Last year I posted a lot of data published in the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2014 published in May of last year, and the next one is due out Tuesday April 14. We are looking forward to that. But the EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2014, published last September, completely slipped by me. How did I miss that? But I looked at their predictions for world Crude plus Condensate production I found it very interesting.
In the below, though the data was posted in September, I have assumed the 2014 data was complete. Though it may be a little off it is close enough for, as the saying goes, “government work”‘. The data is in million barrels per day with the last data point 2040.
The EIA is expecting World C+C to reach just over 99 million barrels per day in 2040. That will be up 21.25 million bpd from 2014.
This chart shows just which countries, they believe, will be responsible for that 21.25 million bpd increase. That is except for OPEC. They do not break out OPEC production by country.
As you can see the EIA expects OPEC, in 2015, to produce even less than they did in 2005. Yet they expect the lions share of production increase in the future to come from OPEC. They expect OPEC C+C production to increase production by 14 million bpd by 2040.
The EIA expects Non-OPEC to continue increasing production right through 2040.
But the EIA is not expecting great things from the USA. This EIA expects the USA to plateau in 2016 then start to decline in 2020.
The EIA has World C+C production in 2015, less USA production, almost the exact amount it was in 2005. So all the production increase in one decade was due to increase in USA production, primarily shale oil production. Yet they expect none of the production increase in the next 26 years to come from the USA. They say that USA production is headed down while most all of the rest of the world’s oil production is headed higher.
This is the EIA’s projection for Mexico and Chile. Mexico produces about 2,400,000 bpd and Chile produces about 7,000 bpd. So Chile’s contribution to this can be totally discounted. This is what they expect Mexico to to do in the next 26 years.
The EIA expects Canada to continue to increase tar sands production until total Canadian production nears 6 million bpd.
The EIA expects Russia to peak in 2016, decline slightly then head back up in 2026 then really take off in 2030.
The EIA expects Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field to come on line soon and to be producing over 1 million barrels per day by 2025 but to still to keep increasing production until 2040.
Needles to say I think the EIA’s long term projections to be almost absurd. World production has been basically flat for 10 years except for US production. But just when they expect US production to plateau and start to decline they expect almost every other oil producing nation to take off like gangbusters. This is simply not going to happen.
However it is the EIA’s methodology which I find extremely interesting. They just appear to pulling numbers out of the air, especially in the case of OPEC. But the USA is the one place they they could not just make up numbers. Well not numbers that were too big anyway.
In other news:
Contango in the oil market is responsible for the huge inventory build
The 12 month future price has stayed much higher than the one month futures price. This allows speculators to buy oil at the one month price (currently $51.7/bbl), immediately contract to sell it at the higher 12 month price ($58.20/bbl), and collect a profit.
The profitability of the storage trade is necessary to soak up the excess production which continues to outstrip near-term demand by a considerable margin.
The chart below illustrates the close relationship between the WTI futures curve and storage levels. A rising line indicates an upward-sloping futures curve – contango – that makes the storage trade profitable. Steeper contango is usually followed by higher inventory levels as speculation increases.
Contango is now declining, making the storage trade less profitable. On Feb. 27, a buyer could acquire oil at $49.80 per barrel, sell it at $64.50 per barrel for delivery in February 2016. The profits would have been $10.25 minus storage costs for the 12 months before delivery.
Notice that the inventory build did not start until the futures market was well into contango. So it makes perfect sense that this is, or was, what was driving the huge inventory build and not an not an increase in production. There was an increase in imports however.
From this article we get he Understatement of the year.
Kemp: US Oil Production Is Probably Peaking Right Now
The EIA includes estimates for U.S. production in its weekly and monthly publications. However, these are based on extrapolating from limited data and subject to estimating errors, which are likely to be especially large when the production trend is changing.
_______________________________________________________
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Well, it’s all about Russian shale. The report for which from Doug continues overdue.
GAZPROM NEFT DRILLING UNCONVENTIONAL TARGETS IN BAZHENOV FORMATION
“Completion of fracing operations at all wells resulted in hydrocarbon inflow at varying degrees of intensity. The next stage of this project will involve the drilling of four horizontal wells and the identification of the most effective strategy for the commercial development of unconventional reserves at the Bazhenov formation.”
“Seismic investigations are set to continue, with the company planning to commence horizontal drilling in 2016. The second phase of the project will be dedicated to resolving technological issues: selecting the optimum construction of wells and technologies for the implementation of multi-stage fracing, adapted to the specific conditions of the Bazhenov reserves.”
“Gazprom Neft First Deputy CEO Vadim Yakovlev, commented, “Gazprom Neft continues to actively advance its independent investigation of the Bazhenov formation. Thus far, these resources have been considered ‘unconventional’, but their development is a key strategic objective in our development, and we will soon begin new projects in this area. The development of tight reserves has long been a speciality of Gazprom Neft, insofar as this category constitutes a major part of the company’s resource base. And we have proved our effectiveness in working with these: the proportion of high-technology wells in our portfolio is now in excess of 30%— a record within the Russian oil sector.”
http://www.worldoil.com/news/2015/2/27/gazprom-neft-drilling-unconventional-targets-in-bazhenov-formation
Well, that’s data. The horizontals will tell the tale.
“Well, that’s data. The horizontals will tell the tale.” Yes and no Watcher. As you well know, the Bazhenov Fm is vast so the more important parameter (re “world class” reserves) may turn out to be facies variations that I expect can be reliably assessed employing modern seismic. Note that I’m using facies here in terms of suitability to fracking. I have little doubt the oil is there but a lot of it could be: A “Technically Recoverable Resource” i.e., not real (as far as I’m concerned).
Oh, that’s not what I meant. I meant the horizontals will tell the tale because one presumes they will choose a locale for them to . . . tell the tale. They won’t be selected to flow a lot. They’ll be selected to inform.
Yes?
In that context we might get a report of . . . only one of the four horizontals flowed very much oil, but that one might represent common geometry and the other three might also represent common geometry/geology. And thus they would then know which of the 4 types are going to flow.
IOW they will have intelligently discovered what geology structures will be sweet and what won’t. It will be a huge triumph and success, but the report will say 3 of 4 wells were worthless.
Jesus Watcher, that’s all too subtle for me, a low life geo-type. But, thinking more a bit more, there’s a (fair) chance you’re right. I’ve never played poker and the Russians like chess so things will be going on I’m clueless about — as always. But that’s why you get the big bucks. Cheers D
A single location won’t really provide an answer about the overall prospectivity.
If I were in charge of the project I would have regional studies done using the available well data, pick the cherry spots and drill two horizontals from existing pads located so they can reach such spots. Frac them and produce them.
They need at least 50 wells over a wide area. A parallel project would involve 4 to 5 multiwell pads with say six wells to tap these cherries and produce them for say five years.
The effort to follow depends on results.
Doug, what do use to forecast fancies for a 5 meter thick siltstone or fine grain low permeability sand embedded in the shale? Please note I mentioned 5 meters to make it a real challenge.
If I weren’t fully retired and enjoying my life otherwise, I would employ well-log sequence analysis, synthetic well-to-seismic ties (tying data from well logs to the seismic section); do a seismic facies analysis (determining variations of seismic parameters within individual seismic sequences and systems tracts to establish lateral lithofacies/fluid type change seismic facies analysis of the geometry of reflectors within sequences and systems tracts, amplitude, frequency, continuity and interval velocity); interpret depositional environment and lithofacies from the determined seismic facies parameters coupled with knowledge of the regional geology; complete forward seismic modeling to interpret stratigraphy and fluid composition at or near the limits of seismic resolution by wave-form analysis (a second purpose would be seismic simulation of a geologic section showing stratal surfaces and impedance contrasts); finally I’d prepare an integrated final interpretation based on your interpretation objective and the actual data available nicely typed up and personally delivered by my beautiful blonde blue eyed secretary (Approved by my beautiful blonde blue eyed wife naturally). Then send you a largish invoice, of course!
Big picturish item.
This is GAZPROM drilling. I extrapolated to oil, but they probably aren’t looking for oil. I would presume the geology desired is different for gas vs oil.
No OIL: Of course if they had the brains they would have hired me for this project, Fernando and I.
GAZPROM NEFT STARTS SHALE OIL PRODUCTION IN WESTERN SIBERIAN FIELD
“JSC Gazprom Neft reported start of shale oil production from the Bazhenov formation during tests of two wells in southern Priobskoye field in central western Siberia. Tests are planned for two other wells.”
“In addition, the company has been analyzing 3D seismic data and well-core data from the Bazhenov-Abalak formation in southern Priobskoye, with four directional wells planned in the first stage (OGJ Online, Oct. 2, 2014). The Abalak formation lies beneath the Bazhenov and, in some instances, abuts it.
http://www.ogj.com/articles/2015/02/gazprom-neft-starts-shale-oil-production-in-western-siberian-field.html
Well son of a gun. They are trying to replace Rosneft.
They are going to win. They being Russia.
They are going to win, they are going to have the only thing that matters and they are going to very properly ask . . . why should we send it to you people who imposed sanctions?
If you really want it, you’re going to have to pay something other than money for it.
Gazpromneft is a rookie outfit. Gazprom, the gas company, is mostly a pipeliner. Their gas fields are so idiotically simple they didn’t know how to manage anything complex below the surface. They are going for shale as a side issue. Their hands are full developing Yamal, and from what I see of them, they don’t have much skill to work South of the Ob River.
Fernando, unfortunately, there is no much oil to the South of the Ob River. Priobskoye and other major oil fields are around the middle of Ob.
Gazprom Neft used to be a private oil company Sibneft. It was renamed by Gazprom after acquisition. In turn Sibneft was formed after privatisation of Noyabrskneftegaz, a Soviet state company established in 1981. It develops oil fields around Noyabrsk since then. Does it sound like a rookie ?
Aleksey, Sibneft is a weak former NGDU. I met with them in the past, and I don’t think a Gazprom subsidiary has a particular claim to have technical or operational superiority. Rosneft has much better capabilities because they inherited Yugangskneftegaz and the other properties stolen by the Menatep oligarchs.
The discussion above said Gazpromneft was looking for unconventional hydrocarbons in South Priob. I don’t think they have a special advantage in that area.
Gasprom Neft is an oil subsidiary of Gazprom. It was known as Sibneft until Abramovich sold it to Gazprom.
Abramovich was an oligarch. He didn’t know how to run an oil company. Prior to that Sibneft was a large NGDU. I don’t think they ever developed very sharp skills.
Did I ever pitch my software to you back in the day? GRIN!
How do you suppose some politicians are going to react to the projected decline in the US?
Won’t respond?
Say the numbers are wrong and a conspiracy?
Drill, baby, drill?
They will say it’s because of excessive taxation and burdensome government regulations.
Good one. I forgot about that one. It should be on the list.
OTOH lower taxes would reduce breakeven.
Sure, but all it really does is shift the burden onto the state, which is already paying for massive road repairs.
Socialize the losses and privatize the profit. Isn’t this what the game’s now about?
Horseshit. Oh yea it’s all those bad taxes that the government gets causing this. If only we quit needing to repair roads all our troubles would be over.
What an over simplistic view.
Watcher, you are a card. I suppose severance and ad valorem taxes could be reduced, but I thought breakin even means no income taxes. I can tell you that Uncle Sam isn’t going to get much of anything out of us on oil this year, the way things look.
Don’t sweat it.
When it is pointed out the top 1% of earners in the US pay something like 60% of total income tax revenue, a way is generally found to define this as something other than injustice.
I think we are going to need a link for that stat Watcher.
CNN Money
As a group, the top 1% earned nearly 19% of all AGI reported that year, but they paid 35% of all federal income taxes, which was about 2 percentage points less than the year before.
According to this article, it’s 45%.
http://www.aei.org/publication/as-tax-day-approaches-lets-thank-top-20-for-shouldering-84-of-the-income-tax-burden-with-only-50-of-us-income/
It also says the top 5% of earners pay 64% of the Income Tax.
The top earners pay most of the taxes because they make most of the money. And the reason they pay a somewhat higher percentage in tax than their share of income is that we have a progressive tax system. It was designed to have the rich pay at a higher rate. No surprises here.
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners
How is it an injustice? If they make more income and have more wealth than others, they pay more taxes than others.
Hi Boomer II,
You don’t realize how unfairly the very rich are treated.
They are subject to a great injustice! 🙂 We should reduce their tax burden and raise taxes on those lazy middle class types. 😉
No, no, don’t you understand? The poor have all the money!
That’s true! But they owe every last cent of it to the rich >;-)
Exactly.
And, the rich owe it all to John Galt, who invented a gadget that pulls energy out of thin air…
BTW re storage. WTI was down from $110 to sub$60ish in Dec last year. Storage hype didn’t start til after that.
And if the refiners are telling us that they are increasing trying to avoid buying what US producers are selling, perhaps we should believe them?
U.S. refiners turn to tanker trucks to avoid ‘dumbbell’ crudes
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-usa-refiners-trucks-analysis-idUSKBN0MJ09520150323
The key word in this headline is avoid*, as in refiners don’t want more of the crude/condensate blends.
As I have frequently mentioned, the CEO of Pemex expressed similar sentiments, when he was discussing their need for sweet/light crude oil imports last year. He noted that they needed crude, not condensate.
*Avoid definition:
a·void (ə-void′)
tr.v. a·void·ed, a·void·ing, a·voids
1.
a. To stay clear of; go around or away from: swerve to avoid a pothole.
b. To take measures so as not to meet or see (someone): “He never let go of the idea that she lived out there in order to avoid him” (Elizabeth Benedict).
2. To prevent from happening: You can avoid illness with exercise and a balanced diet.
3.
a. To refrain from using, engaging in, or partaking of: avoid red meat; avoid risky behavior.
b. To refrain from (doing something): It was all we could do to avoid laughing at the remark.
4. Law To annul or make void; invalidate.
5. Obsolete To void or expel.
Mr Brown, this is a place of stoic deadpan academic analysis, not a comedy show. Please restrain yourself. Or should I say: please AVOID this uncalled for flippancy. The EIA may be watching.
Here, here. Harumph. We need more called for flippancy! Especially the pertness.
flippancy
noun flip·pan·cy \ˈfli-pən(t)-sē\
plural flip·pan·cies
unbecoming levity or pertness especially in respect to grave or sacred matters
Just trying to be helpful. It occurred to me that perhaps many contributors don’t know what the word avoid means, so they didn’t understand the headline.
I thought a void was a vacuum or something.
My wife claims voids are large regions where modified gravity may lead to measurable differences from Einstein’s theory, my daughter says it’s a musicology term, my Grandsons says Void is a computer game and my banker probably thinks it’s something to do with old cheques. Personally, I try to avoid voids.
You should see the global gravity databases now contained in fighter aircraft weapons delivery puters. Ditto magnetic variation maps, including the south atlantic anomaly’s impact.
Doug, I take it your wife thinks the gravitational “constant” isn’t constant. This makes a lot of sense. Could you ask her if the effect is suspected (or postulated) to be related to local differences in the space time expansion rate?
According to my wife, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space. But, close to home, complicating life is that gravity is one of the constants which is less than constant — when it comes to being measured — making attempts to calculate its strength is an uphill battle. Something is wrong with the experiments that have been carried out so far or there is a flaw in our understanding of gravity (It’s also possible incompatible measurements are pointing to unknown subtleties of gravity or perhaps its strength varies depending on how it’s measured or where the measurements are made?) One interesting idea developed by Hořava, and others, is that gravity may also create the “illusion of dark matter”. I seem to you recall you mentioning something like this earlier though I didn’t pay much attention at the time.
I have a unique visualization about the way it works. Mailed it to Guth many years ago, had no answer. If I can find my old notes I will show you. It’s a bit different, I need a lot of graphics to show my doodles. And it’s quite incomplete. The basics: Gravity field around a galaxy is anisotropic, the force pushing in is larger than the force pushing out (this excludes rotational effects).
Coincidentally, I just watched a decent film that touched upon time, and in Wikipedia’s Black Hole entry under one of the images, that film, Interstellar, is mentioned.
Admittedly, after reading these comments, it had me poking around the net for the past 3 hours, which left this comment, half composed, lying around in another tab, frozen in time. I am 3 hours older than it. ^u’
It can also be used as a verb…
Void: To urinate. The term void is also sometimes used to indicate the elimination of solid waste
(defecation).
It might be wise to avoid those who are voiding near ventilators (fans)
>;-)
Thanks Fred, that’s a valuable contribution to a vacuous (empty) discussion. Actually I preferred your elephant metaphor down below. But why are you always sharing comments with morons? Oops.
Doug,
Are you saying my Great GrandPappy was an Ape?
By the way Doug… any clue as to when you might acquire that info on the great phantom Russian shale gas field?
Steve
Oil. See above.
Jeffrey, please cite the source for your ‘avoid’ definition, otherwise, you could be just making it up.
Nothing says that a later pile-on can’t cause the effects to continue.
-Lloyd
If a comet the size of Texas was headed this way and they knew it was going to be a direct impact. Do you think they would tell the public about it?
They have to lie when things get serious!
That would be extremely obvious, hard to cover up that one. The entertainment would be listening to what the deniers come up with. Let’s face it, we have enough stacked globally devastating predicaments right now that it might as well be a direct strike by a large object. Still, the flim-flam people keep chugging out the denials and the fake controversy.
Pretend is the only way to extend BAU. Like we’ve had a recovery when the labor participation rate is at the same level as it was in 1978 when we had far fewer people. But everything is great and future has never been brighter. Guess if enough people get in front of a camera an say it or write about it the masses believe it to be true.
The Baker Hughes Rig Count is out. Oil rigs drop by 42 to 760. I had not expected that. I thought they would be leveling off by now. Texas was the big loser, down 29. Eagle Ford down 12 and the Permian down 21. Part of the Permian is in New Mexico and that’s why the total adds up to more than 29.
At sub $95-$100 oil shouldn’t all shale oil plays be consider non cermercial at this point? Art Berman said that the very best companies in the sweetest of the sweet spots need $85 oil. Shouldn’t we expect rig counts to keep falling at least in all the shale plays until price makes those plays cermercial once again? As long as they are loosing money rig count should continue to fall right?
If prices don’t rebound it will blow holes in those projected production numbers the EIA has for the US.
I think it is interesting, however, that large US oil companies such as COP say their best opportunities are in US shale. They and others have divested overseas assets to invest more in US shale. Only high cost development options left.
After the Thanksgiving announcement, a thought I had was that KSA would wait till enough rigs went down, particularly in the US, then there could very well be a cut announced, causing a price spike.
Having no experience in the area of big service companies, maybe there are those who could answer my hypothetical question.
Say we stay on this trajectory till early 2016, and oil rigs fall to 400-500, maybe less. Spring of 2016, OPEC announces a significant cut, price climbs as summer is approaching.
Given many of the service company employees have been let go over 6 months, how long does it take to ramp rigs back up to start growing US production again?
Shallow, to arrest decline, or to reverse decline? I think it’s mighty hard to reverse decline. But you would have to be more specific. It also depends on warehouse stocks. How much casing and tubing will be left in storage? I assume steel mills are ramping down oil country tubulars.
Shallow / Fernando
The other thing, depending on how long the downturn goes on for, is how cannibalized the stacked rigs will be? The service companies will use the stacked rigs as a spare parts supply to save money. First it will be warehouse stock, and when necessary, the working equipment will be stripped and used.
Also when rigs are stacked, they are either warm stacked, minimal crew to preserve, grease and turn over all the equipment to keep it serviceable. Cold stack on the other hand is no crew, maybe fill and cover equipment with preservatives and walk away from it. As Matt Simmons always said rust never sleeps, and rust loves stacked rigs, especially cold stacked ones.
Six months will be no problem but after a year or so, there will be many, especially out of date rigs that will have drilled their last wells.
On the other hand, 2015 was suppose to be an expansion year for land rigs in the US. Numerous modern rigs were coming out from the manufactures, and these will no doubt be preserved and ready to go the industry turns around.
I don’t feel this down turn will be long enough to have too long term effect on the rig supply market, unlike the 1986 down turn where up to late nineties the US had lost the capability to cast a new BOPs. If you wanted a new BOP, you bought a second hand reconditioned one.
edit
On the other side, a lot of the employees will flee to other industries. There will be plenty of people for a mild upswing, but to get back any where near the previous heights will require a lot of recruitment and training once again.
Toolpush, Fernando. Thanks for the responses. I guess when I typed grow, I meant at a minimum stop the declining US C + C production numbers. I read that shale is able to react quickly to a price increase. However, in our little world, it doesn’t work that way.
We have no plans to drill wells this year. If we had a sudden price spike to say $80, we still would not be in a position to drill immediately, even if we wanted to. There is a lot of preparatory work just to drill a 800′-2,500′ infill well on one of our leases. We would be lucky to get everything ready within 120 days, and of course, we would also want to see a stable 80, so chances of us doing anything this year regardless of price, I would say, are nil.
I guess I also wonder how quickly large companies adjust CAPEX budgets after a down turn. Don’t they want to see some price stability at higher levels before they adjust upward?
A high stable price from 2010 to late 2014 brought the large US and Canadian production increases. I don’t see how a short, quick move higher causes an immediate increase in production. And that is assuming the large number of drilled, but not completed wells.
Shallow, the budget can be kept on hold by witholding the approval to prepare locations and contract rigs.
I would have options to stock casing and well jewelry, schedule setting up contracts for October to November 2015, prepare locations and if the price looks ok put the rig contract signature for January, with mob in February. This allows the well to come on in April. Check the price forecast starting that month. The really slow pace allows you to hardball every contract.
we would also want to see a stable 80
Wouldn’t the futures market give you that? In other words, why wouldn’t you sell the expected output (or 80-90%, anyway) into the futures market?
We are small, and the only way we can hedge without posting a large cash margin is through buying puts, which are not cheap. We have done that before, however, and wish we had this time around too. Price of course would depend on forward strip. Also would need to enter into an ISDA with a counterparty.
If oil were to go from here to $80 quickly, would likely be a volatile situation, where there could be a spike past $100. In that scenario, a SWAP at $80 would leave a lot of profit on the table. Tough to know when to pull the trigger.
Our practice has been to defer $ to a separate account, used for drilling. Right now, that $ is not being spent in case of further downside, or major CAPEX/repair issues, which would require fixing to keep things going.
Nick G, you do make a good point. However, hedging isn’t as easy as it looks. The public companies probably would do just what you say, they have people who’s full time job and expertise is that, likely would be smarter than us at that, however, oil prices are difficult to predict, as was shown in most recent collapse.
Yeah, I’ve been on the other side, and it’s not easy. I think the key is to not get greedy, and to not try to time things perfectly – you have to be happy with “good enough”.
As you say, greater size helps a lot with cost and counterparty issues. I don’t understand why the bigger players didn’t hedge more. Over confidence and greed, I suppose.
Another problem: a relatively fast price increase could give us fairly steep backwardation until the market had more confidence.
The funny thing: the futures markets weren’t created for speculation. They were created for exactly this: commodity producers and consumers contracting for future delivery at a price certain.
Tool push: tell your friends who want to stack rigs to send them to Arizona. The dry climate really helps.
Sounds great Fernando,
But my friends all work offshore and it is going to be bloody hard to transport a floater over the Rockies! Maybe float it up the Mississippi, and then take it on a tour of Route 66. smiles.
As you bring up the point, do they take any of the land rigs to Az? The general rule seems to spend the least amount of money as possible when you have no money, and worry about the consequences latter when you do have some money?
I do know that Arctic offshore rigs kept in the Beaufort were in really good shape after 10 years. But they were in ice most of that time.
I saw rigs stacked in southern Argentina, they did well.
For offshore rigs I would haul them into Port Arthur and keep two guys painting and greasing 5 days a week.
Ron,
several companies had previously announced that they would cut rig numbers in the second quarter
I think that’s mainly due to the expiring drilling contracts
I like to “normalize” to Jan 2014 – it helps visualize the surplus buildup (see plot). There are another 4790 rig-weeks left to work off; at the current rate of -950/week, in another 5-6 weeks as much work as created the surplus will have been removed from the system. However, not all rig-weeks are created equal!…
Hey Ron I prefer your posts of the BH rig count than mine. Much easier to read, lol.
I still see stories about the drop in rig count don’t matter as they are the low productivity rigs, yet this week most of the drop is in oil rigs, horizontal rigs, drilling the so called most productive areas of the Permian and Eagles Ford?
The Eagle Ford at this rate is bound to take a drop in production as it has a much faster decline rate than even the Bakken. I wonder if the EFS produces are finally getting the hint from the refiners, they really do not want their product the EFS produces like to call oil?
Even with the Nat Gas price at low levels the gas drillers seem quite stable relatively to the oil drillers. I wonder if they are expecting a demand boost from the LNG plants coming online later this year, or hoping the power industry will pay the price they require as coal plant are shut down due to EPA regulations?
Hey, push, I don’t know what’s prompting the Haynesville rig count to hold steady, but the Marcellus/Utica operators are still drilling to, amongst other reasons, hold their acreage as per their lease agreements.
Presently, Pennsylvania has over 30,000 sq. miles of land that is permitted for drilling – an area triple the size of North Dakota’s four prolific Bakken oil-producing counties. Several of the major operators have said only one half to two thirds their land is currently held by production.
The hedge positions of the gas producers is still relatively strong with one, Antero, having between 50%/90% output hedged at near $4.50/mmbtu.
Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG plant is slated to export 2 1/2bcfd, within a year, not a huge amount relative to to continued increase in output.
Possibly the biggest motivator to keep drilling is related to the increased pressure in New England to expedite pipeline expansion.
Several utilities there have stopped taking on new customers and are even prohibiting existing customers from switching in house appliances (stoves, dryers) from expensive electric to gas.
New commercial and residential developments are planning on emplacing underground propane tanks – to be resupplied by trucks – for their heating needs.
Coffee,
Just saw your reply. I got a kick out of the mention of installing Propane tanks as the gas companies can not supply the Nat Gas.
One of the main reasons the pipelines are not being built is the resistance to fracing which is the corner stone of the new Nat gas supply, yet the propane they are now being forced to use will be coming from the same wells and the same process as the Nat gas is coming from. I wonder if the protester realize that propane will produce more CO2 than the methane will in the Nat gas? The protesters are also obviously not worried about the CO2 involved in burning the heating oil that the Nat gas is trying to replace? Not even thinking about the price difference.
Lucky they changed the regulations on Heating oil from <2000ppm to <500ppm, in the New England states. Only later are they going to drop it 15ppm the same as diesel on road fuel and most of the other heating oil states. /sarc
Sometimes I think back at the old bumper sticker, "Let them freeze in the dark" and have a chuckle to myself.
New York, which consumes more residential heating oil than any other state, reduced the amount of sulfur allowed in home heating oil to less than 15 ppm in 2012, down from the earlier limit of 2000 ppm, and Rhode Island dropped to 50 ppm sulfur in 2013. Four more states — New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont — will limit sulfur content to 500 ppm this July.
Other thing to mention: storage enables to stabilise prices. However, storage has limits. If the current trend continues in the US, storage will be full within the next few month. If that happen, there will be a crash of oil price and a reduction of shale oil production or import from the US …
“Misperception #6: We are running out of storage space for crude. We’re not. We’re going to be OK. Volumes have increased, especially at the oft mentioned Cushing, but Cushing accounts for only about 10% of US storage. Other storage areas are up but nowhere near as much. The reason is that physical traders like to park their inventory close to market and Cushing gives them that proximity. Also, Cushing is not a dead end. There are large pipelines that connect it to the Gulf Coast where storage is more plentiful and not nearly as full. ”
Also, part of increase of inventories is because of increased crude imports.
