The EIA, in their INTERNATIONAL ENERGY OUTLOOK 2014 publishes what they call “World crude and lease condensate production by region and country, 2009-2040, (Table A5). Since I only track C+C, or Crude Only in the case of OPEC, I thought it would be interesting to see where they thought C+C production was headed in the next 25 years.
An note about the charts below. The EIA data in this report only uses historical data for 2009 thru 2011. However I extended that historical data through 2014. The data for 2014 is the average C+C production January through September. Also note that the historical data is yearly but the projected data is in 5 year intervals, 2020 through 2040. All data is in thousand barrels per day.
The EIA is expecting world C+C production to be over 99 million million barrels day in 2040, or about 22 million barrels per day higher than today. And just where do they expect all this oil to come from?
They expect about two thirds of that increase to come from OPEC. They have OPEC increasing production by almost 14.1 million barrels per day by 2040. The “Call on OPEC” is going to get quite large. They don’t say which countries all this oil will come from but they say 11.5 million barrels per day will come from the Middle east, 900 kbd from North Africa, 1 Million barrels per day from West Africa and 700 kbd from South America.
So just over half of the 22 million barrel per day increase between 2014 and 2040, the EIA says, will come from the Middle East. After all, that’s where they say they have about a trillion barrels of proven reserves. And if they have that much oil, in that small an area, then all they should have to do is stick a pipe in the ground and the oil should come gushing out.
The EIA says just a little over one third of that 22 million barrel per day increase, 7.85 million barrels per day, from 2014 to 2040, comes from Non-OPEC countries.
But the EIA says that oil will not come from the USA. Not shown here but the EIA has the USA plateauing in 2016 and remaining flat until it starts down in 2020.
The largest Non-OPEC increase, almost 2.4 million barrels per day, will come from Canada. The EIA has high expectations for the Tar Sands, or Oil Sands as some prefer to call them.
The next highest increase, 2.3 million barrels per day, the EIA says will come from Brazil. They think the pre-salt will very soon start to show tremendous returns.
The next big Non-OPEC contributor is Kazakhstan. The EIA believes Kashagan will soon start to show big returns and top out at about 1.5 million barrels per day plus however much the rest of Kazakhstan declines between now and 2040. 1.5 million barrels per day was the <b>original</b> estimate of Kashagan production. The EIA seems to believe that estimate has not changed despite all the troubles they have had. I have read some reports, albeit pessimistic ones, that put Kashagan maximum production closer to 350,000 barrels per day.
This is the strangest one of all. the EIA has Russia declining 2020 to 2025 but then really taking off and increasing by about one million barrels per day by 2040. I assume they attribute this to the Bazhenov Shale. But Russia themselves do not believe this is going to happen. Two Russian think tanks, The Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science and The Analytical Center for The Government of the Russian Federation, say Russia will peak in 2015. Here are their figures from page 40 of that report.
I did the conversion from tons to barrels above by using 7.3 barrels per ton.
One more thing from that report that I found astounding. This chart from page 134 of that report.
The chart just prior to the one above shows about 70% of Russian oil coming from Western Siberia in 2010 and still about 60% coming from Western Siberia in 2040. However the above chart shows only about one fifth of their oil, in 2040, coming from “old” fields. But the lions share of new oil will come from “reserves growth”. That is those old Western Siberian fields are going to undergo massive “reserves growth”.
Okay, enough about Russia and back to the EIA projections.
China, the other big Non-OPEC producer, the EIA expects to shoot up about half a million barrels per day by 2025 then to decline by a slightly greater amount by 2040.
The biggest loser, according to the EIA, is the north sea, dropping almost one and one quarter million barrels per day by 2035, then increasing again.
I find some of the EIA’s projections strange, to say the least. But that is all I can say about them, not knowing how they arrived at their projections. All I can say for certain is I definitely do not agree with them.
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It does seem strange, for sure, especially anticipating such a huge increase from OPEC. Is it there, or is it simply wishful thinking? Regardless, it won’t go up forever.
Question: If Venezuela goes through its upheavels, lets say the military establishes control and throws Maduro out in the attempt to restructure, do you see their heavy deposits being utilized? Or, would investors simply stay away? Would China intervene with investment thus allowing their current suppliers to sell elsewhere?
A hundred years ago – maybe even fifty or sixty years ago – somebody would have gone into Venezuela and by means foul or fair depending on the observer’s perspective straightened the country out so as to get the oil produced.
This sort of thing is generally considered foul these days but in actuality if the US were to invade the country (which is not going to happen anytime soon at least!!) the living standard of the common people would rise quite a bit compared to what it is now. There would be work to be had and food in the stores.
As things stand now I think the only real hope for Venezuela to get the country’s oil ducks back in a row is a home grown revolution. The US isn’t going to be exporting any democracy down that way anytime soon but I wouldn’t be too sure about what Uncle Sam might do if he is in a bad enough bind ten or fifteen years down the road.
I am however sure that UNCLE will not just stand idly by and allow any European or Asian country to gain too big a foothold in this hemisphere in the near term.
Maybe the people there will overthrow the current government but the usual result of a revolution is more misery instead of less for a few years. And sometimes the few years of more misery turns into decades of more misery. Bad guys are about as apt to gain control as good ones.
So my guess as an armchair political pundit is that Venezuelan oil production remains stagnant at best and maybe even down for at least five years or so.I would bet a substantial sum that the current government cannot increase production significantly – say ten or fifteen percent – within the next two or three years.
Old farmer, one more thing: the Planning Engineer just added a post called:
“Taxonomy of Climate/Energy Policy Perspectives ”
at Judy Curry’s blog.
Paulo, it depends on government policy. Oil companies aren’t squeamish, they deal with military dictatorships. But they can’t deal with the environment in Venezuela. I could give you a seminar about the reasons, the Chavez/Maduro regime has behaved like mad hatters.
Oil companies can get that oil out at a high rate (say 3 to 4 million barrels of oil per day coming from the Orinoco oil belt). But it would take 20 to 25 years to get it done. This mega project requires offshore natural gas developments, construction of hydropower dams, ports, a huge pipeline network, and a sequenced set of projects, each of them designed to produce 250,000 BOPD (more or less). If the target is 4 mmbopd they need 14 upgraders, which cost say $10 billion each. They also need 14 new large central processing plants, 5 each 40 inch pipelines, and around 8000 wells just to get started. They also need steam boilers, and a strategic decision needs to be made as to what they will do with the huge amount of coke they would make.
By the way, that 4 million BOPD works on top of a reserve of about 50 billion barrels of oil, would be coming from about 200 billion barrels of oil in place high graded from the 1.3 trillion barrels in place the 700 km long deposit had originally. But we can’t take a ratio to estimate what can be achieved from the total. A lot of it is found in low quality rocks with the wrong geometry to achieve a good recovery factor unless they use cyclic steam and a huge number of wells.
Canada is a good example of slowing increasing oil production from bitumen deposits.
In round numbers, Canada’s net exports increased by one mbpd from 2004 to 2013 (total petroleum liquids + other liquids, EIA), at the same time that Mexico’s net exports fell by about one mbpd from 2004 to 2013.
Venezuela needs large amounts of naphtha to dilute the bitumen in order to move it through the pipeline. They don’t have the naphtha.
Oil sands
Although Venezuelan extra-heavy oil is less viscous than Canadian bitumen, much of the difference is due to temperature. Once the oil comes out of the ground and cools, it has the same difficulty in that it is too viscous to flow through pipelines. Venezuela is now producing more extra heavy crude in the Orinoco oil sands than its four upgraders that were built by foreign oil companies over a decade ago can handle. The upgraders have a combined capacity of 630,000 bbl/d (100,000 m3/d), which is only half of its production of extra-heavy oil. In addition Venezuela produces insufficient volumes of naphtha to use as diluent to move extra-heavy oil to market. Unlike Canada, Venezuela does not produce much natural gas condensate from its own gas wells, and unlike Canada, it does not have easy access to condensate from new US shale gas production. Since Venezuela also has insufficient refinery capacity to supply its domestic market, supplies of naptha are insufficient to use as pipeline diluent, and it is having to import naptha to fill the gap. Since Venezuela also has money problems as a result of its economic problems, and has political disagreements with the US government and oil companies, the situation remains unresolved.
Thanks guys,
That is what I thought, but with more learned details supplied. I did not know they had little naptha. I suppose that is one advantage of shale deposits….light products.
As a Canadian who knows many whose work relies on the Oil Sands, I have been worried. As someone who is watching this unfold, and despite NAFTA conditions to continue with export levels, the simple fact is that down the road we do currently pump/refine 2X what we need or use domestically. I suppose in really difficult times of plant shut-ins we could keep enough working and producing to provide basic transportation fuels and agricultural necessities. The US could do so as well.
I just don’t know what happens in the once noisy bustling cities as our economies slow, which they will. WPA pick and shovel transit projects? Community gardens? Tranquilizers in the water supply?
Being poor in the country is doable. Dig spuds, garden, and cut firewood; fix and build stuff for cash or trade. We do that now, although comfortably so. I simply struggle to imagine transitions such as Egypt, Libya, or what will soon be happening in Venezuala morph into world-wide unrest.
People liken our complex world of interactive economies to an old swiss watch, one part fails then…. But what if it is more like a ferris wheel?
Thank you for your insights.
You under absolutely under no circumstances want to spend much time thinking about what is going to happen in Egypt or other similarly situated countries dependent on imported food without the wherewithal to pay for it. VERY bad for the soul or conscience unless you happen to be a psychopath and thus not burdened with one.
I am not well acquainted with Venezuela but at first glance it appears the country has at least a decent shot at being self sufficient in food and energy and has enough exportable oil to pay for what MUST be imported such as agricultural machinery etc.
So things MIGHT turn out ok in Venezuela.
There is no hope for a country such as Egypt – grossly overpopulated without a quarter of the natural resources needed to support the current population.
There is simply not going to be enough productive capacity in the world for other countries to support Egypt or any other similarly situated country- Even a country as wealthy as the US is going to have some serious difficulties providing for the jobless going forward.
No country individually and no combination of countries collectively is going to be able to donate donate donate in vast quantities for decades on end.
Dieoff in the overpopulated resource short countries is virtually baked in. This is not a question of if but rather when barring miracles on the population control front.
About the only hope for place as overpopulated as Egypt would be a draconian one child policy and even that might not work fast enough.
Maimonides -“The highest form of charity is that which eliminates the need for charity.”
Egypt has one of the greatest solar sites on the planet-their
Red Sea coast. Invite all high intensity industry to set up factory ships there, supplied with near-cost free Egyptian labor, and nearer cost-free solar energy.
Fund the solar startup with donations from all the nations that thereby could avoid being flooded by desperate starving Egyptians.
In 2009, DESERTECH, a 400 Billion Euro project has been proposed to build a number of very large (15 sq km) solar thermal power stations in some MENA countries to supply about 15% of Europe’s electricity. Large European companies were interested. The project did not get off ground and DESERTECH was abandoned in 2014.
That project died because it had political risk, technical risk, and poor economics. But it sure would have had a bunch of Moroccans running around with dust mops trying to keep the desert dust off those panels.
Jobs for the people…idle hands are the Devil’s playground! So to speak, sez the atheist…
Ezry, that Rwanda project data looks a bit funny. I can’t imagine anybody investing on an 8.5 gigawatt solar plant in Rwanda.
Yep, I followed all that. That was then, now is now.
Start over, do it right.
The sun is there, the sea is there, the need is there.
Anyhow, I am trying to think like a European. Here we have a disaster getting ready to inundate us with millions of absolutely desperate people, willing to take any risk whatsoever, including machine guns.
What are we gonna do, wait? No, think up something that has a hope of minimally allowing some chance of survival where they are, and then say they gotta stay there.
Solar on the sea is one thought, what’s yours?
You say it won’t work. What won’t work, your machine gun?
The first utility-scale solar energy project in the whole of East Africa — Gigawatt Global’s 8.5 gigawatt (GW) solar project at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village — is now online.
The completion of the project boosted Rwanda’s total electric grid capacity by ~6%. The project represents the first instance of a utility-scale project reaching financial closure and coming online under the Africa Clean Energy Finance program.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/09/1st-utility-scale-solar-energy-project-east-africa-now-online-rwandas-total-grid-capacity-surges-6/
Gigawatt Global is a single source for financing, technology, and strategic planning. GWG believes in building partnerships to bring utility-scale solar projects to fruition.
GWG partners with select local management teams and brings the company’s relationships, expertise, and track record to create professional, achievable solar projects.
http://gigawattglobal.com/
US-ACEF is an innovative, collaborative financing mechanism aligning U.S. government resources in new ways to catalyze significant private sector investment primarily focused on African clean energy infrastructure. The three main partners under the program are the U.S. Department of State, USTDA, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).
http://www.ustda.gov/program/regions/subsaharanafrica/cleanenergy/usacef/
That’s a 8.5 Megawatt project, not gigawatt.
I think someone was confused by the name “Gigawatt Global”.
The project only cost about $24 million – that’s about right for 8.5 million watts: about $3 per peak watt.
your correct Nick. Clean Technica screwed that up.
A little more detail:
Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt uses a 20 % naphta diluent ratio. There are slightly different details, but the standard approach has been to ship naphta to the field from Jose, the upgrading and tanker loading center. The diluent is distributed to the well pads, and the diluted oil is separated from gas and water. The diluted crude is about 18 degrees API.
When the diluted crude reaches the upgrading center the naphta is separated and the crude is fed to the upgrader vessels.
But they are trying to increase production without new upgraders, and this has caused both naphta as well as light crude purchases for blending.
What Venezuela needs is about 100,000 BOPD of naphta, or very light crude. They do have a problem because if they buy crude it’s hard to ship it using the naphta pipelines.
The obvious answer is to build a 250,000 bopd upgrader to produce a 34 degree API product. But that’s not doable.
What about refining it where it is produced and then putting it in the pipeline?
Ilambiquated, the optimum solution is to dilute it first, because the oil is so viscous. Dilution helps the oil come out of the wells, and also allows easier separation of water from the oil.
The crude can be fed to an upgrader, which can be considered the front end of a refinery with a beefed up unit to handle the asphalt. This upgrader uses huge vessels which can be installed much easier if they are close to a water body with sufficient depth. Also, shipping products such as coke and sulfur is a lot easier if the upgrader is located by the ocean.
I’ve looked at this for years, and I know there are wrinkles and ways to optimize the flows, but what I outlined is a basic outline of what has to be done.
Hey, Fernando … or any other engineering/technologically savvy guys … what’s up with this MCW Energy Group’s “washing” oil sands out in Utah with some type of Fast Orange solvent?
