The latest OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with OPEC crude only production numbers for May, 2016. I have compared these numbers with those published by the EIA in their Short-Term Energy Outlook table 3a. All data is in thousand barrels per day and the last data point in May 2016 except for the projection in the one chart below.
The EIA has OPEC crude production up 238,000 bpd in May to 32,052,000 bpd while OPEC’s “secondary sources” has OPEC production down 100,000 bpd to 32,31,000 bpd in May. The MOMR still has their May production 309,000 bpd more than the EIA.
However that all changes next month, according to the EIA. They have OPEC crude production jumping by 600,000 bpd in June to 32,652,000 bpd. They did not project individual countries however so we have no idea where they believe all that oil is going to come from. Frankly, I just don’t believe it is going to happen.
Here are the actual production numbers according to “secondary sources”.
Here we see the tendency the EIA has to, for some OPEC nations but not all, to just carry last month’s production forward until they detect production had changed enough to change their numbers. At any rate Algerian oil production is clearly in decline.
The EIA and the MOMR has Angola production going in different directions in May. The EIA has Angola up 25,000 bpd in May while the MOMR says they fell by 17,000 bpd.
The EIA has Ecuador declining for the past six months while the MOMR does not see it that way. The EIA has Ecuador production down 18,000 bpd since November while the MOMR has them up 1,000 bpd since November.
Indonesia, in decline for years, has increased production by about 75,000 bpd over the last year or so.
Iran, since December has increased production by 810,000 bpd according to the EIA or 675,000 bpd if you are looking at the MOMR numbers. At any rate the increase is slowing down now and will likely come to a complete halt in a month or so.
Okay, is there any doubt now that Iraq’s oil production grand assent has petered out? They are struggling to increase production but not having much luck. And ISIS is not helping one bit.
OPEC’s “secondary sources” has Kuwait producing, on average, about 225,000 bpd more than the EIA says they are producing. This is the only OPEC country where such discrepancy exist. I have no idea why.
In contrast with Kuwait, the EIA and the MOMR agree almost to the barrel on what Libya is producing. Libya, one day, will bring production back up but that day will not happen any time soon.
Nigeria is headed to the same place where Libya is right now, racked with violence and falling oil production.
Qatar has lots of natural gas but not much oil. And what they do have is in decline.
The EIA says Saudi Arabia increased production by 300,000 bpd in May. OPEC’s “secondary sources” says the increase was only 84,000 bpd to 10,241,000 bpd.
This is a very strange chart, or at least the EIA portion is strange. No one believes crude oil production in the Untied Arab Emirates was absolutely flat for almost four years. And had it not been for that sudden decline in production in February and March, they would likely still have production flat. But there comes a time when even the EIA cannot deny what is obviously happening. At any rate UAE production seems to be recovering.
And their chart for Venezuela is just as silly. But Venezuela production is not recovering, and is not likely to.
In conclusion, I am not nearly as optimistic about OPEC production as is the EIA. OPEC may hold, close to current production, for the next few months. But I think the trend will have to be down, giving what is happening in Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq. Iran is topping out and cannot increase production much further. And the other big OPEC producers, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are clearly producing every barrel they can possibly produce and have, in my opinion, only downside potential to any great extent.
In other Non-OPEC news:
China Oil Outpur Cut by Most in 15 Years
China’s crude production dropped by the most in 15 years in another sign that OPEC’s strategy of flooding markets to drive out higher-cost suppliers is working in the world’s biggest energy consumer.
The Asian nation reduced oil output in May by 7.3 percent from a year ago to 16.87 million metric tons, according to data from National Bureau of Statistics released on Monday. That’s the biggest decline since Feb. 2001.
Hi Ron,
Are you willing to venture an opinion or a guess at how long it will take for world wide oil production to decline enough for the decline to be obvious in the MOMR, etc?
No, I would not venture a guess. The MOMR is predicting a 750,000 barrel per day decline in Non-OPEC production for 2016. I think it will be closer to 1 million. OPEC production will increase in 2016 but not that much.
But it will be at least 2018 before anyone starts to even consider that the peak may have arrived.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
You did not ask me, but I will give my opinion anyway.
I agree with Ron’s estimate that it will be at least 2018 before it is clear to most that Peak oil has arrived.
Actually I think we may be close to 2015 average annual output by 2018 or 2019 as oil prices will increase and output may recover a bit from 2016 levels, but at minimum the decline will stop and we will be on an undulating plateau of 79 to 81 Mb/d of C+C output that might last until 2022. So my guess is that the peak may not be clear until 2025 or so (if a plateau scenario is correct), but possibly as early as 2022 if we fall off the plateau (under 79 Mb/d for 12 month running average) by 2020.
It will take a couple of years of steady decline at high oil price levels ($100/b or more in 2016$) before the average person believes that peak oil has arrived.
Ron,
Interesting article from Bloomberg. I note their take is that it is all about prices. Geology and resources are not factors in their thinking.
No mention of decline in China’s aging oil fields, or that EOR and infill drilling are what is not affordable at current oil prices, resulting in higher decline rates, or that some of China’s biggest, aging fields are probably at the end of their producing lives. The intimation is that production can jump right back up with higher prices – uh, not that simple.
And the angle that Saudi Arabia flooded the market by keeping their production relatively flat (not cutting production) is a bit ridiculous, to me. US LTO and Canadian tar sands increased production to cause an abundance of oil and condensate.
I think China’s decline is due to geology and, secondarily, to price realities. It is not caused by stable production in Saudi Arabia. Bloomberg is trying to manipulate markets, as usual.
Jim
Bloomberg is trying to manipulate markets, as usual.
Naw, they just don’t know any better.
I wouldn’t put TOO much credence in Bloomberg’s interpretation of Chinese oil production dropping due to low prices brought on by the Saudis.
No doubt low prices have something to do with it, because any company not forced by circumstance to keep producing ought to shut in unprofitable production, at least temporarily, hoping for higher prices later.
China is a special case, with the profit motive and dollars and cents bookkeeping sometimes being forced to play second fiddle when the top dogs decide some given course of action is in the national interest.
China can and does play the long game, and China is sitting on an ocean of cash. Cash is useful only in the same sense as virginity, you can’t save it forever, and you sooner or later have to use it or watch the value of it wither away. Buying imported oil with yankee dollars right now, and saving domestic reserves for use later, when prices will almost for dead sure be much higher, is arguably in China’s best interest, long term.
“Cash is useful only in the same sense as virginity, you can’t save it forever, and you sooner or later have to use it or watch the value of it wither away.”
Priceless.
Chinese oil fields produce a huge amount of water. They infilled, injected polymers for many years, and pushed recovery to very high limits. I imagine the lower prices forced them to shut in lots of wells.
“I imagine the lower prices forced them to shut in lots of wells.”
And several fields with high-cost production
https://www.rt.com/business/346128-china-massive-sea-lab/
speaking of china.
“The deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped, and in order to obtain these treasures we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told reporters last month at a national science conference.
What about the cheaper treasures on land? Hmmmm…….
“Cash is useful only in the same sense as virginity, you can’t save it forever, and you sooner or later have to use it or watch the value of it wither away.”
Dear OFM,
I do not comment much anymore here, but this time I simply had to…
I heave not read it somewhere else ( and believe me: I am well read…so to speak!), so I presume the sentence is yours.
I have one thing to say to you brother:
not only you made my day…and week, but for a moment I thought I was reading Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ “…Huckleberry Finn…” (my favorite book of all time…goes especially well with Habanos, SA’s Epicure #2 and Whistlepig Rye…, but I digress..) and H.L. Mencken’s “Notes on Democracy” and “Making of a President” ;
…..and I thought to my self: ” though I read these literary pearls multiple times, I must have somehow missed this brilliant sentence….perhaps it was the end of the bottle when I did read them…I do not remember, but…”.
It sounds silly, but I am dead serious:
look for an attorney and copyright this….or patent it…or something…..
I love it… I really do!
I am looking forward to more gems akin to this in the future….
Cheers to you brother and as always:
Be well,
Petro
P.S.: thank you for the update Ron.
“Cash is useful only in the same sense as virginity, you can’t save it forever, and you sooner or later have to use it or watch the value of it wither away.”
I sometimes teach classes (finance, money, debt…etc…) at a well known university, can I please use the sentence…..PLEASE…..(under proper and adequate context, of course!)
I will be man enough to mention where I heard/learned it from – I promise!
Full credits to you, I promise!
Be well,
Petro
Warren Buffet seems to have used a similar phrase in 2013.
Buffett: Debt limit is like virginity – http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/10/16/n-warren-buffett-debt-ceiling-berkshire-hathaway-most-powerful-women.fortune/index.html
“Warren Buffett says that a great reputation is like virginity – ‘it can be preserved but it can’t be restored.’ Once you default, it’s hard to go back.”
Core Labs presentation at Citi group on May 11th…..
https://www.veracast.com/webcasts/citigroup/energy2016/76104268717.cfm
David Demshur specifically comments about watching Russia’s decline this year. (around the 26 minute mark)
We have all been waiting to see Russian production to start to come down. Maybe this will be bigger than most people think and it starts this year……
Good summary information about atmospheric carbon dioxide levels if anyone interested.
EL NIÑO LIKELY TO BOOST CO2 IN 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36521068
Daily CO2
June 12, 2016: 407.26 ppm
June 12, 2015: 402.46 ppm
Concerning the BBC news # 36521068 about the El Nino effect on CO2 levels.
The claim about the El Nino drying the tropical forests and causing them to burn is strange. The tropical forests in South America have been drying for years and burning already. The other claim that 2 ppm CO2 increase per year is expected is also strange, since when I checked the Mauna Loa data the increase had been above 2 ppm for quite a number of years. In fact from 2012 until now it has risen at the rate of 3.86 ppm per year. For most of this period there was no El Nino. The latest El Nino had a very weak start and did not strengthen until well into 2015.
The BBC article is just more liberal wailing about the sharp increase in planetary CO2 as if that in itself is something unusual. It isn’t. The current research science investigating ice cores shows that there have been 9 other extremely sharp increases in planetary CO2 during the past 600,000 years. Obviously that’s way before the industrial revolution, discovery of oil, our love affair with the SUV, the vice-presidency of Al Gore, and anything else that’s been implicated in apparently raising the CO2 level over the past century.
Hi Trace,
The rise of CO2 during the glacial to interglacial transitions was far slower than the increase of the last 150 years.
Chart below shows the past 800,000 years of CO2 data from ice cores.
If you choose the interval that looks the steepest, I can compare it to the most recent 150 years to see if the steepness is similar.
Current rate of CO2 increase is about two hundred times faster than those previous events.
Daily CO2
June 13, 2016: 407.36 ppm
June 13, 2015: 402.58 ppm
TG sais “The BBC article is just more liberal wailing about the sharp increase in planetary CO2 as if that in itself is something unusual”
The article is about implying that the increase in rate of CO2 increase is due to the EL Nino, a climate change denier ploy.
The El Nino does have a significant effect. The chart below shows y-o-y increase based on monthly averages. The last three peaks coincide with El Nino years (1998, 2012, 2015). There should be a large decline over the next year as La Nina sets in. However the increase is accelerating and is well above 2ppm per year on average now.
It’s almost as though we’re burning more fossil fuels than ever!
We’re only experiencing the climate impact of the 1990s CO2 levels. Even if atmospheric CO2 concentrations peaked tomorrow we’d see decades of accelerating effects.
It’s not pure doom, but given the year on year change since 2010 I cannot imagine the future impact will be small.
Temperatures in the Artic have been so absurdly above normal this year that I cannot imagine Greenland’s ice sheets surviving for another 50 years. There’s a clear trend, and it does not bode well for stable sea levels.
El nino start years:
91, 92, 94, 97, 02,04, 06, 09, 15
Seems to hit and miss matching rise anomalies in the CO2 rate. Probably coincidental since it occurs every few years, bound to be some match up.
NOAA presents a yearly summary of the sources and sinks for CO2, but for this year it is at least 12 months away (I think they have to complete isotope tests on all the flask samples from around the world which takes time).
I was curious how Ramadan impacts oil production and demand in the Middle East, so I did some loose research. As everyone here probably knows the Islamic calendar is based on the 29.5 day Lunar Cycle, so Ramadan is a few weeks “earlier” every year.
According to several articles I read electricity demand jumps by 50-60% during Ramadan especially when it occurs during the summer. A combination of higher A/C demand as people rest inside during the day-time fast and the lighting demand from nightly fast-breaking festivities drives this surge.
However Saudi Arabia is the only country that uses meaningful amounts of oil to produce electricity, so we can just focus on Saudi Arabia.
In July 2014 Saudi Arabia used 900,000 bpd of oil JUST for electricity, which was 63% higher than the previous year. In a weird twist a 2006 Royal Decree forced electricity generation from natural gas to oil. In 2007 nat gas accounted for 52% of electricity production, in 2012 it was down to 39% – all the rest is crude oil, fuel oil, and diesel. This change was the opposite of what I expected, and is a baffling policy decision… but it is Saudi Arabia, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
Saudi oil demand always spikes during the summer months, and Ramadan will combine with that to cause a huge spike in domestic oil demand for June.
