DrumBeat: September 24, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 24, 2006 - 9:15am
The Houston Chronicle lays it on the line:
U.S. Energy Department study concludes crude production will peak, requiring other energy forms...The study, led by Robert Hirsch, warned that the world should be spending $1 trillion per year developing alternative energy sources — including tar sands, oil shale and gas liquefaction — to avoid having its economy crippled by oil shortages and the resulting chaos. The study recommends a 20-year lead time, so it might already be too late to prevent a crunch.
The report said the timing was uncertain. Hirsch predicted peak oil production could come in five years, almost certainly by 2020.
An engrossing, encompassing and interesting debate is raging and the entire energy fraternity is passionately involved. Proponents and the opponents of the peak oil theory are out in open — putting across their diametrically opposite arguments, in a charged atmosphere.
Staking a Future On Fossil Fuels
Branson made green pledge under pressure from Gore, Turner
Businessman Richard Branson made a multi-billion-dollar pledge to fight global warming under pressure from US media mogul Ted Turner and former vice-president Al Gore.He told the Independent on Sunday that global warming was approaching "a tipping point" and Turner and Gore had convinced him it was time to act.
Oil's big beasts dive for cover
Decline in Gas Prices Isn’t Buoying Detroit
“I’m surprised. I thought when the gas prices came down around $2 that my business would pick up,” said Vic Bailey, 80, who owns a Ford dealership in Spartanburg, S.C., where a handful of gas stations were charging around $1.96 Friday afternoon.“September has been very disappointing since the first of the month,” when Ford offered no-interest financing, Mr. Bailey said.
Rebels blow up gas pipeline in southwest Pakistan
Gazprom considering Shtokman exports to Europe
COMPIEGNE, France (Reuters) - Russia assured France and Germany on Saturday it was a reliable energy supplier to European consumers and said Gazprom was considering exporting gas from its Shtokman field toward Europe.Most of the gas the giant Russian monopoly wants to pump from the field, which lies under the Barents Sea 342 miles (550 km) from Russia and Norway, is destined for the United States.
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How much human life can planet Earth sustain?
I suppose someone enterprising could adjust the proposed 10 billion fed cereal grains by some offset to represent biofuel incursion.
Anyhwo, there's this corrolary to Malthus: at what quality of life? Do you really want to live in a 200-sq.ft. apartment and eat triticale gruel and never travel further than you can walk for your entire life?
You can count me as a disciple of John Michael Greer. Well, except for the druid thing ...
I agree totally. I actually think a plateau at "China everywhere" is a scarier scenario than an explicit crash.
So much for your "moderate" views, "China life" is worse than billions of deaths!
Poor dear!
Have solace, there may be room for you in "China everywhere".
You obviously missed the link from step back two days ago.
I went to the beach today with my nephew, and then we went for a hike through the park and over the river, finally playing frisbee on a green lawn.
I'd like that to be possible 10 generations from now.
My guess is that we are going to muddle along from one crisis to another ... wars, famines, floods, storms, droughts ... the human population only declining slowly over a century or two and taking most everything else with it. By the time the decline is over the earth will no longer have the topsoil to support much land based life at all. It'll be like Easter Island.
I just think people are a little too clever to participate in the fast crash. They'll be looking for ways to hang on, to burn that last tree, eat their dogs and cats, cook bush meat over a camp fire...
When it comes to the question of "How many people can the planet support?", the answer is a lot more complex than just resource availability and equitable distribution. The "Limits to Growth" authors have made careers out of examining this question, and I'm happy to defer to their conclusion. They maintain that we are in a 25% overshoot situation. That means that when considered from a systems perspective, the planet can support about 5 billion of us. However, given that the underlying resource base is already eroded the decline will undershoot below that number and will stabilize at a somewhat lower level.
My opinion is that they are optimistic, and that the carrying capacity in the presence of an intact resource base is realistically about 4 billion, meaning that we are in a 35% overshoot right now. This leads to a post-correction steady-state population prediction of around 3 billion.
There are still some possible replacements though. They aren't where I'd count them as done deals, but neither are they to where I can write them off, and lock into a future without them.
Versus :
I went to the beach today with my nephew, and then we went for a hike through the park and over the river, finally playing frisbee on a green lawn.
I'd like that to be possible 10 generations from now.
Doesn't matter if you are contradicting yourself in the very same responses thread as long as you can defend "business as usual until technology saves us".
Hey, jerk!
The only person who can say new breakthroughs over the next century will "not" help us is the one who knows them all.
Do you?
WELL SAID!
The only person who can say new breakthroughs over the next century WILL help us is the one who knows them all.
Do you?
Plus, these "breakthroughs" better show up in no more than one or two decades, NOT "the next century".
What is the Plan B in case no "technological miracle" happens?
Some readers here at TOD may not appreciate that there is a world of difference between coming up with a "technological breakthrough" and getting that breakthrough recognized, implemented, and implemented to sufficient scale to make a difference.
Assuming some scientist does come up with a breakthrough. There are so many scientists vying for attention that the one breakthrough may get drowned out in the noise.
And even if some people do take notice, do they have sufficient capital resources to make it happen and then to make it happen to scale? None of that is a given.
So we better have some Plans B, C and D. Even the success of a Plan B is not a given. Remember Murphy's Law. Things can go wrong. All of them at once!
Trying to "outdoom" me?
There are so many scientists vying for attention that the one breakthrough may get drowned out in the noise.
A very serious risk which is not acknowledged by many...
A lack of imagination about the potential uses of real breakthroughs whereas "Star Trek science" has a huge following.
Are you pretending something else?
Yes I do : "I don't think it is moral to deny anyone growth."
I support powerdown now.
Powerdown WITH growth, anything goes to stick with "business as usual".
Idiocy or mendacity?
It's not likely idiocy...
I don't count "chickens before they're hatched."
Yeah! Not counting, only saying there might be plenty of chickens.
Are you pretending something else?
I am "pretending" that you are a TPTB sponsored bastard.
I don't deny anyone growth, but I argue for better forms of growth.
I argue for better paths to happiness:
http://odograph.com/?s=happiness
If you look, you will also find the TOD posts where I suggested that GDP is not the best measure of happiness, or growth.
Of course, if you forget all that, you can pretend something else.
As a reduction in our energy supplies comes closer, energy prices will go up. This will encourage people to do more with less. I expect that the world may produce less steel, less large cars, less manufactered foods, and transport less low value junk around the world.
But that doesn't have to lead to an economic slowdown.
If everyone is fed and cared for, drilling oil on the beaches, or chopping down the last forests, might have a detrimental effect on happiness (esp. that of future generations), while still boosting GDP.
I break with the CATO, libertarain, end of this, when they argue for ever-higher GDPs as a path to ever-higher happiness.
I don't know, maybe some are angry with me here because I don't want to set myself up as emperor and "deny" anyone what I think is a bad choice (chasing diminishing returns on a hedonic treadmill). They're angry because I just suggest something else to think about.
http://odograph.com/?p=373
You're dreaming in technicolor. We reached 4 billion in the early 1970's (and 3 billion 10 years prior) when there were still ample resources available after a century of exponential growth in both the use of those resources and in population numbers. The water was clean, the seas were full of fish, the 'green revolution food explosion' was just starting to kick in, and the true weight on the ecosystem of pollution was evident only to dedicated researchers.
Now, we have water scarcity, food scarcity, resource scarcity, energy scarcity, more pollution than anyone today is aware of (that ignorance has remained kind of constant), and a climate that is fast moving towards a 'state' that is hostile to our species and many others. All these issues will become worse in the near future, and there's nothing left that we can do about that.
How will we set all this straight in order to maintain 4 billion people?
In the early 1800's, 200 years ago, we reached 1 billion. That is a lot more realistic, but even that is questionable.
Did we mention extreme unpredictable climate conditions, ultra-resistant insects and microbes, unfit obese people, coastal plains becoming uninhabitable, no more snow-driven glaciers and rivers coming down mountains, collapsing food-chains missing several links, human education systems that completely overlook basic skills, etc etc.
Carrying capacity and overshoot are serious terms. Don't joke around with them, think them over.
That said, my objection to these broad measure ("in the early 1800's, 200 years ago, we reached 1 billion"), is that they average across areas with very different population densities.
In the early 1800's, those wonderful crops from the fertile cresent had not spread to every corner of the world. A south America with those crops has a very different density potential than one with.
Heck, "in the early 1800's" north America barely had exposure to those crops.
Predicting a level of post-crash population is a mug's game. Whether it's one billion or three, it still involves a lot of death and misery. The important point to get across to people is that we are already in overshoot and a correction of some magnitude is inevitable. I went to hear Kunstler speak on Friday, and he showed us all these lovely drawings of post-crash villages and cities, all with obviously low population densities. He then showed some illustrations of 1800's era soldiers, and mobs and people lying on the ground injured and dying, and he talked about the "troubles" that lie between here and there. He never once mentioned overshoot or die-off, but the message came through loud and clear.
I think predicting a post-crash population of 3 billion still allows me to keep my doomer card, no?
Talk about disaster porn ...
I have read the "30 Year update" and from what I remember from their likely scenarios, they predict:
- worst case: about 75% fallback
- best case: standard of living as about now with 8 Billion people (assuming best case energy transition and use of technology)
Don't pin me on the exact details as I would have to open the book again, but it seems that in between these 2 there is a lot of room for personal opinion.Steven
We are ruled by those who demand unlimited growth. The negative effects of that growth are fine with them because they profit from it and because they are wealthy enough to buy their own open spaces. And, further, they want to invade what public space we have left with their developments, off road vehicles, and snowmobiles. For them, where there is no noise and no crowds, there is no progress.
The history of environmentalism has really been about making the case to the center. When they could do that, they won. A long list of environmental regulations are the result.
Unfortunately we've got some real bad guys at the Federal level now, who will play that "it's only wacko environmentalists" card hard every time. And for the last few years, people have been believing them.
But no, I don't think most people put growth before all else. When they are forced to choose, they'll protect nature.
Laughs, I just got back from a 5 mile hike this afternoon. You do know that in the "Olden days, long before the American experince" people walked the globe, sailed the globe and rode animals over all the globe, without cars or oil?
I know that is likely not what you meant, but Life is never going to be simple and it never really was even though we can sit at home and never leave our home and still see the Thai shore, and our Bar-b-que from the farm next door delivered.
I see my dad who never really has been over weight and I see myself, who is even though I did hike 5 miles, living in differant worlds. Yet the americans in general are seen as fat, dumb, and happy by everyone else, including ourselfs.
I have to question your question-- i.e. define "Earth". Do you assume the benign conditions that have prevailed for the last 12,000 yrs or so? The world that we generally take for granted in such calculations?
Well, I would argue that's dishonest even now, when enough evidence has accumulated that that a climate future at all like the past is definitely not in the cards. The last two or three years have shown a marked acceleration and global warming is outpacing the computer models...
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060922183723322
Remember, for instance -- there about a 10% decrease in grain yeilds for every 1 degree C rise in planetary temperature. That can add up very quickly.
but yes it does add up.