As of February, 20th, U.S. crude oil storage capacity utilization was up to 60% at 434.1 million barrels (~ 300 million over 521 million barrels in PADDs).
EIA crude oil inventory data include estimates for pipeline fill, lease stocks, and crude in transit from Alaska. Subtracting those volumes removes about 120 million barrels from the larger definition of crude oil inventories, or almost 30% of the national total. Even with these adjustments to inventory, the estimates of working storage capacity utilization provided above are slightly overstated because estimates are not available for volumes in floating storage, tank bottoms, and oil on rail or barges.
Since then, crude oil inventories jumped to 482 million barrels. So there are about 150-170 million barrels of capacity left. At the current rate, this is 15-17 weeks or about 4 months … Even if it takes 6 months, this is still a few months from now IF there is no change in the current building of inventories.
Chris, don’t forget that refinery maintenance season is nearing its end and that ‘driving season’ is around the corner. Effect of rig count drop will be noticable within 3-6 month probably. I think oilprices are rising now (even though dollar is strengthening) in anticipation of this, together with expected world oil demand rising in the second half of the year.
Also, the U.S. could decide to import less oil.
Wow, I wonder where the EIA is getting it’s info from, the IEA? How can they project that kind of increase considering that the price would have to go up over $150 a barrel to even attempt such a massive increase (against falling production). What is with the Mexican rise? Are those analysts smoking some really good weed or were they told to make the future look good for oil? Don’t they realize that all the cars will be electric powered by 2040? What is all that oil for?
They are making it up. The projections are not based on any reality at all.
I ask you, is this really hard to believe? Hasn’t lying about everything been a part of the fabric of the modern world for some time now?
You see, that’s the only real problem I have with this blog and others since I discovered peak oil. In my opinion, you have to start with the assumption that all of the data and projections are more or less lies. Or, at the very least, start with the assumption that all of these figures are just pulled out of somebody’s rear end.
Only then can you try to piece by piece, put together the true picture.
And, are you are joking about the comment on electric cars? Most people will consider themselves lucky to have a car at all, much less energy to power it, in 2040.
I thought the answers came from the man behind the curtain.
Most people don’t have a car now. Many people would love to own a bicycle.
If the developed societies have not switched to alternate energy by 2030, it means they have ignored some really obvious occurrences prior to that.
For slightly different outlook for those who wonder if solar PV prices can continue their downward trend much longer:
Solar PV wafer producer 1366 Technologies announces USD 5 million investment from Chinese venture capital firm Haiyin Capital
‘Direct Wafer technology replaces several inefficient machines
1366 Technologies’ Direct Wafer forms multi-crystalline solar wafers directly from molten silicon instead of today’s multi-step, energy- and capital-intensive process. The technology replaces several inefficient machines with one, uses 50% less silicon than traditional methods and creates meaningful environmental benefits by eliminating slurry (a highly abrasive liquid used during wafer cutting and polishing) and halving silicon waste.
“Direct Wafer is an advanced manufacturing process that brings tremendous value to the silicon solar production line, one that doesn’t require tradeoffs between cost and sustainability,” said Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies.
“The appeal of Direct Wafer is not only rooted in the technology’s significant cost advantages – the ability to deliver solar at the cost of coal – but also in its sustainable processes.” ‘
As long as manufacturing process improvements like this keep coming the prices will keep going down, provided some black swan event doesn’t interrupt the normal course of events. Unlike the EIA projections up top, I would find projections indicating a x% drop in the price of solar PV, based on the sort of process improvements in this story, somewhat credible.
Alan from the islands
It’s interesting how some in the oil and gas industry point to technology as the answer to getting more oil at a cheaper price.
But some of the pro-fossil fuel camp seem to discount technology giving us renewables at a cheaper price.
Technology will save the fossil fuel industry but won’t be enough to make renewables economically attractive.
When in fact, as is always the case with early development of new tech, renewables are gaining in performance and lower cost at a FAR faster rate than old tech like drilling ever deeper holes in ever less accessible places.
Yet the rabid anti- renewable crowd keeps degrading its own credibility by yelling that renewables as they are NOW “won’t scale, are silly, can’t run the factory that makes them, have poor EROEI, need rare earths”, and so on and on and on.
Like wind turbines. “The huge tower alone denies any possibility of any cost reduction”.
Ha! Total BS. Get rid of the tower altogether. Replace it with a stubby vertical shaft with a long dyneema kite cord wrapped around a ratchet driving an alternator, firmly planted right on the ground, where it is easily accessible and requires just a foot pad.
The kite is cheap and light and way high where the wind blows nice and steady, not just hanging around near the surface in a big wind shear. It goes back and forth like a yo-yo.
For added income, put on a big hydrogen balloon that drags a people-pod up and down the cord to give expensive rides to folks who like that sort of thing.
For even more added attraction, the balloon may every now and then be programmed to blow up, leaving the pp to slide back down the cord to a safe stop, like an elevator fail-safe. Whoopee!
Gives lots of good dinner table conversation and cheers people up from their otherwise dreary BAU lives grinding out useless, degrading crap with all that” low EROEI” energy from all those deep holes in ever more horrid places.
Hi Wimbi,
I am not an engineer except in the backyard tinkerer sense but I agree with you that wind power is going to blow right on past the three hundred foot tower stage and go to something along the lines you mention.
But my guess is that instead of kites going up and down on yo yo arrangements to actually deliver the power to ground level they will stay at relatively high altitudes and send the power down via a high voltage conductor.
I picture a plane with an electric motor generator than can launch itself and drag it’s own power cord aloft – with the initial power coming from a big generator on the ground or the grid.
Once up the plane will fly like a kite or tethered glider with a computer controlling the altitude and adjusting it as necessary according to wind conditions. In the event of a storm this rig would be able to land itself.
And with a bunch of them grid tied and properly programmed, the ones suffering from a drop off in the wind – which will happen even at high altitudes occasionally – could be kept aloft by feeding them power from others in spots where the wind IS blowing strongly.
If the generator/ motor can be designed to run at a high voltage the conductors can be very light and maybe even serve dual purpose as the tether as well if new synthetic materials such as carbon fiber rope embedded with the right dopants can be manufactured.
The power output could be phenomenonal if the rig were mounted on a high ridge in a good location and the glider/ plane / kite were flying only a thousand feet higher.
It would probably be excellent just about anywhere with a good wind resource.
Yep, lots of people are looking at various combos of kites, planes and balloons, alternators on or off. May the best one win.
As for me, I like the simple kite since it has a huge advantage- I can do it myself with the junk lying around and the help of those couple of appalachian junk geniuses I am lucky enough to have just walk in the door when they heard of my little games.
I think peak oil is mighty close because there’s no new technology available to have a meaningful impact on reserves. What can drive more oil out of the ground is much higher prices.
The renewables industry has a similar problem. It starts out with a significant disadvantage, it has significant opportunities for improvement, but it can’t deliver cheap. It requires high prices.
This puts energy in the high price realm whether it’s fossil, nuclear, or renewables. Market forces will dictate high prices. And yet the supply will be insufficient.
Market responds to “cheaper than”, not just “cheap”. In that category, wind wins big time in some places right now.
Of course, if we had the guts to count ALL the costs, including loss of biosphere, ff’s would be totally out of it right now.
But that can’t be allowed to happen, no matter what the cost, according to local experts.
Wimbi’s, you just have to find a convincing “cost of biosphere” figure. I don’t see anybody discussing a “cost of biosphere” tax or anything like that. Politically, it’s a radioactive potato.
I assume the cost of biosphere tax would be imposed on cement plants, rice, beef, and garbage dumps, right?
I don’t see anybody discussing a “cost of biosphere” tax or anything like that.
You don’t have to look very hard – there’s quite a lot of discussion and analysis, and even very conservative economists agree that external costs are significant, even excluding the costs of Climate Change.
Coal: occupational health costs, CO2, sulfur/acid rain, mercury in food, water consumption, adding up to $.18 per kWh ($345B/year):
“The United States’ reliance on coal to generate almost half of its electricity, costs the economy about $345 billion a year in hidden expenses not borne by miners or utilities, including health problems in mining communities and pollution around power plants, a study found.
Those costs would effectively triple the price of electricity produced by coal-fired plants, which are prevalent in part due to their low cost of operation, the study led by a Harvard University researcher found.
“This is not borne by the coal industry, this is borne by us, in our taxes,” said Paul Epstein, a Harvard Medical School instructor and the associate director of its Center for Health and the Global Environment, the study’s lead author.
“The public cost is far greater than the cost of the coal itself. The impacts of this industry go way beyond just lighting our lights.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-usa-coal-study-idUKTRE71F4X820110216?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=401
or here’s the link to the pay-wall-protected version if desired: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05890.x/full
These costs are large even if you don’t accept that Climate Change is costly – the cost table on page 92 (20 of 26) includes 3.06 cents for CO2, only 17% of the total.
The cost of climate change and the health cost of coal…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
SO whats the cost of freezing inthe winter or eating raw food etc etc…If you think these studies mean anything to the 99 % , your dreaming. You cant put a price on life..sorry does not compute..I could sit here and make up these convoluted tripe ,but in the end they mean nothing but laughter.
Well, that raises two questions:
Do you agree that coal and diesel particulates cause lung disease? That sulfur pollution harms forestries? That mercury causes neurological disease and birth defects?
2nd, do you understand that there are better and cheaper alternatives to coal and oil, so transitioning away from them doesn’t mean freezing in the dark?
With out coal , ngas, wood, peat and oil. ..there would be know life period ..PS and no windmills or this blog or you..this is to simple
PPSS …or lung disease..think what your saying ..man WE ARE ALL HERE BECAUSE OF CHEAP FUEL >>your way is for the few ..you want 7 BILLION to go quietly into the darkness so a few can live ..dream on .
WE ARE ALL HERE BECAUSE OF CHEAP FUEL
But the core of the discussions here is that the cheap fuel days are ending. And as a result, life for many people will change.
Yeah.
You’re clear on the concept that fossil fuels have a limited supply, right?
Now, wind, solar and nuclear (if you’re into that) are cheaper, and can provide a much larger supply of energy, but that may be getting ahead of ourselves – are we clear on the limits of fossil fuel supply?
With out coal , ngas, wood, peat and oil. ..there would be know life period ..PS and no windmills or this blog or you..this is to simple
Crikey, I hope English is not your native language.
I don’t think anyone can see what will be..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc
Hi Nick,
Sometimes I get sort of frustrated with your eternally sunny message given that I am convinced myself that MOST of the human race is headed to hell in a hand basket.
But when it comes to debating folks like bills, I generally just ask them if they know all fossil fuels come out of holes in the ground and that they do not grow back like potatoes.
So far none of them have ever come back with a decent answer.
Hey bills, there is a state park in Pennyslvania where the modern oil industry was born.
The papers in my part of the country are running occasional articles about the mines being worked out within another fifteen to twenty years.These articles are not about a so called war on coal but rather about the coal near enough the surface in large enough quantities to dig it and sell it all being GONE – all used up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserves-to-production_ratio
160 or so years left in US ofA , there is hundreds of years worth around world…
hi billd,
The reserve numbers are inflated. For coal see,
http://rutledge.caltech.edu/
David Rutledge is an engineering professor at Caltech (California Institute of Technology).
http://energybulletin.dev.postcarbon.org/node/53509
Steve Mohr published a PhD thesis on fossil fuel supply, excerpt at link above, the full thesis can be found below. The University of Newcastle, where Steve Mohr studied is a major coal center in Australia. He expects coal will peak by 2030 at the latest, Rutledge’s estimates are lower than Steve Mohr’s.
http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6530
Link to PhD thesis by Mohr above.
http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/AlaskaCoal/HowMuchCoal.html
Nick, in 2008-2010 you were writing that the world has to transition to hybrids, EV’s, etc ASAP. Now, 2015, you are writing the same. Humanity doesn’t (want to) learn from the past. Oilprices are ‘low’ now, so SUV sales are rising strongly again. Hybrid, EV sales are rising also, but how many cycles of low followed by high oilprices are needed for a significant change ?
A great question.
We’ve made real progress in developing EVs, plug-ins, etc. All of the major car makers have them, and are improving them fast. That’s a big change from 2008.
On the other hand, there’s been sufficient misinformation spread by the oil industry and it’s media allies that consumers don’t know what to do. And, government action has been greatly slowed down by the Kochs and their ilk. Not stopped, but greatly slowed down.
It would be nice to stop giving away money to oil producers. It would be nice to prevent oil wars. It would be nice to start reducing CO2 emissions. It would be nice to reduce the risk of oil shocks to the economy.
We’re getting there, but not as fast as we need to.
Here’s a true cost analysis
http://www.trucost.com/_uploads/publishedResearch/TEEB%20Final%20Report%20-%20web%20SPv2.pdf
Thanks for that, Fred. I have it in my list of important addresses which I will pass out to the young people birthday party I am having this weekend, at what is probably my last birthday- (and about time, I am old and disintegrating before my very eyes. What a surprise!)
These are young people less than 35 who have already amply demonstrated that they can do useful things. I am passing along what I have to them quick as I can.
Thanks for that, Fred. I have it in my list of important addresses which I will pass out to the young people birthday party I am having this weekend, at what is probably my last birthday- (and about time, I am old and disintegrating before my very eyes. What a surprise!)
I hope you are just kidding about your last birthday party!
Yeah!
Damn Wimbi I am hoping you are not dead serious no pun intended.
If I were a praying man I would be on my knees asking for some more good years for you but the Reaper gets us all.
He has taken so many important to me in recent years that sometimes I feel almost alone.
The old folks and friends are either dead or unable to get out and around anymore and the younger ones have mostly forgotten we oldsters are even alive, in my case anyway.
Dammit, wimbi, you know better than to make any remarks that are so solidly in the “needless to say” category, and just bothersome.
Needless to say- thanks, folks for the kind remarks.
Nowadays I am having fun trying to live up to Andrew Carnegie’s mother’s admonition: “Remember it’s a sin to depart with any money still in the bank.”
Not that I am anywhere near the magnitude of his problem in doing that!
Actually you don’t need much energy at all to keep a house warm, even in very cold climates. If you are freezing in the winter, it’s because your house is poorly insulated, not because energy is expensive.
Right, right, right. If you are freezing in the winter, chalk it up to inattention, not energy.
If you want to fill a bathtub, first you plug the drain. If you can’t pour in water fast enough, better check to see if the plug leaks.
We are actually using the only cost of biosphere that is CERTAINLY wrong. Zero!
Pretty near any wildass guess is better than that.
What does an engineer do when he can’t find a number for something in his design? He makes the best guess he can with what he knows, and has some other people do the same. then he puts a fuzz factor on top of that, since everything he knows is for certain not all there is to know.
And then he looks at the worst case if he is wrong, and puts in a factor for that. If the worst case isn’t all that bad, he can be bold. If the worst case is very bad indeed, he takes great pains to make it improbable.
So, does all that relate to anything we are talking about here?
None of those “cost estimates” pass the smell test. The triple the cost figure sounds real bogus. This is the problem you face. The numbers are not convincing.
The “statistics” you guys quote remind me of the famous 97% of scientists ditty. I know that’s bs. So if they have to bs it and make so much propaganda around a fake figure then their whole argument must have plenty of holes.
By the way, I have seen attempts to study the topic, and I noticed a huge spread, caused by a single parameter: the discount rate.
The smell test relies on your intuition. You have to calibrate your intuition against reality. For instance, it’s pretty obvious that the sun rotates around the earth, and that humans couldn’t possibly be descended from lemurs.
And, in fact, your intuition about the 97% is wrong. Almost all climatologists, physicists, geologists, etc agree that Climate Change is a very big problem. Just look at the policy statements these groups put on their professional society websites. Even the society of petroleum geologists agrees!
Finally, even though people argue about the discount rate, there’s little disagreement about there being a significant CO2 problem. Then there’s sulfur, mercury, nitrous oxides, particulates, etc., etc.
Nick, my smell test is much more sophisticated than you can imagine. I’m a professional nose.
Hi Fernando,
Clearly the cost is not zero. A reasonable real annual discount rate would be 7%, the same that is often used in fossil fuel analysis. This is equivalent to roughly a 10% annual discount rate in nominal terms if we assume a 3% rate of inflation (which is roughly the long term rate of inflation.) There are almost always a range of estimates for such an analysis, just throw out the highest and lowest reasonable estimates and take the average of the rest. This will certainly be better than assuming the cost is zero.
Dennis, I’m still trying to think it through. But I wonder why would you propose such a high discount rate for a project which involves all of society? Why not use something like a real return = 2 %? That’s more like a bond rate, right?
Actually, all forms of energy are getting cheaper because of new tech. You’ve got it exactly backwards.
Until ‘externalities’ like, say, vanishing species and contaminated zones are factored in?
And again, new tech is the solution
http://www.hngn.com/articles/49766/20141118/woolly-mammoth-cloning-south-korean-scientists-plan-to-resurrect-extinct-animal.htm
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528586/how-to-clean-the-gas-and-oil-industries-most-contaminated-water/
So are the Koreans going to resurrect the mammoth’s native habitat as well? Not to mention the serious ethical concerns mentioned in the article.
It’s amazing how utterly blind and clueless some people seem about technology and complexity.
They don’t see the other edge of its sword. At all. And if they do, and feign ignorance, then maybe they are corrupt and couldn’t care less about people, or the rest of the flora and fauna. Only their next bribe/paycheck.
Some don’t, can’t or won’t see, in the world around them, the results of the other edge of the sword until they are dead by that very edge, by their own hands, even if it drags countless others down with them, which would seem to please them to no end.
But this is a war, make no mistake. A war, waged since before we were all born, in the forms of mindless ideologies, coercion, violence on the ecosphere and everything in it.
The mastodon link, etc., smacks of virgin-level intellectual masturbation.
maybe they are corrupt and couldn’t care less about people
New tech helps people.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3035143/Pioneering-trials-using-man-DNA-begin-battle-against-cancer-ebola-flu-HIV-scientists-saying-treatment-key-defeating-them.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/blind-hawaii-woman-bionic-eye/story?id=29927935
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27024-men-have-hands-amputated-and-replaced-with-bionic-ones.html#.VSsXgul0yM8
Actually they are not. We always run into a barrier caused by increasing population and the depletion of fossil fuels. Renewables can’t compete well enough to substitute fossil fuels. This is the reason why we have so many who believe the world is n serious trouble.
In a sense it’s nice to see so many are optimists who think everything will be solved. You go on feeling happy, meanwhile I’ll keep on worrying.
Allan I sincerely hope you realize that Fred is ”pulling your leg” and is doing his best to come across as a comedian.
Sometimes he succeeds brilliantly, sometimes his jokes fly right over the head of the audience.
Personally I doubt people will be doing a whole lot of flying once peak oil is a well understood reality. It will be very expensive for one thing, barring the invention of super batteries capable of powering commercial aircraft, or some other exotic barely imaginable technology.
As for those who might be able to AFFORD tickets – my expectation is that populism will rule the day when it comes to such issues and that since the commoners such as yours truly will not be able to fly – and will no longer believe they will ever be able to AFFORD to fly – they will just more or less outlaw air travel.
Mac, after Interviewing the head of the Illuminati I feel like the Ahitchhiker’s Guide robot.
Old Farmer,
Current new development of liquid fuel production through chemistry indicates that we will have no problem supplying highly efficient aircraft. Grass fields are easy and cheap to maintain and they can network to other local destinations or larger airports. Even tarmac strips are almost cost free compared to roads.
Current jet aircraft are capable of about 80 to 120 p-mpg. The new turbofans are much better and new development jetliners will get about 200 -220 p-mpg. They would do better if they went slower also.
Small planes can also be highly improved. You don’t need to go 300 mph for a 20 to 200 mile trip. Airspeed kills efficiency at low altitudes. 100 mph is fine.
The beauty is getting rid of much of that very expensive and energy sucking highway and bridge infrastructure.
We move huge amounts of material and use huge amounts of energy just trying to maintain the highways we have. They need to be rebuilt every few decades or sooner depending on freeze thaw and traffic. Bridges last about 50 years. The air lasts forever at no cost.
“If you can do it, you can do it better”
Applies all across the board. Aircraft, ground transport, the whole spectrum.
I will add my own corollary
“And maybe would be better to not do it at all”
BIG fraction of what we do falls into that category.
Would save a whopping amount of energy, effort, worry, muss and fuss.
Hi Allan,
I understand the economics of air travel and agree with you about the costs being within reason and actually cheaper than road travel on a per passenger mile basis if the trip is a long one with lots of passengers.
My arguments are political in this case. Local roads will be maintained in usable condition for many decades or indefinitely after air travel is mostly history. The political situation demands that this be so.
Social progress in terms of real democracy is slow but the people of the world ARE gradually taking power from the elite as for example the welfare state looking after old folks here by way of Medicare and SS.
The next big step in that direction was taken by the OBumbler administration and although it was bumbled in championship fashion the foundations of socialized health care for everybody in this country are now in place.
Taking back an entitlement is just about impossible. Personally I don’t think it can be done now in the case of health care in the USA although the current law may be substantially modified if the repuglithans win the WH next election.
If I were a politician in need of an issue and running on the poor peoples vote I would be calling for a high tax on aviation fuel -just like the taxes on food, electricity , water, gasoline, etc that poor people already pay. Very few poor people fly at all.
With fossil fuel depletion an impending reality I just can’t see air travel being a good long term bet. Long distance travel by the masses of people is on its way out as I see it.
But hooking a few or a lot of passenger cars on behind a fast express straight thru freight will probably be practical and affordable.
Beyond these arguments there is the likelihood that liquid fuels will have to be rationed to maintain essential services and industry.
Air travel simply is not essential in the last analysis in an era of extreme austerity.
HI Fernando , I will go on worrying with you.
But most people who are thinking renewables advocates as opposed to just being true believers in technology don’t think renewables are going to support todays business as usual economic model.
Personally I expect that with a some good luck and a hell of a lot of hard work between now and then that a smallish portion of todays population can and will be leading a pretty decent life a century or two down the road – a life based on renewable energy.
Compared to today this agreeable future life is going to be low total energy overall and low total energy per capita but being an engineer you yourself must realize the simply ENORMOUS opportunities that exist in terms of efficiency and conservation.
The man or woman of the future I envision coming to pass is just not going to be thinking about flying on business or vacation because air travel is too energy intensive. But he or she may be able to travel coast to coast on a nice fast train if the trip is really necessary- a train that will also be pulling some freight cars.
I could build a two thousand square foot house myself , suitable to my local environment in the mountains of Virginia , that would need only a trivial amount of heat easily supplied with maybe half a cord of wood per winter with the remainder of any needed heat supplied by body heat of the occupants, the lights, appliances, and solar gain. It is true this house would cost maybe fifteen thousand dollars more than a more or less identical house built to our current local codes – but I have neighbors who have spent that much over the last decade alone buying heating oil and firewood living in houses of comparable size.
People living in places with really miserable climates who cannot afford electricity or oil or firewood will do what people have always done – migrate or do without.
I could – if circumstances were tough enough to force my rural neighbors into agreeing to do so – organize a bus or truck run to town once a week that would take care of just about everybody’s need to get to town except for work-
and just three or four battery electric vans – two kept charged up in reserve – would suffice to get twelve people to work without burning a drop of gasoline or diesel commuting.
The two or three spares would be for days when the wind an sun aren’t cooperating of course in charging the vans. These four vans would basically take the place of twelve automobiles for commuting purposes given the way people go to work alone around here.
And except for the batteries there is no real reason they can’t be built to last fifty years.Vehicles ice or electric need not be throwaway consumables.
Of course I understand the engineering mindset that what is possible is only possible if somebody is willing to PAY for it.
My biggest argument with engineers is that they mostly do not recognize (or at least say so publicly ) that their customers WILL eventually pay for such things as a super upgraded grid, backup capacity as needed , and wind and solar because THE CUSTOMER IN THE LONG TERM has only two choices – pay or do without electricity and mobility.
Without electricity and mobility we go back to the middle ages or maybe the eighteenth century at the latest.
The real question is whether the customer comes to understand the depletion problem in time for you engineers to really get to work on it before it is too late.
You will never be able to cure the problem , most likely, but you will be in the situation of doctor faced with a patient with a gangrenous leg. Maybe he can save the patient by cutting off the leg. Maybe you can save enough of the basics to keep life dignified.
The only appliances in houses that absolutely NEED to run without interruption are the refrigerator and maybe the stove used for cooking plus a light or two. Cooking CAN be postponed if necessary but unrefrigerated fresh food will rot in a hurry. I don’t foresee any problem in having enough battery capacity to keep at least refrigerators running in houses.
Water systems are energized with electricity , true, but with towers and a well interconnected grid the water and sewer can probably be kept functional with wind and solar power.
I would rather have electricity and a supermarket nearby , with access to a well educated doctor and dentist, than to be a twelfth century king with an incurable toothache that would eventually kill me as the infection spread.
Mac, I suggest you try to think like a guy living in a medium size city in Colombia, Pakistan, or Congo.
Hi Fernando,
I have thought long and hard about people in such places and can sum up my thoughts in one single often repeated line.
DON’T GET CAUGHT IN EGYPT.
The very best the people in places such as the dry middle east (once the oil is gone ) can hope for over the next century is to continue to live the way their ancestors did up until recently.
The population in poor countries just about without exception has exploded due to their societies managing to put into effect some basic public health measures and managing to pay for chemical inputs to boost their food production.
I am a professional myself – well trained in the basic sciences as they apply to food production and as well informed as just about any layman when it comes to the available reserves of fossil fuels and the minerals that constitute the foundations of our industrial civilization.
The people in places such as Pakistan barring miracles are going to DIE BACK to whatever level the remaining local ecology can support.
This I am as sure of as you can be sure of anything about the oil industry.
Most of them are going to not only die. They are going to die either cold and hungry or burning up and thirsty and hungry -STARVING actually – unless they die faster by bullet or machete or club or from a nasty highly transmissible contagious disease.
Millions of them will be worked to death as slave laborers.
Millions more who flee will be met at the borders of countries unable or unwilling to accept more refugees by troops who will shoot first without even thinking about asking questions later.
The troops are going to be worried about there being food enough for their own kids.
I argue a lot with hard core doomers such as our great host Ron but only to the extent of argueing that resources and power are not equally distributed in the world and that die off will be piecemeal in time and place.
The fact that the coming collapse of the economy and the population world wide will almost for sure be piecemeal in time and place allows for the POSSIBILITY of some pockets of people who are well educated , well governed, and lucky to latch onto a hog’s share of the remaining resources while successfully defending themselves and maintaining an industrial society.
From my professional perspective this general population collapse scenario – again barring miracles – is as certain as a boiler exploding if you fill it with water, close off all the valves , weld the pressure relief tight shut and fire the boiler for all she is worth .
We just don’t have enough of the necessary basic resources to save all the people in this world. We are sure as sex between unsupervised teenagers well into overshoot NOW.
