==AC

That the price of crude remains 'stubbornly high' at $60 is a given for the last quarter, not counting market speculation as a factor.

A slowing economy in the U.S. can also be considered a given - and a slowing economy has implications for refined products first - which are still being drawn down, and are at a level just a little lower than last year's level (think about that little lower compared to last year for a second...).

So, refined products still seem to be sold at a normal rate, commercial crude storage is full it appears, and the SPR expansion seems to be on hold. Does this make much sense?

It could if you are concerned about any Iranian based supply disruptions.

Maybe the next round of poker at the geostrategic table is about to get started, maybe after the holidays, or maybe when winter is winding down? Possibly even provoked, since then any economic downturn can be blamed on the evildoers of the Islamic Republic, who just happened to cause the price of oil to explode due to their evilness. After all, turning cause and effect, or truth and lies, on their head is a particular skill of the Bush League, and they don't have a lot of strengths left to play to.

Is the sort of above ground factor that CERA means?

Now, this is not an open disagreement between the two. Mr Hutter has cast aspersions on Bakhtiari's figures in another thread:

"Bakhtiari used IEA's all liguids data sets.  His forecast of 82-mbd was for all liquids.  See my TOD links to his original data presentations.  IEA's current forecast for 2006 is 85.2-mbd.  We don't include him as a modeler due to his old data and massive miss.  WOCAP is a pretender."

I weary of the clouds of confusing data that keep wafting through here, so I decided [naively?] to use The Google and The Internets: I emailed Dr Bakhtiari about it. Here's his [prompt] response:

"Mr. Bendzela,
Thank you for support of WOCAP, you can see more on my
website at  www.samsambakhtiari.com.
Comments on quote:

1. Never used IEA's data sets.
   
2. Yes, major forecast for 'All Liquids' at around
   

3. Massive miss?? what's that !!
   
4. WOCAP is a pretender: sure... know of any other
   

Also, here's his explanation, from his own website:

"At its [WOCAP's] very foundation are conventional oil's global 'Ultimate Recoverable Reserves' (URR) of 1,900 billion barrels developed by Dr. Colin Campbell [2]. Other relevant inputs are taken from either the BP PLC databases [3] or the author's personal sources."

When I posted this for Hutter to see, he responded thus:

"As mentioned, we did all this months ago.  Look at his graphs and tables.  All the supply figures from the 90's are exactly the same as IEA's "all liquids" and he footnotes IEA at the bottom."

OK. So I go back to Bakhtiari's website and find his graphs:

http://www.sfu.ca/~asamsamb/conference/figure2.jpg

Here you find just what Khebab posted respresenting Bakhtiari's prediction: just over 80 mmbd, around the year 2007. The side bar states this is for "CO + NGL."

Where's the "footnote" to IEA at the bottom? Since Bakhtiari mentions "oil" many times in his explanation, who cares whether his figures happen to coincide with the IEA's "all liquids" figures?

What the fuck is all liquids anyway? Bakhtiari never mentions upgraded tar, watered-down heavy sour sludge, bootlegged moonshine, used fry-o-later oil, refinery "gains," or urine samples. I think it's safe to assume he counts what Campbell counts, since that's who he cites as a source, not IEA.

If Hutter would like to call Dr Bakhtiari a liar, he can email him here. Or he can go back to hell where he came from.

I plan to spend more time reading than writing. I got tired of posting at peakoil.com, and I'm getting tired of it here--NOT because there is anything wrong with these sites--they're both great--but because I am exhausted trying to sift through the bullshit to get at the truth.

Q: Does the plant use solar cells?

A: Good lord, no--the raw materials for those hubberted years ago. No, they've got big dish mirrors and Stirling engines driving the generators. Joe Jr. could tell you more about it than I can. He wants to build them when he grows up. ...

Thanks,

Ron Patterson

I wanted to get a rough handle on per capita oil use as quickly as poss. The numbers used come from Nation Master (problems of definition?, etc.)  Mistakes, shoddy or dated data, calc. errors may exist.. I have no intuitive feel arising from expert knowledge, anyway:

Oil use:  The champions are the Virgin Islands, who consume almost one barrel per day per person. The island effect, I figured  - almost everything is imported, including oil itself, and over long distances. Others in similar positions with extremely extravagant or just high use (even if they consume far less than the V islands) are Gibraltar, the Netherlands Antilles, Faroe Islands, Aruba, the Bahamas, etc.

Setting all such aside and considering only larger countries, the MEGA consumers, expressed in barrels used by 10 people per day, are:  

Singapore (1.5) Kuwait (1.3), UAE (1.2), and Luxemburg (1.1)

Next, the BIG consumers: a group of countries consume .6x (note the considerable gap viz. the MEGA consumers):

Greenland, the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Belgium.

