Well, in the present we can turn many types of matter into other matter. It just takes way, way, way, way more energy than it's worth. Lead to gold? Well, that's difficult even with nuclear transmutation, but mercury to gold has been done. It's that "energy" part that is the kicker. Using energy to make oil to burn for energy is painfully futile.

The article isn't completely off base, though. If we get desperate enough, natural gas to oil and coal to oil start to seem to make sense. We're getting closer to that point every day, especially with gas so cheap in the US. That's why there are GTL plants planned for Louisiana. Ultimately, though, I think it is wise to contemplate the end game of chasing liquid fuels by pouring our other fossil fuels into the barrel.

It may also turn out not to be enough for BAU, but enough for a rougher version of industrial society. We'll see.

Hi F,

re: "...forehead...continually pounding it into my desk..."

Now, there's an untapped source of energy!

(sarcastic smiley face here).

It makes me hurt to think about it, though.

Torin – Sometime ago I offered this approach. Despite my smart ass delivery I’m very serious.

First explain you’ve heard this from one of the most successful petroleum geologists in the oil patch. A legend in his own mind…I mean time. For 37 years I’ve explored for hydrocarbons across the globe. I have and continue to have the most sophisticated exploration tools available to me (that’s actually not BS). I also work for a private company owned by one of the richest families in the country and have hundreds of $millions of capex at my beckon call.

And once more I freely announce that I fully accept the theory of abiotic oil generation on planet Earth. And thus declare PO will no longer be a concern. I mean it won’t be a concern once I’ve located all that abiotic oil generated over the millions which has then migrated to shallow depths. Which they must have done so if they still exists since the irrefutable laws of physics do not allow them to survive the temperatures and pressures found in the mantel.

So there you are: trillions of potential bbls of oil generated in the mantel and then migrated to traps within the first 7 miles of the surface of the Earth. Much deeper than that then it’s physically impossible for hydrocarbon chains to remain stable. Of course, there’s also the practical matter that this depth is also the practical limits of our drilling technology.

Now the remaining question is where are all these trillions of bbls of abiotic oil to be found? Every basin on the planet has been drilled…many very extensively and some not. If abiotic oil is generated in the mantel the I suppose one would expect it to be found somewhat dispersed around the entire globe. Due to other irrefutable laws of physics (that density thingy) oil/NG can only accumulate in very specific structural and stratigraphic traps.

Warning - serious techno statement to follow: oil and NG accumulations have never been easier to identify then they are today. If I had today’s technology 40 years ago I would have had a nearly 100% success rate and would have found $trillions in oil/NG in a decade or so. Note I said “easier to identify”. I didn’t say I could find a great many such accumulations. Just one measure of today’s technology: with 3d seismic and a computer work station I could generate more drilling prospects in one month than 5 geophysicists could in a year when I begin my career in 1975. And with better resolution and success rates. And in environments such as the Deep Water that 40 years ago no one ever thought would be possible.

A long winded explanation of a simple fact: It doesn’t make a dang bit of difference whether the hydrocarbons accumulations on the planet originated biotically or abiotically. Not once in all my efforts did that distinction make a difference in my work product. My focus was always on where the hydrocarbons accumulated…not how they were formed. Other geologic specialists concerned themselves with that riddle.

So the simple question for your friends: where has all that abiotic oil accumulated? We’ve drilled millions of wells in the only environments where hydrocarbons can exist (again, due to those pesky laws of thermodynamics). IOW ask they to tell you where that abiotic grease is. If they respond that this isn’t their expertise just tell that folks who do have those skills have been looking for it for more than 100 years and we still haven’t found it. Or maybe we have: perhaps all the hydrocarbons we have ever produced, and continue to produce, had an abiotic origin. After all we have been drilling for a very long time in the environments where that abiotic could have accumulated.

Also if they retort that those abiotic reserves are still being generated just point out that the most adamant abiotic oil “experts” admit their presumed process takes millions of years. And also add that not was in all te reports I've read has anypne in the abiotic crowd offered a logically opinion as to where to find it. Thousands and thuands of pubished words and not one map showing where to drill.

Peak Oil is a hydrocarbon extraction rate situation, where the extraction rate increases and over time decreases. Hydrocarbon extraction is commonly termed a "production rate." Maybe this is where some confusion enters the discussion.

I'm an amateur here, and there's a couple of good answers here from professionals, but here's my take. Even if abiotic oil were real (it almost certainly isn't) then there is a limit to how much oil the Earth could produce per day. This is a peak. Peak oil is all about the amount you can extract per day. When that levels off, that's the peak. And even if just leveled off without dropping, that is very bad news for our society which seems to be based around the assumption of a perpetually increasing energy supply.

Like Chris said...