The whole idea seems preposterous, but they seem to have an effective pilot project in place in Asphalt Ridge, Utah.
Mining, extracting hydrocarbons from oil sands with a recyclable solvent, and doing it on the cheap, no less, seems way too Cornucopian even for a starry-eyed optimist such as myself … yet they claim to be doing it. Thoughts?
I don’t know anything about it to know if I can even comment. I have confidentiality agreements which stop me from discussing some heavy oil technologies. But the media reports don’t discuss what these guys are doing in sufficient detail. The only thing I can add is that solvent technology has been researched for many years.
For whoever is interested, you can see the annual data points EIA uses by going to their data browser and downloading the data as a spreadsheet:
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser
For example, here is the C+C production by country:
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=IEO2014&subject=5-IEO2014&table=39-IEO2014®ion=0-0&cases=Reference-2014_03_21
The previous post is stale now so I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their helpful replies to my questions which were posted towards the end of the comments.
It seems EIA attempts to make estimates of non-OPEC future production based on what they believe to be the available resources and then make the “call on OPEC” based on projection of world demand less non-OPEC production
They’ve always done it that way – literally – I once looked at EIA projections in old reports starting in 1981, when the agency was only six years old; from the first they were anticipating X demand to met by Y resource, irrespective of whatever the global limit on said resource was said to be. What else to expect from government agencies? Albeit at that stage they at least could see a lot of supply being mothballed, thus held in reserve, thus presumably available when it would be needed down the road. Their projections at the beginning of this century really began to get wild, according to their forecasts as recently as 2008 we were supposed to be at something like 105 mb/d now.
About the EIA, IEA, and their projections, clearly a lot is going on “behind the simple analysis”, see for instance the investigation done by Lionel Badal on the 1998 report :
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/how-the-global-oil-watchdog-failed-its-mission/
Oh, I remember that kerfuffle, but we’re talking about the EIA, described in Badal’s document thus:
The IEA have always seemed to be more in touch with reality, publishing more pertinent info, such as their document on Saving Oil in a Hurry.
The IEA more in touch with reality ? I’m not so sure, maybe it could have been, but these days seems to me they are pretty much in line.
Thanks for bringing that quote in. I seem to remember a TOD post something along the lines of:
“Well, duh! They take current GDP. They project it forward at 3% growth. They figure out how much oil demand that presumes. Then they get out the crayon. Congress hands them 110% of their budget request for the next year, rinse & repeat.”
What could be simpler? Supply never enters into it. You put Gold-in-sacks’s GDP chart on top of it, cross your eyes, and you can’t tell which line is which…
Ironically, demand would seem to be the story for the moment anyway, and they’ve botched that just as thoroughly – where’s the demand coming from? Who with the rosy future to buy it? No Jobs = No Cash = No demand. Case closed.
The bankers have choked off any possiblity of demand recovery for the forseeable future by turning the market into a mockery, while paupering current & future generations the world over with QE and the rest. Talk about eating the hand that feeds you. You’d think people that greedy would have figured out by now that economy trickles up, not down, if they really wanted to get & stay richer. They have strangled the real wealth supply in myriad ways, and it’s quite obviosuly already strangled the capex needed to triage aforementioned real & looming supply issues. So one-two punch. It’s almost artistic in it’s perfection. They have ridiculously accelerated the collapse in such a short time. They better hope their security people in their bugout fortresses stay well fed and with plenty of shiny trinkets and concubines for the forseeable…
Desert
While EIA’s oil projections are “strange”, their international electricity statistics are behind by at least two years.
Continue with the electricity statistics. A crucial indicator for understanding the historical and future trends of electricity generation is “net installation”, the difference between this year’s total installed generating capacity and last year’s total installed generating capacity. The attached graph shows the world electric power sector’s net installation from 1981 to 2012 by power type.
From 1981 to 1990, the world in average installed 77 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity annually, including 40 GW of fossil fuels, 19 GW of nuclear, 16 GW of hydro (including pumped storage), and 2 GW of non-hydro renewables.
From 1991 to 2000, the world in average installed 70 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity annually, including 50 GW of fossil fuels, 3 GW of nuclear, 15 GW of hydro (including pumped storage), and 3 GW of non-hydro renewables.
From 2001 to 2010, the world in average installed 162 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity annually, including 111 GW of fossil fuels, 2 GW of nuclear, 26 GW of hydro (including pumped storage), and 23 GW of non-hydro renewables.
During 2011-2012, the world in average installed 234 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity annually, including 116 GW of fossil fuels, -1 GW of nuclear, 33 GW of hydro (including pumped storage), and 86 GW of non-hydro renewables.
The graph belows shows the net installation of various types of renewable generating capacity from 2006 to 2012.
Since 2006, net installation of geothermal power has been negligible, barely visible in the graph.
Net installation of biomass and waste generating capacity rose from 3 GW in 2006 to 12 GW in 2011 and fell to 8 GW in 2012.
Net instalation of wind power rose from 14 GW in 2006 to 50 GW in 2012. Net installation of solar, tides, and waves power rose from 2 GW in 2016 to 33 GW in 2011 and fell to 24 GW in 2012.
Could provide us with a link to the source?
Thanks.
Ron,
Nice update on what we clearly see as the IEA’s DREAM WORLD FUTURE estimate. Of course no one should take the IEA’s forecast seriously. It is more of a political forecast to make sure that the entire Global Stock & Bond Markets don’t get SPOOKED by the reality of a soon PEAK.
We must remember, the NET PRESENT VALUE of stocks and bonds are based on growth. And that growth is predicated on global oil production growth as far as the eye can see.
ON ANOTHER NOTE: I knew the brief spike in the price of oil was only going to be a temporary phenomenon. The ALGOS pushed up the price of oil a few bucks on Friday right at the close and then this continued on Monday & Tuesday.
However, the continued record build of oil inventories today destroyed all the FUN for those who thought the “Bottom was in”, instead the price of oil fell nearly 9% and I think we will head down into the $30 range. How far the price of oil will go down will be based upon whether Saudi Arabia or another large producer decides to cut at least 1.5-2 mbd.
When the Major Oil Companies started to announce big cuts in Exploration & Capex at the end of 2013 (before the 55% decline in oil price), the making of a PEAK IN GLOBAL OIL PRODUCTION was set. If we do continue down to $30 and then remain in the $40-$50 range for the remainder of the year, you can certainly bet…. this will destroy the U.S. Shale Oil Industry.
The only hope the U.S. Shale Oil industry has, is if Uncle Sam comes to the rescue. But, if Mr. Red, White & Blue does decide to bail out the U.S. Shale Oil Industry, I would imagine the Saudi’s would take this as a clear message to continue pumping oil at FULL SPEED.
2015… will be quite interesting to say the least.
steve
EDIT NOTE: Brain Fart.. comments should be addressed as the EIA not IEA.
Yes, although IEA has their own dreams too
”The only hope the U.S. Shale Oil industry has, is if Uncle Sam comes to the rescue. But, if Mr. Red, White & Blue does decide to bail out the U.S. Shale Oil Industry, I would imagine the Saudi’s would take this as a clear message to continue pumping oil at FULL SPEED.”
I am not sure the repuglithans COULD manage a bail out of the tight oil industry given the backlash they would suffer from their own core supporters- meaning the foot soldiers rather than big biz.
The ballot box in the end controls who is in power – lefties or righties.
MAYBE they could figure out a way to sell a bailout to the public -if they wanted to- but the odds of that look slim to me for now.
It’s only been a few weeks since they took power. And the excruciating pain of an industry being destroyed hasn’t hit the wires yet.
I’m pretty sure the hardcore conservatives working in the Texas oil fields will find a way to call a bailout conservative.
The easiest way is to keep up the Saudis-are-doing-this narrative, and then you can transmorgrify it all into a national security expenditure. haha bailout shale out of DoD appropriations, after you add money to them.
Or, as has been noted before, the Fed, who do not face any electorate, can just backstop high yield loans. That’s sufficiently esoteric that only the focused would know what they’re doing. Nobody in Texas will complain.
The “shale” production industry will rescue itself. Gas and oil prices will go up, input prices will go down (for a while), the weak die, and the developments will be more selective and optimized. This means we won’t see the drilling frenzy we saw last year, but life will go on.
What it means in real terms is that the shale oil production will probably peak in 2014 to 2015, and won’t return to that peak for a long time. But just keeping production at 2.5 million barrels of oil per day will require a gazillion wells drilled year after year.
But as shale and canada are all the world growht since 2005, does that not imply as Ron says that teh global peak in all liquids is likely 2015?
I had the impression you thought it was later, I am curious and not trying to put words in your mouth or dispute any view. I enjoy reading your comments but am unclear on your view. I had thought you were concerned but expected a peak in years or decades
To be clear, my prediction for the peak 2014-2014 is for C+C, not all liquids. I have no idea when bottled gas, (NGLs), will peak.
Wake: The shale producers had a very fast reaction time as prices increased. They were also adventurous and agressive. Other prospects just mature slower. This means there are projects in a slow conveyor belt that should puck up the slack.
This is dependent on long term price forecasts used by each oil company. These companies must be cutting back CAPEX due to reduced cash flow, but if they think oil prices will be $80 per barrel then they won’t skip a beat with the high grade investnents.
But let’s face it, I don’t know exactly what’s comng on, how much budget cutting is going on, nor do I know much about what’s going to happen in Iraq. So it’s just a gut feel. The shale industry ought to slow down, others should cut back just a little bit. And thus I expect we may go over this hump with a slight reduction which will be offset by later increases.
The only thing I’m fairly upbeat about is that oil prices are bottoming out and activity levels will be fine. But I would use a $80 to 90 per barrel Brent for the economic evaluations.
Thanks Fernando. makes sense, and after all the spike to 100 is only a few years old, so I guess it takes time to evaluate how much production comes with that.
Thank you for the different viewpoint
>>Uncle Sam comes to the rescue
Couldn’t this be similar to when Blackstone/GSO Capital/DrillCo funnels money to Linn? All that’s lacking is the overt stated mechanism of SBS “shale backed securitizations” and the money printing to buy them. Not sure we’d ever see that stated so clearly. Though that said, as clear as it was, does the man in the street know how the housing industry received its shot in the arm?
To put a finer point to it, if the entire US nonconventional capex is $100B, to put a round number on it, that’s $8B/mo? Given what we’ve seen, the Fed could print that without blinking. A rounding error. But I agree all parties concerned would prefer it stayed out of sight… should some of it come to that.
You assume that Uncle Sam can rescue the U.S. Shale Oil industry. The Soviet Union collapsed the previous time that we had an oil shock induced by excess supply in 1980-85. Probably no country can fight the oil market dynamics. An attempt to rescue the U.S. Shale Oil industry could trigger an economic collapse in the U.S.
History doesn’t repeat, but rhymes.
“The only hope the U.S. Shale Oil industry has, is if Uncle Sam comes to the rescue”. Even should there be such a bail out how long would the geology hold up? From what I’ve read here and elsewhere not too long. As Steve pointed out ” the NET PRESENT VALUE of stocks and bonds are based on growth. And that growth is predicated on global oil production growth as far as the eye can see.” When the geology of shale plays turns down as it is seemingly poised to do it will be difficult to keep the fantasy going.
Geology doesn’t “turn down”. It’s possible to use terms such as “when well performance shows these reservoirs are marginal…”……I know I’m nitpicking, but geology isn’t the right term.
Fernando,
I believe Philip was referring to the Oil Geology of Shale that is dependent on price. As we know there is no such thing as Shale Reservoirs. Basically, each well is like its own little reservoir based on PRICE DYNAMICS.
If the price falls below say $50-$60, the Geology of Shale is uneconomic.
Again, as I mentioned several times, the only reason Shale Oil was exploited in the first place was due to the MASSIVE monetary printing and liquidity injections by the Fed and Central Banks. This caused an inflation of most assets allowing GARBAGE SHALE oil to be extracted.
I don’t see this sort of Monetary Insanity going on for much longer as the BRICS are sick and tired of being Financially Raped by the West and especially the US of A.
steve
Steve, if the stuff comes out of the ground and it’s in rocks then it’s held in reservoirs. Whether we tap them with a single well is not that relevant.
All reservoirs rely on being economic to be producible. All of them have economic limits and reserves we can book.
Best possible outcome, from a big picture perspective, is that the USA fracking industry collapses sooner rather than later. Leave it in the ground & let’s get this dieoff started. The longer it’s possible to scrape the bottom of the barrel, the worse will be the eventual outcome.
Doomers are getting desperate 😉
To summarize, from 1991-2000 to 2011-2012, world annual average net installation of electricity generating capacity surged from 70 gigawatts (GW) to 234 gigawatts (GW). This was primarily due to China’s construction boom and secondly due to the surge of non-renewable installation after about 2005.
There was a nuclear boom in the early 1980s that came to an end after 1988 (Chernobyl).
The recent renewable surge has not reduced the absolute building rates of fossil fuels power plants. In this sense, there has been no decarbonization.
In the mid-1980s, fossil fuels net installation as a share of the total net installation was reduced to about 40 percent. In the early 2000s, it surged to about 75 percent. In 2011 and 2012, it was reduced to about 50 percent. If the current ratio holds indefinitely, the share of fossil fuels power plants in the total generating capacity will approach 50 percent in the long run.
To put the recent renewable boom into perspective, in term of net installation of capacity, the curren building rate of non-hydro renewables (86 GW) is 4.5 times the building rate of nuclear power in teh 1980s.
But modern nuclear power plants have a capacity utilization rate of 80 percent. Wind and solar have an average capacity utilization rate of about 20 percent. Thus, in term of newly generated electricity, the contribution from the current renewable boom is roughly comparable to the contribution from the nuclear boom in the 1980s.
If, between 2010 and 2050, the world builds 250 GW of renewable electricity each year (more than the world’s total net installation of all types of electric power in 2012), the world’s renewable generating capacity will be about 10,000 GW by 2050.
The future renewable electricity is likely to be dominated by wind and solar, with low capacity utilization rates (see graphs below Ron’s previous post). If the renewable power plants in 2050 have an average capacity utilization rates o 20 percent, then 10,000 GW is equivalent to about 4,400 GW of an average fossil fuels power plant today. In other words, the world’s renewable electric power plants in 2005 will generate a total output that equals about 80 percent of the world’s electricity generation today. This will be a significant contribution. But it will fall far short of energy decarbonization; and electricity is only 20 percent of the world’s final energy consumption. It will be nowhere close to meet the rising energy demand required for global economic growth (if economic growth continues).
