DrumBeat: September 7, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 7, 2006 - 9:12am
Plenty of Oil—Just Drill Deeper
The discovery of reserves in the Gulf of Mexico means supply isn't topping outYou can tune out all the scare talk about Peak Oil for a while—probably a long while. Peak Oil is the theory, on the verge of becoming conventional wisdom, that the world's petroleum supply is topping out and will not be able to meet global demand soaring along with the economies of China and India. But a successful test in a mammoth field deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, announced on Sept. 5 by Chevron, Devon Energy, and Norway's Statoil, should help put that scary scenario on hold for decades.
Those worried about having enough oil can relax. A big new discovery shows there's plenty out there — if we have the guts and patience to go get it.
Rift widens between producers, consumers
High crude prices have widened the rift between consuming nations, hungry for oil now, and producers who argue they must manage their reserves for the future.Britain used the latest technology to pump as much North Sea oil as possible and now its fields are declining at the fastest rate in the world.
At the other extreme, under-explored Libya, whose oil development was hobbled by years of international sanctions, has rising production rates and great potential.
Congress finds BP Alaska problems: Investigators find "significant problems" with the way BP Plc maintained its Prudhoe Bay facility in Alaska. Matt Simmons says BP's CEO was "AWOL."
One of the hazards involved in energy analysis is placing too much emphasis on raw data, like the kind one finds in the U.S. Energy Information Agency’s weekly and monthly reports. While rawness may be a desirable attribute in certain meats and vegetables, it is less desirable in statistical information that is susceptible to errors requiring a correction at some later point. It is even more exasperating when the changes are significant enough to warrant junking a hypothesis that explained the earlier results well but doesn’t fit at all with the newly redrawn picture.
Offshore-drilling legislation heats up
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: The Word Begins to Spread.
Norway's oil output is peaking at around 3 million barrels per day and will stay at this level for the next four to five years before the country switches focus to natural gas production, a senior government official said today.
SRAK Begins Drilling for Gas in Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter
Malaysia runs short of palm oil estates
Malaysia, the world's largest palm oil producer, says that it has almost run out of land suitable for new plantations of the crop, and that it will need to raise productivity of existing trees if it is to tap rising demand.
China says energy needs won't cause conflict
China to Invest in "Combustible Ice" As New Energy Source
Over the next decade, China plans to invest 800 million RMB (US $100 million) in the development of methane gas hydrate—so-called “combustible ice”—to meet its rising energy demand and alleviate heavy dependence on fossil fuels, according to a report by the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner.
Botswana: Analysts Warn of High Fuel Prices
Russia may face gas supply crisis in 2 years
[Update by Leanan on 09/07/06 at 1:28 PM EDT]
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending September 1, 2006 - Oil falls below $67 a barrel after BP says Prudhoe Bay could hit full capacity by next month and report shows surprise jump in gasoline inventories.
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Decades? Someone is in need of a good debunking.
In rough numbers, today the US imports about 13 mb/d. This increases by approximately 5% per year. Assuming our demand and domestic production decline don't change much, in 2010 we will be importing around 15.8 mb/d. If in 2010 they bring on 400 kb/d, this brings our import requirement down to 15.4 mb/day. Even if they find two more of these and bring on an additional 800 kb/d by 2010 (HA!), our import requirement will still be 14.6 mb/day, or 12% more than we use today.
Energy security in the US? Even this optimistic example says loud and clear, "Sell your Hummer."
Or hey, we could raise fuel efficiency standards, and have at least as large an impact, but that's no fun.
That's not entirely clear.
This DOE report on the 25th anniversary of the first oil shock notes that since CAFE standards first appeared, fuel efficiency of the US fleet has increased 70%, but per-capita petroleum consumption has decreased by about 15%.
It's important to remember that Jevon's Paradox says increased efficiency can lead to increased use, not that it will, and the most relevant historical example (increased efficiency in the US after an oil shock) suggests that it will not.
In other words, history suggests that efficiency is worth looking at and cannot rationally be dismissed out of hand. (Whether and how much it will help, of course, is open to debate.)
Perhaps, but that wasn't the claim. The claim was that any increase in efficiency would be self-defeating, since JP would make that translate into an increase in consumption, and that's simply not true.
While it's certainly the case that per-capita consumption didn't drop as much as per-mile consumption did (15% vs. 40% = 100%-100%/1.70), that's much what you'd expect based on a supply/demand analysis; i.e., more efficiency = lower per-mile cost = more miles = lower decrease in total cost than in cost-per-mile.
Jevon's Paradox is simply noting that sometimes (relatively rarely) the demand for extra miles at the new per-mile price is so much higher than at the old price that the total cost actually increases. That's not really all that surprising in light of modern supply/demand thought, though.
It's also worth noting that Jevon's Paradox is much less likely to apply to a mature market, rather than an emerging one, since the scope for increased consumption is so much lower. If fuel efficiency went up by 100% in the US, it's unlikely that people would increase their miles driven by over 100% in response; most people just don't have that many extra miles they want to drive, so the "mile demand" is largely saturated, regardless of efficiency. (Of course, we'd probably see SUVs come back into vogue to some extent, so we'd see the same kind of smaller-but-positive improvement that we saw from the CAFE standards.)
Your distinction is academic. The fact remains demand increases for gasoline every year, as does the domestic (and global) demand for crude. Our industrial economies require increased energy inputs for growth, otherwise financial markets wither. If efficiency cannot gain inversely proportionate to global crude oil depletion then there is trouble. IMHO there is simply no way efficiency can make the required advances to replace the most energy dense and useful liquid that we've discovered and consume is massive amounts. We have built our infrastructure around the highly inefficient internal combustion engine.
As of now, until the Dow drops dead or some other climatic event (no pun intended!) in whatever bizarre form--I was just stating that JP must hold true in a world of unequal humans, where billions are in poverty and billions of others in industrialized countries with computers, cars and credit cards. There is a natural tendency for the global system to encompass all humans in the "good" modern life of industrial societies. Energy = affluence. Hence, here in the US waste equals profit. There are masses eager to participate in the consumer cult culture we have created here in the West. If we conserve, that will be displaced by someone else, that is the fact. The Chinese have trade surpluses that they are siphoning off into development of highways and sprawling cities--a rising middle class is now displacing the old status quo of bicycles. In Shanghai, now most major roads don't even allow bikes. Not that I'm any Critical Mass proselytizer for bicycles--I prefer the subway. And as long as oil use and demand are rising--which is a necessity in order to ensure growth, then JP will hold true with a vengeance regardless of those who tout "efficiency" and "alternative energy" as saviors. More will be included in the easy-motoring economy, which will just further propagate demand. The financial system is built around these fundamentals, no-growth is not a viable option under present conditions...and if it rears its ugly head soon (like I and many others here at TOD believe it will) then people must know that "efficiency" and "alternative" fuels alone will not support the same kind of system that we had become accustomed to.
When will people realize there is no viable alternative for crude oil? Especially at the present global population level. We are going to have to make other arrangements, as JHK puts it.
All potentially true, and all completely unrelated to Jevon's Paradox.
While you're right that it'll be almost impossible for efficiency gains to keep up with exponential demand growth in the face of falling production, that has nothing to do with Jevon's Paradox, and invoking it only obscures the very valid point you're trying to make.
Jevon's Paradox is not a general indictment of energy dependency; it's a very narrow observation, and simply doesn't describe most of the problems we're facing. When it comes to Peak Oil, Jevon's Paradox probably doesn't apply at all.
Thanks for thoughtful treatment of Jevon's Paradox. It helps that I happen to agree with you and think that invoking JP in discussion is often just a substitute for "Tsk, Tsk.."
The fact that I'm converting my travel to mostly a human electric hybrid (tandem bike) makes the rhetorical taming of JP even nicer. I feel good!
Cheers,
Roy in Silicon Valley
Historical evidence suggests that's not true.
Per-capita energy consumption in the US hasn't changed over the last 25 years (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1c.xls), so the US uses only 60% as much energy per (chained-2000) dollar of GDP as it did in 1980 (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1p.xls).
i.e., the US has seen roughly 65% per-capita GDP growth with zero growth in per-capita energy use.
Even world per-capita energy consumption is only up 10% in the last 25 years (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1c.xls), despite much faster growth in real per-capita GDP, so it's not as if the increased energy efficiency in the US has (primarily) come at the expense of vastly greater energy use elsewhere.
Of course, that's not to say Peak Oil doesn't represent a serious problem; obviously, it does. But the number and scope of problems it does threaten should be identified and examined as clearly as possible, and, fortunately, it is not the case that economic growth requires energy consumption growth.
" But the number and scope of problems it does threaten should be identified and examined as clearly as possible, and, fortunately, it is not the case that economic growth requires energy consumption growth." (my stress)
Again, excuse me, but I believe your historical evidence is just another semantic to make a very grim situation look somewhat palatable. I think the evidence is to the contrary, namely, that economic growth, in the modern financial sense, is predicated on increased energy consumption. Everything that enables our economies to "grow" is based on having more available energy.
Also, I cannot concieve of a situation where decreased energy consumption could lead to a growth based economy, in the fashion that we have been accustomed to.
What matters is absolute growth not per capita.
Of course, you're only talking about the US--the most wasteful society on earth, not that hard for us to cut some of our totally wasteful energy expenditures and recycle that through "efficiency"... Of course, global energy consumption per capita had to be rising over the last 150 years since the discovery of crude oil--and as you cite, over the last 25 years with 10% increase per capita. Maybe you could find statistical anomalies within that graph and point them out.
You also fail to realize that through energy arbitrage, so to speak, our economy's energy consumption has been displaced and "globalized". Now factories in China and the rest of the newly industrialized world use tons of energy that is not officially "counted" by your US DOE data.
Also, during the last 25 years efficiency has rapidly developed, but is starting to hit a wall.
One can only make the internal combustion engine so efficient before it must be replaced with something new (costly,/long-timeline) or with another fuel (unlikely/grain based ethanol is a swindle).
My point about JP is still simply what it initially was... That even with increased efficiency you still need absolute gains annually (with required population growth) in order for financial markets to function properly. The system just doesn't work otherwise, no matter how hard one can close their eyes and imagine that everything is gonna be A-OK in a no energy growth global economy.
We'll see, time will tell.
Based on what evidence do you believe that?
Yes, it's surprising (at least to me) and a little counter-intuitive that per-capita GDP has gone up so much despite per-capita energy consumption going up so little (or not at all), but that is the fact of the matter. Accordingly, our theories should be based on what we observe, not on what we believe.
It happened in the US from 1979 through 1983.
Obviously, that's not saying it will happen, but that does suggest that it can happen, so it might be an option worth looking at.
(Keep in mind also that you're pushing a bit of a false dichotomy; I was just talking about lack of growth, rather than outright decline.)
Absolutely. There are two reasons I've been talking about per-capita consumption:
First, my point was really pretty simple: economic growth without growth in energy consumption is possible - at least theoretically - since historical evidence shows us that a group (e.g., 100M Americans) can have large growth in GDP while having no growth in energy consumption.
Second, demographic trends suggest that this may be achievable in practice. The West - the world's major energy consumer - has a rapidly-falling population growth rate, and will reach no population growth in the medium term. What that means is that the challenge of maintaining no overall growth in energy consumption is relatively modest for the West as a whole - about a 0.5% decrease in per-capita consumption per year - and it will get easier as time progresses, since the growth rate will get lower (all other things being equal, which of course they won't be).
I haven't been arguing that it will happen, should happen, or even necessarily can happen; what I've been arguing is that evidence does not support the claim that it can not happen, so more investigation is needed.
No, I addressed that explicitly, as the above quote shows.
Interesting. What is your evidence for this?
That it "makes sense" does not mean that it's true.
What is your evidence for this?
The system did work otherwise, from (for example) 1979 to 1983 in the US. Stock markets even kept going up (although the S&P500 had a crash in 1981/82, it was still higher even at the trough).
In some ways, that illustrates my overall point: there are variety of "common wisdom" claims that people assert, and those claims typically make quite a lot of sense, but those claims may well be false.
Without evidence - hard, factual evidence - to support a claim, it's very difficult to tell what's true and what's urban myth.
So I'm trying to provide some historical and quantifiable evidence regarding some of these claims, and - having no personal preference for whether these claims turn out to be true or not - I'm pushing the conclusions that the data support. That is my overall point.
Bottom line: it doesn't make sense to try applying JP to narrow cases, it applies on a society-wide scale.
This is in a world where 2 people die every second of starvation.
For instance, why do we grow wine grapes in so many countries around the world, whem people are starving?
Why do countries with starvnig people grow tobacco?