I'm an amateur here, and there's a couple of good answers here from professionals

First of all ONLY Methane has been observed. It is either an indication of primitive Biotic processes on Mars and Saturn's moon -Titan etc. or an it's indication that Methane can be made geologically on other worlds. The Methane is created more deeply beneath the surface in these worlds than it is on Earth. There is no indication or support for abiotic processes yet... Not here, not there, not anywhere. If there is an indication of abiotic formation of Methane it will be on another world extremely different than Earth.

What we have here is: Semantic Equivocation. The huge pile of evidence, enormous and unending, still continuously observed, which is behind the theory that oil has organic origins, vs the theory that oil originates in the earth by unknown processes without any real evidence. Since no jury has survived the epochs we are technically speaking of two theories here... but they are far from equal. Maybe this is a failure of language as much as comprehension or cognition. Maybe it's just how many words can be piled up or how many arguments money can buy. Ultimately what we have may not be: Failure To Communicate. 'Cos somebody's message seems to be getting through. What we have here may be: Failure of Modern Civilization. -JMP

So first the US refuses permission to build a pipeline which would bring oil from Canada, then the US forces Iran to dramatically reduce exports and then the same country wants to release crude from the SPR?
(scratching head)

WeekendPeak

D. O. D.

Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy

congressional limos/airplanes provided by branches of the military.

"President Obama said today he's working on a plan to release oil before November to lower gas prices. It will be released from our strategic election reserves." –Jay Leno

And to be even-handed...

"Actually, Mitt Romney and Hurricane Isaac have something in common. They can both change directions at any moment." –Jay Leno

A Crush Report sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I believe most vehicles are crushed when the cost of repair exceeds the market value, and the market value is heavily dependent on intangibles like marketing of new vehicles.

It's like the old saying about batteries - they don't die of old age, they're murdered.

That's very useful, thanks.

Seen anything that breaks down depreciation by year?

The oil changes and brake jobs were maybe 40-50% of the overall maintenance cost of the S10?

Do you feel a pickup truck would have lower maintenance costs than a sedan? If so, why?

It's important too, to have a garage if you want a car to last a long time. Just sitting around outside will beat the hell out of a car...exterior, interior, corrosion on everything. If you limit the exposure by parking it in a (dry) garage they can last many years longer and look better during that time doing it. Wax and windshield shades will protect it when it's out and about...and spray off the underside thoroughly from time to time especially if you're in a place that uses salt in the winter. It takes a lot of effort to keep an automobile looking and performing well...and looks are important. When they start getting tatty people start getting lax about mechanical maintenance too.

Some of those maintenance costs for diesel trucks sound unreasonably high. Reasonable estimates for an oil change might be $100 every 5000 miles, including filters; belts might need changing every 50,000 miles for $200; and transmission fluid $200 every 100,000 miles. As for tires, without specifying the size it's hard to guess, but if we assume six tires per truck, $300 per tire, and 100,000 miles tire life, that's $1800 per 100,000 miles. That's $4400 total per 100,000 miles. So it's quite easy to imagine $2700 for around 70,000 miles per year, or 200 miles per day. But if we exclude tires (which we have to, unless the electric truck does not use tires), the cost would drop to about $1700. We still can't be comparing it with an electric truck, because the electric truck only drives 70 miles per day. For comparable mileage the diesel would cost about $600 in maintenance, excluding tires.

If brakes need an $1100 repair every year, someone needs driving lessons. And on most delivery trucks $1100 seems on the high end for a complete brake overhaul. For that price you can just about fit new rotors and pads on all four wheels for a Ford F350, which might be a typical delivery truck.

As for the urea costs, that appears to be exaggerated. The only maintenance normally needed is refilling with the urea solution, consumption of which is about 2% of fuel consumption. The urea solution costs about $5 per gallon at truck stops, and if the truck travels 70,000 miles at 14mpg it uses 5000 gallons of fuel and 100 gallons of urea at a cost of $500. But again, the mileage driven in an electric truck is only a third of this.

I can see that operating costs for an electric delivery truck could be much lower than for a diesel truck, but claiming a 10:1 maintenance cost ratio is unbelievable for comparable service. When such unbelievable numbers are thrown around, it is hard to believe anything else in the article.

I'm not sure, Fred, but that would be my hope.

As it turns out, I have a list of twenty-two seniors complexes where we'll be deploying the latest in LED technology (hallways, day rooms, and other common areas). For the first of the two buildings I audited on Friday (http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/AG.jpg), I've specified several hundred EnduraLED PAR20s, BA11s, G25s and L-Prize A19s.