If I were a benevolent dictator with absolute power world wide I might be able to prevent uncontrolled human die off by instituting draconian efficiency and conservation measures in rich countries and draconian population control measures in poor overpopulated countries plus taxing the hell out off the rich countries to support the poor ones thru the transition to a MUCH lower population.
The odds of a benevolent dictator coming into world wide power are essentially zero.
There is of course a very slim chance that we will be able to supply nine or ten billon people with food and water and shelter and basic public health care over the next half century , and that the population would gradually decline on its own after that due to changing culture.
But it is a very very slim chance indeed. The people who say we can do it don’t generally know very much about the natural world and the basic physical laws that control the production of food.
The ones that do know who work for governments and large organizations (excepting some academic types able to speak out due to being tenured and having academic freedom ) understand that their salaries and benefits and pensions are dependent on their going along to get along.
Now some people may conclude that I am a xenophobe or racist but actually I am just an honest Darwinian.
Family legend has it that when my grandfather four times removed on my mothers side arrived here all he had to do to break camp was piss on his fire and call his dog- in other words he had the shirt on his back and not even a hand tool or a single coin.
Other immigrants had by then apparently already wiped out the local Amerindian or native people or which ever term for them is pc these days since no family tales of contact with them have survived.
We took the land here from the last people before us who had it then and they in turn took it from others previously.
It has thus ever been and probably will always be so. At the rate things are going locally most people will be of Mexican ancestry in another century. They are moving here in substantial numbers and have more kids. They work hard. They will inherit at least this local patch of the earth.
I don’t have anything against immigrants per se. I just have a strong desire which comes naturally to see to the welfare of my own ”’ us ” as opposed to ” them”. There are numerous intermarriages already and thus the Mexicans are morphing into my ” us” . No problem since there is no fighting and good cultural compatibility.
I try to look at the world as if I were an alien biologist ..
Stepping back from the trees far enough to see the forest and then the entire landscape is very helpful in accurately anticipating the future.
The people in places such as Pakistan barring miracles are going to DIE BACK to whatever level the remaining local ecology can support.
Again, I agree with you. Some parts of the world don’t have enough local resources to support all of those currently living there. A severe energy crunch will be very hard on them.
Places with more resources can support more people and likely will.
If we revert back to a very localized world, some places and their residents will do much better than others because resources are not equally distributed around the world.
OFM Wrote:
“I argue a lot with hard core doomers such as our great host Ron but only to the extent of argueing that resources and power are not equally distributed in the world and that die off will be piecemeal in time and place.”
A few considerations:
1. Middle east still exports a lot of oil. If countries like Egypt collapse so will Oil production out of the Middle East. Egypt of runs the Suez canal which is used to transport oil out of the Middle East.
2. Before any great die off in the poorer parts of the world, malnutrition will become an important issue. Malnutrition is a major contributor to pandemics. In the case of the Dark Ages, Malnutrition caused pandemics that culled about 1/3 of Europe’s population. The Odds favor that a big pandemic would start in the poorest regions and spread to the industrialize world. So far we didn’t have an Ebola pandemic in the West, but perhaps some other more easily transmitted diseases will take root.
3. Countries like Egypt have some military resources. Even if their weapons are not used to obtain resources, there arms will fall into the hands of militants when the gov’t collapses. These weapons will be used to expand war well beyond Egypt’s boarders. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and perhaps other poor nations have access to biological and chemical weapons.
It’s not that hard to ship oil in VLCCs from the Gulf to Rotterdam.
My main worry regarding North Africa is their ability to come over by boat, and the rather naive system they have in Europe which accommodates, feeds, houses and allows hundreds of thousands of illegal entrants to keep on flooding the borders. No wonder Le Pen is gaining strength in France.
Malnutrition caused pandemics that culled about 1/3 of Europe’s population.
I think that was The Black Death: Bubonic Plague. That plague killed the very well fed as well as the hungry.
In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas–which were now helping to carry it from person to person–are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead–one-third of Europe’s people.
However malnutrition did keep the population thinned, causing millions of deaths. But I think it was a constant, ever present during those times, always killing or reducing immunity so that some disease took the people out.
Ron Wrote: “I think that was The Black Death: Bubonic Plague. That plague killed the very well fed as well as the hungry.”
The pandemics were triggered by the little ice age which resulted in crop failures and people consuming foods with a lot of calories but lacked vitamins and other vital nutrients.
If you have a lot of sick people around you and you are well nourished, you still can contract disease from other that become carriers or if the disease mutates. To say that just because some healthy people contracted the diseases does not negate that the pandemic was started by malnutrition. “Well fed” does not mean “immune”
Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe.
I agree with this. Wind turbines, the solar boom and fracking are part of the same trend — mankind is learning to extract free (as in available to do mechanical work) energy from more and more marginal sources.
Hey! What’s marginal about wind? Good wind turbines can be made, with a modest amount of wits, from stuff in any town dump, and we are NOT gonna run out of wind.
Same with solar. Keep in mind non-PV solar, as in heat engine. My favorite at the moment being thermocompressor– real simple, pretty good efficiency, can work at not very hot temp available from mediocre collector.
According to Twilight in the Desert, back in the late 70’s the Saudis had 800 wells producing 11,000 barrels a day each.
Compared to that wind is marginal. But those days are gone forever.
And good riddance, as seen from viewpoint of the biosphere.
Trouble is, maybe not fast enough.
It is perhaps a pity that your claimed decreasing cost of energy has not trickled down into construction costs. These have risen faster than inflation. This has bearing on various minor affairs, such as road maintenance; if we accept your hypothesis that energy costs have gone down, then why are Ohio cities pleading with their DOT to stop building new roads, and instead try to maintain what has already been built? With decreasing energy costs, one might expect America to be able to both maintain its roads, and to build new ones.
https://www.facebook.com/potholesofyoungstown?fref=ts
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/09/noaca_chief_asks_odot_for_more.html
Meanwhile, the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2011 asked for $2.2 trillion, and in 2013 $3.6 trillion for infrastructure repair. How would you account for these values, given your claim of decreasing energy costs? And here’s another engineer, one who has a somewhat low opinion of the ASCE:
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/4/6/loose-threads
I would say the Pols want bigger kickbacks on the contracts they dole out.
We just got a $1 Billion cost overrun on a $5 Billion rail system that only goes 20 miles. That’s about $57,000 per foot!
It should be noted that this is a direct result of government supported R&D http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/51934.pdf
It seems very likely that panel manufacturing costs will continue to fall for some time yet but even if panels were free to us and the Germans were still paying the usual price a German can buy a system installed turnkey cheaper than we can.
Installation costs are where the real money is in this country, and where the real savings are to be found when we eventually get our act together and streamline our building codes and permitting processes.
I am ready to bet the farm that within ten years I will be able to buy a turnkey system that will cost no more than half what it does today in constant dollars.
Ironically the cheaper pv gets, the harder it is for me to justify the expense of buying it. I am saving a lot more waiting for the price to go down than I would be saving in avoided electricity purchase costs by buying now.
And so far as the ecological aspects are concerned , there are still things that I need to get done that will pay a bigger environmental dividend than installing pv- things such as replacing some older double glazed windows with triple glazed for instance. Getting some hillside land terraced for farming it with minimal erosion, establishing a small nut orchard that will require very little care,some living fence maybe.
I did build a solar powered domestic hot water system that works very well but in that case the expense was just about all labor- my own,given that I have made a practice of buying and saving every possible piece of usable steel and copper that I have run across for the last twenty years. A lot of stuff I bought for five or ten cents is selling now for a dollar to three dollars or more per pound.
Ironically the cheaper pv gets, the harder it is for me to justify the expense of buying it. I am saving a lot more waiting for the price to go down than I would be saving in avoided electricity purchase costs by buying now.
This is true of all electronic equipment. In a few years you’ll get smart phones and tablets as a freebie with a box of cornflakes.
“Steeper contango is usually followed by higher inventory levels as speculation increases.” Quote, from Ron’s article above. I do not know who said that. But, yes inventory will increase. But, no [NO! NO!], as Ron pointed out, the buyers are “locking in” a huge rate of return [compared to alternative investments], so where is the speculation?
Speculation? If the profits are locked in then there’s none. This means it’s viable to make the investment at 5 % return and laugh all the way to the bank. I tried something parallel investing in oil and service company stocks. So far, so good.
Berman’s prediction of 600,000 bbl/day of US production decrease by end of June looking better and better as rig count continues plunge. Oil rig count in most of the major basins down 50% or more already.
But what about the backlog of wells to be fracked? It was my impression that this backlog would take some time to clear (assuming the fracking crews aren’t on hold due to current price).
David, why would they start fracturing wells now? They can wait 12 months and make a higher profit.
True, I wonder what percentage of companies are in a financial position to wait?
All of them.
The ones with a rising price forecast will wait. I suspect some will complete wells but produce at lower rates (to take advantage of the lower completion costs due to service company overcapacity).
Work out the numbers. Say you think the completion cost can be reduced from $4 million to $3.2 million, you save $800k if you do it now. One option you have is to complete but choke the well and produce 100 Bopd. Increase rate as prices rise. I haven’t looked into it, but it’s April and this option may be viable.
I generally don’t comment on these purely oil related articles because I basically know absolutely nothing about these things and have nothing to add, but I will say something (hopefully not too terribly stupid or ignorant) about the EIA’s views on Canada.
Assuming that investment in oil sands production continues at some reasonable pace (which isn’t happening at today’s prices, but would presumably happen at some price) there would seem to me to be some real possibility of increasing Canada’s overall production rates.
The oilsands (or tarsands if you prefer) are known, exist and are present in all their glory. They are not readily converted to usable oil. However, with enough investment (probably in massive amounts), the flow rate of oil out of the oilsands can realistically increase.
If I’m not making any sense at all or am completely missing something (say like the economy not being able to withstand the prices needed to attract the required investment dollars to enable the increase in flow rates), please let me know.
Otherwise, I have no idea what will happen and I basically agree with Ron. The EIA is smoking some serious wacky tabacky if they think that world C+C production is going to increase by 20 million barrels a day by 2040. I guess it’s “Magic Hands” doing their thing over the next two decades and a half that will do all the heavy lifting. Magic Hands will also have the requisite ability to find new oil sources and the capital to tap those oil sources under any and all circumstances everywhere in the globe. Magic Hands sure is magical.
Wet One
I also do not think Canada’s production will increase that much. I had followed it quite closely these past 5 years, and I think there is a bit of a disconnect between geology and society. We are already in a trade skills shortage. Companies responded by influencing Govt to bring in foreign workers, many many of which were poorly skilled. There was a big backlash when it was outed that regular companies were bringing in FW to keep wages down such as counter attendents at Tim Hortons Donuts in Victoria BC for God’s sake. It was happening all over the country. The foreign worker program has now ended this past April 4th. It was so bad that helicopter companies would not even advertise for new employees, rather, they simply said they couldn’t find qualified domestic applicants and sifted through resumes to bring in foreign pilots. If one company does this to advantage then they all have to in order to remain competetive. My buddy regularly flies with Kiwis, Aussies, US, even Ukranian pilots. Anyway, there was a big backlash and the program was discontinued in the face of our 6%+ unemployment rate. In fact, outside of the Oil Sands the pay for many/most jobs are pretty low (as far as I’m concerned).
As it stands, in a recoverable sense Canada could up production substantially. However, I do not think this will happen. The big companies are and will defer new projects for a good while yet. They will also use this time to ‘take the boots’ to workers wages as they have been quite high for a long time. Add to this a possible minority Govt this fall it is most unlikely foreign workers will be allowed in to the same extent as in the past. Thus, it will be unlikely to see this big increase in needed construction to boost production rates. If you add to this the financial bath our economy is taking right now, plus the bogus levels of debt worldwide, it is just as likely what is being produced now may be close to what is possible.
This is expensive oil and needs big bucks to get it out of the ground and into pipelines.
Can society afford it? (That is discounting the environmental impacts and changing attitudes towards climate change as the west coast drought continues to unfold.)
regards
Paulo, I saw the way it was planned in venezuela in the 1990s. The process involved sequencing major project components. This meant upgraders were put on a construction sequence. Because the upgraders are needed to make the return diluents this makes all the pieces fall in line.
I’ve prepared plans for expansions in venezuela, and it’s technically possible to put the puzzle together to increase production at around 100 thousand barrels of oil per day per year for 20 years.
This isn’t politically possible in Venezuela because the government has to change, and this change requires that Obama’s chess move in Cuba be successful (the cuban dictatorship controls venezuela, a usa move to make cuba dependent on usa financing will allow the usa to control cuban politics and topple the dinosaur regime, this in turn allows the usa to influence what happens in Venezuela via the control it has over the cuban dictatorship, which is likely to be a military fascist type regime in the future ).
If it’s viable in Venezuela under the right conditions it ought to be in Canada. But that requires a lot of governmen vision.
Make what you will of this folks. I am sort of surprised that I haven’t seen anything this specific about unusually warm water in the Pacific on our west coast sooner, given the size of the ” Blob” as these guys call it.
http://www.chinookobserver.com/co/local-news/20150410/warm-blob-in-pacific-ocean-linked-to-weird-weather-across-the-us
ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Advisory
El Niño conditions are present.*
Positive equatorial sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies continue across most of the Pacific Ocean.
There is an approximately 50-60% chance that El Niño conditions will continue through Northern Hemisphere summer 2015.*
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Mac, that blob was really pronounced last year. Check this website
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/sst.shtml
This page also shows the outgoing infrared.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/olr/olr.anom.30day.gif
The infrared measurement that blob has unusually high humidity above it at this point in time.
California’s New Era of Heat Destroys All Previous Records
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/california-s-new-era-of-heat-destroys-all-previous-records
=
Salt Lake City experienced its least snowy winter since record-keeping started in 1885 — and its warmest winter since that documentation started in 1874.
http://www.capitalpress.com/Water/20150410/drought-leaves-utahs-farmers-wondering-what-they-can-grow
Boston!
A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. Lots more moisture in the clouds to fall to the ground as snow/rain.
OFM – perhaps consider reading Robert Scribbler. He’ll keep you in the loop on such matters. He’s been talking about said blob for months now.
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/
The US Congress needs to pass an individual mandate to require every adult 18 years and older to purchase 100 gallons of gasoline by May 20th of this year, regardless if they have an automobile or not. The taxpayers with no automobile can donate their 100 gallons of gas to those who have an automobile. Donate the gas to the US gov as a credit and fill Air Force One jet fuel. Hells Bells, donate it all to the US gov and force every taxpayer to buy 200 gallons, 100 for the gov and 100 for those who need it. A 200 gallon individual mandate probably will be better.
150 million taxpayers buying 100 gallons of gas is going to help remove the glut.
That’ll take care of 750 million barrels of oil right now. It’ll get the oil industry out of the doldrums and back in the saddle. ‘Save the Oil Industry’ will be the clarion call.
It’ll be kind of like slavery, but who cares?
Friday Night Barbecue
Interesting idea but it might have some unintended consequences. For one thing, burning a gallon of gasoline in an ICE produces roughly 20 lbs of CO2… I think I rather let the current incarnation of the oil industry slowly die a natural death since it is already suffering from the terminal disease of ‘Peak Oil’. There will be a new oil industry that probably won’t look anything like the old one but I at least think that is both inevitable and that it is something that is going to happen anyway. Keeping the patient alive in the ICU by artificial means is pointless and counter productive. RIP Sr. BAU…
A somewhat relevant and rather Interesting debate BTW: The Great Debate: EXTINCTIONS (OFFICIAL) – (Part 1/2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFcZG_QVsT8
You know the WORLD is here for me …
IM not here for the world
Getting real tired of hearing ,we should all die so the world can live !!
Yes I care and love this old world …so what..
Yes we all use everthing the world has to offer..we all do.
No I dont listen to any more speeches ..of save the world..
GMAFB….EXTINCTIONS ..who cares..Im here for peak oil.
mabye join a church and pray..does the same as whining about it all the time. YES I know I can skip over the barking and whining..
Apparently you haven’t watched or listened to this particular debate… because if you have and you still stand by your comment then I think you are a complete imbecile. Hint, this debate has very little to do with your obviously preconceived notion of saving the world. Granted it does mention climate change and polar bears but I strongly suspect that the panelists aren’t talking about really saving them, they are having a discussion at a much more profound level. Then again perhaps you simply don’t have the brain power to follow a discussion at their level. So if that is the case watching this video would indeed be a complete waste of your time…
BTW this debate is highly relevant to how peak oil will affect cultural and technological change.
OMG…heard it hundred times…so what ?
Extinction is as part of this earth as much as life on it ..
No my friend it is not I that is a imbecile but the one that calls one a embecile is a embecile..OG im sinking to your level ..lol
It is your time to waist on such dribble ..i would sooner pet mycat.
Im here to read about peak oil and not about some religion !!
You haven’t watched the debate, have you?
I’m here because I’m interested in how peak oil will change our societies and to exchange ideas and learn from people who can think and who are willing to explore new ways of looking at the world. That often means going far afield of our comfort zones.
I provided that link because it is a discussion among some pretty darn smart people doing some really fantastic work and thinking very deeply about how humans fit into the big picture.
Peak Oil is just one little wart on the elephant’s ass that the blind men examining it can’t understand based solely on their own limited perception.
However there are those amongst us who think they already know what the elephant looks like… So with apologies to the cartoonist Hans Moller, I have added one more truly blind man, to his wonderful illustration to represent these closed minded idiots! If the cap fits wear it!
Driving less is more like living instead of dying, The CDC recommends reducing VMT (vehicle miles traveled) for reasons unrelated to the climate or economics.
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/transportation/vmt_strategy.htm
“We need not marvel at extinction; if we must marvel, let it be at our own presumption in imagining for a moment that we understand the many complex contingencies on which the existence of each species depends.” Charles Darwin
Just thought I’d throw that in there. Yes, it is an interesting debate.
Yes Ronald, I agree that it would be presumptuous of us to imagine for a moment that we understand the many complex contingencies on which the existence of each species depends…. Let alone the complex interactions of entire ecosystems on which all of those species depend.
From where I sit, it seems to me that we keep pulling threads out of the tapestry while trying to convince ourselves that it really doesn’t matter all that much because it will never fall apart because threads unravel and fall out of the tapestry all the time.
We comfort ourselves and say that extinctions are a part of nature. Well of course they are, and as far as we know there have been 5 mass extinctions on this planet. Unfortunately the evidence is mounting and seems to be pointing to the fact that we are currently well into a sixth mass extinction event, the main cause of which is the presence of 7 billion plus Homo sapiens all just trying to survive.
To the prosperity wonks who comment here arguing for a continuation of the status quo, either out of fear, shear ignorance, because you are getting paid or maybe due to some misguided ideologically based agenda. You are not just wrong, you are FRACTALLY WRONG!! In case you are not familiar with that expression you can always google it.
HEY FRED,
I JUST READ A PIECE ABOUT SOME SCIENTIST TYPES MAKING MICE GROW LOTS OF NEW HAIR BY PULLING OUT SOME OF THEIR EXISTING HAIR.
For every hair they pulled , ten times as many grew back.
So look- all we gotta do is kill off all the other species as fast as we can and things will be JUST FINE.
New species will start popping up like mushrooms after a nice warm spring rain.
WHY I betcha that in fifty million years there will be thousands of species of large animals to take the place of all the ones we kill off. Tens of thousands of species of plants and new smaller species of all sorts by the millions.
PROBLEM SOLVED DUDE.
Heh, funny you say that. I was just reading something that I wrote a while back when I helped create the content for a seminar up in the North East of Brazil to prepare Brazilian MDs for international medical conferences and I had built one of my mock presentations around the topic of Transgenic Knockout Mice.
We don’t need no stinkin wild strains of rodents running around in our fields no more!
fractal wrongness
Fractal wrongness is the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution.
That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person’s worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you focus on any small part of that person’s worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.
I agree, anyone who thinks the current rate of extinction is just part of nature and nothing to worry about is fractally wrong.
In Darwin’s time, though the extinction rate was then already way above what the normal extinction rate would have been without the human influence, it was only a fraction of what it is now. If Darwin had any idea of what the true extinction rate was even then, or of the avalanche of extinctions that was about to befall us, he would have been alarmed beyond belief.
Likewise, anyone who believes the human population of the earth is not already deep into overshoot is fractually wrong. If we were not in overshoot the extinction rate would not be 622 times the normal background rate.
Oh, but it is ‘just a part of nature’.
But of course. Cancer is also “just part of nature”.
Plagues are part of nature. When Homo sapiens evolved such a huge advantage in our competition with all other species we became a plague species, destined to destroy them.
It’s ‘sheer ignorance’.
Wind turbines are one of those threads in the tapestry. Obviously, those in the business of wind power could care less of what gets killed by their need for greed. Sheer ignorance prevails.
You have to come to the realization that humans are going to not care one wit about other species and whether they survive or not. They just don’t care, if it doesn’t pay, it’s not worth the effort.
I keep a careful eye on Hungarian partridge, ruffed grouse, sage grouse. I know where they are and never tell anybody what I see or where I track them. It is for the protection of those birds. Current observations tell me that the numbers are dwindling even more; has me somewhat concerned.
I have witnessed what humans do to those birds, they slaughter them one after another. They think that God’s bounty, whatever that is, will never cease. How they can be so wrong is not too hard to fathom, they’re not too bright.
Paid? Who the hell is going to pay me? You? Please, I need all the help I can get.
With what dividends pay from investments in energy production, my gas and electricity are more or less free and I receive a rebate in the form of profits. I can’t make too many mistakes in the investment world, it hurts too much.
Nobody else is going to do it for me and I doubt they ever will.
Wind turbines are one of those threads in the tapestry. Obviously, those in the business of wind power could care less of what gets killed by their need for greed. Sheer ignorance prevails.
There is no doubt that wind turbines kill birds and bats! So we need to do a cost benefit analysis and look at the big picture. Not forgetting that just about everything that humans are doing has negative impacts. Obviously we need to do a much better job with turbine design and turbine placement, that has been happening as we learn more!
http://goo.gl/yTJmSx
Will Newer Wind Turbines Mean Fewer Bird Deaths?
The jury is still out on what works to protect wildlife.
By Andrew Curry, for National Geographic
Ultimately, though, no technology is without costs—and the advantages of renewable wind power over, say, coal-fired power plants may outweigh their impact on bird species. “Saying wind power can only be green if there are no impacts is like saying medicine can only be effective if it has no side effects,” Anderson says. “At some point, we need to put the benefits and risks into context.”
Oklahoma State’s Loss, for example, notes that American homes and office buildings are responsible for hundreds of millions of dead birds per year, many times more than windmills. And researchers recently estimated that house cats kill well over a billion birds in the United States annually. “Comparing our numbers to total bird numbers, they might seem small, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on local impacts on specific species, especially long-lived species like raptors or waterbirds,” Loss says.
The grey (or “Hungarian”) partridge was imported to North America to entertain people who like shooting birds. Personally I prefer stomping on flowers. Lilacs are my favorite.
If you are really interested in protecting wild birds, you should favor banning lead shot, not promoting invasive species.
Sorry Fred but it is not “7 billion plus Homo sapiens all just trying to survive” but “7 billion plus Homo sapiens all just trying to get more and more while damning the consequences”.
NAOM
What you say is certainly true but that I think it is really important to understand our behaviors and the deep biological origins of those behaviors if we are to have any hope of changing them. This debate I am linking here has a title that may seem a bit counter intuitive and off topic because it titled “Xenophobia, why do we fear others” However I think it is highly relevant to lot of our interactions both local and global, especially in a world with increasingly diminishing resources. It might even shed some light on how we interact with each other on this very blog. Anyways if you want to you can watch it and decide for yourself. I found it fascinating for a number of reasons not the least of which were the panelists themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZLlvc9rviM
Hey, I’m doing my storage bit. Heading down Island to pick up our kayaks this morning. Will hit Costco gas on the way home as it is usually uneconomical to make a 1.5 hr Costco run on its own, for much of anything. The truck bed has gerry cans for the fishing boat and motorcycle. It may be the new look, one day. Buy a 3 month supply all at once!!
Most small farmers I know have been buying a monthly or even a six month supply as an economy move for a long time. Some have good storage tanks. Others just use a few steel or plastic drums hauled on a pickup truck. Saves a lot of trips. Gets a little better price as well.
People will pay quite a bit for the priveledge of –
1. Cooking food with something other than wood, dung, waste plastic, tires, etc… ( What I have seen in Africa and other 3rd World is… really just horrible.) My mother switched from wood to butane in the ’50’s and I remember when we got the new Propane tank in the late 60’s.
2. Fresh water preferably from a well with an electric pump. Windmills are great and its a darn shame there are so many seen today as decorations or just “cool old stuff”. We had electric but all my old relatives had windwmills until they all passed away in the 1980′-90’s.
Yeah and Indoor Plumbing is a great Plus- I did not grow up with that luxury on the farm.
3. Refrigerators to keep food fresh longer. I only remember electric refrigerators but my folks and all the other “old ones” always talked about the “Ice Boxes” they grew up with in their day..
4. Electric lights. My mom and dad built their house ( Yes, they actually built it themselves with hammers and nails and a lot of help from family members) in 1952, got electric lights in 1956. We still have the Kerosene lamps and lanterns. Don’t worry about Old Technology- those lamps still work fine today.
5. Once I got off the farm in 1980 and saw the world I realized Central Air and Heat is really good. I really like it a lot here in Central Texas.
Needless to say, I am willing to pay quite a bit to maintain this modern standard of living. Remember folks, it doesn’t really take a lot to live a healthy and proper life but when I go back to the farm to visit my 86 year old mother who still works in her garden most days…. folks, it may be rewarding but dang, it is a hard life…
And we are in the US with all its advantages, not a 3rd world Hell Hole -a whole lot of of you out there know exactly what I mean.
Just think of all those Billions of 3rd Worlders whom are just getting their first run of electricity with lights, refrigerator, running water, etc.
Don’t think for a minute they will want to go back to the old ways.
Well maybe the older generation willl accept it but the kids that grow up with that stuff, yeah, they will kill to keep it.
Take care folks.
Pay your taxes. Vote. Buy an EV…
Great one!! I finally did my taxes, yesterday. I am at the point in life where our expenses are very small and we use a fraction of everything as opposed to when the kids were young. I cannot believe the difference. Cripes, my gross this year is about what my deductions were on the treadmill. Big income tax payments, medical and bennies, union dues, pension plan, savings regimen, property taxes….it all added up to never having much left over.
I think if I were starting out today I would buy a small patch of rural property in a good place to live, and build a very small house on it. Live on the fringes and off the treadmill. I tried to talk my buddy into this when he went through a divorce at 50. Instead, he opted for the nice condo with the strata fees and taxes, mortgage, new car, MC, kayak, the works. Now, he is 56 and a bit worried about the ‘mythical retirement’.
So many different ways to live….so little time.
Where are you? Vancouver Island? I lived in Vancouver many years, a few of them in a condo. I am now in Halifax Nova Scotia and moved here in the interest of the small town/fringe thing. ‘Retirement’, like a lot of things, is a social construct of course, subject to subversion and transcendence.
Price of oil rising along with a rising dollar. New relationship. Significant?
I noticed this happening repeatedly over the last few weeks.
Very strange to see the going up the same time that the dollar does. Up until now every big day for the dollar crushed the oil price.
This is the COMPLETE opposite. It perplexes me, but seems bullish for crude.