I tried digging into how Ramadan may impact drilling projects, but could not find much on Saudi Arabia except an article that mentions the 2012 Saudi Aramco hack was made worse because most Saudi Aramco employees were on holiday for Ramadan. Various other Muslim nations reduce work hours for both Muslims and non-Muslims, and Algeria completely stops drilling during Ramadan. Long story short, I could not find anything too conclusive.
It would be difficult to tell if Ramadan has an impact on oil production in Muslim countries since it would be a delayed effect that doesn’t sit squarely in a single month, and is drowned out by other political, seasonal, and economic changes. I’m still very curious if there is a relationship though.
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Summer-Again-The-Swing-in-Oil-Demand-in-Saudi-Arabia.pdf
http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-saudis-keep-pumping-thirst-for-domestic-oil-swells-1435786552
http://www.ibtimes.com/ramadan-2015-muslims-saudi-arabia-urged-conserve-energy-amid-fears-power-outages-1991789
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/technology/aramco-hack/
Rising Saudi electricity consumption and direct oil burn at power plants is mainly due to air conditioning during the Summer season
Ramadan moves forward an average of 11.6 days per year. Nothing much changes during Ramadan except Muslim workers don’t work as hard or as long. But non-Muslim workers carry on as if nothing has happened. Well except that they, during daylight hours, cannot eat, drink or smoke in the presence of a Muslim.
Ramadan has little or no effect on the vacation of non-Muslim workers.
Saudi uses a lot more oil to generate electricity than they used to because they simply do not have enough natural gas to run their power plants and desal plants on gas alone. When I was there in the early 80s natural gas was used almost exclusively to produce electricity and water.
Their largest desal plants are evaporative plants though they do have a lot of reverse osmosis desal plants that serve smaller areas.
Ron and Alex S,
Saudi Arabia’s yearly surge of domestic oil demand is planned for and matched by a surge in supply. The additional 60% surge in electricity demand is ON TOP OF that consistent summer surge. I communicated poorly that the figures and sources were referencing not the yearly, seasonal increase in oil demand, but SPECIFICALLY the increase ABOVE the normal jump in demand.
It is entirely my fault for not making the difference clear because it is significant in terms of global supply and demand, albeit on the margin.
I know that this presentation is about production, but on the other side of production, that is demand, according to the IEA demand tables, going from Q2 to Q3 increases demand by about 1.5 million barrels a day.
There is also a additional small increase going from Q3 to Q4.
With supply decreasing and demand increasing looks like oil prices may be headed higher over the next six months.
The Alberta fires along with Nigeras problems came at the right time yo tighten things up a bit.
“according to the IEA demand tables, going from Q2 to Q3 increases demand by about 1.5 million barrels a day”
This is a normal seasonal pattern.
Demand in Q3-4 is always higher than in Q1-2
Yes it is the normal cycle pattern, but going into Q3, we have been seeing draws over the last few weeks, and world S/D has been close to being balanced.
It is normal for Q2 to have storage builds, and this year the builds were on the low side.
The market is not expecting to see higher demand than supply, and the next step in prices may be soon than expected.
Global demand is indeed strong. All key forecasting agencies are still projecting annual demand growth of 1.2mb/d, but it may surprise on the upside (~1.4mb/d).
But supply/demand rebalancing is mainly due to declining non-OPEC output and supply outages.
Quarterly global oil demand (mb/d)
source: IEA Oil Market Report, May 2016
China oil production decline is accelerating.
According to data from National Bureau of Statistics released today, oil output in May was down 7.3% from a year ago to 16.87 million metric tons (3.97 m/d, using 7.3 ton/barrel conversion factor).
Daily output declined 1.6% from April and 10% from June 2015 peak of 4.41 mb/d.
I think the decline is a result of both ageing onshore oil fields and reduced infill drilling due to lower upstream investments.
China oil production (kb/d) and year-on-year change (%)
source: National Bureau of Statistics
I am a long term believer in peak oil, and surprised that production world wide has held up as long and as well as it has.The peak or plateau can’t last much longer in my opinion, due to the decline of legacy oil and the ever increasing cost of bringing such new oil to market as is being found in recent times.
There is sure to be a serious oil supply problem sooner or later, and my guess is sooner.Depletion is going to outrun the deployment of electric cars, etc.
Given the possibilities, it seems reasonable to expect that some unhappy camper someplace is going to throw a giant monkey wrench or supersized molotov cocktail into the works of the oil industry.
Suppose the shooter in Florida had been an employee who knew his way around a refinery or big tank farm? He might have succeeded in burning down the entire facility, killing a lot of people in the process, on site and off. Safety features and rules are intended to protect against accidents, rather than deliberate sabotage.
There are people out there who make a career of finding people who are capable of and motivated to serving as mass killers, and so far as I can see, there won’t be any real way of identifying them, since they will be working alone most of the time.
This link is about such a man, a man who has apparently dedicated his life to inspiring other people to carry out terrorist acts. He was jailed here, in the USA, but suppose he were operating out of ISIS controlled territory, or even Saudi Arabia?
The forty nine dead in Florida may have nothing at all to do with this particular man, but suppose he inspires somebody who is a sailor on a super tanker? Or the pilot of a fighter aircraft? My military friends tell me just about any pilot with a load of anti armor rockets can sink just about any civilian ship, no problem.
I think maybe we are doomed to live in interesting times.
Is there any way we can fight back against this sort of asymmetric warfare without sacrificing the best features of our own culture and society? Three or four dozen guys pulled off nine eleven for a no more than a million bucks, probably less, and we have spent billions already and will continue to spend billions more guarding against another similar incident for as long as we travel by air.
How could the operator of an offshore oil platform ever be SURE no employee or contractors employee is not a saboteur capable of setting the whole shooting match on fire?
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/12/orlando-gunman-tied-to-radical-imam-released-from-prison-last-year-say-law-enforcement-sources.html
so far as I can see, there won’t be any real way of identifying them, since they will be working alone most of the time.
The Florida shooter was divorced because he beat his wife badly. She knew he was dangerous. The judge knew (or should have known) he was dangerous. Such people should be systematically identified and treated.
This isn’t really a problem of terrorism. This is a mental health problem, aggravated by silly gun policies.
Crazy people with high output munitions – what could go wrong??
This isn’t really a problem of terrorism. This is a mental health problem, aggravated by silly gun policies.
I actually agree with that statement but it is also a case of mental illness aggravated by brainwashing from perverse religious indoctrination by evil SOBs who know exactly what they are doing.
They are deliberately preying on weak and debilitated minds and using these individuals as expendable cannon fodder to promote their perverse agendas. They are experts at fomenting hate.
Whether they be fundamentalist Christian preachers inciting wackos to kill doctors who perform legal abortions or cowardly Imams who say that gays should be killed out of compassion or radical orthodox Rabbis suggesting it is ok to hate and kill non Jewish children. The underlying problem is the use of religion to incite hate!
Apparently the so-called authorities had a good idea of this guy.
In any event, the old corporate-state media tend to do a shallow analysis of this kind of thing, likely in large part because if they got deeper with it, they’d have to enter anarchic territory, bring in anarchist talking heads, and start peering ever closer at pseudogovernments (which often, if not always, fund their media outlets).
And so it’s the ‘standard’; ‘(Religious and/or etc.) madman/loner/whatever with a gun’; ‘More gun control!’ and ‘Pray for the victims.’…
See also the fine documentary, ‘Manufacturing Consent’
” ‘We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values’, Stoltenberg [Norwegian Prime Minister] said. ‘Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity.’ Norway, he suggested, would not seek vengeance as America had done after the 9/11 attacks. We will answer hatred with love’, he said.”
Caelan, every once in a while you make GREAT sense. This is one of the times.
It’s hard to argue with your description of the limited and sorry job the media do in covering such affairs.
If Caelan makes a comment and there is no one around to hear it, does it make sense? ‘u^
Yes, it’s much broader than just individual mental health: societies and cultures can be mentally ill. Heck, all are to some extent, it’s a matter of degree and individual variation. Poverty cultures are necessarily highly authoritarian, because a lack of choices: people can’t choose their careers or mates, they must be chosen for them from a very small set of options.
Much of social evolution is recovering from the emotional stuntedness that comes from poverty.
And the predation is much broader than just religion: Donald Trump, Dick Cheney and ISIS all want power through the exploitation of people like this.
I would add to your comment that, along with mental health issues with some people, the insanity of the system as a whole exacerbates/adds to that dynamic by forcing, via the legal structures, landlessness and homelessness– you know; money ‘equals’ land/resources, so says the plutarchy, right?– which leads to poverty/destitution, crime, social unrest, imprisonment, police harassment, civil unrest, etc., and, if left unchecked, ongoing social erosion and even potential civil war and social collapse.
Certainly on topic for a peak oil blog: Societal erosion and decline. Front-row seats.
Empire runs on guns (and assorted weaponry), whether in town or overseas.
Frankly, the empire, the crony capitalist plutarchy and/or ‘neo feudal’ pseudogovernmental system many of us live under is the terrorist/terrorism, but it’s ’embedded/structural’ so some don’t see it, or even if they feel they’re about to catch a glimpse of it, maybe some don’t want to, because it cuts into their very lives, lifestyle and self-/social-identifications. We fund the bombings and support the weapons businesses.
Reality check alert: ‘War’ is a large branch of BAU.
See also the fundamental attribution error.
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” ~ Malcolm X
One last point: If the FBI knew about him and had a good idea of what he might do, then it is entirely possible that they let him do it for a distraction from other problems with BAU and/or for what is going on elsewhere, like overseas. Part of the bread and circuses.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ”
Bullshit pure and simple.
ANYBODY with a sound understanding of the basics of biology understands that the survival of an individual or family , and successful reproduction on the part thereof, depends on that individual or family being able to function successfully as part of the society in which it exists.
Every living thing has to succeed or perish within the environment in which it exists, unless it is capable of moving to a new place.
I know many people who could not survive in the backwoods cultural environment in which I grew up. They thrive in offices and gated communities. Some of the kids I grew up with do quite well as hoodlums,( SEE MAC MAKE A VALUE JUDGEMENT even as he bitches about not making value judgements except at the policy making stage of discourse ) and a year in jail means about the same thing to them as an minor automobile accident or a broken leg from slipping on an icy sidewalk means to a typical cubical dweller, just a little bad luck.
It’s a good quote, I’ve used it myself.
Regarding Oldfarmermac’s comment… ?…
If an individual’s society– that they’re ‘successfully’ being a part of and reproducing in– collapses and takes out, through that society’s profound sickness, that individual’s entire family (and thus efforts at repro) and support networks, then what?
Whatever happened to adaptation and extinction?
If a society becomes somehow maladaptive, what does this mean for it and its individuals contained within?
My Love Of This Land
Hi Nick
“silly gun policies.”
I don’t think “silly” is the correct word. Horrendous is much better fitting. There is absolutely no reason any citizen owns assault weapons. Period.
well there is that that pesky constitution. Perhaps what you meant to say is that there is no reason any citizen should exercise their god given civil rights, Period. (one of which is self protection)
But what about the “well regulated militia”? Why is that in there, right at the beginning?
Nick G,
keep up buddy, that issue was settled 130 years ago.
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) – This second post-Civil War era case related to the meaning of the Second Amendment rights relating to militias and individuals. The court ruled the Second Amendment right was a right of individuals, not militias, and was not a right to form or belong to a militia, but related to an individual right to bear arms for the good of the United States, who could serve as members of a militia upon being called up by the Government in time of collective need. In essence, it declared, although individuals have the right to keep and bear arms, a state law prohibiting common citizens from forming personal military organizations, and drilling or parading, is still constitutional because prohibiting such personal military formations and parades does not limit a personal right to keep and bear arms:
“We think it clear that there are no sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
The Court also noted that the Second Amendment only restrained the federal government from regulating gun ownership, not the individual states:
“The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes to what is called in City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. [116 U.S. 252, 102] 139, the ‘powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was perhaps more properly called internal police,’ ‘not surrendered or restrained’ by the constitution of the United States.”
keep up buddy
Insulting people doesn’t convince them. I realize the comment above is relatively mild, but it’s still pointed.
I suspect that gun culture is heavily influenced by the idea that intimidation is a good way to get what you want.
In this case, I asked the question in on open ended way, but I do know a bit about the subject, and I’m pretty sure it’s not nearly as settled as your argument suggested. That case is 140 years old, and I have the impression that the idea that the 2nd amendment completely prevents federal regulation was a very open question until very recently, when conservatives managed to pack the court sufficiently to get a 5 to 4 decision in that direction. With the death of Scalia, I suspect that decision hangs in the balance.
Further, this case certainly doesn’t support the idea that gun rights are unlimited:
” Cruikshank and Presser are consistently used by the lower courts to deny any recognition of individual rights claims and provides justification to state and local municipalities to pass laws that regulate guns.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois
I don’t mean to offend but the militia argument has never been considered a strong argument for gun control by any body. I have no agenda except to preserve the rights granted to me and defended for me and to do my part to pass on those rights to future americans. I do not fear any time in my life time the restriction of guns in a the US, to the contrary, just in my adult lifetime (45 years) gun rights have been greatly expanded nation wide and certainly in the state of Texas. I see this a a result of the failed liberal agenda with respect to criminal justice, starting in the early 70’s and into the 80’s when states began to push back. I know it is hard for people living in cities to understand how strong the gun culture is in rural America.