There's some variation as I understand it. Lester Brown, for instance, uses the 10% figure:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/2006.htm
He doesn't a cite source here, but I believe that number is based on the work of an organization that monitors rice yeilds. Can remember the name, but it's called Rice something.
I wonder if 6% isn't converted to Farenheit.
I recommend the below as a well-researched summary of what is possible in terms of CO2 reduction (using the UK as a test example).
It seems to me the problem with the PO community is the thought that the worst problem is the topping out of oil production. But whereas the evidence for that is mixed (ie the evidence that it is happening now, as opposed to its certain inevitability at some point in the next 1-50 years) the evidence for global warming is irrefutable. And the possible consequences of GW are much worse than we feared: the recent geologic evidence suggests that climate swings violently, in very short periods of time, from one set of outcomes to another. And many of those outcomes would not sustain human life, or at the very least, western civilisation.
If conventional oil tops out, and the solution is more CO2 intensive ways of creating energy (tar sands, heavy oil, gas-to-liquids, coal-to-oil, etc.), then we simply accelerate ourselves past the point of no return.
http://www.amazon.com/Heat-How-Stop-Planet-Burning/dp/0385662211/sr=8-2/qid=1159167608/ref=sr_1_2/10 4-2798541-1751165?ie=UTF8&s=books
Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning (Hardcover)
by George Monbiot (Author)
Any links to websites or articles containing recent production data would be greatly appreciated.
I guess we can ignore the Thunder Horse entry.
New: Vankorskoye 2008 280/kbd
New: Adar Yale 2006 150/kdb
New: Bu Hasa 2006 200/kbd
Thunderhorse delayed as you note. Sakhalin II (phase 2) delayed. And now for the bullshit.
-- Dave
2007 80275000 4225000
2008 76261250 4013750
2009 72448188 3813063
2010 68825778 3622409
2011 65384489 3441289
2012 62115265 3269224
2013 59009502 3105763
2014 56059026 2950475
2015 53256075 2802951 31243925
date decline annual decline total decline 10 years
Starting with today's daily production of about 84.5 million bpd, and applying a 5% annual decline, I get a 31.2 million bpd decline by 2015. Of course not all fields are declining at that rate - some of the new stuff will power out oil with no decline for a number of years. OTH - there is a lot of old production declining at a lot more than 5% per annum.
Is CERA's estimate for all fields or just big new developments Dave? There is quite a big gap to plug between their 21.3 mmbpd new capacity and the prospective capacity erosion - let alone actually growing daily production.
Some of this will be met by infill drilling, work overs, water injection and miscible gas flood projects - but hey CERA if your out there please come and educate us pranksters. I don't mind being wrong and being told I'm wrong when I am wrong.
lets put this another way. Operators in the North Sea are drilling to till they drop right now - and oil production still seems to be declining at a rate of 10 to 13%. If they stopped drilling - production would collapse competely within a few years.
I see this as a boy swimming upstream at the top of a water fall - all the while he is getting more and more tired and some point he goes over the edge. The North Sea is in that dark toungue of swift laminar water just before the drop.
Atlantis - the rig got towed out some weeks ago (and has not yet been sunk)
Thunderhorse as you know is delayed till 2008
Haradh phase iii was reported up and running this Spring (I suspect his represents spare capacity now)
Chinguetti - been a "disaster" - wiith reservoir underperformance
Dhalia - last time I spoke with folks at Total they thought that was on schedule for production later this year.
Thats all I have from memory. This looks pretty much like the Mega Projects list - and you may recall I did a post on that some weeks back - and you got a copy of the spread sheet. Got to get back to working the Iceland and Switzerland data now.
2000 373 , 000 bpd
2001 366
2002 357
2003 321
2004 325
I've been promoting the idea of peak oil consumption lately and that oil consumption may peak in differnt countries at different times. Pakistan is possible candidate where oil consumption may already have peaked - and may struggle to pay energy bills in the future.
2005 353,000 bpd
Pakistan is having an economic boom. Since 9-11 the combination of Western Aid plus the diaspora repatriating funds has mean economic growth has averaged over 5% pa-- huge construction boom, also textile exports doing well.
Also the agricultural sector (largest sector of the economy) has been experiencing reasonable rains, I believe.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/News/PRM/2005/prm-200508.asp
http://www.answers.com/topic/economy-of-pakistan
Interestingly they use a lot of Compressed Natural Gas in autombiles, according the above. Who knew?
This, I suspect, is why they are having power problems: demand running ahead of distribution and supply.
In fact, a gas pipeline from Qatar or Iran is almost a certainty: you can see the Pakistanis snuggling up to Iran to get access to their oil&gas, the diplomatic signs are already in place (to the displeasure of the USA).
If you loose Electrical Power, and The Lights are Out?
If there is no Lights, It is then the "Dark Ages"
"Rebels blow up gas pipeline in southwest Pakistan "
http://tinyurl.com/mazx5
No Electicity, Gas Lines blown up.
Imagine just a week after the Pakistani Pres. sayed they blackmailed Pakistan for support by saying they would send it back to the stone age.
Hmm. What a coincidence
BTW, how did Hirsch go from being so good, what with heavily pushing the awareness of PO... to tar sands, oil shale, gas liquefaction, and CTL?
This may be the paper/reporter filtering the report through its/his/her own biases.
Anyone who is full PO aware the tar sands, etc. are mere bandaids.
Anyone who is fully PO aware knows that tar sands, etc., are mere bandaids.
How much of TOD did you read already?
Heard of EROEI?
Have an "opinion" on the EROEI or tar sands, etc... ???
"If it were possible to productively spend a trillion..."
Well said TJ. Sums up the eroei case very well.
A solution as long as you don't take into account the fact that global warming is quickly accelerating past the predictive models and could become catatrophic within a decade or two -- and that relying heavily on tar sands on oil shale and CTL would only worsen and already dire situation.
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060922183723322
Very minor caveat. Other than that it's a fabulous plan.
etter than CTL and oil shale production. The DoE study has one very large, unrealistic and unstated assumption; "More than doubling US transportation carbon emissions will have minimal political opposition and will not slow implementation". One reading of the political tea leaves is that CTL and Oil Shales will only be pursued if they are carbon neutral. One political strategy is to balance carbon positive CTL & Oil Shale recovery with carbon negative Urban Rail and railroad electrification (both with ~20 to 1 energy efficiency gains) in a carbon neutral program. This may be the only politically possible program that involves CTL and Oil Shales. The crisis of Peak Oil may require that all alternatives, the best and the sub-optimal, be aggressively pursued. But the best alternatives should be pursued first, most aggressively and most completely l
As usual, I am totally impressed with your breadth and depth of knowledge--I think it is a serious national mistake that the national DOT or DOE has not hired you as a consultant, or a position on the senior executive staff level reporting directly to a Cabinet Secretary. You and RR could make a tremendous difference going forward. Hopefully this will change soon.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Alan, I'm curious about the assumptions behind this. Is the 10% savings based on these systems being built and offerred as an alternative to highways at current fuel prices, or completely replacing automobile traffic with rail ridership? If its the latter, it seems that increases in fuel costs could cause even greater oil savings. I hope that is the case, because even though 10% is nice, it seems like it may not be enough given some of the depletion rate figures I have been seeing around here.
Sorry, I meant former, not latter. Gotta use that preview button.
The other is building the equilavent of a dozen DC Metros.
This is 15% of US oil transportationn use. (10% of US oil use).
This is basically additional savings in addition to other stpes. The worse things get, the more my concpets will save.
Once again, a link:
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
Peak oil and growth problems may be solvable technically, but it will be much harder to solve the politcally.
"The American Way of life is non-negotiable"
Dick Chenney
But again, http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com is where I am posting my fiction, my poems, and my thoughts on things inculding energy and lifestyle changes to meet this day's change head on.
Charles E. Owens Jr.
eroei (?'roi') noun 1. earned return on energy investment;
acronym 2. ERoRI
Please pronounce eroei correctly when you are making speeches about Peak Oil. Use and pronounce it as a noun; soon the word will begin to be included in dictionaries. As long as we use the acronymic, we obfuscate. When we use the noun eroei, however, readers and hearers will accept the word in their own usage. There are many modern processes to which the noun can be applied, not just engineering and peak oil prognosticating.
Ummm... ERo R I ?
Step one's done: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. The spelling there is in CAPS.
I want eroei to remain a noun and to be thought of as such.
I DEMAND that Webster roll over and make it a new noun.
Put that in your Funk and Wagnall's and smoke it!
Offshore exploration, and other alternative energy approaches, may look bad on an EROEI basis now, but there are some modifiers.
As is frequently discussed, if we use coal to get oil, it can be worth a negative EROEI, although maybe not the damage to the climate. However, if we use plants, dirt and sun, it can be.
Also, a historic process may use a lot of energy because at the time it was developed energy use did not matter. In the future, once energy use does matter, the EROEI can improve.
Finally, in any case where a company is investing money to get energy back, the process is likely to be EROEI positive unless there are mitigating factors. That is because ROI is a tougher standard than EROEI. You can produce more energy than you use in a process and still lose money. You can't lose energy and make money. The mitigating factors include subsidies and changing to a higher value product (coal to gasoline).
If companies pursue deepwater oil, you can bet it is EROEI positive unless:
- The company is receiving subsidies for production
- The company is losing money
- The energy inputs are less valuable than the energy outputs, or
- They are investing a cheaper energy now to get a more expensive energy later.
There may be others.So, do promote the use of EROEI. it is an incredibly useful tool that shows how we are utilizing resources. But don't think you are going to be able to use it to shoot down planned projects unless you can show why the investors think they can get their money back.
I serious concerns about the viability of oil sands and think there are limits to the beenfits of ultadeepwater exploration, but I am sure that the companies have run the numbers and know they will yield more than they put in.
The original concept was that offshore production could fail the EROEI challenge. Has anyone seen any figures on this, or is it just guesswork?
That is how I have always heard it.
There are differant forms of the Five letters, That give slightly different meanings that might or might not be the same thing in the long run.
But generally speaking my post was not about the terms we use, but the information we give them. Though we have a peak Oil primer around here somewhere. Reading and Lurking on TOD is a great game, I do it on days I have not time to post or am not interested in the topics. I would say leave it as it is a five word phrase that begs to be be explained. Getting someone else to ask you a question is the best way to get them involved. If they are not interested, and you can't hooks them into the topic go on, you will see them again later.
I was hiking today with my brother and his daughter ( techinically my second wife's daughter, but my brother and his wife have guardianship of her). We had been munching on Sassafras leaves, To help our thrist, and me showing them the wild things that I have told them all along they could eat. Another set of hikers walked by, Asked us how far to the top of the hill, jokingly I offered them some sassafras leaves. They knew what they were but said no.
Later we came upon them coming back down, we were near the top. I heard the man tell my brother that they were looking for a great place for a scout hike. HOOK! I came up we had just taken our second helping off of a larger tree a few steps below and had fresh leaves in our hands. I informed them why we were eating the leafs and offered them a sample each. Amanda having learned of another plant just minutes before spyed one and picked it and offered them something else to munch on with explainations. I chatted a bit, then joined my brother and amanda walking on. Normally I might have mentioned the plant we were eating were safe, and left it at that untill a question, but they offered the clue that they would be willing to learn something new.
