 | DrumBeat: November 10, 2006 | The Oil Drum | From the Editor's Desk: Peak Oil, Heretical Thought, Complexity, and the Future of The Oil Drum |  |
DrumBeat: November 11, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 11, 2006 - 9:21am
An assessment of world oil exports
This article is a first simplistic assessment of World Oil Exports, here defined has the total amount of liquid hydrocarbons that are surpluses in producing countries. This assessment is made by projecting in to the future fixed change rates that reflect current trends in liquids production and consumption in countries where presently the difference between the two is positive. The outcome of this assessment is worrisome.
Norway Oil Companies Refocus Exploration Strategies
Oil companies on the Norwegian continental shelf are rethinking and prioritizing exploration strategies to ensure future growth, despite the high prices for rigs, contractors and personnel spurred by high oil prices, industry figures say.Traditionally, exploration costs rise and fall in line with oil prices, but companies are focusing on steadier exploration investment because resources are becoming scarcer.
Irish Police Baton-charge Protestors at Shell Terminal in Ireland
Police baton-charged protestors blocking access to the construction site of a Shell gas terminal in County Mayo in west Ireland, a spokesman said.Police said one protestor had been hospitalized and several other people, including members of the force, had suffered minor injuries during the confrontation.
The Globe & Mail has a special book review section called Are We Doomed?
Among the reviews: Heating the Ivory Tower (Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University, by Michael M'Gonigle) and If You Can't Stand the Heat (George Monbiot's How to Stop the Planet From Burning).
Solar: California's Rising Star
China to Finish Desert Oil Route Ahead of Schedule
China plans to complete a highway across the world's biggest sandy desert, near the ancient Silk Road, six months before schedule to tap oil fields in the western part of the country and reduce reliance on imports, an official said Wednesday.
The 150 billion cubic meters flared and vented annually are equivalent to 25 per cent of the United States’ gas consumption per year, and release about 390 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
Without oil, Iran would have neither the money nor the wherewithal to develop nuclear energy, much less the bomb. Here, oil is seen as the reason the US overthrew the Mossadegh government half a century ago. And as the world approaches peak oil -- the point at which half of the world's reserves have been depleted, making each successive barrel harder and more expensive to extract -- oil and the atom have become the yin and yang of global energy politics.
Peak Oil Passnotes: Will Oil Rise on the Back of Short Covering?
Last year record long positions were shorted in the last two months of the year. It forced down the price to a floor of $55, around the Christmas and New Year period. Amazingly, after that week the price immediately rebounded up to $61 within days of January 1.Now we approach the same time in the year again. But instead of record long positions, spurred on by the hurricanes in America, we are now looking at record short positions of 172,000 lots. Could we be looking at the same pattern, in reverse, happening again this year?
Join us to look at end of cheap oil
Try recording how many miles per week you drive in your car. Now imagine that the price of gas is $6 per gallon. You cut back on movies and eating out, so you drive 20 percent less and manage to make ends meet.Then gas goes to $10 per gallon, and you figure out that you need to decrease your driving miles by 75 percent. What would you cut?
Oil companies tackle malaria, other issues in Africa
The leader of Africa's most populous nation is endangering not only his own legacy but his nation.
Oh no! We are Doomed! That's right, doomed! And no I am not talking about the outcome of the election (tough I could be) but doomed when it comes to energy and the world around us. In fact we may be so doomed that I may start walking around with a sandwich board that says we are doomed and that the end is near! Now if you think I am starting a panic, maybe I should, because it is not just me saying we are doomed, but the director of the International Energy Agency, Claude Mandil, himself.
A threefold expansion of nuclear power could contribute significantly to staving off climate change by avoiding one billion to two billion tons of carbon emissions annually
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Am I the only one who senses a remarkable shift -- or, really, 3 shifts -- in how the press is covering climate change
Climate change special: State of denial
Canadians' reliance on cars, trucks driving up greenhouse gases: StatsCan
Review of George Monbiot's "Heat
"Europe refuses to negotiate South Pacific fishing cap:
AM - Saturday, 11 November , 2006 ELIZABETH JACKSON: Fishing representatives are warning a failure to reach an agreement to cap fishing in the South Pacific could lead to a disaster for stocks in the region. This comes after a breakdown of negotiations at meetings in Hobart this week.
Southern Hemisphere nations are pointing the finger at powerful European fishing interests, saying they're set to repeat mistakes already made in the Northern Hemisphere.
And while environmentalists are warning of a possible ecological disaster, Australia is also being warned of regional instability if the European fishing interests get their way, as Tim Jeanes reports."
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1786256.htm
http://aistigave.hit.bg/Logistics/
I particularly liked the recycled car.
Best Hopes for a Rail Alternative non-oil Transportation future,
Alan
The recycled car was good, but the child riding in the laundry basket horrified me.
Yesterday when visiting ADM I jotted down the yardboard prices on grains.
Grain Cash January
Corn 3.67 3.72
Soybeans 6.23 6.83
Wheat 4.98
Milo 3.82 4.03
The prices have risen quite a bit but in the last day or so have fallen some few cents due to USDA crop report just out.
The weather is very bad in my area of the midwest and is causing tremendous problems in the field but the worst is high moisture content in the grain. The farmer gets 'docked'
for this since it requires a lot of energy(gas of what ever form) to dry the grain to good storage values.
If you have 16% in milo then you can lose perhaps $.50 per bushel which is very significant. Much of the grain is going out at 17 and higher. If you hit 20 they might not take the grain or tell you not to bring anymore of it in.
So this is the point I am heading towards. Global Warming and its possible negative effects on ethanol or use of our crops for fuel.
It appears to me and others that the extremes in weather we are experencing is likely due to GW and other facets that are related directly to GW(El Nino,etc).
These effects play havoc with crops and crop management.
Right now we have semi's broken down in the field, tractors stuck, combines struck and damaged due to the condition of the crops. All this might be multiplied many fold in the future if the weather continues to worsen as I assume it likely would.
Some farmers may find they can no longer continue. One of my friends still has a third(1,000 acres of crops) still at risk and still not in the bin. Water levels rising , soil not drying,and more.
Fingers are crossed and the farmers are basically working extremely long and hard hours.
Will all this go in the future just to keep soccer moms happily motoring? To keep the Wal-Marts flourishing? I wonder.
THanks for these posts on the farming perspective. I learn a lot from them.
Francois
These two(beans and milo) are later maturing grain crops and often bad weather can set back the harvest times. Milo has a large stalk and so rain , floods and wind doesn't usually bother them like it does soybeans. They can be smashed flat.