Far more potential agricultural land is wasted on sugar, livestock, tobacco, alcoholic beverages (25% of global ethanol production) than fuel. Much current and future biofuels plans look to produce from poor quality land or non-food crops. The poor also suffer disproportionately from fuel shortages.
It is far from clear that producing fuel from farmland is a net negative for the poor.
Grapes are hand picked. In most cases even hand cultivated. Rasins are a by-product of some grape growing, others are eating grapes, also hand picked.
Sugar being a good food source.
Starving people? Why are they starving? Didn't you know the USA grows enough to feed the world? Ruler Y hordes the Food the UN food agency supplies and sits on it, or sells it to others, and the People starve.
Tobacco provides a good cash crop, and if anyone gets to use it, a bit of an appetite supressant, so does the raw leaf of the cocoa (I don't know the latin genus and species) plant of which cocaine is derived. Stravation happens in most cases because someone else is hording the food, The food can't get to them, War is killing the ability to get food to the people, someone wants to get paid more money for the food than the person has, Or the area has had drought and animal die-offs faster than the aid agencies can get food to them.
Currently no one need starve to death or into illness on this planet. Other humans let it happen or cause it to happen. Soon we will have maxxed out our carrying copacity and then you will see real die off, When the Grain in storage is used before the next year's crops are in.
57 days, and then others start to feel the real pinch. Though a lot of nations waste far to much food. The USA is not the only one, we are seen as the worst, but any country can waste food.
I have been trained as a Chef I don't do it as a proffesion, mostly as a hobby and volunteer work. Every resturant, every home I have been in, wastes food. It does not help that the FDA and Local Health codes Require you not to serve day old foods to paying customers. There have been and are drives in some cities to provide food stuffs to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, but that only partially attacks the problem. Food spoilage, food saving and many other issues can be streamlined to prevent so much waste, but they just are not.
Someone asked What I had invented,, (in yesterday's threads) Methods to get more food into long term storage and out of the trashcans of the world. But food will spoil even with these methods, they are just minor stop gaps.
No one need starve!!!! That is still the point. Humans kill humans, by action and by inaction.
One that took a strong constitution was the uneaten food sorting job in las vegas, that was part of a hog feeding operation. Apparently there the "extras" from those buffets are recycled.
(in a somewhat tighter economy, someone would have hogs or chickens at home to eat restaurant scraps. in a very tight (pessimistic future) economy, somebody would eat it.)
(on increasing the food value of those wine grapes, it could be done with dried fruit, fruit leathers, etc ... but the point really is that we don't and that this is a very old choice we have made (in the broadest possible sense of the word "we))
Oil prices crashed in the 80's and 90's, and so usage increased. Not especially far sighted, but not surprising. Greater usage wasn't caused by greater efficiency - light vehicle efficiency hasn't increased in the last 20 years.
There's no reason to think that will happen again, at a time of rising prices.
While very true, that's not Jevon's Paradox.
Jevon's Paradox is, restated, "a decrease in the per-unit cost may increase the number of units consumed so much that the total cost increases". It's a supply-and-demand effect.
Your point is, restated, "exponential growth is really fast. Think about how fast it is; no, it's faster than that." It's the "yeast doubling" explosive growth effect.
They're both important points to consider, but they're different points.
Well, if you increase efficiency at the same rate as economic growth, then resource use would be constant. And of course at some point the markets for tangible goods mature and level off, and economic growth comes from services, which don't use much in the way of mineral or energy resources (except for a bit of electricity).
It depends, too, on the resources. It's no problem to use more electricity from wind, or solar.
Finally, wind and solar are not infinite resources--there are a finite number of watts available, and making them available takes a lot of up-front energy for construction and fabrication. With apologies to Monty Python fans everywhere:
Every watt is sacred
Every watt is great
etc...
The 2nd law doesn't tell you anything about how close you can get to 100%. We're getting a bit abstract. Here's an example: I remember car industry execs who said that 40mpg cars were absolutely impossible. At that time average MPG was about 13. Now it's about 26, and it could easily be doubled again to 52, and Toyota is talking about getting 75 with the next Prius. The next step is EV's, which currently get the equivalent of 115 MPG.
The ratio of energy to GDP gets very, very low for services.
Wind and solar may not be infinite, but the ratio of available solar to our needs is about 25,000 to one. Wind has an E-ROI of about 60, and solar of 10-30 and rising, which is substantially higher than oil at the moment. A high E-ROI really does mean that they solve energy availability problems - that's what E-ROI means. It also means that if energy prices go up, the output of wind and solar just gets proportionately more valuable. Finally, a high E-ROI means on a practical level that energy isn't a big part of the cost, and even if oil prices triple it still won't be.
False. In heat engines (internal combustion engines, nuclear power plants), the maximum possible conversion efficiency of thermal energy to useful work is a function of the two temperatures involved.
Nobody will defend the quotes of auto execs. Indeed great strides have been made in cars. But some of this has come from redefining what a "car" is. Consider the size of a current model Cadillac vs. its land yacht ancestors. If you made a hybrid Hummer, how much better mileage would it get.
My point is that efficiency improvements face diminishing returns. The cost to get that next 10% keeps getting higher. Real efficiency improvements are also limited by the necessity to replace existing infrastructure. The mileage figures you quoted are for cars currently sold. What is on the road is much worse, and turnover takes years. How are you going to limit economic growth to be less than efficiency gains?
Pacific NW National Labs has estimated the US wind energy could theoretically replace 20% of our current generating capacity. It doesn't matter what the E-ROI is; there is your availability limit.
With solar, your limit is ~300 watts/sq. meter. And please point me to a solar unit where I can get the kind of return (10-30 fold) that you quote. In reality, there are few areas of the country where you can save enough on energy costs (at today's prices) to recoup the photovoltaic fabrication costs (which takes a lot of energy at today's prices). That doesn't sound like a E-ROI of 10 to me. Nanosolar will probably be the best near term. How much is possible from solar? I hope we make it through the next few years to find out.
Services? You mean like the "Information Economy"? Look at this plot:
Note the ramp up in the last few years? And that's despite all those CFL bulbs we've been installing.
Absolutely true: the 2nd law does limit the efficiency of heat engines, but 1) it doesn't tell you how close you can get to 100%: a very high input temperature and very low output can get you any arbitrary % you want, and 2) as a practical matter you don't have to use heat engines. For example, fuel cells are more efficient. Similarly, photoelectric processes can be much more efficient for converting light to electricity than a solar thermal plant using a heat engine, and electric engines are 6 or 7 times as efficient than gasoline ICE's.
In transportation, efficiency is a misnomer: from the point of view of the laws of physics transportation involves "translation" of an object from one location to another. There is no increase in kinetic energy, no work done, just a change in location. This can be done with an arbitrarily low amount of energy if something is accelerated to whatever speed is needed, friction is minimized, and the kinetic energy recaptured at the other end (i.e., regenerative braking). For example, the Prius has, I believe, a coefficient of wind friction of .29, but the GM EV-1 was at .19, and lower is certainly doable.
So, the EV I mentioned with an equivalent MPG of 115 can be doubled to 230 without too much trouble, and can be doubled again with more work.
You're right, cars are somewhat smaller. OTOH, larger SUV's/pickups (light trucks) are more than half the US market, and light vehicles (cars & light trucks) are much more powerful than they were 25 years ago, so on the whole light vehicles are probably at a lower efficiency point design wise, compensated for by more efficient power trains.
There's no question that at some point you run into diminishing returns. OTOH, there's only so far you need to go. For instance, an electric car using 50 whrs per mile could be run from PV on it's own surfaces, or even from a bicycle generator - that's personal transportation!
It's true that improvement is limited by turnover. OTOH, turnover is faster than most of the casual analyses have assumed (including Hirsch's, surprisingly), as newer cars are used substantially more than older ones - you can probably replace 60% of car usage in 5 years.
That 20% figure isn't a hard limit: it's what you can do without much trouble. You could do much more with careful demand management (including use of plugins and EV's for low demand period charging, and V2G), a better national grid, storage, etc. Solar is complementary: it has a different pattern, and follows usage much more closely than any other source, so between solar and wind you could easily get to 70% of electricity demand. The other 30% might come from many sources, especially biomass and nuclear.
What's the source of that limit of 300 w/sq meter? Solar insolation is about 1,000w/sq meter (clear day at a good location). Sunpower cells (the best single layer cells, i.e., less expensive and not used for concentrating systems) are at 200, the best commercial triple junction cells are at 380, and the latest lab methods offer the possibility of 650.
"please point me to a solar unit where I can get the kind of return (10-30 fold) that you quote."
I think you're thinking of dollar Return on Investment ($-ROI). Yes, currently solar PV has a very long or nonexistent $-ROI in most places, though it's cost-effective in some places, like Japan and parts of California, and would be cost-effective in many more if the costs of fossil fuels included external costs (pollution, occupational health, CO2, security, etc). PV costs are dropping about 8% per year, and that's likely to accelerate with thinfilm like Nanosolar (though prices may not drop as quickly, as supply is currently being rationed by price due to skyrocketing demand), while FF electricity is rising in price.
Energy ROI is very different, and is quite high for both solar and wind. E-ROI doesn't tell you anything comprehensive about total cost or $-ROI, it just reassures you that the energy technology in question is basically feasible.
I'm curious where that electric generating capacity chart came from, as the increase from 2000 to 2003 seems a bit steep. I'd remind you, though, that this is a world chart. The transition to a service economy would be visible only in places like the US, Canada, Europe, etc. That's a tough one to analyze at a macro level, as you'd have to account for manufacturing outsourcing, changes in other sectors, etc, but it's pretty clear that a programmer in front of an LCD monitor uses less energy than a guy with a forklift.
Finally, I agree with you that it's not the long-term that's the problem, it's the transition in the next 10-20 years. I don't have a lot of faith in the Feds, especially with the Current Occupant, but the rest of the world (other countries, as well as local government, private industry, and individuals in the US) is moving. Let's work so that we move faster.
Oh and Watchout for car jackings, Your beat up pimp mobile might be needed by NSA to hide their agents in the slums so they can spy on the kids buying 1,000 pre-paid cell phones to sell on the street corners.
Laughs, Okay it was the 370 mile drive that has made me realize its the same ole same ole in congress, no wonder I stopped listening to what they have been talking about.
Check the story out, comment, let me know, send me an E.mail something, Checks can be made out to charles Owens, The blog has my address to send them to.
http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com/
But that's not in the best interest of Numero Uno!! :)
I think this is a good time to consider how TPTB and MSM can utilize Shaw's Paradox to their short-term advantage.
If the topdogs are thinking the price of oil is going too low: a cornucopian message can help sustain FF demand among the unwashed masses. Thus, Yergin spouting Jack off in the MSM is purposely to diminish the never-ending depletion & conservation doomer message from TOD and other influential groups.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
It is pretty clear from the deluge of articles above that this is not just a corporate-media delusion; it expends to the full width and breadth of the global civilization. The richest billion people literally cannot conceive of a different way in which to run their lives; the wall of denial is total.
I dont' think peak oil will be fully acknowledged until production has declined so far, and changes have progressed so deeply, that the conclusion is unavoidable.
If adaptation requires the piercing of "The Iron Wall" of denial, that adaptation will be very slow in coming.
It is not clear how we CAN adapt. For after years of trying to lessen our dependence on the machine, my wife and I are almost as dependent as everyone else. Perhaps other people's margin of error (if things were to collapse) is a few hours or days; our's is a few months, or possibly years. For we cannot weave our own clothes, etc., so in the long run we are also dependent.
Low overhead, that's the key. What did the old Sioux have to work to support? The clothes on their back, literally, and a teepee, generally shared between 6-12 people. The orginal affluent society, because of low overhead.
the fur traders hunters just took the skin and the tongue leaving the rest to rot.
Jack's just a drop in the bucket
The funny thing that no one seems to be mentioning... I saw an article somewhere yesterday with a big title something along the lines like "US Reserves may swell 50% on huge oil find"... As if this is a massive find which is a harbinger of good times to come. When, in fact, the exact opposite is true--what this story is indicative of is how small US reserves is.
As usual, the press has got everything backwards.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060907/OPINION01/609070309/1014/OPINION
And here too.
http://lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/09/07/opinion/00edit07.txt
Published - Thursday, September 07, 2006
New oil discovery does not reduce need for conservation
By La Crosse Tribune editorial staff
The announcement about a large deep-water oil field off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas certainly is good news.
But we shouldn't assume that we can drill our way out of the current oil crisis. The world now includes a rapidly developing China, with its 1 billion residents. When more Chinese residents start consuming oil at the rate of Americans, there's no amount of new oil fields that could make up the difference.