Those people you all have been trying to inform, might not give a care in the world, but hunt for the hooks to sell them the concepts of what you know and then you have people more willing to ask and learn.
My friend and I have talked about thousands of topics, but never much about energy, she never brought it up before, and If I mentioned it she did not know enough to ask about it. She saw a TV show that made her want to know more and finding that I knew something was commenting a mile a minute and asking a few questions. HOOK! and you can make a sale.
No Hook and they really could care less five seconds after you leave the room, though they might be polite to you.
Dan Ur;
Do you know what the creoles do with sassafras leaves? We dry them, crush or powder them and add it to the hot gumbo. Sassafras is filé, the thickener for true creole gumbo. The root of the tree has many various herbalist and liquid refreshment uses.
The Saints play the despicable Falcons at the Dome tonight!
carcinogenic properties.
I have never heard of chewing the leaves. I have always used the roots by paring off the outer layer and boiling it for tea.
Have heard and drank it intermittenly since my childhood. I don't do it often.
I much prefer ginseng and yellow pucoon(goldenseal) which also grows wild in the wilds nearby.
I put three ginseng roots in a full bottle of bourbon. Let it sit for a month or so and then take a large teaspoon full, light it with a match, swallow it down with the flames and all.
Will cut you a new asshole but that new asshole will be far better than the old one. (just kidding but it will shake the hell out of you system and once thats over..you feel fine--a matter of weeks or so ..depending).
Same with garlic which I grow extensivley. If you are not used to it then it can whap the hell out of digestive system.
For the record, I have never had surgery(except cuts) nor been in a hospital (except appendix),,take no prescribed medicine, have a clean bill of health.
I put that to a life growing up in the country and currently living in the country. Drinking out a cistern seems to immunize you. If you make it thru childhood (some didn't back then) then you are good to go for life.
Due to medical issues from last year, the only thing that can cure problems the blood clots left is prayer and god helping me. I understand that some of you will scoft at that idea, but I am not saying that "if I pray I will get cured" Just that it is the only known method for this condition to be cured with.
So the younger healthier days of youth are in the past and the older wiser days of care and dealing with what I have are here. Not that I did not take the 5 mile hike yesterday, not that I am not sore today, just that I know more how to deal with the problems.
Lots of life is carcinogenic, I am just going to go on eating the plant and drinking the tea. Chewing the leaves causes the gelatinous formation simular to Chia seeds from the Southwest. Though Chia is better tasting as it is mostly bland, not spicy, and that it is better in ice water than anything else. Though without a wild or grown supply I have not gotten enough to cook with it.
If I am going to go purgative ways I have milder forms of it that the painful ways, thanks all the same.
I have some camel genes in me it seems, low water usage over time and I find i use plants as a source of water when I am out and about more often than not.
Blood clots in my legs damaged the veins to the extent that they can't shunt the blood back to the heart , its a set of locks like on river systems, the clots broke down many of the locks, and instead of them being for example 2 inches apart they are 15. That amount of damage makes it almost impossible to not have swelling in my legs after being up for 12 hours or so. elevated high above my heart for 12 hrs a day works perfect for them. I am too active, and today both are large. My left one has the most damage, and its limit being up on it is about 6 hours then swelling happens. oh well, pray I will, keep going whatever the answer, smiles. No worries.
Charles E. Owens Jr.
Have you consulted any internist or specialist who will recommend chelation therapy for the clots? My doctor here in Louisiana performs chelation for
people with peripheral vascular disease and other circulatory problems.
http://www.medicomm.net/Consumer%20Site/am/chelation.htm
http://www.amsterdam-clinic.com/cheleng.htm
Not the store brought variety that is usually very low in real ginseng.
I use the real stuff.Right out of the woods but dried in order to achieve higher potency.
This happens to be the very exact time to dig the roots. The plants have the red berries and make it easier to find.
You may be a location where they do not grow but searching the internet may find you someone down here in the south who can sell you some of the real roots.
Believe me, it works. Not real fast and not as you expect. No like pills or medicine. Its far more systemic.
Anyway good luck to you. If you want to try it I might could ship/mail you a root. Think I got enough to last me this winter and I am going out hunting in a few days to replenish my supply anyway.
The main emphasis on the recommended trillion per year investment is on alternative forms of fossil fuel energy. If one completely ignores global warming, resource depletion in general, fossil fuel depletion in general, and population growth, this seems like a winner.
Alternatively, so to speak, I think we should spend most of our time and resources envisioning and implementing a future which requires the smallest possible input of energy for its sustenance, survival, and well being.
Our so called government continues to generate stove piped "solutions" to the energy problem which focus on supply of fossil fuels while sacrificing all other values. Regardless of what combination of inputs we choose to fuel our future world, I think the vision needs to start with a baseline of maximum efficiency and conservation. Just shoveling more coal into the boiler will just make this planetary train veer off the tracks.
This study seems to assume that the only critical parameter for future well being is the economy and ignores the fact that the economy is ultimately dependent upon the natural environment. My God!! A future reliant on oil shale, tar sands, and coal gasification? A nightmare in making.
The only consolation here is that, if I am lucky, I won't be around to experience this dark, but terribly warm, future.
And you guys talk about a solution that means simply being able to pack more people on the planet and keep them from starving. Good God people, Get real!
Ron Patterson
I Know we are way way past overshoot. I know only because I have asked the questions, sought the answers and know I know very little more than I did when I started.
I have thought of ways to live with next to nothing. Just this year I did not eat for 5 days and drank very limited bits of water a day in a mild survival situation. I walked 3 to 5 miles a day and slept a good part of the rest of the day. I dare say, I could do it again. But in no way could I live like that.
We are trully eating ourselves out of house and home. I could write a few books on all the things I see, not to mention all the things the rest of us see as going to happen.
We both need to warn + scare and hold + help.
To be honest, what is the point? If you trying to help those that are will to listen, and will to make the necessary changes, this is good idea. But, I don't see how informing the masses will do any good and would only cause chaos and hysteria.
Dan UR,
Oh they see you and hear you OK. Don't worry about that. They merely decode their perceptions in a way that you don't anticipate or perhaps appreciate.
You see, to them, YOU appear as some crazed, non-believer lunatic off there in the corner muttering about the end of the world because you have not received God in your heart. Once you receive God in your heart you will understand what the true GREAT problem is that threatens mankind: same sex marraige. Why don't you listen? Why don't you understand?
Ok, here's the first thing to envision - a population reduction of, perhaps, 70%. Will people be offered a nice send-off to the afterlife like Soylent Green? Will TPTB make an offer that can't be refused to initiate negative population growth, such as, your family won't get any food if they don't work 16 hours a day in the fields. In other words, work people so hard they die.
Also important is the reality that there is an existing infrastructure. It is unrealistic to believe it can be replaced. So, what are you (generic) going to do about it? Make it a law that people can have only so many square feet of living space?
Because if you (generic) do, there are going to be people like me who say, "Hold on a second. I had the forethought to move to the country. I provide my own water, heat, most of our food and can provide all of our power. Why should I be forced to change my life because others were stupid?" I have a 2,400sf house and a 1,700sf shop/garage. Let's say that people are only allowed 250 square feet of living space. Are you trying to tell me that I should stuff a total of 16 people into these structures so that it all becomes unsustainable?
Lastly, "well being" means differesnt things to different people. I don't like hords of people which is one reason I live in the boondocks. I may only see other people once a week when I go to town for the mail and to buy milk. And, FWIW, "town" isn't all that much. But, there are lots of people who believe high density is the way to go. Therefore, there is an impass for everyone acheiving well being if a one-size-fits-all solution is required.
Todd;a Realist
Therefore I assume also that many others will have the same mindset and would do the same.
Therefore I assume that only those who do the above will really survive.
Therefore I assume that firearms/firepower/defensive weapons are the strategy du jour that will prevail.
Therefore I assume the federal govenment and all local types of government will disappear rather fast.
Those that do 'come together'(communities?) will only do so to gain greater firepower and attempt to take what others have. Roving bands of bandits and bad guys. When they are gone we can start to evolve once more,and hoping to remember the sins of the past.
I thankfully will only be here for the beginning of the abomination of desolation.
airdale -- oh ye generation of vipers
Defensive?
I assume you missed this posting.
Loved that posting by TODer Cornucopia. I think it adds credibility to my speculation on legislative Secession for large, contiguous habitats and the creation of Earthmarine militias to protect these areas from being overrun by outsiders. I think people in Cascadia, and other areas that "might have a chance" for biosolar sustainability, will come together before they allow 50 million people from the Southwestern US from trying to migrate into their territory postPeak. We will see.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I am NOT AT ALL sympathetic to the idea of Earthmarine militias or the like but I do think that some form of social organisation much larger than families, neighborhoods or small tribes is needed in order to maintain a reasonable level of civilisation.
By civilisation I mean NO warlordism, that's roughly what your Earthmarines are, "democratic warlordism".
Well, since we're about the same age - as I remember you are 68 and I'll be 68 in a couple of months - I may not be around either.
You know, I don't know what's going to happen or how things will play out. Might be a fascist dictatorship or might not be. Might be roving gangs or not. But I think there is a definite difference between suburban/urban dwellers and those of us in the boondocks.
What people have in the boondocks are a means for survival that does not depend upon some outside agency or business. Here's a good introduction for "city people" to understand the "flavor" of what I mean. Possum Living - How to Live Well Without a Job and (almost) No Money http://www.f4.ca/text/possumliving.htm
I really doubt most of us in the boondocks will be out with our guns trying to take over anything. Why? Because survival will be a full time job. And, anyone who thinks guns are neat should try dragging one around for a while. I did just that for 6 weeks this summer when wild pigs were getting into our garden. I lugged around one of my rifles everywhere I went...take the trash out, drag the gun; drive down to get firewood on the lower part of our land, take the gun; go to the garden, take the gun. It got really old and it was great when they had all been eliminated and I could simply put the rifle back where it belonged.
There's more but I've got work to do. The future will play out in it's own fashion.
Todd: a Realist
Thanks for the link to PossumLiving. I am enjoying it for some good info.
Ubiquitous Post-Katrina signage . . .
Looters will be Shot!, If you're Looters, we're Shooters!, etc.
Post-TSHTF signage . . . Looters will be Shot, and EATEN!
I certainly don't intend to be out in a gang trying to take anything. I will be more or less concerning myself with my own security and location.
To that end several of us with the same thoughts who live nearby will form into a defensive group to protect what we have and our lives. How this will play out, if TSHTF, I am uncertain.
Carrying a weapon? I used to hunt a lot and a rifle tends to sit well in my arms. Doing chores ,yes it could be burdensome but I think back to some of my ancestors who trekked across the mountains to Ky , fighting thru the wilderness. Kin on my grandmothers side lived with D. Boone in Boonesborough on the Ky river.
Many 'stations' were established in Ky to protect themselves. In fact I used to live just north of Harrodsburg and several other stations back some years ago.