There are fifty-four stairwell fixtures currently fitted with 13-watt CFLs, many with cracked or missing shades (e.g., http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/Img_1732.jpg). I'm still weighing my options on this. I can't risk having a $50.00 lamp stolen from one of these fixtures (you could theoretically reach up and unscrew one in a matter of seconds), so if we do go LED I'll have use some sort of enclosed fixture. However, with various pipes and conduits in the way, we're really tight for space. A Philips L-Prize lamp would supply roughly 20 per cent more light, consume 25 per cent less electricity and last perhaps four to five times longer, so it's my preferred option.

Cheers,
Paul

End of season wheat stocks are a good metric of how things are going globally for the human species. Stocks have been a consistent 70 lbs per capita since about 1960. That changed in 2003 with the big biofuel push, and stocks quickly drew down to about 40 pounds per capita. That's the danger zone - it was obvious in the fall of 2010 that wheat prices were going to trigger some changes. Arab spring popped up right on schedule six months later.

I have not dug into this since 2010 but I should probably revisit it - we talk of many different sorts of resource depletion, but this end of season wheat stock per capita seems to be a magic indicator. I have seem much anecdotal evidence that 2012 has not been food for wheat crops, I should probably wade through all the reports and come up with some sort of report.

I was thinking of the EROEI of this particular diet for cattle.

It's has to be WAY more than the 8 Kcal of feed for every 1 Kcal of useable protein.

Here's an interesting graph, it is the evolution of the Trade Deficit of Spain, from 1995 to 2011.

If it doesn't appear for some reason or if it is too big, the url of the article is
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/article.php?story=20120723030108354

The Red bars are the energetic deficit; imports of fuels, Gas and Oil and Coal are not separated to make the image simpler.
Spain imports almost 100% of the Oil, Gas and Coal it consumes.

"In 2010 the energetic deficit made up 4,5 % of Spanish GDP/pib".

It is obvious that fuels are eating up all the other imports, it is no sustainable specially now that the country has no credit.

It is been a very unusual Summer. Usually Spain is asleep in Summer, paralyzed by the heat (temperatures of up to 45ºC were recorded this year), taking it easy on the beach. But this year there were lots of fires this Summer, strikes, lots of people are getting fired and the country waits to see what September brings to us.
Nothing good.

* About eating the bankers:
cenital emilio bueso (google it)
E B is an Engineer who also writes terror novels.
http://crashoil.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cenital-de-emilio-bueso.html

It is 2014 and Spain is totally collapsed, a few islands of stability survive among barbarians, cannibals, rapine and destruction.

2014! that is very soon.

If there was any justice, they would eat the banksters.

This was a publicity stunt and protest, not the direct actions of the hungry.

Carrefour and Mercadona (the targeted mega-chains) will probably survive a few thousand dollars of staples being removed. In fact, I'm confident they have received far more in tax incentives from local government.

Also, note that the people who did this are Communist communal farmers (who had been landless laborers but obtained their land about 30 years ago via squatting on unused ag land held by a Spanish aristocrat), they aren't hungry, they distributed the goods to food banks.

There is an old Spanish saying: "Civilization and anarchy are seven meals apart."

I think it appropriate to keep these words in mind, as we look at the decline occurring all around.

I have researched the major political/social upheavals of the last 200 years (for which we have the best access to historical records) and was quite surprised to see that almost every single major revolution was triggered by a food crisis. While other factors helped to set the stage, it was only in the countries which experienced food shortages or extremely high price increases in staple products that actual revolts occurred (and nearly spontaneously). Therefore, I suggest we continue to follow food production numbers and trends, both regionally and globally, in order to help the followers of TOD keep these factors in mind, both for their business as well as their individual livelihoods.

V/R
Torin

Democracy is not the same as hold plebiscites on everything. People do not not need to have direct daily control of seed corn policy in order for a governance system to qualify as a democracy.

I suspect your point is valid, democracy is challenged by difficult times, however the other options are better, just easier.

Democracy is inherently incompatible with a restriction of resources and a declining economy.

You think you have democracy now or had it just before 2008 or 2005?

Increased potential localization from a declining economy would seem to enhance democracy by placing the means of production of basic necessities back into the hands of people. Hell, Seraph's Robin Hood post even seems to suggest this.

As for voting...

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
~ Alan Coren

George Carlin

In addition to what Europe maybe should have done, maybe the US should have done what Iceland did as well and avoided the trillions paid in the bailout. I still don't buy that our economy would have completely and utterly collpased without AIG, Citicorp, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. One of the ideas behind capitalism is competition, and as businesses fail others take their place. Where did that idea go?

Maybe it would have been a huge boost to the economy if instead of foreclosing on people, let them have the property free and clear. They make out like bandits while the banks fail. New banks spring up and the real estate market hardly misses a beat.

That would have forced the banks to learn a very hard lesson, but instead they have a sense of anything goes because they will get their hand held like a baby and never be forced to learn from the experience. AIG threw extremely extravagant party's! That should have told us something right there. I would have loved to have watched them fail.