Instead, we're going to have to get smarter -- and pretty quickly -- about how we use energy <snip>
It's the 50% increase in the national reserves that kills me
me when I'm talking to people about PO. Their comments are
look we just almost doubled our reserves. Trying to convence
them that a 50% increase doesn't mean a damm thing, is next
to impossible.
The actual estimated reserves for the "Jack" discovery, about 300 million BOE, would meet total world liquids demand for less than four days. From nuclear + fossil fuel sources, the world uses the energy equivalent of the estimated "Jack" reserves about every 36 hours.
Look at the chain of events here. A group oil companies makes an announcemnt of a "major" discovery, at a politically convenient time. The energy analyst guys, CERA, jump on the bandwagon and use it as an example of why Peak Oil is "garbage." All of this is reported by the media group, at Businessweek.
Look at the level of coverage regarding this ultra deep discovery, versus the (extrememly limited) coverage of the ongoing crash in production at Cantarell, the ongoing production deccline in Saudi Arabia and the overall decline in production by the top 10 net oil exporters.
What we are seeing is the "Iron Triangle" in full force--fighting back against those who would advise Americans to "Economize; Localize and Produce."
The underlying message of the Businessweek column is to go ahead and buy and finance the large SUV and large suburban home, because you have nothing to worry about. . .
We saw it coming from far, as in 7000 feet of deep water, away.
Bush "admits" to the secret CIA prisons, and while some EU allies express their shock, for what that's worth (he lied!!), it will hardly raise a brow this side of the pond. Result: it can't be used against him anymore in November.
Meanwhile, NATO grabs the opportunity, away from the full press glare, to demand more troops for Afghanistan. They're losing bigtime over there. But they're not losing US bodies, so who cares?
It has been decided that 2 full months of powerspin are needed to get the election outcomes desired. Well, we're off, the gentlemen have started their engines.
Oh, and there's the little matter of a Senate vote on offshore drilling. What better persuasion than a discovery "at home" that carries the promise of lower prices at the pump? Who in Washington now wants to be seen as the party pooper?
Jack's main purpose may well be holding out the option of more Jacks. If only they let us drill.
It's a clever ploy. Telling people what they like to be told is infinitely easier that the opposite. See anyone capable of breaking that fold? I don't think Peak Oil awareness is perceived as a serious problem yet, but just in case, Jack squashed it out of existence for the foreseeable future. Job well done.
*The Nuremburg Trials did convict and hang a lot of baddies, but they were a kangaroo court at best. The big baddies were offed and that's good, but a lot of smaller supposed baddies, maybe baddies and maybe not, were hanged on hearsay. The result is that some of these minor players are considered martyrs now,, although you'll never hear about it from inside the US.
Not to mention "24", where someone is tortured for information about every 3rd episode. The victim is always guilty (at least when Jack Bauer does it), they always cough up the info, the info is accurate and the day is saved.
I have friends who rent and/or buy the full season DVDs and can't even understand that what they are paying for is propaganda. At such moments I feel like joining the doomers.
It certainly promotes bad things, like fear of "terrorists", faith in torture, secrecy and general disdain for civil liberties.
OTOH, it's a fairly complex mix of ideas. The authorities, including presidents and presidential advisors, are usually incompetent, corrupt or power hungry. Three of the first 5 seasons have featured plots to gain control of oil supplies, twice by corrupt presidential advisors.
Finally, it's pretty good entertainment. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone under 25 not accompanied by someone who can explain all this...
Lynchings are good entertainment too.
This is fiction, you know...
Thats a understatement. about half the country is back under tali-ban control.
And that's why I am a hard-core, despairing, not-nearly-enough- prepared DOOMER.
Not because of Peak Oil.
Because of human OBLIVION to the facts.
What good does it do me to prepare when the people around me aren't preparing?
No, they're doing the opposite.
Mike,
Like you, I've called myself a doomer for more years than I care to remember. However, I've come to the conclusion that we need to rename our position. "Doomer" connotes some sort of emotionally arrived at or, perhaps, irrational belief. In my case, and I'm sure most others, I arrived at my beliefs from a rational perspective. Further, the actions I have taken have only been taken after a rational consideration of the future.
Todd; A Realist
The Pessimist is Afraid That He is Right.
----------------
There is so much good in the worst of us
and so much bad in the best of us
It's hard to tell which of us
should reform the rest of us
john
Thanks for the compliment, you are exactly right. Whether we like it or not, words define people's thoughts (not much of an insight there, though). Who would choose doom over cornucopia?
The truth is that I want to live/survive far more than most other people. To me, they are the doomers. I have been willing to put my time and money on the line in order to have better odds at a satisfying life.
As a Realist, I see nothing that leads me to believe population will be dealth with; that a non-growth economic system will be developed; that all energy will come from sustainable sources; that agriculture will be able to function without FF inputs and so on and so on.
It's really the difference between the people in Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged and people outside. The people in the valley were not doomers even though they understood where society was going. They were highly optimistic.
Todd; the Realist
Thanks. It's such a good read and contains so much useful information. I've considered printing it out but I can't get myself to spend the ink and paper.
For those who missed the link, it is:
http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf
Be forewarned it's 611 pages - but worth it.
Some other good reads with good information are:
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/printhtread.php?t=136417
This story is called Dark Winter by Tom Sherry. It starts with an eruption in the Seattle area.
This was follwed up with:
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/printthread.php?t=169761
This is the continuing story and still (albeit slowly) ongoing.
Todd; a Realist
FWIW, I think "pessimist" is a good word, which accurately describes those who think peak oil will lead to very bad outcomes.
(we moderates worry about somewhat bad outcomes, and the optimists don't worry at all)
I bet you could actually find me some local, state, federal, and international programs to reduce energy and/or oil consumption.
Down the thread someone wants to say that "pessimism" isn't emotional .. but what the heck is it when we just pretend nothing is happening?
(The key is that it isn't happening fast enough for you, and me actually. But not fast is not the same as not at all.)
See, the the price of oil has PLUNGED down to 67-68 dollars or so... Just look at the little graph on the righthand column there. I mean, if that isn't evidence for peak oil "theory" being garbage then I don't know what is.
Anyway, didn't Vincente Fox announce a 10 billion barrel find earlier in the year? I mean come on, we've now discovered 25 billion barrels in ONE year. You guys just want the futures price to go up. Jesus you people are so pessimistic--why can't you just go with the flow? I mean yeah, Saudi supposedly has 250 billion barrels left--so what! We have 21 million (plus the new finds) which will last us, eh, hrmm, carry the 1... shit, nevermind.
Just let the oil fiesta continue!
Roll up in your SUVs and holla if you hear me
If only we could drill anwr, and get another couple of years worth of hydrocarb smack. Shoot 'er up!
Don't forget the April 5, 2004 BusinessWeek cover story on Saudi Arabia. In fact, that story is how I found out about Matt Simmons and his book.
I would not be surprised if we see some more sober MSM articles about this find (i.e. Jack, lower tertiary) in the near future. These will remind us about the high cost, long lead time, location in the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico, importance of production rate as opposed to reserves, and the ongoing depletion of existing fields in production. I'm betting on a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal in the next few weeks.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060907/OPINION01/609070309/1014/OPINION
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/7/10/145048/052
As I told before, the way the MSM are acting now is not as good as it would be if it was actually convincing people to ELP but at least, they are a notch above their previous stance: dont even argue against!
When you want to keep something off the public debate, the first thing to do is not to talk about it. If it's not talked about, it does'nt exist. Right now they are talking against and they have two reasons to do it.
- Geopolitics are kind of smooth theses days and even the Iranian situation is less hot than in the summer or last spring. Worries are also on the low side for the huricane season.
- This discovery was spinned in the usual low consumption period, we have not started heating, AC is down in northem part of the US, vacation driving is down because of back to work period, change between the summer and winter fuel formulae and lowering of fuel prices to empty the tanks.
People are less dumb than they appear (sometimes) and they know that this kind of lowering of prices is just a step to increase the price even higher than before. They've seen the patern in the last 3 years.I do think then that the PO message will kind of get some more people on this.
Time and developpement in actual extraction of the ressource world wide will confirm the decline in Cantarell and KSA. I wonder at which point does the current shiping to the refineries in Texas and Louisianna will get low enough to limit the switch to other producers.
I do think it's better, in a chain of event perspective, that the decline of production comes from a geological limitation. Other effects caused by war, technical maintenance, unrest or commercial sanctions would just get the people to discard PO as the underlying phenomenon.
If indeed Chris Skrebowsky, Collins and others are right and increase in production is possible trough 2010 it will just help us convince more people and prepare better.
Soon all we will have will be solar and efficiency improvements. We'd better get used to it.
What that article, and others like it, might have suggested is that Peak Oil, according to Hubbert Linearization, could have some slight adjustments down the road.
Im not an HL expert, so will throw this out to the crowd, but how much of a 'region', according to HL, goes out to the deeper water (35,000 feet)? Can we do a Hubbert analysis of Nigeria and other African countries that have never drilled in deep water and assume that future finds will fit in their general geographic 'country' boundaries? Or are deep water Nigeria and deep water GOM 'different' regions and should be linearized separately from the countries they are next to?
Now I'm very curious--why doesn't Michael Lynch work for CERA?
Precisely. It is absolutely vital for peak oil theorists to factor in a generous yet-to-find fraction in their calculations -- otherwise every future discovery (be it baby elephant, hippopotamus, water buffalo or koala bear) is going to give the cornucopians yet another opportunity to dump buckets of derision on the 'doomsters'.
And the peak oil activists will begin again to hum and haw (for example) about pre-election 'conspiracies' or play with words by making artefactual distinctions between 'conventional' and 'non-conventional' categories of oil.
Why not just acknowledge the reality: nowhere is it carved in stone that a straight line has to stay straight for ever. Why not consider the possibility that the final decades of the petroleum era may have a somewhat different pattern than the one that characterised the now vanishing halcyon days? After all, the Hubbert curve only 'settled down' about 25 years ago. Who can guarantee that it won't get unsettled again?
And just in case there are any misunderstandings: I am a dyed-in-the-wool Georgescu-Roegenist, Cattonist, Hardinite, Dalyist and Anti-Yerginist. I have a copy of 'The Entropy Law and the Economic Process' under my pillow. I have attended the last two ASPO annual conferences.
... and I even brushed up my old school math for HL's sake.
Now I know that the x-axis is the horizontal and not the vertical one.
After all these years ....
That's in fact what economic theory would tend to predict. As world oil supplies decrease, price will rise. More importantly, price will be known and anticipated to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. This will lead to very different results than when individual fields or even countries have run out of oil in the past. Incentives to improve production will be far greater as the world goes over the top of Hubbert's Peak than anything we have seen before. No longer will it be an option to just go elsewhere where oil is still cheap and easy to get. There will be no more "elsewhere" to go.
Expecting worldwide peak oil to be the same as region-wide is setting yourself up for surprise and disappointment.
I get your point that economic incentives will push up production but I think you gloss over the strongest arguments too easily.
If I understand your argument, your position is that if we show up with more money then we will figure out more ways to get more oil. This is the argument posed by CERA and Lynch. They say Hubbert theory fails because it doesn't take into consideration that the area under the curve grows in response to technology and more money. I believe that is what your opinion is.
In my opinion, the strongest argument for a worldwide peak to be the same as a region peak is the United States or other wealthy country that is in decline.
The United States has peaked and has been steadily declining for over 30 years. The price of oil has increased from $18 to averaging around $70 since 1998 and we've pretty much done nothing to stop the decline trend. As the world's largest importer we are transferring huge amounts of wealth oversees to pay for our imports. Not to mention the price rise is making many of our enemies more wealthy and more powerful.
Can you honestly hold the position that if this is simply a matter of price and economics---why haven't we been able to signifcantly change the shape of the curve for 30 years? Wouldn't it be in our best interests to increase our own production as much as possible? Yet we haven't. The best we have done since 1998 is maybe find some gas or oil that will possibly offset the Gulf of Mexico decline.
Furthermore, peak oil is all about economics anyway. If we have to spend $200 for a barrel of oil just to change the shape of the decline rate from 4% to 3% where does that really help us? Wouldn't oil at that price pretty much revolutionize the United States way of living anyway?
I like your skepticism against all the doom talk around here. Need different viewpoints. But I don't think this argument flies--I can't see how the world will be significantly different than the aggregate sum.
Now, maybe in fact it does turn out to be the case, even though logically there's no reason to expect it. Maybe in fact regional peaks will turn out to have the same properties as a global peak.
But if that were true, what would this site be about? Isn't the whole point of the PO movement that worldwide peak oil will present us an unprecedented challenge? Otherwise people could just say, oh, we ran out of oil in lots of places before and nothing bad happened, so running out of oil in the whole world will be no different.