Corn can be almost totally lost due to high wind and extreme wetness. Thats why the want it out early.
In any event its sometimes early Dec before ALL the beans are done with.
AFAIK hitech farming, such as gmo and no till do not have a substantial effect on the maturing and harvesting. You can buy seeds that have longer germination periods though. You can buy many many different seeds with lots of variation due to soil type,weather , etc.
Farming is a chancy endeavor. You simply cannot control nature. You then learn how to predict or make wise decisions on many facets of it. If you don't you can go under.
Most farmers are very rich, in term of assests but very cash poor. They sometimes only realize their lifelong accumulation when they sell out.
I do know some who brought land when it was cheap and brought lots of it. They are doing extremely well.
Thanks for the above praise. My intent was to let the community know more fully the life and trials of farming, or at least the higher tech style and especially as it relates to our future and the energy situation.
the fish are jumpin and the cotton is high
Grains Have Gone Parabolic
Prices have been bid up despite high harvests. Of course, that doesn't completely ease the pain from getting docked--or if you can't get it harvested at all.
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog
[http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/]
A New Perspective For Assessing The Role Of Agriculture In The Climate System And In Climate Change
Pielke Sr., R.A., J.O. Adegoke, T.N. Chase, C.H. Marshall, T. Matsui, and D. Niyogi, 2006.
[http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/11/10/a-new-paradigm-for-assessing-the-role-of-agricultur e-in-the-climate-system-and-in-climate-change-2/]
What are the costs per acre of diesel for different farming operation? I am not a farmer (albeit interested in farming), but from my limited knowledge, for any one crop, you would have to pass over the field:
- once to plough or disc in the crop residue (unless you burn it)
- once to add in lime to balance out acidity from nitrogen
- once to harrow or otherwise prepare the seedbed and possibly 'base fertilise' the land
- once to spray out germinating weeds and leave a residual weedicide
- once to sow the seed and place initial fertiliser
- two? times to spray out emerging weed seedlings
- maybe once or twice with fungicide and/or insecticide (unless done by helicopter)
- maybe once to side dress nitrogen (unless done by helicopter)
- once to harvest with the combine
Is maybe 10 passes over each acre in a growing cycle realistic? Or am I way out?Last two questions:
- what is a 'ball park' average of diesel consumption for the machinery involved in these operations (I guess it will differ between the size of the machine, the type of machine, the variable resistance of the soil according to how wet and what type, etc but I am just trying to get a 'feel' for deisel use per crop/acre)
- Leaving out climate variability (I know that's stupid, but for the sake of thinking about it), are there farmers at such physical distance from diesel supply lines that movements we have already experienced in deisel prices make their seed-growing operations marginal? Do such farmers have a price point for diesel in back of their mind at which they know they can't keep going, have you heard?
The USA is currently a major corn (at least) exporter. Government has subsidised exports, and this has worked well when oil was cheap.It seems to me that subsidised exports are hit twice - tax on USA consumers to pay the subsidy, and effective USA subsidisation of Japanese or whoever poultry producers.
This film is an excellent introduction to Peak Oil.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
Dingell aims to cut American oil habit
A Quick look at Foreign Oil
Russia near deal to join W.T.O.
-C.
He has - certainly to protect interests in his Detroit district. I have also recently heard that he is starting to push for higher fuel economy, but I don't know how serious he is about it.
What we need is a massive, government mandated shift to EV, PEHV/Diesels, CATs and large scale commercial shipping transportation via rail and passenger mass transportation via electrified rail.
Trying to 'fix' CAFE is moronic at this point. Burning MORE hydrocarbons is NOT the answer.
There is no excuses for continuing to use ICEs when the alternatives are not only viable but far more economical and cost effective in terms of combating global warming and reducing our FF consumption.
I'll say it again. Higher CAFE standards are NOT the answer. We need to completely move away from burning FFs in our engines!
When I get off work, I will go into more detail on why US auto makers wont build a commercial EV without prodding. Hint: It has to do with their bloated pension plans and lack of margins on a high efficiency vehicle :)
I've seen it reported to be more in the 20%-30% range.
This site says 20%.
Are you blaiming the ICE for transmission losses, tire losses?
All of this requires some limits on liquid-fuel use. CAFE standards or carbon-emission limits are more or less interchangeable measures, but they're susceptible to gaming through category arbitrage (from cars to "light trucks", etc). Given that electric vehicles are reaching into super-car performance territory, another measure would be to limit the acceleration allowed from combustion engines (say, 0-60 in 15 seconds minimum, set by a governor) and require any additional power to be obtained from stored or recovered energy. That would greatly increase economy and make hybrids the default for anything sportier than a tow vehicle.
Ah ha; Brother troll be working for Chevy.
http://www.netdisaster.com/go.php?mode=tomato&url=http://members.fortunecity.com/ashgann/hothgor .jpg
Bad troll.
Hothgor - have you no shame?
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/2/162019/324#more
I don't think there is anything in Hothgor's call for electric vehicles that warrants your attacks on him. Let's let bygones be bygones.
Whatever we think of CAFE standards, I don't think we should be taking a "cartoons of the prophet" approach to people who may dissent from your view.
There are some good analytical arguments on both sides of this issue. Yours is not one of them.
Rather than improved CAFE standards, I would instead set quotas for percentage of vehicles sold that must be fully electric. The sole exceptions to these might be extremely heavy construction equipment, aircraft, and military usage. But if we moved everything else to a purely electric base, our oil consumption would drop so much that we literally would gain decades to migrate the remaining small percentage of oil users away from oil. Such a program would also lead to large investment in electric power generation, the electric grid itself, and would foster serious public debate about other electric transportation as well, such as Alan's electric rail proposals. In short, a government mandated switch of that magnitude would create jobs, create sustainable infrastructure, and cause developers to plan different sorts of communities to live consistently with these new patterns.
Note: If we cut overall oil consumption to some fraction of current levels, we might actually be able to fill that fraction with sustainable biofuel production. Rather than try to make biofuels fill an impossible niche, why don't we ask what niche biofuels can actually fill then mandate that biofuels go to that purpose with pure electric filling everything else? We are past the point where the wastefulness of a "market" approach can be tolerated to maybe produce a solution. We are rapidly approaching a point where this becomes a lifeboat situation and we must do the most assured things to survive, regardless of whether market experimentation might produce something better (at what cost?).