Next, very close by, we find Iceland (island and cold), the Netherlands, Norway, Puerto Rico, all between .55 and .6

Then, again, a gap:  consuming between .45 and .4:

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Israel, Finland, Lybia, Greece.

The high 3's (quite a bit more than a third of a barrel per 10 people per day) are Spain, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Qatar, and Bharain.

Follow the remaining countries of old Europe in the low .3's, with the exception of the UK, lower, at  .28.

Next down, we find Lebanon at .27.

Iran, Venezuela, Malaysia, Oman, Russia and some ex-USSR/new Europe/'stans (Z, see note) countries clock in the low .2's.

These are followed by Cuba, Mexico, other Z countries in the high .1's.

Then -->  in the low .1's Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, a few more Zs, Guyana, Thailand, South Africa, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.  

Amongst the remaining countries, we may note:

Egypt, Serbia+Montenegro, Algeria: .07

Bolivia: .05

China, Uzbekistan: .04

Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Senegal and Venezuela: at or very close to .02

Bangladesh: .006

Afghanistan:  .002

Congo: .001 (the last)

As world production (2000) stands at roughly 3 barrels of oil or a bit more per capita per year (?), the ones using around their fair share or a bit more are in the low .1's, or below, i.e, e.g. Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, some Zs, Guyana, Thailand,  South Africa, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.  

note: Z = ex-USSR and floating (new or not yet EU members) are numerous vary greatly in oil use, so I did not sort them all out.

http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

Peak oil, like so many other things, means different things to different people...

 The operators, at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, decided around 6:15 a.m. that instruments indicated a possible leak and declared an "unusual event," the lowest of four categories of plant problems. They canceled the notification at 7:35 a.m., but by then the children were boarding buses to go home.

The school district is in Meigs County, about halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga.

A T.V.A. spokesman, Gil Francis, said: "Declaration of an unusual event does not require an evacuation. They don't go hand in hand."

There have been 20 unusual events around the country this year, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. One element of the definition is that it does not pose a risk to people off-site or in the plant.

You see...you only have to start worrying a little at "Strange" but by "Totally Friken Bizarre" you'd better kiss your butt goodbye.

 One thing I'd noticed, reading history books, old menus, and such...in the old days, pie (apple, shoofly, etc.) was eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  It wasn't just dessert.  I never knew why, but Martha Stewart, of all people, has the answer.  The Thanksgiving issue of her magazine has a special pie section, which explains that in the old days, pies were eaten at every meal because they were cheaper.  They used less flour than bread did, and flour was expensive.  

In spite of my doomerosity, I am still grateful for all the good stuff in life.

I'm especially thankful for all the good work that TODers put into thoughtful posts and comments, and (as has been mentioned above) for Leanan's wonderful work doing the daily Drumbeat research!

Thank You, again!

I think we've seen here that this is very attitude-laden stuff.

Peak Oil itself is a prediction at one level, future societal responses to peak oil are often predicted .. at various levels.  To really be useful we have to both understand our predictions and take some stab at the confidence (or assessed odds) that we give that prediction.

I can think of a few rules of thumb:

• Shorter term predictions can be made with higher confidence than longer term predictions.  It's easier to guess tomorrow's gas price (or production) than next year's, and next year's is easier than next decade's.

• Simpler systems are easier to predict than more complex systems.  The single vs. double pendulum demonstrates that pretty handily.  Another example might be the confidence we can give for an established oil field's production, and the production of one "undiscovered."

• Physical systems are easier to predict than those elements have volition.  We can knock a acorn out of a tree and make a fair guess where it will land.  Knock an eagle out and ...

• Nested systems, that get longer in term, with more complex connections, and more conscious actors, are the hardest of all.

• Don't trust people with funny beards.  Ok.  I don't have a real grounding on this one ... but my dad taught it to me, and it seems to work.

This is gut stuff, but I think that's all we have to work with.  Or to put a concrete example on it, I think I can predict tomorrow's gas price +/- 25 cents, at 95% accuracy (just use today's price).  I don't think I can hit next year's price with the same accuracy ... and I certainly don't think I can put a probability on us having cars 50 years from now.

On the Putin story.  I posted here my thoughts on what's going on.  Distilled;

The decision has been made it will not be made public until it can be buried close to New Year.

It has to have been made GAZP will invest a huge fortune to develop Shtockman et al over the next decade.  Too many of the  Putinites have their personal fortunes tied to GAZP for it to invest cash too unwisely.

