“So one may almost say that the theory of universal suffrage assumes that the Average Citizen is an active, instructed, intelligent ruler of his country. The facts contradict this assumption.”
—James Bryce (1909, 35)
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http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-23T135528Z_01_L2 3573301_RTRUKOC_0_UK-RUSSIA-MARKET.xml
Every collapse this winter seems to include a puzzled statement by some official that the roof was designed for "that much" snow load.
At crunch time, the milgov will resort to programs as evidenced by this recently released US Army military document 210-35 "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" linked here:
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
[other interesting milgov plans are available in the forum of Yahoo:AlasBabylon]
It is amazing the level of disconnect within our society: people live in a Disneyland mindset while the elites are moving full-speed ahead for the coming cull. It blows my mind that simple denial keeps Dieoff.com from being the numero uno website in the world.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Thxs for responding. Simple Denial of the obvious again. Consider the people, practising common sense, who took advantage of early weather reports to leave Nawlins ahead of Katrina, same thing as with those Europeans that migrated to America before Hitler consolidated his control.
Those that have been googling Zimbabwe, or reading the AlasBabylon[AB] postings are getting an early heads-up on what will eventually spread here. 99.999% of the people never seek out forums like TOD, or read books like Matt Savinar's, "The Oil Age is Over". They will be blindsided and confused WTSHTF, but will nevertheless expect the Milgov to bail them out, only decreasing net energy will necessitate the Milgov to TAKE THEM OUT instead. Simple curve matching of population Overshoot to the Hubbert Downslope--Jay Hanson's Thermo-Gene Collision. Here is an excellent condensation of the hundreds of pages of Dieoff.com by the Master himself from the files section inside AB called "Why Dieoff?":
-------------------
WHY THE HUMAN POPULATION OF EARTH WILL DIEOFF
by Jay Hanson - June 20, 2003
I can simplify over ten years' work down to two sets of physical "laws". These laws place harsh limits on what is possible for us: #1 ENERGY LAWS, and #2 BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION LAWS. For purposes of sustainability, nothing else matters.
#1 ENERGY LAWS
Once I was able to understand Odum's "eMergy" metric (actually very simple, but difficult for old minds), I realized that there are only three relevant principles concerning energy: the First Law of thermodynamics (no creation), the Second Law (always a loss), and the "Net eMergy" principles ("net energy" converted for "quality") [1].
Once one understands the three simple principles outlined in the paragraph above, then one understands that the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint -- less consumption AND fewer people - until the global population level is back to a couple0a-hundred-million people swinging through the trees. This is also Georgescu-Roegen's conclusion [2]. That's the easy part...
#2 BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION LAWS
Human nature is much more difficult to understand then energy laws for two main reasons: it's not taught, and we are genetically biased against self-knowledge. In other words, teaching human nature to someone is like teaching a dog not to bark [3].
I will reduce several years' research on human nature down to the essentials: A COMPUTER ANALOG and A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. For purposes sustainability, everything else about human nature can be ignored - it simply doesn't matter.
a. A COMPUTER ANALOG
Computer software cannot function before it is enabled by the hardware. In other words, functioning hardware MUST precede functioning software.
Human thought is "algorithmic" (not mathematical) and analogous computer software. Any particular conscious thought (software) cannot precede the neurons, dendrites, neurotransmitters, etc. (hardware) that make that specific though possible. Like all computers, human hardware is the physical prerequisite to human software - but that's where the similarity with everyday computers ends.
Human brains are much different than the stored-program, digital, binary, single-processor PCs we use every day. Instead, human brains are wired (not stored-program), analog (not digital, not binary), multiprocessor (not single processor) "state machines" (program logic may permanently modify itself depending upon the data). A human cannot have a specific thought unless it has been enabled by earlier brain "wiring" (e.g. pre-programmed, formal education, reflection, critical thinking). Moreover, older brains are much harder to "wire" than younger brains.
Brains are mostly hardwired by age 25. By middle age, people may need two or three years of hard work to understand something completely new (grow the brain hardware required to think the thought).
The human brain comes from the factory with a set of empirically designed pre-programs that have historically (over a billion years) tended to maximize "inclusive fitness". One of these pre-programs was specifically designed to inhibit self-knowledge with respect to social issues. By remaining unaware of our true motives, we are much more effective at deceiving others. We evolved this was because the more convincing liar has the advantage in sexual competition (e.g., Bill Clinton).
In short, people cannot think a thought unless the brain has been previously "wired" to think it. This is why civilization after civilization runs out of energy and collapses [4]. This is also why we are presently running out of energy and hell-bent for collapse.
b. meat by-product: consciousness
Contrary to the received wisdom, people do not consciously reflect and then act. They act and then rationalize (literally!). [C.f. Gazzaniga, 1998]. Consciousness itself is a product of the hardware (somewhat like a movie) that appears, say 500 ms after it is produced. New data from the environment is routinely plugged into existing mental hardware (like entering a number into a spreadsheet), which is then followed by an appropriate thought. Since people have no wiring for "peak in oil and gas production", news of the present energy crisis cannot generate the appropriate thought. Only prolonged reflection can grow the required mental hardware to place this critical piece of news in perspective. Unfortunately, few people can invest the thousands-and-thousands of hours necessary to see both the energy and evolutionary aspects of the human condition clearly.
c. A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE
Individuals come from the factory pre-programmed to seek inclusive fitness in ways that have actually worked in the past. In modern society, economic growth serves as a proxy for increasing fitness. This is why we "feel good" when we make money, buy a new SUV, and so on. Unfortunately, when our pre-program determines that inclusive fitness is best served by violating social norms, we will violate those norms and seek a fitness advantage. This explains the higher crime rates in our lower income populations and why nations go to war.
Societies can remain reasonably stable as long as their economies continue to grow - continue to serve inclusive fitness for the majority. But when economic growth becomes physically impossible - as it must - societies will disintegrate into anarchy and war while individuals and groups seek advantage over the rest.
CONCLUSION:
Once one understands the three simple energy principles outlined in this paper, then one understands that the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint. Put differently, energy laws will force us to continuously reduce our aggregate footprint whether we choose to or not.
Once one understands human nature as outlined in this paper, then one also understands that continued social stability requires us to continuously INCREASE energy use, which we now know is physically impossible! It should not come as a surprise that we have been pre-programmed to overshoot and crash just like other animals [5].
There are absolutely no humane solutions available to the ruling elite because it is impossible to solve the problem of human corruption (i.e. the genetic pre-program to violate the norms and seek advantage).
Unfortunately, the best the poor can hope for is a painless death.
REFERENCES:[removed them to help condense this posting--BS]
-------------
Jay Hanson will be returning to open the forum Yahoo:Dieoff_Q&A in a week or so. If you wish to join, please read the homepage-- he will not tolerate fools!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I apologize if I went too early--feel free to condense if required.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I, too, would like to see you use links to the articles that you quote.
For example, your post above could have simply included:
"Jay Hansen summarises the die-off argument in the article WHY THE HUMAN POPULATION OF EARTH WILL DIEOFF
There are several reasons for this:
- Including the whole article is a waste of internet bandwidth because you are duplicating the content
- If you condense it without a link, then I can't go and look at the full article (ala the REFERENCES above)
- The link adds authenticity to your quote (you may have made up the entire quote and put Jay Hansen's name at the top)
- I may not be even slightly interested in what Jay Hansen has to say
In fact, I went looking for the article you quote and could not find it on dieoff.org, so I am already suspicious of it's source. I did find the article on oilcrash.com (hence my link above).I'm sorry if I'm sounding critical, it's just there's such a lot to read on TOD, and I don't want to have to scroll past large amounts of irrelevant material (which is found elsewhere) that I'm not really interested in.
I do hope you keep posting, because everyone has something to contribute. Just let us go off and read your quoted articles at the source.
I assure you that the file exists inside AlasBabylon [not on Dieoff.com], but I don't know how anyone could just link to it unless they joined AB first, that is why I posted the whole thing. I did not know the same file exists on other sites that I could have linked to so everyone could share. Please bear with me, but I gladly accept new instructions--Keep 'em coming! Thxs Again.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast? Maybe I am not--LOL!
If you wish, you can currently join his group to participate in his current poll, and browse the archives. Just no new postings till he opens the forum again.
I 'lurked' for some time before I finally first posted. 'I have had my ass handed to me a couple of times' by Jay for not being coherent at his level, but that is just 'my phrasing' of me composing a sloppy post [I belatedly deserved his non-emotional rebuke]-- He is generally unfailingly polite, using pure facts to slay incorrect theories. His 'dry' sense of humor is hilarious too.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Perhaps you should have told Jay that he's wrong - we're not running out of energy... we're just running out of oil : )
We will never "run out of oil".
Our straws will just keep making harder and harder sucking sounds as we wind our way down into the gunkier, less liquid, and less concentrated pockets of the stuff.
One other thing we will never run out of is the ability of we humans to delude ourselves. We are so good at this.
human behavior is more like a computer's firmware, it's a mix between genetically coded behavior and stuff the person learned at a early age from their parents and the early years of school. stuff learned after this point can be considered software, it can override firm-ware but it take allot of effort.
firmware in the computer world is mainly like a bridge between hardware and software.
I thank you for the explanation though because it helps me understand that not all of the reactions that i attributed to just blunt shock were not such.
Boneup on Darwin, mix it with your firmware theory, cook into a careful posting, then serve it to Jay at Dieoff_Q&A. He was a computer geek and coder of some reknown back in his day. My guess is that he is still interested in computer-brain comparisions, but I don't dare presume to speak for Jay. If you browse the archives-- you might get an idea if this topic was previously discussed. I do recall posts on truth tables, flip-flop transition and design, AI loop limitations, etc. The guy is no slouch!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
personally i am not as highly educated as some of the people here. i am just someone who went to school for network administration and some computer repair and graduated right when everyone was outsourced. i found out about this a couple of years ago via wolf at the door and life after the oil crash. unfortunately i can't much of anything except keep on top of the information and the news.