These aren’t big moves.
Stop trusting markets. They aren’t free and only responsive to market forces.
If you were CLR wouldn’t you be trying to move the price of oil? The more interesting question is KSA’s sovereign wealth fund. Rather a lot bigger than CLR’s. But we don’t know which way KSA would try to move the price, do we?
Which way would Saudi Arabia try to move the price?
I posted this yesterday but late and I doubt if anybody read it.
There is a lot more involved in their situation and thinking than most people realize.
”
old farmer mac says:
APRIL 10, 2015 AT 4:28 PM
Given the extraordinarily hazardous political situation in Sand Country ( my pet name for the part of the world generally referred to as the Middle East ) in general and within Saudi Arabian borders in particular I personally think the Saudi royal family – or more specifically the faction of it that actually holds the levers of power in the country – are afraid to risk alienating the USA and other western countries right now by unilaterally reducing their oil production.
We hear all sorts of peeing and moaning about the troubles associated with low oil prices but in actuality the gross effect on the American economy and the economy of the world in general is positive in the extreme.
I can’t imagine anybody in power in Washington or London actually wanting to do anything to RAISE the price of oil given the anemic state of the economy . A few oil state congress critters maybe, a few scientific types in regulatory agencies or academia maybe , but nobody else.
AND for those who say the low price of oil has not CURED our ( short term ) economic troubles, all I have to say is ”Just how much worse might they be if oil were still at a hundred bucks ?”
Power politics at the ultimate level is a subtle game and right now the stakes may very well be life or death for a lot of countries. A foreign minister or president or king cannot know for sure just where the tipping points are that can turn an ally into an enemy or a neutral or vice versa.
It is generally accepted as a given among people who have some knowledge of Saudi internal politics that the country is sitting on a a powder key with fuses hanging out of it on every side. Any loss of internal control on the part of the royal family could result in the key exploding.
Right now is not a good time at all to piss off the rest of the world by cutting back on oil production to raise the price. Sky Daddy alone knows who will be in control of Washington , London , Paris , Brussels, Tokyo, Peking , or Moscow in two years.
And unless the Saudis could get the rest of the exporting countries to cooperate with them – they would be tarred and feathered in terms of world public opinion.
Beyond all this there is and has been an unwritten but very firm treaty in effect between the Saudis and the US and allies for a long time, the basic terms of this being that the Saudis will not screw us too badly in times of energy shortages and that they will help us when we call on them to flood the market with oil if that suits UNCLE SAMs current geopolitical strategies.
Right now low oil prices are not only serving as a blood transfusion to our sick economy but they are also putting a hell of a hurting on Putin and his Russian buddies – not to mention the folks in power in Venezuela. I am not too sure about what the Obama administration really wants to happen in Venezuela but I am of the tentative opinion that the Obumbler is not too upset about Venezuelan troubles. (Actually he is a better president in a lot of respects than that fool what’s his name would have been.)
If it weren’t for western military protecting them the odds are high the House of Saud would all be dead or refugees or maybe at best local warlords or something along that line by now.
It is hard to imagine anything that western countries could do to hurt the Russians more than low oil prices are hurting them without risking going to war.
International power politics are never simple.
As some great Limey statesman once said, his country has no permanent friends, and no permanent enemies, but his country does have permanent interests.
The Saudis may need our armed forces on the ground inside their borders to repel an invasion within the next few years. If I were a Saudi prince or an adviser to one I would do every thing in my power to keep on the good side of Uncle Sam for the foreseeable future.
AND unless I am an utter and absolute fool, Uncle is very very glad oil is cheap right now.
If the price of oil had collapsed a year or a year and a half sooner , the Democrats would have had a far better shot at maintaing their hold on congress.”
So far as I know the Saudis have plenty of electrons in their accounts and can trade a few gazillion of them for whatever they need without worrying much about their gross income level for a year or two.
Physical security is something we deal with in this country on an an emotional basis and we are mostly irrational about it in my opinion.
A place like Israel or Saudi Arabia has very real very nearby very hostile people perfectly ready to come in and create mayhem to the max.
They may be a little on the paranoid side but as I see things either case the classic joke ( in the New Yorker iirc ) cartoon says it all.
King on the royal crapper reading the paper is mumbling to himself saying ”I know I am paranoid. The question is ,Am I paranoid enough?”
Can the Saudis AFFORD to do something to raise oil prices short term, deliberately?
I personally think they don’t believe they think they can, and that they also believe that even if they did, the rest of the exporting countries would cheat like hell and that they are not going to go the cutback route alone for that cheating being sufficient in and of itself reason to to cut back.
Farmer Mac, I tend to agree with you. This morning I finally figured out what Obama is supposed to be scheming. I wrote it up in “I interview the head of the Illuminati”.
If you want to understand the economy, imagine 100 linear equations in 100 variables.
Or if that’s too abstract, imagine a wall covered with 100 dials and knobs, where each knob changes every dial, and the change to each dial depends on which knob you fiddle, and on the current values of all the dials. Now fiddle a few knobs and try to guess where any given dial will move to.
The human mind operates best using narratives. A causes B, B causes C. This and that go together. These things are opposite. Yada yada. Partial differentiation is beyond most human intuition even in two dimensions. Narratives fail completely when the number of dimensions increases.
“If you want to understand the economy, imagine 100 linear equations in 100 variables.” I tend to agree though perhaps it’s 100 non-linear equations….
If you want to understand the economy, imagine 100 linear equations in 100 variables.
First you need to understand that the economy is a subsidiary of ecosystems Inc. And that the control interface for Ecosystems Inc is composed of billions of dials and knobs that have been set to very precise parameters allowing us to flourish up until now. By continuing to insist that economic growth is possible on a finite planet we are now fiddling with all those ecosystem knobs and dials without having the slightest clue as to what the consequences might be…
Why not just follow Warren Buffett?
He understands ecology?!
“we are now fiddling with all those ecosystem knobs and dials without having the slightest clue as to what the consequences might be…”
I would just suggest, Fred, that any slight clue we do have tells us that the consequences are almost certain to be in the largely to massively to fatally negative range. Start with your oft-cited coral reef bleaching, move on to fertilizer-fed dead zones, thence to the generalized ocean acidification. What’s likely to be positive about any of those? And those are just a few of the marine effects…
Start with your oft-cited coral reef bleaching, move on to fertilizer-fed dead zones, thence to the generalized ocean acidification. What’s likely to be positive about any of those?
I guess it all depends, if you are an anaerobic sulfate reducing bacterium in a bacterial mat ecosystem it might not be all that bad, eh?
Seriously, of course I agree with you 100%!
I was sitting on a bench at a train station down in São Paulo by the bank of the highly polluted Pinheiros river not long ago and thinking about what kinds of life forms one might find in that brew of oxygen poor, toxic chemical laden water that passes for a river over there. Ironically I could see fat capibaras swimming in the river and egrets, parrots and Southern Lapwings were making quite a racket flying by!
Nature never ceases to amaze me in its incredible resilience and tenacity to continue even in the face of apparently insurmountable odds.
Nonetheless as I sat there next to myriad steel and glass towers shimmering in the sunlight, I remembered the little ponds that used to exist right where I was sitting and how I used to catch frogs an tropical cichlids there to put in my aquariums when I was a still young boy. It inspired me to create a still life of the scene especially because I am not a huge fan of the anaerobic sulfate reducing bacterial mat ecosystem…
Attached a highly reduced version of my original
Cheers!
“If you want to understand the economy, imagine 100 linear equations in 100 variables.”
Or you could try reading an economics book or take an economics course like people who do understand the subject.
Hey folks, back again
I realized something and I didn’t want to instill fear in you that it was a hard life.
That’s just something I heard from the folks who want to sell us our so-called luxuries that break all the time, that we have to throw out into filling up landfills, and that don’t make our lives much better and in fact make them worse often. It’s a hard life in the making, the longer we maintain this charade.
Let’s face it, we are paying through the nose if you look around you. Such as the 40+hours workweek, the taxes, the bosses, the bombs dropped on innocents overseas, the limited say we have in our own lives, the drawdown of general planetary resources like for generations to come, and all that for what? For my generation and a handful of other generations to squander and plunder.
Pretty much I think we’ll all have to go back to the farm again one day anyway, as the corporate farms mess things up for us. Don’t know how many real farms are left these days. Hope we can make something of it. The supposed easier the life is now, I guess the harder it will be down the broken road of our culture.
Take care folks.
A ridiculous number of people who think in terms of upheaval and needing to have access to farms make a really obvious mistake.
The farming expertise out there is knowing how to drive a tractor, when to put oil based insecticide into the field, how to drive the combine for harvesting and how to haul the crops to the buyer.
You take oil away and a lot of farmers aren’t going to know how to farm. And another bright tidbit . . . an oxen is a cow raised from birth being taught to pull. You can’t just yoke up ranch cattle and expect them to plow a field. And worse still, the genes have changed. A proper oxen could plow 3 acres for human food and only 1 acre of hay for getting thru the winter. Now it’s 1:1 ratio. The cattle genes turn calories into beef/fat. Not slow metabolism.
Good points…
There are many types of farms and many forms of farming/agriculture of course.
For example, no-till/no-plow, vertical food forest gardens, self-seeding/propagating/native perennials, natural swale/contour irrigation/retention, crop symbiosis/diversity, duck-pond aquaculture and many kinds of pattern/holistic interplays between these, often based on protracted observation of what is working and what needs adjustments.
“Less tillage of the soil reduces labour, fuel, irrigation and machinery costs. No-till can increase yield because of higher water infiltration and storage capacity, and less erosion. Another benefit of no-till is that because of the higher water content, instead of leaving a field fallow it can make economic sense to plant another crop instead…” ~ Wikipedia
And weeds. At my previous residence, I got a letter/order from the town to cut my lawn because I let it grow out temporarily because I wanted to see what was growing that was edible and could be transplanted and arranged tastefully, such as in groupings, for a kind of wild edible/attractive weed garden in place of the front lawn.
You can eat daisies and fleabanes, which look like mini daisies, for example, and both are fairly decorative and very hardy. There’s also the wild sunflower, assorted hawkweeds, and the yarrow, which grows practically all summer long. The bedstraw that was growing tasted delicious (kind of like a nutty spinache) as did the yellow wood sorrel (lemony). We also had self-heal, which includes a stalk of purple flowerettes, and French tea, also called speedwell. Of course we had the usual clovers, plantain and dandelion, among others, as well as a small patch of wild strawberry. While mosquitoes annoyed me a little, I used to pick wild wintergreen in the local woods (just a couple leaves per plant to keep it alive and so that upon returning, there’d be all kinds of new growth) and blend it in whole milk. The same leaves/pulp was strained and reblended about two or three times until it was light green and the milk was quite green. Then, the mixture was semi-frozen with some home-made custard added and then blended one last time for a killer July wintergreen milkshake to drink on the steps in the sun or while reading TOD (no POB back then. ‘u’)
That knowledge of conventional modern farming is being transformed quite fast. I am being trained right now on ecological agriculture that requires substantially less energy and fossil fuel input. Ecological agriculture is growing very fast all over Europe.
Oil is not going to just disappear from one day to another, and oil for farming is a very small percentage. We will have plenty of time to adapt our agriculture and livestock to the new situation. We will most likely have a food crisis since our food production, processing and distribution is unsustainable, but due to that food crisis a transition in our food system is possible as it only takes a few decades.
I attended yesterday a conference by a cuban professor on the agroecological organoponic system developed in Cuba from 1997, after the 1990 “special situation” food crisis. It is an example of the type of responses that will be required. The system now employs over 300.000 fully dedicated trained people plus over a million part time urban gardeners. Products are sold at point of production and the system is economically self sustained. Chemical fertilization is forbidden and the energy input is very low. The system is backed up by livestock farms and seed banks. Traditional varieties have been recovered and the professor said food for children is now more varied and rich than when he was growing up.
We are not going to just lie down and die.
I’m visiting Cuba in a few weeks, and will be very interested to get a first hand look at their agricultural system. I’ll be cycling round for a week so will hopefully see quite a lot. From what I understand they’ve incorporated quite a bit from permaculture into their system.
My wife and I work very hard on our small holding. We do grow much of our food, but the thought of trying to actually make any cash farming is beyond the pale. We are home gardeners, pure and simple. My Minnesota relatives who farmed all had someone in the family with a town job….usually the wife. I have friends here who raise cattle. I don’t think they make 5 cents doing it. He drives the school bus and is a school custodian, his brother drives a logging truck….the land they got for cheap cheap cheap, and the cattle look like shit as far as I’m concerned.
Next week we get our 30 meat birds in for a years supply of chicken. We process our own stuff. We do the egg thing and sell excess to cover feed costs, and my wife runs the greenhouses and the garden is her baby. We’ll get in a years supply of salmon come August, and some game in the fall which we also cut and wrap. I get asked to sell chicken by neighbours and never do as it is simply too much work.
Paulo wrote:
“I have friends here who raise cattle. I don’t think they make 5 cents doing it. ”
Lots of people do farming in order to get the property tax reduction. It does not matter if he never makes a dime selling cattle, however they are probably making thousands by pay a lot less in property tax. Plus the cattle serve as free weed control. The true “no mow” lawn 🙂
If you can arrange a visit to one of their organoponic centers, that can be very interesting too. They have controlled clean access to prevent plagues so you might need an authorisation. At least you can try their products.
Can’t see that much in a week riding a bicycle. If you want to risk it, see if you can set up to allow young cubans to use your hotel internet connection. The government censors the Internet, but they try to hang around outside the hotels trying to hack into the foreigners’ only wifi connection.
Also take information they aren’t allowed to see. Next week’s The Economist will have content they would really like to read. I don’t think its that risky, but do check with your lawyer before you go. Cuban dictatorship trials are secret, you won’t get to pick your lawyer, and the sentences are really harsh.
Javier, unfortunately the system used by the Castro family dictatorship leaves Cuba short and it imports food. The root cause is the communist/collectivized mindset.
Fernando, I understand quite well the limitations of dictatorships as I also experienced one when I was young in Spain. However I believe that a social coordinated response to a food crisis induced by a reduction in available oil and accompanying economic crisis will be far superior to an individualistic one, and in that respect the cuban experience is valuable regardless of political issues.
I don’t agree, if the approach copies anything done by the Cuban dictatorship. I too lived in Spain under Franco. Castro’s regime is a lot worse. Much much worse.
You also have to account for the use of fake statistics, false impressions, the use of “show villages” and other tricks they use. I wouldn’t bother to go to Cuba to learn anything from them, other than sophisticated torture, repression, spying, and propaganda. They are very good in those four fields.
Hi Fernando,
The very little I know about Cuban agriculture as it is practiced these days comes from web sites that have somewhat questionable agendas in that they probably tend to exaggerate the success of small scale labor intensive low chemical input ( fertilizers, pesticides, fuel) techniques.
But so far as I can tell this is the style of farming being practiced in Cuba these days and it is likely that they have discovered some useful tricks and management techniques over the last couple of decades.
The rest of us might learn a few useful things from them. But as usual I tend to agree with you about trusting what I hear from Cuba.
They have zero management techniques you can use. Their society and economy are distorted, inefficient, based on lies, it’s all a stupid mirage. I have relatives who tell me what’s going on. It’s utterly irrational. They have internal conflicts, hard core Marxists fighting with fascists, military personnel get the big jobs, lots of old guys put on jobs they don’t know how to do, and you get jailed if you complain. Everybody steals, government officials are corrupt. Lots of nepotism. Lazy people. The young ones want to leave. They admire Obama, hate Fidel. They have no faith in anything. That society has been socially genocided. It’s a moral wreck.
Your description of what life was like in Cuba sounds a lot like what life was like in Brazil during the military dictatorship that I personally experienced. I still think you are stuck in the past. I also highly doubt that absolutely nothing can be learned from the Cuban experience especially when it comes to agriculture without fossil fuel inputs.
Cuba has a lot of soil scientists and agronomists, more as a percentage of their population than in any other country in Latin America. Anyone who knows anything about industrial agriculture and peak oil has to understand that industrial agricultural processes are doomed. The only alternative is ecological agriculture and very few people on this planet have had as much experience with it as have the Cubans.
It might also be important to keep in mind that humans are in ecological overshoot and there is no way that ecological agriculture can support as many people as industrial agriculture which up until now has been heavily dependent on fossil fuels, herbicides, pesticides and massive inputs of fertilizer. We are entering a new world and what worked in the past is obviously no longer going to work.
Here is an article that seems to take a realistic look at what happened in Cuba and what might still be learned from it.
http://goo.gl/TJhv1Q
No, Fred. Cuba is a lot lot lot worse. Not only that, Brazil’s military dictatorship ended many years ago. We Cubans haven’t had the opportunity to give the Castro the proper burial.
Part of my point was that regardless the political situation in Cuba, the science and experience gained by the soil scientists and agronomists should still be valid and I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to learn from them.
The poll—considered to be the biggest and most comprehensive independent public opinion study conducted on the island in the past 50 years—was conducted by local pollsters under the direction of the Miami-based firm Bendixen & Amandi on behalf of Univision Noticias/Fusion in collaboration with The Washington Post. It was conducted without the consent of the Cuban government; 1,200 Cubans across the island were interviewed in person between March 17-27. The data offers a unique insight into public opinion on an island where reliable polling is notoriously difficult and where 75 percent of Cubans claim they have to be careful what they say in public.
http://fusion.net/story/116226/historic-poll-top-25-findings-from-major-cuba-survey/
I’m not sure it gives a fully honest insight. But it sure beats the hell out of nothing. The Spanish King has announced he’s willing to be Cuban King, now that we know he’s more popular than the Castro brothers.
“Hey, indoor plumbing from my local water resource (doctor suggested I should be buying bottled water because of my inexplicable infections/swelling, but whatever…), fridge, microwave, electric car, solar panels, job…
Ahhh, progress… Life is good… Can it get any better? Hell ya… My good ol’ government… watchin’ my back… Ahhh, this is the life…”
Crisis? What Crisis?
And that was the late 70’s.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Here is an IEA report on the options the US refinery industry has to process LTO.
http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/petroleum/lto/pdf/lightightoil.pdf
Technical Options for Processing Additional Light Tight Oil Volumes within the United States
Thanks. This is very well written. One option they left out is to process the import crude stream to remove a portion of the naphta and ship the heavier ends. This can be done using a simple distillation unit. The naphta can be sent to countries which use it for diluent or chemical feedstock.
This would be viable in a country like say Nigeria, or Brazil.
The moment that we collectively are producing flat out and are still in decline. Thats when collapse begins. If we continue producing flat out during this time it will accelerate the decline there for accelerate the collapse. If we cut back production well that too will accelerate the collapse.
Government debt gets discussed a lot. It’s the private debt that is the issue. Thats where the real collapse will take place. Government can print. Everyone else has to burn energy to pay their debts. Government can’t buy all the private debt that exist nor can they print oil so they can’t stop the collapse that is coming.
Peak Oil is going to be a very deflationary event. First there will be less miles driven, less jobs, less economic activity all around. Then comes asset price deflation as the debt backing the valuations can’t be serviced. Eventually the availability of basic needs like food and water become insufficient. Then less people.
Deflationary for oil importers but maybe highly inflationary for exporters, which is possibly just as damaging to local economies and the 99%, especially when it gets exported on certain asset classes such as real estate in some of the more attractive cities and general food supply.
Real estate will be one of the hardest hit asset classes out there. It’s highly leveraged. Mortgages are huge sums of money and there all private debt not government debt even if they are government insured. People have to burn energy for 30 years in most cases to service the debt. They are highly insured as well. Which means banks are in the crosshairs once again. Cermercial real estate will be hit even harder. People will need a place to live regardless if they are employed or not. Both residential and cermercial real estate are expensive to maintain.
Real estate market won’t be bailout out this time around with QE. It won’t work. What most people don’t understand is all the QE and low interest rates are going to fail and fail miserably. You will see them print ungodly amounts of money and stock market, bond market and real estate market will implode anyway.
Mortgages are probably the number one claim out there on the future use of energy. Not enough oil to maintain current price. Peak Oil is going to create a private debt implosion.
This should be where Watcher tells me government will decree private debt void and then proceed to tell me that changes the outcome somehow.
It’s ridiculous that there is real estate mania again in some areas, like CA, NY, and CO.
A lot of wealthy chinese are buying around the world trying to get their money out of china while the gettin is good. In most cases this is high end real estate. Most of these purchases are not cash money. They put the minimum down payment they have to in order for government to allow them to purchase. In some cases they have to invest an X amount of money into local business in order to qualify to purchase. They take out huge mortgages to buy these homes. Thats all fine as long as they can continue to make the payments. But if for some reason say such as peak oil comes along and puts a crimp in their ability to pay. They have to sell that property for whatever they can get for it.
Most of these people have bought multiple homes and this extends to the cermercial side of real estate as well.
Investment firms like Blackrock who bought tens of thousand of foreclosed homes following the 2008 bust are going to eat huge losses. They bought them for rental purposes with the intention of securitizing the assets and selling them to investors. Rent backed securities. It hasn’t panned out the way they’ve wanted.
Wait to they are forced to sell and unload all those homes onto the market.
I believe myself that most of the homes that were bought up for peanuts for cash by deep pocketed investors have already been sold at a profit – or in the case of any individual investor still holding he has sold enough to get back all his cash meaning that his remaining inventory is going to be ALL profit when it is sold, minus maintenance and taxes of course. Even minimal rent will cover that expense.
Most of the homes were actually bought by institutional investors. The discounts didn’t amount to peanuts or pennies on the dollar. These were bank owned properties. These institutional investors didn’t even look at these homes before they purchased them. Discount rate is 10-15% off price. These investors would buy all inventory as long as it met area requirements. Banks would actually save properties cause it was a done deal soon as the foreclosure took place. We are talking about 5 or 6 Institutional investors buying up a few 100 thousand homes here.
I assume that you will soon become a billionaire by shorting real estate stocks. If not, perhaps you should not be in the prediction business.
Who is to say that i’m not already a billionaire and i’m just saying what i think? There will be very little to be made shorting anything. Or to put it another way you won’t be able to hold on to any profits made by shorting the coming collapse. There will be no transfer of wealth. Just wealth destruction.
Markets and the way things have always have worked and behaved up until this time will cease to exist. Forget everything thats thought to be known. BAU will not by implied here.
I understand money extremely well. In a system where debt is money if the debt can no longer be serviced then the debt or the money gets destroyed. Wealth vanishes.
Private debt is all that really matters. They can’t socialize all the private debt. The minute they fail to get more oil of the ground than previously all private debt becomes unpayable. That statement will probably not make sense to you. How could all private debt not be payable.
All private debts are currently not payable. Interest charge on the debt was never created and put into the economy. Never has been never will be enough money in the system for all debts to be paid. When you add insufficient fuel to the equation adding more debt to the system is actually going to bring it down quicker. As it can’t be repaid. Adding more debt to the system is the only way people are ever able to acquire all the dollars needed to pay back not only the principle but also the interest payment on their debt.
My so called predictions.(Me really just saying whats on my mind) are accurate.
This should be where Watcher tells me government will decree private debt void and then proceed to tell me that changes the outcome somehow.
Actually you are one of few who understand nuts and bolts of goings on. I would suggest you’re young, but no idea. I will suggest that a Unified Field Theory of what results from the unraveling has fairly low odds of accuracy. Too many cogs in the machine to understand them all.
As for the government intervening and somehow changing “the outcome”, as I dabbled into last ronpost, what is “outcome”? What is the specific mechanism and manifestation of “collapse”? How can I show a change of outcome if I don’t know the measurement of outcome?
You aren’t giving that.
Lots of people say “Japan is printing money hand over fist and this is unsustainable”. They say things like “that which cannot go on, will not go on.” Or “this will end badly”.
Well, okay. What specifically will that look like? If all the central banks of the world cooperate to ensure Japan doesn’t have the yen fall to say 500 per USD, then what is the mechanism and specific manifestation of Japan printing causing “collapse”? How does them printing get to people in Tokyo starving? What is the exact path to that destination?
I submit that if that path were known, you would find government on that path to stop travel on it. With money. Or guns.
Only oil scarcity ends all this. Not money.
Edit here, with praise. Very few people understand that you cannot make money on Apocalypse. If you bet on the system being destroyed, there is no system left to pay you.
Which is why it’s best to not think too much about money in the Post Peak world.
Only CHEAP oil ends all this .
A smart man once said ” the price of oil is what someone will pay for it , at a profit ” hes name was ..wait for it …..
Rockman….but im only going from memory..
The collapse will manifest itself in private debt. Government printing money to keep BAU running is actually bringing the collapse forward in time. Allowing us to continue living well beyond our means. I’d argue low interest rates and QE have brought the date of peak oil forward in time.
It’s a combination of energy and debt that has allowed us to get to where we are currently at today. Debt allows us to use far more energy than what we could use without it. Without debt how many houses and cars would get built? How many business would be opened? What would todays population be without debt?
If debt didn’t exist then you’d have to burn the energy first before you bought the house or the car or opened a business. Debt is a claim on energy use. Plus a little extra energy use for the interest payment an in some cases a lot of extra energy use in the case of a house since compounding interest amounts to double the original debt in many cases.
The minute insufficient fuel arrives this can no longer be papered over with QE and low interest rates. Those two things actually exasperate the problem because they create demand growth during supply decline. Oil will be depleted much quicker if those two things are not stopped.
I liking it to driving at a wall at 180mph an instead of hitting the brakes you intentionally floor the accelerator.
I should add that since it is a global economy if we get insufficient fuel in say the US and Europe. Think about how that effects China’s exporting economy. I’m thinking you get a shortage in one or two places it will be felt everywhere. I’m not sure how isolated any one country can be when this starts to go down.
And the exchange rate between dollar and yen or whatever currency and whatever currency won’t prevent collapse due to lack of fuel. Economies will die regardless of where the exchange rates are. Japan does have a unique set of issues which will probably take their population down first.
Debt allows us to use far more energy than what we could use without it.
Which is why I think from an environmental point of view the collapse of debt is a good thing. Sure, it will complicate life and end BAU, but that’s a positive if you want consumption to go down.
It didn’t have to be this way, but since that we’ve been encouraging massive, and often unnecessary, fossil fuel consumption, and as a result peaks are likely to happen sooner than they had to be, something will put on the brakes. I think I’d rather see debt systems fall apart before seeing environmental systems becoming further damaged.
When private debt implodes due to lack of fuel it’s going to take a large part of the population with it. So while it will be better for the environment. How should we collectively decide who gets to stay and who dies? Should we just ask for volunteer’s? Should we just let government decide? I really don’t know how to answer this question. But my gut feel is it’s truly going to be a survival of the fittest world.
My gut feeling is that if you want to be one of the ones that do survive you’d better prepare yourself to do things you may not be morally comfortable doing or you can just accept death with open arms.
When private debt implodes due to lack of fuel it’s going to take a large part of the population with it.
How will debt kill people?
Lack of food, lack of water, wars, disease, etc. Those will kill people.
Debt won’t.
Well, at least that’s an attempt to describe the pathway from QE to starvation. I think there were some “and a miracle happens here” steps in the description, but at least it’s a try. Not a very good description of “collapse” though.
It also leans pretty heavily on “global economy”, where something that happens one place defines elsewhere, and that would be reasonable were it not for the absolute refusal of individual countries to accept imbalance.