Those pioneers carried Kentucky long rifles. Extremely heavy , very long barrels and only single shots with a long time to reload. Yet they remained and fought for the ground in Ky and were sucessful against some of the most brave and fearless indians who would raid them from across the Ohio.
Actually Ky ,except for the far west, had no native indians living in the area but they all used it for hunting ground believing that white ghosts or spirits roamed the land and so would not remain permamently. Therefore no indians were expelled from Ky for this reason. The far western did have Chickasaw and Choctaw who were friends with George Rogers Clark and William Clark and peacefully , for the most part, ceded their lands and moved elsewhere.
So Kentuckians were well known and respected for being outstanding woodsmen and hunters as well as extremely good marksmen. Many of the Lewis & Clark expedition were Kentuckians.
In that spirit I aim to keep control of what I now own by the same means. Self protection. Having to keep a gun handy ? Well so be it. I sometimes carry a firearm anyway while traveling or out in the woods. In Ky we have no law against open carrying of firearms , nor concealed if you have a permit to do so. In fact Gun-Control groups gripe because Kentucky about the most lenient gun laws of any state.
I assume your comments were tounge in cheek. But if not, what are you doing to help with global heating? I use very little trucked in food since I grow a lot of our food. I have a large PV system. What do you have? I have solar hot water for the summer and heat it via a heat exchanger in the winter in our wood stove using wood (little net Co2 gain) cut off our land. I haven't been on a vacation in 30+ years and I don't go to "events.". I like our mountaintop and I drive less than 5,000 miles a year. The vehicles are old but still get good mileage so I'm not demanding additional resources for new ones. I supply my own water and don't suck the aquafir dry irrigating idiotic things like corn for ethanol. And, if gasoline becomes unavailable, I'll run my stuff on wood gas - using wood from our property.
So, if you were serious, it's time to put up or shut up. Tell us all how you are less of an energy drain than I am. Oh yes, my wife and I chose not to have kids 46 years ago. Are you going to keep it in your pants and do the same thing? Rant over.
Todd: a Realist
Thank you both (I do have one son and one grand-daughter).
But you just boosted the hogs' gene pool by giving them more leeway.
Not good for "the planet" in the long run either.
If you think that I have to meet our exceed your level of self sufficiency in order to have the right to comment on these matters, then there is nothing I can do about that. Based upon your criteria, then Al Gore should shut up also.
http://www.bartlett.house.gov/EnergyUpdates/
The same mischievous fellow who is preventing cellulosic ethanol from commercially ramping up. The same fellow who is keeping my high-speed DNA computer off the market. A little fellow I like to call "reality".
Of course, this could be achieved by demand destruction.
they do not store electrical energy, battery's use a chemical reaction to produce electricity. both one use and rechargeable battery's are like this. the rechargeable ones like lead-acid use a reaction that can be reversible given you apply a current at the right voltage. the laws of thermodynamics do apply here so you should already know that you do loose allot of energy in the conversion from electrical to chemical back to electrical energy.
Electricity > hydrogen > fuel cell > electricity > motor
50% 80% => 40% efficiency
When you can go:
Electricity > battery > motor => 90% efficiency
The only reason that fuel cell vehicles gained prominence for the last decade was because batteries didn't seem to be "up to the job". Now that new Li Ion battery technologies are close to market (A123 Systems etc)... that has all changed again...
Just move your work near you or yourself near your work. In order to get a good view of energy density (not even talking about EROEI)
Fuels of the Future for Cars and Trucks
It was made in 2002 and even at that time they stated that there was not too many response.
Other than that, think of how you will plow a field using a "Electric tractor"?
The car is not the problem.
An other kind of car is not the solution
So you take grid demand, and multiply it by 13 to get the number of windmills you need?
Then you work out the energy needed to build all these wind mills and fuel cells.
And it seems you also need a plan to secure Pt and other catalyst resources - but by now we have no cars - so all the Pt used in cat convertors could now go into fuel cells - right? S Africa is one of the main sources of Pt in the world - better watch out Nelson.
Cry Wolf,
Forty years ago, when I was a teenager, I used to look up fuel cells in the then current edition of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology I was hooked on electroysis and similar magical things and really believed that this was the future. It was clear from the contents of this wonderful book that it was just a matter of time before we all had fuel-cells under the bonnet.
If you were to check out how much progress we have made since those days, you would be astounded - by how little it is. I would guess that the stored energy per kilo of fuel-cell has been going up my about 2% per year. At that rate, it would take a few hundred years to get something really useful.. Oh, and by the way, don't forget all those esoteric alloys and rare catalysts that are must-haves for the blessed things to work at all.
Please go somewhere like Strathclyde University and ask them to bring up some of these old encyclopedias from their basement and show them side-by-side with the latest editions to Nicol Stephen. I don't know much about this gentleman, but if he is like the other one and 10 Downing Street, he is sure not to understand.
Thnaks for your input - I've copied all this to word and think I will send it off to Mr Stepehen.
Why Are Banks so Bullish?, in the comments :
Sapiens Says:
September 23rd, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Simple, they are preparing for protectionism. The US will soon change its domestic currency. Dollars and US Bonds held overseas are not going to be redeemable for the new domestic US currency.
Yet another conspirationist idea or a plausible course or action?
Could the finance cognoscenti at TOD comment on this?
Have you considered that the new currency was in reference to the Amero?
Given the mindset of the power elite, it is plausible that they have worked out a plan to shove the NAU and Amero down the throats of an American electorate who are momentarily dumbstruck by the calamity of a crashing dollar.
It is ironic that following 9/11 Americans were whipped up into a patriotic, nationalistic, jingoistic frenzy by the White House and the media. Now the "Iron Triangle" will have to reverse course to sell their neofeudal plans for the continent.
Basically they are trying to kick-start a coal-to-liquids and natural gas-to-liquids market for jet fuel.
The commercial airline industry should be the first to go, with the possible exception of overseas travel. Start now and substitute high speed trains for air travel. Business can survive with video and audio conferencing. Pleasure travelers can learn to slow down a bit. Besides, train travel can be fun and you actually get to see something.
"Smiles abound inside the sleek train as, with a breathtaking whoosh, it rockets to 300 kilometers per hour in two minutes flat. Overhead, like a giant scoreboard, an LED blinks out our record-breaking progress till we top 430 kph." Shanghai's flashy new Maglev, the world's fastest train
Farmers would get the same old profit margin while the VC's(Vulture Capitialists) would take the major share of profit(if any) along with the rest of the upper food chain.
Farmers will just have to plant more and spend far more time covering more acreage but still receiving the same be it $20 corn or like today $2.50 corn.
Everything else would just creep higher, leaving retirees and those on fixed incomes to whither and die off.
Worst of all, there is a serious question if they have a choice at all. Anyone who wishes to remain small will be pushed out of the market, that's how the market works.
No, it's not impossible that some of thsee people have good intentions, but there is no doubt that most of them do not. Cheer Richard Branson all you want, but don't forget that at this point in time it's highly profitable, now even in the US, to paint yourself green.
And Mr. Pappajohn gets to pose not just as green, but also as the benefactor.
'roll up' in a fragmented mom n pop
owned industry .. He's offering the co-ops
a publically traded vehicle and ability to
cash out .. big whoop ..
Triff
Citizens of Earth, this plan will surely help the economy, especially if your business is undersea tourism - See Miami by submarine! Invest today in Drayage and moving companies, as well as house wreckers and re-cyclers!
Snarking aside, methinks we have passed ecological peak oil. Buring the second half of what is geologicaly recoverable will cause devistating global climate change.
1)In order for those strategies to be commercially viable there will have to be actual shortages.
2)Those shortages will send prices soaring upward. (reducing demand)
3)The shortages and prices will cause the economy to slow (reducing demand)
If the economy is contracting while the X to liquid is coming on line, then total CO2 emission could end up lower.
Most of the people I work with didn't modify their behavior during the last price crunch. In fact most used the low prices on SUV and pickups to buy more super sized vehicles (My coworkers are not the brightest light bulbs in the box). There is still a lot of behavior modification possible but we will need ten dollar gas to force it to occur.
Do they want to come to the defense of the peak oil concept now that it is under wide attack in the main stream media because editors at the HC are concerned that Americans will backslide into our wasteful SUV buying ways now that gas prices have dropped?
Or maybe they are more concerned with the well being of their neighborhood corporate citizens who are having so much trouble increasing reserves as fast as they are being produced. If the US were to embark on a $1 trillion / yr project fast tracking oil sand / oil shale / gas and coal to liquid production, whose share prices would be the biggest long term beneficiaries?
I doubt global warming was much of a consideration. Maybe for the younger reporters schooled when GW became scientific fact, but not for the old guard editors who have faith in their President's approach on the subject.
Saudis to boost oil output by 1.5M bbl/day:
7:21Saudi actions meant to combat disruptions:
7:21Saudis aim to offset Iran exports by June 07: The Business
The Saudis have been making claims about increasing production for more than two years.
Anybody see my pills?
Yeah! Don't drink and drive, you may spill your drink.
Vladimir Putin said a large part of it could be exported to Europe as requested by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"I can inform you that Gazprom is looking at that and the decision to do that could be taken in the near future," Putin said at a joint news conference with Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac.
Dick Cheney accused Russia of using energy as a tool of intimidation and blackmail.
Of course, since the US is "entitled" to Russian gas...
Will Big Dick bomb Russia or France and Germany?
(over finite mineral resources with China, Russia, the Middle East and whoever else)
How about recasting this as a "Race to the Independence of Renewables!"
It worked for the space race with the single focus of putting a man on the moon. Advanced technology tremendously. Behind that race was the fear of being dominated from space. Now the domination will come from the control of crude oil resources that we are dependent on. What are the crucial focus points that are needed for this race?
An PHEV in every garage (salvation for the auto sector?). Community designs that enhance, not destroy social structure. Climate-friendly. Cut the flow of dollars supporting past, current and future off-shore unfriendlies who can hold crude oil hostage. Build American independence and self-reliance. Ensure the strength of our economy.
Gotta be a whole bunch of short, simple catch phrases in here that drive the point home because they resonate with the particular self-interests of each interest groups. To resonate, these have to be framed (ala George Lakoff http://www.georgelakoff.com/ ) appropriately for each group to trigger a positive emotional response in group members. Negative or no responses don't motivate people to change their behavior in a positive direction. Most people aren't information junkies; it has to be short and to the point.
"Keep America Strong! Preserve our crude oil resources for the military; drive an electric." And so on.
What party or who in the political arena has the political will and the vision to grab this and run with it, pushing it over Gladwell's "Tipping Point"? http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html
As far as community goes, I think the jury is out on whether this would appeal to the American people. Maybe they like their suburbs and maybe "community" will just be associated with socialism or, at the very least, knowing their neighbor's name.
9/11 should have been a wake up call. And perhaps if could have been one if Bush had seized the initiative. Instead, we are in "do more shopping" mode.
Forget national security. How do we frame this whole thing within the shopping meme. Regardless of what we do, if it entails the curtailment of shopping, it's probably doomed.
