Wednesday Open Thread
Posted by Prof. Goose on May 10, 2006 - 1:38pm
It's the hot season in south Asia...in more ways than one. Temperatures as high as 48C (118F) have been recorded in India: Sweltering heat across northern plains of India, combined with power cuts that shut off water pumps and fans causes 28 deaths.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HE09Ad01.html
Excerpt: In the space of 12 months, Russia and China have managed to move the pieces on the geopolitical chess board of Eurasia away from what had been an overwhelming US strategic advantage, to the opposite, where the US is increasingly isolated. It's potentially the greatest strategic defeat for the US power projection of the post-World War II period. This is also the strategic background to the re-emergence of the so-called realist faction in US policy.
Friedman on the Post-Post Cold War:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/opinion/10friedman.html
Bad news for economists:
http://www.economics.rpi.edu/www/workingpapers/rpi0512.pdf
Abstract: In this paper we use results from the Hotelling model of non-renewable resources to examine the hypothesis that technology may increase petroleum reserves. We present empirical evidence from two well-documented mega-oilfields: the Forties in the North Sea and the Yates in West Texas. Patterns of depletion in these two fields suggest that when a resource is finite, technological improvements do increase supply temporarily. But in these two fields, the effect of new technology was to increase the rate of depletion without altering the fields' ultimate recovery - in line with Hotelling's predictions. Our results imply that temporary low prices may be misleading indicators of future resource scarcity and call into question the future ability of current mega-oilfields to meet a sharp increase in oil demand.
The Popular Mechanics Poster on Alternative Fuels (really good):
http://media.popularmechanics.com/documents/Fuel_of_the_Future-e852.pdf
In Pakistan, power outages are lasting 22 hours a day in some areas:
Load shedding hurting economy, National Assembly opposition walks out twice
But the crisis seems worst in Bangladesh. There were protests by farmers over fuel and fertilizer shortages earlier in the year, and now the unrest has spread to the cities:
Power hungry people lay siege to REB office in Khulna
Violent protest rally over power outage in city: 100 hurt, 100 vehicles damaged
People marched on a power plant in Dhaka, demanding an end to power outages:
But when the police tried to intercept the protesters, some turned violent, setting fires and destroying vehicles.
(Photos by AP)
These countries generate most of their electricity via natural gas (except India, which is increasingly dependent on coal). The tighter natural gas market means power generation cannot keep up with growth.
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
In Russian State of the Nation address this morning Putin proposed to create oil and gas exchange in Russia denominated in russian currency, also issued a veiled but clear response to Vice President Dick Cheney's accusations that Moscow is rolling back on democracy and strong-arming its ex-Soviet neighbors.
``Where is all this pathos about protecting human rights and democracy when it comes to the need to pursue their own interests?'' said Putin, who also used a fairy-tale reference to criticize the aggressive U.S. course in global affairs.
``We are aware what is going on in the world,'' he said. ``Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, it eats without listening and it's clearly not going to listen to anyone.''
Putin proposes creation of ruble-denominated oil, gas exchange
MOSCOW, May 10 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a ruble-denominated oil and natural gas stock exchange should be set up in Russia.
Speaking before both chambers of parliament, cabinet members, and reporters, Putin said: "The ruble must become a more widespread means of international transactions. To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for with rubles."
"Our goods are traded on global markets. Why are not they traded in Russia?" Putin said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060510/47915635.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/05/10/cngold10.xml
Looks like they should have gone for a State Dinner after all...
They're wanting to buy the equivelant of 9 months of worldwide production, I assume with dollars. Gold is getting ready to skyrocket, and the dollar is going to plummet. I think this consitutes the first battle of the new economic cold war.
Anyone know how a young person with absolutely no assets and no savings could perhaps borrow around $100,000? =D I don't think I've ever seen such a good investment. Appreciating gold versus depreciating dollar.
Fun times.
BTW, I postulated a theory regarding BCR (Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld) some time ago, to-wit: they knew about Peak Oil from day one; they knew the federal debt would never be repaid; therefore, why not run the debt up and in effect borrow the money to deploy a permanent military force to the Middle East, with the aim of securing the oil fields in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, the most valuable real estate in the world in a post-Peak Oil age? In addition, I theorized that BCR would in effect renege on the debt, either explicitly, or through inflation and/or by crashing the dollar.
Events in the first few months of this year don't seem to offer much contradiction to the theory. What concerns me is that BCR may--and probably do--believe that that have no choice but to proceed with he plan. If they don't seize control of the oil fields, they will have bankrupted the country and turned the whole world against us, without having control of the oil fields. An interesting question is whether Bush is part of the plan or if he has been duped by Cheney and Rumsfeld (I keep thinking of Bush as playing the part of the governor in "Blazing Saddles"). Bush apparently believes that he is on a mission from God to bring democracy to the Middle East. Therefore, to oppose Bush is to oppose God.
In any case, the above article on the US's geopolitical nightmare is very good.
Great strategic thinking; just "thousands of little tactical errors" as somebody said.
I've been mulling over a little epiphany I had the other day (now that I'm re-interpreting modern history in light of the oil peak).
I was struck by the odd symmetry between the USA and Russia :
- USA : oil men take over the government, by fair means or foul
- Russia : government takes over the oil men, by fair means or foul
Khodorovsky is rotting in jail, and what was his crime? Standing against Putin? No, trying to internationalize Russia's oil industry (in particular, with US partners).Putin has been strikingly more successful than Bush in his oil strategy : he's created a powerful geopolitical tool, which a "free market" would have taken out of his hands.
http://geostrategymap.com/freepdfs/Guest_May07_06.pdf
Oil is merely one of several businesses Bush junior dabbled in, with conspicuous lack of success.
Cheney has no deep roots in oil.
No-one says pharmaceutical executives have taken over, though that was Rumsfeld's job.
If the Pres was T B Pickens & vice was Simmons - we would be well on the way to trying to fix this mess.
Westexas, I have to congratulate you, as I have slowly but surely come around to your theory, as outlined above (and previously). Still hope you are wrong, but no longer think so.
The insult to Hu I suspect was to harden Chinese resistance to sanctions against Iran. The BCR clan can then claim diplomacy has failed and we have no choice but to move unilaterally against Iran. Cheney's insult to Putin the other day was another calculated attempt to piss off Russia so they too will block any sanction vote in he UN against Iran.
Perhaps the bigger picture is coming into focus. Any thoughts on my theory?
Jeffrey, I don't doubt that you could have come to this conclusion on your own. But for the record, this is what Mike Ruppert has been telling his subscribers for the last 5 years. While Ruppert is not infallible, I have made a windfall 400% profit investing on the insights gained from his "map" of what is going on in the world. Of note, the subtitle of Ruppert's book, "Crossing the Rubicon" is "The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil". Of course the rest of the story is about the means utilized to mobilize Americans in favour of an invasion of OPEC.