People want to have it both ways. They claim capitalism is great, but when push comes to shove they defer to socialism to save the cronies. Then they do a 180 and claim capitalism is great and we should not regulate the banks. Huh?!

A May, 2012 article in the WSJ (behind paywall):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230420360457739617100765204...
In European Crisis, Iceland Emerges as an Island of Recovery
Excerpt:

VESTMANNAEYJAR, Iceland—Three and a half years after Iceland collapsed in a heap, Dadi Palsson's fish-processing plant has the air of a surprising economic recovery. Mr. Palsson arrived at 4 a.m. on a recent workday. Twelve tons of cod were coming in. Soon, his workers would bone, slice and pack the fish for loading onto towering container ships headed abroad.

In 2008, Iceland was the first casualty of the financial crisis that has since primed the euro zone for another economic disaster: Greece is edging toward a cataclysmic exit from the euro, Spain is racked by a teetering banking system, and German politicians are squabbling over how to hold it all together. But Iceland is growing. Unemployment has eased. Emigration has slowed.

Iceland has a significant advantage over stressed euro-zone countries—a currency that could be devalued. That has turned its trade deficit into a surplus and smoothed its recovery . . . .

Unlike Ireland, for example, Iceland let its banks fail and made foreign creditors, not Icelandic taxpayers, largely responsible for covering losses.

It has occurred to me that if most oil importing OECD countries are following Iceland's path, just at different rates and at different positions relative to the end of the path, perhaps the following quote is relevant:

“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly”

The problem I foresee is that the harder that oil importing OECD countries try to keep the overall (predominantly "Wants" based) economy going, the harder it will be to keep the "Needs" based economy going.

But Iceland was in a much different situation than others. They got in trouble because of an out-of-control banking sector. Other countries wanted to make the Finnish government/people responsible for all the Finnish bank debt. The Finnish people said "No". But they had something to fall back on. They still have very productive fisheries and all that nearly free geothermal power. So they took a hit but were able to build back up using their natural resources and hard work.

Other countries don't have the luxury of having such a small population and rich natural resources.

So I agree that they did the right thing and it is working for them. But I don't think others can easily follow their path.

It's important to realise that Iceland still owes various european countries billion of dollars - from when it ducked its responsibilities to backstop the banks it had guaranteed and those countries had to pay the money to their depositors sharpish.

If you think they are just going to ignore it, you, like they, will get a rude awakening. Iceland owes what Iceland owes - no matter how much they might think they can slope shoulder.

While all that matters is the deployment rate, those who think we will, or can, transition to greener vehicles so we can maintain our auto-centric culture are ignoring a lot of things, and in deep denial, IMO. I recommend folks get working on how your kids or grandkids are going to eat and stay warm (or cool, as the case may be), rather than what kind of car they're going to commute in, and to worry about how you'll feed the burro. Gettyup girl!"

The gas from the digesters is not straight up C and H. There are Sulfur and Nitrogen components which create acids when burned which will make short work of most ICE engines. And if you have a classic boiler - the boiler doesn't last as long.

And yes - as people divert their own inputs into the 'unused biomass' via reuse/recycle/just not buying as many hot pockets what used to be a source can become a sink fast. And when Grandpa had jugs of, say DDT and the kids just don't want to pay the disposal fees, those jugs dumped down the sewers become quite the liability.

No doubt that the well-educated and better trained have left PDVSA, but I didn't know many have emigrated.

It appears that even if regular maintenance was conducted (which does not appear to be the case - see below), it may not have properly performed. It is not clear why maintenance wasn't performed regularly, but I assume improper management and attempted cost savings were the motivation to defer maintenance. Also the switch from being a gasoline exporter to importer probably put stress on management to maintain output as high as normally possible. Even in the US, some simple operational failures have lead to major problems - with the largest US refinery, Motiva, still having its main crude unit shut down for repairs.

I don't expect that Chavez will be willing to discuss the Amuay situation much before the next election, and also, I suppose that gasoline will remain very cheap - at least until elections have passed.

Amuay has had at least eight minor accidents this year. In the PDVSA annual report, the company acknowledged that in 2011 there were only two shutdowns for scheduled maintenance instead of the nine normally carried out. The company didn't explain why maintenance had been reduced.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-venezuela-explosion-...

In the US, refineries, excluding those undergoing maintenance and repairs, are operating within 1 to 2% of maximum capacity. Effectively you could say that they are running flat out.

However refiners have some limited on-site ability to alter the product output mix, or alternatively, use a different grade of oil or oil product to increase, for example, the amount of gasoline output.

So yes, in California, they are trying to use the last little bit of capacity available, adjusting the output mix, and using different inputs, all with the intention of producing more gasoline.