Energy diplomacy is starting to enter the realpolitik stage (which is the best alternative Europeans have to war), with America being run by people who seen to have a real hard time grasping what realpolitik means (as compared to trumpeting the freedom to torture to defend liberty or expecting to bombing their way to new and lasting friendship between nations), is part of one of the slightly more neglected chapters of peak oil in my eyes, in part because peak oil is such an obvious American concern in a society that depends on the automobile so heavily. And no, Kunstler doesn't count, and the dewy eyed power down believers are only a bit better.
This time, the Russians didn't need to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe, which was the fear that the last time the bear dangled energy in front of Europe as a way of getting all warm and close.
Quite honestly, where most rational Europeans saw the Soviet Union as a greater threat than the U.S., the Soviets are gone, and the U.S. seems to be turning into something ever more difficult for Europeans to accept. As a tiny example - Europeans, with their vast experience in conquering and occupying foreign societies, don't think the problem in Iraq is that the American media isn't reporting the good news.
And that is where realpolitik steps in. Europe has always been seen as a prize in the contest between two continent spanning giants. But the Europeans have centuries of practice in getting themselves the best deal possible, and you can see that happening. And the French tend to have the reputation of being the most self-centered of all Europeans in watching out for their own interests.
Italy, which did suffer a gas shortage last winter during essentially record cold, is reported being concerned at the highest levels of the EU. Chirac and Putin have met (and Merkel, at a conference level, if not exactly personally) to sit down to talk about things like Algerian gas (want to bet that the French know the right Algerians to call if a work stoppage is required?).
Then Putin turns around, and offers the Europeans natural gas that had been expected to reach the U.S.
The sad thing is, who cares if America doesn't get what it expects at this point? I mean, America is borrowing ever more just to keep up with its debts, its leaders seem to have proven that the only interest Americans have is themselves, without regard of what that means to anyone else - even Blair turned out to be less than a poodle, as he got nothing from Bush, not even a little pat on the head.
And let's face it, there are still a few countries, like Russia, that the world's greatest superpower (or whatever the latest fable Americans tell themselves) can't actually threaten. Realpolitik in action -
'But Putin said Russia intended to stick to its commitments to European consumers.
'Russia has also caused alarm by putting the brakes on Russian energy projects by Royal Dutch Shell (England/Netherlands) and Exxon Mobil (U.S.). It has also raised doubts over the future of a lucrative production sharing agreement with Total (France) in Siberia. (Note - Chirac may have mentioned that in his little chat with Putin, along with Algerian gas.)
"We intend to meet all our obligations in terms of our European partners," he (Putin) said. Translation - 'as a KGB trained member in good standing of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, my comrades and I never expected the capitalist reactionaries in the United States of America to so actively destroy their good standing in the eyes of West Europeans that I can now actually play such transparent games between different nations.'
Sometimes, I wonder if America truly has dumbed down even more than its harshest critics have envisioned. I mean, what is Cheney going to do now - go the UN and pound his pacemaker while shouting 'we will bury you?'
Actually, he got a Congressional Medal of Honor - one that he has been reluctant to collect!
Yeah! Even if the practice has been decaying a bit since the good old times :
The terms of the Treaty of Paris were incredibly lenient. France would be returned to her boundaries of 1792 with the addition of 150 square miles of surrounding territory. The art treasures that Napoleon's troops had looted from other European nations, would remain in Paris, to prevent their being damaged. There would be no demands for reparation payments. The leniency shown by the Allies was purely political. Above all else what they needed for Europe was peace and security, and to impose a harsh settlement upon France would only weaken Louis' position and lead to a possible revival of Bonapartist sentiment. The Allies did what was necessary to prevent further hostilities with France.
But don't forget that BCR will have to deal with the Chinese too:
Han Fei Tzu (280-233 BCE) :
Supposing officials were appointed on account of their partisanship, then the people would strive to cultivate friendships and never seek employment in accordance with the law. Thus, if the government lacks able men, the state will fall into confusion. If rewards are bestowed according to mere reputation, and punishments are inflicted according to mere defamation, then men who love rewards and hate punishments will discard the law of the public and practice self-seeking tricks and associate for wicked purposes.
Sun Tzu (544–496 BCE) :
THE USE OF SPIES
Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.
Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies - Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of an enemy territory; (2) Moles - Having moles means making use of officials of the enemy; (3) Double agents - Ha ving double agents means getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes; (4) Doomed spies - Having doomed spies means doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to t he enemy; (5) Surviving spies - Surviving spies means are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp.
When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system.
Better start bombing all over right now, or may be John Bolton will trick them all?
Hey, don't knock the torture thing. It might be the only way to get Cheney to talk.
Well I hope he has another drink. And another.
The problem I see is that as America gets weaker, it's leaders loopier, its' citizens remote from reality, there's gonna come a day when Cheney's clutching his heart, W is drunk, there's a crisis, and nuking some evildoer is going to look like the easy way out.
He won't say 'we will bury you'. He will casually do it.
Not any harder than shooting your buddy in the face.
Ahhh. The debate reaches a crescendo as the opposing sides try to answer the proverbial question: "Is the glass (of oil) half full or half empty?"
The responses:
Peaksters: "Half empty, get ready for STHTF."
Yerginites: "Half full or better. Technology and the Market will provide. Party on!"
George W: "Is this a trick question?"
Kerry: "I supported half empty before I opposed it."
B. Clinton: "It depends on how you define glass"
Cheney: "@#&% you! Get the Secret Service, now!"
Turkey and Iran
Any thoughts or comments. If it happens, how high do you think the oil price could go?
http://agonist.org/20060820/turkey_forces_one_syrian_5_iranian_arms_planes_to_land_at_diyarbakir_mil itary_base
http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2000/nov_2000/iran_turkey_plane_11100.htm
http://discardedlies.com/entry/?19564_lebbound-iranian-plane-forced-to-land-in-turkey
most credible report:
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Turkey/203487
There is a lot of oil in Kurdistan, reportedly, at least the Iraq part of it, which is why pressure is applied by the US. Still, they would have to give a lot to have this accepted. Guaranteeing Turkey entry into the EU might go a long way, and we can all imagine what Iran demands.
Another reason for the split is that a divided Iraq is much easier to rule. Giving Sunni and Shi'a both their own piece of land can have consequences that lead everyone's attention and actions away from US troops. Give 'em something else to think and fight about.
Iraqi Kurdistan is presently split into 2 zones, one ruled by Talabani, one ruled by Barzani. There's a border, there are checkpoints. There is no functional government, just the fiat of two warlords. Fighting over the future of Kirkuk and Mosul may be expected to continue.
And that's the good news.
No plan. No easy resolution
Don't forget that we are mighty friendly with the Kurds of late, oil being what brought us together. Never mind that we sponsored Saddam's terror on them for years. The Kurds hate their neighbors more than they hate us, it's an ancient story of rape and pillage.
This is our chance for a sovereign nation in the region that's friendly and controllable. Priceless. Worth more than their oil.
And that's not to mention Iranian treatment of such minorities as the Baloch and Azeris.
Yeah, it looks so, but what are these doing?
Iran's proud but discreet Jews
All of them Mossad's devotee or what?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003&q=9%2F11%2Bmysteries&hl=en
Weren't they the ones who tolds us about the future of flying cars and power too cheap to meter?
If the story of 9/11 changes, the 'debunked' will claim vindication (unless its the UFO's collapsed the buildings) and others will just say that the story was changed to bring down the party in power, because they couldn't be beaten at the polls.
It'll be fun...in that gut wrenching way.
The few engineers that are willing to actually look into it for themselves instead of believing the baloney put forth by popular mechanics and NIST are probably too afraid of losing their jobs to come out againts the official conspiracy theory put forth by the gov.
WTC7 fell from a fire too. Right. Look closer. Are you aware of any other false flag operations conducted by the USA? Is it really a stretch to believe that the PNACcers would put one over on their own country's people to further their little agenda? There is a lot of money and power at stake.
WTC7 is the smoking gun. Start with that.
You are entirely wrong about that. I'm an engineer, and trust me, we aren't worried we'll lose our jobs over this. We just don't see any evidence of any conspiracy.
And it's not that we aren't willing to look into it. We're engineers. We tend to be intensely curious about such things. Civil Engineering did an entire issue on the WTC collapses. They also did a special issue on the structural failures caused by the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes, which were much more surprising and alarming to most engineers than the WTC collapses.
As an aside...sometimes I wonder if this kind of thing led to the 9/11 attacks. After the first attack on the WTC, there was much talk among engineers, online and in various journals, about whether the scheme could have worked. The general consensus: no way. The first WTC attack targeted the basement of one tower, hoping to topple it into the other. But that is the strongest part of a skyscraper, because it has to support the weight of all the floors above it. The weakest point of a high rise building is the top. It doesn't have to support a lot of floors, and it tends to be lightly built, so as not to add too much weight to all the floors below. To attack a skyscraper, hit it at the top, not the bottom.
Which is what Osama ended up doing.
Yeah and his guys managed to avoid the entire air defense system.
Just a coincidence.
It is an emergency if pilots are off from their plan by more than five minutes, don't turn where they are supposed to or loose communication with Air Traffic Control. Air Traffic Controllers don't practice for this sort of thing? NORAD can't respond to civilian flights pre 9-11?
"Troubled plane shadowed by military jets
An Air Force spokesman says two U.S. Air Force F-15s from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, intercepted the plane shortly after it lost contact with aircraft controllers, and followed it to Missouri." Investigators arrive at Payne Stewart crash site CNN, 10/26/99
"All aircraft operating in the U.S. national airspace, if capable, will maintain a listening watch on VHF guard 121.5 or UHF 243.0. It is incumbent on all aviators to know and understand their responsibilities if intercepted. Additionally, if the U.S. military intercepts an aircraft and flares are dispensed in the area of that aircraft, aviators will pay strict attention, contact air traffic control immediately on the local frequency or on VHF guard 121.5 or UHF 243.0 and follow the intercept's visual ICAO signals. Be advised that noncompliance may result in the use of force.: Interception Procedures FAA
There aren't any.
They certainly had downloaded plans and books about WTC and skyscraper design.
WTC was an odd design in that the walls were load bearing, which normally they are not. The designer was actually afraid of heights (odd in an architect) and put the wall frames closer together than he needed to.
My father is a retired civil engineer. No axe to grind.
His view: no skyscraper would survive a fire that intense, for that long-- it was burning at 500 degrees F hotter than it was designed to withstand, and if the fire insulation was penetrated, steel loses its tensile strength at that temperature.
He designed nuclear reactor protection vessels, so he knows a bit about steel and concrete and fire!
One thing we do know is that the fire insulation on the upper floors of the WTC was changed mid construction (new rules against asbestos). The contractor for putting it in was Mob-linked, fined on other projects for violations, and was later murdered by the Mob. So it may not even have been installed, and it probably was blown off by the impact of the planes.
If the steel melts on one or two floors, then all the floors above collapse in a pancake-- and the floors below cannot take the load.