IMO this is about the most well-designed approach possible given our set of circumstances. I'm very much looking forward to your upcoming post, EP. I'll be curious as to whether Nuclear is part of your plan, too. The ethanol mandates expire in 2010. If we can get this electric enthusiasm going before then, it could derail and rechannel ethanol $$$ towards electricity/grid/EV's subsidies and mandates. How about an EV factory proposal for Iowa? That would get those politicians flapping their lips in the right direction!
I really wonder, on a thermodynamic basis what is more useful. Although I know that ICE will be going the dead way, I don't know what could be the path to follow.
If we improve internal combustion engine and cars using it so it cost less to use it, the principle of Jevons will assure that more oil will be consumed. Indeed, if the car can do better mileage, cost less and still do more of the same job (perpetrate the American way of life) We can then say that improving combustion engine will only quicken the depletion of oil.
If we decide to go the electrical car way, it seems to me that it's a waste of energy. Let me explain why.
Most electric power generation is done using either natural gas, oil or coal. In Quebec, Canada, it is made 95% using hydro power dam. That is an odd situation and (to our shame) 70 to 80% is used to heat homes and water.
So what you have is a system that need to be built to ensure the increased demand of power. Let it be that EV cars can be plugged at night, it will make a new power demand spike and will ask for more power generation anyway. That power generation will require the building of more coal power plant.
Building and selling the EV car will need time too. Each one of them will require an amount of oil in order to built it. Be it as base material for all kind of plastic, lube, tires or chemical product and of course the required power to ensure the fabrication of each one.
When you have them available and you build them is mass quantities, you need at least 20 years to replace all the fleet. I'm not sure if we can build enough to reduce the demand of oil for at least 4-5% each year.
Let's not forget one thing, EV cars are using energy and this energy need to come from some power plant.
As a picture, just take a light bulb. It never use any oil in order to light. But, it use electric power coming mostly from fossil fuel power plant. The EV car is just a big light bulb.
Will the gain in direct fuel consumption in cars offset the increase in demand for electric power generation?
That is not so sure.
First you have to take into account the laws of thermodynamic, which state that every time you transfer a form of energy into an another, you have a loss of energy.
Right now it's near 3 o'clock in the morning and I don't have all the calculation with me but I think a visit to the www.eroei.com web site will probably get the discussion farther.
Let just say that you will loss power in the generation of electricity, then you will loose some more transporting it. Than you will loose some more storing it in the batteries (whichever they are) than you will loose more to power the electric motor (be them wheel motor or centralized motor).
I'm not sure that the increase in system complexity will improve the use of fuel power greatly. Let's compare.
System A (what we are using now)
Fuel -> Engine -> Moving power.
System B
Fuel -> Power plant -> grid -> batteries -> Motor -> Moving power.
We can then assume the following :
- Improving car efficiency will accelerate growth of oil consumption.
- Using EV car will only increase the complexity and induce more oil or fossil fuel consumption.
Indeed you can replace EV with any kind of storing energy device, be it compressed air, hydrogen, PHEV, etc.In one of the many classes I go through in my master degree, we have learn to look differently at problems to get other kind of answers.
What is truly needed?
A car? A better kind of car? A personal mean of transportation? What about freight? Will the electric storing device allow for lots of freight? Can we do better by putting more people together?
What you need is a mean of going from A to B.
With the current system, using a car is one of the most useful, even if not efficient. It is the most used.
What if we use a bus instead? What is we go the train way? How about an light electric rail?
Ask Alanfrombigeasy for more info on light electric rail, is a king on the subject.
Ah, using train mean transforming most of our way of life.
In order to challenge the base of this post, you probably have to start your own universe with a different Plank constant and speed of light.
Good luck!
I don't know how much of your clever joke is meant to be an actual critiscim of Hothgor. And I don't know whether he is or is not a paid troll but it seems as though the TOD has become an elementary school yard lately. While I greatly prefer Westexas' posts to those of Hothgor, I'm pretty much sick of some groupie calling him a troll after every post, regardless of the post's content. Debate his (and everyone's) posts on their merits or lack thereof.
I think someone whose first experience on TOD was today would think of Hothgor as a reasonable, if contrary, poster and you as the troll.
-C.
Unfortunately, that will only turn the public against the government as they will percieve it to be an unfair tax and will most likely vote said politicians out of office in the next election cycle and prop up someone else who wants us to continue down this path of environmental destruction.
Hrothgar is right to say we need alternatives to ICE, and the sooner the better. To make these alternatives more attractive will require incentives and more R&D. I'm hoping that polymer lithium ion batteries will lower the cost and improve the longevity of plug-in electric vehicles but in the meantime, remembering that hybrids have a gasoline-powered engine, there's not much choice to ICE. OK there are a few diesel-hybrid buses, but they're off most people's radar.
As electric vehicles come into use, they will displace existing ICE-powered vehicles, which will move down the food chain. However, the population and the number of registered vehicles are both still expanding, so fewer vehicles drop out the bottom of the chain than are added at the top. As I said, this means that today's vehicle mix will be with us for some time.
That's something I don't see anyone doing: pushing the view that driving a gas-guzzler hurts the USA and feeds terrorism, making it un-patriotic. It's not hard to understand why; the Republicans are in the pocket of the oil industry and the Democrats have spent so many years sneering at the concept of patriotism that they would never be taken seriously. I'm as independent as they come (I vote mostly Libertarian but I went almost all Democratic this last election) so I can make this claim, but I'm a nobody.
If the public came around to the view that guzzling gas is un-patriotic, it would follow that it ought to be discouraged (and saving it ought to be rewarded). In that kind of environment, a tax shift from employment taxes to fuel taxes (financing Social Security and Medicare partly or wholly from fuel taxes and giving workers an annual deductible adding up to the per-worker amount of the taxes collected) would sell. It's fair. It's simple. It does the job. But until someone with patriotic street cred makes the case for it, it won't get any traction.
The Dems don't want to move on this. They have a razor-thin margin that will disappear in 2008 if the anger turns against them; even the group at dKos is afraid to mention gas taxes. Afraid to mention gas taxes. Even though it's the right thing to do, and perhaps the only thing which will do the job.
I think it's up to us, folks. In the absence of leadership from above, this has to come from the grassroots. We're going to have to sell the public on a gas tax on the grounds that it is good for the Earth, good for the nation and ultimately good for them. If it is honest, transparent and effective, constructed as a way to get back at the hated oil companies and strategic enemies of the USA, it will appeal to the voters who think we ought to be fighting the war on that front too and are willing to sacrifice - if only someone would ask.
If we can make people vote for its legislative advocates, we'll get them.
http://www.energybulletin.net
Published on 10 Nov 2006 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 10 Nov 2006.