If you want to characterize “collapse” (and you have to if you’re making a case for Apocalyptic results of purely monetary events) then you have to somewhat go country by country — and as soon as it’s clear not all countries will be hit the same, war needs injecting into the theory, which should pretty much destroy it (and most other theories, too, given Shanghai’s latitude is pretty close to the Eagle Ford’s).
Watcher,
Global trade will come to a halt. Not going to be the case of countries refusal of imbalances. No monetary system no trade. Imports will stop. Exports will stop. (part of the collapse)
Would it take a miracle or just a collapse of monetary system? Trade will continue as long as monetary system stays functioning. But will cease after monetary system fails.
War will be brought on by collapse of monetary system. No miracle there either. (also part of the collapse)
The collapse is one part Debt and one part Peak Oil. It’s not just one or one without the other.
“I should add that since it is a global economy if we get insufficient fuel in say the US and Europe. ”
Sawdust, that will take a long time to happen. High oilprices leads to demand destruction; fewer miles driven, driving more fuel economic cars, etc. Insufficient fuel is a big step later.
Sawdust wrote:
“Private debt is all that really matters. They can’t socialize all the private debt. The minute they fail to get more oil of the ground than previously all private debt becomes unpayable. That statement will probably not make sense to you. How could all private debt not be payable.”
No issues with anything you wrote. The only thing I would add is that the private debt already collapsed. When Oil soared (as conventional Oil production peaked), the bubble popped. To keep the game going, the Fed & Federal go’vt stepped in bought the junk mortgages to temporarily stabilize the economy. Seems like the next bag of trick is bringing in NIRP (Negative Interest Rate Policy), although I doubt it will last as long as ZIRP. After that, it will usher in chest thumbing mad politicians that end up starting a big war.
For now it appears that the global economy is falling into recession we are seeing lower oil prices, lower exports out of China and a rising dollar. This is for taking the pressure off demand for oil, but it also crushing future CapEx for drilling.
The next round of collapse may begin when Greece defaults (perhaps this May or June). The odds of it creating economic shockwaves is prettty high. If the markets tank over Greece (begnning of the collapse of the EURO) than I think the Fed will do NIRP to prevent the dollar from soaring and causing deflation. I also noticing that stock buy backs are begging to run into problems as corporate borrowing for buybacks is begging to risk credit downgrades. It seems likely that stock buybacks (main backstop for equity prices) cannot continue for too much longer (perhaps another year at most). So even if Greece doesn’t bring down the Markets, other factors probably will.
I know that Jeffrey is a signed up member of the kopits fan club, and at least when it comes to his oil predictions I am too. He’s put up quite a bold piece on where he thinks the oil price will go this year, and I’m starting to believe that he thinks an oil shock is quite likely in the near term.
http://thenational.ae/business/energy/why-rising-demand-will-determine-the-oil-price
An important point to remember is that major oil companies started cutting upstream CapEx prior to the decline in oil prices, which is the CapEx Compression situation that Steven described more than a year ago.
I suspect that January, 2015 is to the current oil price decline as December, 2008 was to the 2008/2009 decline. The annual rate of increase in monthly Brent prices from 12/08 to 2/11 (when monthly prices recrossed the $100 mark) was 43%/year. So far, the annualized rate of increase in monthly Brent crude oil prices is exceeding the 12/08 to 2/11 annualized rate of increase.
Following is the chart that Steven prepared in January, 2015 (Prienga is his outlook).
Note that one problem with a global supply & demand analysis is that ignores what I call “Net Export Math.” For example, Saudi Arabia has shown a small increase in post-2005 total petroleum liquids production + other liquids production (especially if we use their revised number for 2005), but increasing consumption outpaced the small increase in production, resulting in declining net exports, relative to 2005. Based on the revised 2005 number, 2014 Saudi net exports may have been as much as one mbpd or so less than their 2005 rate.
Here is a simple example. Assume total production of 80 mpbd, all of which is in exporting countries, which have consumption of 40 mbpd, resulting in net exports of 40 mbpd. Production in the exporting countries goes up by 2.5 mpbd, but consumption in the exporting countries goes up by 5 mbpd. So, net exports are 82.5 mbpd less 45 mbpd = 37.5 mbpd. On a global basis production = consumption, but the volume of oil available to importers fell from 40 mbpd to 37.5 mbpd.
For the supply-demand to go negative we need a significant drop in production and/or a significant increase in demand. A production decrease appears likely, but not enough to account for 4 mbpd in just a quarter. So Steven Kopits is betting on a strong economical recovery this quarter. I remain skeptical on that.
Just a strong demand recovery triggered by the price collapse. Thus far the data seem to be supporting him.
2Q to 3Q demand typically increases by 1500 kbpd due to USA motoring season and increased power demand in the Middle East for air conditioning. Add in some demand increase from the lower prices (1.1% increase would give about 1000 kbpd), normal year on year increase over six months of 500 kbpd, then take out 600 kbpd supply from USA shale oil, 200 kbpd from post peak decline in the rest of the world (assuming Saudi doesn’t decide to put the boot in and increase production as they did in last month) and you get 3800 kbpd. If OPEC members get their act together and decide they’ve over done things a bit and cut nominally 2000 kbpd or more in the June meeting (even if only announced without much chance of it being actually forthcoming) we could be in a supply deficit, with backwardation on futures and maybe overshoot to $130+, really quickly…
… or the world economy collapses completely and oil drops to $20 – who knows.
Indeed, Middle East summer starts soon and that will increase oil consumption especially in Saudi Arabia. New car sales are increasing (again) in f.e. China, and SUV’s are regaining popularity.
Complete collapse of world economy could happen some time AFTER oil prices are over $130 (in case reached quickly).
Agreed – probably the most likely event even for a relatively slow rise. I don’t really think $130 could be reached with the dollar as strong as it is at the moment, but Brent may well exceed last summer’s prices in Euros, GBPs etc. without much of a change to current supply balance. Some of the economies already struggling might then start a contagion of decline.
Is the EIA report not exactly as expected based on demand side prediction which Steve Kopits has so succinctly skewered in a couple of recent presentations – i.e. use predicted BAU GDP growth to give expected oil demand, take off the production for well reported regions (USA, North Sea, Australia – all of which fall in the study), make up some optimistic numbers for regions not so well understood (especially if “new technology” is involved (e.g. Russian shale, Kazakhstan, Canada), and fill in the gap with a “call on OPEC”. So OPEC has to add 14mmbpd in 25 years – Kuwait are spending $4 billion to produce 60,000 bpd of heavy oil; Saudi are developing tight gas (not sure where the water for fracking comes from though) to free up oil from power generation; Kuwait/Saudi/UAE seem to have exhausted in-fill drilling options; Libya/Syria/Yemen might be done for good; and they’ve looked at (and in a lot of cases rejected or abandoned at least for now) advanced EOR and marginal Red Sea fields. Must be up to Iraq and Iran.
Precisely this.
There’s no “call on OPEC” option available. The EIA is pulling numbers out of thin air at this point.
The real increases would have come with 4 years over oil at or near $100. They didn’t.
The EIA’s scenario is based on the rosiest scenario possible.
Copy of an email I sent to a contact the EIA:
I recently noticed that the EIA has significantly revised the number for 2005 Saudi total petroleum liquids + other liquids production. After showing it at 11.1 mbpd for years, up to and including 2014, it was recently revised upward to 11.5 mbpd:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=55&aid=1&cid=regions&syid=2005&eyid=2013&unit=TBPD
I was wondering if you knew anything about this revision.
Gatwick oil discovery: Claims up to 100 billion barrels of oil met with substantial scepticism
Who would have known there was an oil reservoir the size of Ghawar in southeast England.
Some Brits are very exited, something to compensate for the peaking of the North Sea oil. Others are worried about the environmental implications. Other more oil literate Brits say the whole thing is a stock market scam.
Someone linked to an excellent post about this by Kemp at Reuters near the bottom of Ron’s previous post. The whole story really is nonsense
I wrote a couple of comments about the discovery in the previous post. I suggest you read them.
Trillions of dollars worth of oil found in Australian outback
And this reminds me of the massive shale oil deposit “found” near Coober Pedy in South Australia last year. You don’t hear much about this deposit anymore.
Frugal,
If you like reading, here is the full report that those claims were made, but not read at the time as the report was only made public more than a year later.
http://member.afraccess.com/media?id=CMN://2A773548&filename=20131212/LNC_01476229.pdf
Of course if you do not like to read long desktop reports, here are the drilling reports from two out of the three wells drilled to appraise the extravagant claims.
http://lincenergy.listedcompany.com/newsroom/20141218_133512_TI6_54H4G5LVEGW98J1T.1.pdf
http://lincenergy.listedcompany.com/newsroom/Arckaringa_Drilling_Update_No_9.pdf
So the long and short is the first well found some prospective shale which the samples are currently being tested in the lab. The area that is potentially productive covers 10% of the initial claim. They twisted off and P&A the well before they entered the most claimed productive area, where 80% of the oil was suppose to lie.
The second well found very hard rock and took much longer to drill than expected without any shows, and just to rub salt into the wounds, they found the lower formation much deeper than expected. They extended TD by 400 metres, and still didn’t reach the prospective formations, before they P&A.
Due to the hard ground, unexpected formation tops and lack of money, they postponed the third hole until the next drilling campaign.
Needles to say the Arck Basin will not be supplying any of Australia’s oil needs for a long time yet.
Gulp! Time to move to Canada!
An Australian Yankee
Never been there. Would love to go but chances are near zero. Read a lot about the country.
You would be better off in Canada almost for sure.
History is not on your side down under. Too far from your friends and allies in the event of REAL political troubles – and there will be plenty of that sort.
Beyond that within another generation or two your agricultural base is going to be history as well given that it is going to keep getting hotter and drier.
Hardly any soils worth a damn anyway.
I seem to remember reading, maybe from Collapse by Jared Diamond, that all the major Australian cities are situated exactly where they shouldn’t be for best sustainability; because the sites were originally chosen as penal colonies where the main criteria was to ensure the prisoners couldn’t escape.
Australia has advantages and disadvantages in regards to Peak Oil IMO.
Advantages:
1) Small population (20 million) only consumes 1 million barrels of oil a day. Produces about 400k a day. CTL would work great here (except for climate change).
2) Plenty of food for population. Already has desalination plants.
3) It only takes 1 USA nuclear sub to defend the place.
4) Big Energy Exporter
5) Population concentrated in 2 places (Melbourne and Sydney).
Disadvantages:
1) Climate Change.
2) Military Defense.
3) Neighbors are China, India, Japan and Indonesia who will all be looking for energy.
4) Giant housing bubble that is going to blow sky high.
IMO, Canada is the best spot on the planet to be.
1) Lots of Oil and Natural Resources.
2) Small population
3) Free USA military defense (nobody is going to invade Canada).
4) Might benefit from Climate Change …A warmer Canada…Awesome!
LOL!
Australia has only one advantage and that is it somewhat more proximate than most to New Zealand.
3) Free USA military defense (nobody is going to invade Canada).
Well, with the possible exception of the USA. The US government is going to treat us exactly the same way they treat Iraq the moment they want more of our oil than we want to give them- or that we want them to pay more than they are willing to.
They’re not our pals.
-Lloyd
Lloyd,
I am assuming you are from Canada.
Unless Canada makes the dumbest geopolitical decision in human history and tries to cut off oil exports to Uncle Sam, Canada is effectively the 51st state of America from a military perspective (see the Monroe Doctrine).
Invasions tend to decrease oil production not increase them, it is cheaper to buy it from someone as long as they don’t cut you off.
Iraq wasn’t about stealing Iraq’s oil.
Iraq was about ensuring Iraq Oil was AVAILABLE to the free market.
The USA doesn’t have state owned oil companies. We (I am a yank) are dependent on the free flow of oil in the oil markets. Of which, we don’t completely control but have a huge influence.
No way in hell anyone invades Canada and takes out the USA’s biggest source of foreign oil.
Canada may get hit by an inaccurate Russian or Chinese Nuclear missile (unlikely) but no where on the planet is safe from those kind of scenarios.
USA will NOT invade Canada it would be a lose-lose for both.
Unless Canada makes the dumbest geopolitical decision in human history and tries to cut off oil exports to Uncle Sam, Canada is effectively the 51st state of America from a military perspective (see the Monroe Doctrine).
You are making my point here.
This is not the attitude of a friend- this is the attitude of a bad employer.
Or a rapist.
Nobody asked us to join the US. The fact that you think of us this way emphasizes the problem.
There are any number of reasons to stop supplying the US with oil, from idealistic (we’ll stop producing any oil to stop global warming and other types of pollution) to greed (will the Chinese pay more?) The fact that these internal political questions are trumped by the need to appease the elephant on our doorstep makes us no different from Iraq or Pakistan.
We are a US client state.
The US hasn’t annexed us because it hasn’t been convenient, not through any sense of goodwill.
The US puts its interests ahead of every other nation, and every sentient being, on the planet. The moment they decide we put Canadian (or Global) interests first, that’s the day I start to worry about being strafed by the Air National Guard (or more likely by a drone strike.)
I repeat- as a Canadian- They are not our pals.
-Lloyd
Noam Chomsky was interviewed by CBC radio way back when; history tells the story.
Anyways, Noam mentioned the fact that Canada was/had been profiting immensely from the US military by supplying the US with necessary defense supplies for shipment to Vietnam.
After hearing what Canadians didn’t want to hear from Noam, it ruffled their feathers. They did not want to be confronted with facts, just misdirected criticism towards the United States and its military, not Canadian hypocrisy.
Anschluss is complete, despite the righteous indignation from the Canadian populous.
There are any number of reasons to stop supplying the US with oil, from idealistic (we’ll stop producing any oil to stop global warming and other types of pollution) to greed (will the Chinese pay more?)
The aerial photos of the tar sand mining are very disturbing. A massive destructive operation and ultimately, for what? Maybe Canada can decide that the US doesn’t need that oil. And then we won’t need the pipelines, either.
Ronald:
Anyways, Noam mentioned the fact that Canada was/had been profiting immensely from the US military by supplying the US with necessary defense supplies for shipment to Vietnam.
The US and Canadian armament industries are intertwined. So are the US and the British, the French, the Italians, the Germans, and piles more; an alliance born out of the aftermath of World War II. The rest of us didn’t go to Vietnam or Iraq (and if they’d listened to me, we wouldn’t have gone to Afghanistan, either.) It is an economic tie, not a policy one. Once you sell somebody a bullet, you can’t take it back if he changes his position. Especially if he has lots more bullets and an itchy trigger finger.
If you look closely at those military shipments, you will find that the great majority of the high-value jobs- the design and research end- are kept in the US. We weren’t “profiting immensely; in the previous 10 years, we lost our ability to produce our own fighter aircraft, and the follow-on jobs that kind of industry provides.
Boomer II:
The Deepwater Horizon and Purdoe Bay spills added to the USA’s natural beauty, as did any number of West Virginia mountain top removal open pit coal mines.
I have many of the same words for my government as I do for yours.
The difference is that our policy is always made with proviso “as long as the Americans don’t mind.”
To both of you:
What I am talking about is not individual bits of policy over the years that show various ways Canadians are less than perfect. Nothing you have said here suggests that you think the US has been letting Canada set it’s own policy without regard to what the US thinks. Your answers are “shut up, you sold us the rope so you’re part of the lynching” and ” you are selling us this messy stuff, when you know our hands are otherwise pristine.”
You want us to be a quiet, happy little client state.
And, for the most part we are. Simply because it’s better than being Cuba, or Venezuela, or the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, or Iran….
-Lloyd
I don’t agree with it. That is just the reality of the situation.
Getting a 900 billion dollar a year military for free isn’t such a bad deal however.
thanks!
to Boltzman:
Getting a 900 billion dollar a year military for free isn’t such a bad deal however.
It’s not our army. It is, essentially, a gun to our head.
Iraq wasn’t about stealing Iraq’s oil.
Iraq was about ensuring Iraq Oil was AVAILABLE to the free market.
Iraq was about a huge lie to the American people and a 15 year run of war crimes.
My point isn’t about whether the US thought they were justified or not- it is that the US doesn’t care if its actions are just, legal or fair.
In that way, Canada and Iraq are alike.
The moment we are more useful under the boot than we are carefully avoiding it, that’s the day we’re under the boot.
I’ll be shocked if the US ever invaded Canada like we did to Iraq.
As far as I can tell the US and Canada have a pretty good thing going.
I agree that the US shouldn’t butt into Canada’s decision making.
But the reality is that countries behave in self interested ways.
That is why it is important to have the biggest stick.
Just be glad North Korea doesn’t have the biggest stick.
As far as I can tell the US and Canada have a pretty good thing going.
That’s because the US get’s the best part of it. The view is different on this side of the border.
That is why it is important to have the biggest stick.
Bullies always feel that way.
Just be glad North Korea doesn’t have the biggest stick.
Puh-lease The US is not protecting us from North Korea. It’s not even protecting the USA from North Korea.
there has to be some accounting for sending Justin Bieber down here.
5) Hockey
6) Poutine?
One disadvantage is that the supply lines and required infrastructure are really long – most people by far live in a 3000 mile strip 50 miles either side of the TransCanada Highway (and within 100 miles of the USA border).
Not the only find.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/This-Week-In-Energy-Oil-Markets-Reaching-a-Bottom-Shell-Points-the-Way.html
In the UK, an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil were discovered near Gatwick Airport, which services London. UK Oil & Gas Investments claims that within 15 years, the so-called Weald Basin could fuel one-third of Britain’s oil demand. If true, that would be a godsend for a country that is watching its once prolific oil fields in the North Sea rapidly run dry. The estimated 100 billion barrels would also be worth an obscene 3.7 trillion British pounds at current prices. Still there is quite a bit of skepticism about how much oil can be realistically produced from the Weald Basin. Some analysts said that only a small fraction of the reserves could be produced. Others say that the reserves in place are also overly optimistic. UK Oil & Gas saw its share price skyrocket on April 9.
It’s not that absurd : numbers are not pulled from nowhere but from demand.
And since OPEC production will rise, price will go down, and shale won’t be able to compete.
That explains their numbers (I don’t say I agree with these numbers, but they follow a certain logic)
I just ran across this a minute ago scanning the news. I presume the statistics in it are reasonably accurate. The article is mostly about the political and economic considerations Saudi Arabia is dealing with in terms of production and prices in the opinion of the author.
So far as I know when the WSJ prints statistics on production and prices of commodities they are as good as anybodys and better than most.
I guess it is somewhat presumptuous of me but I think my own reasoning concerning the politics involved is better. But otoh I don’t have to please an editor or an owner with an agenda.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-maneuvers-to-retain-oil-crown-1428707642
Mac, that article requires sign up.
Fernando,
Try searching the article’s title in google and then opening it there.
I get a lot of articles free that usually require subscriptions simply by bookmarking google news, bing top story news and so forth.
That is how I read this one free.
Yesterday, towards the end of the previous Ronpost, I posted a comment with a link to an article in one of the papers in my neck of the woods about one of the outcomes of a one day visit to the island by President Obama and his delegation, including, his Energy Secretary. After quoting a bit of the article, I went on to say, ‘there were no quotes of anything that the US Energy Secretary said and the story is very light on what is actually included in this signed “agreement”.’
Well, it seems I just hadn’t really looked for the right article. Here it is:
Jamaica, US eye LNG collaboration around regional hub
“United States Secretary of Energy, Dr Ernest Moniz, says the United States is seeking willing partners for execution of a regional hub to supply liquefied natural gas, an initiative proposed by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Moniz, who spoke during the signing of a Statement of Intent between the US Department of Energy and Jamaica’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, said in talks with Minister Philip Paulwell that he appeared to have found a willing partner to work with on gas and renewable energy.”
I thought that the oil and gas business in the US was a wholly private sector thing? When does the Department of Energy get involved in “seeking willing partners for execution of a regional hub to supply liquefied natural gas”? I sense something is amiss and I also wonder what the US interests are in seeing the Jamaican economic situation improve, aside from reduced pressure for immigrant visas at the US embassy here?
By the way, for all the Obama haters out there, there is nobody I have seen from across the aisle that can hold a candle to him. He is as charismatic as they get. You should have seen him in action at the “Town Hall Meeting” at the local university that, they organized with “youth leaders” from across the island. He had the kids “eating out of his hands” as it were. Pity more Americans aren’t proud of him!
Full video of the Town Hall Meeting courtesy of The White House available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=636mgw1THpc
Alan from the islands
Alan, I think it’s vaporware. Intended to make Castro think about the way cuba can be bypassed (Cuba has many more suitable locations, a larger natural gas market, and can be connected to Florida by pipeline).
I worked on a gas marketing project for the Caribbean many years ago. The best option for the multitude of small islands was compressed natural gas. Cuba could be supplied by pipeline. We didn’t think lng was viable because there were too many small markets, but we found a solution using natural gas compressed at high pressure and transported by sea going barges. Let me see if I can find you a link.
Ok, here you go
http://enersea.com/understanding-cng/
The concept needs to be considered very seriously for Jamaica. Ships can load in a suitable load port, such as Fort Lauderdale, and travel to Jamaica. I believe you can get gas for $6 per MMBTU. That sure beats diesel. The gas allows you to develop wind and solar to some extent because you can use turbines to do the load following.
The gas allows you to develop wind and solar to some extent because you can use turbines to do the load following.
Jamaica mostly uses oil-fired generation. That works as well as gas turbines for load following, and is *much* more expensive than wind or solar.
Jamaica should install as much wind and solar as they can, as fast as they can: it will be cheaper, more reliable, cleaner, domestic, etc.
Natural gas is cheaper.
For the moment.
But, it’s imported, and the price is very volatile.
And, large NG imports appear to be taking a long time, and may never happen.
Wind and solar are cheaper than the status quo and domestic.
Here’s a story from about nine years ago (December 1, 2006) about overtures being made by this outfit through an expatriate Jamaican, to supply facilities on the island with CNG:
Ray Chang-SeaNG alliance hunting compressed gas contract from Jamaica
SeaNG vice-president Ian Mallory said his company could deliver at reduced price by sourcing from Trinidad, Venezuela and Colombia.
Cost savings
Speaking at the Geological Society of Jamaica Earth Sciences event at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona on Wednesday, Mallory said that cost savings could be made from the greater density, which results from compressing the gas for transportation. The process, he said, also eliminates the need for regassifying the product.
“This solution, because the onshore operations are not as large, can be a turnkey solution to deliver to the doors of customers so Jamaica would not have to finance any of it,” he said at a meeting of geologists Wednesday on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.
The SeaNG solution may also eliminate plans for the alternative US$50 million floating LNG platform at Port Esquivel. A SeaNG ship costs US$35 million to construct.
Energy officials have been in discussion with the LNG division of Norwegian shipping company, Leif Hoegh & Company to provide the platform. But for now Jamaica is reviewing all proposals from potential suppliers, and is holding off on decisions, energy advisor to the Prime Minister Dr. Cezley Sampson told the Financial Gleaner. A hypothetical joint venture with the Jamaica Public Service Company and the nearby Windalco alumina plant would achieve economies of scales that could be replicated elsewhere, said Mallory.
Offloading
These facilities would consist of room to dock the ship and discharge through port-side pipelines. CNG can also be offloaded at offshore facilities. After a ship has discharged its load it would then be replaced by another ship, operating within a shuttle system.
Such relatively localised delivery systems serving large-scale industrial plants sited along Jamaica’s coastlines would eliminate the need to pipe or road transport by tanker over long distances from Port Esquivel.
Delivering by its patented Coselle System, SeaNG’s first ships have now been approved by United States shipping classification society, the American Bureau of Shipping, almost 10 years after it issued preliminary approval in 1997.
The first ship, possibly to be built in South Korea, should be launched in 2009, said Mallory.
Pipelines
Each coselle consists of 16 kilometres of 168mm (six-inch) diameter pipelines coiled into a carousel, with capacity for 90,000 cubic metres of CNG. SeaNG has designed ships with capacities from 16 to 144 Coselles.
Chang, a Jamaican/Canadian billionaire investor, who accompanied Mr. Mallory on his visit, confirmed a previous Gleaner report that he is considering financing SeaNG’s proposition to supply Jamaica with natural gas.”
While a lot has changed since 2006, the only other news I could find about that proposal was:
Chang’s CNG plans hit snag
Partners, Canadian Sea Natural Gas Manage-ment Corporation and businessman Raymond Chang, have hit a snag in their plans to supply Jamaica with compressed natural gas (CNG).
“The problem is there is no gas available,” Chang told Wednesday Business. “It doesn’t matter, whether it’s LNG or compressed natural gas, where you are going to get the gas, from SeaNG’s perspective, has to be within a certain distance.”
Trinidad, Venezuela and Colombia were ideal locations for SeaNG.
“In terms of location, Colombia – being the closest – is probably ideal,” said Chang on Monday on the sidelines of an investors’ forum hosted by First Global Financial Services on Monday.”
Nothing more on anything like that since then!
Alan from the islands
Alan,
A development that may help the availability of Nat gas to the islands is the construction of small scale LNG plants. Both Florida and Texas have them for the supply of LNG to High Horsepower engines, read oil field and coastal shipping. Also Vancouver is building a compact LNG plant, amongst other things, plan to ship LNG in 40ft shipping container to Hawaii.
To me this would sound a very feasible option for the Caribbean islands and allowing easy wide spread distribution with small localized pipelines, with no capex required on the shipping side at all as all ports will be able to handle 40ft containers.
Alan, I did a conceptual study for a large multinational in the 1990s. Our analysis showed that compressed gas was more practical than LNG. Large companies don’t publish such studies. The most we do is prepare a brief, a cover letter, and a set of slides. We meet with government officials, show them the slides, and leave the brief. We are usually ignored.
In 2009 I went to Alaska, gave a talk to a room full of people which included a few government types. One of them asked me for follow up information. And I never heard from them again. Later, in 2014, I heard the government had approved somethng along the lines of what was presented. But I don’t know what really went on.
Allan, it is tribal. The tribes don’t mix much. We are a very primitive species.
I just want to clarify that Joe B that posted at 8:57PM is not the Joe B that posted at 10:26.
This is kinda awkward and just a little bit weird….
I was just trying to convey my personal belief ( based on how I grew up) that most people have no idea what it is like to live/work on their own farm. And by “Farm” I mean a small family property- not a business with large tractors, large acreage, etc. You know, what you see on TV documentaries, etc. Those people are known by regular country folk as “rich”. That’s a term I particularly dislike.
Think small Central Texas German and Czech communities where everyone has a garden. The poorer you were the larger the garden. Really poorer and you have your own chickens and cows.
My how things have changed- I never knew we were so cool/hip back then!
I will PERSONALLY be willing to pay a whole lot more than I do now to keep electricity and hot/cold potable water in the house where I live that happens to be in a really nice neighborhood. I grew up with only electricity and would really rather not go back. But if times get tough, sure, I’ll go back to the farm and this time lock the gate behind me. I have actually been thinking a lot more about this the last few years because I am tired of the rat race and the rats keep multiplying. The wife is not too keen on that idea, she grew up in town..
Faced with the reality of higher energy prices or cutting back- yeah, I really can’t see most people giving up their City/Suburban/Starbucks lifestyles until dragged kicking and screaming into it.
Most EVERYONE will pay whatever it takes for the energy to maintain their lifestyle until it bankrupts them.