WTC7 I don't know, but I suspect fire (on the same principle). Steel loses tensile strength under fire.
The conspiracy re 9-11 was the government covering up its failure to react to warnings: warnings from President Clinton to Pres. Bush, warnings from the CIA, warnings from field agents of the FBI. The event was the combination of political disinterest plus bureaucratic eff-up: just like Pearl Harbor, Task Force Smith or any other bad surprise in American history.
I agree. In fact, my first instinct when I heard about the attacks was, "Those buildings are going to collapse."
Indeed, the danger was known even before the towers fell. The engineers tried to warn the fire crews that the buildings might collapse, but there was no way to get in contact with them in time.
Your second paragraph: there are over 10,000 structural engineers in the US. There are 5 times as many in the rest of the world, who have nothing to fear except ridicule if their writings don't pass professional muster. Not one has chose to do so. Not a single one.
WTC7 did not just fall from a fire. It fell because debris from the north tower gouged two sections out of it, pounded the roof (tons of I beam material falling from the top of the tower - that is a lot of energy there), and there was a fire. Furthermore, the building was sagging hours before the collapse. People who set out to destroy buildings prefer not to let them sag prior to collapse - that's a good way to win Darwin Awards.
Charles N. Pegelow is one structural engineer who does not believe the official explanation of the collapses and has stated so much publicly. There are a number of other engineers of different specialization as well as demolition experts who also do not believe the official explanation for the collapses.
WTC7 was minimally impacted by debris, the roof was in tact, and it was not sagging any time before it started to collapse. Small random mystery fires went unfought into the afternoon. Immediately before the collapse the ground floor litereally blew out, witness accounts proclaim. Then the building fell down to the ground in under 7 seconds, straight down. Not lobsided but straight down, as if all support was removed in the same instant, so that the building in its entirety could fall freely, which it did. WTC7 really is the smoking gun.
Among the phrases coined from after the fact experience is "mushroom effect" which is what happens when the horizontal tresses of a skyscraper come down and push the vertical external supports sideways. Look up "mushroom effect" at Implosion World and be enlightened.
The towers did not erode at free fall. Look at any still images of the collapse and you will see the intact portion of the tower far above the first of the falling debris.
A Google search on Pegelow shows people are calling him a structural engineer but his posted resume does not say when or if he registered as one. A BS in civil engineering does not make you an SE. After the BS you have to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, then work for several years, then pass the Professional Engineer exam, and then at long last comes the SE exam and related licensing. This looks like a case of sloppy semantics in the left win press. If Pegelow calls himself an SE without the SE license from his state, he's in deep doo doo.
Moving on: after the towers collapsed, the fire department suspected WTC7 would go down, so they aimed extants at it. An extant is just a telescope with cross hairs on a tripod. You aim it at a corner of a building and leave it. If the building sags, the extant will tell you. In WTC7's case one of the extants was showing a major sag. Which given the roof damage (not minimal at all - I beams coming down from great height - more than enough to crack welds nearby), the gouges on the south face (two of them, one on a corner), and the fire, not small at all, is not much of a surprise. The fires went unfought because it made no sense to send firemen into a sagging building when there are no people left to rescue.
WTC7 did not fall at free fall either. Conspiracy theorists make this claim even though they cannot back it up with anything. The video clips of the collapse show the building fall behind other buildings and that prevents even estimating on that question. It did not fall entirely in its own footprint, it in fact demolished a nearby building completely. And it went down from near the base because the diesel fire was near tbe base, as was one of the gouges.
WTC7's collapse was, however, much straighter down, because its ratio of height to girth was much lower (40 floors, larger base). Closer to a cubical shape means a neater collapse.
Hayden: Yeah. There was enough there and we were marking off. There were a lot of damaged apparatus there that were covered. We tried to get searches in those areas. By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were concerned about additional collapse, not only of the Marriott, because there was a good portion of the Marriott still standing, but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o'clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.
A transit is a surveyor's instrument; the idea here is that you fix its sight on an identifiable spot and then check it periodically to see if the building has moved at all. Incidentally, note that the fact that the fire department fixed a transit on the building undermines the claim that nobody expected the building to fall, because after all it was a steel building and none of those had ever collapsed.
I suspect a bit more of your sunlight on this issue and they will flee to haunt another website.
The jets would also fly into the floors directly above where these supposed shaped charges started. All this to make it appear the jets caused the collapse? I don't get it.
All this carried out in secret by how many people? Not being noticed by anyone during the entire time the demolition setup operation was being performed?
And for what? What is the conspiracy? The towers were becoming a bad real-estate venture?
How about somebody starts there?
I admit there are some things that look fishy in all these videos, and a lot of unanswered questions. But what is basically being presented is a bunch fuel for a conspiracy theory. Not an actual theory. It's like - OK, here's some interesting stuff. Watch this and then feel free to just make up your own story. Whatever you want. Just kind of stick it all together any which way. Leave out the parts that don't seem to fit with the rest of the puzzle, and voila, you've got your own homemade conspiracy theory. Cool.
It still really takes a lot of faith to believe this could have been pulled off even if you could come up with an actual motive. The risks of this supposed plot being discovered seem to far, far outweigh any potential benefit from the outcome.
Alqueda, a creation of the USA is just the patsy. The planes were probably taken over by remote control and diverted from their flightpaths.
The explosives were wired in the weeks prior during the tenant shuffling and maintenance service outages. With modern control systems, it wouldnt matter where the planes hit, they'd just set the charges off in whatever order would look best on teevee based on where the planes ended up hitting. They planes were guided well whether really by hijacker pilots or by remote control (since so many of the alleged hijackers are still alive I tend to belive the remote control scenario -- especially with the abscence of interceptor fighter jets). The charges could have been set off remotely.
How many people involved? Hundreds. Thousands maybe. How many people are involved in other black operations conducted by the USA that never get leaked, that are successfully kept secret? Lots.
The benefits of pulling all this off is the gov gets to grab power at home, grab resources abroad (or try to at least haha) and have the public support of the people for all this nonsense at the same time.
- I challenge you to find a source ascribing the collapse to corrosion. NIST said the asbestos insulation on the inner supports turned out to be inadequate. Either the design didn't call for enough, or as is typical in NYC, the contractors skimped on the asbestos covering.
- I'll also challenge you to tell me how you came by the idea that AQ was a US patsy. Been to Tora Bora in the glory days? I'm amazed at how casually theorists claim to have intimate knowledge of what went on there.
- For explosives to be fitted in, someone would have had to notice. You have to cut through a lot of dry wall to fit shaped charges to the supports, and that makes a very big mess. Keep in mind that only one of the towers had any maintenance outage in 2001.
- The hijackers are not alive. Arab men are named after Muhammad and his Companions, and their surnames aren't that diverse either. That creates a lot of John Smiths in the Arab World. It was inevitable that after the attack Arabs by the same names as hijackers would speak up to clear their own names.
Finally, take a close look at this video at 00:13 onwards. It clearly shows the external supports at the collapse zone SLOWLY BENDING. Explosives don't do that. Those are steel I-beams and bending them requires the weight of, oh, for example, the top segment of the WTC tower.See the books 'Charlie Wilson's War' and Steven Coll's excellent 'Ghost Warriors'.
The mujahedin themselves actually found the Arabs pretty useless-- not skilled mountain fighters. The turning point came when the US shipped in Stinger anti aircraft missiles, and the Soviet helicopter advantage was negated.
Taliban came later, and was a creation in part of the Pakistani ISI. The CIA was involved, but only peripherally.
The alliance between bin Ladin and the Taliban was one of mutual convenience.
Not surprisingly, there were real people in the Middle East who had those passports.
The WTC was unique in that the walls held up the floors (actually, the trusses between the walls and the core). This was done to make the core smaller (more usable floor space).
So when the flaming fuel oil, plus paper, carpets etc., weakened the walls (those parts that hadn't been actually destroyed by the plane impact), they were destroying what held the building up.
I believe that a possible motive for wanting the buildings destroyed is they were going to have to be torn down by 2007 because of a design flaw, and the cost involved in that and rebuilding them would have made the whole property a financial disaster. Tom-Scott Gordon is the source of this notion.
I came by the idea that AQ is a USA patsy from the facts that Binladdy is the boss of AlQueda and Binladdy also was funded and trained by the CIA in days past.
The video you linked to is good because it does indeed show the exterior wall bending a little bit -- as the whole of the upper portion begins to fall at the same time, as if all support for it had evaporated in the same instant.
How were the explosives planted? I'm not that far yet. I just believe based on the videos that they must have been. I guess I wish the buildings just fell more lobsided, like towards the weakened areas, and then didnt fall at a freefal speed but went cachunk-cachunk-cachunk all the way down as each floor fell and impacted the next one, in a slow pancaking that one could observe. But because it didnt it seems to defy physics and that has me poking into things and looking around and finding that theres so many other problems with the official story. I have to find a reference to fighters being scrambled for a commercial airliner flight path deviation at least one time in FAA history prior to 9/11 now. Did this really never happen? Why the hell were all the NORAD resources being monopolized on that fateful day with fake radar blips being injected? Or is that fooey too. I really just want to know the truth.
Why the Conspiracy Party of course, the ones who would be able to pull of the WTC 9/11 thingy? They could handle any thing.The PO crisis? No problemo.
You ARE saying its a government cabal aren't you? (Speaking to the conspiracy theorists amonst us)
I haven't heard this kind of dribble since back in ye oldense dayse of Y2K!!!! It brings back such memories.
History is full of governments doing nasty little false flag operations and not getting caught at the time. Its full of failed false flag operations too.
Why should the version as published by the government be considered accurate and trueful?
No. And I'm saying the idea doesn't bear much scrutiny.
Yet I don't believe the real core of the government is quite capable of actual black ops thinking however all the weenie hanger-on type of organizations are very capable of running amok with secret cabals and such.
I have worked for the government before and supported mainframes in many government installations.I know ignorance and low levels of intelligence when I see it. Local or state or federal. They all drink from the same cup. Question is why do they get by with it? Becuase the citizenry are really sheeple. I think so.
This Popular Mechanics book, does it explain how WTC 7 fell down?
Oh My God,
Tell me it ain't so!
Not to worry -- help is on the way.
Here I come,
to save the day!
All courtesy of the Saudi-US Relations Information Service.
Interesting crease in Chavez's jacket--bulletproof vest underneath?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I just had to post something when I saw there are only 94 (now 95) posts today. Y'all went for a drive today, didn't ya?? Come on, confess!
I have to wonder if dropping prices is creating less traffic here at TOD? Let's see a graph of oil prices vs. TOD traffic, Khebab...
Did a quick google of gasoline prices of Phx vs Las Vegas: roughly $2.20 compared to $2.50 per gallon -- about 30 cents a gallon different! Recall my earlier postings on how Vegas has only one pipeline, running at near max transfer capacity, coming from California, but Phx is supplied by CA & TX. I wonder if this price differential is to keep gas prices in Vegas high enough to limit demand so they don't have massive shortages. Who knows? Maybe Vegas is destined to become the scooter capital of the US first. There were/are various proposals to build another pipeline to Vegas, but maybe the ERoEI will preclude building it. In the meantime, that is very profitable fuel/gal going to Vegas. Wish I had a piece of that action.