An assessment of world oil exports
by Luís de Sousa
Excerpt:
http://www.akm.ru/eng/news/2006/november/10/ns1811642.htm
Memory is important.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/1/27/14471/5832
Hubbert Linearization Analysis of the Top Three Net Oil Exporters
Posted by Prof. Goose on Friday January 27, 2006 at 2:47 PM EST
(Guest Post by Westexas)
http://www.energybulletin.net/19420.html
Published on 21 Aug 2006 by GraphOilogy / Energy Bulletin. Archived on 21 Aug 2006.
Net Oil Exports Revisited
by Jeffrey J. Brown
Boy, the dollar really went crazy when China sneezed about holdings diversification...I think things will hold together for the rest of this year, but I don't like the way January is shaping up.
Great job WT on informing us about exports too, a more pressing topic than the date of peak production itself.
A few days ago someone here was speculating that Russia can't significantly reduce the oil and gas exports because they form a lion's share of all Russian exports. So, even with rising internal consumption Russia would be forced to export as much as possible.
This is a common misconception. The total 2006 Russian export will be around $310-$320 billion and import - $160-$170 billion. It is a surplus of around $150 billion for the year. Russia exports around 6.5 million barrels of oil and oil products a day. With the average price of Urals at $60 a barrel these are around $145 billion a year. So, Russia could stop the oil export altogether and the trade balance will still be positive. More so, the halt of oil export by Russia will surely lead to a rise in natural gas prices in Europe and therefore to a rise in the Russian export earnings. And vice versa, the halt of export of natural gas will lead to a rise in oil prices.
That's why the Russian government is so assertive now.
Makes me wonder why russia does not join opec, or at least coordinate actions. It seems both they and opec would gain clout and $.
For russia it is very simple; they want the max possible for their dwindling resource, and they don't care as much as SA about the potential damange to western economies. They see that as the west declines they rise - note that this is exactly what is happening in europe with ng. So, joining opec to push up prices would seem to be both an obvious and logical move for them in the great game.
I'll ask a different question. Why have oil prices this year traded in a range that is 50% to 100% higher than the previous all time record high (nominal) price?
12/05 is still the peak month for crude + condensate production (EIA).
Back in April 2005 a colleague and myself invited Kenneth Deffeyes to our offices in Trenton, NJ to give a speech on peak oil and to promote his new book "Beyond Oil". During the talk he repeated his bold prediction that world production would peak in November of that year (since revised by several weeks). He made such an impression that no one who attended would soon forget what he concluded about the actual timeframe. This is especially true so long as the 12/05 peak holds up!
In some ways it seems like a distraction to be talking about the actual date of the peak. I suppose that it makes the subject sexier for the media...
In fact if their figures are correct it appears as though 2006 production will exceed 2005 production by some distance.
Any comments?
At any rate we will have to wait until we get the final 2006 data is in before we can say for sure. But it is obvious we are not going anywhere fast. If 2005 was not the peak year, we are definitely on the plateau.
Ron Patterson
Sorry if these questions have been asked before.
I do like the graphs you can call up on the IEA site; the ones for the UK and Norway are particularly worrying. I aslo note that according to them Mexico is trendind down fairly clearly now (whilst in the EIA figures as I recall it was more flat at the moment).
I do not know what methods the IEA uses to gather data but the EIA uses the data supplied by each country, when available. They always show the exact data that PEMEX reports here. They also show the exact figures Norway reports, though I do not have a URL for that.
I only use the EIA data because that is the only place I can get country by country data of crude + condensate only.
Ron Patterson
Ron, as a general rule, the EIA do not use the data published by individual countries. You are right that their data for Mexico is identical to that produced by PEMEX, but when I have compared national data with the EIA's data, this has tended to be the exception rather than the rule. For example, the EIA's data for Norway is frequently inconsistent with the extremely detailed data published by Norway here. Similarly, the EIA's data is also often different the the detailed statistics published by the UK here and elsewhere.
Furthermore, the EIA does not claim to get their statistics for individual countries from the countries themselves. What they say is that this data is taken from 'Dow Jones, Middle East Economic Survey, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, Monthly Oil Data Service from the International Energy Agency (IEA), Monthly Oil Market Report from OPEC, Oil & Gas Journal, Platts, and Reuters.' So the EIA use the IEA as one of their data sources for foreign countries.
Also, throughout most of 2005 and up until March of this year, the EIA claimed that Norwegian oil production in 2005 had increased by over 100,000 bpd in comparison to 2004, whereas the NPD statistics always showed 2005 production significantly down on 2004.
Then, in April, the EIA revised their Norwegian production statistics, going the whole way back to 1997: 2004 was then revised higher than 2005, so that production fell in 2005 as the NPD had always shown. No revisions, as far as I am aware, occurred with NPD statistics. So I don't agree that the EIA statistics are identical to the NPD's.
Below is a comparison of NPD data versus EIA data for oil and condensate production from NCS in kb/d for the 8 first months of 2006.
NPD Crude Oil Condensate TOTAL
Jan 2 492 164 2 657
Feb 2 441 184 2 625
Mar 2 437 171 2 608
Apr 2 224 185 2 409
May 2 357 177 2 534
Jun 2 244 123 2 367
Jul 2 383 190 2 573
Aug 2 251 179 2 430
From EIA (crude oil and condensate)
Jan 2 657
Feb 2 620
Mar 2 610
Apr 2 407
May 2 535
Jun 2 365
Jul 2 571
Aug 2 430
NPD data are subject to minor revisions with time, but the above illustrates that the data from EIA and NPD are identical (minor differences due to rounding).
(Sorry that the table is a little skewed, byt it should be perfectly readable)
Be aware of the format NPD is reporting data on, as NPD uses metric units for the month, and EIA uses production per calendar day.
EIA reported until some point in recent time only crude oil production, and changed the reporting for Norway to crude oil + condensate.
The latest report from EIA (International Petroleum Monthly for November 2006) shows
Norwegian (crude oil and condensate) production down with 256,53 kb/d in 2005 relative to 2004.
NPD data shows (crude oil and condensate) production down with 255,45 kb/d in 2005 relative to 2004.
In other words it seems that minor revisions (and rounding errors) explains the difference between EIA and NPD data reported for NCS.
Rune in Norway
It seems then that, since the EIA revised their data in April, they began using the NPD data. Prior to that they had not been using NPD data since they had been showing an increase in of 127,000 bpd in 2005 which the NPD had not shown. The EIA data were revised for previous years too, presumably to make them consistent with the NPD.