What has puzzled so many people is Bush's out of control spending. But if BCR know that the federal debt will never be repaid, post-Peak Oil, it makes a lot more sense. Why not borrow the money from foreign creditors to finance the takeover of the Middle East? BCR would have control of the true capital, energy, while creditors of the US were left with piles of rapidly depreciating paper. Debts are always paid--if not by the debtor, then by the creditor.
Are the contradictions that are visible everywhere indicators of a grand conspiracy of merely overwhelming evidence of a culture of gross stupidity?
Who really knows [but my guess is a vote for "gross stupidity" in the general case --- but in regard specifically to peak oil, more likely almost the entire political class knows at a minimum that something is wrong but don't want to be the ones that break the news to the masses]?
http://www.countercurrents.org/eriqat130306.htm
Here is an excerpt:
http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/the-us-governments-secret-colorado-oil-discovery
Why is this not in the news, as we all panic over the Middle East oil?
But I think most people have an intuitive understanding that heating up the ground in order to extract the oil is not going to provide cheap oil.
Not perfect, but more efficient than otherwise - but way not cheap. Note I'm using the word "car exhaust" generically for the gaseous waste of fossil fuel burning devices due to chemical similarity.
Nuke Oil From Shale
Sounds like a microwave for oil shale but I'm sure the details will be long and involved.
That's about 2.5 times the total US installed wind generation capacity; they've got just a bit of expanding to do.
"The process proposes using radio waves to heat buried oil shale to about 700 degrees, separating the petroleum from the surrounding rock. So-called "critical fluids" -- liquids and gases that will expand and compress -- would then direct the freed oil to wells where it is pumped to the surface and refined into gasoline, heating oil and other products.
Can it work? The Raytheon scientists said this week they have already proved it does. The company, in collaboration with CF Technologies Inc., a Hyde Park company that provided the critical-fluids expertise, recently applied to patent the process and is also actively shopping it to prospective partners in the energy industry."
They make reference to Shell's method as well...
"It's sort of the difference between using a regular oven and using a microwave," Silvestre said.
Shell's method would take 3 years VS a few months with the radio wave method...?
Interesting read...
http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/15/etstory.pl?-sec-Biz+fn-fn-fn-fn-fn-fn-oilshale.0510-20060510-fn
Keep on dreaming!
Subkommander Dred
Weekly Petroleum Status Report
Gasoline consumption is back up (above average).
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/5/8/132749/1229/104#104
If you are interested, let me know.
RR
I am not here to challenge your assertions re ethanol, simply because I generally agree with them.
Though I have no first-hand experience with ethanol production, I have read enough about the energy inputs associated with the ethanol-from-corn scheme to have come to the conclusion that it is largely a waste of time, effort, and money. However, I am far less certain on the ethanol-from-cellulose route, which many ethanol propenents are touting up as the way the go.
While making ethanol from fruits and grains goes back to antiquity, making ethanol from cellulose is recent bio-tech development that appears to be rather difficult and requiring of far more expertise.
You may or may not be aware of several posts a while back by someone who calls himself Pomona96. This person claims to have had many years of R&D experience in trying to make ethanol from cellulose, and his conclusion was that its feasibility is far from established at this time. In fact, he appears to be downright pessimistic that it will ever get off the ground. I have no way of determining whether he is right or wrong, but I am starting to get suspicious of all these claims being made for ethanol from cellulose sources such as switch grass or hemp.
Are you aware of anyone actually making ethanol from cellulose on a commercial scale, or are all such efforts currently in the R&D or pilot plant stage?
A better idea would be to produce a fuel that is immiscible with water. That would save the distillation energy, which is really a killer.
I don't know exactly where Iogen is with their cellulose ethanol process. I know they have a piloting facility, and have announced plans to build a commercial facility. I am not sure if they have broken ground.
RR
RR
How can the fertilizer input be eliminated for switchgrass? All of the studies I have seen have used somewhere in the vicinity of 100 lbs nitrogen per acre, along with substantial amounts of potassium and phosphate to make up for the lost biomass. Moreover, that nitrogen has to be in the form of urea rather than anhydrous, which is 30% more energy intensive per unit of nitrogen. It seems to me as if as much or more nitrogen is necessary than is the case for corn.
--Kyle
Assuming a desired average yield of 4 tons of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) per acre, slightly less than that the optimistic 4.4 tons/acre nominal yield results found in the USDA study I quoted from in the "Limits to Biofuels" topic previously (with regard to ethanol equivalence),
then according to this Iowa State University study,
(http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-267.html)
you need 112.00 kg nitrogen, 8.69 kg potassium, and 102.14 kg phosphorus per acre, per crop. And that is in good southern Iowa topsoil.
In any case, if switchgrass does require fertilizer, then it will not be the answer. There may be some other biomass options that are better. Ability of a source to fix it's own nitrogen is critical. But the distillation problem - which is where most of the energy input goes - remains.
RR
But yields fall SIGNIFICANTLY when you do, as has been shown, and in marginal soils (which are often marginal due to nutrient deficiencies, thin, hard, or compacted soil, etc), your yield will be negligible. That is the real point here.
The most efficient approach tested so far is WITH fertilizer, and simply include these inputs into the overall equation. But even at that, cellulosic ethanol from massive switchgrass growing initiatives is only going to be a small piece of the pie, unless something changes along the way.
Unused electricity off-peak production from nuclear hydro or wind can fix nitrogen. The original purpose off TVA was nitrates for fertilizer.
As for any idea of using off peak hours production for heavy industrial production or plugin hybrid car, it doesn't bode well when scalled up. One or two percent of car using plugin is maybe remotly feasible. Unless you live in Quebec (Canada) or Norway, you have no way to know if you are using hydro power or fossil power to energize you car. I'm sure that system wise, plugin hybrid are just better at keeping bad habits.
Since the whole economical system is build to ensure growth, any efficiency added to the system is working toward accelerated growth.
If you use less gas and then save money from it, you either do one of two possibilities :
- You keep the cash and save it in a bank account or invest it in gold, copper (commodities)
- You buy something else from an other store or pay some debt.
Either way, it will trickle trough the economy and contribute to overall growth.You get a much better energy return on your investment with this much simpler approach (no ethanol distillation required, and significantly more caloric energy released vs. burning the ethanol extracted).
The burned biofuel could partially replace natural gas heating in millions of homes, businesses, and industries in the US alone, partially aleviating the coming natural gas shortfall, and freeing up some natural gas for powering transportation instead.
I can assure you pellet stoves work just great for space heating, and the ash is little, and readily returned to the soil. And for a few more measly megabucks, I'll give you a stirling electric generator for that pellet stove of yours so you can float on the grid and maybe even pump some juice back into it.
And how about a really super ground source heat pump run by that same switchgrass pellet burner, that heats and cools too! "Easy". Where are the billionaires??
TOD is fun, alright, but not as efficient as "Science" or "Nature" in getting the thinking down for good and all.
Great work Wimbi, excellent post.
I've had a question on enthanol distillation for some time. Do they operate the tower under reduced pressure, that is, vacuum so as to reduce the heat input or do they operate at atmospheric pressures?