The intermittency problem of wind and solar cannot be easily overcome. Suppose an electric power system has a peak demand of 2 GW. Then the maximum wind and solar generating capacity cannot be more than 2 GW, otherwise the extra electricity has to be dumped (assuming no large-scale storage). In addition, 2 GW of fossil fuels power plants have to be built, to provide back up in case both wind and solar fail. Thus, there is a 50 percent limit to the share of intermittent renewables in the total generating capacity.
Connection and coordination of wind and solar over very large geographic area may guarantee that there is a minimum amount of electricity that can be provided by wind and solar at all times (occasional failtures may be covered by storage). But this cannot be handled by the current grid and huge degree of engineering complexity could increase the risk of system failure.
Suppose, the fossil fuels back up can be reduced to 1 GW. So we have a 3 GW system. If the average capacity utilization rate is 40 percent, the average demand will be 1.2 GW. But the renewables have an average capacity utilization rate of 20 percent, so the average output from the renewables will be only 0.4 GW. So in this case, we have a 33% limit to the share of renewable electricity in the total electricity generation.
World electricity generation in 2012 was about 22,000 terawatt-hours (TWH) or 20 percent of world final energy consumption. If the world electricity generation grows by 3 percent a year from 2013 to 2050, then by 2050, world electricity generation will have grown to about 66,000 TWH or 60 percent of world final energy consumption in 2012.
If renewable electricity accounts for 1/3 of world electricity generation by 2050, it will rise to about 22,000 TWH, comparable to today’s total electricity generation. But if world final energy consumption grows by 2 percent a year from 2013 to 2050, it will more than double by 2050. Thus, the contribution of renewable electricity will be less than 10 percent of world final energy consumption by 2050.
PE, thanks for your interesting charts. Lots of food for thought.
Another problem with intermittency is how it affects the economics of the renewable generators. Presently in the UK, and I assume elsewhere, wind and solar generators are paid a guaranteed minimum price per kwh delivered. One imagines that eventually these minimum prices must have to end. The problem will be, however, that due to the high degree of correlation between when renewable power is generated in different areas (the sun shines at the same time across large grographic areas, similarly wind power is highly correlated across a fair chunk of Europe). As more and more capacity is added, it’ll saturate the market at certain times even more, driving down prices below breakeven and eventually making it uneconomic to add in any more genreration. Absent any large scale buffering mechanism it’s hard to see how the economics will work on a large scale.
If renewables get cheap enough it will be fine that they don’t always make money. Meanwhile zero or negative prices for energy sound like a business opportunity for someone.
In the short run, wind and solar will continue to be cheaper. But in the longer term, I believe they will hit minerals/land constraint. I suspect the transportation/logistics costs to build solar in remote desert will be very high. So in the long run, their costs will go up. When storage is included, their EROEI will fall precipitously.
Oil used to be very expensive in the 19th century. By the mid-20th century, it was almost as cheap as water. Then resources constaints begin to apply. So the fact that solar costs have collapsed over the past several decades does not mean eventually it will cost nothing. It takes steel and cement to construct solar power plants and diesel to ship the materials around.
Solar won’t get more expensive.
The minerals involved (pure silicon in the current technology) are quite cheap, and and the effect can be reproduced in a variety of ways if issues arise.
Land shortages are very unlikely to be a problem. For example, most urban land in the US is more or less wasted — used for parking, or brownfield sites or oversized roads. In many cases solar energy actually increases the value of the land it is on. But if the issue arises then it limits the growth of solar, but does not increase the price.
I think people tend to get very confused thinking about solar. It won’t be able to cover all needs. It doesn’t need batteries to be 25% of total power supply. It won’t grow indefinitely. But it will be a large permanent fixture of our energy supply and it will soon be the cheapest form of energy around. Everything else will have to adapt or be bled dry.
In 1995 Bill Gates said something like he didn’t know what the internet was good for, but it it was a lot harder to make money with that thing out there. Solar is like that. It is becoming a price killer for the energy business. It is massively disruptive of 20th century “baseload” utility business model.
People are always arguing solar won’t solve all our problems, but that won’t stop its growth.
It won’t be able to cover all needs.
It could, but that wouldn’t be optimal. The cheapest solution will involve a diverse set of supplies, and diverse ways of handling such challenges as variable or unpredictable production.
If we had to, we could make solar handle everything. Ditto for wind, or nuclear. That kind of approach would just be much more expensive than necessary.
My understanding is that Germany has already got difficulties.
We’ll see what happens when wind and solar reaches 20-30% of generating capacity in a large country like China, United States. On continental Europe, they can export/import electricity between different countries, so it’s possible for small country (such as Denmark) to have very high nominal penetration of wind or solar.
China, with its current small wind penetration, already had to dump 12% of the wind available because the excess wind electricity was not accepted by grid
Building solar in the desert and trying to feed wind energy into the grid may be using the wrong models for both.
Wind probably does need to use a grid system to get electricity from the wind farms to populated areas. But wind energy might also used to create hydrogen for various uses. If the current grid system is incompatible for wind, work around it.
But solar may be best used on roof tops to supply individual buildings or perhaps neighborhood projects.
The US State of Iowa is already @ 27% wind energy.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/development/2014/10/10/midamerican-energy-terry-branstad-expansion/17027407/
Texas almost completely eliminated their problem with wind curtailment by building out their grid. Google CREZ for details. China is working on something similar.
“We’ll see what happens when wind and solar reaches 20-30% of generating capacity in a large country like China, United States”
Here’s what it’s like in the world’s 7th largest economy
California’s three large IOUs collectively served 22.7% of their 2013 retail electricity sales with renewable power.
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) – 23.8%
San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) – 23.6%
Southern California Edison (SCE) – 21.6%
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Renewables/
Hi Sam,
Wind and clouds are highly correlated throughout all of Europe?
That is difficult to imagine, what is your source?
Some very important caveats needed here.
Carbon tax almost certain as GW starts to really bite hard in near future, esp in China.
Wind/solar new tech = very high rate of improvement in both cost and competence
Many ways to solve the storage question, being worked on hard, good results highly likely in near future.
Domestic PV + short time storage = highly feasible to get off grid. Will force change in grid business.
Merits of EV not yet really recognized. EV VERY SUPERIOR TO IC. IN OPERATOR SATISFACTION AS WELL AS COST OF OPERATION When people get that, IC will be hard to sell. Especially when solar costs drop below others.
My own guesses, of course, but shared by lots of people with lots of $.
Winbe, Just a guess but I do not see grid tie solar or wind as being truly viable. Domestic or village sized PV on the other hand is truly viable when sized correctly and used within the system’s limits. I think it is a hard sell though when people realize that YOU are responsible for repairs when the switch does not respond with “now” gratification.
Well, I have a slanted viewpoint from most people today since I have spent my whole life being the 3AM broken pipe fixit man, and sometimes wonder how people get along who somehow can’t/don’t do the same.
Of course, real americans just call the plumber. They could do the same with any of those black boxes hanging on the wall, in some incomprehensible way thought to be related to electricity.
My electronic son tells me it is a relatively trivial task to design a smart inverter that, under any circumstance whatsoever, will make max use of a PV array, grid up or down, load heavy or light. These are coming on the market as I speak.
Intermittency- Seems to me the obvious solution is on-site heat engines, such as for example, gas turbines, which have fast response, coupled with very short term energy storage of no great size.– Added bonus- use the reject heat for something useful.
As for my own house, never any problem, I substitute for the lack of intelligence of my somewhat old inverter.
To run “business as usual” on solar panels, even if it didn’t stress the old grid in the northeast, will require leveling the forests and filling up the fields with ugly industrial solar panels made from – guess what – fossil fuels! An industrial scale solar facility has just been constructed near me wiping out many many acres of beautiful working forest. In 30 years that thing will fill up the landfills and no vegetation will grow on the sites that they have clear cut and scraped clean.
These idiot planners are going to turn the entire earth into a sacrifice zone. Why isn’t that clear to you?
As such, I’m investing in home insulation & warm jackets. Capacity Utilization: 100% as needed 🙂
I’m done with all the fantasy crap I loved as a kid. Our future ain’t in the stars anymore, it’s in the dirt.
Just-in-case, though, I liquidated my 401k and invested it into the E-Cat.
The cavemen survived with next to nothing; some even have the audacity to suggest they were happy. They’d have killed for a decent bicycle! Since I count them among my ancestry, I’d say I’ve a lot to learn about being human yet…
Perhaps we can hang onto a few easy-to-cook antibiotics and such after society finishes up eating it’s young. Sigh. Is this what acceptance looks like?
Desert
A passive house with a heat pump and a solar roof shouldn’t require any outside fuel for heating at all. In fact it could be a net exporter of energy.
Naw, just knock down the suburbs and put up solar panels and have people move back into town, there’ll be plenty of room. Save a lot of gas too. It’s already beginning.
To run “business as usual” on solar panels, even if it didn’t stress the old grid in the northeast, will require leveling the forests and filling up the fields with ugly industrial solar panels made from – guess what – fossil fuels!
Trying to run business as usual on any kind of energy may turn out to be difficult moving forward.
I would think roof top solar would be better than cutting down trees.
Or, you could simply install the panels on rooftops.
Generally Wimbi I think very much along the same lines as you do.
But in this case – the world is already flooded with cheap labor displacing the relatively unskilled folks who work in manufacturing in other countries- such as this one.
Some of them are close relatives of mine. They haven’t really a prayer of ever earning a decent living ever again. Worn out folks who barely learned to read thirty or forty years ago are not going to get into high tech.
And having worked as an educator in this country -I can say with absolute confidence that not more than a small portion of the young people who did poorly in school will ever succeed as adult students even if they have the opportunity to go back to school for a couple of years.
You can’t expect most folks to go from the third or fourth grade level to technically savvy in two years.
I just can’t see any happy endings for anywhere from thirty to ninety percent of the current population barring astounding good luck in terms of lowering birth rates and improving energy efficiency and food production.
Well, I have a couple of exactly that kind of guy helping me with my energy widget R&D out in my shop. They can’t rub one number against another, but they are good at bending junk into what I want to try, and are most definitely worth their lunch.
Same people could be tearing out walls of old bldgs in town and doing what’s needed to cut heating load to a small fraction of before. I have that one in progress.
Way more work in the world than will ever get done. Nobody should be unemployed for a minute.
And what people really NEED to get from day to day is mighty small.
Or, there’s always the machine gun solution. Which?
ELLEN my dear your comment is absolutely championship quality in terms of demonstrating your ignorance.
I hereby take this opportunity to ask the other regulars if they can remember another one equal to it.
Miss Lily comes to mind
Solar panels are (products of) business-as-usual (the crony-capitalist government-industry symbiosis), and our ongoing deathgrips on it to the exclusion of truly viable/regenerative ways to live will have predictable and unpredictable repercussions. Acres of forest? I wouldn’t put it past it.
Hello Caelan. It is so good to see you again.
This is like an Oil Drum reunion over here! So many things have changed in the world lately. Very unsettling. It is comforting to jump back into the peak oil fray and find that the basic arguments here haven’t really changed a bit, in spite of all of the changing conditions around us. (I guess.)
Hi Futilitist, thanks, same to you and agreed.
Hi Old farmer mac.
You said:
“ELLEN my dear your comment is absolutely championship quality in terms of demonstrating your ignorance.
I hereby take this opportunity to ask the other regulars if they can remember another one equal to it.”
The above is a good example of a Groupthink mechanism used to enforce conformity of thought. Seems a bit harsh and I think Ellen Anderson’s post has some good points.
”no vegetation will grow on the sites that they have clear cut and scraped clean.
These idiot planners are going to turn the entire earth into a sacrifice zone. Why isn’t that clear to you?”
Futilist, you do not post often enough for me to have an opinion of your general level of knowledge about our natural resource problems.
I have seen solar and wind farms and strip mines and mountain top removal. Gimme wind and solar anyday and twice on Sunday. I have a dozen relatives buried in coal mines in West Virginia – permanently – and more still dieing slowly of black lung but they will all be gone soon.
THANK SKY DADDY I have seen the results of a nuclear accident only at second hand thru news accounts and video and survivors accounts.
EA is an absolutely non thinking business as usual type or a moron or a troll. I know lots of people like her – people who are actually ignorant enough to believe such twaddle.
Their problem is not that they were born stupid but rather than anything that is in their mind associated with the political left is a plot to take over the world and that therefore ANYTHING associated with renewable energy is the work of the devil.
Not many of them want to exchange comments with me more than once or twice.
If we built out wind and solar enough to supply the entire world electricity supply it would take only a very minor fraction of all the land – and less land than is already either converted to biofuel or will be converted to biofuel production within the next decade or so.
ALL the talk about land shortages being a problem for wind and solar power is pure unadulterated ignorant bullshit put out by people who either have an anti renewables agenda or who have not actually ever looked at a few maps.
Wind farms do disrupt local ecologies to some RELATIVELY minor extent – compared to coal mines for instance – but in most cases the only real problem with a wind farm insofar as land is concerned is that the best land for wind farms is a long way from the vast masses of people who need the energy. The bird argument basically devolves to a joke – picture windows and house cats kill a hundred times probably a thousand times as many birds.
The big arguments about fucking up the scenery are made by local people mostly who are understandably upset about having to look at turbines.
I feel for them and I am actually glad that the wind resource in my area is of such low quality that no turbines are likely to be built within sight of my place.
But shit happens to people every day everywhere except maybe if they are the one per centers of the one per centers crowd. And cancer and old age still get them as well.
I am very much a hard core right wing type myself in relation to a lot of issues but I am also one of the rare people who never let their political convictions blind them to PHYSICAL reality.
For what it is worth the left wing has it right just about all the time on science. The right wing is wrong on science half the time – especially environmental science.
There is a zero chance EA knows the difference between DO DO and apple butter when it comes to energy and natural resources unless she is a troll.
Hello Old farmer mac,
You said:
“Futilist, you do not post often enough for me to have an opinion of your general level of knowledge about our natural resource problems.”
First, it’s Futilitist, not Futilist. It is best just to copy and paste people’s names. Second, you should go ahead and assume I have a very high level of knowledge about a wide range of things.
You also said:
“EA is an absolutely non thinking business as usual type or a moron or a troll. I know lots of people like her – people who are actually ignorant enough to believe such twaddle.
Their problem is not that they were born stupid but rather than anything that is in their mind associated with the political left is a plot to take over the world and that therefore ANYTHING associated with renewable energy is the work of the devil.”
Um, what?! You got all of that from her one post? Seriously?
You also said:
“Not many of them want to exchange comments with me more than once or twice.”
I wonder why?
My initial objection to your comment was that rounding up the gang to make fun of Ellen’s statement is a very bad thing to do for a whole bunch of reasons. Your follow-up comment kind of blows my mind.