"the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint"
What about renewables like wind, solar, tidal, etc.?
If you have 100 PV solar panels that generate 1MW of power, you can use that power to make more PV solar panels, which can then be used to make more solar panels, etc. etc.
That seems like energy growth to me!
The earth gets bombarded by incredible amounts of solar energy every day and a lot of it is just reflected back out into space. That energy loss can be captured by us and used here on earth.
So it is ridiculous to say that our energy use is restricted by the second law of thermodynamics.
He's saying that for our society to be sustainable, we must be continuously reducing the amount of energy we are using.
That is a ridiculous statement to make.
Eventually we will reach a more sustainable equilibrium where our renewables can match the energy we use. Now whether we need to drastically reduce our population to get to that point, that's another issue.
My gut feeling, based on a long, slow oil squeeze with much belt-tightening and efficiency gains, is that we should not have to endure massive die-off to get there. Although a die-off in the US would certainly help us out in the rest of the world! ;-)
It just angers me when people use ridiculously false statements as the basis for their whole argument.
You may disagree with Jay about the exact number that's sustainable, but he clearly understands the concept of sustainable equilibrium.
I always wonder how people can claim to know what an equilibrium population should be. I've seen a number of posts citing the second law of thermodynamics (which, strangely enough, doesn't tell us how many people the earth can support) which are then followed by a statement that there are too many people.
I can accept the statement that current growth rates in energy consumption and population cannot be sustained indefinitely, or perhaps, for even much longer, but I'm pretty skeptical of anyone who claims to know where the equilibrium actually lies.
I mean, "swinging through the trees"? Since when do humans, no matter how low their standard of living, swing through trees?
I think the Law of Diminishing Returns applies here as we go PostPeak. Most renewable strategies: localized permiculture[food & water], agro-biofuel industries, and earth-energies [PV, wind, tide, etc] need tremendous initial fossil fuel and mineral inputs to just get jumpstarted, then gobs more to support further growth and efficiency refinements of all this new infrastructure. So even if the population could be held steady-state, it is entirely possible that we might run out of 'ancient sunshine' before we successfully transition to a pure 'daily sunshine' infrastructure.
Maybe if we had continued an Energy Manhattan Project that Pres. Carter jumpstarted back in cheap energy days of the late '70s-- we might have had a chance for a peaceful transition to a daily sunshine lifestyle somewhat similar to our present hi-tech Energy Fiesta. Now I fear it will be extremely difficult for the now required 'all hands on deck' effort to paradigm shift, especially since most people are not practising Powerdown, or are still in Denial, or believe Energy Fairies will magically solve our Problems. I think we are way behind the 8-ball, but I have no idea how to statistically prove it. Maybe the TOD data freaks can come up with some charts to prove or disprove my assertion.?!
And each day we fall another 24 hours behind and have 85 million barrels less of exactly the stuff we need to accomplish the Goal. Now when you add the continuing stress from our ever growing population, then you can understand why Simmons and other luminaries are so worried about our future. It is really difficult to do any research, or build the postPeak infrastructure if your family is starving, freezing, or fleeing a warzone.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
We have incredibly large amounts of energy wastage in today's society that can give us a long time frame for powering down.
If you look at our lifestyles today and compare them with the lifestyles of people in the 1950s, then our modern lifestyle looks like the rich and famous of the 1950s!
We don't need a TV in each of the kids' rooms, we don't need playstations, we don't need computers on 24/7, we don't need two showers/baths a day, we don't need three cars in the garage, we don't need that little fishing boat, etc. etc. These are all luxuries. They certainly were in the 50s.
For example, in the last six months, with no hardship, my family has reduced our electricity monthly usage from about 1000 units to 400. And that's before the solar water heater and wood-fired wetback take over our water heating. It's not hard and it certainly isn't rocket science, but for some it will be scary because they will be losing their 'entertainment'. Truth is, life can actually be much more entertaining without this stuff.
Instead of a die-off in our future, I actually see our past. We will need to step back a few decades and re-evaluate what are the essential elements of life on this planet. We need to recognise that we have become addicted to luxuries in the pursuit of happiness!
Our lifestyles are not non-negotiable. In the process of avoiding die-off, there will be lots of negotiations!
I agree with your statements as related to how things should be. If we could "soft land" by going back to behavior patterns of the 1950's before becoming even more sustainable, we certainly wouldn't need to worry about an imminent new stone-age.
While I, or "we" perhaps don't need the things you mention like tv in every room, playstation, etc., there seems to me to be an omnipresent entity which needs all these things and even more of them next year to sustain its existence: Capitalism.
Is it not true that capitalism fundamentally depends upon growth to continue functioning? I do not see how the mechanisms of our economic system allow reverting to 1950's lifestyles now. Capitalism is a one way street.
It seems to me it will accelerate until it hits the wall of no further growth possible, and we will be left with no economic system apart from our local agreements of how to trade with our friends and neighbors.
Questions I have....
Is the debt system inexorably tied to a system of perpetual growth to sustain itself?
How will capital satisfy its desire to grow as the amount of real energy in the global system starts to decline?
As an engineer I guess I should qualify the above as Power, vice energy, since the Alberta tar sands (supposedly) contain a Saudi Arabia's-worth of energy. But the rate at which you can use that energy is a small detail to consider.
What we need is s horrific oil price shock, then production back in a few weeks but knowledge of peak to have created a different political landscape to powerdown in an organised way.
Even in the liquid fuels category, Americans are going to surprise us with how much can get squeezed out. The other night at my girl's soccer game I suddenly realized that at least 5 of us drove nearly 15 miles from the same small area; one just down the block from us!! As I was busy kicking myself for not thinking the transportation thing all the way through, the other parents were visibly wondering why I was even concerned at all. I guarantee that they will just as easily adopt a more sensible car-pooling strategy when the time comes.
Unfortunately, I also believe that many Americans won't make any changes until they have to. So I guess my take is that 1)We are going to burn through the hydrocarbon reservoir as fast as possible; and 2) I expect to see surprising amounts of elasticity on the other side of the peak.
". . . surprising amounts of elasticity on the other side of the peak."
That is an interesting idea and I have a hunch that I understand your meaning but am not sure. In economics "elasticity" has a strict meaning (actually, it has three different meanings--income elasticity of demand, price elasticity of demand, and (price) elasticity of supply), but my impression is that you are using the term "elasticity" as a synonym for "resilience."
If that is your meaning you are surely correct; humans are pretty good at adaptation--at least those who survive are pretty good at it.
Note that some economists have greatly overstated the ability of markets and relative price changes to "solve" energy problems. Nevertheless, the principle that markets have much power to adapt to change and to encourage investment in appropriate technologies is valid.
Economists see substitutes everywhere--even where they may not exist, unfortunately. But your big point seems to me 100% correct. As a sociey Americans are hugely profligate of energy, and to reduce energy consumption by fairly large amounts (say up to 30% or 40%) need not mean that our way of life crumbles into a Mad Max scenario. For example, this winter I cut my consumption of natural gas for heating by about 50% by the simple expedients of wearing long underwear, shutting heat off from unused rooms, burning more wood, and getting a small space heater (600 watts of coal-fired electricity) to warm up just the small room I was in for much of the day. Instead of driving my car every day, at first I drove it only every other day and am now down to twice a week. When it becomes more pleasant to ride bicycle, I won't need my car at all, though I'll probably use it a few times a month to visit children or go sailing on lakes beyond easy biking distance.
After all, Moses did not come down from the mountain and put in as one of His Commandmants that we should each day sit behind the wheel of a car for hours a day commuting to work all by ourselves. With jitneys and car pooling we could quickly and drastically cut gasoline consumption and traffic congestion. I think gasoline at $5 will do the trick. Bring it on!
Yes, I do mean 'elasticity' in the sense of 'resiliance'. I am an engineer by training, and I do value technically correct use of terminology. My 'Economincs IQ', however, is just a bit above room temp so my use of economics terminology is therefore imprecise.
My two greatest concerns going forward is 1) the climatological response to the forcing functions (increased CO2 primarily) we are imposing on the ecological system, and 2) the economic system's response to decreasing energy supplies.
#1 could kill the host
#2 could really suck
Sorry to be such an optimist this morning!
Is debt inextricably tied to a premise of unending, infinite growth? How will 'growth' be redefined and redirected when the traditional notions and expectations are found to be invalid?
As I said in an earlier posting above, Capital will not go away meekly. I'm seeking to understand the nuances; the second- and third-order effects. I get that the size of the pie stops growing so rapidly, and indeed at some point will likely shrink. Increased energy efficiency will play a role. We will also eat into other folks' slices, albeit not without a struggle. But what are the practical steps that individual business managers and corporate boards will inevitably take?
If this doesn't make sense, it may be due to my econ IQ. Or maybe the java hasn't kicked in yet.
Economically Challenged in NW Florida
P.S. Bugs are going to be horrid this summer. We effectively did not have a winter this Winter.
I'm not sure why should debt be necessarily or inextricably tied to overall growth. Even in a steady-state economy with no overall growth, I would still think that future values would be discounted as compared to present day values and hence debt (and, correspondingly, interest on savings) would continue to exist, and make sense financially.
Indeed, I have found that engineers pick up economics as easily as a duck takes to swimming on water.