The mechanism to change the constitution, that is to amend it, will be required to change the guns laws to any real degree in this country. Just the facts sir!
Hi Texas Tea,
Interesting take. What exactly was the liberal agenda on criminal justice? That blacks shouldn’t be thrown in jail because they were black?
The Reagan revolution surely solved that problem with its “War on Drugs”, which essentially was a war on minorities who were jailed for ridiculous periods of time for very minor drug violations, mostly due to being stopped for DWB.
Surely Adams and friends were very well aware that at times bad governments need to be rebelled against. After all they had just fought a bitter war to get rid of a bad government, and that effort was enabled by a citizenry who were armed and willing to take the cold steel out of the cupboard and confront the common evil.
Similarly I am sure they recognised, way back then, that there were firearms in most houses, and occasionally said fire arms were used for tragic rather than noble purposes; but the benefit of an armed citizenry (and its ability to keep government in line) far outweighed any disadvantage arising from domestic misuse of guns.
I believe Switzerland still has most people in its part-time armed forces, and they get to keep their military weapons and ammo under the bed, just in case. As far as I am aware there have not been any mass killings in Switzerland this week.
While it may be reasonable to discover some correlation between the rate of gun ownership and the rate of misuse of guns, the USA’s current condition is so laughably far off the chart that some other cause-effect must be in play.
Sure, maybe some government may be able to fix this rash of stupidity, but unfortunately an increasingly heartfelt speech from the Oval Office every funeral doesn’t seem to have much effect. So maybe its not ‘this’ government that can do the job.
To an outsider it seems that this ‘government’ of yours doesn’t seem able to address this and many other issues your country has. So how is this government going to change? Not willingly, that’s for sure.
Was Westminster willing to give the colonists a fair deal way back then? No. A sack of spilled tea, a call to arms, problem mostly fixed. So the current mess that is the rather ironically termed ‘USA’ is kinda groundhog day for revolutionaries with long memories isn’t it? Will the same solution be required? A well armed citizenry is certainly a useful starting point if some would take that path.
May your gods be with y’all!
Hi Adam,
I suppose revolution is a possibility.
Do the Swiss allow people to have M-16s under their beds?
I doubt it.
Do most nations in the World allow easy access for almost all citizens to the equivalent of an AR-15?
I don’t think so.
Perhaps that has something to do with the difference in mass shootings in the US relative to other places. France has also been having a difficult time of late, not sure what the differences are between France and Germany, possibly more immigrants from North Africa settle in France because many nations in North Africa speak French and Arabic. Some of these immigrants have suffered from high unemployment and discrimination and may have become radicalized.
Not sure what the problem is in the US, but making it easier to access semi-automatic rifles with 30 round clips probably does not help.
As far as militias fighting against the US government, that would be a suicide mission for the revolutionaries (aka terrorists.)
The majority of those that strongly support gun ownership are probably hunters, sportsmen, and citizens that want the ability to protect themselves, revolutionaries are likely to be a very tiny minority as far as I can tell.
Dennis,
You are wrong. The Swiss not only allow military rifles to be kept by their citizens, they require it for many. They have regular shooting competitions which are quite the social event as well. With all those guns, their firearms crime rate is very low. Sorry, no time for citations, but you can easily find out for yourself.
They even loan firearms to visitors to permit them to participate in their shooting competitions. I’ve seen a fascinating slide show depicting an acquaintance’s experience. Sounds like a pretty nice place.
An armed society is more likely to be a polite society.
People are the problem, not guns, nor CO2, nor oil. It is us, too many of us, and things will not get better soon.
We are in overshoot, and horrendous acts by desperate and disillusioned people are one of the symptoms. Things like infanticide, siblicide, homosexuality, and mass mortalities are not uncommon in animal populations that are stressed, and we see the same things happening in the human population today – globally!
People are the problem. We can flap our jaws ad infinitem playing “Ain’t It Awful!” but lots more awful stuff is in store for us.
Mother Nature aka the Laws of Physics seems likely to correct the problem far too soon for most of us.
What can be done? Nothing. So don’t despair, enjoy the ride. Get the goody out of every day.
Jim
Hi Texas Tea,
God does not give civil rights they are given by laws, which can be changed.
The founding fathers would be appalled that the nation did not have the wisdom to restrict some weapons (which they could not have imagined at the time).
What is sufficient for self protection? Are nuclear weapons also included, what about chemical weapons? Bazookas, tanks, fighter aircraft?
Is there any line in your opinion? I know for the NRA there are no lines, it has nothing to do with the weapons, its the people that are the problem. 🙂
Come on Dennis. Let’s keep to the facts.
Go try and buy a bazooka, tank or fighter aircraft and see how far you get. Better yet, try to buy a fully automatic weapon that our armed forces use.
And if we are talking about our founding fathers, they wrote the Bill of rights not as rights conveyed to Americans by the government but as limitations on government. Rights the government could not infringe upon. And it was because they could not imagine what would come about in the future.
I will also add, if you do not like any of the amendments to our constitution, there is a mechanism for the people to change it.
Better yet, try to buy a fully automatic weapon that our armed forces use.
Oh, well excuuuuse me. If you have to pull the trigger once for each person you kill, then that makes okay. I think you could empty a 30 round clip in less than 60 seconds. Hell that makes it okay because it takes so long to kill that many people.
And it would take at least 4 seconds to pop in another clip… Hell, this is one very slow and safe way to kill people.
You are making an argument to ban all guns then Ron. Not just the scary looking ones or high capacity magazines. A lever action 357 rifle carries 9 rounds and I bet with practice and a speed loader could empty 40 rounds in less than 60 seconds.
You may not like guns, but they are not going away.
You are making an argument to ban all guns then Ron.
And you sir, are a goddamn liar. I have made no such argument. This is so damn typical of the gun nut argument. Tell people they are making an argument that they are not making at all. Put words in their mouth that they never uttered.
If you cannot refute the argument a man makes, then say he is making a different argument, one that you can refute. That is called a straw man argument.
Then if you are not making that argument, banning scary looking guns with high capacity magazines will do nothing. It is the caliber that matters.
Goodness Dennis, have you read the declaration of independence or the constitution? I don’t know that you can speak to what our founding fathers would be appalled out at, but i know there would be a long list and gun rights would be way down near the bottom. For the entirety of our history us citizens have enjoyed the right to own guns with only a few restrictions for what ever purpose they chose. The right is easily understood by most english speaking citizens and has recently again been upheld by the US Supreme court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_case_law_in_the_United_States
To your question about limits, here is the problem and it is not unique to gun rights but many issues being debated today. Lets take LGBT rights for an example. Most would agree everyone should enjoy equal rights and freedoms regardless of sexual preference. But that is not good enough. I believe that the LGBT lobby will continue to press for new ‘rights” like the various minorities still do, forever. There is never going to be a stopping point. They will not be happy until every church in the US is forced to serve communion wafers on the tip of some gay guys prick. That is the world we live in. Abortion “rights” are another example, they keep fighting until abortion of a viable baby can be done at any moment during pregnancy. With respect to guns, the anti gun lobby just needs one “win” facts do not matter, so that they can continue the fight until every gun is made illegal.
It is beyond hyperbole to make the comparison of the right to own personal firearms with bazookas, tanks, fighter aircrafts, land mines, grenades etc.
I think the problem we have within the Muslim community, is there is no pushback within their own community. I think we all have a civic duty to try to be honest, moral, and strong and to call people out when they get out of bounds, accept that there are different views, you and I get that daily, I don’t know about Muslims. They seem to reinforce their very narrow view of the world. It is not just the US that assimilation is proving most difficult.
Hi Texas Tea,
Does the constitution say there is any limit on the right to keep and bear arms?
No.
Pretty simple.
So do you think legislation to limit that right makes sense?
A rocket propelled grenade could be thought of as a weapon that one could carry.
Should these be readily available for purchase?
Try not avoiding the direct question, as you did before.
Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. ___ (2016) – The Court ruled that the Second Amendment extends to all forms of bearable arms:
The Court has held that the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding, and that this Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.[4]
“Does the constitution say there is any limit on the right to keep and bear arms?
No.
Pretty simple.”
i suppose I would be open to listening to the arguments. I must say Dennis i am enjoying your banter, a honest appraisal of the constitution’s meaning, refreshing:)
Hi Texas Tea,
Did the Second Amendment say “personal firearms”?
Nope.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
As far as I can see the right is unlimited, it does not say that there is any weapon that I cannot own, I just have to be able to carry it.
I suppose you might argue there should be no limitation at all for any weapon, anything I can carry would be for personal protection.
I have argued this point with a friend who maintained, with a straight face mind you, he could see no reason why fighter jets or tanks should be excluded from our “rights”.
Hand grenades are bearable arms. So is a bazooka. Strap a couple of hand grenades to your belt and put a bazooka on your shoulder, then go down to the courthouse square and argue your second amendment rights.
Yeah right.
Dennis
“What exactly was the liberal agenda on criminal justice? That blacks shouldn’t be thrown in jail because they were black?”
That is a bit out in left field. The war on drugs was, is, and will continue to be as ineffective as the war on poverty and other Wars on… as the saying goes goes if you want to increase something have the US declare war on it. To your question, allowing known violent criminals back on to the street in our communities to prey on innocent children, women and men over and over again. This subject is getting far afield.
Hi Texas Tea,
You have gone far afield, with your liberal agenda on criminal justice. I suppose perhaps you are referring to capital punishment. There have been many cases where people have been wrongly convicted, so perhaps life imprisonment without the possibility of parole makes more sense in the case of a capital crime.
Most advanced nations have sensible policies on capital punishment, the US is backward in this sense.
I note that for a Christian you seem pretty homophobic based on a previous comment, not really in keeping with many Christian faiths.
Catholics seem to want to defend their right to discriminate.
A question for Catholics, if the reason that a same sex marriage should not be considered a marriage is because it cannot produce children, does that mean that a couple that uses birth control, or where one of the partners is infertile is also not a marriage based on Catholic policy?
DC, as an ex-evangelical and ex-catholic (in that order) I can say that conservatives in either camp tend to be homophobic, seeing homosexuality as deviant and immoral. I recommend Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Matrix for insight into conservative/liberal differences, especially on tribes and moral purity.
who said i am a christian? what i am is a person who tries to understand the people and the world around him, no more no less. name calling will get you no where, the last vestige of those on the wrong side of the facts:)
as for discrimination i offer:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-14/us-ally-qatar-arrests-dutch-rape-victim-having-sex-out-wedlock
Hi Texas Tea,
Your reference to communion implied Catholicism or a close Christian variant, and your reference in that comment was clearly homophobic, though I suppose that says nothing of your personal viewpoint.
I am not disputing facts, just calling you on your opinions.
Huntington,
I agree completely with you. For years I have believed there is no reason for anyone other than military or police to have such weapons. I also believe guns should not be available to mentally ill people.
However it seems that horrible killings only strengthen the NRA and pro gun lobbies. Why don’t people learn?
Difference between a ranch rifle and an assault rifle is just form factor. We used to institutionalize crazy people. People in corners and bathrooms be soft targets. Close in a 22 can be as deadly as a 223 for soft targets. Difference is reach.
Sorry for starting this. But excessive focus on weapon. A badass looking bushmaster is a shorter lower velocity version of a ruger mini14 ranch rifle. differenes in this attack includes target softness , planning and marksmanship. Many were likely too drunk. it’s possible that snumber could have been higher with 22s .. more rounds deployed.
Fred Maygar has nailed one key point .
The basic problem involves the use of religion by some individuals and organizations as a tool to incite hate and violence.
And although I generally have little to say in favor of Caelan’s comments, when he says that war is a large branch of business as usual, I am forced to agree with him, although I am thinking of business as usual at the most fundamental level, basic biological competition.
We have mostly whipped out the competition from other species, and now we compete mostly with each other for access to resources- living space, food, energy, etc. We naked apes have certainly proven over the course of known history that we are quite ready to kill each other for any number of reasons. An entirely disinterested observer, an alien biologist quietly monitoring us, would certainly conclude that we kill each other mostly because we view each other as THREATS or COMPETITION.
In this particular case, the shooter was primarily motivated by his hatred of homosexual people, and most likely he would never have bombed an oil refinery, or a Jewish community center, etc.
The real threat, in my estimation, is not the actual occasional shooter or bomber, as Fred pointed out, but the people and organizations that make a business of radicalizing shooters and bombers.
Making it harder to get guns might help a little, but there are many ways to kill large numbers of people that don’t involve obtaining guns or explosives. We can probably reduce the incidence of such shootings by making it harder or impossible to buy guns legally- in the process forcing hundreds of millions of people to either give up a fundamental right or jump thru hoops to exercise their right.
We have already given up a staggering amount of treasure and privacy and dignity keeping potential bombers off airliners. Do we actually want to drive tens of millions of potential voters into the republican political camp by threatening to take away their rights to own firearms? Lets not argue about details, the issue with these people is CREEP.
The average person who wants tight control of guns in this country will no doubt be happy to see much tighter gun control laws passed as the result of such shootings.
But that person will seldom think about the fact that when we pass such laws, we further alienate and splinter our own social fabric. Passing such laws drives people out of the center and into either the left or right wing by the millions. There are a hell of a lot of people who will vote for Trump for the very reason that they are afraid Clinton will do everything she can to destroy what they see as their God given Second Amendment rights for starters.