Hopefully some will wise up early enough to move to and restart the small and nearly deserted towns along every State Highway in every state in the US.
You know all those proper little towns I am talking about. They are all out there just ready to get repopulated after being abandoned and dismissed since the 1950-60’s? Back when all the youth were looking for the “good jobs” in the big cities.
I grew up on 10 acres, about 9 of them were for pasture for the cows. Two very large gardens provided 90% of our food.
Chickens are critical to farm life for the eggs and meat. I laugh at the cool concept of “free range ” chicken. Good grief, when you let them out of the chicken coops in the morning of course they will wander around in the pastures free range-that is where the insects are.
Having chickens is not all easy- everything likes chicken. Going out with a .410 at night when the dogs find a possum or skunk trying to get your hens is a common event.
Having cows for milk is the same deal but we never had anything large enough to threaten our cows back then. We did just lose a calf to coyotes a couple years ago when we had a few head out on the farm on a whim. We barely broke even on the 3 pairs we bought so I’m leaving the ranching to my in-laws and nephews that actually ranch for a living, not as a hobby.
Oh, and offshore exploration pretty much sucks worldwide right now.
Our GOM vessel Might have a 1 week job around Mississippi Canyon in a few weeks but it may delay, too. No other work in sight for it. Unheard of…
Trying to get one boat off to a Caribbean Tropical Paradise Island for Exploration but hideous delays there, too. I guess they are planning on oil dollars looking better than tourist dollars.
West Africa is almost dead silent right now- we worked almost non-stop there the last 10 years up until last spring. We have African crew calling all the time looking for work.
Sorry about all the rambling but I’ve been spending too much time working on the Caribbean-bound vessel trying to get it ready to sail. Rust never sleeps!
Strange days indeed…
Faced with the reality of higher energy prices or cutting back
Oil is getting more expensive, but not other forms of energy.
Transportation can be very cheap, if you want. Just buy a hybrid, or an EV. No matter how expensive oil gets, EVs will stay cheap. If people want to do the right/moral thing, they’ll kick the oil habit, and save their neighbors’ kids from having to go to war in the ME, or getting asthma from the pollution. If they want to save money, they’ll kick the oil habit.
Sad to say, those little towns aren’t coming back…
Just spam the fora.
I’m honestly starting to wonder whether he’s getting paid by Nissan now. Every problem facing humanity can be solved by buying a Nissan Leaf apparently.
The Leaf is the cheapest mainstream EV.
The Mitsubishi Miev is cheaper, but not nearly as widely available. The GM Spark is just as cheap, but much newer and much lower volume.
As soon as every agrees that EVs are cheaper and better, there’ll be no need to give detailed examples.
EVs won’t create world peace, but they might prevent oil wars. They won’t cure mental illness.
EVs will just help fix the problems they can fix: Peak Oil, climate change, preventing bad war movies…
Sure, just leverage Lady Latitude’s comment for yet more spam, what does it matter?
HI Caelan,
You get tired of Nick being an optimist.
I get tired of your constant pessimism even though I seldom say so in so many words. I believe your heart is in the right place although you are a hopeless dreamer in my estimation.
Obviously enough you do have some brains and SOME understanding of human nature.
Now here is a little bit of ordinary hillbilly farmer wisdom for you and everybody else who is dead set on preaching collapse.
Somebody else can translate it into fifty cent words for you – if there is a psychologist in the forum who wishes to be bothered.
Telling everybody day after day endlessly and forever that there is NO HOPE for a decent future has the WORST possible effect on their behavior.
Your constant ranting about all being lost is not EVER going to convince anybody to do anything useful.You seem to be fixated on some sort of utterly unachievable fantasy world that is simply incompatible with the reality of human nature.
I am if I say so myself quite a well read individual but I can hardly understand more than a quarter of your comments. The typical man or woman on the street or even a typical college grad could probably make no more sense of them than if they were in Chinese script.
Now on the other hand Nick does acknowledge and frequently does say that we are looking at dealing with a hell of a lot of extremely serious problems – dead serious problems- while also saying there is some hope of solving some of these problems.
People with brains – especially young people with brains, ambition, and some understanding of science and technology will listen to Nick. He will be in a lot of cases taken seriously.
His arguments and his claims are rational with an element of hope embedded.
If there are some youngsters reading this forum Nick will inspire a few of them to consider a career in the sciences whereby they may make a difference in HOW MUCH of the world will be preserved in good condition rather than being destroyed in collapse.
Folks with real brains and the ability to think critically don’t need to hear a constant message of doom. They figure it out for themselves once they turn their attention to the issues of climate, resources , population etc.
In the grand scheme of things the only people who REALLY matter are the ones who have brains and can think critically. They just might do something to change the course of future history.
Now as far as the ordinary folks who think just a little are concerned – your argument is the one my prosperous neighbor makes about driving his f250 with the big v8 engine. ”If I don’t burn it somebody else will.Won’t make any difference in the long run. Won’t make any difference in the short run.”
Nick on the other hand is going to convince a lot of younger folks that there is nothing sacred about pistons going up and down, that the time has come for armatures to go round and round. Every bev and plug in hybrid sold is one more tiny step in the right direction in that it buys us a little tiny bit more time to scale up renewables and maybe even do something to encourage people to have fewer children.
Will his arguments save the world?
I haven’t noticed that he has claimed he has all the answers. He has SOME ANSWERS.
So far as I can tell you have none that are apt to be implemented on this planet anytime soon.
What do YOU hope to accomplish?
Lady Latitude (presumably female not that it matters ) has no better understanding of technology than a semi illiterate hillbilly- I know plenty of both her kind and semi illiterate hillbillies.
I guess it has never occurred to her that there was no grid a century ago and that a few decades from now the grid WILL have necessarily been overhauled, indeed mostly totally rebuilt, in any case.
I will hazard a guess that she thinks wind farms are a bigger problem for birds than domestic cats by a factor of a hundred whereas the actual facts are the reverse by a factor of a thousand.
She obviously is the sort to deny what is in front of her lying eyes.
I don’t think she comprehends the simple fact that most people with two or three cars could drive a Leaf just about every day and thereby cut their direct use of oil by maybe eighty or ninety percent.
Lots of people I know could get by with a Leaf no problem at all year in and year out without ever buying another drop of gasoline. Not everybody has to drive a long way in one day. Not everybody takes a motor vacation or has relatives to visit over fifty miles away.
Survival happens a day at a time folks.
Thanks for the post. Your comments reflect my thoughts on the matter, too.
Yawn.
“Caelan, I support where you are coming from, but I want you to create these places, not just talk about them.” ~ Boomer II
“…what are you doing, yourself about that, seeing as you are advocating it?” ~ Caelan M.
“Not enough to be of much help.” ~ Boomer II
There is an ‘elder’ of a formative ecovillage project that I became involved with not too long ago with whom I still keep in fairly active touch. I seem to recall him being sufficiently past so-called, as you wrote, retirement age.
Ya gotta luv the hypocritical and/or limp pontification on here sometimes, ay?
Ya gotta luv the ostensibly-hypocritical pontification on here sometimes, ay?
I’m not being hypocritical. I have family where I live. I don’t plan to uproot to go somewhere else. They have land and perhaps in time we will be able to develop it for more self-sufficiency.
Would you prefer that people don’t support you here? I have to say, I’m with some of the others in that I don’t understand a good part of what you write. Maybe if you shared practical tips, I’d get more out of it. The cryptic stuff I just ignore.
“They have land and perhaps in time we will be able to develop it for more self-sufficiency.” ~ Boomer II
Yes, naturally…
Well feel free to share your wisdom and experience with all of us walking the talk. Once you get around to it of course.
In the mean time, we’ll be eagerly anticipating Nick G’s personal experience with his new EV when hell freezes over, and be looking for inspiration from those who expect us to do as they say, not as they don’t do.
Well feel free to share your wisdom and experience with all of us. Once you get around to it of course.
I’m here to learn, not to impart wisdom. But if you want to know what I learned over the years, just read all the gardening and homesteading articles here.
Whole Earth Catalog Stay Hungry Stay Foolish
I read this site every few days, and don’t comment very much…I was a TOD reader from inception through its demise…I occasionally read Gail’s bog as well, in occasional doses.
But I will take the time to add my voice to Mac’s.
One of the things that keeps a site such as this interesting is the diversity of opinion. I think the site’s appeal would be ruined if it turned into either another ‘Next Big Thing’ cornucopian site or another doom/despair interwebs backwater.
Remember to argue…no, discuss, each others posts, don’t attack the poster.
BTW, I have read most of John Michael Greer’s book titles the end of American Empire and the future of democracy (or something like that) and I found his writing in this particular book to be cogent and thought-provoking. I don’t agree with everything JMG puts to print but this book was a breath of fresh air. I have paused at the point where he recommends how to save democracy…
Of course Nick’s advice is wise; the reality is that a lot of people are buying SUV’s (again) because most are blind for reality.
old farmer mac,
If you could ease up on the filler– you know; windbagging/blowing hard– and artificial flavorings– doomer/dreamer mischaracterizations/dichotomies and/or reductive nonsense and the like, and increase the nutrient value, it would be appreciated.
Thanks! ^u^
(Did you understand that bit or where you too busy typing?)
I’ll leave you with a cute little rhyme:
‘How can that be
That Nick G
Doesn’t drive an EV?’
Hi Caelan,
Pretty simple. He does not drive much so it would be a waste of money in his view, and it would be better for the environment to keep his current vehicle. Perhaps we could use subtle coercion so he will buy one 🙂
Do you own a car? Or ever purchased any thing transported using fossil fuels or grown using fossil fuels?
I am getting faster all the time.
LOL.
Anybody who really wants to learn to type needs to adopt the Dvorak keyboard. It’s built in free in just about every modern computer.
Besides that I am stuck in the house performing nursing duties which are not very demanding but require my more or less constant presence.
Posting lots of comments passes the time.
I believe any impartial observer will judge mine to be less repetitious than yours.
Dennis, the EV is a plugin to the framework. The framework is wrong, or, rather, its operating code.
Yes, human ingenuity will triumph over the political, economic, logistical, physical, etc hurdles of replacing the electric grid. Can the large majority of America’s nearly 3000 power plants with highly volatile, renewable energy sources like solar and wind?
My girlfriend’s father is an engineer working at a company that designs and services the majority of wind farms in my country. I asked him whether renewables like wind and solar, being intermittent and highly energy/capital intensive, could replace fossil fuels. Does it suprise you that he said that it won’t happen?
Does it suprise you that he admitted that the majority of contracts his company services were only done due to very generous government subsidies?
Hi Lady Latitude,
Not all engineers have the same view point.
The transition does not have to happen overnight. Fossil fuel prices will gradually rise and the costs of wind and solar will gradually fall, grids will be upgraded to HVDC, railroads will replace trucks for long haul transport, local busses will be electrified, more light rail will be built, urban areas will be redesigned to be more walkable.
Engineers who say it cannot be done, are just not using their imagination.
For some imaginative thinking by engineers see
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
HEY LADY L,
Ask him if he thinks fossil fuels will last long enough to provide cheap electricity for his grandchildren when they grow up, in case he has any.
I eagerly await his answer.
Dennis’ apparent ‘dreams & desires’ seem to hinge in part on some sort of irreconciliation of historical collapses; on coercive large-scale centralized governance (and their life-sustaining thirst for and consumption of, the energy-slave black stuff) stepping in and doing the right thing; and in not all engineers having the same viewpoint.
Isn’t that just peachy-convenient? Like a Hollywood film.
Personally, where the rest of us are worse off for the imposed/enforced manifestation of these dreams & desires, I might like a good pitchfork.
You seem to be legitimately amazed that a commodity with a tiny market share sells cheap. How much does the Leaf cost to produce? You understand that the energy density of the batteries is tiny compared to petrol? No sorcery from Elon Musk can overcome the physical limitations of battery technology.
And most importantly, you’re aware that every single process involved in creating the car is done using fossil fuels? Mining all those rare earth elements in the battery, the aluminum frame, the production process, assembling, etc? And the ships and trucks that transport all the parts all over the world rely on diesel, they can’t be electrified.
And when your average joe comes home, and if he’s lucky, remembers to plug the thing in to charge overnight (if not, he can’t go to work tomorrow), he’s not using solar from the roof to charge the battery, is he? If he’s living in Australia like I am, he’s either charging the car up with natural gas or coal derived electricity.
If the entire car fleet was replaced with EVs, the entire grid would have to be overhauled to compensate for the huge demand that now exists at night when the cars are being charged.
Mining runs electrically, aluminum is smelted electrically, the ships can run on wind that generates electrical power to the motors, the trucks can be electrified trains, solar PV is increasing by 40 percent per year, production is electrical. New battery types not dependent on rare earths are being developed now.
All the processes can be converted to electrical, PV and wind produce electricity. The cars can run within their own solar footprint and will soon be providing power not using it.
Everything you say is either wrong now or will be totally wrong within a decade. Everything is changing now and the old chant “we can’t do anything without fossil fuels” is not only wrong but will just be a big historical joke in the near future. Only heard on comedy shows.
Along with Leaf sales, down 27% year/year in latest report.
Green car reports says Nissan set a new sales record for last year selling thirty thousand of the LEAF model in the USA in 2014.
Personally I believe in both peak oil and economic hard times. I also believe the hard times will lag peak oil by years for a lot of people – and that battery electric vehicles are going to sell like ice water in hell when the oil pendulum swings from glut to scarcity and gasoline hits ten bucks in Europe and five or six in the good ole US of A.
People are willing to rush out and buy a new technology or product when it is relatively cheap and when they see lots of other people using it. So the sales of cell and smart phones and personal computers and that sort of stuff understandably took off like rockets once these things proved to be viable.
Cars are a different. They cost so much that it is going to take a while for the public to accept what is new and different.
There is not yet such a thing as a cheap used battery electric vehicle on the road.
Once there are enough around to see how they stand up to the second and third hundred thousand miles of use they will sell very well indeed.
Incidentally most people don’t realize it but if you don’t use the heat or ac and take your time on city streets in moderate weather a Leaf will take you up to a hundred fifty miles on a charge.
There are probably a million people in any really big city who seldom drive on a freeway or go more than twenty miles from their home. They could run a Leaf on one or two charges a week and probably keep it charged ninety percent of the time with a home pv system.
The only thing stopping me from buying one is that I am too old and drive too little to justify the investment.
Like Nick I can get by with an old conventional car.
The Leaf is going to go down in history as the Model T of the twenty first century.
Your Nissan Leaf Blower is bullshit; cars are bullshit; our culture is bullshit. <– click here
I know you recently expressed trouble understanding my comments sometimes, your writing has the runs, and that you're a self-described redneck or whatever, so I thought I'd streamline things a little for you and embellish it with some Carlin.
Just select your last bullshit link above, which I have added the strong tag to for your liquid ease.
“… is not only wrong but will just be a big historical joke in the near future.” ~ Allan H
Oh but Allan H, things are already wrong and the joke is already here and on you, me and everyone else. Didn’t you get the memo?
All mining is electric now? Wow! As if everyone’s land is for governcorps to mine? As if electricity generation appears out of the ether and the results of the other end dissolves into the ether?
What’s with all the juvenile-level intellectual masturbation these days? And from those who one would think would know better no less.
And since you mentioned comedy. (Bullshit Is Everywhere)
Real nice Calean. You must spend hours thinking up those nasty rotten comments. Good thing you had George C to help you, but I think he was talking about other things.
Don’t strain your collapsenik brain though, since you want to give up just do it. Hide under the covers and stay in bed. We really need the resources you uselessly suck up to move forward in positive and meaningful ways. For you it’s all impossible BS, for me and many others we don’t give up and will never give up. Many thing are possible, much has changed already and the future is going to be far different than you could ever possibly imagine.
I have carried this over, Allan.
What on earth are you talking about? Every single process involves fossil fuels. You claim that, since these processes can technically be conducted without fossil fuels, there is no worry. Aside from the fact that this is incorrect (eg, coal is a requisite for steel production).
Are you seriously telling me that wind can power huge tanker ships? Are you saying that there would be wind turbines on the top?
The theoretical maximum a battery could ever deliver is 5 mega-joules per kilogram, 10 times less energy than oil. And will these super batteries be made without the use of cobalt, nickel, aluminum, etc?
LadyL I have no idea how much tech you actually understand but I have talked personally with three well known physicists who hold responsible positions – including one who comments frequently on topics such as fossil fuel depletion and is known to quite a few regulars in this forum by reputation.
The energy return on the energy invested in solar and wind power TODAY is adequate – given time – for wind and solar power to be scaled up to take the place of fossil fuels.
ALL three assured me that a renewable energy economy is a technically doable thing.
I have looked around a bit and can find no physicist who is not demonstrably on somebody’s payroll – a payroll related to fossil fuel interests – who says a renewables energy economy is impossible.
If you want to argue that the world is a ok and will remain that way because fossil fuels will last forever then go for it.
That position reveals the scope of your knowledge and enough said.
If you want to insist that industrially based civilization is finished and that most of the people on this planet are going to die hard deaths and leave behind very very few children, you may very well be right.
In that case we share some common ground.
But such grave issues are never as simple as people like you make them out to be.
Coal is necessary to make new steel the way we do it these days true enough.
But the entire mining process can be electrified, and steel is an easily recycled material, using electricity. Life – a good life – can continue with a very minor fraction of the steel we use these days.
And while you may not realize it- there will soon be a WHOLE LOT less of us in need of steel because most of us are dead men walking.
A battery does not have to have the energy density of oil – it only has to have the energy density necessary to get the job done.
Diesel does have many times the energy density of our best commercial batteries, this is true. But our best batteries today ARE good enough to take care of most of our personal transportation needs and with changes in lifestyle -WHICH ARE COMING- to take care of ALL our personal transportation needs.
Trains can be electrified. If batteries cannot replace diesel in trucks then we CAN eventually produce enough biofuels to run such trucks as are ESSENTIAL to maintaining a civilized lifestyle. It won’t take THAT many trucks because the trains will be coming back with a vengeance.
My maternal grandfather back when he was a kid used to get up before daylight in the summer to drive his Dad’s wagon to town with a load of fresh produce and bring back a few things for the family and neighbors. He got back after dark.
Today – if I had one -I could make that same trip to town, same road, but paved now, in less than forty-five minutes round trip in a Leaf.
Can a super tanker be powered by wind ?
Probably not- but when the oil is gone, and the natural gas is gone , just what is it , pray tell, you think you may be hauling on a supertanker? How many giant cargo container ships will we need when reality dictates that most of us are dead and that throw away goods are no longer produced? When a country such as the USA dictates that production of everything possible be local so as to provide employment for local citizens ?
Ships can be powered with coal again, and the amount of freight that can be hauled by making the ship bigger and slowing it down is staggering.
Now OF COURSE we are going to run out of coal someday – THAT argument is MINE, not yours.
BUT you see – we don’t have to solve every problem we have today PERMANENTLY , as of today.
We just have to get thru today and tomorrow and next week and next year and the next few decades. Solutions will be found as they MUST be – or else they won’t. If none are found then nature will take her course.
In a century -half a century perhaps – ships carrying truly valuable goods may sail powered MOSTLY by wind. Maybe the rest of the power will come from wood chips. Some from solar cells maybe. LOTS of deck space on a big ship.
Maybe a little coal or a LITTLE oil.
But the more likely scenario is that there won’t be a whole lot of ships hauling nearly worthless junk. Not very many ships hauling oil or gas for damned sure because by then there will be extremely little oil and gas to be hauled.
Now I could just repeat the raw outline of my argument – that renewables are possibly going to take the place of fossil fuels.
But a little nuance is necessary in order to make the argument understandable from either position.
Why don’t you explain to me precisely why it is that we must do without cobalt, nickel and aluminum unless we have oil?
I have been to some mines and except for trucks and excavators they are already fully electrified. The trucks run a round trip loop that can be electrified with overhead lines with a battery or diesel engine used to maneuver the last few hundred feet at the loading end.
There is no reason a really big excavator can’t be powered with a giant extension cord, given the FACT that such machines actually travel less than a hundred feet per day in most cases and hardly ever much farther than that.
Lady said
Are you seriously telling me that wind can power huge tanker ships? Are you saying that there would be wind turbines on the top?
Won’t need supertankers. But yes the designs for the new “sailing” ships have been built, are being built and have been on the design board for many years now.
Here is a hybrid that runs on wind and biomethane.
http://www.gizmag.com/b9-shipping-cargo-sailing-ships/23059/
Eco Marine uses solar panels to collect sun and wind
http://www.ecomarinepower.com/
Yes, I found the study on using a wind turbine on a ship to assist power generation
http://202.114.89.60/resource/pdf/6030.pdf
More wind powered ships
http://www.bluebird-electric.net/wind_powered_ships_marine_renewable_energy_research.htm
Sorry, can’t find the original design I was referring to. The volatility of the internet causes many things to disappear from sight. Basically it use 3 or 4 spinning sails on a freighter to drive electrical generators to power the electric motor driven prop. Batteries served as backup power.
Old farmer,
Yes most mine operations are electric driven now. The zinc mine I visited was all electric. Won’t need the big coal operations in the future, just some anthracite for metals reduction.
Here is a dragline video. Shows the problem of increasing overburden in our western strip mines. http://science.howstuffworks.com/35751-mega-excavators-dragline-excavators-video.htm
Increasing overburden is a problems for tar sands too, which is why they steam pump the stuff out of the ground instead of just digging it.
Running an electric car off fossil fuel grid power may be less efficient than off your own solar system but it is still far more efficient than burning fossil fuel directly in an IfCE.
Concentrating the waste gasses in one place can allow for cleaning up those gasses and reducing pollution including carbon capture, whereas the IfCE brings that pollution to the street right where you are.
No rare earths are required and, most, are not actually all that rare.
Battery technology is steadily improving and is a long way short of its potential (no pun intended), even Google is working on improving it.
NAOM
Yes, OFM, the Leaf would be a good car to have. I don’t drive far either and if I had to take a long trip I could always rent an ICE for a few days. Can’t really justify getting one for the miles I do, but think it would be a riot to own one for a while.
The first electric car I saw was detected by my subconscious, I suddenly looked up in a parking lot and wondered why I was staring at this car pulling out. It was all wrong, there was no engine noise, that got my attention right away. It just smoothly quietly rolled out of the parking lot.
Maybe an external audio system that sounded like a Model T would make people aware that the car was moving or going to move. Putt- putt-putt Ahhh-OOO-GAH. Bet that would get some smiles.
We have had our Leaf a little over 2 yrs now, has less than 15K on odometer. Wife loves it. So do I- no maintenance!
Real cheap to run off our PV which we bought a little earlier.
We think of it as a brand new and almost too luxurious. So I was astounded to find that the end of lease sales were as low as $13K for identical car!
Reason- buyers are totally unfamiliar with it, and think the battery has pooped out when it in fact has years yet in it, and then a total replacement would give them a considerably improved battery at $6500.
Yep, Leaf has super good sound system, which could easily take car noises and broadcast them to the peasants. OO–gah from my days of youth would be on there of course, as well as the tigersnarl and tire squeal of whatever muscle/$ car one would prefer.
Also loud clever insults with a snooty accent as so highly developed by such as Churchill.
“Yes, I AM drunk, madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober and you still ugly.”
How’s THAT for a cheap performance mod?
The cure for suburban sprawl is to stop wasting money building roads. It’s coming soon to a state near you anyway, because the DOT’s are all broke. And because realtors are figuring out how much money there is to be made when infrastructure is there to add value to land.
There is no need for more roads, in fact there will be less cars so why keep all the roads. By the way, the suburbs are going to survive and prosper. It’s the cities that are in jeopardy.
Nick I agree EVs are great, and an important part of the solution. But nowhere near as important fixing place so cars are no longer essential for all journeys at all times. Cars, whatever propels them, are hugely spatially inefficient and create terrible energy wasting distance in urban form. Houston is crap even in an EV.
I know the largely Arcadian readers here don’t get this but dense cities are the solution to the problem of our excessive energy waste. Especially North American ones ( and their global copycats). Happily this shift is underway in many places on the planet.
Italy has gone from 76% oil for primary energy in 1973 to 36% in 2012. Gonna be harder in sprawlsville USA, but it will be done this century, or the place will be abandoned… These kinds of shifts have happened before.
Once a type of human habitation looses its economic foundation it either changes or dies. Fitness, survival, etc.
I agree. I like rail – it’s faster, cheaper, cleaner, easier, safer. It’s chauffered – I can read, work, comment on blogs. We should build out rail, and improve our urban planning ASAP. The problem: ASAP isn’t that fast, with rail and big cities.
I recommend EVs because they work, not because they’re the ideal solution. They’re cheap, fast and easy to buy, unlike a home in a dense urban area.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/us-rig-count-location/comment-page-1/#comment-502390
Much obliged, Sure Bet. I was looking for it.
FYI: Nick drives a gasoline powered vehicle and does not own a PV system.
What is this insanity that someone who realizes that there are alternatives to just collapsing and dying has to suddenly be living in a commune promoting permaculture on the street corner.? The knowledge is supposed to make them anti-fossil fuel monks that live in tiny houses or that they be high tech yuppies owning every piece of green tech to wave as a flag of membership so the pro-collapse intellects can jeer at them and say “you can’t do anything without fossil fuel”?
Get real.
Anyone with knowledge has cut back in meaningful practical ways. Cutting back and not buying unnecessary stuff helps the world a lot more than producing more stuff. Insulating the house, sealing the leaks is a great move. Combining trips, using a higher mpg vehicle, using vehicles a lot less, all great things. Reuse, repair, repurpose. None of that waves the flag though, not visible yet very green without all the flash. Staying ahead of peak whatever.
Nope, we don’t have to be green monks to have knowledge and be ahead of the curve. Nor do we have to wave a flag showing how green and pristine we are. We can all make choices to be less harmful, while we decide which new technologies are ready and should be promoted.
PV is looking ready, been sprouting up all over my area in big fields. Wind power is growing all over the hills to the west of me.
The electric car is rapidly becoming very practical and will severely displace the ICE in a few years. All of that because it’s better and makes more sense, not because most people are becoming green monks or even worse “end-o-the-world collapsers”.
Someone mentioned the town based Starbucks lifestyle being entrenched and people will have to be dragged out of it. Partly true. I think economics is dragging people out of it now. Many are realizing they can’t afford the lifestyle and still retire someday.
The new glitzy electric cars and solar PV is attracting some of them. When they realize that some of their neighbors have made good choices, they will follow along. That’s how it works, they follow each other. Meanwhile, we all should use less.
“Conserve energy, do as little as possible”
The future belongs to the Green Monks…
Thanks for finding that picture. Gave me a good laugh.
The females do bite off the heads of the males too. Some things never change.
Well, I didn’t just find it. I took an old illustration of a Franciscan Monk and replaced his head and hands with the head and front legs of a Praying Mantis from another illustration if you look closely you might even notice that the left hand/leg was actually drawn from scratch.Then I changed the image color from grayscale to green >;-)
Very creative then, thanks.
Not bad, Fred, but what about simply copying and pasting the one good arm of the mantis over? Did you draw the other from scratch?
I could do a scientifically accurate vector based illustration of a Mantis from an actual specimen, but I couldn’t exactly do it on the fly. The graphics I tend to post here are usually 5 to ten minute jobs. Here is a screen shot of a vector based illustration I did of an orchid from a stock photo…this is still kind of rough but it took a couple of hours to draw.