Of course, that's absurd. Running out of oil in the whole world is very different from running out of oil in one field or country. And that's really all I'm saying. Just as we would expect other effects of a worldwide oil peak to be different from past regional peaks, we should expect the details of production rates to be different as well. Desperate people behave differently than complacent ones, and that is going to make a huge difference in the response to a worldwide peak.
I get your point very much. I do think things will look different on the backslope but will have to do much more with demand than ability to get supply. But I don't see a big change for supply.
Concerning desperation, lets take a real world example. Shell Oil is in the oil business and if they can't replace their oil reserves they will die so to speak. They are a good model for desperation as they have been struggling a bunch with replacing reserves.
Shell is spending 19 billion dollars this year mainly on synfuels. Shell is making the decision that milking oil from dirt is more cost effective then searching for more. Shell is also contemplating opening up some new projects in the new Jack area find.
Think about this. Shell, a desperate company, has decided that its better to spend their time and cheaper to drill down 5 miles for oil or gas and convert dirt to oil than to upgrade existing production flows. Accordingly, increasing the amount of recoverable oil from the oil in place seems to be quite difficult. Otherwise, it would seem to be much easier to simply put this money to doing that as such a small increase in recovery factor would be huge for a company with this big of reserves. A desperate company will years of oil experience isn't counting on changing the production curve.
Summing up, in my opinion, the production curve will be similar on the backside even if we are desperate. In my opinion, any extra financial and survival motivation will be tempered by the difficultly of extracting the newly found oil from 5 miles down, burning dirt, etc. Unconventional might cause the decline rate to be a little slower, which is good news (from a PO perspective only), but a totally different shape seems unlikely to me.
Ah, you don't understand the point behind the curve fitting, and that is why you are bashing the technique. I think I can help, and perhaps help a few others understand at the same time.
We cannot measure future oil discoveries and production directly. They happen in the future and we are not there yet. So the point of fitting the curve is to use past data to create a mathematical model. Then we use the mathematical model to predict the future.
The mathematical model for discoveries predicts that there are at least 100 billion barrels of oil yet to be discovered. If those discoveries are not found, then the model was too generous and the decline curve will be steeper. If 200 billion barrels of oil are found (about another Saudi Arabia's worth) we can start to worry the model was too conservative.
No one is factoring in a generous yet-to-find fraction. What they are doing is reporting the predictions of the model. (that is why we did the whole model in the first place)
Also notice that an extra 200 billion barrels is still less than 10% of the planets total endowment of oil. Adding it or not will not change the peak date by much, or lower the decline rates by a large amount.
"Why not just acknowledge the reality: nowhere is it carved in stone that a straight line has to stay straight for ever."
A good point and worth addressing. I think you will see why that line is unlikely to change direction.
When a polling company predicts an election, they cannot ask every single person how they will vote. So instead they ask a few thousand people and fit that data to a mathematical model and use that model to predict how everyone will vote. It is a valid question to ask how certain are the poll results (and they usually state +-3% or so).
In a poll they might ask a few thousand people out of 100 million voters.
But consider our case with oil production. HL analysis is predicting that we are almost at 50% of total production. We have "polled" half of those 100 million voters. If you examine the discovery data, it is even more certain, we have "polled" 94% of those 100 million voters. That isn't polling anymore, that is the final vote count.
Is it possible the line shifts direction? Yes. The last 6% of discoveries might turn out to be 4% or 8%. Will that matter overall? No.
I still strongly recommend Deffeyes's chapter on Hubbert Analysis in "Beyond Oil". It is very clear and there is no point in retyping everything he writes.
Thank you for your very interesting reply. I hope to address the points you have raised in a future posting -- but I don't have time at the moment due to 'pressure of leisure' -- have to go off cycling with Madame C. as promised.
Actually I have read carefully the Deffeyes HL chapter -- in fact, I think it's almost worth a sentence by sentence analysis, since it encapsulates all the strengths and weaknesses of the top-down approach to peak oil.
Coming soon ...
Peak oil is not a problem about science or even technology. Peak oil is a social, psychological, and political problem and we are losing that fight. Further, I will boldly predict that we will continue to lose that fight, until it is too late to do anything about it. Heck it may already be too late as a prior generation tried to warn the world in the 1970s, including M. King Hubbert himself before Congress.
"I quit writing about oil after I retired because I realized it's too late. I'm retired. Time to have a little fun."
There is nothing that frustrates me more than the retarded inveighs against peak oil scenerios ("peak oil" is not a theory but an observation, as JHK has repeatedly stated!) The idea that somehow we can't hit limits to growth is this Randian idea of the intrepid capitalist out to go find the "next thing".
I'm not sure Rand knew so much about thermodynamics.
Anyway... It is a shame that everyone says (CERA's Daniel Terdgin included) that there has been many times before where people warned of oil running out--since it's discovery a little after the mid 19th-century, and this time is the same thing. Everyone fails to mention that the warnings in the 70s were an opportunity to prepare ahead (ala Hirsch Report pre-requisite 3 decade rule.) We had been "tested". And we failed. We were tested again with Enron and the East coast black out. We have been making the same decisions for more than thirty years, and we aren't going to stop now. We will run into we hit a wall, whatever its form may appear as before us. We chose to go the way of "globalization" and the road led here--to the status quo.
Short the market. =]
The politicians will talk it up as if everything is OK, but as some one recently indicated, the GOV will deny everything despite anything contrary, and then blame someone when the CRAP hits the fan! followed up with promises to fix it all up, and raise our taxes............
AARRGG!
Not a chance that Harris will win.
Over here in Sweden we did not forget to use our technology after the 70:s oil crisis had passed and I think we still are in the fight. We need to do lots more but a fair ammount of what needs to be done is at least on the drawing board and in the agendas of all the large political parties. There are very nice synergies in lessening the dependancy on oil, emitting less CO2 and making society less voulnerable to major disturbances and all of those goals are being worked at, slowly but still going forward.
And, finally, what I find "scary" is that such a stupid article could be found in Business Week. What is "scary" is the amount of fossil fuels we are consuming. Whether we are running out of oil should be irrelevant in a world that is determined to do something about global warming. Unfortunately, because our so called leaders won't do anything unless is relates to fear and greed, the existance of peak oil, at least, was a way to get people to do something about alternatives and conservation even if they didn't give a damn about global warming.
But never mind. Most of the country is more concerned about Tom Cruise's baby and Katie's possible botox treatments than they are about peak oil or global warming.
On a related note, there was a guy on Scarborough last night criticizing the CBS news for saying that this new discovery in the GOM would probably not have any efffect on short term gas prices. This was his evidence that CBS is still dominated by liberals. Yeh. Whenever anyone just points out basic, obvious facts, it is a liberal conspiracy.
Yeh, Peak Oil is so last week. We can all relax now and recommence happy motoring as usual.
Agreed about climate change being the biggest danger. A tiny bit of good local news: today I get my hybrid operable: Bike pedal/electric.
I'm thinking of someday tricking out my old Trek with an electric drive - Wilderness, Bionx, Lashout or something. That way if I run out of juice, I can still pedal my way home.
It will be somewhere between 5 and 10 years before the fields from the Wilcox Subsalt Trend come on line. The technical challenges are immense-8,000 ft of water has pressures of 3500 PSI and all installations will have to be constructed with robotics. In the mean time the world is facing five to ten years of flat or declining production. So, my question is why would the contracts for September delivery fall 10% on news of high cost crude 5 or 10 years in the future?
I'm not a geologist, but my thought is that this should open up sub-salt exploration onshore and in shallow gulf waters. As a landman who is a Texas Gulf Coast saltdome specialist, I sure hope so.
But, none of this will be cheap. Production costs will go up exponentially because of the depth and pressures. The era of cheap hydrocarbons is over.
This is why I repeat over and over - we are not confronted with a technical problem. This is a social and political issue. And our social and political systems are going in a direction opposite to a planned transition. We are talking centuries of inertia and the perceived self interest of the dominant forces within the dominant societies.
Remember,
No one ever asks to be happier later.
Garth
Are we happy?
That is a good question, but I would go further and say compared to what? 1950's life? 1850's? 300AD? 2000BC?
Happiness is elusive. A lot of people have trouble finding it. People spend a lot of time talking to psychiatrists and analysts, and take lots of pills searching for it. Rich, poor, young and old all search for it. It means different things to different people. How do you quantify it? Even if we could, would we really want too?
Would you want to live in a world where everyone was constantly happy and positive and walking around with a big smile like Flanders from the Simpson's?
I know where I find my happiness. But that is hardly what is important here. It is that most people simply accept what they are told makes them happy (fast car, big house,) by our culture and that those things are "things," objects. And these are the values of the dominant culture.
And all those people in psychiatric therapy, on pills, etc., most of them are there because they don't find happiness in those "things" and have become convinced that there is something wrong with them because of it.
Indeed, our culture has become so totalizing that even children who do not think like all the rest of us are "diagnosed," labeled and medicated.
Hell, we don't have to measure happiness. We have the government and corporations to do that for us and they know what makes us happy.
So we must be? Aren't you?
Believe it or not, I'm pretty happy. I've got my problems like the next guy, but I enjoy the merry-go-round of life as the earth spins around the sun.
Are "things" bad? If I commission a master woodworker to make me a fancy dining room table, is that wrong?
Should we (pardon the pun) crucify the church for building elaborate churches for people to pray at? Surely they can pray just as well in a cave? Do we tear down the pyramids because they are a symbol of excess? Should the Eiffel tower be torn down and the metal used to build huts for starving children? Is having coffee and croissants at a cafe in Paris excessive? Can't you survive on bread and water?
I'm definitly with you in regards to the doping of our children. It's tragic. And I'm not a fan of today's consumeristic society (especially of throwaway Walmart junk) either.
But human nature is to build and create. There is also a strong urge to leave something lasting behind, a legacy if you will, when we pass away.
No one forces you (us) to buy stuff. But you can't force other people NOT to buy stuff either.
Who are you to tell other people that they shouldn't be getting happiness from "things?"
I really love your posts, I sincerely do. I find myself easily able to relate to what you say much of the time.
I don't understand though how ggg71's response to your post wasn't valid. I can relate to what he said as well. There are some truly beautiful things in this world that have been created by people and I wish I were able to experience more of them. On the other hand, there are some truly ugly aspects to the wasteful side of our society that I've had enough of.
I agree with you that the feeling of happiness is experienced by many people when they acquire new things or pay for "the experience" of something, like a trip to Disney. But I also believe that every "consumer" out there experiences times of genuine happiness that come with the connection to people, nature, accomplishment, and the human experience. I believe you're well aware of what genuine happiness is. It isn't measured by marketing firms or our government.
There have been a couple of folks who've posted recently that they're "retiring" from TOD. It saddens me when our discussions become defensive, impatient, and toxic. One of the reasons I spend time here is because I feel happiness in the experience of interacting with others who want to discuss our world in the early 21st century.
As Bob Shaw posted yesterday to TOD:
GO TEAM TOD! Remember, we are all in this Tragedy of the Commons together--let's stay polite to each other as we strive to learn together.
Thanks, TAB
Thanks Tandersonbrown.
Energy use is not fundamentally bad. Neither is consumption.
Sometimes I think consumption is confused with waste.
The very fact that US Energy consumption is so high, makes me believe that conservation in the US will be possible on a massive level. People in the US are wasteful because they can AFFORD to be wasteful. As energy prices rise due to fewer resources, people will have no choice but to consume less and conserve more.
Unfortunatly this impacts the poor the most.
Davidsmi,
First, thanks for the compliment above.
Second, I honestly don't have any motivation, other then increased knowledge and the enjoyment of a healthy debate. I'm on TOD because I enjoy discussing our current and future energy problems, as well as potential solutions. And I hope you believe me when I say I wasn't trying to intentionally misinterpret you.
Misinterpretration, unfortunatly, is one of the downsides to online communication.
The bottom line is that there is no government quotient for the population's "happiness." No metric. No stat. It's an individual thing. People make their own choices about what they are going to do to make themselves happy. Some people buy a fast car. Others buy big houses. Others join the Peace Corps. You might not like it, but it's their money, their time, their choice, their life.
Everything we do uses energy. Different people have different ideas about what constitutes the "proper" use of that energy. I don't think it's right to judge people on their choices. Last I checked it's still a free country. Energy is sold openly and freely to everyone. You decide how much you want to spend, how much you want to use. Other people get to decide how much THEY want to spend, how much THEY use.
That's the cost of freedom.
Garth
Let me be clear about this - individuals do not create the world they live in. Such solipsism is untenable in philosophy, much less in the social arena.
And this has nothing to do with freedom. You know that, so stop pretending.