Don't worry, plans are rapidly moving into place to suck the energy waste out of the system by ERoEI monopoly control of the oil distribution spiderweb When postPeak prices rise high enough in Phx so pipeline volume really drops off: I predict the TX pipeline leg to my city will be shutoff forever, leaving only the CA pipeline to supply us. When this happens, the Asphalt Wonderland will then be screwed by CA pricing-volume limitations like Vegas is now. Just as OPEC is sucking the wealth out of America, we can expect Southern CA to start sucking the wealth out of Phx unless we become very energy efficient early--not likely.
How many TODers have investigated their neighborhoods for Westexas's Exportland Model? This applies everywhere, not just between countries on an international basis.
Consider a supertanker arriving in CA as a tsunami of energy. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that this breaking wave will only roll so far inland before this energy source becomes an energy sink.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Swim, little saccharomycete!
Anyone care to speculate on how far this price drop will continue to fall? If this has been covered already, my apologies......
I am reminded of the lyrics from the song Limbo rock "how LOW can you go?"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=A6wQcIGx5Ew
Lots of e-bikes, and also an amazing immersion in noise and confusion ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092300721.html?referrer=email
Venezuela has mismanaged its oil so disastrously that production may have fallen by almost half, according to the estimates of outsiders, reducing global oil supply by a bit more than 1 percent.
I wonder how much is turmoil in the oil industry and how much is depletion.
Chavez will be doing us a favor by keeping some oil in the ground if it is just above ground confusion.
I also agree with this:
And think it applies much more broadly than Venezuela. I suspect declines in Mexico, Indonesia, and others have mismanagement, or incomplete exploration as a partial cause.
I think you ask the right question:
While I do think depletion may be the leading cause, it may not explain all of it.
Making your own biodiesel fuel classes geared toward the beginner, (thats me) except i know how to make my own homebrew beer, so this might actually be up my alley.
And the class is hands on! the best way to learn.
Aside from the vague affirmations attributed in this quote, who here can tell us about the claim of SA being under-explored? Seems hard to believe, but what do I know about the Mysterious and Oily Holy Lands around Meccah?
"Aside from the vague affirmations attributed in this quote, who here can tell us about the claim of SA being under-explored?"
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093128150
The truth is, no one in the West has any idea about the amount, quality or location of Saudi Arabian oil, and whether they are "under" or over explored is a wild guess.
Those who give the reason for "peak" that the easy pickings are picked first find themselves in a contradiction on this, however. The other day, in a link given here on TOD,
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=58fc9401-92d8-47b8-b1f2-bb320676825b
Kjell Aleklett of the ASPO gave one of those seemingly cute, but hopelessly flawed and childish analogies that cuts the credibiltiy of the peak oil issue to pieces. He compared oil to (I am not making this up) wild strawberries! Here is what he said:
"In Sweden we have strawberry fields where you can go out and pick for yourself. If you go out there in the morning there is a possibility that you can pick a big volume of strawberries. But the first picker picks the big ones. The last one is left with the small ones. It's very much the same thing when it comes to the production of gas and oil.
"The goodies, the big ones, have been picked. It's true all over the world. Now we have to stick to the small ones. That means it's harder to fill the basket."
Now, I will not go on about the complete silliness of such a comparison (does technology change in the bare handed bare eyed hunt for for wild strawberries? Is there a price incentive to introduce newer methods of hunting and getting raw strrawberries? Are we talking about being able to hunt in places other than Sweden? Are wild strawberries often hidden by geolical barriers that can, or perhaps cannot be overcome? And at what price? etc,, etc.,
What i want to do is talk about Saudi Arabia being "underexplored. Now if you take Kjell Aleklett's logic, which is one of the central tenents of "peak oil", that the easy finds are found and procuced first, let me ask you a question:
With the easiest cheapest fields sitting there churning out oil, and producing billions of dollars in Saudi Arabia (Simmon's top four to eight "supergiant" fields) why would you waste your money out in the outback poking around Saudi Arabia's remote regions even looking, much less producing, oil?
You must accept one (the easy pickings argument) or the other (even though the easy pickings are producing billions of barrels cheaply, you will spend money searching around, exploring, meaning that cheap giant fields may not be the ones found first, since you are searching somewhat at random?
The second argument to me makes no sense. I don't think Saudi Arabia really spent hard effort exploring out in remote regions while they had a cash cow for a half century producing oil. It would seem like something we would do. Instead, explore that area when it was needed. Think of it this way....if there turns out to be no oil there, then you haven't made the hunt until you really have to, and are making it out of profits from high price oil......if the oil is hard to find, you have waited until the technology got better, and if it turns out easy to find once you need it and make the hunt, then you richer than ever since oil prices have risen...I would not, if I were an oil producing nation, even hunt until a very few years before it was absolutely needed! Why should I? Let the price rise and me make money!
Either way, the logic of Kjell Aleklett's ( the article says of course "Aleklett is a sought-after speaker on this topic", and we know the ASPO is at the heart of the peak philosophy) wild strawberries and the logic that Saudi Arabia would already be overexplored are mutually contradictory.
I am going to write a follow on post to this one, of what I feel is one of the most radical changes coming that can be imagined, more radical than peak oi. I feel that Saudi Arabia's words make sense, and that Saudi Arabia and the other major oil producers are becoming afraid, deeply afraid, of what has now been unleashed.
Thank you for you time and attention, Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
I see some sense in the Strawberries analogy, but not enough, so I won't try to extend or defend the metaphor.
If their cash cow is still as cheap and easy as you describe, then maybe I'd agree with the idea that more exploration is somehow redundant or unnecessary.. so far. But with the global pressures to assure this supply, I would have to believe that any businessman would have secured every bit of information possible in order to make their future plans. If SA is operating with the thin surplus capacity that some have surmised, it would hardly be surprising that there had been at least enough exploration done to assure them that the next fields were out there, right? If, on the other hand, there had been exploration, and no big finds revealed themselves, what would a supplier like SA act like?
I look forward to hearing your other thoughts. ('More Radical than peak oi?!' That's not a borscht-belt comment, is it?) I certainly expect that attitudes throughout the ME must be anything but blase' these days.. even being in possession of good oilfields could hardly do much to make one feel secure at this point. At least they get great Solar, too! Maybe they should start growing Strawberries!
Bob Fiske
Thank you for your reply, and as you may have noticed in the post I did, I promised a radical post (despite my missing letters, "oi voi!" :-), so here it comes...it of course will be somewhat softened in impact by the fact that it falls more than 100 posts into a string that covers 6 or so topics...thus it will be read by few, and give me a chance to think out loud on TOD, something I often do. :-)
Your sentence provides a great seque into my topic:
"I certainly expect that attitudes throughout the ME must be anything but blase' these days.."
I agree. And that is what got me started on thinking/investigating this subject sometime ago. Interestingly, when it comes to supply, the Middle Eastern nations seem to shrug off any concern. Does that strike one as interesting? With only one or two exceptions, those usually long retired Aramco execs or technicians, the Saudi's dismiss any concern about oil supply out of hand. Interestingly it is said that Daniel Yergin has cozy relationships with the Saudi's, and he likewise dismisses immediate supply problems.
At some point, if the great collapse in Saudi supply was coming, it seems thier long time almost British "stiff upper lip" would break, but it does not, at least not on the issue of being able to supply oil.
But they are not supermen. Their proverbial cool does break. Can we learn something from when?
Recently, as was linked at the time here on TOD, the Saudi's took a very dim view of the "greening" of energy. A major Saudi spokesman pointed out that speeding away from oil to so called "green" energy could be a mistake, and reasserted something we hear at every speech by the Saudi's, "oil will be the primary fuel of the world for the next 60 years." They were quite direct in their adament statements. It was also as though mention of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming were a direct threat to Saudi Arabia's income.
In fact, the absolute mantra of Saudi Arabia has often been very close to the "doomsayers" in the "peak aware community" Don't waste your time trying to find alternatives/replacements, your wasting effort. It is oil, or it is nothing, a return to a barbaric and tragic world.
The very bitter replies to the work of Matthew Simmons, in his work bringing question to Saudi Arabia's abilty to deliver the goods is one more example.
In other words, we have a very consistant sign of fear by the Saudi's, by ExxonMobil, by BP, and the other major oil suppliers. The fear however, is not that they cannot deliver the oil.
The consistant fear of the oil producers seems the same: What if they (the consuming nations) can move to alternatives (including conservation), and much quicker than expected?
This seems to be the one concern that can rattle the Saudi's (and other oil suppliers, but it is Saudi Arabia that would suffer worst, being biggest) long vaunted cool.
The Saudi's expressed deep concern and even confusion when, last year, even their old allies began to sell them off and cut their loses. Saudi Arabian influence has never fully recovered after 9-11.
- President G.W. Bush, in several speeches, pointed to the need to reduce dependence on, and he specified this region very clearly, Middle Eastern oil.
- A consortium of former U.S. Admirals, Generals, and intelligence officers opened a very pointed lobbying/political campaign aimed directly at Mideast nations targeting our dependence on OPEC and Mideast oil
http://www.setamericafree.org and are pushing for radical steps to reduce our oil dependence, most notably the plug hybrid concept.3. Bob Lutz, a chief of development in the General Motors hydrogen car project was quoted: 'Hell, we just want to get out from under the oil companies'. Leave aside the success (or lack thereof) of the hydrogen project and the fuel cell for the moment, that an executive at GM would even make such a statement is radical beyond words given the long cozy relationship between the auto makers and the oil companies.
This brings us to an amazing fact: The only people in the world that seem to doubt the Americans (and other advanced technical nations such as Germany and Japan's) ability to reduce crude oil consumption is the Americans!
The Saudi's do not so easily dismiss our abiliities. Their fear seems to be that a type of peak oil could occur far before geological difficulty in getting oil became the problem. I pose a question:
What if, as the peak aware say, we will never reach 100 mbd (million barrels per day) of oil production, but not because we cannot find and produce it, but because we simply do not want it or need it?
What we would have is "peak oil demand" well before potential peak oil supply.
It sounds radical, but let us for one moment take the radical approach:
The technical ability of the new generation of hybrid autos, thin film solar cells and powerful deep discharge repeated cycle batteries is now increasing at an almost exponential rate, almost at a rate that is disorienting even to the technicians developing them. These three technologies ALONE could completely revolutionize energy economics. This would not be such a surprise if the resources being poured into these research areas was huge, of the "Manhatten Project" type often called for.
What is shocking is that huge advances have already been made with a truly pathetically underfunded and understaffed effort. Take for example the way in which the "plug hybrid" has been pushed from small independent researchers working as a labor of love! Felix Kramer's CalCars group has revolutionized what was believed to be technically possible only a few years ago, pushed his ideas into the circles of power worldwide.
http://www.calcars.org
Advanced battery makers have, with the exception of the miniscule Advanced Battery Consortium, worked mostly on their own, and contributed more than they have taken from the consortium.