If market price included the opportunity cost of not exporting the oil inputs, the cost would be many times higher than $.12 cents. We've seen how poor countries which give the plebes cheap oil/gas fare when they try to rein in such subsidies, they get protests and civil unrest or worse. So the subsidies usually get re-instated in order to placate the people. Meanwhile rationalization, "removing subsidies, but helping the poor by other means which don't encourage waste takes a back seat.

It is my understanding that US gasoline exported to Venezuela is substantially produced per the standards used in Venezuela, and thus would not be considered 'surplus' US gasoline.

So then the US gasoline exported might undergo some final blending of additives and stabilizers in Venezuela and then sold at $0.12 gallon like their domestically produced gasoline. Usually most Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, make the major energy companies bear most of the burden of the losses by selling gasoline at a discount to market prices, although I am not specifically aware of how Venezuela pays for the large gasoline price subsidy.

Meanwhile the Amuay fire is still not out:

(Reuters) - Venezuelan firefighters struggled on Sunday to put out a blaze at the country's biggest refinery sparked by an explosion that killed 41 people in one of the global oil industry's deadliest accidents.

Officials at the 645,000 barrel-per-day Amuay refinery are trying to stop the fire still raging at two storage tanks from spreading to other nearby fuel storage facilities. That would delay Amuay's restart beyond the current estimate of two days.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/26/us-venezuela-refinery-startup-...

A column of smoke rises, a day after an explosion at Amuay oil refinery in Punto Fijo in the Peninsula of Paraguana August 26, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Gil Montano

Indeed. RE: Car maintenance... if you save money while stuck in the current paradigm then you have more of it left to spend on getting out of it. Money that can go towards a more fuel-efficient vehicle later, home insulation, solar systems...

Right on Fred! Thanks.

Surely we all know that future of humanity is oven bake unless we get OFF fossil fuels, therefor every new great discovery of oil, nat gas, etc, is just pure more bad news to depress me more. So I don't read about it.

What I have decided is my mission, and what I am doing, and lots of others here are too, is go all out to set an example of off ff, and then talk it up to get others on to the same game. I went totally off grid this year, and was surprised to find how cheap it was - way less than a big fat pickup truck or a handful of 6 ft TV screens or that trip to Cal I am gonna have to take to satisfy all my dying siblings.

And, for a do it yourself type, it was fun, fun fun. Watching all those new gages, and all that.

The Oil Drum seeks to facilitate civil, evidence-based discussions about energy and its impacts on the future of humanity, as well as serve as a leading online knowledge-base for energy-related topics.

Thanks Fred
I think that nails it pretty well - the focus is on "Energy-related topics"

I'm sure in the 3 weeks they've been a member said commentator went ahead and read all the old articles over the years of TOD existence to understand with fullness all the past commentators.

But, given they want a re-vamp so badly here's a suggestion:
Go write some Java code to act as a proxy that you connect your browser to which gives you the features you want from TOD.

Then you, Svamp, will get what you want.

Here - I'll help with your coding system:
#wantabetterworldgomakeityourself
#becausethisisasystemoffereduptothepublicbyTODstaffandweareallherebytheirgrace
#oryoucouldwriteoutachecktoTODstafftopaythemtogetwhatyouwantandpayforcommentatorstoprovidewhatyouarelookingfor

I never knew about that. Thanks! I realy mean it.

simply click the little button to collapse the sub-thread

???? Can anybody describe this differently? I am using Firefox as my browser and see no little buttons at the start of a thread...

EDIT: Never mind - I also run the NoScript add-on and just found that when I turn it off the little - and + buttons magically appear.

Peak Oil has shown itself to be a rather slow process

Indeed. I occasionally have to remind myself that PO is the confluence of geologic events measured in (hundreds of) millions of years, and civilization events measured in millennia. The fact that it will even be observable in a single human lifetime is remarkable when viewed from that perspective. As has been said here often, which month or year production peaks is of little import (though I must confess I watch the data with baited breath most of the time). What matters is how (un)prepared are the teeming billions of us as decline sets in, with respect to food production, JIT delivery, and all the other complex, interdependent systems that keep us all alive in the current global empire of industrial civilization.

Things won't get really interesting (in the ancient Chinese curse sense) until a major event happens,

To me these are the most interesting of times. We are at the peak right now, or slightly past it, yet all the pundits in the mainstream media is saying we have a glut of oil coming down the line. See my post below where the former CIA director, former Undersecretary of Energy, former deputy Secretary of Defense says North America will be a net oil exporter by the end of this decade. Or more correctly he is saying that this is the opinion of most energy experts.

To me this is just too good. Every so-called expert and his brother is predicting an oil glut by 2015 or soon thereafter. There is a good article on this subject here: Peak oil denial: Debunking The Attempted Debunking

I read stuff like this every day and love them all. These are exciting times for me as far as Peak Oil goes.