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/151241
I find it quite plausible that a slowing economy has reduced energy demand.
Btw, I find it quite amusing that gasoline went up 5 cent a gallon in my neighborhood.... Friday morning.
Our YoY oil consumption is up compared to last year. Someone will have to post that fancy graphic of daily average gasoline usage to emphasize this point, but demand is up non-the-less. I don't think we will see a crash in gasoline demand next year simply due to a recession, but I dont think it's going to grow much either.
And yeah, I always found it bizzare that the price of gasoline at the gas station always goes up immediately with the price of oil, but doesnt go down when the reverse happens. This is especially odd considering that every gasoline station doesnt get refilled everysingle day, so the price they paid for gasoline is constant until they get a new truck.
Much of the drop in demand was due to the mild winter ? IMHO, most of the drop was weather related. Not good news going forward.
Alan
So, I stay with the thought that the US can tolerate the prices that will reduce consumption ~2%/year without going into recession. The US has enromous potential to reduce consumption, and will do so when the price is right.
Separately, the following shows that the rest of the oecd is also accommodating chinese and other emerging markets' increased demands. Many think the rich countries will outbid the poor ones... actually, it is the fast growing countries that are outbidding the slower growth ones.
2005 2006 Mb/d Change
Q1 Q2 Q1 Q2
OECD
US 20.85 20.65 20.38 20.51 -0.305 -0.015
US Te.0.35 0.37 0.38 0.37 0.014 0.039
Can 2.36 2.24 2.18 2.15 -0.135 -0.059
Mex 2.04 2.11 2.08 2.01 -0.032 -0.015
Aus/NZ1.04 1.06 1.06 1.06 0.010 0.010
Japan 6.00 4.94 5.96 4.78 -0.098 -0.018
Korea 2.40 2.07 2.28 2.03 -0.083 -0.037
OECD Eur
Fra 2.11 1.93 2.10 1.89 -0.023 -0.012
Germ2.54 2.55 2.56 2.55 0.011 0.004
Ita 1.77 1.69 1.86 1.63 0.015 0.009
UK 1.83 1.77 1.85 1.83 0.038 0.021
Oth. oecd7.34 7.21 7.35 7.14 -0.028 -0.004
OECD eur15.59 15.15 15.72 15.04 0.013 0.001
Tot OECD50.63 48.57 50.03 47.93 -0.615 -0.012
Non-OECD
USSR 4.30 3.81 4.40 3.90 0.090 0.022
Europe0.74 0.69 0.74 0.69 0.004 0.006
China 6.62 6.89 7.15 7.34 0.490 0.073
Oth Asi8.34 8.71 8.43 8.81 0.092 0.011
Oth 13.83 13.90 14.41 14.48 0.574 0.041
Tot 33.84 34.01 35.13 35.21 1.249 0.037
Tot Wor 84.47 82.58 85.16 83.15 0.634 0.008
Note that this shows the world increased consumption while other eia data shows the world produced less in 1H06 than 1H05. So, in the first half the world was drawing down stocks (explaining teh surge in prices), apparently reversed jul/aug when total liquids soared just past 85Mb/d (explaining the fall in prices). Hopefully, OPEC will fix this.
The Oil and Gas Journal has an article out, based on a study by the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London, that looks in effect at Mega Projects coming on line. The article is meant as a rebuttal to Peak Oil, but to me it looks like more of a confirmation.
The article notes that 20% of current production comes from 14 oil fields and that the large fields found in the Nineties produce only 10% of the oil produced by the 36 fields found 40 or more years ago (the peak discovery decade worldwide).
The following table shows the predicted year of peak production for fields expected to produce 100,000 bpd or more. Note that some of these are already producing,like Ku Maloob Zaap, in Mexico, which is producing 415,000 bpd.
Expected Field Start Ups (1,000 bpd):
2007 Buzzard 180
2007 Roncador 180
2008 Atlantis 200
2008 Greater Plutonia 200
2008 Kizomba C 200
2008 Tahiti 125
2009 Thunder Horse 250
2009 Valhall Redevelopment 150
2009 Urugua 150
2009 Kizomba D 125
2009 Frade 100
2010 Ku Maloob Zaap 800
2010 Yadavaren 300
2010 Vankorskoye 280
2013 Verkhnechonsk 200
2020 Kashagan 1,200
Total: 4.64 mbpd
Note that all of these fields together are expected to produce less oil than Ghawar alone recently produced, and about the same amount of oil that Cantarell, Burgan and Daqing together recently produced and about the same amount of oil that the North Sea recently produced.
The common thread? Assming that Ghawar is declining, all of these fields/regions--totalling more than three times the expected peak production from the above new fields--are in decline.
Also, a lot of these fields are "small" compared to the giants and super giants that they are replacing. And note that there is one super giant on the list that is expected to produce more than one mbpd, Kashagan--if and when the field comes on line, it isn't expected to hit peak production for 14 years.
Now again, why is anyone expecting rising production?
But more to the point, even CERA estimates a five percent decline in existing fields each year. Over the last 12 months, crude + condensate production averaged 73.472 million barrels per day. Five percent of that means existing world production is declining by 3.674 million barrels per day, per year.
That is an awful lot of new oil coming on line each year. It just ain't gonna happen, even if you include the workover of old declining fields.
Ron Patterson
5% less oil = %5 less food = 5% less people
per year, year after year. 5 years of that projection leads to a grim world. It's time to work on solutions. Bob
matt
My question is do we really need to bother? We have the means to move away from OIL. Why aren't we?
Anyway, I was thinking the same thing about the tropical location, however I think it is probably slightly more complicated.
If it is likely there is oil there would it not be way cheaper to invest in Africa, infrastructure roads schools and hospitals. They don't all hate us there and a little food goes a long way. The spread of islam over the continent is tenacious at best, but it would be a much easier region to build a democracy in (with the underhanded desire for oil) than any area in the mideast.
Maybe we are just waiting for them all to die or kill each other. I worked in Botswana for a bit....terrible place.
matt
Investing in oil exploration in Africa will also require extensive infrastructure investment. When you improve the quality of life for the indigenous populace, you will be in an indirect manner encouraging rapid acceleration of population growth. Seeing how Sub-Sahara Africa is the world wide epicenter for AIDS, building new roads and highways and clean drinking water will increase the rate in which that disease expands. And this doesn't even factor in the overshoot problems, or the fact that vast tracks of forests will be in reach of farmers via the new roads...
Morally, I think its terrible that so many people die on that continent. But I think many more would die as a result of our economic intervention. And that is the reason why most oil production in Africa to date is offshore exploration.