You also said:
“There is a zero chance EA knows the difference between DO DO and apple butter when it comes to energy and natural resources unless she is a troll.”
Sounds like scapegoating to me.
Thank you, Ron, for hosting free and open discussion/debate on the most important issues of our time (all time?).
“ALL the talk about land shortages being a problem for wind and solar power is pure unadulterated ignorant bullshit put out by people who either have an anti renewables agenda or who have not actually ever looked at a few maps. ”
I find it interesting to go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations
, copy and paste the coordinates of some of the largest into my favorite mapping site and then zoon in and out in the satellite view, just to see how easy they are (not) to spot.
Just to illustrate my point, from the looks of it, we could easily find enough flat land on the tiny mountainous island where I live, to fit the three largest that have been commissioned in the USA! On a good day, that would produce about double the island’s peak power demand. I’ve done the rough calculations before and it would not take an unreasonable amount of land to provide the total electrical energy (GWh) of the island with solar PV. Problem is, as always, the sun don’t shine at 7 p.m., which is when we experience peak demand.
Alan from the islands
Solar panels are NOT made from fossil fuels.
NAOM
To be fair, the Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) used in the typical encapsulation process, plus the typical fluoropolymer backsheet, not to mention the junction box and external wiring insulation is currently made from fossil fuels.
But not much, encapsulant and backsheet typically total about 1 mm thickness.
And people are starting to think about doing more glass-glass modules, and using siliCONES as the encapsulant (more UV resistant, better light transmission).
In any case, one could make EVA from ethanol, or methyl- or ethyl- siloxanes from methanol or ethanol and metallurgical grade silicon (an electric furnace product).
The meme she’s repeating appears to be that since it takes fossil fuels to make PV now, therefore when fossil fuels runs out, we can’t make any more PV.
That is fallacious hogwash.
Any source of electricity will do, wind/hydro/geothermal or solar. Places with large amount of renewables (e.g. Germany, Italy) implicitly make PV with renewable energy today.
BTW – I would be somewhat surprised if BAU could be supported on renewables (though certainly physically possible), since I think we’re too late to afford the transition on the needed scale before society suffers serious economic collapse. But we’ll see….
Perhaps it’s a bit like the Guy McPherson ‘meme’: Even if the meme is problematic, the ‘direction’ is not.
And then there are also the issues surrounding lock-in, draw-down, shipping, toxins in the manufacturing process, maintenance, lifecycles, batteries and so forth.
Pictures that need to be looked at holistically.
Just a couple thoughts.
#1 Solar panels, as with most everything else, are “made” from 3 things: (A) sand, (B) sufficient workforce with practical knowledge of required phyisics/manufacturing/etc, and (C) heat. So, they very much ARE (note the present tense) made from fossil fuels. I’m not arguing it’s the right or best or only way to do it, but it’s the cheapest way to do it, and so that’s the way we do it. And so long as it’s the cheapest way, it will continnue to be so. I’m going to further argue that it will be the cheapest way for long enough to make other ways of looking at the problem mostly irrelevant, except for R&D or one’s own mental acquity. Didn’t stop me getting my share, mind you, I’m a pragmatist.
#2 Current observations suggest to me that, yes, most solar has and will continute to result in the blading of large swaths of open land. Again, I make no assertion as to the moral standing of doing this, it just looks to be the cheapest way. Some individuals will continue to put them on their roof, and all large groups wishing to control some amount of solar (utilities) will find the most expedient location to grade and make putting up the most panels in the fewest space in the least time the cheapest. Heck, here in wasteland, the local utilities are taking ‘laws’ written by Koch lobbiests, putting them on company letterhead, and sending them off to our local moneychangers (we call them politicians). The main desire appears to be to tax and regulate personal ownership of solar into oblivion (it sure isn’t to save the utilities money around here – we use most of our power when the sun *is* shining to run A/C units – rooftop solar is a huge win for our utilites, so not surprising they are trying to kill it, since I have yet to meet an American of any income level acting in their own interest more than 10% of the time…must be something about human nature…but I digress as always).
#3 Honestly, I think some CSP solar plants around here would be a licence to print money (yes, I’m available if you have venture funding ;)…but only if you’re to produce something other than electricity with that heat. PV panels (yea hot sand) comes to mind. Also cement. I can think of no faster way to put our two local cement plants out of biz, than to get some free govt loan guarantees, and build a CSP cement plant. I’m thinking it’s also a perfect spot for a more realistic approach to intermittency too: no sun, no cement. Our 65 cloudy days here are far less than the average salaryman’s days not working, and I know a lot of people already dealing with insanely capricious work schedules who would love to be making decent manufacturing wages instead. Unlike electricity, the timeframe for fluctuations in availability of cement or refined silicon is maybe weeks vs. seconds. Thinking of solar as simply a means to get electricity is maybe the hardest possible way to utilize more solar when you think about it…
Desert
When I started working on PV it cost over $2oo/watt and was only used for spacecraft. Now people say that storage will never be economical. I doubt that. That is where the same sort of effort that reduced the basic cost of PV now will be concentrated and when that nut is cracked most people will be able to become their own electrical power plant with no need what-so-ever for an electrical utility. These monsters will still be around, for industrial purposes and high density cities but even there we see huge amounts of flat roof top space. I am not one of those who believe that technology can solve every problem. But this as they say is not rocket science. We’ll lick the storage issue. Its just time and money.
As was the case with solar PV, the German government seems intent on kick starting the market for storage. See:
Germany to promote solar power storage next month
Solar Energy Storage About To Take Off In Germany and California
Incentives for energy storage spread worldwide
You have to hands it to the Germans. While most othe places sit and whine, the German government has been putting their (taxpaye’rs) money wher their mouth is and trying to get things done. Despite the whining about the cost, the German government has funded and continues to fund an experiment that needs to be done. IMO the world will owe Germany a debt of gratitude in the future for having done this!
Alan from the islands
Millions of EV’s plugged-in to the grid will be part of storage and flexibility function in the future
Those links you show are from 2013. The recent one doesn’t really say anything about energy storage in Germany.
You know, I read most links about solar power. They are all dead ends. The Germans created a disaster and just now they are trying to grapple with the consequences.
They are still adding solar and wind at a high rate in Germany.
About solar:
The government guarantees a feed in tariff at the time of installation for 20 years. The tariff has fallen even faster than the price of PVs, so installations are down.
But even at the lower level of installation, Germany had one of the fastest growth rates for solar as a percentage of total capacity worldwide. Meanwhile PV prices continue to fall, so installations should start picking up again in a few years.
But older systems are still getting the older tariff. It will take time for the older contracts to work through the system.
The last link speaks to the spreading of incentives and I included it because it does mention where the idea of incentives is spreading from as in “Now a growing roster of states and countries is taking up versions of the same idea, creating rules or incentives that will place storage in homes in Japan and Germany, at wind farms in Puerto Rico, along transmission lines in Ontario, and at individual buildings in Manhattan.”
I was responding specifically to the statement, “We’ll lick the storage issue. Its just time and money” and pointing out that there are places that are putting some serious money on the table. If Germany did not create this so called disaster, who could talk about integrating renewables into the grid of a highly industrialsed nation, at levels that far exceed the levels that it was said would cause the grid to collapse. They are not just speculating but. actually running the experiments to determine “what if”.
Alan from the islands
Yes Alan, but the ugly reality is that Germany is into a headlong crash into a concrete wall. They export a lot of that renewable electricity because they can’t use it. The cost is starting to hurt their economy, and they are reaching the end.
I read a lot of feel good solar propaganda which makes those type of fuzzy claims you linked. But the technology just doesn’t work. Those who claim it does are either solar power industry financed, or deceived/unable to do understand the way a large grid has to work in a modern society.
If the Germans had a working brain they would pour money into a huge HIgh Voltage Direct Current set of trunk lines and finance hydropower in the Balkans to deliver the counterpoint to the intermittent wind. What I see is politicians who are in alliances with greens, who in turn are obssessed and lack either the training or the desire to look at this objectively. This solar power issue is getting to be like a religion.
Fernando,
you are talkingh a lot of nonesensen about German electricty generation:
1) German REs are to an large extend wind power. Do not use the PV strawman, you look stupid.
2) The exports are more or less conventional power, it is better for the utilities to export electricity than to reduce conventional production.
(Hint: we had until now no day with higher RE production than German domestic demand).
3) HVDC lines are build to Skandinavia, because Norway and Sweden have a lot underused pumped hydro power that can provide storage. Maybe you are the guy who lacks brain. 🙂
Fernando, just what is the “disaster”?
Who died?
Is the grid less reliable? (No, it’s more reliable).
Carbon IS being replaced as of 2014. See page 7 of:
http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-files-englisch/data-nivc-/electricity-production-from-solar-and-wind-in-germany-2014.pdf
The only disaster is that wholesale prices go low, even negative, trashing the profits and stock value of fossil fuel generators.
They’re trying to fight back by spreading lies.
One had the sense to give up and go with the flow.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-01/eon-split-to-fortify-german-green-energy-transformation
German wholesale prices are the lowest they’ve been since 2002.
http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-files-englisch/data-nivc-/electricity-spot-prices-and-production-data-in-germany-2014.pdf
In May 2014, wholesale prices were over 4 Eurocents/kWh – the level reportedly needed for conventional utilities to break even – on only seven days.
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-wholesale-prices-down-again-in-may/150/537/79199/
The EEG surcharge is stabilizing and in the grand scheme of things isn’t all that big. German funds its public pension plan off a tax on electricity.
The EEG surcharge account is bouncing around with a surplus sometimes lately:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?tag=eeg-surcharge
The thousand or so big industrial consumers in Germany who get an exemption from the EEG surcharge and buy power at wholesale + epsilon are enjoying the lowest rates in Europe.
A FAQ on German PV and German energy in general:
http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/veroeffentlichungen-pdf-dateien-en/studien-und-konzeptpapiere/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf
If it’s such a disaster, why do the vast majority of Germans support the Energiewende?
http://energytransition.de/2012/10/key-findings/
Maybe because Germans aren’t aware they are in trouble? Who knows? The Germans also drink excessive amounts of beer.
Here’s a more professional link with a very brief overview of what goes on in Germany
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-10
Unlike many of you, I read european magazines and white papers published by serious people. Today you can use a search engine about this topic and the top ten items are bullshit written by outfits like clean technica. They are worthless. Here’s another article you can read if you really want to learn about what’s going on
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html
And
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21594336-germanys-new-super-minister-energy-and-economy-has-his-work-cut-out-sunny-windy-costly
You mean Fraunhofer is “bullshit” and “worthless”? Did you even go through that damn presentations Sunnnv been repeatedly posting for the zillionth time? I bet you didn’t because it answers a lot of your misconceptions like
1. “Germany is exporting a lot of its intermittent electricity”. Just look at those monthly, weekly and daily graphs. There is no significant correlation between high renewable production and exports.
2. “High cost of solar is going to destroy Germany” when the latest FIT is just 11-12 Euro Cents per KWH for roof top installations, 8 cents for ground mounted installations and the average FIT for all solar installations from 2000 (when FIT was introduced) has fallen to 30 cents.
You keep dissing Germany and renewables while they march ahead. 8% solar, 10% wind, 12% biomass and 4% hydro in 2014 and only a matter of time before they cross the combined output of brown coal and hard coal (52% and falling like a rock).
Hi Thirunagar,
Fernando knows a lot about the oil industry.
He thinks he knows more than everyone else about most other topics.
When he reads something that confirms what he believes, it is a serious analysis, anything else is crap. Unfortunately we all do this to some degree, engineers maybe a little more than others, they tend to see black and white, very little gray.
People have given you high quality sources as Fraunhofer, one could add AG Energiebilanzen for the useful compilations of secondary data
Only complete idiots would use the Spiegel as serious source for technical discussions, it is not.
Next point is, you may read sources. Do you understand them? I doubt.
To reiterate what said above ‘You mean Fraunhofer is “bullshit” and “worthless”? ‘ but Der Spiegel is a good source of reliable, objective news and data?
Well, Der Spiegel is notoriously anti-renewable and pro coal/nuclear. See:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/myth-busting-germanys-energy-transition/
and
http://blog.rmi.org/separating_fact_from_fiction_in_accounts_of_germanys_renewables_revolution
Both of the above fround on the first page of a Google search for “spiegel anti renewable”.
Having watched interviews with the late Hermann Scheer extensivel, I come out on the side that says entrenched interest are waging a propoganda war on the new paradigm. He made it abundantly clear that the fossil and nuclear power industries were absolutely opposed to the idea of 100% renewable power. Why wouldn’t they be? That idea makes them irrelevant, redundant, obsoltete or whatever word you want to use that highlights that they will no longer need to exist.
You know, this reminds me of the doctors that say vitamins “don’t work” or more specifically that high dosage IV vitamin C does not work because it has not been subjected to double blind, placebo controlled trials. Such trials are almost always funded by pharmaceuticals, seeking approval for patented drugs so, who is going to fund a study that if succesful will put a lot of people out of business? Yet the bad mouthing of vitamins continues. Just like renewables! (sort of)
Alan from the islands
The problem with your magazines is: They spew out industry propaganda at a really high rate.
One prime example ist the “high price of electricity”.
The magazines complain about the high prices households and small businesses pay and then ponder how companies can make a profit with those high prices.
Failing to mention that companies like BASF or Aurubis don’t actually pay such prices. They merely pay wholesale + a tiny amount for using the grid.
The magazines also fail to mention that one third to half of the “EEG-Umlage” (1) paid by households and small businesses does not pay for renewable energy but actually only exists because large power users do not pay “EEG-Umlage”.
They also fail to mention that the privatization of the electricity sector in Germany actually drove prices up, years before PV installation became widespread.
Go to Eurostat and check electricity prices for industrial customers. You’ll be surprised to see that customers in Germany actually only pay about 1 ct more than customers in France, with their “cheap” nuke power. And still less than the average of all EU countries.
Fernando, to not make yourself look like a complete idiot you should get your data from organizations that restrict themselves to merely reporting facts (like AG Energiebilanzen) or do scientific analysis (like Fraunhofer).
Linking to articles wirtten by people with an agenda (e.g. laissez-faire capitalism) or without proper knowledge of the subject (2) gives you a unnecessarily bad reputation.
(1)
A surcharge on the price of electricity to pay for Energiewende in electricity production
(2)
Just look at something as simple as science reporting. Most of the articles in main stream media on science are inacurate, misleading, sensationalist or wrong.
If one can’t trust them on a simple topic they (usually) don’t have an agenda with , why would you trust them with complex stuff where most media have a clear bias or agenda (e.g. politics)?
Gerry – Thanks for some very useful factual insight into this Energiewiende debate.