Ron P.

Sorry, Svamp.
I think your take on what constitutes an 'off topic' conversation is apparently very much your own, and not IMO the same as the one that concerns the Mods.

There are some unproductive sidetracks that add a lot of heat, not light, but both thematically and energetically, I think I can safely say that LEDs and Salted Winter Highways are not really among them. As others have said, it's very easy to scroll past things that don't interest you, unless it's a 200-post diatribe on Religion or how Stupid the American Voter is, etc..

Antisocial behavior and senseless ranting is an occasional problem, but seems to get nipped pretty fast both by mods and by the general membership, and otherwise, a wide-boundary eclectic discussion seems to be a KEY feature for most of us, and not a problem to be corralled.

My contention is that for those of us who like to keep a clear focus on Peak Oil(and yes there are related issues, but car costs or your lamp isn't one of them, no matter how hard you try, sorry), there should be a filter so we can skip the spam.

Svamp, again, the topics discussed on this site relate to energy, how we produce it, how we consume it, what it costs, how we pay for it both through our financial instruments and in terms of EROEI. We regularly discuss topics related to nuclear energy, hydro, wind, solar, and all forms of fossil fuel such as coal, natural gas, oil, not to mention topics related to biomass, ethanol production, things like the viability of scaling up algae production, etc.. etc..

Most of us here are mathematically and scientifically literate and many are highly specialized experts in their respective fields. As a group we are quite interested in how these topics directly affect our personal lives and possibly our global industrial civilization as a whole. Many of us have been around this site for quite a few years and we are familiar with each other to the point that we often refer to each other on a first name basis.

Specifically with respect to 'the cost of lamps' as you say, I think you would be extremely hard pressed to argue that it is irrelevant to the topic of energy, energy usage and how it might have a long term impact on people in general, possibly even a paradigm changing impact on our global civilization.

You are free to disagree with my points but before you do, may I suggest you take a little time to familiarize yourself what this site is really about and try to broaden you range of energy related interests. You might find there are many here who have quite a bit to contribute to your general education on energy related topics.

Of course if none of this interests you then so be it.

Cheers!

Fred

P.S. and now back to watching fast approaching Hurricane Isaac here in South Florida and especially it's future path into the Gulf of Mexico. My apologies to all if that is an irrelevant topic on this site >;-)

I don't think that comment trail means what you think it does. As you maintain your sincerity, I will explain my appreciation of the relevance of the comments which you feel are unrelated to the site topic.

The largest sectoral use of oil in the U.S. is in the transport sector. The majority of that use is in light motor vehicles for personal transport. Reducing that use is of some import in responding to declining oil availability. One (not the only) route to reduced oil use in light vehicles is increased efficiency of oil use in light vehicles. For the most part, that improved efficiency occurs when/as fleet turnover happens. Factors affecting when and at what rate fleet turnover occurs include what it costs to keep specific vehicles on the road at a given age. After some acquaintance with the comments of the party who asked that question, I would guess he wishes to improve his model of how fleet mileage changes due to changes in new vehicle production characteristics, and what the policy levers are which would increase fleet mileage fastest and at least cost.

In some parts of the world (for instance Japan in the absence of nukes, Mexico, the Middle East, islands, isolated villages, etc), large quantities of oil are burned to produce electricity, space heat, and hot water, and in nearly all parts of the world energy is consumed to provide those services, energy which is to some extent fungible with oil. A lightbulb which uses 15% the energy to provide the same amount of light is on-topic. Figuring out how to get those lightbulbs into service and saving energy is on-topic.

If you don't like what you call "off-topic chat," just stay out of the Drumbeats. One of the purposes of the Drumbeat is to allow people a little more leeway (and keep this stuff out of the key posts).

The key posts are more tightly moderated. Just stick to them, and everyone's happy.

If you noticed my own posts in that Drumbeat of the date you've linked to, you might get a good sense of how I feel about moderation in general.
To get a better insight into 'peak oil' (whatever it is exactly) is to consider and examine related issues. And everything's related.

Topic (etc.) -moderation's fine to a point, (and may even help save us from ourselves and improve our image), after which it can start to stare into its own mirror and start talking to itself.

I have been on this forum for only one year but here's my take. I don't think it's possible to only discuss topics which are directly related to PO. By which I assume you mean things like oil production data, refinery outputs etc. I think you are looking for a place which more or less resembles an academic forum where people only discuss what is related to their field of study. This is not an academic forum.