I know a several meteorologists and one prominent climatologist who has a top position at a major U.S. Labratory that examines Antarctic ice cores. From listening to these people with care, it seems to me that they are far less convinced of extreme outcomes than are less qualified people. One item that the fearmongers sell is positive feedbacks, positive feedbacks, positive feedbacks in spades. Well, there is no denying that there are huge and powerful and (somewhat) well understood positive feedbacks in carbon dioxide and methane forcing. However, there are also powerful negative feedbacks, such as a fairly likely major increase in cloud cover as global temperatures increase. When you start guessing at parameters and doing the math (which involves such lovely problems as the physics of turbulence, complexity, and perhaps mathematical chaos), the most knowledgeable and most responsible and most experienced scientists simply refuse to stick their necks out to make predictions. Yes, a sudden glaciation could happen, but it is unlikely. Yes, a sudden and large [on a time scale of 500 million years] temperature increase could happen, but it is unlikely.
Note that it seems to be a rule that the most extreme predictions come from those with the thinnest qualifications in earth science research.
As one who has studied the history of science for half a century and who has had close contact with a number of eminent scientists in various disciplines, I fully understand why the most qualified people are very cautious about making forecasts: They know more than we do.
As an engineer, you live and die by Murphy's Law. It is possible that "lots" of things can go wrong at the same time. It is, however, unlikely.
From my perspective, the technological problems related to making the transition away from fossil fuels are substantial and expensive but not especially intractable. Far, far, far more difficult to deal with are the political, social, legal, economic, income-distribution, and cultural problems related to changing our lifestyles. If we solve the problem of organization and also the problem of population growth, then humans can flourish indefinitely. Unfortunately, I see no sign of a solution to either of these key problems.
For the immediate future, I put international and domestic financial collapse followed by hyperinflation at the top of my worry list. BTW, capitalism can work in the absence of debt, but some kinds of debt (for example, to invest in renewable energy or much more efficient vehicles) make good sense. Most consumer debt and much government debt is strictly analogous to heroin use.
A.) When things can go wrong they will go wrong.
b.) Things will go wrong at the worst possible moment in space and time.
The collerary of which is,
When one system goes down, the next system will soon follow.
This collerary corraborates the observed behaviors of a series of complex systems all failing within seconds from a single isolated root cause of failure occuring in only one of the subsystems.
Speaking of things going wrong, I'm an expert after having crashed 3 ultralight airplanes. (2 things a pilot can never have enough of, the altitude above him and the runway ahead of him.)
British Gas commissioned a high-level study (once supposedly available on their website, but I never couldn't find it.) to quantify the probability P of something going wrong. Dr David Lewis, a chartered psychologist; Dr Keylan Leyser, an economist and business consultant; and Philip Obadya, a mathematician, were charged with devising an equation. They found:
A(U + C + I)(10 - S)
P = --------------------
200(1 - sin(F/10))
where U, C, I, S, F are coefficients between 1 and 9 representing, respectively, the urgency, the complexity and the importance of the task in question, the skill of the operator and the frequency with which the task is performed. The aggravation coefficient A was set by the committee, rather arbitrarily, at 0.7. Apparently adapted from the account by Ben McGrath in the "Talk of the Town" section of the October 25 2004 New Yorker magazine, where it was applied to the Red Sox (P = .74) If you have access to this article, I'll pay.
Gets It,
The corollary, IIRC is that things will not go bad until the most inconvenient moment.
There are "reasons" for that.
The inconvenient moment is that time when we can't patch things over any more. Things are actually going wrong all around us all the time.
But we humans are delusional.
So we patch things over and pretend it didn't go wrong.
Once you accept that there is this basic "blindspot" in the human psyche, you will see that things are constantly going wrong in plain sight and we pretend with each such wrong that it is an abberation, a "fluke", an anomaly, it will never happen again --I promise.
Car accidents happen all the time. Some traffic locations are magnets for the accidents. But we don't change the situation until there are 10-100 dead bodies piled up and finally we can no longer deny it anymore.
Same is with OIL.
Oil is going wrong right now. Our vulnerability is exposed by the terrorists attacking key link facilities like Abquaiq (Saudia Arabia). But we deny the fact of it. Oh no, it was an anomaly, it won't happen again.
Question: How many times did the terrorists hit the Twin Towers?
Answer: Two. Remember? Remember?
The first time, 1990, we said it was an anomalous "crime". (And what were they stealing? Pocket books (purses) from old American ladies? Our problem is that we hardly ever see problems. We are delusional.)
Typical Aircraft Accident
1.) bad weather occured,
2.) pilot proceeded in landing attempt, without recognizing his/her training and experience was inadequate for that particular weather condition and failure to divert to another airfield.
BP Texas City Explosion
1.) level controller failed,
2.) tower design procedure.
If either the controlling mechanism having a failsafe provision, or the tower had been designed for full load, the accident would not have occured.
Not sure about the remaining points you're trying to make. I didn't say there are not a multitude of reasons why things happen "according" to Murphy's Laws, nor did I say I didn't understand why thay seem to follow Murphy's law when they do happen. Even Murphy did not state the reasons why he found it necessary to write up his "laws", or why they happened that way or didn't happen that way. He just described various states and conditions he observed in the process of failure. I don't argue that people don't see what they don't want to see, although there are standard procedures to correct those things. For example, the traffic intersection example problem you mention could be discovered by a very simple statistical analysis of traffic accidents in your example city. When that particular intersection has more accidents/vehicle passing through it than the average of all intersections in the city, it should be flagged for further study to identify any unusual conditions that caused that flag to pop up. When the traffic engineers get out there, they will undoubtedly discover that someone has placed a large billboard within the right-of-way that blocks drivers view of the intersection. If that policy was followed, instead of letting 100 people get killed at the same intersection and waiting for some brilliant sole to finally realize all died at the same intersection,the problem could have been corrected much sooner. Would it not? I try to avoid problamatic conditions from ever occuring through hazardous operation studies and continuous monitoring of safety procedures and investigation of industrial accidents and should an unusual pattern or some unforeseen condition develop that hasn't been covered in the study or previous work method statements, I correct them and insert a new procedure that (if followed) will prevent it from happening again, but then not everybody is really ISO 9001 compliant, are they?
As for Abqaiq, seems like the defense mechanism worked more or less as expected. No damage occured to the facilities. I'm sure they're reevaluating defense hardness to see if they can't prevent injury to the guards when the next incident happens, which is also probably expected. I don't think anybody is sending the guards home or anything.
As for Twin Towers 1990, seems like the defense mechanism worked more or less as expected. No damage occured to the facilities. I'm absolutely sure "they" [whoever they are] are reevaluating defense hardness :-)
As for Murphy's basic law, it's just another way of expressing the law of large numbers for probabilisitc systems.
IOW, given a finite P that things will go wrong, repeat it often enough and it will go wrong
"IOW, given a finite P that things will go wrong, repeat it often enough and it will go wrong". I agree there is a high probability of the occurrence of your event, if you refer to the customary definition of dependent or independent events and do the experiment "a sufficient number of times", however I believe Murphy Law, "Things go wrong at the worst possible moment in space and time", also implies the inclusion of another factor that attempts to describe an observed increase in probability of occurrence of sequential events (Things; plural) that are thought to be completely independent of any KNOWN logical connection to a given primary event, other than there being nothing more than a simple coincidence that event 2 happened sequentially to event 1. In other words, he was attempting to account for often unknown relationships, feedback loops between systems with forcing functions that were impossible to describe analytically, to account for the dynamic interactions between complex systems. Now, if we can agree that the worst possible time for system 2, 3,... n to fail is immediately after 1,2 or n-1 has failed, I think its adequate to assume Murphy has dynamic complex system interactions nicely included.
But go one step outwardly in the horizontal plane (time is fixed here) as well as down the vertical integration plane (where time advances to reveal a sequence of events). Suppose in each horizontal plane there are N things that can go wrong during that one instnce in time. Not all of them go wrong, maybe just one. But that one now cascades its effects into the next time slot. We then see a sequence of events going wrong.
Think of the more recent space shuttle disaster. Anything could have gone wrong during launch. The one that did go wrong was the tank foam (or the O-ring in the earlier disaster). That cascaded into the next thing going wrong, and the next one.
Good analysis.
Thanks for your discussion.
The storm hit at an "inconvenient" time when the emergency tank was out. Suddenly there was no way of patching over the problem with the pulling out tanker.
Thanks for sharing this.
Can't argue with you math. Numbers are irrefutable; we all know that;-)
In regard to Murphy's Law, the reason so few planes crash and so few ships sink is that, in general, things do not all go wrong at the same time: There is a huge amount of reduncancy built in. Dirty little secret: It is never (or almost never) the case that everything is working exactly right on a big ship or big airlplane, because they are so doggone complicated. The pilot or skipper makes the safety call, knowing that certain instruments are malfunctioning or that engines have been poorly maintained by scab mechanics, in the current case of NW airlines. For example, in the recent case of the NW Airlines plane being forced down due to fire from (I think it was) an oil or hydraulic leak, nobody was hurt. In other words, in an ideal world, we do everything right. In the real world, sometimes the Shuttle takes off with a faulty O-ring in cold weather, but to bring down a modern air liner, in general you need either a bomb, a cannon, a rocket, or an incredible amount of general stupidity and carelessness.
In regard to your flying ultra-light aircraft . . . um, I can recommend some medications to help you to deal with this form of mental illness. Why not take up soaring in conventional airplanes? Safe, fun, and not expensive, if you join a club.
Thanks for informing the flying public out there that in real world airplanes, things are always going wrong.
So true.