Thirunagar, what´s bullshit is to determine that solar energy is competitive because it´s increasing. Of course it´s increasing. The German government put in place a set of really perverse and stupid incentives which drive intelligent people to put in panels.
The Germans love their panels and the feel good atmosphere. What they don´t realize is that high electricity prices are going to leave them unemployed. And if this keeps going they are going to be emigrating to Greece to serve Chinese tourists amongst the ruins.
You really should stick to commenting about oil. You do not have good information about what is going on in Germany, and you don’t seem to be able to think calmly and rationally about renewables.
I do have good information. I gave you guys two links from The Economist. They give a quick overview of the problems in Germany. I could link several dozen articles, papers, etc. and it seems you come down to somewaht churlish behavior. Let’s just wait to see what Germany’s actual results are over the next three years, shall we? And let’s hope Merkel and Hollande don’t decide to start a war with Russia. That will definitely distort Germany’s energy outlook.
Hi Fernando,
Do you remember the Economist piece from 1999 called “Drowning in Oil”
http://www.economist.com/node/188131
A quote from the piece:
But low prices will gradually put most such areas out of business—especially if cash-strapped Gulf states conclude that the best way to increase revenues is to boost production, which could drive prices from today’s $10 to as little as $5 (see article). The world will then again depend on a few Middle Eastern countries for half its oil, up from a quarter now.
The Economist presents some excellent stuff, but there are some relatively poor analyses.
Humans make myths. They make fairytales and religions. Did you hear about this ‘helicopter-crash news anchor’? They can figure out a lot of complex things, and say, “Hey, look at me! Aren’t I great?” But they can’t get it together as a collective enough to make anything work as they clutch their technoweapons with their ‘other hands’. I mean work properly, holistically and in harmony with the foundations of life.
That’s the human lot in life (and death).
The Economist is reporting on what’s happening in Germany right now . This isn’t a prediction.
Hi Fernando,
They were also reporting on what was happening in 1999. It is possible that there are some problems in Germany, I haven’t really looked into it.
The difference is that the assumption in 1999 was that the low prices may go even lower. The assumption for the present Economist piece is that any perceived problems will only get worse.
You assume that the problems cannot be solved, possibly you are correct, but economists are not the most technically savvy people and perhaps assume that existing problems (if they exist) cannot be solved. There are a lot of good technical people in Germany, perhaps they all know less than you.
Neither the Germans nor the Russians have forgotten the siege of Stalingrad.
If I were a German I would gladly pay triple for electricity to help ensure the Russians don’t shut off the gas and oil exports someday.
And if I were a Russian- I would probably daydream about putting a real hurt on the grandchildren of the Nazis once in a while- especially if I had lost immediate family in WWII.
This is not to say the Russians are any better or worse than anybody else but merely that they are human.
Anybody who believes in peak oil and other peak natural resources must in my estimation believe that renewable energy technologies are going to be the most important of all technologies within the next half century or so.
The Germans live by exporting. If not renewable energy technology and equipment WHAT are they going to export in twenty or thirty years ?
Now as it happens the Germans are probably taken all around considering the size of the country the most sophisticated industrial economy in the world.
Even so they are having a hard time as Fernando has pointed out making renewables work on the scale they envision.
But – suppose the Germans were located in a place better suited to renewables – say in California where there is plenty of sun and plenty of wind is within reach of HVDC transmission lines ?
I wonder how fast in that case they would be moving towards a mostly fossil free electricity supply ?
Solar installations are down but still among the highest worldwide in Germany. Output is up, of course. Meanwhile wind installations are breaking records, and the long promised off shore business is starting to happen.
http://www.dw.de/wind-power-fuels-transition-to-renewable-energy/a-18224739
Looks like that nut is just about cracked:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/featured/Storage-Is-the-New-Solar-Will-Batteries-and-PV-Create-an-Unstoppable-Hybri
I think the fact that intermittency is beginning to cause problems with various grids, proves that solar is ramping up a lot more quickly than anybody expected. Or at least more quickly than the utilities expected.
John B,
You said:
“I think the fact that intermittency is beginning to cause problems with various grids, proves that solar is ramping up a lot more quickly than anybody expected. Or at least more quickly than the utilities expected.”
I think the fact that intermittency is beginning to cause problems with various grids….proves that longstanding predictions (about the intermittency of solar causing problems with various grids) were basically correct.
Two very different ways to look at the same information.
Hi PE,
The excess electric energy could be dumped into hot water storage to be used later, or into batteries for times when wind and solar are at low levels, or to produce hydrogen for fuel cells, or to charge EV batteries. Use your imagination. Or it could simply be dumped to ground, if there was excess output.
Another possible use for excess energy would be to produce ice for cold storage.
Hi Dennis, I know possible storage include water pumped storage, batteries, hydrogen etc. I am not sure what you mean by hot water storage. Using the electricity to heat water and then use the heat to regenerate electricity? What are the energy losses.
My impression is that each of them has some major limitations.
The excess electricity of course can just be dumped. But then you lower the capacity utilization rate even more. Beyond certain limits, it will no longer make sense to build excess capacity.
Hi PE,
I take hot showers, and use hot water to do so. The water stays hot for a long time in a well insulated tank, during times of excess wind, heat water to be used later. Or make ice to use for cold storage. The most cost effective way to implement wind and solar is to overbuild capacity because it is cheaper than building storage.
Quote from following link:
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/dec/renewable-energy-121012.html
The authors developed a computer model to consider 28 billion combinations of renewable energy sources and storage mechanisms, each tested over four years of historical hourly weather data and electricity demands. The model incorporated data from within a large regional grid called PJM Interconnection, which includes 13 states from New Jersey to Illinois and represents one-fifth of the United States’ total electric grid.
Unlike other studies, the model focused on minimizing costs instead of the traditional approach of matching generation to electricity use. The researchers found that generating more electricity than needed during average hours — in order to meet needs on high-demand but low-wind power hours — would be cheaper than storing excess power for later high demand.
Storage is relatively costly because the storage medium, batteries or hydrogen tanks, must be larger for each additional hour stored.
One of several new findings is that a very large electric system can be run almost entirely on renewable energy.
“For example, using hydrogen for storage, we can run an electric system that today would meeting a need of 72 GW, 99.9 percent of the time, using 17 GW of solar, 68 GW of offshore wind, and 115 GW of inland wind,” said co-author Cory Budischak, instructor in the Energy Management Department at Delaware Technical Community College and former UD student.
Full paper (free download) at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
Abstract
We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold: 1) although a single renewable generator at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And 2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs. Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse renewable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today’s—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.
The paper isn’t practical. That’s the recurring problem. If you read something with hydrogen you can forget it. It’s too expensive.
Many thanks, Dennis. I guess I might be influenced by Ted Trainer’s arguments who thinks winter could be particularly a problem for 100% or near 100% solar world
From the quote you give:
“We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load.”
It might mean the effective capacity utilization rate in a near 100% renewable system could be only 1/3 of the currently observed rate. So the effective capital cost needs to be multiplied by 3. This could be a no small hurdle. Then there is the liquid fuels problem.
Hi Political Economist,
Liquid fuels are handled by using less through public transportation, electric buses, light rail, and trains, more freight by rail, conversion of rail to electric, and less air transport because it will be too expensive. Ships could be powered by nuclear, coal, wind, or biofuels. The liquid fuels problem will be taken care of by higher liquid fuel prices.
Dennis,
How come you have mentioned every other fuel source for shipping except the one that shipping companies and ship engine builders are actually seriously looking at and actually building? ie LNG!!
Also the US rail system, it is much more likely to go with LNG than electric, that is if they every move off oil. The rail system is so much more efficient than road transport in fuel use, that the high the oil price goes the more business they attract.
The problem with electric for rail in the USA, is that they have been extremely efficient in developing double stacked container trains. Currently the railways are spending 10’s of billions in raising the clearance under bridges and in tunnels just to fit double stacked trains. To run a 25kw overhead wire would require at least another 6 to 8ft of clearance under the same bridges and tunnels. You will be talking 100s of billions of dollars. I can not see it happening as the environment that would force them go electric, would also be driving more business their way, and the available capital would be required for capacity expansions. LNG conversion, seems cheap by comparison and much more flexible.
Hi Toolpush,
I did not include LNG because I am looking many years into the future. Natural gas will also peak and the price will become prohibitive. It will be cheaper in the future to stop double stacking and convert to electric drive trains, I don’t expect this will happen tomorrow, it will have to wait for natural gas prices to rise. A conversion to LNG will be a bad investment once natural gas peaks.
I expect Natural gas will peak between 2020 and 2030. So I don’t think LNG is as viable long term.
Dennis,
When Natural gas peaks, it will be because its use in the electrical power industry has gone viral. As you are aware production of electricity has the most flexibility in its choice of fuel, due to its stationary nature.
I would feel LNG in rail, would easily out bid the electrical generators for Nat gas, and the idea of spending 100s of billions to electrify a system and cut its efficiency in half would be a very hard sell indeed.
Hi Toolpush,
First, assume US natural gas prices rise to the World price level (that is what will happen when we start exporting LNG.) As wind and solar become more widespread, electricity prices may drop. The conversion to LNG trains will not be without cost and Natural gas prices will rise further as natural gas peaks.
It is possible that the assumptions underlying your analysis is that Natural gas will never peak, remember that the EIA forecast for natural Gas is just as bad as their oil forecasts. It may be that by spending billions of dollars on electrification that long term costs in terms of NPV will be cheaper.
I guess we will just have to disagree. LNG is not the way forward, we will end up with stranded investments as natural gas prices rise.
Hi Political economist,
Another point about that University of Delaware research is that the minimum cost system is mostly wind and the bulk of the wind power is onshore, over time solar costs will come down and a cost minimized system would include a higher proportion of solar. There are not many arguing that 100% solar would work well (unless backed up by pumped hydro, batteries, fuel cells, or vehicle to grid, or all of these together). The point of the paper was to show that a cost minimized system could provide up to 99% of load hours at 2030 prices, no technological breakthroughs are assumed, just normal cost reductions typical of developing technologies as they mature and efficiencies of scale take effect.
Or it could be used intermittently by someone with the right business model.
I agree. This would be a system suitable for a shop selling canned goods in an open air market.
The intermittency problem of wind and solar cannot be easily overcome..
I strongly disagree. See Isentropic Ltd. Fly wheels are improving also. Some photovoltaics incorporate storage in the cells now. I predict sharply decreasing electricity storage costs over the next 10 years.
If you include storage, the EROEI may collapse.
See
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-01-21/our-renewable-future
“Crucially, a recent study by Weissbach et al. compared the full-lifecycle energy economics of various types of power plants and found that once the intermittency of solar and wind energy is buffered by storage technologies, these sources become far less efficient than coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants; indeed, once storage is added, solar and wind fall “below the economical threshold” of long-term viability, regardless of the falling dollar price of panels and turbines themselves. “
Yes, that has been my argument all along. The wind don’t always blow and the sun don’t always shine so these sources can never stand alone. You must add the cost of storage and then the price goes through the roof.
No, the scale of required storage, and therefore cost, is reduced by continued reductions in demand and geographical and generation type spread.
We are doing more with less, and this will continue, wind blows here while not there, and at night, power use can be time shifted with the cost of storage covered by the user not the supplier. For example charging EVs at night and using them during the day. Heating or cooling water/freezers etc at night at and not during peak draw hours. Wind does blow at night and when sufficiently networked will be blowing somewhere. Solar time shifting systems like Molten salt are being developed and becoming cost effective.
Your logic needs to be backed up by a realistic working model. Thus far nobody has been able to find a solution.
DC’s link above for example.:
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/dec/renewable-energy-121012.html
That is not a realistic working model. There’s a lot of low quality dreamy fluff floating around in articles. If you want me to change my mind I need to see a detailed study discussing the nature of their model and what are their assumptions on cost, including financing, and the tax subsidies or legal regime they have assumed.
Not a realistic model? Really? They tested 28 billion combinations with/without storage, with/without fossil fuels, different capacity builts, different renewable penetrations with real time data of over 4 years oer 1/5th of United states and I assume you have gone through each one of that?
You need a detailed study discussing the nature of their model, assumptions on costs, subsidies and legal regime assumed? Here is an idea – click on the link to the study and read! Its free for crying out loud.
From a person who wants to see a realistic model, I would really like to see a detailed rebuttal giving your assumptions and logic on why such an exhaustive study is not workable beyond the simplistic “it wont work because I think so”
Hi Fernando,
Try reading the paper.
The brief study description in that article shows it´s not a realistic model. You can build an excel model using macros, run it several billion times, graph the data and you will still have an unrealistic model. Agree?
That is not a realistic working model.
I would assume that means that at the very least you have bypassed the article and gone to the actual paper. And read the discussion about the model which is contained in Apendix A, yes?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
Excerpt first paragraph:
RREEOM model
The Regional Renewable Electricity Economic Optimization Model (RREEOM) takes as inputs the costs of each type of generation or storage technology, a constraint to fully meet load for a set % of hours (“percent coverage”), a maximum limit for each resource, and hourly weather and load. The output is a single most cost-effective combination of renewable types and storage capacity, to meet the percentage coverage of hours with the given type of storage. The model does not prohibit over capacity; the capability for excess generation above load and filling storage has no negative or positive value in the optimization other than its effect on the cost. (In the real-time management of a power system, excess generation is avoided simply by turning down fuel input to thermal generators, feathering the blades of wind turbines, or switching off solar inverters; excess capacity is not a management problem, only a potential economic problem.) The model calculates renewable generation each hour from the given inputs (solar photovoltaics, offshore wind, inland wind) and subtracts that from the same hour’s load. If there is excess generation it is put into storage. If instead load exceeds generation, then the model draws energy out of storage. If load exceeds generation and there is not enough in storage, the hour is counted as failing to make load from renewables. The standby losses from storage are also calculated and subtracted from energy in storage each hour. A flow chart of the simulation is in Fig. 2.
I have this sneaking suspicion this isn’t just an excel model using macros…
Looking forward to hearing your detailed step by step rebuttal and your analysis as to why their model is unrealistic.
Cheers!
It could be its not an excel model. But I’m still not seeing a description of a working model. Let me give you an example. Have you seen the DICE description?
Yes I have seen the DICE description. If you are asking me if I have ever downloaded it and run scenarios on it, no I have not.
And you have read the paper at the link I provided and have read the parameters, discussion, conclusion and a the full description of their model as listed in Apendix A and you are still not satisfied?
Well, all of the authors emails are listed so may wish to contact them directly and ask the for a working description of their model. I’m sure they are much better qualified than myself to answer any questions about it that you may have.