Hothgor,
You win.
I'm out of here.
PG,
Let me know when you solve the Troll issue.
WT, it's so damn obvious! Don't blow out of here yet.
You CANT ignore all the other oil producing fields around the world. You CANT conveniently focus on a handful of 100,000 bpd fields when very clearly 2/3rds of all the fields in production produce less then that. I NEVER said that these small fields would replace all the large fields. What I said was you need to count these large fields in your 'new production' list if you are to paint a more accurate picture of what is going to happen in the future.
It is IRRESPONSIBLE to ignore this section and spin the rest as the only facts!
Someone asks for the advice of a geologist regarding Africa and you jump in with an answer that has nothing to do with with geology, especially the likelihood of find geologic structures favourable to the retention of oil in the ground.
Then you make completely idiotic, uninformed comments about Africa, aids and agriculture in Africa.
You demonstrate the analytical skills of a monkey on each and every subject on which you venture forth with uninformed opinion, and to make matters worse you insist on having the last word. I can just imagine what kind of relationship you have with people around you.
So if you aren't going to contain yourself, then I would join those asking to have you barred from TOD. We can get all the stupid, uninformed commentary anytime we want it simply by turning on the TV or rant radio.
Someone asked how much oil we can expect to find. I commented that we can reasonably expect to find a lot of oil in the area because the biological environment of a large portion of that region was conductive to providing the biota for oil deposits to eventually form. I didn't make any kind of prediction as to the exact figure, as I, nor anyone else, simply don't know, nor will we know until we really start exploring!
As far as my analytical skills, I am simply dumbfounded how such an obviously intelligent person as yourself completely ignores everything that I typed and conjured up some imaginary statement as an excuse to troll-bash me.
Do you deny that the environment in Africa was favorable for sufficient biota deposits that may allow oil to be formed in the future?
Do you deny that Africa is the AIDS epicenter of the world?
Do you deny that improving the quality of life of the region will exasperate our 'overshoot' problem?
Africa is a terrible place for many reasons. Constant wars. Ethnic cleansing. Resource Wars. Malnutrition. Poor sanitation. Inadequate government control. The list can go on. Its ironic and sad that someone can point out that we might do more harm then good by intervening in the region, which is a phrase that has been echoed numerous times on TOD, and then get attacked for doing so.
I have done nothing warranting a removal form this site. I stated my opinions clearly and logically. My stance is well known on the time table for peak oil, peak NG, and the problems we will face due to GW. Any time I state something, I have people like you, or westexas chiming in with out I should be ignored and banned because my opinions on the matter are different then your own.
So you don't like me because I'm confrontational? Big whoop. It's no skin off my back. There are many more people out there that don't like YOU. Any kind of debate is filled with conflict. The whole purpose of any debate is to hash out your point of view and listen to others either agree or disagree with it. This is how human beings learn. What you want is for TOD to become a self-serving community devoid of any dissenting comments. If you want this place to be viewed by the entire world as a place for viable insight on Peak Oil and our energy future, then you are going to have to defend your ideas against others.
Believe me, there are people out there that are far more difficult to deal with then I am.
And just as the Gandhi quote here reads: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
Me being a English teacher and all...
As Big Daddy say: "If you gotta use language like that about a thing, it's 90 proof bull and I ain't buying any."
Now compare with westexas, who is clear and articulate--and polite to a fault!
Oil forms only from deposits in marine environments. While there were some shallow seas in Africa 180 to 60 million years ago, those areas are well known and they have all been throughly explored and the oil found is now currently being extracted.
Why do some people get the very stupid idea that much of the world is still largely unexplored for oil. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are only a few tiny areas of land area that has not been throughly explored. And as far as offshore goes, only parts of the South China Sea is still unexplored.
There is no oil to be found in the deep oceans of course. Oil is found only in sedementary rock, never in the basement rock upon which 95 percent of the world's oceans sit. Offshore oil is found only on the continental shelf.
Ron Patterson
Belief in that whole aboitic oil thing.
But more holes for smaller amounts of oil in more hostile environments don't address an economy built on cheap oil.
Or the effects of the lowering of energy inputs into
People like westtexas and montequest are offering up a workable solution (workable in the sense you live) VS solutions like 'burn everything to make batteries' or 'violate known rules of physics without proper explination' or 'build atom splitting devices on material that is limited, just like oil. Not to mention a disposal problems...just he oil waste looks like'
Abiotic oil regeneration doesn't address the consumption rates.
I think that he has clearly stated in multiple posts that the declines in the majors will not be replaced with smaller fields(ie in overall production) only slowed.
Between westexas, khebab, leanan, and others I think there are some people with genuine talent here willing to share thier knowledge with us non-oil people.
If you want to split hairs over size of fields included fine be my guest but I think that you need and we all need to look at the bigger picture. This is and IMO always has been westexas's focus -the bigger picture.
Like Hubbert before it will be 20/20 hindsight for the nonbelieving and unwilling and by the time it is very clear it will be very late. Even then there will be someone to stand up and say it isn't so.
If you are or are not some paid hack I don't know. I would find constant needling anoying too. I don't think this is paid time he spends here. Thanks for pissing him off. <sarcasm>.
This isn't my site but I suspect that you are welcome to produce similiar charts that khebab has done on the top 50 oil producing countries of the world and include all the smaller wells, when they came on line, and what the impact was on total production. I think that you would get top billing for a blog here at TOD.
The question is: Are you willing as they have been to do the research make the reports and submit it here?
Westexas, why dont you show us all your sources for these fields? It wont take much time to figure out just how much these smaller fields will bring to the table if you have a nice and easy to read excel file.
Show me ALL of the numbers :)
"I never said that the decline of the majors will be made up for by the rise of smaller fields. This is the 3rd time I've mentioned this. My contention is that WT is handpicking these future projects to make his point across, and that he is ignoreing the smaller fields in a blatent act of perspective manipulation."
To say that WT is "handpicking these future projects" and "ignoring the smaller fields" is tantamount to saying that "the decline of major field will be made up for by the rise of smaller fields."
WTF, do you think we're idiots here or something?
You're reading way to much into this.
From: Todd
I have seen excellent forums destroyed by people like Hothgar. One person that comes to mind is "Lady Logic" who ended up spaming a forum to such an extent that the forum (unmoderated) shut down and moved elsewhere where access was controlled.
Like Hothgar, LL did at times appear rational. But when she was crossed, things turned into a stream of consciousness response. Gang, you have to cut him off and cut off any Hothgar clones if they reappear.