I used to work in aero-engineering, so I know. But the public needs to know that aero-enginerring standards are basically same as MIL spec. The boxes have to be rigourously tested (shake and bake tests) before they go on board a plane. Aero-engineers are trained in Murphy laws and they design in the redundancy or fail-safe systems so that, despite the fact that things are always going wrong, the plane continues to fly and appears as if everything is "normal" .
Our social systems are NOT designed that way. The founding fathers were not engineers. They did not put in enough, redundant levels of checks and balances. They did not put in a fail-safe design. So our ship of state is not sailing as well as a well-engineered boat may.
Hydroelectric dams are an obvious exmaple, but also railroad improvements like tunnels and electrification, Los Angeles's "Subway to the Sea", and myriad other transportation examples.
Wind turbines have an "issue" in they are expected to last 20 years. Currently, rapid advances in technology/size means that worn out WT infrastructure (except access roads) has little reuse. So a "medium life" asset that has to be completely recycled.
However, since the limiting factor on the size of road access WTs is mobile cranes to eract and do occasional heavy maintencance, the next replacement generation in ~2027 is likely to be the same size and can use the same towers (a major cost component) and produce no more electricity (preserving the electrical infrastructure).
Hydroelectric sites were evaluated in the 1920s to 1950s based upon the economics of that day. Storage was essential and almost no "run-of-river" schemes were developed. Hydro had to compete against lower capital cost coal, oil and natural gas powered electricity plants. In a new environment, the calculations of what is worth developing will change. Hydro has superb EROEI, it is just that the payback takes decades, but they last centuries.
Grand Coulee, Hoover, etc. have long since paid back their massive investments and continue to be ideal energy sources today and post Peak Oil. But what of a 380 kW bulb turbine on that local stream with a small dam that runs, perhaps, 37% of the time ?
Low return on capital invested, and some occasional maintenance (a guy to pull out trash accumulated on the trash rack), but a good EROEI !
There was a great streetcar building era in the US from ~1895 till WW I. Some before and after, but these were the peak years. Roughly 20 years of rapid building.
In an early post-Peak Oil era, the resources to repeat this should be available and I am working, as best that I can, to promote this concept.
In the seond half of the 1800s (and early 1900s) some massive investments were made to improce the efficiency of railroads (tunnels, bridges, straightened lines, double & triple tracking, etc.) and much of that remains. However, changes (mainly electrification and adding back lost track) are good investments in a post Peak Oil world.
Homes could become better insulated, better windows, sidewalks added, etc. All very long life improvements.
Industrial processes also present many opportunities for improvements. Solar preheating, more efficient processes, all specific to the industry in question.
So, "growth" may come in increasing the amount of renewable energy and the increasing the effiency of energy used as we experience dwindling oil supplies.
I see the first political hurdle as MUCH greater support for urban rail and freight rail electrification (my reason for joining this forum was to promote these concepts) and taking money from highway widening and building new highways.
Do the math.
Total annual human energy consumption: ~400 quads, ~4.2e20 Joules.
Power delivery from the Sun: ~1360 W/m^2 * 1.28e14 m^2 = ~1.74e17 J/sec
Time to deliver a year's human energy consumption via sunlight: about 40 minutes.
Total available wind power world-wide, areas class 3 or greater: estimated 72 terawatts (2150 quads/year).
Average US electric consumption: 450 GW (3,954 terawatt-hours per year)
Average insolation on a square meter of ground in mid-Kansas: 1150 kWh.
Typical PV panel efficiency: 13%
Area of Kansas required to meet 100% of US electrical consumption with PV: 2.64e10 m^2, 26400 km^2, 10,200 square miles.
Total area of Kansas: 82282 square miles.
We are literally awash in energy that cannot run out as long as the Sun exists. The problem is engineering and building the systems to get it.
I would add a little observation. Folks, when you talk about how hard it will be to get along with less, please look around to the past and to other people right here and now for examples. I remember the '30's, with almost no electricity and lots and lots of work, but a good community spirit and plenty of the things we really needed- food, shelter, companionship, entertainment. And then I think of the Japanese truck farmers I knew just south of Spokane in the '50's, growing astounding amounts of produce with a lot of personal attention. And that fish pond in Bangladesh that produced so many fish from all the vegetation the farmers tossed into it daily. People have done it, and can do it. And of course, the Cubans, the Chinese for 3000 years, and so on.
The "two billion" figure that is oft-quoted is, near as I can tell, from scientific work done in the '90s on the nitrogen cycle. They calculate how many people could be supported by the amounts of nitrogen that are available without synthetic fertilizer, and estimate the sustainable population that way. IIRC, it came out to be 2 billion for the world, and about 200 million for the U.S. Hence, the conclusion that we are in overshoot.
The other way is the way Stanton did it. He simply looked back at history, and estimated how many people had been (barely) supported with solar energy alone (wind, water, but mostly "biofuel" in the form of agriculture).
There were roughly a third as many people in the U.S. back in the '30s. That, I think, is what Hanson is worried about. Even in the U.S., our population has exploded, and it's even worse for many other countries.
This is undoubtedly true, but which way it skews the numbers is open to debate. Stanton calculated the barely-subsistence-level, up-against-the-Malthusian-limit number, then took 1/3 of that to get the number of people who could be supported at a "decent" standard of living. IOW, he thinks a high standard of living will require a lower population.
I suspect he is correct, simply from our history, and our experience with animal husbandry. It's a lot easier to maintain a lower population.
I calculated the nitrogen which could be made from the gasification of corn crop wastes; it's several times as much as required to fertilize the corn.
Which implies that we can't make better use of wind and solar tomorrow than we did 75 years ago. It should not be necessary to point out how preposterous this is.How do you make the solar panels with no fossil fuel inputs?
Solar panels need silicon and to 'grow'(google silicon production to find out more) silicon you need allot of electricity. Thus to make the amount of solar panels required would increase the amount electricity used. While the first set can be made via electricity produced with other fuel sources, such sources are in decline so you would over time need more and more solar panels to keep up the electricity loads for making more panels. Thats a nasty positive feedback loop.
Have any answers to that?
Why is it that we are the first civilization to develop such advanced technology? It's because we're the first that didn't have to rely solely on solar energy.
In a solar-powered world, glass and steel are extremely expensive, because of the amount of energy they take to make. There are some SCA types who try blacksmithing the old-fashioned way, and it takes an insane amount of wood or charcoal to forge, say, a sword. Glass windows and steel blades were for the elite only, and I suspect solar panels will be as well.
Since this is just a crude estimate, double all those mass numbers. Then report back on what you get.
And while you're at it, look up the percapita energy use of the average US citizen in 1930 compared to today..
I believe the payback is seven months doubling time either way. Doubling time is the time to make the entire installation in energy. That is, you need to pay back the cost over a short period of time, like seven years for a ten percent per year municipal bond. That means that if you need seven months to pay back the energy cost, then you need six years and five months to pay back the labor and equipment cost. Labor cost is much higher than equipment and energy and land cost for a solar plant. All kinds of solar plant.
Energy cost of a solar or wind plant is not a problem. We already can deal with that. It's labor cost that's a problem. Construction is expensive.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
No alternate power source has been proved to be viable without the input from the current fossil fuel system at a level that would not only prevent a die-off but provide room for more growth.
I even think it's a valid debate to talk about the idea that maybe some of the alternatives, if scaled past their current levels would hasten the decline.
And they end up with a mix of geothermal, hydro (run of river & stored) and wind that varies between 30 GW and 70 GW (average ~45 GW) plus 10s of GW of low pressure/temp steam for process heat ?
Add massive windfarms on Greenland later, along with some hydroplants.
Perhaps they expand to the Falklands and other Artic islands.
A massive infrastructure of renewal energy and heavy industry with a small skilled labor force is clearly sustainable. This base alters the equations of doom and sustainable equilibrium.
Don't send people up on roofs without a good reason, and snow is not a good reason. Evacuate the building.
http://www.energybulletin.net/13081.html
Think it will generate as much eschatological blogging as the Iranian version? The blog buzz of prognostications about M3 non-disclosure, Iranian Oil Bourse, Japan's sudden coming rate hikes, civil war unravelling in Iraq, housing bubble, you name it, it's getting deafening.
We should all start making an effort in posting some counter-apocalyptic news to hear the other side of the story. I guess I could just watch CNN...
And why if I may ask?...
The Swedes feel less strongly (Finns have a special place I understand) but they could be another source of Norwegian bashing.
When I pointed out that most Icelanders are descended from Norwegians, I have been told "just the men, the women came from Ireland (confirmed by deCode)" and "All the good ones left for Iceland and America".
So there is a good base to start from :-P
BTW: Magnus, how are Islandur viewed in Sweden ? They think that they are percieved as "country bumpkons" but mainly ignored, which hurts their considerable pride (although they laugh at their "small nation" pride as well).
Wow, the mind boggles. Norwegian ethnic profiling... FBI interviews about conversations at Lutefisk feeds... Informers in the Sons of Norway... Pat Robertson railing against Lutheranism...
- Finns are the most hated and most negatively stereotyped. Perhaps this is because they invented the sauna and the others (inwardly) feel they are the cleanest.
- Norwegians everywhere are stereotyped as rude, crude, not too bright, maybe decent but basically slow.
- Swedes are neurotic, degenerate, not-to-bright descendants of woodcutters.
- Danes are overfed, oversexed, and "over here" (as tourists) Besides, their men are all in thrall to their cigar-smoking women.
- Icelanders carry knives. Do not mess with them.
There are many many variations on these themes. Used to date a beautiful Swede, a dead ringer for Bibi Anderson (the famous and sexiest actress of all time in some of Ingmarr Bergmann's films) and about her only flaw was her extreme negative stereotypeing of Norskis. In Minnesota Finnlander jokes outnumber all other kinds, especially in Northern Minnesota where people of Finnish ancestry are a large minority.As a sociologist, I find this stereotyping fascinating. As a human being, I do not know whether to laugh or to cry.