“Why do complex societies become vulnerable to the very kinds of stress which, at an earlier time in its history, the society in question would simply shrug off? Tainter’s answer lies with complexity, itself, and the law of diminishing returns. As a society becomes more complex, greater complexity becomes more costly. The escalation of complexity becomes increasingly difficult to maintain, until it finally becomes impossible.” ~ Jason Godesky
…and people fall over. ^u^
I read the paper. I also read some of the references. My criticism is based on two main issues:
1. There isn’t enough description anywhere to understand how they expect to handle power surges in a system with a large offshore wind component.
2) they have unsupported (grabbed out of the air) cost basis. This becomes evident if one follows the thread for specific items. For example reference #20, a simple NREL report which discusses hydrogen storage. That’s a very dreamy piece, assumes costs but there’s no description of what needs to be done to get there (“research it” doesn’t cut it).
These university types aren’t that different from the dreamers we got in corporate R&D. I’ve done my share of dreaming. But eventually these fuzzy ideas have to be turned into reality. So…show me a viable gydrogen generation and geologic storage system and I’ll give this work a C minus. Otherwise it remains as an example of a teaching tool (there’s nothing wrong with using these studies to teach students, but PLEASE don’t expect us adults to back a mega project based on this product.
fyi, some of university types….
http://www.udel.edu/iec/
On Power surges for offshore wind the solution is pretty simple, if power output is too high the blades on the turbines are feathered to reduce power output, this feature is not new. Excess output can easily be dumped to ground if necessary.
There is a fair amount of detail in the paper, the paper assumes no subsidies for renewables, but includes externalities in the cost of fossil fuel power generation, it does not assume that cross sector subsidies for fossil fuel and nuclear generation are removed and including these would have raised fossil and nuclear generation costs (if the subsidies had been added to the cost of the legacy power plants). No tax incentives are assumed, financing is at typical rates for these types of projects in the US.
First 100% renewable US City?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXOYsYCukY8
No, the cost of storage is not “through the roof”.
I have 12 KW of PV solar and 12 KWH of batteries, more than enough to power the house overnight and on cloudy days (not including big loads such as air conditioning).
12 KWH of batteries cost $3000 and last 10 years, $300 per year or $25 per month. Nobody wants to pay $25 per month if they don’t have to, but on the other hand it is minor compared to a lot of other bills.
Note that Weissbach is affiliated with
Institut für Festkörper-Kernphysik gGmbH
(Institute for solid state nuclear physics non-profit_limited_liability_company).
Marco Raugei et. al. did a rebuttal
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214014327
I haven’t bothered going to the library or shelling out the $35 per either paper,
but I do note that:
(A) In Germany, E.ON shut down the Stadt nuclear power plant due to economics – they couldn’t afford the cost of cooling water once the state of Lower Saxony started charging for river water, as well as other economic factors.
http://www.eon.com/content/dam/eon-content-pool/eon/company-asset-finder/asset-profiles/stade-power-plant/kernkraft-decommissioning_Stade_en.pdf
(B) When I got my first PV system in 2000, I paid about $10/Wp, which was about $8/Wp for the PV and inverters, and an additional $2/Wp for about a day of battery backup. The same PV system would be $2/Wp in Germany or $4/Wp in the US (due to soft costs), so the batteries would be more percentage-wise, but no more in cost.
And cost MUST include AT LEAST the embedded energy.
Given the plethora of real energy payback studies showing crystalline silicon PV at 2 year or less,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927024813004455
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.2363/abstract
and that energy is in the costs, then to a first approximation, the batteries have similar energy costs (and are far more easily recycled).
Given a 25-30 year lifetime of the panels, and 10-20 year battery lifetime,
for Weissbach to claim “order of magnitude” worse EROEI for PV over nuclear has to be wrong.
Worst case, over 20 years, with 10 year battery life, 2 year PV system EPBT, the PV system had to generate 6 years of energy to “pay” for itself and 2 sets of batteries, but I still profit 14 years of energy. Not great (though this is a worst case), but beats “starving while freezing in the dark”.
Must be a bitter pill to swallow to have one’s career in nuclear physics, and have the industry shut down due to politics and others’ (e.g. TEPCO) stupidity.
I do wish them luck with their dual fluid molten-salt reactor, they’ll need it.
http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/dfr
They do rag on PV for only being 10% efficient, which is very old data.
And I’m not sold on all their claims – but still an interesting idea to harden the neutron spectrum in a reasonable way.
Hi PE,
It is cheaper to overbuild onshore wind than to build a lot of storage.
Dennis, that may not be right. I suspect many who try offshore wind will be shocked by the maintenance costs. I like the way some projects use existing hydropower dams and pump the water back to the reservoir using excess wind power.
Wind and solar do make good companions, on days with little sun the wind tends to be strong. Depending on the area, like in southern CA, the peak loads due to air-conditioning tend to happen and the same time as peak solar during the day. Together, they can work better then you expect.
Also, it CA we got used to brown-outs back when Enron was gaming the system (those old traditional fossil fuel power sources have proven to be unreliable when manged purely for profit) . Now they are thinking ahead and wring homes and businesses with controls – they can ask your refrigerator to stay off or they can adjust your thermostat if power is in short supply. Its only a minor inconvenience, and can save a lot in storage costs.
Hi Fernando,
I said onshore not offshore. The UDelaware study has very little offshore wind and uses several different possible sources for storage, hydrogen, batteries, or vehicle to grid. Natural gas spinning reserve could be easily used for backup, the storage is a very small part of the minimum cost system, you are nitpicking.
The point of the study is to answer people like you that say it can’t be done. Saying fuel cells are expensive shows poor reading comprehension on your part.
Power surges from offshore wind are easily handled, above a certain output excess energy is simply dumped to ground.
Do you think offshore wind developers have not thought of this?
Really?
Yes, really. I think they are incredibly stupid. But I also think the space shuttle and the space station were terrible decisions. So is the F35 fighter. And the B2 bomber. BPs Macondo well design and execution were terrible. And Shell’s Chukchi project must have been managed by a power point engineer.
Hi Fernando,
Your arrogance is astounding. You are not the only smart engineer in the world, sometimes your comments show your age, it is hard for old men to think outside the box, though Old Farmer Mac is a notable exception.
As I said, offshore wind could be eliminated from the U Delaware study with very little effect, most of the power comes from onshore wind with very small contributions from offshore wind and solar.
As I said before, read carefully, try to keep an open mind, use a pry bar if necessary 🙂
Pry bar not enough.
Perhaps a jackhammer? 🙂
-Lloyd
The U Delaware study is full of holes. As I mentioned, they have a serious problem with their cost estimates. They assume hydrogen storage in geologic formations, use unsupported costs.
Hi Fernando,
Offshore wind is a very small port of the minimum cost mix, this could just be eliminated, problem solved. Several different backup sources are used, fuel cells could also be eliminated from the mix, don’t like batteries, eliminate those as well and use natural gas as backup.
You really lack imagination to the extreme.
Both wind and solar are on exponential growth paths. Solar is doubling every twoish years. Likewise, there are plenty of efficiency options which are all net cost savers (i.e economy grows). What is the value of a used lithium battery? In, other words are there chemistries out/coming with decades of storage in the secondary market? If lithium batteries are currently $70 a kWh on a processed inputs basis, $100 a kWh is a high number for new storage projections and possibly double what we’ll see.
“The intermittency problem of wind and solar cannot be easily overcome.” This is a big mistake to assume that we need 24/7 constant energy to meet our power needs. I have traveled extensively in third world countries where intermittent power is normal. You can buy fridges that stay cold for half a day after the power is turned off. Water can also stay hot in insulated storage tanks. I imagine a similar thermal inertia system could be designed for cooking and heating.
Air conditioning is mainly required for hot and sunny days when solar should be available in abundance. That leaves relatively low energy appliances such as light, computers etc. that could be powered by battery storage. Laptops already have that built in.
If electricity rates were variable based on renewable power availability, i.e. you pay the least on a windy day and sunny day, users would quickly alter their usage patterns. Perhaps one day, we can buy washing machines that can be set to work during times of energy abundance.
great comment Mike. The biggest energy / resource revolution has to come from changing the way we use stuff.
Agree!
Biggest mistaken assumption is that we have to have everything exactly as it is now to live well. We can’t and we won’t. Much of what we will shed will not be missed at all. It’s already happening. Which is a better city to live in than Copengagen now or Copenhagen in the oil waste years of the sixties, when even the Danes tried to follow LA and ram ICE vehicles in everywhere.
Big challenges and big changes ahead. But no certainty at all that it will be worse, will not because of a less carbon intensive future anyway. But maybe this is too hard for some who have lived their entire lives working at the heart of the 20thC technological model to grasp?
I guess we have to plan on living like Zambians or Cubans?
Here’s a video about Cuba it’s english with spanish subtitles
http://dieta-politica-religion.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/video-el-lado-oscuro-de-cubacubas-dark.html
As a matter of fact, I have just returned from Ethiopia, the cradle of mankind (and coffee!). I have been to Zambia a couple of years ago. Those countries have a two tiered society. One of the old ways which were sustainable and have been around for thousands of years. The other is the new “developing” way, where all the western do-gooders bring their wasteful ways and call it progress. I always get the sense that those countries will end up leading the resilient way of life after oil has become too expensive. The rest of the world has long forgotten how to extract a living from the land by simple means. It is not a way of WANTING to live like that. In absence of alternatives to oil we will be FORCED back to simpler ways.
I used to work in Africa. And I don’t relish living like an Ethiopian farmer. That’s all very romantic until you have a child with appendicitis in the middle of nowhere.
I used to work in Africa. And I don’t relish living like an Ethiopian farmer. That’s all very romantic until you have a child with appendicitis in the middle of nowhere.
But you haven’t proposed any solutions. If the oil runs out, if nuclear plants aren’t going up, if you think all forms of renewable energy don’t work, what is there other than the above scenario anyway? Going back to coal and the 19th century with lots of pollution?
Boomer, I don’t have any solutions. My advice to Americans is to buy smaller vehicles, drive them slowly, start moving close to work, and build much smaller houses. I think pragmatic efficiency measures are useful, and they don’t require we embrace our inner peasant and move to a comune to grow organic tomatoes.
You see, the basic difference between us is that I’m very hardnosed and was trained to look over large scale industrial projects. And what I see being proposed doesn’t pass the smell test. It has way too many holes.
Look, I’ve had professionals I worked with scream at me, call me Dr No, try to wait until I went on vacation to get things approved, and put large screws in my back when they thought they had me anesthetized. But I got paid extremely well to be what you may call the Assurance Guy. So now I do what I always did. And I can’t give you any assurance that your plans will work.
We are VERY fortunate to have Fernando join us here in this forum and everybody who is SERIOUS should thank him for doing so.
NOTE that he SAYS he does not have the answers rather than supporting business as usual.
Now as it happens I take his arguments very seriously indeed with the caveat that as fossil fuels get progressively more expensive that we WILL CHANGE our happy go lucky ways of wasting them much faster than most people think we will – or at least much faster than the doom and gloom crowd thinks we will.Faster in my opinion that Fernando thinks we will.
Big government is the only counter balance we really have to big business and big industry. Yes FOLKS you are reading OFM the ONLY self identified hard core CONSERVATIVE who comments here on a regular basis.
Big government looks after itself first and then about equally after people and big business and big industry in western countries.
(LEVIATHAN -the modern nation state- is a slow moving hidebound monster but a monster with lots of feelers and sensors out – eyes and ears everywhere and the strongest drive to survive of any life form- and yes the nation state is a life form in exactly the same sense as a HERD of bison or a PACK of wolves or a COLONY of ants. Darwinian evolution is alive and well children ( in the metaphorical sense ) and the nation state is it’s latest big invention and the most impressive one ever maybe. This is not to say it will last as long as dinosaurs and it certainly won’t outlast cockroaches.)
Leviathan can and does FORCE change -and will force energy conservation measures down the throats of business and consumer just like I force a pill down the throat of a puppy that needs worm medicine. Maybe not soon enough – almost for sure not soon enough to save most of the world from a collapse associated with actual energy shortages and the CONSEQUENCES of using energy wastefully as we have in the past- these consequences being overpopulation , environmental destruction generally, climate troubles to come in particular etc.
We have been getting our Pearl Harbor wake up events in minor form for a long time – but so far they are minor licks upside the head with small pebbles instead of bricks and only the ones of us more attuned to such things have taken notice- so far. Even so we have at least mandated more efficient and cleaner automobiles and provided substantial sums of money to the renewables industries to help jumpstart a transition to renewables.
IT DOES NOT MATTER that nobody has a plan at the moment that meets Fernando the engineers high standards. He himself has in so many words said he does not have the answers. He acknowledges peak oil as an eventual reality.
Dammit to HELL folks- am I the ONLY person here who understands that life including human life is basically ALL sharks and minnows?
We do not exist to do things wisely or well. Half of what we do as individuals and groups is extremely harmful to the other half of our own species and to ourselves. This is natures way. I don’t hear CRAP from the bau crowd about how wasteful it is to keep on building freeways and airports. Such things are very useful to the bau faction – for now- so they support building more of them.
Now there are always some people who are looking out for themselves AND others who see deeper into problems -Fernando is one of this particular ”US” as opposed to the bau ”THEM”’opposing factions.
What we have to understand is that building out renewables to the extent we can NOW will HELP later on when fossil fuels are more expensive and in shorter supply.
It may be useful to think of the support the renewables industries are getting NOW as in the same class of expenditure than Western Europe got from the fortune we spent on NATO for the last half century plus. The specific threat then was the old USSR of course. The threat now is an energy crisis.
So far as I can see we have NO CHOICE other than either collapse or working towards a combination of renewables and a low energy lifestyle supported by the remaining endowment of fossil fuels. I will not put nuclear power in either camp as either renewable or non renewable given the nature of it. It can be legitimately thought of both ways in terms of the next few centuries at least.
It pays to read history and fiction.
”All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’ – Gandalf the Grey
We are not going to solve all our problems this year or next or next decade or even next century.
All we can do is what we can do. Doing nothing is giving up. Giving up is for sheep.
We are morally compelled ( and yes morality is part of Darwinism) to do what we can to ensure the survival of our children and grandchildren.
Renewables are part of the solution.
We better be getting and keeping our asses in gear in respect to renewables but this does not mean ignoring the expertise offered by people such as Fernando.
They say Custer’s scouts – men who understood Indians better than he did – told him not to go where he did – to a place he got massacred- and for what it is worth imo he got what he deserved and the Indians were in the right to massacre him as I see things.
Collapse for all of us may be very well baked in already and humanity and industrial civilization are no more going to last forever than I am to sprout wings and fly.
But we will find the ways and means to get by with a hell of a lot less energy and still live well- some of us at least.