Most of us here enjoy the banter and stimulation of a decent and fair debate, but for that to work all included need to follow the basic ground rules or we just wind up talking past each other.
I would guess that some people object to an analysis of happiness, because they suspect that the analyst hasn't really done a good job of it, and they're afraid of coercion based on it.
I think it's perfectly possible to analyze happiness, but it's harder than most folks think, and that many analyses are indeed pretty superficial and narrow. So, we need to do such an analysis very carefully, with respect to a diversity of experience and with scientific rigor. That's not easy.
Finally, we then need to act on that analysis with compassion and non-coercive communication. That's even less easy, but it's necessary (at least according to my analysis of happiness!).
Due to evolution, it is necessarily so. It's also short-lived.
There was a documentary called In Pursuit of Happiness that aired on CBC's excellent The Passionate Eye in the last month that explored this issue. One conclusion was that happiness is relative. Basically, if something changes in someone's life that makes them happy, they will return to their "base happiness level" in short order. The same normally happens with losses, but more slowly and only with greater effort. I think this explains the societal resistance to peak oil that we see in North America.
But happiness doesn't necessarily have to come from what advertising says it should. While other people are happy with the purchase of a new SUV, I'm enjoying the fact that I have the time and resources to explore a less oil dependant lifestyle. Selling my gas lawn mower last year was a happy moment for me. So was the realization that a bicycle had removed any need of a second car. Starting construction of a tiny energy-autonomous cabin on a quiet rural property within cycling distance from my workplace was sublime.
Agreed. However people want as much relative happiness as financially possible. Marketing sells benefits, not products. If I can convince you this will make you happy, even if fleating, I've got you. Marketing is psychology and with advances in our knowledge of irrational behavior (in markets too) we know people will do stupid shiite. Seperating them from their cash isn't that hard - corp profts set a record last QT and cash on the balance sheet was also an aggregate record. We're peaking in consumption come to think of it.
There are other desirable conondrums,I.E. love... I want to be loved, but I cannot compel others to love me. But in this life where people who love me and that I love die and drift away I must learn to love new people and that is more important than receiving "unconditional" love, and is in fact the prerequisite for receiving love.
So much for the philosophy of subjective states. But I do believe that all of us who contribute to TOD in a sincere manner are trying to honestly find some solutions for humanity and deserve respect and good manners. We all have an altruistic motive. And I am interested in everyone's ideas, even if I don't agree, as it seems that others using this blog are intelligent, interesting people.
Congrats on the energy-autonomous cabin! That sounds great!
I'm currently trying to get my household energy requirements down to barebone levels as well. It's not easy, but it's definitly rewarding.
Yet some people do plan and think and dream, and often their vision becomes the new reality. That's our task. Believe me, when I started protesting Viet Nam in 1967 all the US was against us, and the same when I started protesting Iraq. And I bet we will be out of that war in a couple of years. As Peak Oil Cultists (a joke, you silly literalists) we face the same task of changing people's perceptions to conform to the facts. The forces of ignorant self interest and inertia, which West Texas refers to as the Iron Triangle, always lose because thy are basicially stupid and inflexable. They will break themselves argueing with physical facts. This new oil will never be cheap, and the exponential growth of demand will consume any new sources of hydrocarbons in short order.
So, to quote Mr. Brown, Economise, Localise, Produce. Good examples work a lot better than exhortations, and the truth will show through long before any 28,000 ft deep oilfield comes on line.
People operate on stories. Culture is built on these stories. Our predominant story in America is The American Dream. It's false, but that's the story.
To change things, you need to change the story. Show that there is another way, and that it works, and it better than the old way, and things will start to change.
We are not in a situation where we can expect to gather together enough people to protest against a government energy policy. We have to ask people to stop doing things they believe are part and parcel of who they are. Americans, particularly, aren't going to rise up tomorrow and ask the government to ban the sale of SUVs or to shut down mega agri-corps. We're not even going to get them to stop shopping at Walmart. And don't even get me started on preventing the rest of humanity from desiring to copy the U.S.'s warped model.
We are in complete agreement on the need for good examples - and they are all going to have to be on the individual level, because there will never be a national government that will give up on the economic model that has been built up over the past few centuries.
I find Alexis Ziegler to be very insightful with respect to this. In addition to this excerpt from his primer on Conscious Evolution, he has some specific commentary regarding peak oil and biofuels at the link that I encourage everyone to read:
We are living in a time when civil liberties are, in general, expanding like the unsteady but unstoppable growth of economy. This has left us with some dangerous misunderstandings, and self-defeating arrogance about where our liberty comes from.
Democracy, and the expansion of civil liberties that come with it, are not simply the work of enlightened "founding fathers." Democracy, like male supremacy, follows a global pattern. The societies that have evolved into democracies include the Greeks, Romans, numerous European nations, and U.S. Americans. In each of these societies, a central powerful state with a land-owning elite grew first. (The land-owning elite was not as entrenched in America.) As these cultures grew, they sent their militaries into foreign lands, and became colonial powers. As the wealth of colonial exploits arrived back in the motherland, a mercantile class grew up to trade these foreign goods. Over time, the volume of goods arriving from the colonies grew, and the power of the mercantilists grew, until finally, they were able to challenge the power of the landed elite. Thus civil liberties were expanded to the mercantile class. (It is hard to conduct business if you constantly have someone plundering your profits, or looking over your political shoulder.)
So what's this got to do with us? The thing that is important to understand is that the expansion of civil liberties has, in our culture as in every other, followed the expansion of resource extraction. When a society has an enormous inflow of resources, from colonial exploits or from fossil driven extraction, it is economically useful to have a large group of people who are personally empowered. Those empowered souls serve as entrepreneurs, mercantilists, and consumers, driving the economy forward. Democracy can be defined as the ability of groups of people to use their economic position to assert political power. In the absence of an expanding economy, democracy does not expand. In the U.S. after World War II, the income of African Americans was expanding rapidly, as it was for women. This is not coincidental with the success of the movements to gain civil liberty for these groups. But we must also heed the lessons of the Greeks and the Romans, because as their resource base declined, they reverted to military dictatorship. We would be unwise to imagine that their will to freedom was any less than our own.
Why would cultures move so readily from freedom (as we had when we live in gathering bands), to dictatorship of early states, to democracy, and back to dictatorship? Are we in Western society headed for a return to dictatorship? If we allow the gears of unconscious culture to keep blindly grinding along, then yes, we will in the coming decades return to a more authoritarian government. Civil liberties will be restricted from the lower classes upward as our resource base contracts.
They are interchangeable. But also, we never had either. It's merely a wordplay that makes people feel good, since it delivers and maintains an illusion of a measure of control that we can exercise over our lives. In reality, political and economic power can be bought, and are therefore, in our society, the same thing.
If you think your vote carries as much weight as the one coming from Rex Tillerson, Sam Walton or Dick Cheney, good luck.
A free market may well be a fantastic economic model, but we have no way of knowing, we've never seen one in action.
It's like the Gandhi quote:"What do I think of western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."
What we do have today, under the misnomers free market and democracy, are simply systems intentionally designed to lend a semblance of legitimacy to one person exploiting others (as many as possible) as well as the natural world.
How was it again? Democracy stops working when people discover they can vote themselves an ever bigger share of the commons.
"The illusion of freedom [in America ] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
~Frank Zappa
John
We might remember that the founding fathers owned slaves, and slave owning went away after a horrible civil war, but also the rapid expansion of fossil fuel based machinery, which made slavery redundant.
Now even poor people have large numbers of machine slaves, which do the work of many people and draft animals.
Expansion of sufferage became not only permissible, but desirable, starting in England in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, because economically valuable people demanded it, and because there was no pressing reason to continue denying it.
The entire global society is addicted to the benefits of machine slavery; so it will be interesting to see how our society responds to the diminishing of machine slavery. Will we be content with a falling lifestyle, or will the powerful classes start taking away liberties from foriegners and the lower classes?
The record of the past six years is not very encouraging.
Isn't Bushes guest worker program going to create this second class citizenship catagory that has fewer rights and freedoms? Perhaps the powers that be feel it is essential to have these workers so that citizens can maintain the standard of living required to support democracy.
Just throwing it out there
Have I missed any names? Look at any "from the front" (and generally unauthorized) blog from Iraq, complete with cellfone photos, and you can see this is the vast majority fighting at the front. The elite have been denigrating them for the past 20 years, white-trash have been fair game in press, TV, etc and you all know it.
So we have our underpaid and overworked and considered-racially-inferior underclass, and after the Indians and Chinese have smartened and headed out (failing empires are never fun) they'll be here to do the shit work, like they've always been.
Frank Zappa! RZZZZZ!
(Just a teaser here - but how many are aware that what we typically call barbarism - in other words, the nomadic forms of culture - actually post date the rise of mono-culture civilications?)
The problem for the nomads (from the historical perspective)has always been that it has been the "settled" civilizations that have written their history. As civilizations expanded outward they inevitebly came into conflict with nomadic groups. The city folk thought this was empty land because the "barbarians" only passed through infrequently. The nomads, of course, were moving or following their herds in search of grazing area, they may not have occuppied the land in the same way, but they needed it, nonetheless, to feed their animals. So, the city dwellers thought these wild men came into these areas and attacked them for no reason other than that they were uncivilized. But to the nomads, they saw the city dwellers as the interlopers.
Of course, this gets compounded when population pressures caused large populations (city or nomad) to move into areas otherwise unknown to them.
It's nice to see someone claim that it was utter disaster that forced us to settle down, not innovation or superior intelligence. That helps explain why the first farmers were smaller and sicker than their traveling brethern. And then for the priceless::
- "Life: The Movie", Neil Gabler
And gets away with the plagiarism because his American audience hasn't and wouldn't read the original.
The original has a lot more punch. Boorstin doesn't even read his source very well.
This passage from Ludwig von Feuerbach The Essence of Christianity (1841) principally remembered because it is quoted at the beginning of Marx's Theses on Feuerbach. The commentary and literature on commodity fetishism and false consciousnes is extremely extensive, there has been a constnt stream since the 1840's and it never goes out of fashion.
Except of course in America where to admit any knowledge of intellectual history is the same as confessing to being a card carrying member of the Communist Party. Boorstin knew darn well what he was plagiarizing but neither reader nor reviewer would call him on it because to do so would be admitting a connection to a wider world outside Murica.
This makes a difference for the doomers, since the downslope is looking a little less steep. It makes any collapse look more like Kunstler's Long Emergency or Leanan's preferred catabolic collapse than an Olduvai Gorge. Yes, I do realize that these are all forms of collapse, but the first two allow for more adaptation.
OTOH, if it gives us more time to ramp up CTL, then it's a big problem for climate change mitigation. I've thought for a while that growth and demand would reverse, setting up a late 70s/early 80s scenario where demand drops, creating an oil glut which then kills off alternatives, while at a lower level of consumption. That cuts off the need or impetus for CTL, since we adapt to the lower level of consumption without the coal, and happens too fast for CTL plants to get running. If oil production falls off more smoothly and over a longer period, we may well get the CTL plants running.
They also allow for a lot more damage to be done to the environment. Catabolic collapse means all resources and capital converted to waste...and hence an eventual crash to way below the carrying capacity and level of technology that existed before the complex society arose.
IMO, a long, slow catabolic collapse is actually the most doomerish of scenarios.
"most doomish of scenarios"
This phrase just called to mind the review I read last night of Cormac McCarthy's new novel. Sounds like a real doozy -- bands of cannibals chasing the main characters through a devastated, ashen landscape:
http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0636,holcomb,74342,10.html
I keep trying to convince myself we're not headed to a place this horrifying, but with increasing difficulty.
The key question is the rate of development of the plugin/EV market. That's moving faster for trucks than for personal transportation, which is probably good, as they're the transportation basis for business.
(I live on PV energy, including for short run transport, but it is not very realistic to think it will become mainstream anytime soon...)
Page 8, 2007 (later years aren't accurate for wind, because they're beyond the planning horizon):
http://www.nei.org/documents/Energy%20Markets%20Report.pdf
Wind is now the single largest form of electrical generation being installed in the US, with 44% of the market in 2007(adjusted for capacity factor)...
Of course, as I discussed in another post today, coal is also growing again, so whether wind takes the lead over coal depends on GW awareness.
We've covered this ground before -- but the coal vs. wind choice is a false one.
Forget not the nukes. If I were king of the world, I'd have an aggressive wind and nuke buildout right now to replace 100% of our coal plants and add extra capacity (with the intention of decommissioning the nuclear plants in coming decades when another zero carbon technology is viable to replace them). But the key is, it would need to go hand in hand with a move to replace/retrofit our vehicle fleet to run on electric power.