When I was in the chemical industry, we stripped unreacted monomer under reduced pressure (we used steam jets for the vacuum)to reduce the heat input. I would assume they do when distilling ethanol but I don't know.
The distillations are not done under vacuum. You could reduce the temperature requirement, but now you have a vacuum pump requirement. If you had excess steam to drive the jets, then you would probably be OK though. Typically, vacuum distillations are done for reasons other than saving some heat. Most commonly, it is because the molecules are heat sensitive.
RR
RR
RR
That being said, I know that communities that use the "waste" heat from powerplants to heat their homes bring the efficiency of a plant up to rediculous levels.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/petroleum_refin.html#comment-16906626
I too have been puzzled by some of these claims that the switch grass route to ethanol requires little or no fertilizer.
As wih all plant matter, the switch grass that is harvested will contain a certain percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients. With successive harvest of switch grass the soil will become gradually depleted of these nutrients, and as a result the yields will get smaller and smaller. Unless there is some sort of intense symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria process going on in the upper soil, I don't see how the use of nitrogen fertilizer can be avoided.
Now, I would imagine that the nitrogen phosphorus, etc in the switch grass will eventually leave the fermenation/distillation process in the form of various aqueous wastes. If all of these nutrient-rich wastes were reapplied to the land from which the switch grass was harvested, one might be able to pull it off. But unless the ethanol processing facility were located relatively close to the area where the switch grass is grown, doing so might be impractical and econmically unfeasible.
I am still puzzled over the required fertilizer inputs of switch grass relative to corn.
I'm thinking that maybe the front end (feedstock) needs to be variable like with thermal depolymerization....you adjust your mash based on sugar content anyway.
Why does the answer have to lie in a single crop? Historically, every time a single crop has become prominent, it screws up the land and the plants. Look at bananas or rubber trees or most any other monoculture farm.
By making the input feedstock variable, wouldn't that let you utilize whatever feedstock was cheaper as well?
Just thinking out loud, not professing to ba an expert. But I do make ethanol from most anything you can imagine...
RR
If carbohydrate (CH2O) can be converted to CO2, H2O and hydrogen via CH2O + 1/2 O2 + H2O -> CO2 + H2O + H2, 30 grams of carbohydrate will yield 2 grams of hydrogen. 2 grams of hydrogen will fix 9.3 grams of nitrogen via the Haber process. Thus, production of 100 pounds (45.4 kg) of nitrogen as ammonia would require only 146 pounds of carbohydrate. Compared to a yield of tons/acre, that's quite small.
If the end product of the grass is ethanol via saccharification and liquid fermentation, the potash, phosphorus and nitrogen will remain (mostly in the spent yeast). This could easily be used as animal feed, fermented again as manure (to produce methane, another fuel) and then returned to the grass via sprinklers.
Hmmm. Surely there is some molecular sieve technology (zeolites, etc) that can select on the difference in size between water and ethanol molecules?
I'm not certain but I think they only use them to 'finish' the ethanol to a desired final water content, rather than removing the bulk of the water. (for which they just use heat, from burning biomass and biogas in this case)
I would think your pressure drop would be enormous. You are trying to filter out a 92% water solution. Besides that, the solution is very polar, so thinking about it in terms of molecular size might not be the right approach. You will actually have groups of molecules.
RR
First, does ethanol for fuel purposes really need to be almost totally anhydrous [I think I got the term right]?
Secondly, since the vapor pressure / boiling point [once again I hope I got the terms right] of ethanol are so much higher / lower than water, why not go for a multistage solar distillation approach to improve the new energy returm?
Your thoughts?
In a 2004 report in Science, Lannie Schmidt's group reported that they were able to produce hydrogen from a mixture of ethanol and water via an autothermal reforming process. This is potentially a very significant development, as it would eliminate the single biggest energy input in the ethanol process - energy for distillation.
There was more to the story. I blogged on it here:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/03/improving-prospects-for-grain-ethanol.html
As far as a solar driven distillation, something like that might be feasible, but I bet I could think of better uses for the energy than trying to remove 92% of the water from an 8% ethanol solution.
RR
Are you talking about ethanol from cellulosic source? If we start from sugars, solutions up to 15% ethanol are easily achievable, even plain old S. cerevisiae can produce up to that concentration.
RR
It may be that 8% is the practical limit if the product is to be distilled and maximum overall efficiency is sought.
I see problems with the large powers that be(government tax base, corporate power, influence, and profits) that do not want small local control.
IMO Ethanol production is pure wasted effort and energy. 15% water in shell corn contains 7000 btu's of energy per pound, and 15% shell corn weighs 56 Lbs per bushel. That is 392,000 Btu's per Bushel. Now according to the USDA a bushel of 15% corn should yield 2.68 gallons of ethanol, and ethanol contains 14,000 Btu's per pound and weighs 6.59 Lbs per gallon. That means that a bushel of corn will yield 247,000 Btu's of ethanol. Why not simply burn the corn in a corn burner for home heating in place of NG or propane, and you can also save the NG used in the ethanol distillation process. The 392,000 Btu's of home heating energy used in place of NG + the NG used for processing could in turn be used as transportation fuel. Switch grass, cornstalks, wood chips, corncobs, could all be palletized and burned in corn burners, Why try to convert all that stuff to ethanol? Just use the propane and NG it saves as motor fuel. In the mean time we should be developing solar electricity sources. They must replace the propane and NG used for transport before the fossils run out. After all the sun "is" the sole source of energy.
RR
Matt also said that 70% of the oil producing countries in the world appear to be in an irreversible decline.
Even as world demand has risen, the 11 cartel members produce barely the amount of oil now that they did in 1977, according to a congressional report prepared last year by economist Theodore Boll of Congress's Joint Economic Committee.
"Crude oil is an abundant resource," the report concludes.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0510/p01s03-usec.html
Chris
Maybe it's time to consider adding a "Turing test" to the sign up process.
It's been one of those days where the watercooler chat was on gas prices. I was dumbfounded by the ignorance of several of my oilfield colleagues, and regardless of how much I might try, being arbitrarily dismissed makes me edgy. Shouldn't have taken that as a poke...
And I assure you, I never thought for a minute that you were a computer. ;-)
I think Leanan was referring to this kind of Turing test in particular, not the more general test described by Alan Turing. Spambots aren't really very smart.
Oh well humor does not fly well in normal life in Amurrika anymore either. I'm always observing people trying to tell a joke or be funny in some way and getting met with a stony glare if not an actual offer to get their ass kicked.
I am collecting data on all of the spammers and looking for a pattern that I can use to systematically shut them out. I'm getting there.
a pattern matching won't help you as much and will be far more time-consuming to tweak as inserting a simple captcha in the posting form.
Spamming bots are plentiful, and captchas are such an easy protection...