If we were to start spending just what we do on booze and cosmetics on renewables and energy storage we could probably lick the problems to a degree sufficient to postpone the energy criss half a century or more.
The price of one new car added to a new house is enough to make it pretty damned close to a net zero house even today.
If I were a young man I could build a house myself without spending one thin dime on an architect or engineer that would come close and buy ninety nine percent of the materials at the local big box building supply TODAY excepting the appliances and pv system.
I have talked to somebody who uses a chest freezer as a refrigerator for years now off grid- he has yet to throw out the first jug of milk because half the space is full of frozen cartons of water and the other half is closed of and partially insulated to keep it ABOVE freezing temperature. It stays cold for a whole week and his pv system has not yet failed for a week at a stretch to provide enough juice to keep the ice frozen.
With the addition of a very small lithium ion battery and a very small fan and a couple of sensors this sort of refrigerator could be built commercially for very little more than an ordinary refrigerator. It would take a little more steel and a little more insulation but space is not really a problem in a mc mansion.
I can turn my forty gallon hot water heater off and it STAYS hot for a week – if I don’t use any hot water- simply because I put a slab of foam insulation under it and packed the closet space around it with a fiber glass batts. It used to stay hot two days or so before I added the insulation.
It would be a trivial expense compared to the savings in fossil fuels over a decade or two to buy a hundred gallon water heater and super insulate it and run it on intermittent wind and solar power and the SMART grid IS going to be here within a few more years.
Building a few thousand miles of hvdc transmission lines is not going to be a cheap undertaking – nor is building a huge number of wind and solar farms – but building these things is going to be preferable by far to doing without electricity- and they will AT LEAST enable us to stretch out the fossil fuel supply by decades .
(LEVIATHAN -the modern nation state- is a slow moving hidebound monster but a monster with lots of feelers and sensors out – eyes and ears everywhere and the strongest drive to survive of any life form- and yes the nation state is a life form in exactly the same sense as a HERD of bison or a PACK of wolves or a COLONY of ants.
That is an absolutely perfect analogy!
OFM, have you read ‘The Mind’s I’?
BY DOUGLAS R. HOFSTADTER AND DANIEL C. DENNETT
http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-11-prelude-ant-fugue.html
Excerpt from Chapter 11: Prelude . . . Ant Fugue
Achilles and the Tortoise have come to the residence of their friend the Crab, to make the acquaintance of one of his friends, the Anteater. The introductions having been made, the four of them settle down to tea…
…TORTOISE: There, there, Achilles-don’t feel bad. I’m sure you won t miss Fugue’s Last Fermata (which is coming up quite soon). But, to return to our previous topic, Dr. Anteater, what is the very sad story which you alluded to, concerning the former owner of Aunt Hillary’s
property?
ANTEATER: The former owner was an extraordinary individual, one of the most creative ant colonies who ever lived. His name was Johant Sebastiant Fermant, and he was a mathematiciant by vocation, but a musiciant by avocation.
ACHILLES: How very versatile of him!
ANTEATER: At the height of his creative powers, he met with a most untimely demise. One day, a very hot summer day, he was out soaking up the warmth, when a freak thundershower-the kind that hits only once every hundred years or so-appeared from out of the blue and thoroughly drenched J. S. F. Since the storm came utterly without warning, the ants got completely disoriented and confused. The
intricate organization that had been so finely built up over decades all went down the drain in a matter of minutes. It was tragic.
ACHILLES: Do you mean that all the ants drowned, which obvious would spell the end of poor J. S. F.?
ANTEATER. Actually, no. The ants managed to survive, every last one them, by crawling onto various sticks and logs that floated above tl raging torrents. But when the waters receded and left the ants back on their home grounds, there was no organization left. The cas distribution was utterly destroyed, and the ants themselves had r ability to reconstruct what had once before been such a finely tune organization. They were as helpless as the pieces of Humpty Dump in putting themselves back together again. I myself tried, like all ti king’s horses and all the king’s men, to put poor Fermant together again. I faithfully put out sugar and cheese, hoping against hope that somehow Fermant would reappear . . . (Pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his eyes.)
ACHILLES: How valiant of you! I never knew Anteaters had such bi hearts.
ANTEATER: But it was all to no avail. He was gone, beyond reconstitution. However, something very strange then began to take place, over the next few months, the ants that had been components of, S. F. slowly regrouped, and built up a new organization. And thus was Aunt Hillary born.
CRAB: Remarkable! Aunt Hillary is composed of the very same ants Fermant was?
ANTEATER: Well, originally she was, yes. By now, some of the older an have died, and been replaced. But there are still many holdover from the J. S. F.-days.
CRAB: And can’t you recognize some of J. S. F.’s old traits coming to the fore, from time to time, in Aunt Hillary?
ANTEATER: Not a one. They have nothing in common. And there is n reason they should, as I see it. There are, after all, often sever distinct ways to rearrange a group of parts to form a “sum.” An Aunt Hillary was just a new “sum” of the old parts. Not more tha the sum, mind you just that particular kind of sum.”
My point, if you have read this far, …( and I recommend reading the full chapter or even the book)… is that Leviathan or the Nation State can be destroyed in a flash even while all its individual components remain relatively intact and out of the ashes if you will, a completely new Phoenix might arise that has no resemblance whatsoever to the previous Leviathan. BAU is the current leviathan’s mind state but that is in its final throes.
I doubt there are too many who are even trying to follow my thinking here, so I’ll just shut up now >;-)
Cheers!
Fred
Fred – Pls. don’t ever shut up on here…
Amen to that, Fred…
Incidentally, I came up just last month with a kind of formative hypotheses and/or thought-experiment that uses ants (or bees or similar) with regard to how life may actually be fair, just not in the way that people think and why “(neo-)feudalism” works for ants but not for humans.
It goes something like this:
Unlike human queens, such as Queen Elizabeth (QE), ant queens apparently relinquish/equably-trade many freedoms with the rest of the colony’s members, like the workers and soldiers, to stay at home all day and poop out hundreds of eggs.
While worker ants don’t have the privilege of doing so, and have to work, they do have the benefit that the queen doesn’t seem to have of moving out and about under the sun and in the fresh air.
By contrast, human queens, like QE, or corporate or political “kings” and “queens” so to speak and whatever have we, want to eat all their land, resource, manufacturing and media cakes and have them too.
I think this makes a huge difference with why ant colonies ostensibly last forever and human “colonies” collapse.
No more like Germans, actually. Are you so old and stuck that you can only conceive the world as between capitalism and communism? Such an oversimplified binary world view that makes me wonder if sometimes engineering skills don’t create some strange shadow in people’s minds when they try to consider other subjects…?
“The intermittency problem of wind and solar cannot be easily overcome.” This is a big mistake to assume that we need 24/7 constant energy to meet our power needs. I have traveled extensively in third world countries where intermittent power is normal. You can buy fridges that stay cold for half a day after the power is turned off. Water can also stay hot in insulated storage tanks. I imagine a similar thermal inertia system could be designed for cooking and heating.
That’s my thinking too.
Many people here acknowledge that business as usual can’t continue. But then if you suggest the use of alternative energy technologies, people say they won’t work because they won’t support business as usual.
Yes, the future will look different than the present. But a lot of things we take for granted aren’t really necessary.
I think areas which don’t have the legacy systems that the US has will be able to leapfrog ahead on some energy concepts because they won’t be hampered trying to fit innovations into an old system.
Over the last couple of days, after reading so many comments about how inflexible current grid systems are, I’ve been researching developments in distributed generation. Aside from the fact that some companies want to do it to have more control over their own power, and some places need to do it because there isn’t a grid, some articles have pointed out that distributed generation (especially mobile units) may become more valuable with an increase in natural disasters.
Here’s something about all that.
http://theenergycollective.com/evanjohnst/356781/microgrids-ushering-new-era-electricity-generation
Here’s another article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/nyregion/state-energy-plan-would-alter-new-york-utilities.html
New York State is proposing to turn its electric utilities into a new kind of entity that would buy electricity from hundreds or thousands of small generators and set prices for that electricity and for the costs of running the power grid.
I suppose we will see a rush out of New York heading for friendlier pastures.
Walking zombies (or something similar) in Germany, rush out of New York.. you need to do a lot of explaining if you still keep posting (and the blog exists) by 2020.
Yes, and you have already said people will be leaving California in droves.
I guess we’ll see.
New York may be preparing for more hurricanes where the grid gets knocked out for a long time. Decentralized power generation offers more flexibility.
I think you are seeing the Internet millionaires embracing a system where there is no centralized control of energy just as there is no centralized control of the Internet.
The internet millionaires may have to learn to make energy without the massive subsidies they use in Germany. A move by the Google guys into energy is about as profitable for them as Exxon trying to manufacture solar panels.
Keep in mind that some of these guys have enough money to fund their own space program.
Launching coke cans into space? It’s not the same.
Another major area of bad design are commercial and office buildings that are built mostly with electric ventilation. For the simple pleasure of getting some fresh air, you have to turn on a pump and burn some coal or uranium to keep the thing going. Planners would do well to work with nature and use natural light and natural ventilation where possible. This could save huge amounts of electricity and hence oil too, as oil powered machines mine the coal and powers the barges and trucks to take it to the power plant.
Easy to do. A chimney is a heat engine, very low temp, very low efficiency but SIMPLE. Chimneys work on temp (density)difference between two air columns, one outside, one in the chimney.
In a big tall bldg, real simple to make a chimney that would do anything you want with air flows inside just using all that heat that has to be rejected anyhow.
Lots of examples, dating back thousands of yrs.
I wonder if the EIA gave 25-year predictions 25 to 30 years ago, and how they actually panned out.
Does anyone have the data?
haha
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/archive/longterm.pdf
Year 2000 predictions by EIA.
picture 1
picture 2
picture 3
Am I correct in saying that we are around 28 Bbbl/year of oil in 2015. This is below the “low economic growth” line. Maybe this is due to prices higher than $28.
The EIA predictions are for all liquids, so in 2014 estimated all liquids would be about 32 Gb/year, C+C output is about 28 Gb/year. So the Low economic growth case looks closest to the mark.
In year 2000, the EIA seems to be ballparking a peak around 2040.
Picture 4. Look at the mean, closest expected peak in 2030 at 173 million barrels per day.
1. This table summarizes EIA results based on the 3 USGS ultimate recovery volumes, 4 annual production
growth rates, and a production decline after the peak at a constant reserves to production ratio of 10.
2. EIA estimates that, based on recent USGS estimates of the global oil resource base, worldwide oil
production is likely to continue increasing for more than three decades.
3. EIA’s estimated production peaks are generally later in time than those estimated by other analysts.
4. EIA’s relative optimism is based on:
(1) use of the current USGS world conventional oil resource estimates, which are both larger and
more technically sound than past resource estimates used by others, and
(2) use of a methodology for estimating the post-peak production path that is based on the reserve to
production (R/P) ratio observed in the United States since oil production peaked in 1970.
Thanks canabuck for the link.
Taking the long perspective, even the optimistic EIA sees big, big changes in the next 25 years compared with the previous 25 years. If all goes well health-wise for me, that puts me just into my retirement years.
How can one plan for such an event?
Seeing how few saw the LTO Shale revolution, and oil price crash, I doubt if we can plan for such an event.
I think one has to try to be energy thrifty. We can work to change culture to emphasize driving smaller more fuel efficient vehicles, putting in very efficient double pane windows, and things like that.
If you go to the IEO page:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/
Hidden down at the bottom is a “Previous Editions of the IEO” pull-down list.
The button only goes back to 2006, but “see all” goes back to 1995.
20 $/bbl (in 1998 dollars) from 2000 to 2020 says the IEO 2000.
Uh, was inflation that much ??? 😉
Personally I believe economic growth everything else held equal can continue with energy supplies shrinking so long as the shrinkage is S L O W and fairly steady. Engineers and business men in general are actually pretty damned good at improving efficiency right across the board -energy efficiency is no exception. If energy supplies shrink at one percent and efficiency improves at two percent there is at least some margin for growth as far as energy is concerned. Consumers are on average slow learners in my opinion but they do change their ways slowly -just about every body I know including a couple of republicans who swore they would never buy a CFL bulb and stocked up with a closet full of incadesents have some cfls now and even a few LEDS.
I gave them first cfl and later LED bulbs as gifts.. and after they see that one can be left in steady use for two or three years as an auto on and off night light they will start buying them. As dumb as they are about such things they do understand that heat equals money and that a hot bulb is wasting their money especially when the ac is on.And that a bulb that costs only a dollar is no bargain if it has to be replaced every few months compared to one that costs ten bucks that lasts twenty or thirty times as long.
Having excess capacity in a system is not a bad thing if you can afford it. We kept a big truck on our place for many years even though we actually needed THAT BIG a truck only a few times a year.Having our own was cheaper than hiring one since we used it lots of days at one quarter or one half of it’s actual capacity.
We couldn’t afford NOT to have this excess truck capacity three hundred fifty days a year. The last fifteen days justified the cost and then some.
We could have used a truck half as big more efficiently most days no doubt. But the pencil said that the bigger truck was the best deal all the way around.
I think it is reasonable to assume it will be cheaper eventually to have some excess renewable production that will have to be ” dumped” than it will be to pay for fossil fuel to compensate for the lack of so much renewable capacity on other days.
If we can eventually have say seventy five percent of our personal cars powered by wind and sun which does NOT seem to be an impossibility to me this would have a powerful effect in terms of LOWERING the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. A proper accounting of this savings in paying for oil would go a long way towards justifying the investment in renewables.
Imo the naysayers who say it can’t be done because of this or that reason are just refusing to think. The grid WILL be upgraded so as to handle renewables. Batteries WILL get cheaper and work better as well. Houses and appliances WILL be built and manufactured to take advantage of intermittent renewable electricity.
These things will happen because they MUST in order to avoid falling living standards. Assuming the economy doesn’t crash due to fossil fuel prices rising too fast of course.
Just want say theres allways a good side to most things ,like the old lightbulbs.
In the old days of the 50s we used to hang a 100 watt bulb in the well pump , which kept the water from freezeing ..Then on cold winter nights i would have a 100 watt bulb in pickup that keep the windows clear and never had to scrape then ever. Sure there were more , like in the barn to keep baby farm animals warm ..just saying…to me heat is life and cold iis death.
Hello Mac,
“As dumb as they are about such things”
I believe a lot of the posters here are of the same subset as your fellow incandescent diehards. They are all afraid they aren’t going to get their high from the local gas station. But in fact, soon they will plug in their vehicle as they do their smart phone.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/02/20150204-bosch.html
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/detroit-auto-show/2015/01/09/gm-electric-concept-mile-range/21535887/
A 200 mile range EV for $30,000 changes everything. It’s the answer to peak oil and climate change.