Rather it resembles (and I am taking liberties here) a local farmers group where people come to discuss farming techniques, and then some people discuss how much milk their cow is producing, some go ahead and start discussing what they are going to do on Christmas. Not all of it is useless, as everyone knows cows are important to farming and so are holidays. Of course at one point the mods are going to step in and say that folks let's not gossip here. But to me some of it is unavoidable, without it the whole discussion wouldn't exist. Drumbeat is a regular feature here and when something is regular, mundane everyday discussions do come up because that's how normal people behave. I don't know if you go to an office or not. I do and even though it's a professional setting we joke, talk about movies, music, family etc alongside discussing algorithms and business updates.

I wouldn't wanna go to an office where people only talk about technical stuff, I simply wouldn't be able to stand it. TOD is unlike any other online forum, it's a place where many folks are regular and have been discussing stuff for years, many people know each other and respect each other so things which you consider mundane are bound to come up. Of course a fine balance must be maintained about what's off topic and what's not but let's not turn this into academic forum please. There are so many of them out there and they are boring as hell.

svamp

Energy is energy. Whether it is waste or conservation (windows/insulation/cars etc), the need has to be made up from somewhere. All energy related topics reflect the situation of peak oil. Peakoil.com is a case in point. They cover tons of topics, but the comments are not as good or thorough as TOD. The down arrow is a great filter and so is a break from the site.

I remember a quote from Todd once about how sick he was about the same old energy postings about "how many joules can fit on the head of a pin". It really made me take notice of other topics as well as westex and Ron's info which is what really brings me back day after day.

The shipping index is a case in point.

If only sustainability sites as well as prep sites were as good as TOD. This would allow some comment and reader migration. I just haven't found anything yet to replace the civility and knowledge of TOD regulars.

Regards...Paulo

And far from ad-homs, I think the responses have given the topic a full and fair hearing.

I hope Svamp, you feel the question has gotten answered ok.

I think the world would function extremely well with millions of little cooperative groups, all in relation to each other.

What keeps the groups little, yet cooperative? If the groups are cooperative, they are likely to coalesce and form larger groups. If they are not cooperative, they are likely to compete and eliminate each other.

Even if it were possible to start with small groups (and there are some, such as mountain villages, nomadic encampments, island fishing villages, etc.), there is no political lecithin to keep such a social mayonnaise from breaking.

Check out the wave height forecast out to 72hrs:

Wave Model - Gulf of Mexico Surf Height
http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display.cgi?a=gom_wave

20ft to 40ft+ across half the GOM just offshore of SELA and FL. Maybe they should consider more evacuations... Just sayin'

Cheers,
Jerry

This is what it already looks like this morning in my area near Ft Lauderdale, Live webcam.
http://www.sunny.org/webcam/

Not a good beach day!

Though I guess I shouldn't complain, I could be living in Okinawa...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/26/world/asia/typhoon-bolaven/index.html?hpt=...

Tokyo (CNN) -- A massive typhoon began to make landfall Sunday over Okinawa, bringing winds more ferocious than even the typhoon-weary Japanese island has seen in decades.
It will likely be the strongest since 1956, said CNN International meteorologist Tom Sater.
With a cloud field of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), Typhoon Bolaven is 20 times larger than Okinawa's length.
"It's been very, very severe," said storm chaser James Reynolds, on the northwestern coast of the island.

I'm so glad climate change ain't happening!

Just looking at the latest GFS runs. At 12z (UTC) + 48 hrs approaching Greater NOLA/Mississippi River Delta. Then spends the next two days slowly drifting west staying offshore before making landfall about TX/LA boundary. Then drifts north through east Texas. Peak forecast strength about Cat 2/Cat 3.

Looks like it might go close to the LOOP.

Anybody know what is the condition of the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico now? How warm is the Gulf anyway?

To all there, hang on and good luck, you're in for some sort of a blow.

I was checking out the latest Archdriud report and in it Greer uses hurricane forcasting as a foundation for making some claims about the US military.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

From the article:
"For a timely example of chaos, it’s hard to do better than Tropical Storm Isaac, which is churning its way into the eastern Caribbean as I write this. As systems go, a tropical storm is a fairly simple one—basically, a heat engine in which all the moving parts are made of air and water, with a few feedback loops linking it to its environment. Those loops are what make it chaotic; a tropical storm’s behavior is determined by its environment, but its environment is constantly being reshaped by the tropical storm, so that perturbations too small to track or anticipate can spin out of control and drive major shifts in size, speed and direction.

Thus you can never know exactly where a tropical storm is going to go, or how hard it’s going to hit. The most you can know is where, on average, storms like the one you’re watching have tended to go, and what they’ve done when they got there. That’s chaos: unpredictability because the other system’s interactions with its environment are too complex to be accurately anticipated."