IMHO
Finns are distrusted a little because of their closer prior association with the Soviet Union than other Scandi countries. Yes! There is a spy chip in all Nokias.
Norwgians have a few problems with Swedish folks, because a lot of them blame Sweden for "cooperating" with the Germans and allowing them to pass more or less freely into Norway through Sweden. Not sure if it's true or how much cooperation was actually involved. A lot of countries didn't have a whole lotta choice in that matter.
Norwgians eat too many sardines and very brown cheese for breakfast, and are too happy about their oil reserves right now, but are good members of NATO so far, so if I was you I wouldn't be pissing them off.
Icelanders have a lot of geothermal secrets they might share with you if you MYOB as well as they do.
That's it in my nutshell.
All of it is probably true.
Sweden made a massive disarmement after the first world war and started the rearmement too late. About half of our air force, large ammounts of other equipment and ammunition and manny volunteers were sent to Finland when Sovjet attacked Finlad as a part of the nazi and Soviet split up of eastern europe. When Sweden mobilized most of the army where sent North to defend against a Sovjet invasion thru Finland. Or if you are more conspiracy minded to protect the northern iron mines from being destroyed by Great Britain.
Anyway we had lousy pants and they were down around or knees when nazi Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Our main defence was probably to threathen to blow up our iron mines, heavy industry logistics, steel works and ball bearing plants if Germany attacked. I think those preparations are documented but I have not checked it.
And then we traded quite a lot with nazi Germany, probably prologing the war significantly by providing them with critical supplies in exchage for coal, weapons, money and not being attacked. We also traded with Great Britain, there were Swedish ball bearings in aeroplanes etc on both sides of the front. The ammounts changed in favor of the allies as the war progressed. We either got bolder as the nazis got weaker or they could not pay as well or both things at the same time. We were definately paranoid about survival and and it has been said that the civil defence stockpiles actually were slightly larger after the war ended then before it started.
We did help nazi Germany with train transportation to and from Norway and there were probably some nazi logistics stockpiles on Swedish ground. But we also helped the Norwegian and Danish resistance. A cute energy related anecdote is that the HVAC cables between Sweden and Denmark had telephone wiering unknown to the occupying nazis that were used for information exchange with the resistance during the occupation. We also trained "police" forces to be used in an allied liberation of Denmark and Norway but the war ended with a nazi withdrawal withouth any fighting.
Those nazi forces were proably the most lucky ones in the war, the damned fools almost wiped themselves out in their idiotic war.
We did not deport any Jews to nazi Germany and people who go t to Sweden were mostly lucky with a very shamefull exeption. After the war we sent a large number of Baltic refugees to Sovjet on Stalins request and they were executed.
Our foreign policy during WW 2 where a masterfully executed ass licking to litteraly translate a short Swedish expression about a self degarding way to appease a stronger power.
Then oil became cheap, the Marshall aid were given to manny european countries and the only ones with unhurt industries were Switzerland and Sweden, our Socialists dident do any realy stupid experiments for about 25 years. We got rich, extremely rich compared to the rest of the world. At least quite a lot of it was invested in infrastructure, even in the railroads although they no longer were the future in the age of the car.
Some 10^11 - 10^12 modern dollars were invested in defence during the cold war. We more or less planned for a worse version of WW 2 and we had a civil defence that would make survivalists cry. Most of this is gone now. It would have cost a small fraction of the investment to keep a civil defence making a year long total break down in world trade a minor irritation. I realy hate those decisions made during the 80:s and 90:s. But at least we started to invest massively in the rail network in the 90:s.
I expect that a peak oil crisis will result in a similar well planned and over dimensioned response that should have been started a few years earlier. My guess is that our current prime minister and his staff that probably will loose the next election pray for a quick and massive crisis to hopefully get some voters from their peak oil initiative.
Such a crisis is perfect to display statemanship and it needs good statemanship and they have had a number of embarrasing failuers. The last one was yesterday evening when it got public that they from their own party headquarters had sent made up degrading emails with made up personal problems regarding the opposition leader. I do not know if the police investigation will continue but this is quite a scandal and the first time in Swedish politcs such a thing has happened in such a scale. Leadership turning corrupt, it needs to be changed. They have been all over the news appologizing today but this will cost them core voters. Something is fishy inside our largest party, last parlament election an election fraud regarding at least dozens of votes were discovered, another depressing first for Swedish politics. :-(
From yesterdays embarrasing and depressing real-politics to todays moral failures, I hope I dont bore you with off topic rambling.
How did USA civil defence work? Do you have any old plans or investments that are usefull for an oil peak downslope?
http://www.headlines.com.au/worldnews/2001/june/001.html
There's some gun platforms still left off the Panama Canal. The gun emplacements in Galveston were turned into a pretty wild disco in the 70's. Oddly enough the blimp base is the only one I know of that is being used for petroleum work these days. Its a drill and line pipe storage yard. A lot of the old air bases have been taken over by the local county governments. Its kinda' funny to be flying over a tiny little 3 horse town with no traffic lights and see a giant airport with 3 wide runways a mile and a half long next to it, but most of those old air bases are only inhabited by road runners, horned toads and dust devils.
Norway is commonly regarded as the only functioning communist state in existence :-) They have used their oil wealth to raise the living standards of the entire population - you do not see the extremes of wealth which exists elsewhere. The surplus is being fed into the Pension (formerly Petroleum) Fund, the largest single fund in the world, presently worth around 190 Billion dollars.
http://www.norges-bank.no/nbim/pension_fund/
For a population of 4 1/2 million that is a considerable investment. As someone posted recently, however, it remains to be seen if the value will disappear in the coming economic upheaval.
In the ten years I have worked in Norway I have observed more genuine concern for the enviroment and for other people than anywhere else I can think of.
Stupidiy - we need more like that. (Commercial over).
Both Norweigians and Swedes tell the same stupid jokes - just transpose the nationality. Sometimes Norweigians tell jokes about Norweigians - other times it is about Swedes. It doesn't matter that much really - the only real requirement is that the basic joke be funny. I very seldom hear any of this type of thing being told in a mean-spirited kind of way though.
I don't hear many people picking on the Danes though. Nor the Finns. My Norwegian relatives joked once how spoken Danish sounds like having a potato caught in the throat - I wonder if the Dutch influence might have something to do with it.
BTW, all the scandahoovians here ... is it a congenital fear of the long dark winter that makes us latch onto peak oil?
I suspect that a manny Swedish people are not realy comfortable with having Norway as a richer neighbour, Denmark having a stronger currency and they seeem to often have more fun and Finland as better managed with better schools, defence, energy policy, etc. We used to be the strongest, richest and proudest of the Nordic countries and could smugly nod to each other and smile about our neighbours. I hope we copy what our neighbours do better then us.
But I think most people realy like them and I think it has been so for quite a long time. Finland used to be a part of Sweden before Russia conquerd 2/5 of Sweden. Denmark was the traditional arch enemy but that was a long time ago. Norway was forced into a union with Sweden and the split up is almost in living memory. We like them anyway even if they party a lot on their independance day. We had a free travel withouth passports long time before EU and cooperations on manny levels. I would not be at least suprised if a split up of EU would be followed by a nordic union.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened Norway with "serious political consequences" after Finance Minister and Socialist Left Party leader Kristin Halvorsen admitted to supporting a boycott of Israeli goods.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1196096.ece
Falling short of demonization is something like the incident with the Indian chemist who was just denied a visa, causing a big stir there.
It's unfair really. We in the US have such lousy memories and are required to remember so many demons. The rest of the world, with much better memories, have only one demon to worry about.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185682,00.html
Peons like me won't be allowed to drive it, though. :)
Where will he recharge it?
@envy off
I was wondering whether they can not start selling a portable electrlyser + compressor, allowing you to use hydrogen pretty much like batteries.
The natural gas vehicles are more convenient, because they can be filled at gas company branches.
I don't think we paid for it, though. It's a loan, just for a month or two. A free sample, in hopes of making future sales. Or maybe a beta-test. I think they require that it be parked on the street in front of the building while not in use. Free advertising and all.
It's a pity, I got so excited that I started searching where I can buy one. I suppose it is the fuel cells that are driving the costs to the sky.
Good on you for offering to support that ;-)
Nobody's going to be building fuel cell cars without batteries because it would take as much gasoline as running one of those ultralight cars with a diesel engine that Lovins keeps harping on.
Compare and contrast to the days when "turbine cars" were right around the corner ...
But not the high solids crude that is coming out of some of those fields.
Another article about hydrogen-powered cars. In the comments, someone notes the problems about getting the hydrogen, but another commenter states that there is plenty of hydrogen produced at oil refineries.
But it is my understanding that almost all of the hydrogen streams that are generated by the various refining processes are used internally to produce the lighter hydrocarbons that make up the principal components of gasoline and other light liquids. Very little of it, probably none in many cases, is actually exported from the refinery as hydrogen gas.
Thus, I don't think one can consider an oil refinery as a 'source' of gaseous hydrogen. (Somebody out there more intimately familiar with refinery operations please correct me if I'm wrong.)
I'm undecided whether it makes more sense to try to use hydrogen directly as a fuel, as in a fuel cell, or to use the hydrogen to make light liquid fuels from heavy oil, coal, or tar sands. Both approaches have their pros and cons.