Could you either actively DO something or perhaps hold a popular vote and decide how to pursue dealing with him/her?
We DO NOT want to lose Westexas.
Westexas is one of the shining stars of this forum, without a doubt. Ever since I first discovered The Oil Drum in early 2006, I have made it a priority to glean the writings of such bright, intelligent folks like him, knowing they are ubiquitious here. I have learned much from those like him. It's not simply good enough for me to recognize and acknowledge 'peak oil'. My own knowledge is complimented by the company kept here. It has been my pleasure to be a part of it all, even if I post infrequently.
Leanan is correct. If anyone strays from the mostly civil discourse represented here, it is best to ignore them completely. It works for me. Ignore them and they will go away.
I suspect that the way you debunk others that you are going to be johnny on the spot with this data
I think that we will NEVER see that happen...
Case closed...
-C.
"Oh please Westexas." ... It is IRRESONSIBLE... blah blah...
You are new to this community as I am, I only started posting in 5/06.
I would suggest until you get to know people really well, you should not use such strong words... ALL CAPS is shouting if you didn't know. I do encourage your comments but let's try to keep it civil. I do wholeheartedly agree that we need strong solid debates on the subject.
I enjoy seeing both sides presented as it helps grow my knowledge of the subject.
I don't want you or WestTexas to tuck tail and run. We need everyone we possibly can to come into this debate to raise awareness of what is to come.
So, in the immortal words of Rodney King... "Can't we all just get along?"
Seriously, let's be civil. You can still strongly debate your side but choose your words and case of words wisely. You do want people to argue back against your point as well and not run them away don't you?
P.S. I do not think you are a troll, but more of a dick with regard to your wording of posts...still I am interested in what you have to say as well as others.
Blog on boys.
-C.
Illigitimus non carborundum; just don't answer him. My kids and granddaughter need you.
Mike
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/11/8219/7220#53
Who are you to generalize about the character of TOD. Assuming that such an exercise can be successfully done, it won't be done with your immature analytical skill and obvious lack of familiarity with methodology.
Why are you generalizing about the character of TOD? And why in particular do you associate that character with a tendency to see conspiracy?
Some people have suggested that you are out to undermine the contribution TOD is making and can make to the public discourse surrounding the peak oil issue. Your use here of a broad brush to smear TOD lends credence to this view.
Yet these claims keep getting made, and THAT is what I am referring to when I talk about character. If your going to make up these wild and outrageous claims, it only HURTS TOD, not help it. John-Q-Public is going to look at you and dismiss you like all the 9/11 conspirators.
Is that what you want?
This backyard banter needs to stop. Your doing more harm to yourself by heckling me then I can possibly do by 'trolling' here.
You don't have to. Just ignore him. Please! He only hangs around here because you feed him.
Ron Patterson
There really is no point in debating with a brick wall now is there?
-C.
After offshore exploration has reached the boundary of the sedimentary basins in Angola (block 31-34 which came in well below expectation) and Nigeria there are not so many regions left that could make a difference, maybe the interior parts of Libya.
matt
A more detailed geologic age map can be found under
http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/website/worldmaps/viewer.htm?Service=WorldAfrica&OVMap=WorldAfrica _overview&extent=auto
legend:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-470/OF97-470A/map_units.htm
and be compared with the hydrocarbon occurrences chart:
http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/afrzoom.cgi?142,74
Changing the perspective one can assess the prospectivity for oil exploration by extrapolating the overall discovery trend which is down, down and down (someone has a graph?). And I have to mention notorious civil war shit-hole countries like Sudan which nevertheless attracted enough funds to establish large-scale upstream activities. There´s simply too much money to be made to let any oil field of considerable size lie fallow. Especially the Chinese look
not impressed by the inherent physical dangers of doing business in Africa.
Thus, it´s always hilarios for me to see oil reserves always pop up where they are supposedely inaccessible due to political/non-geologic factors.
Most oil formed between the beginning of the Jurassic and the end of the Cretaceous period, from 180 to 65 million years ago. There were two particular periods of intense global warming during those times. I don't remember the exact dates of these two periods but I have heard Colin Campbell mention them several times. Of course there have been other periods of oil forming plankton blooms but they do not compare to these two periods.
It is during these two periods on intense global warming that we had enermous plankton blooms. Oil is created entirely from phytoplankton.
Ron Patterson
This has always fascinated me. So the continents were in the positions shown in the Jurassic to the Cretaceous? Along the equator were these pockets of seas that were probably shallow and fairly calm, perfect for the development of phytoplankton blooms.
Ron Patterson
http://geology.com/pangea.htm
Escalating costs are also threatening to derail the project.
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061108/NEWS05/611080345/-1/archive
The city(Des Moines, Iowa) will hire expert help to evaluate the possible environmental effects of an ethanol plant on Des Moines' southeast side, City Manager Rick Clark said Tuesday.
The public debate over two competing ethanol proposals has focused largely on whether the plant will burn coal or natural gas.
Environmentalists have told city officials that the risk of mercury exposure, as well as lung and heart disease from pollution, is higher with a coal-fired ethanol plant.
Clark noted that various technical advancements have been made in coal plants that make them less toxic than in past decades. Some of the information that has been circulated to City Council members by various groups conflicts, Clark said. He said he believes an independent consultant is needed to evaluate the plans and give the council unbiased facts.
"The strategy is to find somebody who is independent, with credentials," Clark said
Any takers?? And how would they determine who is an expert on this subject..
-C.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5135584,00.html
At the end of this article, he asks for feedback. Any takers?
Seriously, though, it's odd how people seek freedom (in this case of commerce) through wishful thinking, instead of actually working and voting for it - much the same as the manner in which they seek energy supplies:
Now the "onboard navigator" is surely certified by the government, so in effect the government is doing the driving, oh, excuse me, LOL, flying. The car goes nowhere but where the government allows, when the government allows. Thus the government controls not only citizens and borders and commerce, but probably also political party affiliation and even bedtime. ROTFL.
And "binary power". That's a much better laugh than "hydrinos", which are just too complicated to be truly funny. But here's the $64 question - with all that technology, why not skip the flying cars altogether and just beam up in Mr. Scott's transporter?
Could the article have been a product of some sort of altitude sickness?
One has to read to whole article to get a sampling of just how wild-eyed Thomas Frey's visions are.
For example, regarding the space industry, he asserts that by 2050 humans will have fully functioning space elevators and by that time 1 million humans will have visited the moon, there will be space hotels, space cities, space industries, and space-based power stations will power most of the world's power needs.