Gents, speaking of monks, I personally anticipate the emergence of an era of increasing voluntary warrior-like monasticism/asceticism as a sub-cultural normative value/virtue system, including doubling, tripling, and quadrupling up among like-minded fellows and inter-generational family relationships for housing, transport, utilities, etc., which will mitigate some of the effects of the decline in real per capita GDP, helping to maintain household income and well-being.
From an evolutionary adaptive perspective, those individuals, families, and communities who are “early adopters” will find their costs reduced for collective/communitarian adaptive success hereafter.
Note that Asians and Hispanics/Latinos are way ahead (or never “caught up” to the hyper-individualist, hyper-competitive English-speaking world’s costly social, economic, and psycho-emotional normative social and economic arrangements) of the rest of Caucasian American households in this regard.
Hint.
Caelan, insisting on religious purity in terms of setting examples and doing the right thing long term is the sure sign of a religious demagogue.
Notice I did not call you one.
I just IMPLY it. LOL.
Where do you suppose I copied this little trick? Remember back that far? It was only a few weeks ago that it was used here on me , continuously, although I knew about it decades ago.
Nick has not advocated junking the ice engine today or tomorrow. I am not exactly sure what your position on that possibility would be .
Why don’t you say something in plain English about junking the internal combustion engine THIS YEAR ?
What do you suppose the CONSEQUENCES would be?
I would just start posting these two questions for you endlessly except for the fact that doing so is an abuse of the forum.
If you really believe in your philosophy then it is time for you to crawl in a cave someplace and live without the grid and the internet.
Personally I don’t believe in teaching people to just give up. There is NOTHING to be gained or preserved down that road, while there is much that might be saved , and much that is good that can yet be created , by fighting for survival.
I believe in little girls all giggles and smiles in their Easter finery even though I don’t believe in Sky Daddy. There are things in this world worth fighting to preserve.
old farmer mac,
What kind of attempts would there be to uphold the current government-industry’s vested-interests, operations, and structures, etc., in this kind of failing economy?
How does government work? What does it need? How can it survive in the face of what is transpiring right now.
Enter Nick G…
Nick’s patternistic schtick seems to lead to best possible responses/solutions to those kinds of questions.
But I’m an anarchist. And so are you.
Nevertheless, if I were government, I would leverage the slowly-eroding tax money to fund folks like Nick G (aside from the usual spooks of course, which we all know about by now) to spend some time on sites like The Oil Drum and Peak Oil Barrel, and see if I can, at once, tap into the knowledge base (think retired industry professionals with free time and expertise-a-plenty, and ones who are now more willing to spill the beans to boot); throw questions out and get free answers with a little conversational-guiding/dialoguing/crowdsourcing; promote the solutions thought best for the upholding of the status-quo (EV’s, the grid, etc.); and post as many comments as reasonable and so forth. It’s just good public policy.
NIck has stated, ISTR due to your badgering but please correct me if it was not you, that for the little he uses a car the swap to EV just does not work out for him. That does not mean that others cannot benefit from it.
NAOM
Nick has been uttering the ‘buy an EV chant’ and ‘badgering’ the forums about it for quite some time.
In a way, I don’t care what others benefit from, as long as it’s not to others’ dis-benefit. But of course it is…
If you want your infernal ICE’s/EV’s/etc., then you (and those freely willing) pay for its infrastructure, manufacturing, support, maintenance, externalities, damages, etc.. Otherwise, your system is a mockery. And it is…
And it will likely collapse, like all those mockeries preceding. Collapse is about mockery. It mocks our mockeries that mock themselves.
“I might as well have a good time with it too, what do you think?”
I wonder if your wife beats you and you take it out on us
Speak for yourself.
Culture beats you up. I wouldn’t worry about Caelan or his wife. Difference is Caelan doesn’t have a gun to your head that you have to read his comments, unlike government.
You sound like John B. Didn’t Caelan recently call one of his comments virginal-level intellectual masturbation?
Difference is Caelan doesn’t have a gun to your head that you have to read his comments, unlike government.
That is truly an absurd claim, about the government, not Caelan. The government holds no gun to anyone’s head and requires them to read nothing.
Electric train + old ICE vehicle occasionally used is a way better route to transition than a spanking new EV.
Not needing to drive much at all to get through the daily routine is the great gift of urban proximity. Rare, of course, are the places in North America that are set up for this.
Hi PatrickR,
No doubt that is why Nick does not bother with an EV.
Not everyone lives in a place with walkable neighborhoods (easy walking distance to a grocery store, for example) or in a place with decent public transportation. For those people, an EV or plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt makes sense until public transportation improves or they can move to a location with better urban design.
“No doubt that is why Nick does not bother with an EV.”
Nick also does not have PV system either or even a solar thermal system. For a Guy who pretends to be a PV/EV spokesperson, he doesn’t practice what he tells others what they should do. Its like a fat person instructing others how to stay thin.
Nick is utterly dependent on Fossil fuels even if he dismisses that fact. Without fossil fuels, Nick would be jobless, starving, and homeless.
For a Guy who pretends to be a PV/EV spokesperson, he doesn’t practice what he tells others what they should do.
I live and work in a highly walkable area. I’ve insulated to the point where heat isn’t needed above freezing. I use EVs, I just don’t own them: I use electric trains and rented EVs (Volts and hybrids). That’s better than owning an EV or PV: it’s lower cost, better for the environment.
I recommend EVs because they work, not because they’re the ideal solution. They’re cheap, fast and easy to buy, unlike a home in a dense urban area.
Nick is utterly dependent on Fossil fuels even if he dismisses that fact.
Nah. I use them to some extent, because they’re still around. Obviously, if martians suddenly vaporized all fossil fuels, that would disrupt life very badly. But, we can move away from FF pretty quickly and be more prosperous, safer and have a much better environment.
So, let me ask: what do you recommend, personally and nationally? Do you think people should live in walkable areas and use rail, instead of cars? If they can’t move to such an area, do you think they should buy a cheaper, cleaner EV?
Do you think we transition away from oil and FF? If not, why not?
Nick Wrote:
“let me ask: what do you recommend, personally and nationally? Do you think people should live in walkable areas and use rail, instead of cars? If they can’t move to such an area, do you think they should buy a cheaper, cleaner EV?”
Walkable areas are just dependent on Fossil Fuels if not more. Everything consumed in a urban region must be trucked in (food, consumables, sanitation, etc). When the infrastructure begins to fall, people in urban regions will be the most vulnerable. Better to live in rural regions, grow your own food, be self-reliant, and avoid depending on energy intensive infrastructure to survive.
EVs solve nothing as they are still very dependent on fossil fuels. about 70% of the US Grid power is produced from fossil fuels. 19% is Nuclear (which is slowly dying as plant closures exceed replacements).
The Keystone to modern civilization is fossil transportation fuels, when it becomes “too expensive” the infrastructure will begin collapsing. Those that are dependent (urban dwellers) will be the most vulnerable. You simply made yourself more dependent of Fossil fuels by relocating to an urban region. By taking the train you mere shifted from gasoline to Coal and natural gas. As US coal plants are decommissioned because of the new regulations, electricity is about to get a whole lot more expensive for transportation.
Did you know that the majority of freight moved in the United States is carried by rail? Long distance trucking can shift to rail, and rail can be electrified. Actually, a Tesla powertrain would provide plenty of power for a truck. If you implement available technology for improved trunk efficiency, the batteries for a long haul truck would only take a small portion of the payload.
Wind and solar are growing quickly. They can easily provide 60% of the power on the grid. Nuclear is declining, but very slowly. Together with natural gas they provide plenty of time for the somewhat more difficult transition to a 100% FF – free grid.
So, are we clear that rail carries the majority of freight in the US?
“Those that are dependent (urban dwellers) will be the most vulnerable.”
Suburban dwellers will be even more vulnerable as they will have crumbling roads, sewer, utilities and nowhere to “grow your own food.” It’s much much cheaper to fix up infrastructure in a dense city than it is in a sprawling suburb.
Unless you are prepared to move rural and grow your own food, moving to a dense urban area with walkable neighborhoods is not a bad way of delaying a slow collapse from affecting you.
While I would prefer to live in a rural area with fertile land and adequate water, we have had cities for thousands of years. They formed long before the existence of fossil fuel transportation. There are advantages to dense living.
Boomer wrote:
“we have had cities for thousands of years. They formed long before the existence of fossil fuel transportation. There are advantages to dense living.”
Except during times of collapse. Cities work only as the infrastructure needed to support them isn’t disrupted. As the economy collapses so will the support for cities.
In the case of a slow collapse, People are likely to pile into cities (abandon ex-burbs and some suburbs) since gov’t will try to focus on supporting the cities over suburbs. However, Cities are likely to become glue traps. Inhabitants can check in, but never leave because they will lack the resources to leave. As the ecomony collapses so will unemployment, The people piling into cities to obtain weath fare will likely turn to crime and drugs making urban dwelling unpleasant.
What do you think will happen when people start abandon suburbs and pile into cities and there are no jobs for these people?
What do you think will happen when people start abandon suburbs and pile into cities and there are no jobs for these people?
They live in slums, as do many people around the world. They don’t have jobs either, but they figure out how to survive.
I’m not saying it’s a great existence; I think having your own little piece of land is preferable. But the conditions you are talking about have existed for a long time, and in some cases before fossil fuels.
Except, there’s really no reason to expect collapse.
The best argument for collapse is that our financial institutions are complex and fragile, and can’t stand the stress of change. I agree that’s….conceivable. Heck, we came pretty close to a big failure in 2008. But, there’s not really a good reason to expect a complete collapse, from which recovery isn’t possible. We had a similar “collapse” in 1929 – it was very painful, but it was reversible.
Certainly not a collapse caused by a lack of energy. The US, for instance, could easily reduce oil consumption by 25% overnight with aggressive conservation, carpooling, etc. Look at what was done in WWII – domestic oil consumption was reduced dramatically to support the war effort.
And, we have better and cheaper alternatives: ramping up the production of EVs would stimulate the economy.
The idea that a lack of oil will cause the economy to collapse, either fast or slowly, is a bogeyman. It works nicely for the oil companies, who want to push for “drill, baby drill”, but it doesn’t make sense.
The idea that a lack of oil will cause the economy to collapse, either fast or slowly, is a bogeyman.
The lack of oil will bring about changes. In many cases, much needed and welcome changes. We have been living an excessive lifestyle which has encouraged waste and unnecessary consumption. Scaling down and becoming more efficient is a positive.
I agree that we have been using way too much oil, and that we should phase it out entirely.
I agree that Americans focus way too much on material consumption – houses, cars, etc.
On the other hand, for better or worse, I don’t really see PO forcing changes in material consumption (except oil). Houses will be better insulated, and run on heat pumps; cars will be more efficient, and run on electricity. That will mean fewer BTUs, but not smaller houses or cars.
Moving towards less materialism is a great idea, but I think we’ll have to do it as a deliberate choice – PO isn’t going to do it for us.
BAKER HUGHES SUSPENDS WELL COUNT AMID OIL DOWNTURN
HOUSTON —
” Baker Hughes Incorporated has suspended the quarterly publication of the U.S. onshore well count, the company announced Thursday.
In response to the recent market downturn and internal initiatives to reduce costs, the company has prioritized its resources to support the ongoing publication of the weekly North America and monthly International rig counts, which continue to provide a timely and relevant snapshot of evolving market conditions.”
http://www.worldoil.com/news/2015/4/09/baker-hughes-suspends-well-count-amid-oil-downturn
😀
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/11/obama-makes-further-attempts-to-closen-ties-with-cuba-still-undecided-about/
All these decades pass and now for some reason USA wants to become buddy buddy with Cuba.
Maybe it is because the USA is building a missile “shield” aimed at Russia, and one of the ways Russia could counter act that is by putting weapons in Cuba.
This is a consequence of Peak Oil IMO, as the US Military knows the probability of conflict is going to increase.
I am as cynical as most people when it comes to our political leaders but the Obumbler does have a few good ideas and does occasionally do the right thing maybe even for no more reason than that it IS the right thing to do.
As far as opening up relations with Cuba goes, I am not well enough informed to have an opinion as to whether the Obama strategy will result in the Cuban people being better off in the short to medium term. Maybe so.Maybe not. I hope it helps speed up Cubans gaining their freedom.
The Castro regime has stood up to sanctions and remained in power since I was a kid my self and apparently might be able to maintain itself for a long time yet, sanctions or no.
Personally I am of the opinion that the more people come and go , the more contact the people of Cuba have with outsiders, the more apt the regime is to collapse.
The Cubans have been kept in their commie jail long enough.
If I were in a position to do so personally I would send Raul Castro a message.
The message would be along the lines of something out of the Godfather novels or movies, making him ”an offer he cannot refuse”.
The offer might be a cruise missile the next time he can be located unless he starts releasing political prisoners and getting on with setting the country free.
Nobody in the entire world is in a position to do a damned thing that really matters about it if we were to actually do something along such lines.
I already know I am a bloodthirsty redneck folks. I not only admit it , I am proud of it. LOL.
My thinking is that sometimes if you have been hitting something for a long time with a hammer trying to fix it then you try something else , such as a screwdriver.
But if the screwdriver doesn’t work, and whatever it is you are banging on is busted anyway, a bigger hammer often times works charms.
Now a bigger hammer wouldn’t work in the case of North Korea. NK has millions of South Koreans under the muzzles of well dug in artillery and there would be no way to bluff dough boy without his psychopathic side coming into play.
But Cuba doesn’t have anybody under any guns.
I am half serious , half joking.
‘the Obumbler’
Wow…I have ditched the idea a long time ago of some next President striding into office and fixing the World’s (Amerika’s first, mind you) problems.
I have come to see the World in terms of relative ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’.
I would agree that in some ways President Obama has showed us what President’ George W. Bush’s third and fourth terms would be like, but in significant other ways, President Obama is a fine improvement over President G.W. Bush.
And I definitely also think that President Obama is doing the country much better than either a President McCain/VP Palin or a President Romney would have done.
Yet, I get it…all three comparisons set rather low bars.
The U.S. (and the ROW) is staring down the barrel of some mighty nasty guns…we elect our government in the U.S. and therefore get what we deserve…almost nobody wants to hear reality, but instead they want to stay swaddled in illusions of BAU.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming….
Yes Obama is in my estimation a better prez than Romney would have been.
Maybe not better than Mc Cian would have been but Sky Daddy help us if Palin had ever gotten into the WH in the event McCain were elected and died.
The prez does NOT run the country. He may set the tone but really he spends most of his time running around trying to figure out where the country is headed and trying to get in front so as to yell ” Follow ME ! ” and keep his party in power. Sarcasm light blinking but not on steady.
The OBUMBLER has done some good things. Some things in my estimation not so good and a few worthy of being rode out of town on a rail. The last for instance not doing more to prosecute his buddies the big bankers.
You are definitely living in the past. Russian Cuban relations are irrelevant to the wider world. There is no meaningful connection any more.
Putin denied reports last summer of reactivation of Lourdes.
That was a few months after he become the Great Satan, so is he believable?
NATO is unquestionably building a missile shield that is aimed at Russia.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-threatens-denmark-with-nuclear-weapons-if-it-tries-to-join-nato-defence-shield-10125529.html
NATO may have incentive to not talk about it, but there is no reason Putin should keep it a secret.
Given that the USA are unquestionably applying financial sanctions on Russia (a form of warfare) and the USA are unquestionably building a missile shield aimed at Russia.
Why on earth wouldn’t Russia respond? The Cuban missile crisis showed that Russia and USA think Cuba is a strategic asset.
Coincidence?
http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/
“NATO is unquestionably building a missile shield that is aimed at Russia.”
yes, and completely worthless against Nuclear Subs and cruise missiles.
The USA would have been better off, building better relations with Russia than restarting the cold war over some ridiculous P*ssing match that cannot be won and serves to start the next World War.
Yes, futile.
But this isn’t how these guys think (obviously) or we wouldn’t be reading about it in the newspaper every week.
Having nukes on your opponents front lawn (NATO vs Russia) is an “advantage” when you are playing these complicated chess matches.
Just remember an oil embargo is a classic military strategy. And who is the #1 oil exporter on the planet…..Putin.
Ilambiquated (sp?? wtf??),
This is the PRESENT not the PAST.
So, the plan is for the world to fry sometime in the next few decades.
Read an interesting article by Christoph Aublinger on Seeking Alpha. He examined 2014 upstream financials for BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
Most noteworthy was production dropped for all four from 2013 to 2014.
Second was that at current oil and natural gas prices, all are in the break even ball park using 2014 expenses, including D, D & A. I plugged in $60 oil and $4 gas for 2015, subtracted 2014 expenses and found the range to be -.45 to 10.32 per BOE. Of course, this doesn’t take into account cost cutting measures, which could improve those numbers.
Using WTI and US natural gas prices makes it look ugly, but that is not a fair representation given high number of international operations, where both commodities have higher prices. However, if one does use them, all are in the red except XOM, which squeaks by at $1.32 per BOE. Calculations using $51 oil and $2.50 natural gas.
Bottom line, dividends unable to be paid out of upstream cash flow and production for all set to decline in 2015 due to CAPEX cuts.
Lucky for them none spun off refining.
Check out this Art Berman Video:
Wall Street props up artificial shale boom
Art is trying to tell me that demand for oil is going down?
“EIA estimates that global consumption grew by 0.9 million bbl/d in 2014, averaging 92.0 million bbl/d for the year. EIA expects global consumption will grow by 1.0 million bbl/d in 2015 and by 1.1 million bbl/d in 2016. ” Edit: This is for petroleum and other liquids, but is demand for oil really being “destroyed” (from video)?
A lot of otherwise scientifically trained people approach this as “price went down so supply must have risen or demand fell”.
If there is data indicating supply is falling and demand is rising, then . . . then . . . well that data must be wrong.
No idea how folks came to believe “supply and demand” is as legitimate a truth as gravity, but so they do believe.
What about the recent boost of Saudi output, not only oversupplying the market, but even more importantly, confirming they DO have spare capacity?
True lies?
You do realize you’re 1) believing an arab oil minister and 2) the alleged rise is well after the price fall?
I’d not be believing an arab oil minister, but Reuters, which reverberated the “news”. Could Reuters not be telling the truth? 😉
Btw you say the world changed in 2008, I’d say it did in 2001. True megalies from then on.
Mubalagha. Arab cultural tendency to much praise and admire exaggeration in oration. Oil ministers are just saying what their audience wants to hear.
Don’t eat any food for a week, don’t drink any water for two days.
It will teach you a good lesson in the concept of supply and demand.
Gravity trails a long ways behind supply and demand.
Greenbub,
Although we are not sure what constitutes oil anymore, that annual increase is actually a decrease in availability per capita for those 80 million new souls we add each year. In a world where more cars are being built, the increase in “oil” production is less than needed to keep up with increasing population.
So where will all those developing nation people get their transport in the future? Either the transport has to become far more efficient, use another energy source, or they won’t get it.
Actually most of them would be really happy with a few electric lights, a refrigerator and a ride on an electric bus.
I got a new laptop last year and already have to replace my battery and it’s an expensive replacement
[But forget all that and] Just buy a hybrid, or an EV. [Ok? Great! Happy travels!…] ~ Nick G
Don’t forget to install solar and wind, which is in all places the cheapest and most reliable form of electricity generation and will ensure our comfort and prosperity until the sun fades away
you forgot to say ” AMEN ”
We worship RA the Egyptian Sun God! Saying ‘AMEN’ would be insulting!
May I get a RAMEN!
Sam Taylor,
That would be really stupid it makes much more sense to keep using coal, oil and LNG which will for ever and ever in all places be the cheapest and most reliable form of energy and will ensure our comfort and prosperity because it will never peak!
The Chinese used rice in their mortar when the Great Wall was built and that mortar is still good after a couple of thousand of years.
Grow rice to use in mortar and everything will be ok.
I like that! >;-)
Tribe of P, lone member ,
Don’t know where you get your figures, but reinforced concrete around here lasts much longer. Got two nearby reinforced concrete railroad bridges near me that are abandoned, not maintained for decades and are not falling apart after one hundred years. Northwest of me is a huge span that is one hundred years old, gets some maintenance and carries large trains every day. A number of 100 year old concrete towers are still fine without maintenance for decades.
A reinforced concrete coal breaker finally was demolished, those things refuse to fall down on their own. New technology doesn’t need such structures. They only get in the way, are obsolete long before they decay and are very difficult and costly to demolish.
Here is a paper on the ways to build concrete structures that last a thousand years.
http://www4.uwm.edu/cbu/Papers/2003%20CBU%20Reports/REP-506.pdf
Not sure why we would want to be stuck with structures that last that long. They will be useless long before they fall down.
You are right, people of the future will not be driving. The cars will drive themselves and the people will mostly be flying (don’t need much infrastructure to fly).
You are right, people of the future will not be driving. The cars will drive themselves and the people will mostly be flying (don’t need much infrastructure to fly).
That’s probably true because magic flying cars can probably just be poofed into existence sans any kind of manufacturing infrastructure, assuming of course you still have those ancient books with all the incantations and spells and are on reasonably good terms with your friendly local wizard… Heck he or she might even lend you their spare broom. You can also have a similar experience by imbibing an infusion derived from certain species of fungi!
Fred, I never said the cars would be flying. Airplanes fly, not cars.
Why are you implying I am a witch. Are you preparing the firewood and the stake?
Solar is a better choice than firewood for burning witches.
Yeah, Fresnel lens would work GRIN!
Memo to self: Must write more clearly!
UFOs, until properly identified, can be flying cars, various types of aeroplanes, zeppelins, high altitude helium balloons or alien spaceships, however all of them require an industrial civilization of some sort with the requisite attending infrastructure. Unless, as I mentioned, they are magically poofed into existence.
I never claimed that YOU were a witch! I merely suggested that to obtain magic flying vehicles (those which require no infrastructure to produce) it might be wise to be on the good side of your local wizard. Now if it is your intention to apprentice with your local wizard and join the conjurer’s guild that would certainly be your prerogative.
I have no personal animus towards you, wizards or any witches and generally try to live and let live. Furthermore I find burning witches at the stake to be a primitive barbarous practice which I would prefer to eschew,
BUT If perchance I did have it in for a witch, I would first use the tried and true method of weighing him or her and comparing their weight to that of a duck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg
A duck for Christ’s sake, why a bloody duck?
What do you burn witches with? “Wood”. What also floats on water, besides wood? “A duck”. So if she weighs as much as a duck, she is made of wood, and therefore a witch!!
Love that movie!
Maybe if we built a large wooden badger?
Well maybe I should have watched the movie to avoid stupid questions.
You askin me?!! Ask Monty Python it was their idea not mine GRIN!
Fred M, I seriously think you should look into hot air balloons for your travel needs. Forget brooms and incantations, they need special abilities.
Fred M, I seriously think you should look into hot air balloons for your travel needs.
You mean something like this? >;-)
http://goo.gl/owJD0j
Sunrise Solar Powered Thermal Airship Reduces Operational Costs and Allows You to Enjoy Longer Flight Duration
Sunrise Solar Powered Thermal Airship has been designed to achieve airborne missions based on low speeds and long flight duration for e.g. observations, expeditions, patrolling, filming or simply for recreational. Compared to Helium, Sunrise offers lower performance however since it utilizes hot-air as its lifting gas, this transportation dramatically reduces operational costs. The Fresnel lens inside this hot-air balloon concentrates the sunlight to heat up air into a focal point that not only to create buoyancy that generates lift but also to fuel heat-powered Stirling engine for propulsion. Sunrise is equipped with 2-axis sun tracking system that allows for the lens to constantly face the sun.
Yes, I know this is not quite ready for prime time!
No Fred, nothing that technical. I merely think that sometimes you could serve as the lift source for hot air balloons.
I merely think that sometimes you could serve as the lift source for hot air balloons.
Yes, I figured that’s what you meant which was why I posted what I did. I figured it might even generate enough heat to warm the cockles of your heart >;-)
“Don’t know where you get your figures… ~ Allan H
Robert Courland, ‘Concrete Planet’. It’s in the comment.
“Not sure why we would want to be stuck with structures that last that long.” ~ Allan H
For Nick G’s EV’s?
Seriously, though, for reducing waste/energy? Adaptive-reuse? Forcing better foresight/planning/democratic input? For a culture/system that is permanent, rather than throwaway/temporary? So then maybe not as much concrete/energy is needed and what is things with it can be built to last? Stuff like that?
Laptop batteries rarely die, they are usually murdered. Commonest cause is leaving the laptop connected to the mains all the time. If you really want continuous mains operation then unplug the battery as soon as it is charged.It is really just poor power management on behalf of the laptop design, the batteries are quite capable of lasting years.
NAOM
Walking in my nearby city the other day couldn’t help but notice concrete aprons on streets built less than 5 years ago already sloughing off chunks… Yet the Yuppies love to shop in that new ‘market place’.
Here’s a typical concrete pavement strength curve, taken from a usa dpt of transportation site:
BNSF weekly carload report, week 13
Petroleum cars at 10,174 and about 400 lower from week 13 of 2014. No collapse of oil being shipped by rail, that’s for sure. BDIY can stay low, it saves oil.
Still plenty of demand for shipping oil to a destination, bills of lading are being written, suppliers want some oil and must be willing buyers. Just as much will be pumped out of the ground this week and I suspect there will be numbers that look similar in week 14 at the end of next week. Not too tough to make that prediction, people have to eat. Somehow, it all has to work out one way of the other.
The same for coal, demand is there. Got to feed those coal burning power plants in Winnipeg and Omaha. The gaping maws of industry are never satisfied.
Coal cars at 45,675 and are some 400 more than in week 13 of 2014.
Yesterday, I saw sandhill cranes flying high at about 3500 feet, sometimes, they’re flying a mile high and are much more difficult to spot in the sky. The geese and ducks are going nuts flying north, all the way to Nunavut for some, I s’pose.
Dry and warm out there, however, there is still plenty of ground moisture, so the planting in full force will begin in the next two weeks.
Ronald,
Actually, the BNSF report shows petroleum shipments in Q1 of 2015 were slightly below that of Q1 of 2014 which if true will be quite shocking to everyone in the forecasting business. That implies that shipments significantly below where shipments were in Q2, Q3 and Q4 of 2014 as well. I understand there is seasonality but production has been increasing sequentially on a quarterly basis fairly rapidly and no one expects Q1 production in 2015 to be anywhere close to Q1 production in 2014 let alone below it. This report implies much less oil production in Q1 of 2015 than anyone is forecasting.
BNSF archives
If you look at each report for 2014 and compare them to 2013, you will see that 2014 is the high water mark and eclipsing each week of 2013 by a significant margin.
The sand shipments for fracking will be down significantly since the wells that need fracking are building in volume.
Here’s the railroad company’s financial report. It says they couldn’t satisfy customer demand in the 4q 2014. This means the carloads may not be a good measure of overall production.
The sand carloads dropped 25 % in six months.