Keep an eye on this Supreme Court case that will have a major impact on water power. The technical issue is whether water from dams needs a discharge permit, with important stakes on both sides. The material below is a case summary from Cornell Law School and the link goes to more information, including briefs and other materials.
much more at
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/04-1527.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article344234.ece
excerpt now, because most of the article is behind a paywall [my AB#24255 goes into greater detail]:
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The United Nations has accused Uganda of draining Lake Victoria to maintain its electricity supplies, despite an impending environmental catastrophe as water levels in Africa's largest lake drop to their lowest in 80 years.
The water is three metres below its normal level, leaving the jetties where pleasure boats moor and the landing sites where fishermen sell their catch high above the water.
Article Length: 405 words (approx.)
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Generally, the elites' desires for electricity dominates the poor proles desires for biodiverse abundance.
A key quote from a link in my AB posting:
++++++++++++++++++
African businessmen and politicians literally laugh off the warning, with one well-fed and obviously wealthy man announcing, "We are here for one common purpose. We are here to sell Lake Victoria."
++++++++++++++++++
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Three factors are driving globalization in its present form. I like to think of them as a form of currency. I can happily report that economists have finally recognized the first two:
Tax arbitrage: A country offers significant tax breaks to corporations. Ireland and China--strange bedfellows--are high on this list, as are the tax havens in the Caribbean.
Labor arbitrage: A country offers a cheap labor source to corporations. Mexico and China are fine examples.
Environmentalists are well aware of the last coin, but mainstream economists are very reluctant to acknowledge it. Unfortunately, environmentalists tend to be a wordy lot; we get lost in their concern for polar bears and the Thermohaline Circulation.
Environmental arbitrage: The last of the big three, which I hope will be minted shortly. China and Mexico are of course stellar performers in this regard. Simply put: Go where environmental regulations are weak or non-existent--and keep them that way.
These three capture the spirit of globalization rather well. They are the real currency.
Language is very curious: Things do not become real until we have the means of easily identifying them. I offer all three of these in the hopes that these very simple expressions become as common as pennies. When they do, then we may a way of talking simply and directly to those who struggle with what is happening. Each can be tied to all the issues this blog has explored, even our dependency on fossil fuels. Each is an opening into a very complex event.
Perhaps then we can coin some new terms that more adequately express what we want this world to be.
Technically, arbitrage refers to profiting from differences in prices in different areas. You buy stuff low at point A and sell it high at point B. For this analogy to apply to the cases at hand, it would mean that companies would profit from the differences in policies in different nations. Tax arbitrage would mean that a company profits because taxes are lower in one place than another. Labor arbitrage implies profits due to labor price differentials; and environmental arbitrage means profits from different environmental policies.
But actually, I don't think that these are truly cases of arbitrage, because the profit is not due to the differentials. In true arbitrage, the profit opportunity would vanish if the difference disappeared. But in these cases, profits would not disappear if less-favorable countries adopted more-favorable policies.
Consider tax arbitrage, for example. Suppose Western nations adopted the same tax policies as tax havens. This would not eliminate profit opportunities! Instead, it would actually let companies make even more money because they could avoid the difficulty and expense of having to manage an international operation. Likewise with labor costs: if they fell to Third World levels in the West, that would improve profit potential, exactly the opposite of what should happen if it were a case of arbitrage. And the same with environmental policies: if Western nations eliminated environmental restrictions, it would be beneficial for the companies involved, whereas if arbitrage were involved such changes would eliminate profits.
I hope this makes it clear that these phenomena are not a matter of arbitrage. Rather, these are simply differences in policies and costs in different parts of the world. This leads to what we call division of labor, meaning that each area specializes in those products and services that it has a comparative advantage in producing.
It can be shown that this kind of arrangement maximizes the total economic productivity of the world. World economic production is much higher when we have this kind of differentiation than when every region tries to produce everything on its own. If we didn't have international trade, we would all be paupers. More trade and more globalization is the best hope we have for economic growth. That is what will continue to give future generations the expectation of improving economic conditions and better lives.
IMO globalization has encouraged the development of an unsustainable web of interdependencies, the inevitable collapse of which will cause great suffering. The pursuit of comparative advantage has left us vulnerable to supply disruptions in the name of economic efficiency. It has led to the loss of skills necessary for self-sufficiency, both at the national and the individual level. The price for that will have to be paid by the future generations who were supposed to be better off.
Other globalization industries are based only on access to what we would call slave labour.
The first form was always practiced. The second is/was practiced whenever labour had too much power and started cutting into corporate profits.
Yes it will not reduce the company profits but will reduce the government profits. The government will not have money to build infrastructure, for education etc. and the business and people will suffer. So somebody has to pay in the end.
In the case of arbitrage of costs, companies are reducing their costs on the expense of government / employees / environment.
In theory a better organized government, higher productivity or government support for cleaner technologies (tax breaks) could compensate for this and make a country more attractive. But in practice these things are not efficient enough, and in the quest for investments countries cut form education and healthcare, keep a lower labor cost and overlook environment.
Examples: Roche has used both, in much the same way that I have used them. Setser has used both...finally. Now, tax arbitrage was used in terms of transfer pricing. I could give easily give examples of where "transfer pricing" is nothing more than the taking advantage of tax differentials. In fact, I think I did. Although they are not presently illegal--Bahamas, for example, and tax havens--, most would find them morally reprehensible. I do.
Recently, Setser used "labor arbitrage"...again, in much the same way I have. Both of these gentlemen are serious economists and/or commentators.
Language is not static, no matter how hard we purists (and I am one) try to make it stay put. I have loosened the definition a bit, but it certainly does not seriously violate its meaning. We are dealing with the exploitation of differentials in cost, and I do not use the term "exploitation" in a necessarily pejorative sense.
While the market place looks upon certain kinds of arbitrage as a means of hmmmm producing wealth, I look at other forms of arbitrage as dangerous both economically and, obviously, environmentally.
The point is, though, that I get the impression that these phrases are meant in a somewhat cynical and almost sarcastic way: labor arbitrage, environment arbitrage, carry connotations of exploitation and rapacious behavior.
One could just as easily speak of education arbitrage, taking advantage of the greater education levels of Western employees and using them in jobs of higher skill levels. Or infrastructure arbitrage, focusing employment efforts on regions that have well developed communication and transportation infrastructure. These are just as meaningful but have more positive connotations.
Once you dilute the word to refer to the general phenomenon of employment based on whatever local conditions give a region its comparative advantages, it loses much of its meaning.
According to this article, the new pipeline will provide a big 7% of U.S. demand.
ah, the alacrity with which we must build the infrastructure to extend our crack habit...
That's basically what this article, from MarketWatch, says:
The construction costs are going to be at least 10 billion above where they project right now unless commodity inflation ceases and reverses. Fat Chance!
Does anyone know what the ultimate volume recovery of the field(s) will be and what price they are projecting to give this 10 year mega project the green light?
They don't mention what price they hope to get, but they do quote various experts saying the pipeline won't be worth it if gas prices drop...and many are expecting gas prices to drop.
And the US uses how much of NG each year??
- Reserves = 5,488 billion cubic metres
- Consumption = 542 billion cubic metres
http://www.eni.it/eniit/eni/internal.do?menu=true&RID=@22VDF|0?xoidcmWopk&portalId=0&lan g=en&sessionId=8909734Converted into cubic feet
* Reserves - 187 trillion cubic feet
* Consumption - 22 trillion cubic feet
I suspect that Iraq will now erupt into open Sunni/Shiite sectarian warfare. Will this spread to surrounding nations (i.e. SA)? Will they get involved in supporting one side or the other? How long will the US continue to pretend to support the pro-Iranian Shiite government (that we never wanted there anyway) as they commit atrocities against the Sunnis, and how will our Sunni run Arab allies feel about that? It may not require an attack on Iran for the ME to explode (although I still think that will happen too).
Sunni party quits Iraq government talks after mosque bombing
This is probably great news for Iran. We'll be way too busy with Iraq to do anything about Iran.
You can't get a read on things like this in the heat of the moment. You certainly can't predict weeks or months ahead, Saudi Arabian involvement, U.S. changing its loyalties, etc., etc. When you track every twist and turn in these ongoing world dramas, and try to extrapolate each day's events forward, you will inevitably overreact.
It's too bad that the proposed Policy Analysis Market that would predict Middle Eastern events got shot down for political reasons. That would have provided an objective measure of how much we should really worry about events.
Look at what has happened in Iran and then Nigeria. Oil market prices can serve as a useful proxy for how bad things are going there. A few weeks ago everyone was panicked about Iran, but then things settled down, and the market fell back below 60. Then the big panic was Nigeria, but that was a one-day wonder and again the market is heading back down.
These market prices give us a quantitative measure of how worried insiders are about oil supply interruptions due to unrest in these countries. The fact that Nigerian worries evaporated so quickly is a strong clue that those heavily dramatized events were actually not as bad as they sounded, although to read comments here one would think were just about to shut down the whole country. I wish we had something to provide similar data for Iraq and the rest of the region, like the PAM would have done.
I think that hindsight demonstrates that when massively disruptive events occur that the "market" fails to see those til after the fact. However, if you can demonstrate some provable correlation between what the "market" "knows" at various points in time and major historical events, then please do so. But clucking about how such a futures market "would be" predictive doesn't make it so.
In fact, I suspect that assessment of past markets would demonstrate the cluelessness of the investment community as to ongoing world events. I have no reason to believe that today is any different either, unless of course you have data to demonstrate otherwise.
And there are constantly people warning about disaster. I have had friends and associates involved with disaster communities since the 1970s. Ever hear of Howard Ruff? Gary North? They are just two examples of countless prophets of doom who have turned out to be wrong.
The point of markets is that they reward being right. If you have an infallible guide to the future that shows that market prices are wrong, you can get rich very easily. Needless to say, such oracles are in great demand!