Frey's DaVinci Institute is in Louisville, CO, close enough to Boulder that one might suspect he is smoking the good stuff. ;-)
El Paso pipeline explosion in Wyoming kills 1
At any rate I wondered whether it would be able to produce figures showing the effect on oil demand of various recessionary scenarios (contractions of x,y,z% over x,y,z years) based on the US economy, OECD and the World economies. Both EIA and IEA produce demand forecasts which are based presumably on a compounded constant growth in world GDP. Does anyone produce figures based on other scenarios?
I actually think this is rather important to the credibility of the PO movement. Witness the scorn and brickbats thrown our way in the past 3 months as oil has fallen from $78 - $58.
Now lets imagine if oil fell back to $30-40 off the back of a major recession beginning next year (starting in the US and spreading outwards) and say demand fell by a couple of million/b/d. Fantastic ammunition for the deniers.
I am personally a convert the high liklihood of such a scenario, but even if folk here are not I believe thought should be given to the consequences of such an outcome. I am a firm believer in getting your blows in first, and as such feel that we should be giving air time that we are actually on the brink of the first oil induced recession of the PO era. I have read comments on other boards saying that oil is incapable of inducing a recession 'in this day and age' but the mechanism looks pretty clear to me - oil rises induce inflation, induce central bank interest rate rises, induces bursting of housing bubble, induce consumer retrenchment (with help from debt mountain, induces recession.
At least if we had the data availble from an economist it would show we had considered the recession case, had an explanation for the cause of the recession, and thus more of a rebuttal to the noise that would com our way if the demand side did retrench significantly.
Well, somebody is outbiding us. THe following is from EIA:
K/D
1997 18,620 % change
1998 18,917 1.6
1999 19,519 3.2
2000 19,701 0.9
2001 19,649 -0.3
2002 19,761 0.6
2003 20,034 1.4
2004 20,731 3.5
2005 20,802 0.3
2006 20,462 -1.5
(for 2006 data is first 7 months 06, and the comparison is this period vs. first 7 months 05)
The average annual US consumption increase from 1997 thru 2004, including the dot.com recession, was 1.6%/year, which is what the population 'wants' to accommodate 1%/year population growth plus avg gdp growth in a period of fairly stable prices. However, responding to high prices in 05/6, a period of low interest rates and good gdp growth, yoy increases declined sharply, with the first 7 months of this year dropping 5x as much as the recession year of 01. To put this differently, one might have expected the US to increase consumption by 640k/d in 05/06, but actually consumption has declined around 260k/d, the delta at around 900k/d, or 4.5% of US consumption. Ethanol may be playing a part, but so far production is only around 300k/d, so the price effect appears to be around 2/3 of this, or 3% of US consumption... and, the effect is increasing.
Meanwhile, during the same period this year, chinese imports are up 20%.
And for much of this year, overinflated oil prices lead to significant demand destruction not only in the US but across the entire world. Virtually all of the demand growth for last year and this year came from China and India.
But in any case, a 1.6% decline in oil consumption this year hasn't caused an widespread havoc on the US economy. Remember, 45% of our oil consumption is used just for gasoline. 70% in all for our total transportation needs. I actually hope this reduction trend continues, and hope that it will coincide with ever increasing amounts of EVs, CATs, Light Rail and super efficient hybrids 'in the near term'. It's just unfortunate that the average US driver developed sever amnesia in September and October :/
Alan
Adding my views to other comments regarding alleged chinese fuel subsidies;
Prices are controlled in china, just as they were in the seventies under nixon's wage and price controls (now there was a lefty!). Just as in the US, china does not subsidize oil or its products, but forces domestic companies to sell at less than world prices. The chinese companies do have shareholders, and they respond to low domestic prices by exporting as much product as possible, resulting in a starved domestic market and long lines, just as happened here earlier. The result in 05 was a modest chinese oil consumption increase of around 5% even as gdp expanded around 9%.
This spring china allowed prices to rise a bit, encouraging domestic refiners to sell more into the home market, and resulting in a 20% increase in yoy consumption. These results are the typical reaction when a market goes off price controls - prices and consumption rise together, rather different than what happens in a continuously free market.
IMO, the chinese gov will continue to liberalize prices, resulting in continued rapid consumption increases. it may be some time before chinese consumption stabilizes; note that car sales are up 50% yoy.
IMO we will see higher prices in the near future, a bit less US consumption (many opportunities to cut back because we waste so much) and much higher chinese consumption as they try, too late, to become a motoring public (luckily, they will never come close to our current consumption/capita.)
I'm not sure we are lucky that China will have to abort its modernization soon. My experience in China is it is at best a meta-stable economy. Since its economy is primarily export driven and I think we are facing a long term recession I expect the Chinese economic miracle to stagnate then sour.
At this point politics becomes important in China and with it turmoil. This means the money pouring into China will disappear almost overnight further wrecking the economy.
You probably will see people literly flying money out of the country in the next five years.
Here is my ranking of the worst places to be in the next 20 years.
0.) Africa ( zero as in ground zero )
1.) China (export economy investment fleeing)
2.) India (same)
3.) Australia (drought destroyed agri and they have no real economy otherwise)
4.) Mexico ( Once oil exports drops they are dead)
4.) USA ( no assets left heavy debt still wealthy in resources)
5.) Middle East ( War and more War )
6.) South America ( Resource depletion wars starting again )
7.) Europe ( Pretty good energy policy smart little resources but a slow death spiral after the housing bust )
8.) Canada ( Oil sands save the day if they can keep the Americans out ) Global Warming will in general benefit Canada.
9.) Russia ( Rolling in the dough )
10.) Norway ( Low population still making money )
I would personally place it above or below Europe. Probably above, given the country's high reliance on imported crude.
Also meant to post this link for reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Australia
Huh?
No doubt a US recession would affect them, but not as much as many think. I see near double digit growth for a decade - economy will at least double by then - no matter what happens here. PO will have an effect, but probably mild through 2016.
ReEnergizeKC (www.reenergizekc.org) is a Project of Heart of America Action Linkage, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
I have been recently Ill again. Same problem as last time, Just a day early and and minute or two late.
I had to call 911 and give myself up to some EMT's The took me to see the Angel's of Mercy at the Hospital you see.
While there, I me a Doc who is a great doc, just like my last doc.
We had a paradocs in a box in my head trying to get back together again, well together again I am, and you are too, just make sure the lords of earth wind and fire. keep you safe at night and not the old man coal that fire and brimstone guy, you know there will be hell to pay.
That is the rythm for now.
it seems too two many days late.