There is still a monumental amount of decision making to be done to devise a real Russian energy policy.

If you can get your hands on UBS Energy reserch then be prepared to worry a lot about gas supplies to Europe.

Please be thankful for each and every one of these guys and gal.  

Personnel

Editors
Prof. Goose
Heading Out
Stuart Staniford

DrumBeat Editor
Leanan

Senior Contributors
Dave Cohen
Robert Rapier

Contributors
Khebab
Nate Hagens

Technician
Super G

Editor Emeritus
Yankee

I posted a note on this yesterday, which seems to have vanished into the ether.  

My suggestion was that the CEO of Pemex is smoking some pretty good stuff.  

The WSJ article, based on a leaked internal Pemex report, earlier this year on Cantarell indicated that the remaining oil column was about 800' thick, and it was thinning at about 300' per year.  The worst case decline rate, out of five scenarios, was for a 40% per year decline, which may be pretty realistic when you do the math on the oil column.  

One of my theories is that you can discern the truth about Peak Oil by simply assuming the opposite of what (most) politicians, CEO's and energy analysts (CERA) are saying.  So, to get the true decline rate for Cantarell, you just transpose the 14% to get 41%.

Earlier this year, I pointed out that the rapidly thinning oil columns at both Cantarell and Ghawar are between rising water legs and expanding gas caps.  It is very, very easy for the water and gas to bypass the oil in these two reservoirs. The harder that Pemex and Saudi Aramco push these two fields--which account, or accounted, for 10% of world crude + condensate production--the lower the remaining recoveries will be.

Pemex has reported that they are only shutting in wells at Cantarell for two reasons:  (1)  the water cut is too high or (2)  the gas production rate is too high.  Other than those two little problems, they have no production problems to speak of.

Just walked back feom the New Orleans Convention Center,  The Orleans Parsih Sheriiff has a 32 year old tradition of serving Thanksgiving dinner for those that had no where else to go for a traditional T-Day dinner.  Last year, the returnees were few in number and resources scarce (I was away with family).  This year promised to be much bigger (hard to do a proper Thanksgiving in a FEMA trailer, or living in a tent inside your gutted home).

So I walked the mile to the Convention Center and enjoyed the dinner and company.  Everyone was friendly and open, a real mix of people :-)  Some good talking and laughing with strangers.   The food did not represent "the finest of our culinary traditions" although the turkey and gravy was good.  OTOH, the music did :-)  Several local bands played for 3 hours.

Getting up and second lining or just dancing is a nice addition to the traditions of Thanksgiving dinner :-))

Happy Thanksgiving to All !

Alan

Pass the gravy please!
I am not interested in alternative gravy.

Whiskey & Gunpowder
November 22, 2006 by Dan Amoss
York, U.S.A.

Peak Oil & Gas, Energy Cornucopia, and Reality, Part II

In Part I of this article, I commented on an October press release from CERA. More specifically, I explained why you should take CERA's long-term oil and gas supply forecasts with a grain of salt. My colleague Byron King wrote about how CERA declined the invitation to send a representative to last month's ASPO-USA conference.

The conference welcomed presenters from a wide range of backgrounds, and CERA certainly would have added to the discussion by presenting its case. Nevertheless, there was plenty of intellectual firepower to analyze how the world is dealing with the challenges posed by depletion of oil and natural gas. Among the experts was Dave Hughes, a very qualified professional who informed the audience about his research on both natural gas and Canadian tar sands (or "oil sands").

http://www.prosefights.org/gas/gas.htm#davehughes
       

The Rising Dragon's Environmental Disaster      
Jasper Becker    
22 November 2006  
This is a chapter reprinted by arrangement with the National Geographic Society from the book Dragon Rising: An Inside Look at China Today By Jasper Becker.

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=274&Itemid=34

Do You Remember a TODer posting from nearly seven months ago about the mud volcano in Java?  Well it is still spouting off uncontrollably and is now responsible for additional deaths, injuries, and now electrical blackouts to the tune of 1,030 Megawatts nearly nationwide!  One victim suffered burns to nearly 80 percent of his body after being thrown into the hot mud from the explosion!

--------------------------------------
Java, including the national capital, Jakarta, will have partial power outages after a gas pipeline exploded and cut supplies to a power plant in East Java, state-owned power firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) says.

Available electricity supply in the Java-Bali grid may suffer a shortfall of 1,030 megawatts, about 7 percent of estimated demand, during peak hours of between 5 p.m and 10 p.m, Mulyo Adji, PLN's supply and control general manager, told Bloomberg

At least eight people were killed and 15 injured when a natural gas pipeline owned by state oil firm PT Pertamina blew up after being ruptured by pressure from a mud dam.