Claiming that markets are totally misjudging the future requires maintaining that market participants choose to ignore obvious and virtually infallible information, preferring to lose money than to make it. That is exactly the opposite of how I observe the world to work.
The truth is that, for all the certainty and confidence around here about predictions of doom, the evidence is simply not all that conclusive. There is a good case to be made that today's high prices will restrain demand and/or elicit enough additional supply to avoid a crisis for at least the next several years. IMO this is what a straightforward reading of market behavior is telling us.
Note that I do not dispute the market's ability to predict the "norm" but I do dispute the market's ability to predict the unexpected, precisely because it is not expected. Your assumption that the scientific data is being understood by those who move the levers of the market is far more generous than I am willing to make based on the market's own behavior in the past. For instance, the market was unwilling to incorporate the risk factors from asbestos until it reached a critical mass yet the risk factor was present all along.
Finally, I've heard of Gary North and Howard Ruff. Both were trying to predict economic disaster. That's a bit removed from analysis of resource depletion and climate change. I think you trying to equate the two is a strawman.
What markets are particularly good at is consolidating all of the information and all the different points of view in society, and bringing them together in a forum where people are required to back up their opinions with real money. Markets eliminate "cheap talk" and wild speculations, forcing every participant to seriously examine his own preconceptions and assumptions and test them against the emerging consensus. Market participants are risking their hard-earned money, forcing them to do their best to make their bets and guesses as accurate as possible.
Few institutions in society do such a good job of motivating and rewarding accurate guesses and punishing error. You certainly don't see politicians or pundits suffering the kind of discipline imposed by the markets. How many of us offering opinions in this forum are testing our ideas by betting our future prosperity on their truth? That's what people do every day in the markets. It is what makes them IMO the most credible institution we have for accurately forecasting the future.
As regards to Iraq, the Shia have been very restrained from retaliating against Sunni or insurgency attacks. The Shia are a lot more disciplined than most people in the West are. If I had friends or relatives murdered or blown up, I would be out for revenge, despite the priest saying turn the other cheek. The Shia's respect for their religious authorities is one of the few things from stopping the Iraqi situation from getting really out of control IMO.
Of course it is always possible that these latest events may not presage a change, but as I stated, I believe it does. I think we can all assume that my personal beliefs are just that, not divine premonitions. If you prefer not to speculate on what will happen, please remember that replying is not required.
What I took from your reply was that we should not attempt to figure out what might happen, given a reasonable supposition about the future based on actual recent trends and events, but rather we should simply look at the markets and that would tell us all we need to know. I find this concept to be fantastical.
It seems as if Iraq has been in somewhat of a defacto civil war for some time now, although with the MSM and the blogosphere presenting such polarized views, it's hard for anyone who's not there to know.
I think the fact that the Kurds are setting up independent oil deals with foreign states sort of precludes any ideas of a cohesive government, and that is before any consideration of the Sunni-Shia conflict.
I also cannot see this weekend's sabotage by MEND in Nigeria as a one-off. Especially when troops are being pulled from the delta region to cope with Muslim-Christian violence over the cartoon issue.
Then, of course, H5N1 has recently taken hold in both countries. Rumor has it (no, I don't have a source) that the DoD is fairly frantic about the flu in Iraq.
I think this is a key point of unpredictability regarding the entire Iraq Situation. Just imagine if this 'badboy' mutates and then becomes human transmissable inside Iraq. Not enough troops to quarantine lockdown the country, and all the people [Kurds, Sunni, Shias, and US/UK troops] WILL BE TRYING TO GET AWAY from this flu's very high mortality rate.
It will spread like wildfire and many Americans will be screaming to get our kids out of there away from danger. But other Americans, that have studied how the 1918 Spanish flu basically came to America from the WW1 doughboys coming home from war, will be screaming that it will be too epidemiologically dangerous to willingly bring a highly lethal Pandemic back home to our own shores.
Do we trade 130,000 GIs to prevent 50 million deaths at home?
Gut-wrenching decision-- no easy answers. If we cannot help our kids trapped in the virus's grip overseas: our military days are basically kaput. If we start bringing them home and we know they are sick and dying: the market will anticipate this and tank, people will go nuts hoarding food for a self-imposed quarantine, very few will go to work or school out of fear.
I hope human-to-human bird-flu doesn't happen anywhere on the planet because the best, cheapest, and most time effective response may be to bomb the smithereens out of the area like in the early scene in the movie: "OUTBREAK".
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
That can set off all kinds of discussions on the Milgov: CIA, CDC, WHO, IMF, and other 3-letter Orgs. Comments?
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The center will not hold...
Thxs for responding. I agree with your assessment on no vaccine, medicals would have to use the 'ring encirclement method' like what was used for Smallpox-- basically total lockdown of area--next to impossible to accomplish-- thus my guess the elites would resort to localized decimation to greatly reduce potential viral escapees. If not, the flu would likely spread, the center will not hold, and geo-collapse will probably result as the mind-boggling headcount deaths mount.
The CDC has genetically reconstructed the Spanish flu, therefore it is easy to surmise that they could have created a whole series of new bugs to accomplish Jay Hanson's brilliant assessment of a hypothetical Pandemic Powerdown. If just one bug is purposely released first in Iran-- instantly the whole world will align to sequester and/or destroy the populace-- recall my Operation Arabian Gauntlet post detailing past military exercises in ME.
Of course, the CDC/CIA/WHO would have pre-constructed the required vaccines-- that is where the blackmail comes in. This new form of asymetric warfare, where using the magic bullet of Nature's bugs, would be unstoppable for those countries attacked. Capitulation for help would be almost instantaneous.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
But I 'm not all that panicked about H5N1 - I think there are plenty of other issues to face, and frankly such a mutation could happen any year with the flu. H5N1 is not yet the needed mutation for a pandemic, so does its existence really make a pandemic more likely than any other year? I'll admit it's not my field, so perhaps I'm just too ignorant to be scared.
Right off the bat, I should let you know that I have nowhere near the expertise in any field that most of the people on this site possess. "Jack of all trades and master of none" is an apt description. However, for whatever reason, infectious disease has been an interest of mine for several years, so, (strictly as a dilettante), I have picked up a few things and am an avid follower of some of the H5N1 sites.
Conspiracy theories abound about H5N1. The most predominant one I have seen is that this is an escaped superbug from a PRC bio-warfare lab. As bio-warfare has been developed by several countries for many years, this is not too unbelievable at first take. However, most epidemiologists dismiss this because because of the very nature of the influenza viruses themselves-- they are too unpredictable. With their rapid and uncontrollable recombinations and mutations, they offer a good chance of spreading back to "the Homeland". The authors of any kind of super flu have no guarantee that any vaccine they have stock-piled for the chosen few will work a few months down the road as the virus changes.
Consider the incredibly rapid spread of SARS a few years ago. It takes one asymptomatic, virus shedding passenger on one international flight to wreak havoc. In these kinds of cases, no one is immune. The law of unintended consequences, etc.
And then, there is the also somewhat philosophical question-- why do we always assume that we as technologically superior entities MUST be the originators of any scary thing to appear on the horizon? I believe Mother Nature does very well on her own, thank you very much.
Karen (NMN) Loyd
Because The Intelligent Designer made us in his own image.
:-)
(Then again, maybe "we" are the scary thing that Mother Nature has cast out onto the firmenment to cleanse the Earth of all living things, fowl or fair.)
Oh, Pacific Islanders had very high mortality rates pushing 25%, followed by native Americans like in Mexico at maybe 10%. Most of the Mexican immigrants to Americans may simply return home if flu kills enough people in Mexico to open up economic opportunities for remigrants.
Remember, flu kills children and othe living things, but not coal mines, oil wells, refineries, dams, cornfields, and wood lots.
Flu by Gina Kolata
The Monster At Our Door by Mike Davis
Those are the three recent books. There are older books, and there are many scholarly articles in Nature, Science, Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine (IIRC), and of course, pop journals like Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, Science News, etc.
Remember, the consensus is not necessarily correct, and it is changing rapidly as we accumulate more data. Sequencing genes is especially subject to datalanche as the cost of gene chip data is dropping by half every year.
Oh, the demographic effects in terms of differential fatalities are not changing. That's archival stuff and it is just fleshing out what we know. Keep in mind that while one of the Samoas had 25% casualties, the other escaped completely free from the disease because of quarantine. You can bet a lot of islands are thinking about that one.
-G
- US inventories are on the rise
- News like disruptions in Nigeria and fears about Iran caused some short-lived prices spikes.
My question is why event 1) is dominant in determining the prices. My amateurs guess is that after oil output is shut down in a place as distant as Nigeria, it would take maybe couple of months before it is reflected in the inventories. I can guess that just the oil tanker trip from Lagos to New Orleans would take a month. Then it must be unloaded and piped to the refinaries, processed and piped to the end-points where stockpile accounting is done. I'll WAG all of this to a 2 months of total lag.So is this just irrationality or the short-sighntess of markets is measured in weeks not 3 years?
http://www.theviewfromthepeak.com
NG situation is a whole lot more worrisome IMO, but will also probably come due after in no less than a couple of winters.
All of this of course is based on the assumption that nobody tries some brilliant ideas like attacking Iran for example.
Personally I welcome this "negative" wishful thinking. Knowing that in 5 years we will certainly have a problem makes me much more prone to accept this than the opposite one.
My example though (for the 2 month shortsightness) shows that market prefers otherwise. Obviusly traders prefer to be left assured that supplies are adequate and to significantly discount any information outside of the immediate supply/demand ratio.
I think that if actual shortages result it will be reflected in a sharp spike in price rather than the more gradual ups and downs when supply is adequate but traders are a bit nervous about the future supply.
Just for fun...
