maintaining BAU...perhaps it will be a player to provide some rather small (much smaller than present) supply of liquid fuel in the future.

Saudi Royal news:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/9335702...