The second paragraph is totally inaccurate i.e. completely WRONG! Hurricane forcasters use mathmatical models to predict the track and intensity of hurricanes. They've become pretty good at forcasting the tracking part and they aren't as good at forcasting the intensity part. They do not use the historical averages! Check out tropical cyclone forcasting on Wikipedea for the details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_forecasting

Technically, when one bases one's conclusions on false premises, those conclusions can be suspect. John Michael Greer is a historian and seems to see everything through the lense of a historian. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

Does anyone else here think this is an example of sloppy reasoning by Greer?

PS--this is not an ad hominem attack.

Wait a minute. This isn't the stratospheric sulfate injection idea, but rather seeding low marine clouds to make them brighter. Since these clouds are over water it would have little effect on PV. And it is easy to turn off, just recall the seeding boats. Obviously the cooling isn't evenly distributed geographically, a return to the climate state anti, just isn't in the cards. But there are ways of increasing land albedo, such as white roofs, and even selecting vegetation that reflects more, so you cold roughly balance out land-sea temp diffs. I do think we may become desperate enough to do something like this. It doesn't solve ocean acidification, so the sixth mass extinction events marine component will still be pretty strong.

But the Kochs/Syncrude/Shell/EEEEvil_Tarsands_Co. etc want to get precious Canadian (aka Sweet Domestic North American Heavy) crude out to Cushing and LOOP. Surely some oppose it for that reason.

Relying on aged pipes is unwise. Putting in another one next to the old ones so pretty soon you have 9 old ones is nutso. Put in one big one I say. Made from new technology. But that is apparently not trans-continentally cost-effective. 70% of my future gasoline comes through that series of tubes. After coming out of a giant eco-travesty in the ground. I think if people knew they would want a choice which is where some of the opposition grows.

Prez is whatever, man. That ship sailed. Politics is for morons.

Snuggles for all of you Drumbeatards from me in Lurksville, MN and especially Leanan for being extra cool.

Thank you all for the comments and moderation shared.

Rock,

The 'critical mass' that drives the protest against KPL is the demand for action on climate change. Until there is a real, effective and rising price on carbon emissions then those who are concerned about AGW have every reason to passionately protest against KPL.

To those concerned about climate change, it is absurd to be doubling down and building pipeline infrastructure and enshrining demand for oil by government inaction when the science says that we should be desperately transitioning away from FF.

In it's way the protest against KPL, was a small victory in that it may have raised prices for gas and diesel for those outside the mid-west. In effect it put a price on emissions that Washington and Ottawa aren't willing to do. That said I say 'may' because as I have learned from many here, yourself included, there are many variables that determine the price of fuel wherever one fills up.

Cheers,

Andrew

Unconventional oil production will drop off pretty substantially at lower prices, though that's impossible to quantify since there are so many companies in so many different parts of these very heterogeneous resource plays. At a given price, say $70 for WTI, some well-capitalized companies with higher tolerances for reduced cash flow will continue to drill while others will have a hard time staying on the treadmill. Even if a well will give a reasonable rate of return at lower prices, those with the luxury of waiting out a drop in oil prices or diverting capital to other assets will do so, as the article pointed out. Other smaller companies may find themselves in need of expensive external financing, and those that spent a lot on leases and haven't recouped their investments will be in some trouble.

With so many moving parts, I'm a fan of log normal distributions, which can aggregate a lot of the individual variables, which in turn may be log-normally distributed. If we define break-even pricing as a 15% rate of return (>15% = drill, <15% = don't drill, to simplify things), the mean of that log-normal distribution spread out over the entirety of the Bakken occurs at somewhere between $40 and $70 per barrel, depending on who's doing the analysis. That is, 50% of Bakken PUDs (proved undeveloped reserves) provide a 15% rate of return at somewhere between $40 and $70. The tails of the distribution are interesting as well- 10% might achieve that return at just $20/barrel, and 10% might need $100. [I just made up those last two numbers to illustrate the curve]. But since North Dakota Light Sweet trades a discount to West Texas Intermediate, we'd need to adjust according.

This is one reason why you still see a few dozen drilling rigs in the Haynesville and Barnett shales, even with low natural gas prices.

" If there is a recession in the near future that reduces the economy's capability to pay 90+ for a barrel oil, then how much non-conventional (incl. Bakken) and deep off-shore oil will drop off?"

Deepwater drilling isn't as likely to drop off very fast due to lower prices, because of the amount of time it takes these projects to produce. I've worked on drilling projects that won't produce oil for five years or more, because of the entire process and production system that's included. Stacking Deepwater rigs and shutting down deepwater projects, midproject, is not like shutting down a land rig. That's what made the deepwater drilling moratorium in the GOM so harsh in the eyes of oil companies. I think deepwater drilling will withstand short term price fluctuations just fine.

By the way we have never come out of the 2008 recession and QE-3 or QE-4 will just make the price of oil go up more than a storm in the gulf of Mexico will.