So maybe our enemies win even when we think WE are winning.
How far must these creeping losses go before we lose what it is that makes us better than our enemies?
I lost my wallet sometime back , and even though I know the local sheriff, the circuit court judge, the prosecuting attorney etc since high school days, and numerous leading citizens in my rural county, I was not able to get my drivers license replaced without waiting a couple of months except by hiring a Richmond attorney to go to the offices of the state government and personally picking up a copy of my birth certificate and overnighting it to me. CREEP.Any male about my age could use my birth certificate obtained by theft to get a license on the spot in my name, by paying a small fee and waiting in line, no questions asked. Stupidity compounded.
How can we stop the creep ?
Is it even possible to stop it?
We might not be able to do much at all, short term, in terms of stopping people who want to create problems for us simply because we are westerners and at least nominally Christians, as opposed to easterners and Muslims, etc.
But in the long run, we can do a hell of a lot to deny such people the means to create problems for us by doing all we can, as soon as we can, to transition away from an oil based economy.
If it weren’t for oil, we wouldn’t likely have any serious problems at all with outfits such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc, and their offshoots here in the West.
This is not to say there is anything objectively or inherently better about nominally Christian western societies, so far as this immediate discussion is concerned.
What I am saying is that getting away from oil deprives radical Islam of revenue and the fuel that keeps radical Islam alive and well , to a substantial extent- hatred of Western involvement in their part of the world.
As a practical matter, we can save ourselves a hell of a lot of grief by abandoning oil and the power politics associated with oil as soon as possible.
The AR 15 is a gun designed for one thing and one thing only… killing people. It is not a hunting rifle, it is not a home protection weapon, it is not a sportsman’s gun, it is a weapon for killing people and absolutely nothing else.
It is just goddamned down in the dirt stupid to suggest that everyone has the right to own a bazooka, or a Sherman Tank, or an or any other weapon that was designed ONLY to make war and kill people. And that for goddamn sure includes an AR 15.
Some arguments are just so goddamn stupid that they really piss me off.
Handguns are made to kill people as well and the AR-15 is a very good self defense weapon. On top of being a top of the line varment gun.
Is your issue the caliber? Capacity? Appearance?
Yair . . .
I mostly stay out of these shit fights but unlike most of the folks on here, to me rifles are tool of trade and I once made my living hunting.
I categorically state there is no justifiable reason for any military style long arms or pistols/revolvers of any type to be in civilian hands.
No self loaders are required for hunting and magazines should be limited to five rounds . . . if that is not enough you should learn to shoot.
Only a wanker would suggest a piece of crap like an a AR-15 is a top of the line varmint gun . . . for Christ’s sake get real.
The problem is these weapons are like a mind altering drug and I have seen normal men turned into dickheads as soon as they tie a rag around their head and tape two magazines back to back.
Mr Reno Hightower has probably not had to help carry a young bloke out of the lignum with half his ass shot away by his mate blazing away with a Springfield Armoury abomination.
Rant over.
Cheers.
call me all the names you want scrub puller but .223 is a varmint caliber. Great for hunting.
Anyway, your feelings about constitutional rights in America are irrelevant.
Cheers wanker
Hi Reno,
Really, you see a lot of hunters using AR15s?
Denis, Denis, Denis….
Prairie dogs live in huge colonies. Huge! If you had to stop and reload every five shots, they could gather their buddies and over- run you. Or, being as they are generally not citizens, with no respect for our laws, and don’t pay their taxes….you have no idea what they might be capable of. Dozens of ill-armed, well-meaning agricultural workers died in circumstances similar to this before the advent of modern weaponry.
Hi Dennis…
Sorry about the misspell.
-Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
No problem.
I see, I suppose if a lone person puts himself in that situation an AR15 is the only option.
Now what about Reno’s claim that for a skilled person it would make no difference, do you agree with Reno? You just need a bunch of magazines and skill at reloading, right?
Now what about Reno’s claim that for a skilled person it would make no difference, do you agree with Reno? You just need a bunch of magazines and skill at reloading, right?
The idea that a highly skilled gunman with a lever rifle or a shotgun could have caused as much mayhem is ludicrous.
A lever rifle with a tube magazine using sSpeedloader tubes would have had to be reloaded 25 times. He would have to be highly practiced, with custom-made equipment to carry the 25 speedloader tubes. The kind of focus and self-esteem that would be required to reach such olympic-level mayhem capacity is diametrically opposed to the self-loathing that Mateen seems to have suffered. Plus, if someone with that level of drive was going to try and do this, he wouldn’t do it as a show of skill with antique firearms.
He’d do it the proven way.
This is from Everytown Research’s analysis of mass shootings:
High-capacity magazines — or assault weapons likely equipped with them — were used in at least 15 of the incidents (11%). These incidents resulted in an average of 13.3 total people shot — 155% more people shot than in other incidents (5.2) — and 7.5 deaths — 47% more deaths than in other incidents (5.1). (A sidenote: the cutoff for a mass shooing is 4 people killed or wounded.)
AR-15 style weapons are simple to use: they have huge capacity, fast magazine changeover, and low recoil. They can be used by unskilled operators because they are intended to be easy to learn how to use. Mateen bought the rifle he used on June 4th of this year. It’s likely he never fired the weapon before the massacre. He certainly wasn’t spending every waking moment at the range practicing his speedloader technique on an old Winchester, and then had a sudden “aha!” moment.
Finally, we actually had an incident where a crazy man with a gun used a lever rifle: the shooting on Parliament Hill in Oct. 2014. Only one person killed: a ceremonial sentry who was shot in the back.
Yes. It is lightweight and a great caliber for coyotes, pigs, etc. I like them better than a traditional .223 because they are liter and higher capacity. Very few people will hunt big game with an AR-15, although an AR-10 (.308) would work well if that is what you like.
As for banning certain types of guns
The difference between a .3o8 or a .223 hunting rifle and a AR-10 or AR-15 is capacity. Everything else is superficial. So if you ban AR-15, why not ban all other .223 rifles?
And I have seen duck hunters who can unload their pump shotgun and reload and fire a gun in less than 6 seconds. It is a matter of practice. And what about a lever action with a speed loader? Do we ban those?
And how do we collect the millions of rifles and magazines already out there. Go door to door? Good luck with that.
Finally, I know people do not believe this, but there are times when civil society breaks down. I have friends who were in New Orleans during Katrina and the aftermath. There was no law, and they had high capacity, semi automatic rifles to protect themselves and their property. They were glad too.
Banning guns, or certain types of guns is both impractical and superficial. Nevermind the constitutional implications.
Yair . . . .
I will stay cool and calm but point out that some folks missed the point of my post up thread.
It is not the calibre of these weapons it is their appearance that matters and the large capacity magazines that no proper hunter would tolerate.
A young bloke with an AR look alike chambered in .22 long rifle with two magazines taped back to back has a different mindset if you substitute the military style weapon for a sweet little Browning pump that shoots the same cartridge.
It seems to me this rapid fire large capacity magazine mindset has developed to mask inadequacy and lack of skill.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Hightower, the AR-15 is an army combat assault rifle. That is what it was designed for. It is made to kill more people before you have to reload. And the clips can be popped out and another and another 30 round clip can be popped in in just a few seconds. A soldier on the battle field needs such a rifle, a hunter does not, a varmint hunter does not.
To suggest that the constitution gives you the right to own an army weapon of mass destruction, designed to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible before even having t reload, is just downright stupid.
A person who owns one such weapon may consider himself part of a “well armed militia” but I would have another name for him altogether.
I know exactly what it is.
My point is, was it the caliber you had a problem with? what it looked like? or capacity? I think you have a problem with capacity.
There is no difference getting shot with a 223 rifle used to hunt and a AR-15. Also no difference between getting shot with an AR-10 and a .308, one of the most common hunting calibers used in the US.
I disagree with you that the AR-15 and AR-10 are weapons of mass destruction. I think what makes the weapon is the caliber. And we obviously disagree on the second amendment. I had friends in New Orleans during Katrina that were grateful that the second amendment existed when civil society broke down and they were left to fend for themselves.
I appreciate your position and don’t expect to change your mind, but I think we all have a right to defend ourselves.
Thanks for the civil reply.
The access to large capacity magazines, and lightweight ammo is what made this crime possible. Let’s consider the stats: I estimate more than 200 shots fired (50 dead, 50 wounded, dead-checking the wounded and putting multiple shots into them, indiscriminate firing into the washrooms.) Assume 30 round mags: we start with a pair of magazines taped to each other on the gun. 5 more magazines would complete the load: you can carry that in a pair of cargo pants.
You couldn’t cause this much mayhem with a shotgun or lever rifle. You couldn’t cause it with 5-round magazines. It would be harder with 30 calibre ammunition.
Ron you are a person with strong opinions. There is nothing wrong with that but you are wrong regarding the AR-15. The AR-15 is a semi auto rifle. The mechanism is not different than any semi auto rifle, semi auto pistol or semi auto shot gun. In my neck of the woods there are fewer people who do not own a semi auto firearm then do. They are as common as dirt. They are routinely used for hunting, self protection, target practice and in competition.
The shape of at the gun does not make it any more lethal then one that is shaped differently.
“Some arguments are just so goddamn stupid that they really piss me off”
fair enough how about the argument from our government that says disarm our citizens, keep open boarders, release know felons from our prison and import new potential Muslims lunatics at the same time. I guess there are degrees of stupid arguments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15
Tex, the AR in AR-15 stands for Assault Rifle One does not assault a deer, or even a bear. One assaults people, massive amounts of people.
Nuff said.
Ron,
I believe that “AR” stands for “Armalite Rifle”. The Armalite rifle is a platform for a series of guns that was first designed in the late 1950’s to replace the M-14 rifle. It does not mean “assault rifle”.
I would have thought a bama boy would know that.
Okay, fair enough, but it is an assault rifle, just as the M-14 was an assault rifle.
An this old Bama boy is not a gun nut so I can be excused for not being up on the history of military assault weapons. But anyone should know what a military M-14 was designed to do.
Well, I’m not the kind of guy to hold it against you! (Thatsmy only joke for the day).
OFM,
110% agree.
I don’t have words to express the emotions I feel on this subject.
There is a single common thread connecting the massacre at a Sikh Temple, an Elementary School, a Movie Theater, and a Night Club.
It is mental illness.
A mentally ill person can claim they’re perpetrating an inhumane act for any given reason, but the fundamental cause will always be a psychotic illness. It does not matter what ethnicity or religious sect someone claims they’re supporting, the very ability to carry out such an act starts with mental illness.
A non-Muslim can use an AR-15 to murder 20 innocent CHILDREN, and we KNOW it is mental illness cause, hey, it was a U.S. born white man. A non-Muslim can use an AR-15 to murder 12 innocent people in a movie theater, and it is clearly mental illness because, hey, he’s a U.S. born white man. BUT, a U.S. born Muslim uses an AR-15 to end the lives of 49 innocent people in a night club, and it is not mental illness, but a terrorist act.
No, just no.
There is a distinct difference between a planted terrorist cell, and a psychotic person who massacres others “in the name of” anything.
This individual was not a terrorist cell, planted in the U.S. to carry out a terrorist act, he was a mentally ill U.S. citizen. Whether a murderer declares they did it for Santa Claus or ISIS makes no difference.
The single common thread linking all of the recent tragedies in the U.S. is mental illness, and the ease with which anyone can acquire a weapon whose sole purpose is to end as many human lives as quickly as possible.
I’m deeply saddened that we are increasingly marginalizing an entire religion. It is an affront to the very foundation of our country and of our values. Marginalizing others will only create more people who feel like they don’t belong in our society. Luckily, most people see this, and know that a person is measured by their actions, not their beliefs.
I just realized that comment probably got me on like 12 different FBI lists scanning for key words
Hello Brian,
“The single common thread linking all of the recent tragedies in the U.S. is mental illness”
Your comment would be funny if it weren’t so sad. The common denominator is the gun. It kills at a flick of a finger and a moment of anger.
Killing is in humans DNA. The gun industry is just pouring gasoline on hot coals. Didn’t your mother teach you not to play in the street or did you think that’s just for others ?
“I’m deeply saddened that we are increasingly marginalizing an entire religion.”
So the only thing a political ideology needs to do, is to embrace some mysticism, call itself a “religion”, and it’s off the hook. Islam is, and always was a political ideology, which only used religious ideas as a tool for control and motivation. It’s no different to Scientology or any other similar pseudo-religions in this aspect.
This individual was not a terrorist cell, planted in the U.S. to carry out a terrorist act, he was a mentally ill U.S. citizen. Whether a murderer declares they did it for Santa Claus or ISIS makes no difference.
I agree 100% that this latest mass shooting on US soil was perpetrated by a lone mentally ill individual.
However his extreme anger and homophobia were fueled by his religious upbringing. Furthermore it would be ridiculous to say that religion had no influence on say the individuals who brought down the world trade center or that the murder of a doctor at an abortion clinic is not a direct result of religious ideology. No doubt, political ideology also has a lot to do with it as well.
When a small child is hoodwinked into believing in Santa Clause, it may be kind of cute. If a grown man still believes in such and decides to defend the old man in a red suit at gun point because of some imagined slight to Santa’s honor that is indeed mental illness. However if someone deliberately keeps telling him that there are people out there disrespecting his beloved Santa and thereby egging him on to take violent action, then Houston, we end up with a huge problem.