The point is that our action has to begin now, now, now, with the intention of cutting CO2 emissions close to zero in a short timeframe.
(And I would include some serious and near-term trials of climate mitigation technology. One that seems relatively harmless and practicable is have fleets of vessels on the oceans that spray large quantities of salt water into the atmosphere -- the salt particles then seed clouds to reflect more sunlight into space and do some reflection in their own right. Serious scientists have also discussed intentionally putting more sulfur into the atmosphere. The downside is acid rain, of course, but that's nothing compared to the competing downside. But a large number of "environmentalists" tend to be remarkably dogmatic about winning individual battles, missing the context of the war. In fact, I would argue that "the environment" as the term has previously been used, is not longer that relevant. The only remaining question of any importance is whether we can keep the global biosphere from complete collapse.)
What motivates the view, of course, is the "global warming awareness" does not include the extent to which the mechanisms of climate change are accelerating beyond all predictive models. See for instance:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/09/07/climate_time_bomb_forecast?rss_id=B oston+Globe+--+National+News
This is the most important fact right now about climate change.
With it comes the realization we have a very small window in which to act (whether in reality it is too late already we don't know, but no reason not to take the hopeful view). And with said acceleration, our actions now could be of enormous importance -- magnified in coming decades.
Personally, I think we could do it faster and better with wind and solar (check out nanosolar.com), vs nuclear, but that's a relatively small detail. Nuclear would work, too. I suppose the best plan would be all three in parallel.
Seriously, though, I don't know whether your plan would work but it's worth a try. If I were co king of the world, I would place an immediate moratorium on any new fossil fueled power plants. I'd also take a chance with nuclear but am still a little bit concerned that the fossil fuels required to build them, mine and process fuel, and estalbish the necessary nuclear priesthood for indefinite storage might negate the fact that they emit no co2 during electricity program.
We can't go on as we have been, but we will. I guess we can.
Well, that's kind of the fallacy that the past will resemble the future. I mean, I know we're on the same team here.
My belief in nuke power is simply that EVs are clearly the way to go for personal transport, and I simply do not believe that wind + solar can run an electric grid + extra capacity for EVs. I mean, that's not even remotely realistic.
And your concerns about nuclear power are well founded. But again... the alternative is fantastically more appalling.
Everyone loves the analogies of human beings driving off a cliff or into a brick wall (myself included), because they're accurate. We still might have time to slam on the brakes, but time is so vanishingly short in that regard.
Instead of making and watching entertaining TV shows and worrying about everything that we worry about, industrial societies should radically reorganize around two principles:
*cutting GG emissions as dramatically as possible each year
*getting together our best scientific minds in a Manhattan Project to come up with realistic mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Putting on my psychologist's hat for a moment (though I'm not one), it would actually improve the quality of our societies and most people's personal lives to have a collective mission.
It's terribly frustrating that the insane course of action is so frequently considered "realistic" while the sane one is "absurd".
In any event, I fully support your "plan", but this would require some short to medium term sacrifice which will not be forthcoming from the world's people.
Why is that? The US has more than enough potential wind alone, and solar on roofs could also do it alone, capacity wise.
Wind is cheap enough. Solar is getting there very quickly.
Is your concern intermittency? Plug-in's and EV's would solve that neatly, with charging demand management and V2G.
Plugins and EV's would only add about 13% to electricity consumption (210M vehicles, 200 whrs/mile, 12k miles/yr, vs 440 GW current consumption).
I would so love to be proved wrong. And I know that some are arguing that it is possible in theory.
Intermittency is a primary concern of course. And theoretically, I agree, that needn't be fatal.
I guess my answer would be: large industrialized countries are run largely on nuclear power. We have the example of, say, France. There are no untested assertions here.
As soon as even a medium-sized town or city anywhere in the world (even minus EVs) runs entirely on solar and wind-power, then I will consider converting. Say a town of 100,000 or even 10,000.
But, look, you know that I think we should motivate all our societal capacity toward answering this problem. Nuke plants usually take a decade to build under present circumstances, but if you start start streamlining the process and do it more of a "wartime" mode like that the one both sides used for producing armaments during WW2 that timeframe could be reduced dramatically.
As I've stipulated: any nuke capacity buildout should be stipulated to be a temporary measure, intended over the long run to be replaced by solar and windfarms, assuming our societies are still together enough to manage such a thing two or three decades down the line.
Actually, France is a good example of the effectiveness of load balancing of a difficult-to-manage power supply. You see, power demand is pretty proportional to solar insolation, cause humans are active during the daytime. Nuclear, OTOH, produces power 24 hours per day.
What France does is sell most of their power during the night to their neighbors, and import heavily during the day. France would be in big trouble if they were an isolated power system.
So you see, they're actually a case-study of how to balance supply with demand when your power source is out of sync with demand. Now, the nature of the discrepancy is a little different, as the intermittency of demand is a little more predictable than the intermittency of wind and solar, but the magnitude of the discrepancy, and the problem is the same.
Another example of a solution to the nuclear problem, which is strikingly similar to the kind of solution that might be used for wind and solar, is the Ludington pumped storage facility in Michigan, which is paired with nuclear power.
Indeed we are very lucky that our immediate neighbours have the good grace to stick to the VERY OPPOSITE PATTERN OF CONSUMPTION than us.
The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits.
Albert Einstein
Interesting, which form of "production" produce LESS at night time beside solar?
What I mean is, I would be much obliged if you would try to make you points that are clearly related to the previous post, rather than making short posts that may seem like repartee, but that don't provide sufficient detail to allow an answer.
We were discussing nuclear vs wind, and the environment that would support them. Apparently you have opinions about nuclear, wind and solar, but I can't quite tell what they are, and why.
In my first reply, my point "clearly related to the previous post" was that your argument about immediately neigbbouring countries providing relief for an unflexible nuclear production schedule does not hold water.
An I am still talking about that (a subtopic of the general nuclear vs wind question with respect to production schedule and grid regulation).
To clarify the reference to solar in my last reply, I mean, since solar is NOT YET of any sizeable importance for any neighbouring countries of France it is not the case that they plausibly produce LESS at night.
I see I have to provide the dots, connect the dots, provide eyesight training, provide logic courses, quite of a drag for every minor point, sigh...
My understanding is that in fact they are doing so, by reducing their production at night from fossil fuels, hydro and wind and using France's nuclear electricity instead. Do you have information to the contrary?
" solar is NOT YET of any sizeable importance for any neighbouring countries of France it is not the case that they plausibly produce LESS at night."
We weren't talking about solar, and I wasn't suggesting that the complementary production in neighboring countries was solar. Rather, as above, it's reduced production from fossil fuels, hydro and wind.
The discussion was about nuclear, vs renewables especially wind. The previous post suggested that nuclear had proven itself in France, as France produces a very large amount of electricity from it. I was pointing out that this arrangement only works because France is part of a larger system, so that instead of nuclear proving that it could provide 3/4 of France's consumption, instead what was proved was that nuclear could provide perhaps 1/3 of a much larger grid.
This is similar to the situation for wind and solar, which each need to be one component of a larger system.
Of the market for new electrical generation capacity.
Wind is now the single largest form of electrical generation being installed in the US, with 44% of the market in 2007
Come on. Numbers easily mislead, as do words. This is like saying the population of Monaco grows faster than that of China.
DOE 2006 electricity generation:
Coal 53%
Wind: not even a category, so it's one of "others", which total 1%
Let's say wind is 0.5%, and that's already a stretch, that means it's less than 1% of coal. And hundreds of new coal plants are planned for the US in the next decade.
What neck and neck? The ant and the hippo?
"hundreds of new coal plants are planned for the US in the next decade."
I think that exaggerates the situation. The NEI data that I pointed to in my earlier post
page 8, http://www.nei.org/documents/Energy%20Markets%20Report.pdf
is the best source I've been able to find for actual plans. You can see that there are 120 coal plants on the drawing boards, and the peak year is 2009 at 19.4GW capacity installed.
Keep in mind that wind could easily grow from 11GW in 2007 to over 20 GW by 2009, and that the majority of these coal plants are very early in the planning process (about 10GW were announced a month ago, in Texas), and many will be cancelled.
What's important is not the existing stock, but what's being installed. There's no question that the volume of wind installations is in the same league with coal - just look at the table keeping in mind that wind has a 1 year planning horizon, so the 2008+ numbers will rise dramatically. Further, with a little luck global warming awareness will rise to the point that new coal plants are stopped entirely, pretty soon.
Ranchers love 'em. Wind Generators pay $1500 a month to the landowner per windmill. These things come in 100 unit farms , folks. The windfarms jobs start at $20/hour, compared to the chickenshits at Wallmart paying $6/hr for 29 hours a week. The owners of wind generators don't live in the Counties and pay ad valorem taxes while not voting for the County Tax Assessor, so the school boards love 'em. And the cows like the shade and don't bitch about the noise. They are even beginning to offset the decline in royalty from oil wells for the Permanent School fund. And, the cost per kilowatt hour is now less than the cost of electricity from natural gas. They're the greatest thing since Blue Bell Ice Cream!
I don't think oil prices are crashing on this news.
We're coming up on the shoulder season. Gas and crude supplies are ok right now.
The markets never make sense in the short term.
Transition? What transition?
I don't see no stinkin transition...
Page 8, 2007 (later years aren't accurate for wind, because they're beyond the planning horizon):
http://www.nei.org/documents/Energy%20Markets%20Report.pdf
Wind is now the single largest form of electrical generation being installed in the US, with 44% of the market in 2007(adjusted for capacity factor)...
On the document you posted, did you look at the planned coal-fired capacity in years 2009 and 2010? It looks like there is more electical capacity planned from coal in those years than in from all sources(wind, natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc)in 2006.
Many of the projects shown in this table won't be built - it's useful primarily as a comparison between different sources, as this is true for all of the sources. You can expect wind to keep growing, while some of the coal projects will not be built, but you won't see that in this table for 2008 for about another 6-10 months.
So, 2006 and 2007 are the only years for which this table is comprehensive for wind. The interesting question is the outcome of the horserace between wind and coal: wind could replace coal entirely for new projects in 5 years if the country decides to get serious about global warming. Wind requires a little more planning, for transmission, load balancing, demand management, power supply and demand forecasting, etc. These are new things for utilities, and coal is easier. For instance, Texas has great wind resources, and yet TXU just announced a big coal plant building project. It doesn't really make sense, but....it's easier.
Some utilities in CA, MN and NY are much more flexible. Others will need...coaxing.
This is Mike's point exactly - it isn't going to happen. And, if you think it is, I'd be interested to know how and why.
My best guess is that wind and coal will share the market 50/50 for the next 5-10 years, and then the country will get to a critical mass, and we'll get serious about global warming and stop building coal. Actually shutting down coal plants will happen eventually, maybe 15-20 years out, starting with the least efficient and dirtiest.
Not as fast as needed, but better than nothing.
This is Mike's point exactly - it isn't going to happen. And, if you think it is, I'd be interested to know how and why.
In this context of uncertainty, people tend to evaluate new pieces of information not just in terms of what that one piece of evidence means, but rather as a token or sign of what the trends are. When good news starts coming in, people assume that there may be more good news to come, that this may be a sign that trends are moving in a favorable direction.
You see the same thing here, but in the other direction. When bad news comes in, people here say ah-ha! - see, this means that the trends are going in the way we predicted. Each interruption in production, each declining field, even though the circumstances may be specific to that particular location in the world, is seen as part of a larger pattern. Evidence is promoted from the particular to the general, from the local to the global.
This is human nature, and it's probably a reasonable heuristic given the uncertainty we face. Nobody knows how quickly oil demand will grow in the next few years - it may even fall if the U.S. housing market crashes and pulls the world into a recession. Likewise nobody knows for sure what will happen on the supply side the next few years. We could have a glut or a shortage of oil. In this fog of uncertainty, every piece of evidence suggests a trend, and people, both individually and collectively via markets and governments, react to it.
Bravo.
As Oat Willie used to say.
"Onward, Thru the Fog"
JC
Well I guess that settles it then. Oil is infinite, and will never peak. Now why don't I feel better? What balderdash! And he's paid well to spew it.
There is no "safe" energy except for wind and solar, which cannot yet compete with either nuclear or fossil fuels.
The safety of nuclear power cannot be considered in a vacuum -- it is a comparative thing, and that comparison should be to coal. Realistically, the vast majority of any electric power that displaces petroleum for transport and the vast majority of new generating capacity in the US (and China) are going to be either coal or nuclear.
But coal is not "safe" -- between mining accidents, black lung, and air pollution alone it kills far far far more people than civilian nuclear power ever has or will. It causes far more environmental damage from sulfur and particulate pollution. And it is, of course, the absolute worst in terms of carbon emissions.