A suggestion would be to require new accounts to input 'hard to read characters' when posting for (say) 1st 60 days of membership here. Lots of sites use such routines which generate a random set of 6 characters in such a way that they are really hard for an automated process to character-recognize. A bit inconvenient to new members, yes but it would hopefully bar automated spamming processes.
You need to appoint(hire for $$$) the guy an attorney first. =)
Best,
Matt
Best,
Matt
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE11Ak01.html
At any rate, I do believe that all should read it to get the flavor of the man and just so we all know what was really said to this administration.
it appears that the letter is really an attempt to call BS on all the recent rhetoric, in order to clear the air enough to see if any negotiation is possible. this is an astute move as Ahmadeinejad sees that the recent 'diplomacy' of the US has been nothing more than issuing inflammatory statements, demonizing opponents, and moving in for invasion. he recognizes the signs and attempts to curry favor with the american people, as well as the international community, by calling the US government out on a number of facts already recognized by many critics of "B/C/R".
Seriously, reading that letter, the vast majority of which makes a great deal of sense, and then comparing it to the simplistic rhetoric that's currently going on in the US is very unsettling.
How did we get this far offtrack?
I previously put it this way, who among us thought that Americans--especially officers in the US military--would be in the same position as Germans in the Thirties, i.e., faced with the prospect of either following orders to launch unilateral unprovoked attacks on other countries or to refuse to follow orders.
In case anyone for thinks that the "H" analogy is overblown, Seymour Hersh quoted (anonymous) officers in the Pentagon as using Hitler as a description for Bush.
As I previously outlined, retired Lt. General Newbold in effect suggested that senior US military officers may refuse to carry out BCR's orders, because officers swear an oath to "preserve protect and defend the Constituation, against all enemies, foreign and domestic." They don't swar an oath to follow orders. Newbold said that "The distinction is important."
I was amazed at the difference between what was actually in the letter, and the way it was, for lack of a more viable term, "spun" by the US administration and the MSM in general.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm
In the EU, all household appliances have to have such a label, and in the near future, houses and appartments, have to have an energy certificate. This helps people to choose an efficient device.
Siggi
EnergyGuide labels
Highly efficient appliances are labeled as "Energy Star" products. The exact qualification depend on the appliance. More information here:
Energy Star
Some utilities will give you rebates for getting Energy Star appliances. I would never considering getting any thing else myself, though that is probably just a sign of personal virtue, to use Dick Cheney's wording.
Siggi
I'm not sure how soon I'll need to buy gas again, but I'm sure I'll pay $3.50 and the cars here in the supposedly enlightened San Francisco Bay area will still be almost half SUVs, vans, and large trucks (the mini-truck, quite popular in the US for a while, has almost disappeared).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060510/ts_nm/nigeria_killing_dc_3
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - An executive of the U.S. oil service company Baker Hughes was killed in an apparently targeted attack in Nigeria's southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt on Wednesday, authorities said.
Wonder if this is why oil is up over a dollar today...
2005 Production: 3.5 mln boe/d
2009 Forecast: 3.8-4.0 mln boe/d
2014 'Aspiration': 4.5-5.0 mln boe/d
Shell senior leaders know this will be challenging, but I think they honestly believe it is possible, even likely that they will achieve these targets. But, I'm on the 'peak is now' side of the fence, so who is wrong?
Given their recent lessons, Shell will not make bold forecasts to the market that they can't meet. They are under immense pressure to forecast growth, but they know their reputation depends even more so on being able to forecast production accurately.
I think they are worried more about how to meet their short-term production targets in 2007 and 2008, and honestly believe that they have enough 'mega-projects' coming onstream after that to meet the longer-term forecast above.
The biggest caveat on the numbers is that they refer to 'barrels of oil equivalent' (boe). So, increasing gas production (and acquisitions) makes it very difficult to discern any oil production trends from company figures.
For Shell, increased oil production is expected to come from Nigeria and Canadian Oil Sands, with other new potential in Algeria and Libya. Shell is also a huge player in Qatar Gas-to-Liquids.
As further evidence that they don't see peak oil, Shell state that the oil services market is over heated. While they know it will remain tight for a year or two, they expect it to cool after that, and are indicating that they may defer some projects accordingly.
Most of my colleagues in Shell are blissfully unaware of Peak Oil, but some of the clever ones, especially in 'sub-surface' disciplines are convinced. I've also pressed a few senior managers over the last year, and it's clear they simply don't believe we're near peak. But, with few exceptions, they are no smarter than the average TOD reader. They live and breathe oil, so it's inevitable that they can only see a positive future - with increasing recovery rates and unconventional oil. And they believe the Middle East has plenty of oil; if only they were allowed in to help develop it.
In the end, big oil companies are just as fallible as the most (in)famous of our politicians - Bush, Blair and Howard or anyone else you care to name. Oil companies are publicly talking up the challenges - especially the shortage of people and remote locations. So, in most cases, I do not think they are blatantly lying, but I do think they could be (very) wrong.
The economists, however, with their profound assertions about high oil prices delivering new production, have no idea what they are talking about!
cheers
Phil.
I have had the same experience. I get a lot of "They have been saying that we are running out of oil for 30 years".
RR
His response to, "What do you think about Peak Oil?":
"What's that?"
Very, very frustrating. After talking to him about it, his basic answer was high prices will encourage development of comperable alternatives. Incredibly frustrating.
I've peppered my Econ proff's following my introduction to peak oil and I am met with similar criticism. My proff's don't care b/c they won't be here to witness. Most are rather old timers, tenured and not letting go.
If you actually debate the oil problem, economists tend to gloss many theories. Basic aggregate demand and aggregate supply have so many assumptions, that it creates a parallel universe. I love ceteras perabus...THAT solves it all!
Unfortunately I am now coming to the conclusion that my own fields have exacerbated our problem. In addition the economists downplay almost all the hard data. Even though I continue my studies, I question EVERYTHING I am being taught. I now have an alternative view of all modern history.
Finance and economics might deserve some of the blame for our inability to face reality. But finance and economics are pretty much the foundation of civilization - the oldest written records are financial! What we really need is a better way to make decisions that reflect long range and long term environmental constraints etc. "Way to make decisions" = finance and economics. If you can figure out some new foundations for those disciplines, that could be some of the most important work in the world.
Might be easier to do in an industrial setting rather than academia, just guessing. Unless you can market yourself as a superstar. Academia tends to be very conservative, i.e. slow moving, as you have noticed.
I think it is Westexas who continually points out that people need to start more carefully considering what they go to school (or not) for... Be a net producer is how I think he puts it - way too many jobs now that are dependent on discretionary income of others. I suppose if you're in finance and get in with the right crowd you could be keeping track of their assets while the rest of us work in the fields... I hope I'm needed for at least a little while - my degree is in hydrogeology - seems like we'll need water just as badly as energy (until some global firm controls the water rights and distribution I suppose...)
It eats at me daily too, because it's like I know what's coming and I can't get out of the way. I tell others and when someone takes the time to actually listen to me, they are blown away. It truly is like a total ephinany that so many others have already experienced.