As an atheist, I find all manifestations of religious memes and the cognitive dissonance they necessarily depend on to be to be successful, to be dangerous and slippery slopes. They are extremely (no pun intended) fertile fields for brainwashing and manipulation of weak minds by those with political agendas intent on wielding personal power.
Fred,
i think you hit the nail on the head, I was wondering if you would ever post anything I could ever agree with?
When I posted my comment, and the link, I was hoping to start a discussion about the possibility of counteracting the folks who use hate and religion to further their own political and religious ends by attracting and “radicalizing ” followers such as the Orlando shooter.
THE SHOOTER IS THE SYMPTOM, not the actual problem. You can put out a house fire, if the fire trucks are manned and ready to go and close by, but if you have an arsonist running loose, you will be putting out one fire after another with never an end to the problem.
Are there any viable strategies for stopping the people who use the internet ( mostly ) to find and motivate bombers and shooters?
One more thing, some will consider it splitting semantic hairs, but I do not necessarily believe it is good clear thinking to describe all such shooters, bombers, etc, as mentally ill.
Is the male chimp or bull that fights another male for dominance mentally ill?
Is a wolf pack that drives a strange wolf out of its territory mentally ill?
If a local strong man, a chieftan in a semi primitive society, kills or has a rival killed, is he mentally ill, or merely protecting his own status and security, and making sure in his own judgement that his own children will be alphas?
The very term itself implies a value judgement, and value judgements have no place at all in UNDERSTANDING what people believe and how they act.
Value judgements only come into play , or SHOULD only come into play, at the policy making level.
Anybody who fails to understand this point is subject to making the mistake of hating foxes because they eat baby rabbits. Should we blame a misquoto because it bites us ?
There will always be some outliers in the behavior of any large group of humans, or other social animals. I never hear anybody accuse a momma dog that adopts a kitten of being mentally ill, lol.
The shooter got himself killed, and didn’t succeed, in starting a race war. On the other hand, Mohammad himself was a pretty salty character, and did succeed in creating a new social order? Was he mentally ill, or just successful, against the odds?
Were the kings and Popes who sent men on Crusades mentally ill, or merely operating from positions of power?
I am not denying the existence of mental illness, but trying to get across the risk of interpreting human behavior in terms of mental illness across the board.
Mother Nature doesn’t give a flying Fxxx about anything except keeping track of winners and losers via the fossil record, in figurative terms, and in actuality, there isn’t any such creature as a sentient Mother Nature to even give a shit.
Mac,
I’d very loosely define mental illness as the prefrontal cortex not being in firm control.
Humans have a higher order of thinking that animals have less of, and lower orders of creatures don’t have at all (e.g., reptiles). Trauma, loosely defined, can disable that higher level of thinking, leading people to act like lizards.
Humans living in disorganized societies have to rely on inefficient methods, such as violence to gain or protect territory, or deterrence of violence with promises of revenge. We know that works very badly, and have replaced that with the rule of law in modern societies (except, of course, in very poor areas where illegal drugs are a primary business).
Loosely speaking, someone who relies on violence in modern society isn’t doing their best thinking…
“I’d very loosely define mental illness as the prefrontal cortex not being in firm control.”
Nick, let me loosely redefine your statement as 70 to 80 percent of the USA citizens.
I believe all gun owners should be required to maintain a minimum of $1,000,000 liability insurance for damage and death to others. In addition, all gun owners should be required every two years to get a mental health test for a required gun ownership license.
Similar requirements are already law for vehicle ownership and use, which is also very dangerous like guns.
Ostensible notions, laced with wilful obstinacy and ignorance, of the elite-rule-based structures– also known as ‘laws’– underpinning ‘modern society’ as somehow enlightened and/or non-violent don’t appear borne of the best kind of thinking.
“Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted as early as Cicero in Ancient Rome. With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery, while Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines. Before the American Civil War, Southern defenders of African American slavery invoked the concept of wage slavery to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.” ~ Wikipedia, Wage Slavery
Many of the American ‘Founding Fathers’ owned slaves of course.
What with peak oil, slavery, unplugged, may be making a comeback.
…”folks who use hate and religion to further their own political and religious ends by attracting and “radicalizing ” followers such as the Orlando shooter.”
I’m not seeing any evidence that he was religiously radicalized.
It’s now being reported that he himself was gay, and was a regular customer at the Pulse nightclub.
Religion may have taught him to hate himself due to his own homosexuality, and perhaps that may have played a role.
His ex wife, and others have described him as angry, abusive, and unstable, but say he was not religious.
But hey, he is now the top scoring individual in the game of mentally ill individuals with access to deadly weapons game. He significantly beat the previous record of 32 by 17.
It won’t last though. Somebody is likely already plotting how to beat it.
Religion may have taught him to hate himself due to his own homosexuality, and perhaps that may have played a role.
Really? Ya think?!
I’m sure he would have been welcomed with open arms by his loving religious community and his own father had he just admitted the truth and come out as gay…
I also think oil production will peak and decline, and that may prove to be disruptive.
Look! Up on the screen! It’s a word! It’s a play! It’s Captain Obvious! ^u^
I find it interesting that both OFM and Fred M. brought up Jews in their discussion of the Orlando event.
It seems natural to bring this up in the context of this discussion since we have come to expect it as natural that Muslims would hate Jewish people. I point this out because I think it is bizarre and absurd! Why should an Afgani descendant, or a Persian, or a Malaysian hate a Jewish person.
They are not Arabs, and they are not Palestinians. I understand that many times those directly engaged in war end up hating their adversaries, and I deplore that on all sides. But Israel, and certainly not jewish people, are not involved in any war with other Muslims- not with Egyptians, or Iranians, or Kurds, or Turks, etc. Yet the teaching of hate in the Islamic world is pervasive.
The Islamic culture is teaching hate on a mass scale. To hate not only Jews, but Christians, Asians, gays, etc. Basically anyone who challenges their ideology, their control, their territory.
It is the teaching of hate, and racial/ethnic/spiritual supremacy that is the root of this evil.
Guns and mental illness are are a side topic.
Teaching of hate is the root.
Don’t tolerate it.
Isn’t vilifying 20% of the global population a form of teaching hate?
If 1.7 billion people (the Muslim population) have an agenda of hatred and violence against Western culture generally, and American culture particularly, they sure are ineffective; more people were killed by toddlers with guns in the U.S. last year than by terrorists.
Plenty of Muslims have denounced Isis, and steadfastly maintain that they believe in a religion of peace.
Statement from The Bridge Initiative:
To date, we’ve identified condemnations from more than 80 religious, civil, and political organizations, from 92 countries on six continents. From Argentina to Canada, from Alaska to Australia, Muslims have denounced ISIS. There are dozens of local student groups, tens of dozens of online campaigns and joint statements, and scores of public demonstrations and protests. Government leaders from the top 10 countries with the largest Muslim populations have condemned the group, as have some 14 Grand Muftis (the highest official of religious law in Sunni Muslim countries).
http://bridge.georgetown.edu/here-are-the-many-muslim-condemnations-of-isis-youve-been-looking-for/
U.S. Muslims ask why their religion’s condemnation of violence goes unheard:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-muslim-condemnation-20150509-story.html
Islamic denunciations against terrorism:
http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/
Plenty more. Muslim statements of peace and denunciations of violence aren’t difficult to find.
I’m atheist, but from a Christian background. I don’t particularly care for religion. “Thus sayeth the Lord” isn’t a position that fosters open and productive dialog, but I think any authoritarian dogma, religious or otherwise is dangerous. It’s very human though. We can be a xenophobic and violent species, but we can also be a tolerant, pluralistic, and cooperative one.
I’d rather work towards enhancing the latter traits.
Hi Bob,
Well said, I agree.
I certainly agree with abandoning oil. Both Saudi Arabia and the Koch brothers spread hatred in order to protect their oil profits.
One quibble:
There are a hell of a lot of people who will vote for Trump for the very reason that they are afraid Clinton will do everything she can to destroy what they see as their God given Second Amendment rights for starters.
Let’s be clear: they’re afraid because they’ve been listening to misinformation from the gun industry and Republican strategists. Fear of gun control is primarily an example of successful propaganda, not civil rights infringement.
If “liberals” give up on regulation of guns, right-wing strategists will just move on to another “red-meat” topic with which to scare their misinformed victims. It could be gay marriage, or drugs, or immigration, reds under the bed, muslims, etc., etc., etc.
The EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report is out with their estimate for July production. They say production in the seven major shale plays will be down 118,000 barrels per day in July. The Bakken will be down 32,000 bpd, Eagle Ford down 63,000 bpd and the Permian down 7,000 bpd.
Ron,
It is interesting that – despite a much lower rate of production from new wells – the legacy rate as percentage from total production stays roughly the same at 8 % (see below chart).
As therefore the rate of net reduction is stable at 50 kb/d, the rate of total decline measured as percentage of total production is growing.
In other words, existing wells are declining faster than new wells. My interpretation of the numbers is that we can see now the effect of plugged wells.
Heinrich,
1. “the legacy rate as percentage from total production stays roughly the same at 8 % (see below chart).”
2. ” the rate of total decline measured as percentage of total production is growing.”
3. “In other words, existing wells are declining faster than new wells. ”
4. “My interpretation of the numbers is that we can see now the effect of plugged wells. ”
All 4 statements are quite incorrect.
Enno,
Thank you for your reply. As your opinion is 100% against my view, I am quite confident that I am on the right path.
As I use my knowledge in investments, I have been most successful when I have been against expert views. Despite I have been criticized on basically all my comments on this site, this year has been extremely successful (threefold increase in market value so far this year – 50% alone in the last two weeks for natgas). If I have to be wrong to be successful, I like being wrong.
So, please keep on criticizing me. The majority is always wrong – otherwise the majority would be all millionaires.
It seems to me the only people who can make a living and never be right are politicians, media and climate scientist?
It is really easy to spot those on this blog who’s ability to make a living are tied to their own opinions.
Heinrich,
I believe your original claim was stated around July 2015, that in 6 months the Nat Gas price would be $20 mcf. Here we are nearly 12 months later, and Nat Gas has gone up $1 from its lowest point earlier this year, but yet to reach the price it was in July 2015 when the $20 /mcf claim was made. I don’t think that is what is a massive endorsement of you prowess!
The current Nat gas price is still below that of coal for power generation, though it is getting close to equality with coal which has the potential to bring more coal into the power burn market.
Hi Toolpush,
The higher pollution from coal plants makes them more costly to operate, at least in the US. Coal use is falling in the US and if natural gas prices go up, it will be replaced by wind and solar rather than coal.
Dennis,
You maybe correct, in the longer term, as in years, but I am referring the current day to day operations of the current production capacity. There is no wind/solar capacity being held in reserve as all these projects are first in to queue for consumption by mandate I believe. It is the rest of the market that is being fought over between gas and coal that I am referring to.
Hi Toolpush,
In some places coal is cheaper, in others it is natural gas, the prices of both of these fuels will rise relative to wind and solar and they will become a smaller share of the market. Coal price needs to be very low due to higher pollution and carbon emissions relative to natural gas. We should phase out as much coal as possible, when that’s done we’ll work on reducing natural gas use.
Indonesia increase is coming from Banya Urip ramp up which is pretty well complete (maybe 20,000 bpd more on a good day, but EIA numbers indicate ramp up might have finished early). After that the production will probably go back to about 30,000 bpd y-o-y decline. There have been a couple of finds in the Banya Urip area but they can probably only be developed through that processing facility, so extending the plateau rather than increasing production.
Algeria is only maintaing the slow decline by a lot of wells over the last 3 years (see below).
If the 12 to 18 months delay between drill rigs and production holds then Ecuador is about to start significant declines. Possibly also for Angola, although less pronounced. They have one project next year but then nothing much firm, a lot of the larger offshore development projects have been pushed well back because of the price, technical issues and government disputes (e.g. Chissonga by Maersk, Kaomba by Total). I’m surprised there aren’t more social problems arising there, but they might not make the news yet.
Based on drill counts Nigeria might have something similar with offshore declines on top of the onshore disruptions in a few months. But to counter this they have at least 250,000 bpd due for start-up in 2016 and 2017 for Chevron and Shell, and a big Total project in 2019; all other projects are being pushed back and Bonga SW looks like a severe downgrade from the original 250,000 bpd FPSO from recent news.
Venezuela drill count has just started to drop, I think their extra heavy onshore production could easily drop to nothing if they aren’t maintaining the upgraders, can’t get diluent and lose the service companies support.
Shallow Sand,
I do not comment anymore, but a while back when Fed increased the overnite rate by.25% in December and everybody thought the yield was going to go higher, I told you that 10 year is going to go below 1% BEFORE goes to 3% like everybody was saying.
You had your doubts….. but after a while (February 2016, I believe it was) when 10 year note dropped below 2% you replied to me:
“…dang Petro…” and I replied back: “…dang indeed, SS….”
-Well, this morning, 8:30 am GMT, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY….as in EVER…(let that sink in for a moment and have a sip of your coffee…) the 10year Bund (2nd most important treasury note in the world, behind only to US 10year note) dropped below 0%….and the US 10year is at 1.5% (one of the lowest yields EVER!)…and dropping…
Dear Shallow,
forget the wells and the price…and the charts (no offense Ron!).