Carloads are a slightly lagging indicator of production. Oil produced doesn’t immediately end up in carloads. I agree with Listener, all the carload indicators point to production below what people are expecting. Not sure how anyone can view the carload information from the past several weeks otherwise. Carloads below last year for the 1st quarter are not a good sign for where production is trending and certainly not in line with the expert forecasts.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17Ah
Orders are contracting YoY with tougher comparisons ahead for Q2-Q3. Orders have a very high correlation to IP mfg., not surprisingly. A deceleration below 3% YoY for IP mfg. is historically recessionary.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17An
BEA profits are contracting YoY, but a similar situation occurred in 1986 and 1998 when the price of oil crashed. The 4- and 6-qtr. rate of real final sales per capita following a contraction in earnings was ~0% to slightly negative, i.e., recession.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17Ap
However, real final sales per capita are growing at about half the rate as in 1986 and 1998.
http://web.nacm.org/cmi/PDF/CMIcurrent.pdf
Credit growth is following profits and orders, suggesting that an acceleration of growth in Q2 is not likely.
https://www.frbatlanta.org/cqer/researchcq/gdpnow.cfm
Therefore, it’s conceivable that real GDP per capita will not decelerate as quickly from a faster cyclical rate this time around, even though the economy decelerates to “stall speed” and risks contraction sometime in 2015-16.
From my personal experience, Homo sapiens v. sapiens, sub variety urbanii that visit the farm cannot stand to be there for more than an hour and a half and are deathly afraid that they might just have to do some work for even twenty minutes. After an hour, they are jonesin’ to pack themselves back into their cars and head back to their overcrowded human habitation zone, city. They’d rather go hungry and grab some McDonald’s when they return to their hovels.
It is unbelievable what amount of effort they will use to avoid doing anything at all that might get their hands even a little dirty and end up with some dirt under their finger nails.
If they would follow me around for the fourteen hours of daily work while the sun shines, they’d die.
They’d rather form political parties to tax to death someone else’s money to survive in an urban environment that is unsustainable and has no chance at all of survival without outside sources/resources to support it. When the time comes for collapse, it’ll be those over-populated human habitation zones that will be most vulnerable to the die-off.
I can’t generate an ounce of sympathy for them, so sorry for the hardheaded opinion, it is just what I see time after time and it never fails.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Ron, you are so right. Homo sapiens urbanii wants it all done for them. Packaged food, cars move their butt around, remotes for everything. Life is push button for them or they call someone to get their hands dirty fixing things. Little dukes and duchesses and they really want it that way. They don’t realize that without dirt and work, they just die.
Then they head off to some resort for vacation to rest up from all their “hard” work.
Sad part is I do not think they are generally very happy or even really satisfied with life. They complain a lot, about the most inconsequential things and are not very grateful for living in modern paradise. I think many have lost the ability to recognize what is meaningful in life.
Hi all,
I agree with Ron that the EIA’s International Energy Outlook(IEO) looks very optimistic and try to show that using an oil shock model (though common sense does just fine).
I first assume that the USGS estimate for World URR is correct for crude less extra heavy oil (3100 Gb).
For extra heavy oil the USGS estimates about 1000 Gb. This is too high based in conversations with Fernando Leanme, who estimates less than 150 Gb of output from the Orinoco belt (USGS estimates about 500 GB). I assume Canadian oil sands at 450 Gb and Orinoco belt at 150 Gb for a total extra heavy (XH) oil URR of 600 Gb. The total World C+C estimate is 3700 Gb, personally I think this is unrealistically high, but the aim is to show how difficult it would be to increase output as much as the IEO forecasts.
The extraction rate for C+C less XH would need to rise from 5.8% in 2014 to 12% in 2040 which is unlikely.
Then output will decline rapidly after 2040. Annual decline rates of almost 5% in 2041 decrease to 3% by 2050. Suffice it to say that this confirms that even with very optimistic assumptions about World URR, the IEO is not a realistic scenario.
Clearly the 12% extraction rate for C+C less extra heavy oil is not realistic, so I revised the scenario above by limiting extraction rate to 8.3% or less (an arbitrary assumption based on past maximum extraction rates of about 8%). Scenario is below, note that the URR is still very optimistic so I do not consider this scenario realistic, just more realistic than the scenario above. Chart below, peak in 2030 at 89 Mb/d. Decline rate around 2% per year.
That curve implies around 650 ppm peak CO2 concentration.
Hi Fernando,
I am not quite sure how you get that because you would need oil, natural gas, coal, cement production, natural gas flaring, and land use change data as well.
Cumulative C+C output is 3100 Gb through 2100 in the second scenario, cumulative output through 2014 is 1240 Gb, cumulative output through 2200 is 3500 Gb, and in 2300, 3570 Gb.
Hopefully oil prices will rise enough that much of the oil sands oil will not be produced. A peak in all fossil fuels by 2030 may lead to much higher fossil fuel prices and wind, solar, EVs, rail, light rail will become more competitive. There will also be much greater efficiency in the use of fossil fuels and energy in general as the price of energy rises.
All of this will be disruptive and difficult and will take many years, I also worry that it will be more difficult than some people believe. As problems get sorted out in more advanced economies, the technology will be transferred worldwide.
I assume land use change is zero. The other data comes from the usual suspects.
This week I’m studying abyssal sea water chemistry and interactions with ocean sediments. I was trying to catch lectures on YouTube and I got one from a guy who claimed the world had to be younger than 14 million years. One sees all sorts of weird stuff on you tube. When you watch my global warming video you know immediately what it’s about, but these guys sure hide their religious agenda.
Hi Fernando,
If equilibrium climate sensitivity were 3 C for a doubling of CO2 and atmospheric CO2 stabilized at 650 ppm, that would imply about 3.6 C above Holocene pre-industrial temperatures for global average temperatures. Hopefully we have less oil than the USGS thinks and that high fossil fuel prices lead to significant substitution of alternatives and atmospheric CO2 of 500 ppm or less.
The peak oil community must only represent maybe 0.01% of the population. Government perpetuates the idea of energy independence and the idea of BAU continuing. Without saying exactly where i live, I live just outside the largest city in South Carolina. The amount of new subdivisions being built in the surrounding area is mind goggling and it don’t matter which way you go it’s in all directions. Even the downtown area is seeing a massive truly massive amount of new condo’s an lofts being built.
They are building like peak oil is total fiction. Or like they just haven’t been told about it. When the shock comes it’s going to be truly shocking. 99.99% are not prepared for the shock. Even the 0.01% that know it’s coming are probably not as prepared to deal with as they think.
Yet some on here will have us to believe ,all we have to do is stick up a few windmills and some solar panels and all will be right. While Other think we dwell on the doom side of things to much .Some even want us to hear speeches of why we are all going to hell in a hand bag ..just buy thier the book.. Some put up cute cartoons to show us how cleverly they are . But 99% don’t no or don’t care and will keep building untill they can’t .
We moved out of North Dallas about three years ago. I just went back to the North Dallas area on a business trip after not having been there for about two years, and I was stunned at all of the development, and the traffic was mind-boggling.
Currently there is something of a real estate fiesta going on in North Texas. The normal supply of houses is six months of sales. Currently, they are down to one to two months in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and it’s routine for new listings to get multiple offers.
And of course, the conventional wisdom now is that we have a new paradigm of permanently lower oil prices.
The area is pleasant enough and that is true for much of Texas, absent the sprawl.
The problem is growth at all costs, and people moving in from all over the world and country because of job opportunities. Texas really has become a haven for mexicans escaping mexico, people tired of winter escaping the north, conservatives escaping liberal states, and people just looking for work in general. I hear this all of the time.
This means that Dallas and Houston are behind the curve when it comes to collapse.
I have a feeling it’s going to go bust starting around now.
It’s true that many people just try to get on with their lives. Going to work, taking care of their houses and families, taking care of health problems, all enough to fill a life. They are going to look on peak oil as kind of a fiction, there is no real evidence for them in their daily lives.
Think about prophecy. If your prophet starts giving doom and gloom, most would go check with another prophet. That other prophet probably conflicts with the first and predicts everything will be fine or at least continue with business as usual. Most people would chose prophet #2 and ignore prophet #1 unless there was convincing evidence of the gloom and doom scenario being a sure thing.
Unless the doom and gloomer has a concrete practical plan in hand to avoid or greatly reduce the predicament, the forecast is not useful and will be ignored. If you tell people that 6 out of 7 people will be dead in five years it will be ignored. If it doesn’t happen in those 5 years, hardly anyone will listen in the future. If you can’t give a prediction of when and how much, the information is also fairly useless.
To almost everyone on this planet, peak oil is fiction. It’s a case more of what didn’t happen rather than what did happen.
okay
So what would happen if OPEC cuts oil production 2 million BOPD in June? On the other hand, what happens if they don’t?
February numbers from ND and TX coming out soon. Will give blog more to debate, can’t wait.
Oil production is slowing down much faster than people think. All the data implies it. People who are focusing on weekly inventory data do not understand that all “oil” (as reported) is not equal or even oil at all. API makes a huge difference. Refineries can only use so much high API “oil” for their “brew” and when tar sands production declines north of the border so does demand for high API “oil” which is used to help dilute the “tar”. So high API storage is going through the roof and much of that isnt “oil” at all. He who focuses on inventory will ultimately be burned. Best leading indicator is and always has been rig counts. Good luck…
Ron – Rather than trying to ridicule me, why don’t you try to spend your time correcting Google articles?
“Darwin uses the phrase “survival of the fittest” in chapter four of On the Origin of Species to describe the process of natural selection. But he did not coin the phrase. It was borrowed from English philosopher Herbert Spencer, who first talked about survival of the fittest in his Principles of Sociology. “The term ‘natural selection,'” wrote Darwin in The Origin, “is in some respects a bad one, as it seems to imply conscious choice.” Referring to the process as “survival of the fittest,” Darwin thought, helped clarify things.”
And why don’t you try reading what I wrote: Darwin never said evolution was based upon survival of the fittest. The first version of “Origin of Species” never mentioned that phrase at all.
On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Spencer first coined the term in 1864, five years later. Darwin used the term in later versions of the book. And he never said evolution was based on survival of the fittest. He said, in later versions he said that “survival of the fittest” was perhaps a better term for “natural selection”. Natural selection is the process, evolution is history.
It was what you said that really pissed me off.
To my knowledge [extremely limited in that I am not a Darwin expert] he did not propose that humans alter that billions of years of history and try to change it to “survival of all.”
That implies that Darwin would have been fine with Homo sapiens driving almost all other species into extinction. It implies that what is happening right now is the same thing that has been happening for billions of years. That is absolute bullshit.
What is happening right now has only been happening for a few hundred years and only in the last one hundred years has the extinction rate been several hundred times what it was in the past. And Darwin, I believe, would have been horrified had he known what kind of human caused wholesale slaughter was about to befall most species.
We have to change that theory to “survival of the fittest for the menu”.
http://portal.ransquawk.com/headlines/china-march-crude-oil-imports-at-26-81mln-tonnes-crude-oil-exports-at-750-000-tonnes-13-04-2015
Conversion says that’s (196517300 – 5.5 million =) 191017300 barrels / 31 days is 6.2 million bpd. That’s imports.
In 2013, China produced an estimated 4.5 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of total oil liquids, of which 93% was crude oil. EIA forecasts China’s oil production to rise to about 4.6 million bbl/d by the end of 2014. Over the longer term, EIA projects a steady growth for China’s oil and liquids production, reaching 4.6 million bbl/d in 2020 and 5.6 million bbl/d by 2040. (EIA text)
That looks like 10.8 mbpd consumption in March. No sign of decline.
Hi Watcher.
If it’s bought and stored for later use, is that still consumption?
-Lloyd
Given the US SPR does not have 100% recovery, you can probably say that for some storage.
The U.S. SPR is in salt domes. I believe the Chinese use steel tanks. Do they use rock caverns?
Watcher,
You need to look at total Chinese YoY imports/exports. Not just oil imports and production. Total imports are down 12%. Total Exports are down 15% These are March’s YoY numbers. Trade surplus came it at 18 billion on an expected 250 billion.
I’d say decline is pretty significant decline. Define decline.
China appears to be in early stages of financial collapse. Thats why their stock market is beyond the moon currently. Devaluation is coming. Which loops us around to the fact they can’t afford to devalue yet they must devalue. That $1.1 trillion in USD denominated debt chinese companies have is going to bite them in the ass.
I’ll say it again it’s the private debt thats going to collapse, bringing down the monetary system. Leading to all the other forms of collapse we’ve discussed. War, starvation, mass population decline.
2008 was a private debt implosion. Only this time around peak oil is here and that limits recovery to not happening. Peak Oil will also force the private debt to implode if it doesn’t implode all on it’s own first. The minute insufficient fuel happens.
Debt has to collapse in order for there to be a collapse. Otherwise there is no collapse.
Debt is where it starts. War,starvation and population decline is where it ends.
How about Japan talking it’s currency higher instead of lower. One of Abe’s cabinet members suggested an USD/JPY exchange rate of 105.00 would be more ideal than the current 120.00 which is 1500 points lower.
Who are these guys kidding? Can the BOJ ever really exit it’s current QE program? Better question is what happens if they do ever exit and what happens if they don’t. They have 2-3 years left Peak Oil or no Peak Oil.
Fed can’t hike rates because of what it would do to the Yen. All this talk of rate hikes is BS to me until it actually happens.
You need to look at total Chinese YoY imports/exports. Not just oil imports and production.
I sort of thought this was an oil blog.
China appears to be in early stages of financial collapse.
But since oil is the only thing that will starve people, there is no sign of near term starvation until one sees oil impact.
If Japan threatens the global system, they’ll be bailed out. No one is going to be allowed to cause starvation because of numbers on a screen. If someone is harmed in the bailout process, they will not be allowed access to courts.
If you were a government anywhere and you knew your citizens were going to starve because of numbers on a screen, you would decree them changed, too.
Only oil scarcity is immune to this.
You have too much faith in government being able to do whatever it takes until time when oil scarcity sets in. Many of financial collapses have happen before peak oil that they couldn’t or chose not to do anything about. People have starved to death during financial collapses before peak oil.
Rome was a financial collapse that took place before the age of oil. It took them like a 1000 years for the population to recover to pre-collapse levels. Their monetary system collapsed. When faith is lost it’s all over.
As soon as the people of Japan collectively see that there is no way out no way forward. Nothing that their government does fixes anything about the mess they are currently in. Time is up.
Exactly who will and how will they be bailout?
I’m going to answer that question for you. Nobody! they are too big to bailout. FED can’t do it. IMF can’t do it. There is no bailout for them.
All they can do is hope and pray confidence isn’t lost.
I would have agreed with you 10 years ago.
That’s all gone. There will be no reluctance to act. In the world of the military there is a “nuclear threshold”. Once you use them in a given theatre it’s presumed easier and easier and easier to use them them again.
In the case of finance, you create a TARP, advocated by a conservative president. You change the bankruptcy law interpretation on the fly during GM court proceedings. You change GAAP to no longer require mark to market valuation on certain securities held by banks. You decide to do massive QE just 6 weeks before a presidential election, in the absence of any clear data pointing at disaster, and shrug off supposed Fed independence issues.
Hell, let’s not limit to the US. Just 6 weeks ago Germany, after years of refusal, allowed the ECB to announce its own QE program of over a trillion Euros by September of next year. That was a government decision, not an independent central bank decision. Germany could have stopped it. They didn’t. Japan is what it is, those are all government measures taken in desperation — because they will do ANYTHING, and so far it is working. No one is starving in Tokyo.
Oh, do not underestimate what government can and will do. If not just national, but global manifestation of starvation looms, ANYTHING will be done to stop it. Zero reluctance. There is nothing sacred about free markets. They are considered quaint activities to distract, essentially. If those markets threaten The System, they will be shut down. And it will all be phrased to be an entirely rational and somewhat generally agreed upon thing — except by those hurt, who will not be allowed a voice.
Absence of any clear data?
I had to look at a stock chart to remember timing (pick one at random) but non financial companies risked bankruptcy from credit market fears if they had the wrong mix of debt six weeks before the election
Otherwise I agree
Also both of you but more sawdust seem to think the first crash is unshortable due to value destruction
I’m not sure why unless the first is the last?
Your right. I don’t believe it will be a three wave collapse. Markets will just close one day and then never open back up. If you haven’t gotten your money out of the system by this point it will be tuff luck.
A credible scenario is a Sunday night futures smash in Asia. The US markets can’t open per circuit breaker rules.
Give it a couple of days doing this and the prez will talk to Congressional leaders and declare that all prices are restored to Friday’s price (the last time the markets were open) and for the next month no downticks are permitted on trades.
Who would complain? Just the put holders and shorts. They will be denied access to courts and the world will resume operations.
Oops. Maybe you meant qe3
2012
If the governments destroy faith in currencies like you say, it won’t stop collapse, because it will freeze credit market and bring down oil price to couple bucks (in today’s dollars).
There is one particular thing historians HATE above all else.
Disease.
It robs generations of them of dissertation subjects. Want to examine something new about the fall of Rome? Do it. Make up anything you like.
But as soon as someone points out malaria moved north to Rome from Africa, all that stuff becomes shaky.
And so a huge effort is always made to discredit malaria.
Disease certainly played is part in the fall of Rome. Maybe radiation will play a roll in the fall of Japan. Point was a country or a people can collapse without peak oil. Peak oil isn’t a must when it comes to collapse but peak oil will trigger a lot of collapses when there is not enough fuel.
Have you ever read stories from people who lived through the collapse of the former USSR. Disease killed a lot of them. Not on the scale of a Rome collapse by any mean. Just make sure the toilet water makes it a safe distance from the house is all i can say.
“2008 was a private debt implosion. Only this time around peak oil is here and that limits recovery to not happening.”
2008 was around ‘peak conventional oil’. Shale oil needs oilprices that leaves the world economy with little or no possibility to grow. Also, fiscal breakeven price for oil producing countries is now at least $ 80/barrel and for most of those countries more than $ 100. Accounting breakeven price for new (ultra)deepwater oilfield projects is more than $ 50, so for those to develop stable oilprices of at least $75-80/barrel will be waited for. With world oil production not rising, ‘the world’ has to figure out how to keep ‘the economy’ growing, while ‘world oil production growth’ needs long term moderately high oilprices which means trouble also. The current situation (‘low’ oilprice and economic growth for a lot of countries) is just a very temporary one.
The low oil price might be permanent. As the economy shrinks so will demand. I expect the economy to shrink in a big way. I’m not sold on the idea that just because oil gets scarce means it’s expensive. If a large portion of the population can’t afford oil at any price they are just priced out of oil use. That may very well be at todays price.
Update of Prieto and Hall on solar EROI by Alice Friedmann http://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/#responses
Statoil ‘could cut over 10% of jobs’: report
Statoil, which went into the red in the second half of the year, also warned in February that an 8 percent cut in staff levels last year to 22,500 could be followed by further staff reductions.
TGS, who are a Norwegian geophysical exploration company (mostly in seismic data), announced 10% staff layoffs today. Needless to say I’m absolutely thrilled at this development.
You’re just a Nasty Capitalist: There, take that.
I’m looking outside exploration for my next job at the moment. I reckon the next big technology push is going to be in EOR, exploration just isn’t generating the returns that the oil companies need. 4d seismic might do well for a while, but that’s fairly mechanical. Deepwater exploration seems like it’ll be in decline for some time.
Yeah, I retired at a good time. EOR is the real deal. I watched it happening on the North Slope and saw more oil squeezed from the dirt then I would have ever imagined possible. It’s happening everywhere now of course. Good luck what ever direction you go. I started life in Engineering Physics which could have gone anywhere. Marriage made the earth sciences look like a smart choice: Had to stop playing sometime and can’t say that I’m sorry.
Yeah I think rune mentioned something about it the other month. Statoil are getting some seriously impressive recovery percentages these days, and that’s what everyone will be aiming for I guess.
There’s quite a few research projects being offered in Manchester on how best to do things like integrating intermittent renewables into grids, and dealing with the changing nature of our electricity system. Might be interesting. It’s an interesting time to work in energy, for sure.
Not sure if anyone else here enjoys reading the work of Tim Garrett, who’s trying to model the global economy as a well-mixed thermodynamic whole, but he put part 2 of his model of long run global economic growth up recently, and it’s available here: http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/6/655/2015/esdd-6-655-2015.html
Very heavy on the maths if you’re not that way inclined, but a very good read.
All I could find (access) was the Abstract????????
Took a little extra digging but I think this is a free link to the full paper. I downloaded it but haven’t read it yet
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/6/655/2015/esdd-6-655-2015.pdf
Thanks Fred, worked like a damn. I made a hard copy which I’ll go through next time I’m sitting in a airplane — if the movie is crappy.
Doug, see below and bonus material:
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/6/655/2015/esdd-6-655-2015.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.5671.pdf
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/14/declining-population-could-reduce-global-economic-growth-by-40/
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/growth/can_long-term_global_growth_be_saved
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/16/the-amazing-surprising-africa-driven-demographic-future-of-the-earth-in-9-charts/
Thanks man but that’s overkill. My bag is Pulsar Physics, not economics; but I will wade through the paper Sam recommended (at some point). The population graphs (your last link) are too depressing for words. Where the Hell is my bottle of single malt anyway?
Oh, cool, pulsars! A friend of mine is a black hole astronomer, looking at active galactic nuclei. Always found that stuff fascinating, but I ended up doing my masters thesis on some high temperature superconductivity stuff instead. What’s your research about?
My thesis was on Alfvén Waves, taught by the great Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén himself (these days they are usually referred to as Magnetohydrodynamic Waves); this all happened in Sweden of course. While there I fell in love with a Norwegian and carried on life as a geophysicist and geologist: My wife became a Mathematical Physicist. But Pulsars have been a hobby since 1967 when I was in an EE class and our prof came in late to announce their discovery; I’ve been following them ever since.
I once heard a speculative dinner discussion on Gamma Ray Bursters being no farther away than Mars. It was impressive. All the then present evidence was examined and the hypothesis was not dismissed (even though there was zero support for it) until two items of evidence were presented that guaranteed energy content and precluded proximity.
@Doug: Life is short. Tall bottles help to avoid the nasty and brutish parts. 😀
BTW, Doug, eCONomists have been trying to catch up to you physicists for decades now; but, apart from some of us biophysical types, most of them have fallen into the intellectual black hole of irrelevance. 🙂
Yeah, it always seemed a bit like witchcraft to me but having never gotten past the basic debit/credit distinction I’m the least qualified I know to make that claim.
Mainstream Classical Economists actually still believe that economics is a science just as mathematically rigorous as physics.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-economist-has-no-clothes/
The Economist Has No Clothes
The physical theory that the creators of neoclassical economics used as a template was conceived in response to the inability of Newtonian physics to account for the phenomena of heat, light and electricity. In 1847 German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz formulated the conservation of energy principle and postulated the existence of a field of conserved energy that fills all space and unifies these phenomena. Later in the century James Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann and other physicists devised better explanations for electromagnetism and thermodynamics, but in the meantime, the economists had borrowed and altered Helmholtz’s equations.
The strategy the economists used was as simple as it was absurd—they substituted economic variables for physical ones. Utility (a measure of economic well-being) took the place of energy; the sum of utility and expenditure replaced potential and kinetic energy. A number of well-known mathematicians and physicists told the economists that there was absolutely no basis for making these substitutions. But the economists ignored such criticisms and proceeded to claim that they had transformed their field of study into a rigorously mathematical scientific discipline.
Oh it’s absolutely as mathematically rigorous. Only problem being the whole edifice is built on top of a load of flawed premises and faulty assumptions.
Stellar maths though.
Perhaps mathematical rigor can be enhanced by considering deprivation and die-off to be ultimate market mechanisms.
Thanks Rob, I’ll definitely take that into consideration.
Though to be honest, I’m already quite inured to Moma Nature’s rather brutish suppression techniques… and trust me, the market ain’t got nothing on her.
That’s true. My ex wife was an astrologer and she did some pretty rigorous math as well. >;-)
Jeez, everyone is still pushing hard on the meme that ‘Growth’ is good and it needs to continue. The reality is that it now has reached a point of diminishing returns and the negative consequences of growth have begun to outweigh the positives. The story about an African demographic explosion is a case in point. Does anyone who has even a basic understanding of what is happening to the planet really think that this could lead to anything other than a full scale disaster for the African continent and the also for the planet as a whole?!
Yes, Fred, Africa is an unprecedented ecological and humanitarian disaster in the making.
If one looks at world population growth ex Africa and South Asia, the rate of change of deceleration of growth is accelerating and will contribute to decelerating real GDP per capita growth that will not permit anything close to the scale of western and Chinese investment many economists expect in Afica. This in turn will prevent growth of development in Africa and eventually cause the rate of growth of Africa’s population to slow significantly, resulting in global population growth decelerating more than is anticipated and population peaking sooner than expected.
Growth is an indicator of success and the potential to make more money. Plus growth in anything is a basic human desire. Everybody I know gets sad and depressed at the thought of negative economic growth and population decline, like how nobody likes to look at a dying tree or flower. That’s just normal human behavior.
That’s just normal human behavior.
I’m not so sure about that. Sounds a lot like brainwashing to me.
I think the concept of economic growth is a relatively recent phenomenon dating back to Adam Smith and the foundations of Capitalism. Capitalism requires continued growth to create wealth. It depended on people like Edward Bernays the father of propaganda to manipulate people into believing they needed to consume ever more products.
Modern humans have been around for almost 100,000 years and throughout most of that period no one was much concerned with growth. I think this is a very modern idea and not necessarily such a good one if what is happening to the planet is any indication. Sounds like a plan to benefit the few at the expense of the many while usurping the resources of the commons.
Mike and Fred, I’m sympathetic to both points of view. I suspect most people are wired and additionally conditioned to reproduce and thereby increase their consumption of resources, goods, and services, at least up to some self-selected level per capita or per household.
But for the vast majority of our evolution, including during the period of modern humans’ evolution to date, survival was imperative and consciously desiring growth was secondary or a low or no priority.
https://vimeo.com/23278902
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/10330.Daniel_Quinn
And then came agriculturalists (Daniel Quinn’s “Takers”), i.e., growers of beer, slaves, and warriors, supplanting the hunter gatherers (Quinn’s “Leavers”), and, as it is said, the rest is history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_culture
That is, the “Mother Culture” informed and conditioned humans “to be fruitful and multiply” and take “dominion over (subdue) the Earth”, including animals, plants, water, soil, and other humans’ bodies, minds, and spirits (?).
One might say that humans have become “drunk” with the idea of perpetual growth in order to subdue Nature and “the gods”, as well as to accumulate natural resource wealth in its myriad higher-entropy proxy forms to subdue, conquer, enslave, and exploit countless among our fellows, which today has succeeded beyond any conceivable Stone Age tribal desert sky god’s most fantastic delusional ambitions.
http://portal.ransquawk.com/headlines/azeri-oil-output-increased-by-1-9-y-y-in-q1-to-10-6mln-tonnes-while-natural-gas-production-fell-in-the-same-period-according-to-a-source-13-04-2015
Revised Saudi 2005 Production Number (total petroleum liquids + other liquids)
The EIA recently revised 2005 Saudi total petroleum liquids + other liquids production from 11.1 mbpd to 11.5 mbpd, but C+C production has not changed.
Following is the response from the EIA to my inquiry about the data revision. This certainly gives one a renewed appreciation for the uncertainties inherent in trying to estimate global liquids production and global net exports of oil. Note that this puts probable 2014 Saudi net oil exports at around one mbpd below the revised 2005 rate of 9.5 mbpd.