Most nuclear-related fatalities tend to be late-in-life cancers. On the other hand, take a look at public health stats in China, where coal-source air pollution has a massive toll and kills millions of people.
With that in mind, I wonder if the nuclear rod on the beach in Scotland (and other such expected dangers of nuclear power) is less "safe" in either human or ecological terms than, say, making the climate change situation ever more intractable and hastening this kind of stuff:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1860206,00.html
http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com/articles/291/1/Caribbean-Facing-Dire-Environmental-Future/Cari bbean-Facing-Dire-Environmental-Future.html
"Managers from the plant assured him that the event was a one-off. But since then, 66 more particles have been found. The latest comes from rods that Dounreay's workers call "bone seekers". They pose a danger to anyone who comes in contact with them.
"Mr Minter has carried out his own investigations and says he has uncovered numerous cases of incompetence and errors, including serious accidents covered up by the Official Secrets Act. Faced with the evidence of their own records, the plant's managers admitted that the particles on the beach probably came from accidental releases. They said that, over the years, tens of thousands of irradiated particles could have been spread over the local coastline.
Guess it was SWEPT UNDER THE RUG.. glad that was the only one!
_______
"Hi, I'm Clint MacLure, and you might remember me from my other films, like "Nuclear Energy, our misunderstood friend." - The Simpsons
It's now editorially OK to use the words 'peak' and 'oil' in the most mainstream of American magazines. That's a big step. And it's humorous, in a macabre, gallows sort of way, to watch the glacial pace of acceptance of a game-changing dynamic. Admit it, MSM has a tough job dragging circa 300M Americans into a new and harsh reality. We're still in the denial phase, but I can see in the above quote an attempt by editors to slooowwwlly condition the unwashed masses to get beyond de-Nile.
P.S. Sorry to non-US readers for the US-centric language. But I feel unqualified to speak for other cultures. Heck, I barely understand my own much of the time. :)
I think it was effective in crushing the momentum that had developed in the PO awareness campaign.
I think there are powerful forces, doing everything they can to STOP the message of PO.
I hate to say this, but I think this fight to get the truth out is futile and it is really best to make your own personal plans and hope for the best.
I know I have not contributed much to TOD and most will not miss my posts, but I like, some others here, am going to back off participating in TOD. I will check in occasionally to see what you all are doing.
You are a unique group and hope others have the will to keep it up.
Good Luck All!!
There are three potential paths (global, community, and individual) to mitigating and adapting to Peak Oil and the problems it engenders:
1)Global - Large scale macro policy changes, like gas tax, power down, oil depletion protocol, electrification of transport system etc
2)Community - Local level changes like: eating locally, using renewable energy sources from locally advantageous sources, changing local economy to be less reliant on fossil fuels
and
3)Individual - Try to improve ones own life. Lower ones desires and increase ones ability to provide/produce things that oil gives us easily now.
Some will primarily spend their efforts on only one of the above. Others will spend a little time on all 3. Ultimately we all want to improve our own lives, but to ignore community and national policy opportunities comes with a long term price.
Each of us are individuals but there is huge leverage in the social structure of our species - dont underestimate the amount of change that one person or one community can have by setting an example. Whether you read TOD or not, you can still participate on all 3 levels. Good luck to you.
Have you not heard? the entire rationale behind "powerdown" looks like feng shui.
Just from a tax/expense basis, the ability to take land and make a go of it farming means long hours with dangerous power equipment to be told 'your food is to expensive' - all to make the nut to pay for insurance, taxes (land...not alot if income), energy bill(s), repair/maintinance of building/equipment...on and on.
Meanwhile, back on the tax front....
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/105
http://www.freedomtofascism.com/
And on the healthcare front:
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/534/534114p1.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
http://davidsirota.com/index.php/addressing-the-countrys-health-care-taboo/
And on the insurance front:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/katrina_lott.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/state_farm_insi.html
So one should go ahead...take a job that makes onework hard and puts you at alot of risk of physical injury and subjets you to goverment paperwork just for moving hay about.
http://www.supplychainreview.com.au/index.cfm?li=displaystory&StoryID=28154
- personal
- household (family)
- local community (neighbors, friends)
- local bioregion (city, county)
- state
- national
- global
I view the EROI for zones 5 thru 7 as steeply declining and with a high opportunity cost. Zone 4 may also be problematic. In my case a low social EROI for Zone 4 played a part in my decision to relocate from Sacramento CA to Eugene OR.I'll be watching the rest of ya...no pressure...but, the future of the world is in your hands...jk...adios!!
Thanks, guys.
"Six Degrees of Separation" was a good movie...one of Will Smith's first. The movie eventually lead to the "Kevin Bacon Game" didn't it?
Anyway, we were at a permaculture guild conference in Eugene Oregon and heard about intentional houses. Basically it's up to 5 people sharing a household, like a cooperative. These housholds are then linked together into a larger community, like a permaculture guild, so you have something similar to an intentional community without everyone living together. This is basically what is happening in Eugene Oregon.
We thought this was a great idea, loved Eugene - which is rated as the top Green City in the U.S. - and bought a house on .4 acre for $245,000 within 4 miles of downtown - easy bicycling in flat Eugene. Major factors in our decision process:
- plentiful clean water supply. Our property is hooked to city water but also has an irrigation well. We also saw several rain catchment systems in use.
- land and climate suitable for growing most of our own food. Typical lot size is about .36 acre, plenty to grow food, and much of Eugene has great river bottom soil. It does freeze, but there's not much snow. We saw people growing a wide range of food, and citrus is posssible in greenhouses.
- low reliance on fossil fuel energy. EWEB, the power provider, gets 71% of their electricity from hydropower. Most homes are all electric. We saw a couple PV installations, and Oregon has tax credits and power buy-back provisions for PV. One home we visited is near to net-zero energy use, combining passive design with PV and solar water heatinng.
- an active community focused on sustainability and relocalization. At the conference there were 100+ attendees, about 40 of whom got there by bike. Within bike range of the conference facility - Dharmalaya - are five advanced permaculture sites. Eugene has a huge farmer's market every Saturday, and there are literally dozens of CSAs.
There are disadvantages to Eugene. I5 runs close by and the air quality is sub-standard. It also rains and is cloudly more than average. Having just endured 11 days of 100+ temperature in Sacramento CA - a new record - and with predictions of 50 to 110 days a year of 95 degrees and above, and considering all the pluses, we've decided to make our stand in Eugene.Hope this helps.
When I first started reading about this stuff and you never heard a single thing about Peak Oil in the mainstream media. The only place I would find any news articles is gold bug websites and other off-the-wall websites. Then in the last few months we see some more mainstream articles in Chicago Tribune, UBS agreeing there will be Peak Oil, the bloomberg article, etc., etc.
Then we hear about the Jack find and how it MAY have 3 billion to 15 billion barrels of oil OR gas and will be extremely expensive to produce. And the anti Peak Oil guns are a blazin'. Quite interesting. Peak Oil has went from something a bunch of nuts worry about to something the mainstream media has found the need to blast down with a find that could be between one and a half months to six months of world supply at present consumption rates.
I always find it interesting when they say Peak Oil is false. What has been going on the U.S. since 1970? Environmentalist conspiracy to keep oil production down? I really just can't understand how the natural logic of oil fields peak and decline leading to the aggregate that countries peak and therefore the aggregate of countries, the world, will also peak. And once the world begins decline the unconventional oil source will not be able to ramp up faster than the decline of the world. I've never heard any convincing argument why the world won't peak and decline when that's what oil fields actually do whether its now or in 20 years.
Reminds me of open source code. Originally open source code was "a cult" but each year the logic of having more eyes look at code to eliminate bugs continues the growth of open source to the dismay of companies like Microsoft who is now starting to integrate open source.
Sad to see the biodiversity go ...
I could've sworn I saw an article either here or in the news somewhere stating that there is a large concern over perma-frost melting in various regions of the world and that as the perma-frost melts, the release of gas trapped by that ice would accelerate, and in turn fuel additional rate growth of global warming.
If this turns into a fuel source to run China or anyone else, how are they going to be able to keep the methane trapped until they are ready to use it?
As for global warming, if sea temperatures rise sufficiently (and they are rising) then the methane clathrates will melt of their own accord releasing all that methane into the atmosphere. For reference, methane as a greenhouse gas is about 20 times more powerful at holding in heat than CO2. Prior major extinctions in geologic history are associated with large methane releases. To assume that we would be exempt this time simply displays the foolish snobbery we humans have over the rest of the planet.
Melting lakes in Siberia emit greenhouse gas: Methane from thawing permafrost could increase global warming
Ever the faithful mouthpiece for the right.
In the print issue they had a sidebar about how the US has reached a "New Record!" for energy consumption. Outstanding.
I'm all for a new, gigantic oil-field in the GOM, I just wish it was more realistically marketed than this...
TheDave
Guts? Don't they mean 'True Grit', or is that just the next grade of crude that we'll have to find a way to refine?
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=8563
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-09-07T122931Z_0 1_N06141314_RTRUKOC_0_US-OILMAN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
What we're seeing here is a bandwagon of denial, with the most fearful the first to jump on board. Friends, do not give up. Now is the time to bombard the irrational with the facts. Sharpen your pencils and let Business Week and their ilk have it.
It looks like we are now around phase 2, eventually at the beginning of phase 3.
So, dear TOD contributors, keep going on, the fight is not over, it is just starting.
Whatever the outcome they have lost already, you are now in control.
See it for what it is, Peak Oil has won. Not that they could have ignored it to much longer anyway. But we have still won the tug of war of information, they started arguing against the concept.
That is what he meant by the saying. IMHO.
The way I see it, once the MSM is done having its orgasm, the Gulf find will completely vanish from the news, and the MSM will move on to the latest hot news item faster than you can say Jon Benet Ramsey.
Once the reality that this find won't translate into increase domestic oil production for many years begins to sink in, and once gas prices start climbing again, and once we start seeing chronic supply tightness, then perhaps the concept of Peak Oil will not seem like such 'garbage'.
One thing though: I don't think that the Jack field or other similar finds, regardless of how big, are really going to buy us any more time, because of what I will call the 'Deferred Term Paper Syndrome'. This is where the professor unexpectedly gives the class a one-week extension on the term paper due date. Everyone in class feels so relieved that they go out and party and then goof off for another week. Predictably, they will in the exact same state of panic as the new deadline looms and not a scrap of work has been done of the term paper during the extra time granted. And that's the way it's going to work with these additional oil finds.
Wouldn't the analogy make more sense if we wait untill close to the last minute, and then work like hell to put alternatives in place?
Or did you get an F?
Garth
Well, while alternative energy such as wind and solar are indeed experiencing healthy growth, there still isn't anything like a Manhatten Project type of massive government pushed crusade to put tens of billions of dollars worth of alternative energy systems in place ASAP.
Even if there were, the alternative energy businesses couldn't absorb all that money in such a short period of time. A large project tends to have a certain minimum lead time that cannot be accelerated very much by throwing more money at it.
Regardless of how large a financial incentive you offer, nine women working together cannot create a baby in one month.
That won't help our population problem, however.
I like the baby analogy. That's funny. (And good!)
Can I assume 4% depletion, and 2% growth?
Conservation will most likely be the first swing producer. Not only will there be economic incentives to conserve, the government will probably fund all sorts of programs (tax incentives) to help consumers switch from lower to higher efficiency equipment.
Solar Hot Water, Instant Hot Water, higher mileage cars, hybreds, electric vehicles, mass transit, telecommuting, etc...
Next, industries that can ramp up quickly to capitalize on the high costs will do so. To the detriment of the environment, this will probably be Coal. Powerplants will most likely switch to coal freeing up Natural Gas.
I expect NIMBYism on Solar and Wind projects to disappear.
Nuclear will then be put on a crash course. Say 5 years to the first new plants.
I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but we will adapt.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
"The faces of power debate has coalesced into a viable conception of three dimensions of power including decision-making, agenda-setting, and preference-shaping. The decision-making dimension was first put forth by Robert Dahl, who advocated the notion that political power is based in the formal political arena and is measured through voting patterns and the decisions made by politicians. This view was seen by many as simplistic and a second dimension to the notion of political power was added by academics Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz involving agenda-setting. Bachrach and Baratz viewed power as involving both the formal political arena and behind the scenes agenda-setting by elite groups who could be either politicians and/or others (such as industrialists, campaign contributors, special interest groups and so on), often with a hidden agenda that most of the public may not be aware of. The third dimension of power was added by British academic Steven Lukes who felt that even with this second dimension, some other traits of political power needed to be addressed through the concept of 'preference-shaping'. This third dimension is inspired by many Neo-Gramscian views such as cultural hegemony and deals with how civil society and the general public have their preferences shaped for them by those in power through the use of propaganda or the media. Ultimately, this third dimension holds that the general public may not be aware of what decisions are actually in their interest due to the invisible power of elites who work to distort their perceptions"
However, as a political scientist, if you have comments to add on agenda setting and debate, that would be of interest to me and probably others now that PO is moving more and more into the MSM as a topic.