Sell…make peace with family and friends and go see Europe…Sistine Chapel…Vatican…Familia Sagrada….
go on a safari…see lions and elephants…it might be your last chance to do so…
Read my past comments to you….and see the trend….
There will be no recovery….numbers and charts mean nothing….not this time.
This time is different…!
Be well,
Petro
Petro.
I have noted the lower rates.
Why is oil demand still increasing?
IEA says demand in 2016 will be 96.1 million, 97.4 million bopd in 2017.
Are you saying the oil price is going to $0, $10?
I recall just a few weeks ago someone who gets his mug on TV everyday saying oil would never be above $44 again in his lifetime.
Since 1999 have sold oil for a low of $8 and a high of $140. Since 2014 have sold oil for a low of $25 and a high of $99.
Have pretty well figured out we can outlast all the rest after the last nineteen months, so already at peace.
Wont keep me from whining like a farmer now and then, LOL!
I wrote extensively about all you ask me before (if you care to go back and read) therefore I will be brief.
Akin to Mr.Gartman (and countless others), you think linearly in “supply-demand” terms and that is why price and barrels and demand matter to you.
“Supply-Demand” works while a complex system (i.e.: world economy) is well inside its buffering capacity (difficult to understand, but I am not going to expand on it this time) and negative feed-back loops work well…as in:
we eat a big meal, sugar in blood increases…receptors tell our pancreas to produce insulin and bingo…sugar goes to normal again…imagine that!
What Gartman and you (and almost ALL) do not comprehend is that we are (even) past de-compensated diabetes….we have end stage keto-acidosis!
At this stage (meaning past the famous “point of no return”), complex systems activate positive reinforcing feed-back loops…i.e.: things go worse and worse (despite temporary amelioration…).
Akin to Mr. Gartman (and almost all…including Dennis), you do not understand “peak oil”…fundamentally and principally speaking.
You think of it in geological/resource terms, i.e.:
at some point in the (near) future we will run out of oil (I am simplifying, of course).
-We will NEVER run out of oil physically and geologically (in our lifetime…practically speaking)!
Economic collapse (in progress) shall bring about peak oil….as in:
oil above $60-$75 crushes the economy and oil below $40-$50 crushes you and your colleagues.. (I can’t wait for the moron who will comment about those numbers….
-you guessed correctly SS, they are rough numbers for illustration only!)
So, to answer your question about price (even though I have exhausted this topic during my 2+ years of commenting on this site), price will be related to the amount of debt (read: demand, for practical purposes) increase.
If we increase debt (i.e.: helicopter money for all), price can be $200/brl, if not (as is the case now…and I suspect will be in the future) price – as I said many times before – will go the way of 1998 (again, rough numbers when I say $2o0).
It will stabilize at a “depressed” range ($30-$55) and it will spike before all goes “kaboom”…so you might get your $200/brl after all…
I suspect you (and all of us) won’t need it though…
As far as demand increase, if you ask IEA by 2o30 we will consume 120 million brl/day…….but I suspect by then, there will be far fewer of us (as in 2 legged intelligent mammals…and just about everything else!) to justify that type of demand…but I digress.
It is (still) a “free” country, so you can keep whining as much as you want – god bless you!
However, I caution you that when you say:
“Have pretty well figured out we can outlast all the rest after the last nineteen months, so already at peace”,
you may not comprehend that this time there will be nobody left to outlast….
Be well,
Petro
I advise you to start at 7’50” of the video…
…and pay attention!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8BJUWKZKHM
Be well,
Petro,
SS,
Petro is correct in terms of CB and Fed’s interest rates and what signals they are giving. German Bund rate going below 0%, and Fed’s 1.5% on US 10yr is basically telling us that CB and Fed are all barricaded in Alamo and there is no way out in terms of monetary policy. Basically CB’s around the world in last ditch effort to save the a$$ for “Debt doesn’t matter” crowd for year or two.
Oil price will not go to $10 or $0 but it will be way bellow paper profitable price for majority of producers at least in NA in short term (1 year). Longer term prediction of oil price is just silly to predict. World’s political situation is so fluid. I don’t buy even slightly green bananas in the store because I don’t know what tomorrow brings.
In terms of you outlasting I don’t quite agree with Petro. Anyone with no debt and cash flow positive (or at least cash neutral) will outlast anyone being in debt and being cash flow negative – IN THE LONG RUN.
Hi Ves,
So the German government should try to reduce debt levels? Is that your view?
Dennis,
German government does not decide anything in relation to their debt. Same as Greek government. The only difference between Greek government and German government is that first one plays the role of bus-boy and the former plays the role of Maitre d’ in the global financial restaurant. But they do not decide what is to be on restaurant menu. That is the role of ECB and private banks. It is the same in the US. So you have to rephrase your question.
Is it your question how to get out of the debt problem?
Hi Ves,
As far as German government debt, this is a function of fiscal policy. The ECB controls the Money supply for Eurozone nations, the debt level of the individual nations (up to some limit agreed by the EU) is up to those nations.
The question stands and is pretty simple. Do you believe that the German government should reduce its debt level?
” debt this is a function of fiscal policy”
What kind of control of fiscal policy government can have when the price for the most of the “needs” are set by global corporate monopolies. Why are you so ignorant on pure evil of global monopolies? Why one pill of aspirin cost 50-100 times more in US and EU then in India? Is there a chapter on that in that Keneyes book of yours? Please enlighten us?
” the debt level of the individual nations (up to some limit agreed by the EU) is up to those nations.”
Lot’s of governments in EU would like their debt to increase in the debt based financial system in order to spare the suffering of their population. But they cannot do it since they do not control money supply. Could you make phone call to Greek, Italian, French government and explain to them how they could control their debt situation? They would be very grateful for that if you could spare their population of debt bondage imposed by the banks. If money is debt then one who controls the emission of money controls the debt. So your question does not stand because individual governments do not control money supply. And since money = debt they don’t control debt either.
>> debt bondage imposed by the banks <<
I'm confused. Didn't Italy etc *choose* to go into debt? Their choice?
A question for Dennis. When is Keynesian debt too much debt? Is Italy, for example, in too much debt or is it OK?
JN2,
Did average Gianni on the Italian street had referendum on the debt or corrupt government did in his name? Here is your answer.
Hi JN2,
Typically the rule of thumb is that public debt is too high when it crowds out private investment. The time for more public debt is when private investment is low as private investment (and debt) increases then public debt should be reduced.
I am not sure what Italy’s debt levels are what % of GDP is the public debt, I would say anything above 150% of GDP is too high, Japan for example is in bad shape, Belgium as well (I think well over 150% of GDP).
Hi DC, thanks for replying. Italy’s debt is 133% of GDP as of 2015. I am from (and live in) the UK (90% debt:GDP) but I’m writing this from Tuscany where unemployment is high and the roads are in terrible shape but the wine is magnificent. La bella vita 🙂
Not sure if this has been discussed before:
http://oilpro.com/post/25068/ncs-report-disappointing
“According to the report, the number of wildcat wellbores increased from 32 in 2012 to 46 in 2013; however total discovered volumes went down. The discovered resources in 2014 were only slightly above the 2013 level due to the Alta discovery, but 2015 was very disappointing year. Despite the number of wildcat wellbores being only 11% down compared to the peak in 2013, total discovered volumes amounted to only 230 MMboe, the report read, with Julius in the Central Graben, operated by Statoil, being the biggest discovery in 2015. In 2016, 13 wildcat wellbores have been drilled as of the end of May, but only around 20 MMboe have been discovered so far.”
But apparently there’s lot’s more to find, mostly in the Barents Sea. Just need to look in the right place.
I wish they wouldn’t always lump gas and oil together as boe, so there’s no indication here of the split, I get the impression though that most of the newer frontier provinces are fairly gassy, and the Barents sea might be the same.
The world is burning 80 million barrels per day, in 50 days, another four billion barrels will be gone. 2600/4 equals 650, times 50, 32,500 days of oil to go. 32,500/365 equals 89, 89 more years of car races, monster truck shows, parking lots full of cars at sports stadiums, what not.
Not to worry, the wind and the sun will save the day before the day of reckoning.
Crazy Horse, with a little help from his friends, conducted a mass shooting on June 26, 1876 at the Little Big Horn and nobody is going to come close to that record. They’re building a monument in South Dakota for Crazy Horse. Call Crazy Horse crazy, but he had his reasons for doing what he did.
When you do it right, you get an entire mountain dedicated to your memory. Just have to shoot the right people.
Those 80 million barrels of oil produced 34 million metric tons of CO2, produced about 116 trillion BTU of useful energy and the rest, 348 trillion BTU, went off as waste heat. That’s 464 trillion BTU total. The total amount of BTU of sunlight on 27,000 km2 each day. About the size of Belgium.
So all that running around, products, chemicals and waste heat equals the energy of sunlight hitting a place the size of little old Belgium each day. Of course the sunlight helps absorb the CO2, grows plants and food, provides warmth, kills germs, does not pollute and arrives free for the taking. It’s very democratic too, warms anybody standing in it no matter who they are or how much money they have.
We have been looking a gift horse in the mouth and chose to ride the porcupine instead.
Kick your dog, you’re a bum. Kill one man, you are a murderer. Kill a million, and come out on top, and you’re the founder of a country or an empire, and get a statue.
It’s too bad for the folks who were here in the Americas before the Euros got here that they were behind technologically and politically, in terms of organization. If they had had better technology and been better organized, there would probably still be something more or less outwardly similar to the USA today, but the people in control of it would be Apache, Kiowa, Seminole, Cherokee, etc.
Kids whose parents are doctors generally grow up to be well adapted to upper middle class society. Kids whose folks are near illiterate drug peddlers , no surprise, generally grow up adapted to life in the society they grew up in. Values are always relative when it comes to understanding human behavior.
If they had had better technology and been better organized, there would probably still be something more or less outwardly similar to the USA today, but the people in control of it would be Apache, Kiowa, Seminole, Cherokee, etc.
If you haven’t read Charles Mann’s book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, I highly recommend it. It is an interesting read and I think you’ll find it worthwhile. According to Mann, the reason the Europeans were able to conquer the Americas was because the natives had no immunity to European diseases.
According to Mann, the reason the Europeans were able to conquer the Americas was because the natives had no immunity to European diseases.
Yeah, Jared Diamond in ‘Guns Germs and Steel’ says something similar.
Hi Bob, Fred,
I have read a great deal of early American history, and I agree that contagious diseases wiped out entire tribes, some of them very large tribes. I would not be surprised if as many as eighty percent or maybe even more of the total native American population was felled by contagious diseases.
But the Euros would have almost for sure won what can must honestly be described only as a continent wide war of aggression, and at more than a few places and times, a a deliberately genocidal war.
The so called Indians simply weren’t equipped politically to organize a proper resistance, but they might have been able to overcome that handicap once they realized their COLLECTIVE backs were to the wall. They never understood that brutal fact until it was too late.
There were agricultural societies among them, some quite extensive, but they had nothing in terms of the industries needed to manufacture firearms, etc.
They never had any better chance in fighting a war of attrition with the Euro invader than the southern states had in fighting a war of attrition with the Union .
Barring gross mismanagement on the part of the Union, the Confederacy had just about a zero chance at all of winning what turned out to be a war of attrition.
With luck, the Rebs, some of my ancestors among them, might have managed to win a few more really big early victories and convinced the Yankees to give it up, but the cards didn’t fall that way. Incidentally I am related to some Union troops as well.
Rural agricultural societies with little in the way of industry have about the same chance of winning a war with a larger, richer fully industrialized enemy as a snowball on a red hot stove.
Some ill informed folks believe that societies such as the Vietnamese and the Afghans cannot be defeated by modern armed forces, but they fail to realize that a modern army can simply wipe such people off the face of the earth if it is ordered to do so. The reason this does not happen very often is of course that the country that sends the invading army generally does not have the desire and will to wage total war. Fortunately we aren’t quite as mean as we COULD be.
Sherman understood when he burnt and destroyed everything in his path that he was wiping out the ability to resist, leaving the enemy people in such dire straights that survival itself was questionable, never mind any further organized resistance.
Had he wished, he could have killed every body he encountered, but he was not quite that mean, and he was restrained by such conventions as the Union and most other countries wished to observe at that time.
Some people in this country at the time we were taking it from the Indians wanted to save them, and they succeeded in creating the reservation system, etc. But as many or more people, probably, wanted them wiped out, and they damned near succeeded.
By the time of the Civil War, there were hardly any Indians at all left in my immediate neck of the woods. Personally I believe the last ones who failed to flee this area were mostly murdered out of hand, but a very few managed to live out their lives protected by more lenient Euros who employed them as farm hands, etc.
Energy Export Data Browser has 2015 up
http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/
It appears from the chart that world oil exports has increased very little, if any, since 2005.
I’d be very very interested to hear from Mr Jeffrey J. Brown on the flat trend in oil available for the world export market.
Ecuador looks perilously close to becoming a net importer.
The next few years are going to be very interesting!
Hi Ron,
I would expect that the fall in US output in 2016 would lead to a slight increase in net exports in 2016, unless consumption falls in the US by the same amount that oil output falls, changes in consumption and output in other places make this more complicated of course, we will just have to wait til June 2017 to find out.