I was very interested, and asked him about the relationship between the Versailles treaty (which ended WWI, forced German into war reparations to France and England, which used it to pay off the US banking system, which turned around and loaned it to the Germans to pay off the French....
I probed around a bit, and was dumbfounded to discover that he had never heard of the Versailles treaty, and knew nothing of the historical underpinnings that created the situation his dissertation was based upon (!) I guess he was designing a series of equations to describe it, or something. IT's hard to imagine that it had much value to anyone, but since that was 20 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the guy's teaching university level econ somewhere.
I've been suspicious of economists ever since.
A classic is the bit of an economist saying there is no inflation in housing if the square feet of houses grows in lockstep with prices. I point out that once the price gets unaffordable all the floorspace in the universe becomes a moot point. They never get it. Similarly, car prices rise as they get nicer with more amenities. But the side impact airbags and ABS brakes are moot when you can't afford it. When ALL houses are built as big as hangars and you can't afford it, you are still priced out of the market. Duh! It's like MBAs are indoctrinated in a religious cult of bull emissions.
Who knew the old Apple II that I have packed away in storage was so expensive in terms of real price...
Yes, I think it would. It's been discussed here before. Puplava's The Core Rate, and that guy who uses the old ways of calculating economic statistics, so we can really compare them to the numbers in the past. Inflation is much higher than the CPI shows, if you use the same method of calculating it as they used in, say, the '70s.
Remember that first and foremost, "true inflation" (referred to as monetary inflation) is an increase in the money supply. This includes: the increased printing of fiat currency, any bank loaning money it does not currently have possession of (either to another bank, a country, or an individual), and simply by paying interest on these loans with money that has been printed for this purpose.
From this perspective, a simple approach would be to compare the amount of money in circulation today, vs. any point in the past you use as your origination point, or benchmark. Unfortunately, the Treasury Deparment's decision to no longer publish the M3 monitary index makes this harder in the future.
Alternately, you can look at the change in cost of commodities which have not fundamentally changed, in relation either in utility (such as a postage stamp, dental crown, or ice cream cone), or in substansive need (such as an average sized American home or a gallon of gasoline).
The grandfather report makes a compelling case for this approach, here:
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/inflation.htm
From a gold bug perspective (which I am not, btw), one could argue that you should compare the cost of goods and services today with what they cost in the past, in terms of precious metals. Good sources of info along these lines include:
http://www.financialsense.com/
http://www.prudentbear.com/homepage.asp
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_99/milhouse050799.html
Just ignore the "invest now" ads, the rest is comparitively sound economic analysis.
Thanks for catching that.
I have often wondered just who holds the various Class A shares in the Federal Reserve Bank.....
In addition they make so much cash that they are indepedent of any federal agency oversight. There is no one that can stop them from getting paid, ITS A PRIVATE BANK. The fact that one strong powerful, private bank controls the money supply should scare enough, but it doesn't. Everything about the FED is secret...not to get to far off, but there is some interesting HARD data on gold manipulation by the FED. When taking macro economic factors into account, it would have made sense to keep the value low in relation to the dollar!
Now the chinese are buying up massive amounts of gold. There's so much liquidity in the current markets, that the true M3 money supply would probably make everyone faint.
http://menshealth.about.com/library/weekly/aa012103a.htm
Consider this: People (aggregates) who live in poverty in this country, live in a home with either a/c and/or heat. They have this year round in most cases. They also have food, clothing, & water. I used to work in a sleazy industry that milks welfare cash from these people further. I'm talking about rent to own. These "poverty" stricken people have big screen TV's, microwaves, furniture, & telephones to talk to whoever.
Now tell me if those people in poverty are happy. I would argue that their "quality" of life has improved, but they are not happy people.
http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/
The National Opinion Research Center.
More here:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0225-28.htm
Simply (simplisticly? simple mindedly? lol!) put, intentionally manipulating or mistating such key economic data would give an inherent advantage to the controlling interest in the same said entity, in that it allows them to, in a sense, manipulate economic fundamentals related to the same entity. In the parlance of Adam Smith, it allows the sending of false or misleading market 'signals', and the disguise of true market 'signals' by masking with 'noise'.
Enron, Worldcom, and the like used similar approaches, to leverage an advantage that did not actually exist, pump up the apparent worth and strength of their companies, and then use this to leverage other advantages. Pump and dumpers use similar tricks. Think of it as a 'confidence game'.
How often, in your own personal experience, has perception of an issue been as important, if not more so, than actual fact?
Deliberate control of inflation is a useful economic tool.
Manipulation of the perception of the same said factors is equally useful, for the same reasons outlined above. Such is the basis for the field of advertising.
One of the most obvious benefits of this understatement of inflation is reduced COLA payments (which are tied to the reported CPI), as government spending now makes up 44% of US economic activity, an reduction in expenditures in this area results in substantial dollar savings.
There are obviously other advantages, such as propping up the value of the US currency as much as possible, and in encouraging the "faith" in the world reserve currency, the $USD.
Here's some further reading material:
http://www.ernharth.com/2006/03/08/lies-damned-lies-and-government-stastics-cpi-vs-actual-inflation/
http://www.prudentbear.com/archive_comm_article.asp?category=Guest+Commentary&content_idx=31899
http://www.free-market.net/towards-liberty/inflation-gov-lies.html
"On the Manipulation of Money and Credit" by Ludwig Von Mises (a whole school of economics is named after this man)
Even the notion of discounting or ignoring inflationary effects on food and energy (because they are volatile?!?) smacks of idiocy. Food and energy costs make up MOST of what an average person spends money on, in any given month.
Groceries? Check!
Fast Food/Take Out/Eating Out? Check!
Gasoline? Check!
Electric bill? Check!
Heating bill? Check!
Water bill? Check! (yes, that's mostly pumping and sewage treatment costs)
Transportation (such as bus fair, train tickets, air travel)? Check!
What exactly, on a monthly basis, does that leave?
Clothing, housing, and....what, exactly?
Even clothing and housing have an element of energy costs in them, thanks to manufacturing and transportation costs (amorticized into their purchase price).
In the end only one thing matters. Not understanding which one is accurate is simply more control of your perceptions. It does reak of idiocy that we would exclude energy and food. But to uninformed people they prefer to hear everything is safe and sound...now doesn't that lower number SOUND better?
Economists are the modern day equivalent. That's not to say it's total bunk, but that it's primary role in our society is to justify the pursuits of the wealthy and powerful.
The economists have to ignore hard data and real life just like the astrologers do.
Best,
Matt
All things considered, I would sooner gaze at the entrails of a chicken than read / listen to an Alan Greenspan speech.
When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I assume you are talking about former Pres. Carter. His famous sweater speech predicted almost exactly what is happening now-- He just easily extrapolated what Dr. Al Bartlett taught using exponential equations! Here is a link to Carter's Speech [feel free to compare with today's news]:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
We may just have to agree to disagree on this one. James Earl Carter overstated the case in general. He wasn't far off on North American natural gas, but IIRC he had the world running out of oil [not peaking] fifteen years ago. Fifteen years is not a gnatt's posterior in geologic time, but it was not acceptible analysis for a political or economic movement. The projected end of oil was so close and unlikely based on an analysis of the facts that it was in no way helpful to the cause of preparing for peak oil.