Political Science (like any area of study) is not nearly as unified as the word "science" might seem to suggest. But here is my take on agenda setting. The most you can expect out of our political institutions (with the possible exception of the occassional enlightened locality) with regard to peak oil will be discussions on what we can do to replace oil. They are not capable of addressing the growth ethic that is the root of the problem, not because they are evil people, but because the institutions themselves have been set up to reflect and support the underlying cultural assumptions that created them - and the people that wind up in them are supporters of those assumptions (they have to be in order to even be there).
This is why I say the problem is even deeper than Mr. Brown's "Iron Triangle." It is our culture itself that is working to prevent us from solving the problems we face. <Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox now, before I really get in trouble>.
Good stuff. I think you are right. The institutions can "Rearrange" the Furniture, BUT it is COMPLETELY out of context to REPLACE the Furniture.
I remember seeing a cartoon and a board of directors are meeting at a big company and the Pres is saying.
"I don't get it, We have cut costs, We have streamlined our operation, We have revamped our marketing and are sales are still in terminal decline."
On the wall in the cartoon picture is a calandar saying 1920, and Outside the window you see the company name.
"National Buggywhip Inc."
They couldn't understand that their entire PREMISE was wrong.
They can chose solutions from the variables WITHIN the Set, but if the solution requires a variable OUTSIDE the Set, It cannot be done. (math set theory).
and this statement;
"...will be discussions on what we can do to replace oil. "
Exactly. NOT replacing Oil is a solution OUTSIDE the Set of permissible Culturally supported values or options.
It would be like saying we need new transportation, and be taken to a Car Lot and then asking a salesperson "What kind of Horses ya got?"
Does Not Compute, Does Not Compute, Does Not Compute...
until the computer crashes.
Tell'em that their Theory's logic isn't what's wrong, It's your "Givens" that are wrong.
We are the Buggy Whip Mfg's and it's 1920.
John Carr
We're a part of our culture, after all, so changing the culture means we must each change. Not an easy thing to swallow especially when it means I have to challenge the means by which I earn my paycheck, which feeds me and my family, pays my mortgage, etc.
I think the courage to step out of this paradigm that is our culture is something found in very few people. It is yet another reinforcement to my realist position. We're entrenched in a system and even though it's obvious that the system is destroying us, getting everyone to change to the degree needed is simply not realistic.
TAB
I notice some very worrysome trend on gasoline stocks in the US : the gasoline stock is gradually replaced by blending components while finished gasoline is declining, flirting with its historical lows.
Statistical error or worry ?
We have a small Peak Oil Meetup group in Atlanta, and have just committed to have Richard Heinberg come and speak the evening of Wed Oct 11. We are scrambling to find an affordable venue that will seat 200-600 people, so if you have any ideas or contacts please email not me but Liz Logan at ebethouise at yahoo dot com. We have two options that are less than desirable - one a church that seats only 200 and the other a conference center that is too expensive. We are hoping to get a classroom or something at one of the universities, preferably GA Tech or possibly Emory, and any contacts there or other ideas would be most helpful. Thanks!!
Several people who post here belong to our group. We are meeting next on Wed Sept 13 at the Toco Hills library at 7:00. Please come and help us put this event on. For info go here.
Try one of the local UU churches. UUCA is big enough to hold that many people. Their rates are generally reasonable, and if one of your memebers is a member of the congregation you might even get the venue for free.
We'd like to have our event at GA Tech, Emory or maybe GA State. We have another church lined up, but we think these venues would be even better. We are in the process of contacting these folks, but if anyone has a connection, we'd love to know about it.
Thanks so much!
The other Liz
From The Energy Bulletin:
This is most strange. Oil may very well be loaded directly onto a tanker but not natural gas. Notice #5 states: The wells are most likely mainly natural gas... Loading natural gas directly onto a tanker is impossible, it must first be liquified. This requires a huge cooling train and massive amounts of electricity to run them. I would think putting such a train on an offshore platform would be impossible.
So the question is, what are they going to do with all that natural gas? Perhaps reinject it?
There must be a misunderstanding here. Does anyone have any further information on whether there will be a pipeline or not?
Ron Patterson
Nobody has ever produced oil or gas in this water depth. Any pipe or Christmas Tree (wellhead fittings) will have to withstand 3500 lbs. of water pressure plus whatever pressure is in the formation. This is going to take very sophisticated engineering and materials science. All of the equipment will have to be installed with robotics or waldos on submarine vehicles.
All this probably can be done, but not quickly, and its going to take a lot of new equipment technologies. I think it is just too early to figure out how they operator will achieve getting the oil and gas produced and marketed with the small information that is available. My best guess is subsea well equipment and pipelines to a platform in shallower water where the oil will either hook up with existing platforms or be produced into tankers, but I'm not an engineer and I'm not paying for it, so my guessss isn't worth much. But one thing I do know is this will be very expensive oil and gas.
Clinton to get custom hybrid SUV
This news generates so many questions!!!
The Oil Drum debate, round one
I was just sent the link. I like the fact that TOD is considered a "powerful blog."
The writer(s) go in the right direction, but your man Vinod's clouds of words are too confusing for them, in the end they simply they don't get your EROI argument. Bit of a shame. But at least they tried.
This whole moral thing that is thrown in from left field confuses me, I must say. "Yeah, we'll burn more than we get in return, and it's a pity about the land, but it's the moral thing to do?!"
My picture is from my employee ID. It is only about 8 KB. It is the only one I had handy when Etopia asked me for a picture a few weeks ago for the interview I did with them. Venture Beat obviously got the picture from there.
The writer(s) go in the right direction, but your man Vinod's clouds of words are too confusing for them...
You noticed that too. Notice that he never answers the question put to him, instead going off on all kinds of tangents. Even when caught red-handed making false claims, he can't come right out and concede that he was wrong (see his answer on Brazil, for instance).
Took the fifth,
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The former head of pipeline-corrosion monitoring for BP in Alaska refused to testify under oath Thursday as outraged lawmakers grilled company officials over the causes of a massive oil spill earlier this year."
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060907/alaska_pipeline_hearing.html?.v=21
What's today? September 7, 4 days ahead of the 5th anniversary.
Why do I get the creeping suspicion he might be "caught" before November 6?
It's not that I don't like coincidence, or spontaneity, don't get me wrong.
I guess it is the heavy steel parts such as the preassure vessel, steam generators in a PWR and turbine axels and casings. Is that correct? What other parts take a long time from order to delivery? What do these long lead time parts cost in percentage of a completed plant or millions of dollars?
Latest update from Bloomberg for your consideration.
Is Mexican-elect Calderon moving to hoarding Mexican FFs? Or is he totally unaware of Peakoil and Cantarell crashing? I have no idea!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
to the Lexington Herald-Leader Others are welcome to copy (please make small changes, H-L has a 250 word maximum).
The recent headlines about the ninth successful (+ four dry holes) very deep water well in the Lower Tertiary (Wilcox trend) appears to be successful "marketing" by 50% owner Chevron more than a dramatic breakthrough with Jack #2. 25% owner Statoil of Norway, which is less concerned about American politics and public opinion said "... A decision whether to develop Jack may be made in 2007 or 2008, Statoil's Mellbye said. The field would start production in 2013 if development goes ahead".
This contradicts the "750,000 barrels in new daily US crude within six years" on your front page. Peak production follows many years after first production.
The other 25% owner, Devon, talked more about early, and bigger, very deep wells than Jack #2.
The total very deep Wilcox play may have 3 to 15 billion barrels of oil EQUIVALENT. That is oil PLUS natural gas. Only if the maximum 15 billion barrels is 100% oil would this be a "US reserve increase by 50%". At the depths noted, all observers expect much of the oil equivalent to be natural gas.
Your headlines did a disservice to the truth of a nice oil play that will, at best, reduce but not reverse the 33 year decline in US oil production. And the truth that the US must soon start using significantly less oil.
Like the recent drop in gasoline but not diesel or aviation fuel prices, I wonder if early November votes are part of the equation in this news "marketing".
The successful test drill for oil in the very deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico was greeted with a lot of hype in the headlines [Herald, 9/06]. When we read the fine print, however, we see the devil in the details. In addition to the important qualifiers mentioned in the AP article, consider the following.
3 to 15 billion barrels is a huge range, and estimates usually end up being overly optimistic. Note also that the estimates given are for combined oil and natural gas - probably much more natural gas at this deep level. Even at the most optimistic level, it's only 2 years of U.S. oil supply at 2006 levels of consumption (the U.S. consumes 7.5 bbpy, not 5.7, as the AP article claims, and this consumption is growing at 5% per year).
When and if this oil actually comes on line, it will do nothing more than replace existing production declines in the Gulf. Oil production in the U.S. peaked in 1970, and now that we're nearing the peak in world oil production, we need to face the truth that fossil fuels are finite, and we need to begin making other arrangements. We must begin using less.
Get a clue. If there is money to be made by finding oil, oil will be found...for the forseeable future
One more point...the fact that my name - Gusher - has not been taken long ago, tells me what a gloomy group of people you mostly are.
Don't be shy to post your thoughts.
No one here has a monopoly on truth.
We're all exploring. Playing with facts, numbers and ideas.
That is a valid observation.
I suppose it all depends on how we each choose to view the world around us.
Like this:
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Or like this:Note: Clicking on the last picture will link you to the Fate of Humanity power point site. It is a long read. If you are patient and read through the whole thing you may understand why so many of us are pessimistic.
If you are the impatient type, I recommend you do Chapter 5 first (Easter and St. Matthew Islands). I think the Easter Island statue building industry execs got it "real" that there was money to be made in building statutes ... bigger and better each time.
Statue pundit, Drain-all Yurgent told them that "technology" would come through to assure many decades of continued production. He foresaw an undulating plateau of ever increasing statue productions. Sure there were a bunch of pessimistic Cassandras running around yelling mad stupid things about a bunch of dumb ole' trees. But why listen to them?
Be kind to the newbies. I can't believe you've out-done me on that one. Do you think he deserved it?
Come back anytime, Gusher. We need your happy thoughts.
Two points here:
First, Gusher asks a valid question. Are we overly pessimistic?
Second, a lot of people read these pages without ever commenting. So I didn't post those pictures (and it really does not take that long) for Gusher's sake alone. I suspect many of the silent majority are asking the same question that Gusher had the guts to pose out loud.
And I was already taking care of that fire drill even as you posted.
When do I get my raise?
(BTW, are you a midnight insomniac like me?)
Rats, humans... Semantics. =]
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=true&print=yes
You really think people are so dumb that they don't react to market forces...and find better ways? And solve problems?
The pressures must be building up too fast in your agile well head.
I never said "people are dumb". If you want to call anyone dumb, call me dumb. Then I can't argue with you on that one.
Your actual pressumption, as implied in your question, is that "The Market" is somehow going to pick up on some extraterrestrial "signals" indicating that something is going terribly wrong.
And then The Market is going to slap a lot of smart people awake with a swipe of its Invisible Hand. They are going to wake up and "react" to that Market Force by saying to themselves:
There are too many twisted ideas in that pressumption for me to cover in one long rant.
First, though, let us observe that according to market theories, "The Market" IS ALREADY operating with the best (optimal) solutions that it can provide because "The Market" has already factored in all the billions of possibilities.
It caused those possibilities to compete with each other in the free market of ideas. It concluded that our current, non-negotiable way of life is "the better way". So you see? This already IS the best of all possible worlds. The Market is not generating a massive Apollo Program in reaction to the fruit cake Peak Oil problem and that in itself proves there is no problem. It would be a waste of scarce resources to react to a problem that simply ain't there.
Second, according to the extra-terrestrial Market signals being broadcast into my local TV tube, there is a current excess of governement foreclosures and liquidation sales that is creating a golden opportunity for me to get rich quick by jumping in to those real estate deals before they are all gone forever. A once in lifetime opportunity. Sadly, that is a new Market reaction, a better way, an optimal solution as we may call it by way of which the Golden Market forces are showing themselves to me and a few of my fellow insomniac TV watchers.
So in conclusion, yes Gusher, there is a Santa Claus.
And yes the Market is finding the better ways -as it always has (cough ... after all 1929 was the "better way").
You are welcome for all those photos.
I hope they helped you to step back and see the bigger picture.
So now what is your view? Are we overly pessimistic?