A mud-volcano blowout seven months ago at the Lapindo Brantas gas well in Sidoarjo, East Java, caused hot, toxic mud to inundate houses, schools, factories and roads.

The ruptured pipeline runs under a dam built to prevent the mud from inundating nearby villages.
------------------------------------------
Who is the idiot that ordered a dam be built on top of a natgas pipeline--was he the same idiot that ignored the advice of experts?  Glad to see that the geologists tried to warn them according to this link:
---------------------------------
Rescuers continued to search for up to a dozen missing people at the Sidoarjo mudflow disaster Thursday, a day after a gas pipeline exploded, killing at least seven people and shooting flames hundreds of meters into the air.

The powerful blast occurred at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday after an embankment built to contain the hot mud burst, sweeping four cars away and closing the main Porong toll road. Between four and 12 people are believed to be still missing.

The search was hindered by the hot mud and the risk of toxic gas after the explosion. The temperature of the mud was so high it could melt rubber shoes, Mohammad said.

Edi Sunardi, from the Indonesian Association of Geologists, told AFP experts had warned about continuing to operate the gas pipeline in a disaster area.

The mudflow caused land subsidence, which put pressure on the 70 cm [27.5 inch] gas pipe, Sunardi said.

"It (the subsidence) exerts pressure on the pipe and at one point, when the pressure is too much to bear, the pipe will break, the high-pressure gas will leak out and explode on contact with air.

"We have already warned about the potential of such incidents, since quite early after the 'mud volcano' developed. But it seems the warning has fallen on deaf ears," Sunardi said.

The land around the gas well has sunk up to five meters [16.4 feet] so far, officials said.
------------------------------

Do You Remember the Javanese earthquake & tsunami that occurred much later after the Boxer Day tsunami on July 20, 2006?
-----------------------------------------
The southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java was hit by a two-metre high tsunami at about 4:15 pm local time last Monday. Despite receiving timely international warnings, Indonesian government ministries and agencies issued no warnings to the threatened areas.

As of midday Wednesday, 525 people have been confirmed dead in the latest disaster, with hundreds missing and more than 500 injured. More than 50,000 people were forced to flee their homes as the waves devastated coastal villages, flattening the homes of fisherman, tourist hotels and guesthouses and other buildings. Destruction extended inland for nearly a kilometre.

According to an AP report, Indonesian science and technology minister Kusmayanto Kadiman admitted that officials received this warning, as well as one sent by the Japanese Meteorological Agency, but "we did not announce them" because they did not want to cause unnecessary alarm. "If it (the tsunami) did not occur, what would have happened?" he said.

What is clear is that no arrangements were in place for warning people in the areas at risk.

By any standards the response of the Indonesian authorities to the disastrous events of last Monday borders on the criminal. That these officials have had over a year and a half to act on the lessons of the Boxing Day catastrophe compounds their culpability a thousand fold.

Indonesian peoples welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie claims that the government is working on establishing its own tsunami warning system by 2009. But of the 22 warning buoys this system requires, only two were set up opposite Sumatra. An Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio report on Wednesday revealed that neither of these was functioning--one had been damaged and the other was in a warehouse, awaiting repair.

Research and Technology Ministry official Edi Prihantoro told the ABC that no funding had been pledged for the remaining 20 buoys.
----------------------------

Well, guess what TODers, the powerful Indonesian Peoples Welfare Minister, who is pledged with responsibly protecting his citizens is the idiot behind all these disasters.  From this Washington Post link:
--------------------------------------------
More than 10,000 people have been displaced so far by the mud, gushing at a rate of 50,000 cubic meters (1.75 million cubic feet) a day from the well.

The Banjar Panji well was operated by Indonesia's Lapindo Brantas, a unit of PT Energi Mega Persada, partly owned by the Bakrie Group, which is controlled by the family of Indonesia's chief social welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie.

The firm has denied the mud flow is directly linked to the drilling operation.
-----------------------------

He just accepted an award for his recognition of following "The Scouts' principle of showing love and respect to people...be compassionate and help others...at all times."

From this link:
-----------------------------
The meeting between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and US President George W. Bush resulted in an agreement of additional aid for Indonesia as well as cooperation in various sectors.

As for the newest aid on health and corruption eradication, America has promised to disburse US$55 million, or around Rp500 billion.

The US $20 million in anti-corruption funds will be utilized for: training judges; training for supervising officials' wealth; and publicizing verdicts of the Supreme Court.

According to Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, total US aid for both sectors will be US$395.4 million.