Ron,
This mostly means that importers have simply increased production right?
Gains in U.S. and Canadian production reduced imports, and allowed countries like China and India to import more even though net export availability remained flat.
I can only guess that oil production in importing nations, which are generally capitalist countries, is more sensitive to oil price changes than exporters (whose systems of govt allows for maintaining production regardless of price).
The next 12 months may see increasing prices even if net exports do not decline simply due to increased export demand from countries like the U.S. that flip from a multi-year decline in import demand.
Yes, exactly. The largest increase in production, by far, came from the US which is an importing nation. And huge declines came from Norway, the UK and Mexico, all exporting nations. That is largely why we see production increasing while exports stayed flat.
Exporting nations, the UK and Indonesia, became net importers during that period. There may have been others, I haven’t looked that closely.
Hi Ron, according to the Energy Export Data Browser UK is an importer.
I find Mexico to be an interesting case. I read somewhere that 30% of federal tax revenue is received from taxation of Pemex. Mexico exports are down 21% in 2015 compared to 2014. I’m not sure what is going to happen to Mexico when it becomes a net oil importer. Whenever it is it won’t be good. Perhaps Mexico will join their neighbours to the south (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) in being failed states.
MEXICO FORCED TO RESCUE DROWNING OIL GIANT PEMEX
“Things are so bad that this week [April 14, 2016] the Mexican government had to come to the rescue with $4.4 billion in aid for its former cash cow. More financial assistance could be needed soon. That’s not good considering the government relies on Pemex to pay for about a fifth of its budget.”
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/14/investing/mexico-rescue-oil-company-pemex/
I feel that Mexico is going to collapse hard, not unlike Egypt and Syria, once they go from oil exporter to importer. The fall back economy will be cocaine transit, marijuana and meth production, human smuggling etc. Imagine how USA will fare with a failed state to its southern border. The Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), located on Mexico’s southern border, has already collapsed. Hunger is an annual event for many in Guatemala as the last harvest does not carry them over to the next harvest. The list of failed states is growing and Mexico will soon join it.
Hi Ron, according to the Energy Export Data Browser UK is an importer.
I know, they were an exporter in 2005, they became a net importer in 2006.
Hi Ron, the countries that have become oil importers since 2000, that I’m aware of, are Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Argentina, UK, Denmark and Vietnam. Peru and China became oil importers in the 90’s. Uzbekistan seems now very close to becoming an oil importer as does Ecuador. Thanks for the great blog. I really like your articles and charts.
I belive petro means our complex society will collapse and we will all die at roughly the same time, within the next 15 years, but I could be mistaken
I think since 2000 you can add Yemen, Tunisia and Syria, the latter perhaps independent of its troubles
None are doing well
“With growing public and government sentiment against coal heavily covered by media outlets, it was interesting to see the number of globally planned new generating units by fuel type (units defined as separate generating units at power plants). On a global basis, coal is the most popular fuel as far as planned capacity, with 3,019 units planned which would deliver 1,554 Gigawatts (GW) of capacity.
By comparison, 7,000 planned new units for wind are slated to deliver just 504 GW of capacity; solar has 4,174 units planned with 208 GW of capacity. Natural gas had 3,682 units planned, slated to deliver 568 GW of capacity. Globally there are 11,120 planned hydroelectric units, representing 762 GW of capacity.”
http://www.oilandgas360.com/new-power-generation-coal-still-the-dominant-fuel/
Coal prices are low now. As more coal power plants are built, coal prices will rise and the number of new coal plants built will fall, coal supply will not be plentiful at current international coal prices.
We shall see if those proposed coal plants ever get off the drawing board. China is already taking measures to curtail coal power plant construction and subsidizing more wind and solar. Looks like China is entering a time of overcapacity as it’s economy slows down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environment/china-coal.html?_r=0
The US has a very old set of coal plants that are at, beyond or near retirement age. Proposed projects do not address that problem, so it looks like the US will have a dwindling number of coal plants. New laws make it difficult to operate coal plants. New coal plants are very expensive to build.
Chinese overcapacity. Remember those ghost cities, will we see the same with Chinese coal power plants?
“Building unneeded thermal power plants underscores the difficulties President Xi Jinping and other leaders face in effecting their pledge to downshift the economy to a more sustainable track.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-plant-binge-deepens-overcapacity-woes-1464692337
I took a quick look: I don’t see any sign of some key necessary adjustments:
Many coal plants are replacing older, inefficient plants. 1st, This means that it’s necessary to look at NET construction, not gross. 2nd, if a new plant is 50% more efficient, coal consumption will be reduced by 1/3 even if GWH production is the same.
2nd, coal plants take much longer to build than anything else except nuclear. So, the backlog of planned construction will be much higher, even if the total annual construction is the same.
3rd, many plans don’t happen. many of these plants are in the proposal or permitting stages, and will never be built.
Remember the Nikola truck mentioned here a few days ago, the ones that is supposed to out perform diesels and have open highway range and gross eighty thousand pounds?
The reason I couldn’t find anything out about it, other than the press release, is that it doesn’t actually even exist. They don’t even have ONE prototype. It’s vaporware.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/nikola-says-electric-truck-concept-215208538.html
This is not to say that batteries will never replace big diesel engines, but if Panasonic, LG, Tesla, etc, with all their muscle and expertise aren’t talking about such batteries, then it is safe to assume they are years and years from actual commercial reality.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/nikola-says-electric-truck-concept-215208538.html
There’s another much hyped maybe someday truck out there using a Mack chassis, which apparently DOES actually exist, which uses a turbine engine supposedly capable of running on just about anything liquid and combustible. I think maybe this engine is also mostly vaporware. If anybody can come up with any real information on it, I would really appreciate the link. This truck could probably actually be built, using batteries to drive electric traction motors and keeping them topped off with the turbine and generator.
But I will believe such a turbine engine that weighs so little and burns almost ANYTHING WET and combustible actually exists when I see video of one running, video posted by some outfit I trust.
Lab exercises are one thing, hundreds of thousands of miles out on the road are something else altogether. If this basic design works out, such trucks will almost for sure for the next decade at least run on a diesel engine powering a generator that keeps the batteries topped off. This would allow the batteries to be drawn down hard for a few minutes to get started at traffic lights, and to get over hills, etc. Whether such an arrangement will be cheaper and more fuel efficient than a diesel and conventional drive line is an open question. If the turbine engine can be built cheap enough, it will work, but so far turbines cost a HELL of a lot more than diesels.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/06/20160608-mack.html
The chassis in the picture is a low cab forward which is mostly used for trash and roll-offs operations. Another words city trucks.
Hey Mac, Funny you should bring that up! As you can tell from my post below, I was just over at my favourite EV news site and they had this up:
Nikola Motor Logs 7,000 Pre-Orders For Nikola One Electric Semi Truck
In a press release and via Twitter, Nikola Motor Company declared that it has received over 7,000 truck reservations with deposits for its upcoming Nikola One (details).
Nikola Motors Tweet
Nikola Motors is rather proud of these figures, stating:
“Nikola (pronounced Neek-oh-la) Motor Company Founder and CEO Trevor Milton today announced that $2.3 billion in reservations have been generated in the first month, totaling more than 7,000 truck reservations with deposits. The company announced last month that it will launch an electric class 8 semi-truck, dubbed “Nikola One.”
The CEO stated:
“Our technology is 10-15 years ahead of any other OEM in fuel efficiencies, MPG and emissions. We are the only OEM to have a near zero emission truck and still outperform diesel trucks running at 80,000 pounds. To have over 7,000 reservations totaling more than 2.3 billion dollars, with five months remaining until our unveiling ceremony, is unprecedented.”
Of course, the Nikola One exists only on paper right now, but an official unveiling date has been announced:
December 2, 2016 Event
More details will be released soon regarding the December 2 unveiling of the Nikola One. The event will also be simulcast on nikolamotor.com for those not able to attend.
Toolpush brought it up in a post about a week ago and in my response. I expressed my reservations and introduced:
http://www.wrightspeed.com/
Wrightspeed is the company partnering with Mack Trucks on their turbine hybrid truck. Ian Wright is a Tesla co-founder and seems to be quite a tinkerer. His web site has a video of an Isuzu NKR Chassis running on his system. Apparently early versions used a Capstone turbine but, there has been a falling out of sorts with litigation underway. It would appear Capstone thinks he violated one or more of their patents in developing his own turbine. Wright asserts that the Capstone turbines couldn’t pass CARB emissions. Wright’s trucks are definitely not vaporware.
Hi Fred,
I read the same link. I agree the Wright truck does actually exist, at least as a prototype.
It’s the turbine engine that I think is vaporware. Batteries adequate to the job actually do exist, since with a four hundred horsepower on board generator system, they can be continuously recharged. Four hundred horsepower is enough to maintain highway speed( forty five mph or so ) fully loaded just about every where except climbing mountains. So the batteries would only come in mostly for steep grades, and getting started at lights, and capturing braking energy, plus whatever fuel can be saved by plugging her up when parked .This boils down to having a potentially very fuel efficient truck with batteries that wouldn’t run the truck more than a very few miles on their own.
Everything I can find indicates that a turbine engine suitable for trucking and construction work is still a LONG way from commercial reality. This is a case I would be glad to be proven wrong, but I doubt such turbines will be commercially marketed in trucks for a long time yet.
Turbines vs diesel is ancient history. I well remember the last lecture by my famous prof re that(1953).
“I will bet that in less than 10 years every big truck will be running on a gas turbine”.
I don’t need to tell you how wrong he was. Why? very simple, the turbine was good only at design load, and fell off dramatically at other conditions. And most of all, diesels kept getting better and better, leaving the turbine very far behind.
But, there was another option right there staring everybody in the face – the free piston stirling engine. Books by Walker and Senft written in the ’70’s clearly described work by MAN/MWM german diesel manufacturers showing a classic double acting automotive stirling driving a hydrostatic pump actually beat the diesel both in efficiency , weight, durability and response to load (one cycle!) but also kept its efficiency over a very wide range of load. And, like the turbine, would run cleanly with any gas or liquid fuel.
One of Walker’s staff at U Calgary published a paper describing such a machine intended for 700 kW. Not small.
Same layout works well from 1 to 1000kW, ideal candidate for CHP house power
With what we know now about high temp alloys, such a stirling would be even better. And. absolutely no problem with micro soot particles so hard to get rid of in the diesel exhaust.
So why not on the road? Same as always, People forget. Outa sight, outa mind.
China Has Passed 500,000 New Energy Vehicle Sold (Excluding Imports)
Looking back, we also recently noted that 2015 alone closed at 331,092 plug-ins sold, add in the 74,763 sold in 2014, and you are already up to 405,855 over just two years.
For this year, CAAM data shows 58,757 PEVs sold in Q1 2016 ,and with over 37,000 in 2011-2013 (2011: 8,159, 2012: 12,791, 2013: 17,642) a total of some 502,000 EVs have been tallied through March 2016.
By the end of April, cumulative numbers have already exceed 530,000. Breaking out just all-electric vehicles, BEVs make up well over two-thirds.
New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China not only include both all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, but of all types – from small cars to electric buses/trucks.
At this point China is ahead of U.S. and Europe (which are both also approaching 500,000), but sales in China is now growing much faster thanks to the heavy hand of the government applying pressure to “go green”.
As I have said before, I believe China is going to be “ground zero” for EVs.
IMHO, EVs also include two wheeled vehicles!
http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/fall-2010/electric-two-wheelers-china-promise-progress-potential/
Electric two-wheelers have transformed the way people move in most Chinese cities. In just ten years, growth in electric two-wheelers—a category that includes vehicles ranging from electric bicycles to electric motorcycles—has substantially increased the total number of vehicles in China. Electric bike sales began modestly in the 1990s and started to take off in 2004, when 40,000 were sold. Since then, over 100 million have been sold and now more than 20 million are sold each year. Electric two wheelers, in short, represent the first mass-produced and mass-adopted alternative-fuel vehicles in the history of motorization.
And before someone raises the criticism that the source of electricity fueling these two wheeled EVs is a dirty source such as coal let’s remember that China has vowed to transform it’s economy to a renewables based economy and is well on the way to accomplishing that as well!
http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/RE100-China-analysis.pdf
China’s Fast Track to a Renewable Future
China has wasted no time in directing billions of dollars into its clean energy sector. Currently, the country is the world’s leading investor in renewables. In 2014, China increased its investment to US$89.5 billion, up 32% from the previous year. This was nearly 73% more than the US, the next largest investor.1 In the same year, China also led the world in new wind and solar installations, with 19.81 gigawatts (GW) and 10.60 GW respectively.2 By 2020, the world’s largest energy user plans to have 100 GW of solar and 200 GW of wind installed.
While fossil fueled powered vehicles are generally constrained to using dirty fuels, EVs can just as easily be fueled with clean sources so they are a step in the right direction. Even if it might still seem to be a small step at this time.
When I was in China, many people’s two-wheeled vehicles were a lot like my laptops over the years: Their batteries degraded, their bikes started increasingly running at a ridiculously slower pace, and their batteries were costly to replace and a cash cow for industry that had us almost by the balls/locked-in.
But it’s not like I need my laptop to get around.