The PAC-Car II reaches 5385 km/l.
I make that 12,714 MPG.
I feel like a wastrel for only getting 50 MPG in my Prius.
From that NY Times article Leanan cites above
And from this AP article Natural gas pipeline from Alaska won't eliminate long-term supply challenges. Some comments- The 2012 to 2014 timeframe is 6 to 8 years from now. What are we going to do until then which brings me to...
- Both HO and I have questioned the ability of the US to "import some 16.4 billion cubic feet a day of LNG by 2010" for various reasons. Look here and here.
- Given these considerations, I would say the chances of any significant drop in natural gas prices in the next 5 to 7 years are about zero and would expect no drop after that timeframe either.
- It is naive to think the disruptions from hurricanes in the GOM will not continue to disrupt supplies of natural gas. This will vary from year to year but there is a reasonable expectation that we may get a year like 2005 at least every 4 or 5 years now given warmer sea surface temperatures.
- First, they didn't want to do the pipeline because of the permafrost conditions--but that was back in 1982. But now they must build the pipeline running through areas that are undergoing radical landscape changes (subsidence, ponding, etc.) due to rapid warming of the climate in the high latitudes. It is an engineering nightmare from hell. Frankly, I don't even know how they could possibly plan a pipeline in these areas that will start operating 6 to 8 years from now and then continue to operate reliably for decades after that.
So, I am not sanguine about natural gas supply in the US now or in the forseeable future. To the extent that prices are tied to what the current inventories are instead of a realistic view of longterm supply problems, there is little to say about such foolish shortsightedness. The price trend can only go up and up unless consumption is reduced radically. And since so much natural gas is used to power the electricity grid, home heating or air conditioning, no of which is not optional in many cases, thus making natural gas demand inelastic, I can't see consumption going down that much either (unless a lot of people freeze to death). The US switched over to natural gas in the last 25 years and by doing so they built a house of cards. This house is now in the process of coming tumbling down.To end on a slightly sarcastic note, now that the Earth is warming up, maybe we'll be saved by mild winters from here on out (but with the caveat that summers will be warmer too).
330 mln. people live in USA in Canada, 800 mln. live in Europe. So, I would expect the net result on NG availability and LNG exports to be negative in the years to come.
If you can write and read Spanish, pay us a visit over the forums at Crisis Energética.
I think I'm pretty well qulified to play the "Court Jester" or "Holy Fool". Maybe I should just try to inject a little bit of humour into our "Hobby" when the boys start getting a little too excited. Haven't people been getting a bit grumpy lately? I thought we were all on the same side more or less? Is it the politics? Or the realization that were all doomed?
Is it out of order to call TOD a "Hobby". A slighty macabre hobby, were we discuss the end of the world as we know it, and none of us feel fine? Do any of us have any real "Power" to change things? I mean is there a TOD member whose really a four star general with a few divisions of crack troops, loyal to him personally, who can be relied upon?
In England were called members of the "Chattering Classes", it's not meant kindly.
Zipping back to humour, before I vanish forever. I'm somewhat of an "expert" on Scandinavia. In Denmark, home of "Smiley Faced Fascism", it's Finns who carry knives and can't be trusted. Swedes are regarded as arrogant, lacking in humour, stiff and pretentious. One Danish politician recently said the Swedes were almost another "Race". God, how these old ideas from Hitler's bunker come back to haunt us! Norway is so expensive Danes carry food with them when they go on skiing holidays! Norway has enormous disparities of wealth. The number of millionaires in Oslo is the highest in all of Europe outside London. Iceland has the most wonderful scam involving deep-sea trawlers, dubious tax-breaks, and let's call it "creative overseas investments".
Believe me there's an awful lot to laugh at in these countries, especially as many of them regard themselves as being "Moral Superpowers". One of the most amusing things about them is, that some of these countries are almost delusional about the level of "perfection" they have attained. I onced watched a Scaninavian Prime Minister giving an election speech. He paused for a moment, smiled contentedly, and said,
"Friends, we may only be a small country that doesn't carry a lot of weight in the world, but isn't it true that we've created the best society there is? Yet dispite this fact, we've kept our feet firmly on the ground. And haven't we remained the most humble folk in the world?"
I fell about laughing. I mean "the most humble folk in the world?" My Sandinavian friends just didn't understand why I found this statement so funny. Maybe it was a joke one needed to think about?
"What is the differnence between the lowest kind of thug, the kind who will slit your throat for a dollar, and a Finnlander?"
Pause.
"The Finnlander will cut your throat for half a dollar."
There are several hundred Finnlander jokes now current in northern Minnesota. Most of them have as the punchline something to the effect that Finns are very stupid. Oddly, nobody actually believes that Finnlanders (as we call them) are dumb, but the jokes persist, including a whole subgenre of "Ole and Lena" jokes.
I suspect that as far back as the last Ice Age people were saying the same sort of thing about the people living in the neighboring cave. Trash, scum, no good!
Nothing seems to change, does it?
When I think about those vs. something like Yiddish humor, I am struck by how the subject matter of the jokes is different but the dryness is almost the same.
What the Price of Gold Might be Telling Us
by Stephen Lendman
Excerpt:
My best guess is that the rising gold price may be the canary in the mine shaft warning of a growing and dangerous change in world stability reflected in investor sentiment. At times of growing economic or geopolitical tension, uncertainty or danger, gold is seen as a conservative asset or "safe haven" and a way to preserve wealth as it always has been for the past 6,000 years. That's a track record even the Dow Jones averages can't match.
There's a lot for investors to worry about now along with the new war drums beating I'll discuss below. There's the perceived threat of terrorist attacks, the continued loss of civil liberties in the West and especially in the US, the possible disruption of oil supplies, and at some point that "piper" waiting to be repaid for years of financial profligacy in the US to fund all the "adventuresomeness" and excess stimulus to keep the economy humming. And there's one other factor affecting the US dollar. Many currency experts believe the currency is in a long-term bear market that began in 2002, even though it rebounded well last year and is holding its own so far this year (a cyclical rally in a longer term secular bear market say the dollar bears). Some of the reasons given for this trend are the emergence of the euro as a competitor to the dollar in December, 2001 by the 12 European nations using it and the desire of other nations to diversify into other currencies (as well as gold). And its interesting that some Islamic nations have begun doing some bilateral commerce in gold dinars and China now has its first gold exchange. All this signals a potential or maybe likely shift away from the almighty dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.
As you can see, they've made pretty much the same moves as gold.
Do you think everyone is spooked by international tension and stocking up on zinc? Or that those infamous "nickel bugs" are chortling over their foresight in anticipating Iraqi unrest?
It looks to me like gold is just part of a much larger picture. Any explanation which focuses on gold's unique role as a "safe haven" and long-term store of value is likely to miss the mark, unless we are supposed to believe that copper and its friends play exactly the same role.
i don't know about that, but i do know that the area i live in has seen some thefts of copper from junk yards and other places. they were due to people supporting drug habits but still it telling that they had to go onto the news and issue warnings to the supposed thief's to not try to take coper from power distribution points.
Agreed. And the bigger picture includes the figures of Alan Greenspan, GWB & friends who turned the money ooops bond printing machine ON in the beginning of the century. All these dollars had to go somewhere - those who were stupid bought 10 mln.dollar McMansions, those who were more more far-sighted invested in commodities carrying real value like oil, zinc, nikel, copper etc.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/figures/pocketbook/2004_en.htm
EU Energy and Transport sector drivers
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/figures/scenarios/index_en.htm
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/publication/analysis_en.htm
*** EU Nuke Plants ***
Decommissioning Status
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/nuclear/decommissioning/status_en.htm
EU Nuke Forecast Shutdown Dates
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/nuclear/decommissioning/candidate_en.htm
EU Technical Docs Gen Nuke Safety, Probabilities of failure, Design etc.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/nuclear/publications/installation_en.htm
*** Videos Gen Interest ***
Barcelona: Sustainable Energy City
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/video/barcelone/2005_barcelona_en.mpg
Length: 8'30" 94 MB
Subject: Everywhere in Europe, energy consumption increases, yet our supply of fossil fuels will not last forever and we need to find sustainable solutions. Several European cities have focused on renewable energies and have developed global concepts of sustainability. One of these, Barcelona has a unique regulation in the area of solar energy: the "SOLAR ORDINANCE". This decrees that all new buildings should use thermal solar energy for their hot water use. But that's not all. Everywhere around the city, the municipality promotes photovoltaic energy, a technology which allows the generation of electricity through the conversion of sunshine. Thanks to a collective political ambition, this Catalan capital is achieving a far more rational use of energy. This kind of initiatives is supported by different programmes of the European Commission, including the Campaign "Sustainable Energy Europe 2005-2008". This Campaign will give a strong signal to political opinion makers, to private and public investors as well as to European citizens: to invest in renewable energies.
Date of production: July 2005
Biofuels to replace oil Date of production: January 2006
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/publication/videos_en.htm#barcelona_sustainable_energy_city
Length: 11'23"
Subject: Facing the growth of CO2 emissions from transport and the difficulty to find alternatives to the traditional fuels for transport, Europe is proposing an immediate answer. It is encouraging the replacement of diesel and petrol by biodiesel and bioethanol - clean, renewable fuels derived from vegetable matter such as rape seed, cereals and sugar beet.
Europe set as indicative objective the replacement of 5,75% of conventional transport fuels by biofuels by 2010. Much effort remains to be done to reach it. Various policies are possible, such as the detaxation of biofuels or the obligation put on suppliers to put a minimum percentage of biofuels on the market. Europe is committed to a truly comprehensive policy on biofuels, which take into account all the different aspects, including those linked to sustainable development and to trade exchanges with its partners.