Most Americans cannot even understand the coming impact of what has been done in solar panels. What was silly sounding yesterday today is becoming possible. Example: A Yahoo group dedicated to the "grid hybrid" concept made it clear in answer to questions from laypersons a couple of years ago that cars that could power themselves and recharge batteries by onboard/on the vehicle solar cells were not likely to be possible given the amount of power needed and the amount of power a solar cell could produce per square meter.
In a recent post, they had to back up, and admit that given the advances in solar cells and batteries in the last two years, the possibility of enough power to recharge batteries onboard by the sun, in clear sunlit days was no longer to be regarded as impossible. The expense of killowatts by solar compared to kilowatts per pound of fossil fuel is dropping, as the EROEI balance moves closer and closer to even or in favor of solar cells, if all costs are counted.
The Saudi Arabians seem rattled. They have seen this before. In avaition, in nuclear weapons and energy, in space travel and global communications, in computer technology in the home. They do not dismiss how fast and how radically technological advance can leave whole industries rotting in the sand.
Several posters here on TOD have discussed the decline in oil consumption of
certain advanced nations, most notably Germany and Italy. What if such a trend continued, even sped up? What if the Americans, the Japenese, the Chinese started showing similiar trends, and they began to speed up?
One day, the Saudi's and the other major producers could wake up and see the wave has passed them by. "Peak" had occured, but peak demand, not peak supply. The Saudi's, with a growing young male population, expecting ever rising lifestyle and opportunity conditions, would begin to see their income drop, and rapidly. The stability of the OPEC nations would become more precarious. The debt of the Arab nations would begin to pile up. The most bitter pill would be that they would realize that they had essentially given away the last oil they could sell on their terms, but at pathetically cheap (when compared to inflation of all other goods) prices of $40, $50 and $60 dollar per barrel.
The Saudi's would be sitting on far too much useless goo in the ground, having to hawk at whatever the world would be willing to pay. Their survival as a nation would be questionable.
Let us say it as it is: If we put our effort, REAL effort, behind the advances and alternatives, given the speed we have made in development to this point, the Saudi's seem to sense that we could break them like a twig for good, and leave them by the wayside. If we have made the gains we have made in the last decade in energy alternatives, renewables, and efficiency almost as a hobby, what could we do with any real will?
I put myself in the shoes of a Saudi intellectual, looking at the real possibilities. I would be terrified as a Saudi Arabian for my nation's future.
In closing, allow me to point to a personal example of how this knowledge is beginning to permeate down to street level. I have a friend, a middle aged female office worker. She drives a Toyota Rav4, because it gets around well in snow, and she likes it. It gets fair fuel mileage, about 25 mpg. She makes more than enough money, and keeps her driving distance reasonable, so that when oil went over $3 dollars per gallon, she was not greatly concerned, she could have afforded it at twice that much.
I asked her about her concerns on fuel price and what it cost her, as she lived comfortable out of town, but worked and enjoyed the benefit of the city. I asked her if she intended to trade. Her comments, and remember, this is not a "peak aware" or "peak interested" woman nor a technician. She said,
"Oh no, it's paid for, and will do well for another 4 or 5 years, when I aim to retire. By then, Toyota will probably have the new generation of plug in hybrid drive cars out, and I might get one of them. They are supposed to be safe and comfortable, and probably get 70 or 75 miles per gallon."
She said this with no shock, no amazement. The radical fuel economy number she gave seemed to her as real as if it was occuring today, and the belief that this target would be easily achievable by 5 years out was not even in doubt to her.
With the developments in batteries, motors, controllers, and engines underway, the target she gave may actually be to the low end. What is being done is astounding:
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html
People are beginning to look at the new options not only for fuel efficiency, but also for cleanliness, quietness, safety, and performance. Leaving oil waste and overconsumption behind is now becoming a given and a matter of CHOICE.
The other day, there was a post linked on TOD concerning the real danger of an oil price collapse to catastrophically low levels. That may seem good, but the destabilizing effect of an oil demand/oil price slide are very hard to predict. The financial collapse of heavily populated radical Arab nations is a real concern to the whole world. Remember, it only took a handfull of them to murder and maim thousands of us, and alter to the core the way in which America operates.
The "peak aware" people are right to be deeply concerned about the future. The oil age, one way or the other, is almost certainly soon over, at least as the central and pivotal method of advancing modernization. We will change to new methods, and new energy for out future. But the direction of the change, and it's magnitude, could be surprising in ways that have not been predicted by even the wildest eyed doomsayers, and the challenges, and possibilities we will soon face will be astonishing, confusing, challenging, but also beautiful, inspiring and fascinating in their variety.
It will be a time of danger as well as promise. Prediction of the direction and the magnitude of the changes coming are all but impossible to predict.
Thank you for your time and attention. Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
If I were a Saudi, I would not be overly concerned about selling oil at $90/barrel and that this might destroy future sales.
If, in 2024, oil capacity exceeds demand, KSA can produce their 5.7 million b/day at lower cost than tar sands, coal to liquids, oil shale, 2 mile deep oil, etc.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan,
just a quick note to your sentence, concerning Saudi oil at lower cost than
"tar sands, coal to liquids, oil shale, 2 mile deep oil, etc
Folks, if the demand structure begins to move in the way I am speculating about, than tar sand, CTL, oil shale will prove to as big a boondoggle as it has always been.....they are red herrings from the get go...
By the way, note that I did not even touch on your fascinating and extremely articulate ideas on electric rail and trolley...or Walmarts advanced trucks designed to run on 1/2 the Diesel....I was thinking in terms much broader than just passenger cars, I just didn't want to start adding in thousands of examples.....I still say, we could be within a half of a decade of some real shocks, but not the ones expected....as you say, best hopes, time will tell!
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
Since their oil reserves are limited, I am assuming they are referring to gas.
A fairly bullish statement that they think, over the long run, that the price of gas in the ground will rise by more than the financial return of any money they invest.
Since a reasonable forecast of long run returns is 7%, that tells you something about what they think of the future price of natural gas.
I am hopeful for the reasons you mentioned and, after all, there are more scientists alive now at this time than have ever existed.
Yet, we have an extensive history of predatory bankers, stock swindlers, corruption and also the corporate fiduciary responsibility to put profits over social good, which is all too commonplace.
I hope we don't cheat ourselves to death.
Thanks, Roger, a lot to think about in there.
It is a radical suggestion. I can't say it couldn't happen, but there are SO many uses for Oil Products, I have to wonder if the demand structure would shift over to other uses, particularly if we start to undergo a huge buildout of new Energy Systems, Transp systems, Housing and Urban changes.. that will call for a lot of plastic, dry-cleaning fluid and asphalt.. like it or not. Of course, that doesn't mean that the KSA won't still suffer from either an overall price collapse or the long-awaited social turmoil that the Royal Family has so far managed to avoid..
I'm glad you also looked at the issue of what could become of an already tense KSA upper-middle class, some of whose sons might be looking towards that much more alienation and loss-of-position than they have experienced already.
There was a program with Tom Friedman called the 'Roots of 9-11', where he interviewed people in the ME, looking at how issues of unsuccessful assimilation in Europe and the US had been a factor in 'radicalizing' the young Arab men who were living there. I don't always see eye to eye with TF, but this was an interesting show. http://times.discovery.com/convergence/rootsof911/rootsof911.html
Thanks for the links to successful developments in Alt Energy and storage. This must be how Cheney feels about Iraq.. 'let me hear some of the Good news, fer chrissakes!' - good to hear that there is some!~
RF
In the long run we tend to seriously underestimate them.
Who, in 1904, could have imagined a world where people fly round it, on a daily basis. Where people fly from the US to Sydney, Austra, for the weekend?
A world where all the great empires at that time have disappeared?
Where 2 countries that didn't exist in 1900 (Saudi Arabia and Iraq) could be the world's leading oil reserves?
A planet where human activity seriously threatens civilisation, and possibly human life itself?
The problem is human beings forecast linearly, but exponential growth is at first below the linear line, but then compounds far above it (depends on the slope of the line and the power of the exponent).
If world GDP keeps growing at 2.5% pa, it will be 10 times what it is now in 2100, if we can find a way to deal with the global warming problem in the meantime (and find a feasible solution for when global oil finally runs out).
Implied was that some were not. The tone of the interview was that most of Arabia had been explored. The rest of the nation had some oil, but nothing like the producing areas.
There should be small pockets of oil next to the main reserviors that are isolated by quirks in geology. Multiple layers of oil with only some currently in production are also known today. Unknown 1 million b/day super giants ? Not very likely IMHO.
BTW, lets say a 1950s wildcat wells found 7 pay zones. 4 were thick and with medium quality, low sulfur oil. Of the other 3, all were heavy, high sulfur oil. 1 thick, two thin.
Production started on the medium quality oil and it has produced for 50 years. The new rigs could be going back in and extracting only the heavy oil that was bypassed before.
Quite reasonable IMHO.
I believe it's human nature to want to know how much oil there is in your territory, and regardless how much oil you're producing, you would like to able to produce even more. I don't think there's any limit to human greed.
This implies that they think a lot about the future; otherwise they would live hand-to-mouth, like nearly every other producer, pumping it out as fast as possible.
Why on earth would they NOT explore their potential? The idea that there are major areas that they haven't even bothered to prospect, to quantify their resources, is frankly preposterous.
More likely, they know pretty exactly where the oil is, and how much there is. This is the most precious of state secrets, of course, so probably the knowledge is obfuscated and compartmented, so that only a few key people have a synthetic view...
So, their probable strategy (and this is strict economic logic) is very much the strawberry-field approach. You don't bother with the small berries that are hidden behind the leaves. They are not worth picking with the low price of peak-season fruit.
But when most of the fruit is gone, the price doubles. Now it's worth your while making another pass around the field. The work is harder, the yeilds are lower, but as long as the price is high, it's worthwhile. Yes, I like the strawberry-field analogy.
(Where the analogy breaks down : often the market price doesn't justify the second pass, and the fruit is left to rot.)
So this is where it gets interesting : All those rigs the Saudis are ordering (and are having trouble procuring). Are they mostly for intensifying production in existing fields, or are they for developing those little, short-lived fields?
Showcase pipeline fuels global gas flames
The Langeled project - which at some stage consumed 30% of the world's entire carbon steel production, and which has come in on time and well under budget - is indeed impressive
Like many other technology solutions, you "just have to" consume 30% of the world's entire carbon steel production , that gives some perspective.
30% of steel is impressive, certainly when you see that the North Slope gas pipeline is even way bigger than Langeled. It plans to use 52" pipes. There is the little issue that no-one ever produced those. Makes you think if anyone wants steel in the next decade, order now! The TransAlaska was build 30 years ago for $7 billion, this one, if it's ever built, should come to $30 billion.
But there's so much more:
Peak what? You got shortages, you're not building enough.
See how long it takes FOX to pull this one from YouTube.
Alexander Cockburn
This is a great piece. I've read the whole thing in print. Can anybody find a link to the full version?
http://writingstorm.blogspot.com/2005/10/insanity-of-alexander-cockburn.html
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060907131938726