In short, JEC cried "wolf." If he had limited his wolf sighting to natural gas, and talked of a "peak" in oil circa 2000 he would have been part of the solution.
His objectives may have been noble, but the result was one more cry of "wolf!"
My favorite example is the North Sea, where the majors, using the best data, best engineers and best technology available, couldn't see the peak coming, while the humble little HL technique was dead on correct.
Should be easy to achieve if they buy the right companies.
You mentioned it yourself - acquisitions would seem to figure in their plans to increase the "boe" figure.
So, can Shell increase their production, even when all the evidence is that glabally we are at peak (or at leastat plateau)? Yes, but only by buying it up at source.
2009 Forecast: 3.8-4.0 mln boe/d
2014 'Aspiration': 4.5-5.0 mln boe/d'
There is another possible aspect to this. If institutions know that things are going bad soon, what does it matter what predictions they make? If there are real oil supply problems, say in 2008, who is going to remember/care what was said?
(while i was at starbucks i read that a local investment company sees a 'soft landing' for our real estate ... how nice.)
I posted about the ecomomists link (Hotelling) in The Extraction of Exhaustible Resources a while back.
Glad to see people quoting the Asian Times. I often cite their articles. They're the best source I've found on what's happening in Asia. They've been saying for months now that the US is getting its ass kicked in Asia. The Russian & Chinese alliance and the Gazprom monopolistic practices are the source and origin of Cheney's incredibly provocative, self-defeating remarks in Vilnius. Sorry, Dick, you can win this one and you can't invade the Caspian region.
I had a one on one with Jim Kunstler last night. You know, he gives one hell of a speech but when you just sit down and chat with him, it's a different story. He's an off and on reader here at TOD.
Just an additional thought. Both Kunstler and I agreed that 2006 would probably represent the tipping point I've been referring to lately. Of course, we could be wrong but the inexorable unfolding of events lately seems to be making peak oil a bit more main stream. It can no longer be ignored.
I hope TOD gets more traffic and the attention it deserves.
Just a little historical note: Vilnius is the site of the largest mass grave of Napoleon's Grande Armee, with which he launched a disasterous attack on Russia in 1812.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
I presume the new Russian ruble oil exchange will pave the way for everyone else to make their own local currency dominated commodity exchanges. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (who worked in Douglas Feith's office of special plans), thought the primary reason we went to war was because of Saddam's plans to price oil in Euros. But if the Russians do it, the precedent is set, and the dollar will be in trouble.
The other relevant link, to Asia Times, was brilliant. It inspired me to write my monthly letter to the editor, which I send to the papers in my county, and the main ones in the state. They publish about half the time.
Dear Editor:
The Bush administration is presiding over one of the greatest foreign policy catastrophes on human history.
When Bush took over, most of the world was composed of a political, economic and military hierarchy, with the US firmly at the top. The U.S. was the most powerful, most all encompassing nation in history.
Now our nation is nearing bankruptcy, our army is completely mired in Iraq, and the rest of the world is beginning to unite against Bush. Even Britain is backing away, leaving Israel as our primary ally in the world.
Bush is an out of control gambler and alcoholic. He is having a very bad run of luck, but he continues to double down to win back his stake -- unfortunately the assets he is blowing through are not his. They are ours.
It is truly sobering that Bush has nearly three more years in which to gamble away our nation`s heritage and assets.
Jim Burke
Last month I sent the following letter, "three reasons not to bomb Iran."
I want to thank TOD people for providing the info on Russian anti ship missiles, which Iran can clearly use to keep tankers from using the Straights of Hormuz in the event of a war.
Dear Editor:
There are many possible objections to waging war on Iran. Here are three.
1) War with Iran will inexorably merge with the war in Iraq.
Iran has been instrumental in keeping two-thirds of Iraq -- the Shi'ite portion -- relatively quiet and peaceful. Once war is waged on Iran, Iraq will explode and our ground forces will be swamped.
2) Iran can easily stop nearly all oil exports from the Persian Gulf region.
Oil tanker traffic from the Persian Gulf must go through the Straights of Hormuz. Tankers are slow, huge and highly flammable. Iran has purchased large numbers of portable, fast (mach 2.5) and accurate anti-ship missiles from Russia. All they have to do is declare that trespassing oil tankers will be sunk, and what ship owner or crew member would want to commit suicide?
Without Middle Eastern oil, the global economy will grind to a halt.
3) Iran has a large terrorist network which can be unleashed against us.
They have not used it much these past several years (they hate Saddam and al Queda far more than we do; so they have sat back and watched us assault their enemies). But once war is begun, they have no reason not to unleash it on American interests around the world.
Bush has the ability to inflict enormous suffering on Iran. It is clear that Iran (unlike Saddam) has the ability to inflict suffering on the US.
Jim Burke
If BCR has half a brain after pooling what brain cells they have, they would pick an easier target: Venezuela. But doing so is real inadviseable. Here's why:
Attacking Venezuela will "succeed" in that its military is crushed, but they'll shut the valve including by sabotage of oilfields. (think of Saddam's oil fires)
Attacking Venezuela will only rile up the rest of the Latino world, making it as unstable as the Middle East. Given Colombian drug gangs, guerrilla fighters, and other insurgents, it'll be easy for them to be a bunch of new "Hispanicist" terrorists. With our Mexican border being all but open, the Hispanicist terrorists will get EASY entry - and escape notice until it's too late. We can profile an Ahmed, but there are too many Pedros for a Hispanicist terrorist to camouflage with.
Attacking Venezuela AND Iran could cause the two groups to do a merger of convience a la Custer. With Custer, he lost against 7 tribes who normally bickered between each other. Custer united them against a common enemy until Custer was vanquished. Then they resumed bickering!
BCR painted themselves into a corner. No matter what they do they lose - even if they do nothing. By doing nothing, they embolden the two oil bullies and Iran get its nukes. Any attack opens a Pandora's Box of terrorism. Wait too long, and terrorists can get a nuke once Iran is attacked. Even vanquishing the two bullies doesn't work. Destroying Iran and Venezuela shuts the valve by default. Since the only ways to deal with bullies is avoidance and vanquishment and neither will work, BCR is screwed.
Checkmate.
Hispanics are not as cohesive as muslims when threatened. Shiites and sunnis hate each other but they hate us much more. The populations of South America are very much American drinking Coca Cola and dreaming the american dream. This populace is not determined to jihaad against the infidels. It wants to be more american. If (and I'm not suggesting it at all) we crushed Venezuela's army the people would probably be OK with it. Police and Military are disliked there. I don't see terrorism from latin america as a threat and our southern border can be shut on a moments notice. The current administration prefers it open for business but it is easy country to snipe.