"The most important thing is that there must be clear accountability however much the aid is," he said.
---------------------------------------------------

Finally, this last article called Bakrie Ignores Bapepam's Ban:
------------------------------------
PT Energi Mega Persada will continue selling Lapindo Brantas Inc to the Freehold Group Limited although the Capital Market Supervisory Agency [Bapepam] has banned the divestment. PT Energi is a mining company which affiliates with Bakrie.

Nirwan [Aburizal Bakrie's younger brother] said that, based on Presidential Decree Number 13/2006 on the National team for Handling the Mudflow in Sidoarjo, it was Lapindo that was to be responsible for the incident. The funds until the Presidential decree ends on 7 March 2007 will be US$150 million or Rp1.365 trillion. In addition, the Bakrie Group has prepared Rp1-2 trillion to rebuild Sidoarjo. "The funds will be prepared by the Bakrie Group, taken from our non-public companies," he said.

Head of Bapepam Fuad Rahmany yesterday (11/23) has affirmed that the selling of Lapindo will still be banned. "We have the same attitude as yesterday," he said.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie, Nirwan's big brother, stated he was ready to face Bapepam legally. "We'll see later who will be the right party before the law," he said.
------------------------------

=Only potentially $151 million in damages for a mud volcano that may erupt for years causing even more deaths, blackouts, and ecological devastation?  From one of the richest and most powerfully political families in Indonesia?

* You're doing a heck of a job, Mud-Brownie!!!*

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Will it be the tiny soil microbes that do us in?  This is some interesting research going on in Antarctica:
--------------------------------
In Antarctica's Dry Valleys, worms offer clues to alarming changes in ecosystem

In soil, turnover works this way: molecules containing carbon provide fuel for organisms to grow; as the organisms die and decay, the carbon is released back into the soil in the form of nutrients. Eventually, it is exhaled out of the soil by the respiration of microbes and soil invertebrates.

"The cycling of carbon is the basis of life," said Ed Ayres, a postdoctoral researcher working with Wall.

Scientists know little about how these soil organisms function. But by digging around in what some might consider just plain dirt, the researchers are finding that one very small worm is playing a critical role in the Dry Valleys ecosystem and that its survival may be in jeopardy.

Because so little research has been done, scientists have no way of knowing whether similar disturbances are taking place worldwide.

Scientists know that on a global scale, the amount of carbon dioxide released by soil invertebrates and microbes is greater than 10 times the annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The oceans and forests perform crucial roles as carbon "sinks," drawing in carbon that would otherwise linger in the atmosphere.

Yet soils hold more carbon than trees and the atmosphere combined.

Along with James Heath, a plant physiologist at Lancaster University in Britain, Wall's colleague Ayres reported last year in the journal Science that heightened levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hindered the soil's ability to store carbon and led to increased levels of soil respiration by microbes.
------------------------------------

Don't you just love learning about the incredible arsenal that Mother Nature has at her disposal?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

I have been predicting & posting on the problems in Zimbabwe for over three years now--so sad to see them coming true.

Archbishop Ncube in London to highlight Zimbabwe catastrophe:
------------------------------------
Outspoken Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, who is meeting religious and political leaders in London, says that the humanitarian situation in his country is critical - and is largely being overlooked by the world as it focusses on other more visible crises.

Each week an estimated 3,500 Zimbabweans die from a unique convergence of malnutrition, poverty and AIDS, reports Independent Catholic News. The figure suggests that far away from the media spotlight, more people die in Zimbabwe each week than in Darfur.

World Health Organisation figures released earlier this year place life expectancy in Zimbabwe at just 34 years for women and 37 years for men. This is the lowest in the world. In comparison, life expectancy in Iraq for men is 51 and for women it is 61 - in spite of the terrible conflict.

Archbishop Ncube declared: "Zimbabwe is not a nation at war. It used to be able to feed itself and its neighbours. Zimbabwe used to have one of the highest life expectancy rates in Africa, up with South Africa."

He continued: "Now hunger, illness and desperation stalk our land. Cemeteries are filling up throughout the country. But no blood is being spilt. People are just fading away, dying quietly and being buried quietly with no fanfare - and so there is little international media attention."

"These deaths are largely preventable yet without significant intervention, the situation threatens to develop into a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions. The UN has recently warned that 6.1 million Zimbabweans now face starvation," said the archbishop.*
------------------------------------------
Just imagine when PO + GW really kicks into gear--this death tally will seem like the good ole days.  How long would America last if most youngsters were dead in their thirties?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

This was from the afx news feed.

Let's see if shoppers can pull us out today.  It sickens me to think this is what our entire economy pins its hopes upon.