“You want to travel anywhere with that thing and its dying battery? Fork over the money.”
You know, I was thinking thoughts of an entire civilization suddently running on battery power. Strange that… Like a flashlight…
You know– when the electricity goes out? That’s likely how it’s going to be, except maybe you’ll have a better battery, like the Energizer.
Just for fun, switch off your home’s power box and run everything on battery power for a few months. Then go to society and tell them to do the same. Run industry and government on batteries. Pretend there was an electrical storm and the power went out, only it doesn’t come back on this time.
Hi Caelan,
I suppose the only way you will ever realize that the electricity will go off and STAY OFF unless we manage a transition to renewables is if Big Brother takes you in for reeducation and clamps your head in a vise and uses a hammer drill to bore a hole in your skull and let a little daylight in. 😉
Electric bikes are a step in the right direction.
I have rechargeable batteries adequate to keep my emergency lights on for the next ten years at least, and the batteries AND the lights together cost me a hell of a lot less than a supply of candles adequate to last ONE year.
The primary reason I don’t yet own a solar system of my own is that the cost of solar power is falling so fast it’s better for me to put my money into energy SAVING projects for now, rather than energy producing projects.
If my health holds up, five years from now I expect to own both a pv system AND a pure electric or plug in hybrid car.
Good morning, Glen,
Electric bikes are not necessarily a step in the right direction just because you say so, but perhaps they are a little more benign than cars.
Your personal anecdotes are all fine and nice but don’t necessarily illustrate the bigger picture, such as that you’re in the US and the US uses how much energy and resources per capita in comparison to the rest of the world? All in context.
My battery assist bicycle uses less than 2% of the electricity of my Nissan Leaf. Of course, it is slower and has a marginally lower range and requires human pedal energy input, but the latter is an advantage given my otherwise sedentary occupation.
Edit
It also weighs about 2% as much, so has about 2% of the embedded energy, but it cost me 15% of the price of my (1 y/o) Leaf to buy new.
Hi Caelan,
Everything has an impact. Walking is probably best, though slow, bicycles would be next best. Do you think using batteries charged with wind and solar are worse than using fossil fuels. Also electric motors on overhead wires could be used for heavily travelled routes rather than batteries.
Do you walk and/or ride a bicycle everywhere you go?
I don’t, but maybe you do.
Hi Dennis,
Well of course everything has an impact, such as if you’re on a nice beach on the edge of somewhere and a plastic part from some factory from another edge of nowhere-in-particular smacks you in the face along with a wave.
One summer, I almost got my feet cut on a piece of metal that was at the bottom of a shallow river I was swimming in.
Almost, but lately, seeing as I just got my bike stolen, thanks, presumably, to the competitive-money-profit land-grabbing pseudoeconomy and the resultant relative ‘desperation’ of some people, I have been having to walk and take the bus more often when I have to go where my bike would normally have taken me.
And this from someone in a society that has been designed and built predominantly around the car and all that it entails.
…How’s your cake?
Some people seem to be confusing and/or insinuating build-out with success.
Like a Chinese ghost city, we don’t yet know, to be charitable, if the buildings are going to be filled or if they are going to stay empty and slowly decay beyond the point of repairability.
We can have a whole fleet of EV’s that end up going nowhere.
The owners of any ghost cities that actually exist will, soon enough, realize that selling out or renting cheap is much to be preferred to allowing their empty city to rot down, lol.
Sure we MIGHT wind up with a fleet of electric vehicles that will go nowhere.
We are for DAMNED SURE going to wind up with a fleet of oil fueled vehicles that go nowhere when oil gets to be so expensive we can’t afford to use it for motor fuel.
Renting cheap ay? That seems to make a lot of dubious assumptions, as does your (viable economy for your) fleet of EV’s that still need to materialize and using/cannibalizing fossil fuels, like internal combustion engine vehicles.
James Howard Kunstler has written a fair bit about highrises, incidentally, such that these ghost towns are predicated on. Ostensibly, according to Kunstler, above 4 stories or so may be unsupportable in a decreasing energy and economic context.
Mac: ” The owners..preferred to allowing their empty city to rot down”
Everything rots down by default on planet Earth regardless if it is empty, or full of people, or built from wood, brick, concrete. That is the law of impermanence.
Every new product starts rotting from the moment it is produced. Our bodies rot from day they are born. Ant-aging creams, surgeries don’t help. Do you know anybody that stopped aging in this way? I don’t know one single person. But it is trillion dollar industry.
It is human minds illusion that process can be stopped. It can’t. So this so called “rotting” problem is not really a problem. Problem has to have a solution. If a solution does not exist then problem does not exist either because problem has to have a solution. So in essence we have no problem. “Problem” is not so much reality but our psychology. Our minds psychology likes to cling to habitual desires to fix, to solve, to find answers to every single thing that we perceive as a “problem”.
If we leave something to mysticism and accept that it is what it is then our clinging to desire to “fix” something unfixable disappears and so called “problem” disappears at the same time.
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-ultra-high-volumetric-energy-density-lithium-sulfur.html
“…is approaching the theoretical limit,”
What is the theoretical maximum possible density of energy in the battery?!
Are attempts to build batteries with high energy density, are not the same “alchemy” as an attempt to create (invent) armored super-steel (much stronger than the current) conducted in the 50s of the twentieth century?
You need to find an eminent specialist in the field of physics / quantum chemistry, to answer this question.
It is necessary not to waste time and money on harmful delusion.
1. http://phys.org/news/2014-01-ultra-high-volumetric-energy-density-lithium-sulfur.html
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
Figure 5 combines several energy technologies…
Figure 5: (most recent is 2005)
Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit
—-DAVID GRAEBER
(A chewy and must read on this topic)
http://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit
Thanks for sharing, Duncan.
I think I’ve either read it already or have come across it and scanned it. But I’ll check it out better later to be sure.
I also just this past weekend caught portions of a couple of videos on You Tube with Graeber talking in part about maybe similar.
I support the doubt @ Caelan MacIntyre
The disadvantage of this forum is the lack of verification of information.
Quoted information from other sites (sources of information)
But you have to critically think about whether they are true?
I believe that the information derived from lobbyists advertising PV panels (they want to sell them) should be checked just as critically as information from undertakings (companies) of oil, or “nuclear mafia”.
For example:
1. Power PV panels reported in the popular information, you can’t automatically convert to the participation of PV panels in the national or global energy production.
Power PV panels should be determined in [Wp] or [MWp] rather than [W] or [MW], since the instantaneous power is almost never reached.
p = peak or potential
This power can’t be compared with the power of continuous coal power plants.
2. As a user of a small PV panel can confirm that it has the following disadvantages:
Full power of solar radiation – about 1000W / m2 (the sun causes sunburn) is unusual rare (at the hard blue sky, but in some years)
On sunny days, but with a steamy sky, I measured the radiation intensity 100-300 W / m2.
It was hard blue sky gives a radiation intensity of 750 W / m2. [This applies to 52 ° width geographer. – Berlin]
“As a result of reflection, absorption and scattering, depending on the time of day and year, and the state of the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface reaches an average of less than 50% of the energy.”
A significant electrical power FIXED PV panel is achieved by only approx. 4-5 hours per day. Any deviation from 90 degrees incidence angle result in noticeable decrease in power. For larger deviations additionally makes matters worse reflexes of light.
The panel located on the roof slant angle is rarely optimal.
In the inhabited areas of the world outweigh days with clouds.
(And why is there a possible agriculture, so that they are inhabited 🙂 )
But so frequent cloudy (day of clouds) means that PV panels are almost useless.
With this article strongly I agree:
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/another-study-on-the-eroei-of-solar-pv
Yet the continued decline since 1990 confirms our assessment that, notwithstanding exogenous factors, there is diminishing productivity of innovation in renewable energy technologies.”
That’s BS! Your data is outdated (no pun intended).
http://web.mit.edu/c21ce/about.html
The Center for 21st Century Energy is dedicated to developing technologies for a sustainable energy future. A broad spectrum of energy systems and novel technologies are needed to address the challenges of expanding energy resources and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Our efforts are dedicated to improving the conversion and utilization efficiency, reducing the carbon intensity and expanding the use of renewable energy.
Sometimes I wonder if you are deliberately obtuse or if you are living under a rock. Your comment on running civilization on batteries is a good example of profound ignorance.
Hey, Fred,
I suspected that you might respond to my comment here, seeing as how you’ve been on about the supposed speed and/or disruptive qualities of your technologie-du-jour– corals be damned.
It was a little tongue-in-cheek of course, but maybe closer to the truth than we realize, given questions about the apparent EROEI of solar PV here and there as well as the diminishing EROEI of what’s left of the fossil fuels.
Your Center for 21st. Century Energy can write ‘whatever they want’ on their page, but apparently, with a society faced with large decreases in (the qualities of) very high-energy and high-portability, and with the increasing (energy and complexity) demands of such endeavors as scientific research, there’s less money and energy to go around.
Don’t forget that governments around the world are going bankrupt and facing increasing social unrest, decreasing tax revenue and so forth. Who are going to buy the technology that comes out of MIT if increasing number are without jobs and the economy further dives and/or stagnates?
Lastly, I wrote that the graph is to 2005, but that’s part of the point; the trend:
Where is it now? Might be even lower. But by your link, perhaps this trend has been or is about to be reversed? Fair enough, so let’s see it then beyond some words over at MIT.
Even so, as I’ve just written in another comment, just because a technological goal is fulfilled doesn’t necessarily make it worthwile or the best route to take. I mean, you’ve doubtless heard of white elephants.
White elephant is the economy. So perhaps we will see it give birth to yet more white elephants.
Repost:
Hey, Fred,
I suspected that you might respond to my comment here, seeing as how you’ve been on about the supposed speed and/or disruptive qualities of your technologie-du-jour– corals be damned.
It was a little tongue-in-cheek of course, but maybe closer to the truth than we realize, given questions about the apparent EROEI of solar PV here and there as well as the diminishing EROEI of what’s left of the fossil fuels.
Your Center for 21st. Century Energy can write ‘whatever they want’ on their page, but apparently, with a society faced with large decreases in (the qualities of) very high-energy and high-portability, and with the increasing (energy and complexity) demands of such endeavors as scientific research, there’s less money and energy to go around.
Don’t forget that governments around the world are going bankrupt and facing increasing social unrest, decreasing tax revenue and so forth. Who are going to buy the technology that comes out of MIT if increasing number are without jobs and the economy further dives and/or stagnates?
Lastly, I wrote that the graph is to 2005, but that’s part of the point; the trend:
Where is it now? Might be even lower. But by your link, perhaps this trend has been or is about to be reversed? Fair enough, so let’s see it then beyond some words over at MIT.
Even so, as I’ve just written in another comment, just because a technological goal is fulfilled doesn’t necessarily make it worthwile or the best route to take. I mean, you’ve doubtless heard of white elephants.
White elephant is the economy. So perhaps we will see it give birth to yet more white elephants.
I posted a reply but the spam filter seems to have eaten it. It must be delicious. Let’s just wait it out and see if it digests it and oozes out the other end and onto the thread.
Here is a good pice on the reserve numbers in Shale. Think Mr Shallow been on to this for a while. Sorry if repost http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/145104/Shale_Loses_9_Billion_Barrels_of_Reserves_After_SEC_Inquiries?rss=true
There is an interesting new report out from Bloomberg Energy/Finance group, projecting the worlds energy scenario out to 2040. I’m not sure of their assumptions or biases, but looks like they made a serious effort
Summary linked here-
http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook/?utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=NEO2016&utm_source=carousel&utm_content=link&utm_term=
60% zero-carbon by 2040? I guess that includes nuclear but I didn’t check.
It would be great if Asia/Africa could leapfrog old technology (coal) and go straight to distributed renewables. Just like they did with cell/mobile phones…
North dakota numbers arw out. Looks like a significant drop in production (70000 bpd).
NDIC data is out:
March 34,454,047 barrels = 1,111,421 barrels/day
April 31,230,218 barrels = 1,041,007 barrels/day (preliminary)(all-time high was Dec
holy…
Will have a more detailed post on this within 3 hours on shaleprofile.
Hi Enno,
How many new wells? Approximately.
You can find my new presentation on the latest NDIC data here.
@Dennis : I see 44 wells having first production in April, vs 63 in March.
I remember Lynn Helms predicting a sharp drop in production for March.
In fact, in March Bakken output declined only 8 kb/d, but was down 69 kb/d in April.
April number for ND Bakken is down 6.6% vs. March, 10.9% vs. April 2015 and 15.2% (176 kb/d) from the peak reached in December 2014.
Average output for January-April 2016 is 1044 kb/d, down 6.9% year-on-year.
As CLR’s Harold Hamm and several E&P CEOs are saying, $50 is a trigger for increased completion of the DUCs.
Rig count has also bottomed, but significant increase in drilling activity is unlikely until WTI reaches $60.
Nonetheless, it seems that we will see further declines in LTO output in the next several months due to delayed impact of low oil prices.
I can’t understand how production is down significantly in so many places (all over the world), demand is up, but inventory is static?
Remember global dimming? Darkened skies, brown rings around the horizon, grey domes of pollution over cities. Now we are getting global browning, affecting our other important resource, water.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930553-400-we-cant-treat-global-browning-as-a-standalone-issue