Matt
Police and military are unpopular when they do the US bidding.
I like his blog ok but I wish he knew the difference between the words essay and assay.
The blogpost
http://energikrise.blogspot.com/
Has a recent posting with a couple of excellent diagrams (in English and click able for improved viewing) illustrating how oil production in Norway now is declining.
One of the diagrams illustrates how fields starting to flow post 2001 partly have offset the declines from the mature base. The mature base, is in the posting described as those fields that were flowing prior to Dec. 31 2001, have experienced accelerating decline rates that presently is documented to total between 12 and 15 % year over year (second diagram). The diagram for the year over year decline rates also includes a 12 MMA smoothed curve.
Norwegian oil (regular) production peaked in 2001 at 3,12 Mb/d.
Preliminary data from NPD (Norwegian Petroleum Directorate) puts production at 2,22 Mb/d for April, lowered mainly due to scheduled maintenance.
Both diagrams are based upon the latest published NPD field-by-field data.
Profiled energy analysts, like Matthew R. Simmons, have for a while predicted this would happen to fields that have applied the latest "state of the art" technologies assist drainage.
As of now it is hard to tell if this accelerating trend of production declines will continue into the future.
It is the prediction of the decline rates that makes it challenging to predict the down slope from the "Peak", which also Hirsch so elegantly has expressed.
Noticing the posts about Shell aspirations to grow output, the decline rates in Norway may serve as an illustration of the challenges facing oil companies.
This makes one wonder what shape the initial down slope for global oil production will look like; a smooth decline or more like a wave crest?
The downside is it's very difficult for a foreigner to get a job down here, so most of us operate small B&Bs or restaurants, teach English, or work for ourselves over the internet. Work will be easier if we are lucky and obtain permanent residency in a year or two, which we hope to do.
salsaman_jr@yahoo.com
Just a recollection.... back during the 1970s I remember reaeding that a group of Bahai's in Northern California decided that nuclear war was inevitable, and were "scientifically" researching the globe for places to survive it. Their criteria was that it had to be in the Southern hemishere (to avoid fallout), it should be English speaking and with a strong democratic tradition (so they wouldn't jump out of the fire, just to live under tyrrany in a strange land), and it should be a relatively small island (so as to reduce the chances of invasion post nuclear war).
Very logically, they moved from N. Cal to the Falklands Islands, about 5 years before the Argentinians invaded and occupied it; after which the Brits landed and reconquered it.
I guess that goes to show you something or another....
jim
Unfortunately, there are no 'safe places' anymore.
The world has become so small that the chaos from one place eventually gets widely distributed all over the world in one form or another.
Furthermore, if you are an American, then any place outside of the good 'ol US of A is going to be pretty dicey when (not if) the proverbial shit hit the fan. It's sad, but some people I know who were traveling recently, tried to portray themselves as Canadians rather than Americans. They were too embarrassed to admit they were Americans.
I personally would not want to be living in any foreign country if the US starts a major war over Iran. It's always the 'auslanders' that get blamed for trouble.
Nor would I want to be living near any major American city when THSHTF. Possibly going rural might be an answer, but going that route has its own set of problems.
No, I'm afraid that in this day and age there is no Shangri-La that one can excape to. There IS no escape, so just hang on and try to make things better.
Most folks here were dumbfounded when W was re-elected though, but then again, who wasn't.
If we start another war or two, I would much rather be here than Alabama, where we used to live.
I'll admit that I've been doing that since the 1980's, Joule.
"Now it is taking on the dimension of what 'one former US defense secretary' rightly calls a "geopolitical nightmare" for the United States."
Which former secretary would you guess this is?
-Matt, dc
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/engdahl/engdahl050806.html
A few quotes:
The SCO and Iran events
The latest developments around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Iran further underscore the dramatic change in the geopolitical position of the United States.
The SCO was created in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by Russia and China along with four former USSR Central Asian republics-- Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Prior to September 11 2001, and the US declaration of an Axis of Evil in January 2002, the SCO was merely background geopolitical chatter as far as Washington was concerned. Today the SCO, which has to date been blacked out almost entirely in US mainstream media, is defining a new political counterweight to US hegemony and its `one-polar' world.
At the next June 15 2006 SCO meeting, Iran has been invited to become a full SCO member.
and
US out in cold in Central Asia
The admission of Iran into SCO opens many new options for Iran and the region. By virtue of SCO membership, Iran can now take part in SCO projects, which in turn means access to badly-needed technology, investment, trade, infrastructure development. It will have major implications for global energy security.
The SCO has reportedly set up a working group of experts ahead of the June summit to develop a common SCO Asian energy strategy, and discuss joint pipeline projects, oil exploration and related activities. Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves, and Russia has the largest. Russia is the world's second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. These are no small moves.
and
In the space of 12 months Russia and China have managed to move the pieces on the geopolitical `chess board' of Eurasia away from what had been an overwhelming US strategic advantage, to the opposite, where the US is increasingly isolated. It's potentially the greatest strategic defeat for the US power projection of the post World War II period. This is also the strategic background to the re-emergence of the so-called realist faction in US policy.
Yes, hopefully this global realignment will ripple back to the US and a huge push for 'No thanks--I like Empty Tanks' will grow preventing the '3 Days of the Condor' scenario. A brief comment about the growing numbers of riots in Third World countries over energy blackouts: because their food supply is mostly grown locally, they can 'afford' the luxury of rioting against infrastructure. America is the opposite: long before we experience rioting against the electric utilities, we will be looting the grocery stores and food warehouses because our food supply is not localized.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
his article titled "Biomass Movement" actually disses ethanol as a fuel substitute.. when talking about EROEI without saying it, he states:
i don't think RR will get a debate from this guy.
Put Deutch and Warren Buffet on RR's panel.
Too bad they have no say in our country's future.
Damn do we need a new federal Governmant and quick!
At my office, we still haven't finished with repair and cleanup from Rita/Katrina. We were wondering today if this strom season would wipe out the damaged platforms so we wouldn't have to spend money removing them.
Got this link from a friend of mine who has no link to the oil patch - in fact, he lives inthe Caymans. But he saw this and it definitely got his attention:
http://www.standeyo.com/NEWS/06_Earth_Changes/060510.Gulf.warmer.html
I wonder what exactly this means for the coming season...??
A disaster zone with limited medical care, limited fire protection, and two days/week postal service; but still a FAR more livable city than most of Suburban America.
We have a large amount of "social capital", i.e. love for our unique city, and will struggle on.
New Orleans has an amazing culture and population. Unique to the US. I did not mean to imply otherwise, but with forecasts like I've seen for hurricanes in the next decade, I would seriously have to rethink any plans to stay in an area that may be repeatedly struck by > Cat 3 hurricanes year after year.
It is exactly my concern for the unique people of NO that I would like them to get out of the "bowl" and move to higher ground. But, I know how much people are tied to "home" too. Those that have survived in NO are shining examples of what we may all experience in the near future albeit for different reasons. We can all learn from the good and bad stories of survival in the Big Easy.
One of the most important is that we will not be able to rely on the federal government to save us. It will take local cooperation and organization to weather the coming storms.
I shudder to think of what a reconstructed, FEMA directed, new New Orleans would be like. Much "improved" no doubt !
I, and MANY others would never move there !
I have seen the best examples of New Urbanism in person and displayed during the ~90 hours of planning workshops I participated in. The best examples are FAR short of the Old Urbanism that I live in. And with the influence of oil money in the political process, I doubt that we would even get the pale shadow of New Orleans that relocation might promises.
The cost of the lost infrastructure is immense and is MANY times higher than the cost of 1) building Cat 5 levess and 2) rebuilding our wetlands.
We have several hundred million tons of silt each year that can be "sprayed" around the wetlands and build them up, even if the sea level rises. Just divert a portion of the Mississippi each spring and new dirt will be added. Unlike other coastal cities, we have this defense ability.
We had been pushing for this for decades, and got the first funding a few months before Katrina.
The cost of Dutch quality levees (multiple layers of defense, 10,000 years mean time between failures) is perhaps 1% of the cost of rebuilding a lower quality New Orleans in an economically nonviable site. Sewers, water, roads, houses, schools, railroads are not cheaply built !
Just relocating the railroads would cost more than Cat 5 levees in all probability. (We have the world's busiest rail bridge over the Mississippi, several billion for that bridge and miles of elevated approaches alone. The Huey Long Bridge and approaches is an immense steel structure with tracks in both directions).
If this was an average American city, we could move to another average American city or cities. Little of value in the average US city, so no loss in going to another fungible city.(other than spending 30x more to build new vs. rebuild)
Just give us half of the offshore oil & gas royalities and let us do it ourselves.
I agree...or all the money FEMA received to "assist".
Good luck this summer. I will pray to Neptune to keep you safe.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0510-21.htm
I may be wrong but my gut tells me that the educated one, the responsible one, the articulate one and the one with vision is not the addressee?
Well, Arundhati Roy explains why it will be negotiable in very clear terms in this documentary http://www.karavans.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67
from Freebsd's ports collection:
avifile-0.7.41_1,2|usr/ports/multimedia/avifile|/usr/local|AVI player/converter
with numerous codecs, including MPEG-4(DivX ;-))|/usr/ports/multimedia/avifile
pkg-descr|holger@e-gitt.net
Check it out
What is really SOBERING though, is to compare search and news volumes between 'peak oil' and 'gas prices'. 'Peak oil' hardly shows a blip compared to 'gas prices', which implies to me that most people are still not making the connection.
Peak Oil vs Gas Prices
Again, check the distribution of languages - in English 'gas prices' have far, far more results, but the Europeans seem to "get it", with 'peak oil' having more responses in Swedish, Finnish, Dutch & German (in that volume order).
Yeesh, if only we were that aware percentagewise (and did the Haka with a quarter of the verve...)
I wonder if Portland and Seattle being so high on the list has to do with the growing secession movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Jefferson
and of course a lot of other google links.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
When I arrived the power had been out for 45 minutes. Of course the espresso machines were out, but they still had some drip coffee, plus ice coffee (which is recycled drip coffee from yesterday).
It was fascinating to watch people's responses! Wow... all I can say is "It ain't gonna be pretty!" I managed to get a cup of drip coffee and settled in to watch the endless stream of bewildered customers ("Why's the store so dark? What? Wha...?") and watch the interactions.
All the regulars were totally understanding, but you knew they weren't happy. There were quite a few people who seemed to lack basic social skills when confronted by the situation, and some were downright rude, just frowned and/or said some expletive, turned on their heels and left.
While I sat and drank my coffee the drip coffee ran out completely, and now it was basically ice coffee and ice tea, that's it. Even more unhappy people.
When massive powerdown becomes mandatory rather than exceptional, when people don't have the option to toodle a few blocks away to another coffee shop, things are really going to get hairy in America!!
Russian reader.
I think a good portion of posters here wish the worse. They want society to fail as their own lives have. Peak oil is a real problem. America faces it alongside the rest of the world. I am an optimist and love the US but I do believe the next two decades will be difficult. Under no circumstances do I expect an apocalyptic future. Americans are resourceful and will be making moonshine and burning hybrid poplar before they give up and die.
Where are you in Russia? In 1994 I taught economics for a summer in Rybinsk. I toured through Moscow, Uglich and Yaroslavl. Beautiful country, beautiful girls it was a great summer.
Matt
'nationalism' would mean supporting GW Bushes goals. 'Nationalism' - like how 9/11 is all the evil terrorists fault which is why America is fighting in Iraq?
'Nationalism' would bew supporting the Carter Doctrine or statements like 'the American Way of Life is non-negotatble'.
Are you REALLY sure you want 'American Nationalism'? Or do you have some definition that doens't bankrupt the nation with entaglements in foreign wars?
http://www.middleeastforex.com/index.php?section=215
Iran: Euro to replace dollar as oil currency
In July Iran will ditch the dollar in favour of the euro as the currency in which it will accept payments for its oil and natural gas exports, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Friday.
The switch, first mooted months ago, was expected but Ahmadinejad's decision comes just as Washington is stepping up pressure on other United Nations Security Council members to act against Tehran for flouting agreements taken with the UN's nuclear watchdog.
Ahmadinejad's announcement, made in Baku, Azerbaijan where the Iranian leader is attending a regional economics conference, appears aimed at weakening the United States' resolve to seek sanctions against Iran if it does not comply with the UN International Agency for Atomic Energy's demands.
Some observers beleive the Iranian move could deal a severe blow the the American currency as many central banks from oil importing nations could choose to stock up their currency reserves with euros rather than dollars- AKI.
It's an enormous energy burden to get that last 5% of the water out; the vapor pressure of the azeotrope is much lower than that of either the water or the ethanol. Sure, we can make solar stills to get to 95%, but then you need a trick like zeolites or fractionation in benzene to dry it.
However we slice it, we're talking about lots and lots of human-tended real estate devoted to the non-negotiability of the American way of life, as the Veep might say. So many - a billion? - of the world's people live hand-to-mouth, on less than a dollar a day. How do you feel about bidding up the price of their water, farmland, and fertilizer, just so we can keep on keepin' on for a few more years?
I say the guys a crank. I find some of the articles at Asia Times interesting, and provoking, but I have many concerns about the reliability of the authors who write for it.
I have a feeling everywhere he goes, he sees strings, not along the lines of string theory, but along the lines of puppets, as the masters of the universe execute their political theatre.
Side note: Anyone remember the name of the fictional fascist police state in "The Handmaiden's Tale"? Yup. Gilead.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P150651.asp#msnhp
Jim Jubak, May 10, 2006, "Strike Oil Profits with the SEC's Help".
As I was reading it, I kept thinking of Bubba's post from a while back, on just what the heck reserves are. Have to go back and re-read it now...