This is true demand destruction with better quality of life
This is the Spanish built diesel people seem to like
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/seat/ibiza/specs/12-tdi-cr-ecomotive-se-3dr
It’s about $22000. I forget the range, but I have the largest SEAT (the Altea), and I fill up about 10 times per year.
Hi Fernando,
What is the peak diesel price you have seen in Spain? Do you think people will still prefer the diesel id electricity prices remain the same and the price of diesel doubles? I think this is likely to happen by 2020, and at that point the cars that people prefer may change. In your case you could probably eliminate the car because you have decent public transport in Spain (relative the most of the US). For well to do US families, probably they will have one hybrid and one EV once gasoline prices get to $8/ US gallon.
The highest was 1.50€ per liter, several years ago. They tax the hell out of it. But electricity is expensive, and they would have to install the charge stations in our parking areas. On the emissions side, a super efficient diesel can yield less CO2 per 100 km in the UK. And in the USA.
I posted it because the electric grid really can’t stand having everybody use an electric vehicle, and there’s no need to be range limited. For those who want a large vehicle the Altea is a good option.
Hi Fernando,
Probably not less CO2/100 km than a Prius, and certainly not less than an EV powered by PV panels. For many people the commute to work is less than 50 miles, a 100 mile range car only needs to be charged at home in most cases, except when going on a long trip, then one would need to plan carefully until charging stations become more widespread and long trips would likely be very inconvenient in an electric car, better to use a bus or train.
Dennis, I checked the emissions profile before I wrote my comment. The small high efficiency diesel is reported to have a lower emissions profile in the UK. They generate electricity using coal.
The “trick” is the vehicle hp. But I see many people advocating changes in lifestyle. The point is that Ibizas sell like hot cakes here. The price is about $16000 for the cheap version. And the engines are really sturdy. I never took any of my Alteas for repairs.
Fernando,
If you’re going to repeatedly disagree with people on the same points, it helps to provide specific information.
In this case, you said that you checked the emissions profile, so why not include in your comment the numbers and the link to the source?
OK. Do you want it in alphabetical order or footnoted?
Either – just lose the snark.
Sarcasm/snarkiness is tiring, and it certainly doesn’t make anybody want to read your comments, or be convinced of your arguments.
Where you’re concerned, I think the snark is almost expected, even generous.
All the numbers in the world aren’t worth shit if the tech is elitist-derived and implemented. To pretend otherwise is just a game played in diapers, Nick G.
“where’s the professional evidence” ~
Nick
“Pot, kettle, black.
Whenever you are challanged to show some numbers on how we can get to your utopian world, you link references to peoples beliefs in the main, with some made up numbers thrown in (theirs), that happen to coincide with your belief.
You NEVER come up with the indepth numbers of how much energy will it really cost to get to the utopian future, simply because it shows that it is way beyond the budget of possible to get 7 billion of us there.” ~
Hide_away
Bueracrats are no doubt a necessary evil but they sure do muck up the works of the economy on a regular basis.
We have safety nut and econut bureaucrats in the US which make it impossible to buy an Altea here. Ford and GM manufacture cars that are more efficient for sale in Europe than they do here.
Some people without a doubt wind up on motorcycles because we can’t buy a really cheap car here.
And the safest motorcycle ever built is probably a hundred times as dangerous as the worst modern car. The modest savings in oxides of nitrogen etc mandated by US pollution standards are more than off set by higher co2 emissions resulting from burning MORE fuel.
We have safety nut and econut bureaucrats in the US which make it impossible to buy an Altea here
In what way are European safety and pollution standards looser than the US?
Here’s the key number for the car, which would not be a big seller in the US:
Max power:
75 bhp
Note that the (gasoline powered) Honda Fit has 130 hp.
And my 1962 VW beetle has 40 HP and gets me around just fine, as did my 1962 VW convertible that I bought new back in 1962.
One of the things that irritates me is that all this talk about high HP engines in cars never mentions at what RPM that high HP is generated. In most cases the vehicle is not likely to ever reach those high RPMs during the entire life of the vehicle. The high HP numbers are effectively only advertising gimmicks. The auto companies should be required to state the HP output at the RPMs that the engine is turning at 55 or 65 MPH. That would give a much truer picture of what power the vehicle has and is using while at normal cruise.
” The high HP numbers are effectively only advertising gimmicks.”
Do you mean advertising gimmicks like organic food section in major grocery chains 🙂
You are right, of course it is gimmicks. Playing with our mental formations like fears. Easy job 🙂
Simple! look at the torque. HP=RPMxTorque. Not many people know this. That is why diesels are eminently more practical and efficient in real life situations where the engine rarely crosses 2500 or 3000 RPM. Diesels make much more torque (hence more power) at these RPMs than petrols which needs to get to higher RPMs to produce the same power.
While diesels peter out after 4000 or 4500 RPM, petrols continue to produce the same torque till 7000 hence giving it a higher nameplate power (and fooling people – mainly American)
And, of course, EVs produce high torque at any speed, which is why they’re more fun to drive than ICE vehicles, especially at the low speeds at which most driving is done.
I used to get around just fine in a Mack truck that weighed sixty thousand pounds loaded that had only two hundred thirty horsepower. It is true it was sort of slow getting away from a traffic light but it would go sixty five on a level road no problem.
Exec Summary- We are looking at a revolution, happening too close to our nose to see- off ff’s, on to sun. Simply can’t be stopped, why even think about stopping? ~Everybody better off.
W have used our Leaf as only car for about 18 months now, NO problems, including range. I the fixit- mantainit guy have had nothing to do. Nice not to have to stand in a freezing wind with a gas nozzle in hand.
We did take that Honda back from granddaughter a couple of times for longer trips, but, after all there’s always one hell of a lot of IC cars just sitting around for the loaning.
Following your ev use, closely. I would spring for one in a moment, alas, we live 50 miles from town (shopping) which is problematic. Fuel to go there and back, but God forbid you needed to do a couple of stops.
Our Yaris works for us, and I now use a motorcycle for a lot of transportation. We have some small trail 90s which I keep restored and running well, and just bought a brand spanking new Honda cb500X which is basically a beautiful rocket ship on two wheels. It provides a digital readout of fuel efficiency and gets about 80 mpg (imperial). I have outfitted it with a rack for the back instead of grab rails which allows me to pick up quite a few groceries, etc as needed. Plus, it is absolutely fun to ride. On shitty days I work in the shop. Like today!! (coffee and glue-up break).
Hi Paulo,
In a few years there will be 200 mile range EVs that are more affordable (maybe 40k which is the cost of a nicely equipped F150).
Spent less than that for my Leaf AND the PV to feed it.
What’s all this talk about “unaffordable EVs”?
Leaf fuel bill last 18 months, zero, zero, zero.
Hi Wimbi,
The Leaf is great, but for Paulo, he needs something with at least 150 miles of range, probably 200 miles would be better for the winter trips to town.
Or the Chevy Volt, which gives 35-50 miles EV, and then goes to an ICE.
You may be able to charge it while you shop…
I am willing to bet a substantial sum that within five years there will be parking spaces reserved at some stores and businesses for customers driving pure electric and plug in hybrid cars – spaces with chargers that in some cases will be a free come on – such as high dollar restaurants- and spaces with card and cash operated chargers at big box stores.
Selling two dollars worth of electricity for four bucks with a vending machine is going to be too good an opportunity for businessmen to pass it up – especially when having the charger in the parking lot is the ticket to getting the customer inside the store.
I might be willing to bet a $tarbucks Japanese green tea matcha latte (government-inspected for Fukupixiedust of course, so no worries there) that when the practical steel-toed boots-on-the-ground results of Ron Patterson’s peak oil predictions really kick in, much of this big gay box store EV bullshit will be little more than a twink’s twerking twinkle.
Hi Nick,
Eventually it will be easy to charge while you shop, but for now this is not available in most places. A Prius would be better than a Volt for Paulo’s situation, if most trips will be 100 miles or more.
Or maybe not, it depends on electricity prices where he lives and whether minimum cost is most important. If CO2 emissions are most important than the Volt might be the better choice.
With the federal tax credit, a Volt is about $26k, which is cheaper than a Prius. With some state credits, it gets down to $22k, which is insanely cheap.
The 2011-14 Volt gets about 35 miles on electric, and about 35mpg, so a 100 mile trip would get about 54MPG – better than a Prius.
The 2015 Volt gets about 40 miles on electric, and about 40mpg, so a 100 mile trip would get about 67MPG.
hmmm. my 2014 Prius cost $21k and I get 54 mpg
Yeah, I was using the average prices from Edmunds, and the EPA MPG.
You, clearly, look harder at the purchase price than the average person, and you drive more carefully.
So, you’d pay less for the Volt than the average, and youd get better mpg than the average.
But, for comparison purposes it’s helpful to use a standard metric.
Hi NickG,
Are you including the costs of electricity?
We are assuming all trips are 100 miles. Probably not a good assumption as I would think Paulo occasionally drives more than 100 miles on a trip.
The Volt might be cheaper, I don’t know if they have the same incentives in British Columbia as in the US for Chevy Volts. There is also the question of reliability, maintenance costs on the Prius have been very low in my experience (I own two), in the past I have not had very good experiences with Chevys to the point that I have not owned one for 30 years.
Yeah, the Edmunds.com cost analysis includes the electricity.
I understand your concern about reliability – I’ve gone with Toyotas and Hondas for about the same period.
On the other hand: per Consumer Reports US cars have improved a lot over the years: they still lag Japanese cars a bit, but they’re light-years ahead of 30 years ago.
And, Volt owners are incredibly enthusiastic: they’re way ahead of almost all other cars, including most Japanese models – I suspect GM worked extra hard on this “halo” car. In fact, about the only thing ahead of the Volt in owner satisfaction is…the Tesla.
Better quality of life, from unaffordable electric vehicles? There are far more sensible ways to design cities, or one can read about the 56-year-old factory worker James Robertson and his 21-mile round-trip walking commute through Detroit. I guess that’s one way to motor around “motor city.” Didn’t they recently go bankrupt? Meanwhile, how’s that big spending on unmaintainable new roads going? State DOT and the ASCE also seem in the habit of drawing straight lines on semilog graph paper to make predictions…
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/12/12/best-of-blog-asce-and-the-infrastructure-cult.html
Thank you Thrig for making my original point.
Do you still shoe your own horses yourself or does someone else do it for you ?
I disagree with all this talk about cars. There’s no chance that EVs will replace IC cars in any meaningful way. An auto-centric transportation system was only viable when humans had access to a large and growing source of exothermic energy. Given that it’s currently the primary transport system most places, it may take years or decades to fail, but fail it will. E.g. a typical automobile consumes half its lifetime oil supply in the fabrication process, before it leaves the factory floor. Thus the oil requirements of an EV car versus an ICE car are, at most, a two-fold difference.
a typical automobile consumes half its lifetime oil supply in the fabrication process, before it leaves the factory floor.
Citation?
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-01-21/our-renewable-future
True for my PV powered leaf. Not true for almost all other transport things.
The name Nissan Leaf is a joke. A greenwash, but an insulting one. A slap in the face.
It should be renamed Nissan Leaf-blower, Nissan Gridlock or Nissan Roadkill. Or Nissan What-Do-We-Do-With-All-These-Unforeseen-Problems-and/or-Discarded/Unsuported-Batteries/Components/Parts-I-Know-Let’s-Ship-Them-To-Some-Overseas-Military-Dictatorship-For-Some-Bribe-and-Their-Poor-Districts-Can-Have-Them.
That might actually be a wonderful way to live. Shoe the horse and then ride it off to some nice body of water to fish…
Oh wait, industry has polluted it.
Kindly smarten up, some of you.
Thrig,
no one is suggesting that EV’s will bring us to Nirvana.
Just that they’re better than ICEs.
This crap is better than that crap. So what. It’s all crap.
Hello Old farmer mac.
A few comments on some things you said:
“Personally I believe economic growth everything else held equal can continue with energy supplies shrinking so long as the shrinkage is S L O W and fairly steady.”
The IEA thinks we can expect about a 9% oil depletion rate, so it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to keep hoping that the shrinkage will be S L O W. 9% is not S L O W. And the way things are going so far, I seriously doubt it will be steady, either! And I don’t know what “everything else held equal” even means. Since your entire premise of continuing economic growth rests on such unlikely conditions going forward, it seems silly to spend so much effort theorizing on the minute details of outcomes which can (almost certainly) never happen.
“These things will happen because they MUST in order to avoid falling living standards.”
But what if these things don’t happen, even if we really, really need them to? Then what?
“Assuming the economy doesn’t crash due to fossil fuel prices rising too fast of course.”
I think it already did. Twice. Once in 2008, and once starting about June of 2014. That second one hasn’t fully played out yet. When it does…
The SUPPLY of oil is not declining at nine percent because new wells are being brought on all the time.
I do not pretend to know how fast oil supplies will decline but I agree that they are apt to decline MUCH faster than one percent starting within the next few years and that the decline rate will not be steady.
I personally occupy the no man’s land between the technocopians who believe in advancing technology and business as usual forever and the dormers who believe that a near total collapse of industrial civilization is already baked in.
For what it is worth I have predicted total or near total collapse for very large portions of the world due to resource depletion and overpopulation – the phenomenon generally termed ” overshoot ” by biologists.
But I also predict that a few very fortunately situated countries (such as the USA, Canada , Australia , Russia etc that have relatively small populations and relatively large endowments of natural resources plus the military muscle or allies needed to defend themselves ) MIGHT pull thru the coming resource and population bottleneck more or less whole. I have made frequent mention of martial law and draconian rationing schemes being the norm even in the USA.
AND FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH- I am not at all SURE even the US and Canada can pull thru. I AM sure however that these two countries and a few more have a good shot at avoiding out right collapse.The Atlantic and the Pacific are nice wide oceans and the southern US border is not going to be that hard to seal if and when it becomes necessary. I am not aware of ANYTHING that a Fortress North America would HAVE to have to import to survive ok.
“Every thing else held equal ” or some similar sentence or phrase is customarily used in an academic or discussion setting to explore various scenarios in order to develop deeper insight into the way all the various pertinent factors CAN or might interact under a GIVEN set of circumstances.
So – My comment was not intended to be read as a prediction – NOT at all – it was intended to illustrate classroom fashion that declining energy supplies or more specifically declining oil supplies DO NOT NECESSARILY PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY OF FURTHER ECONOMIC GROWTH.
Most people are acquainted with this pedagogical short hand since it is used quite often in a classroom setting.
Insofar as EA is concerned – I too believe in free speech but not in utter foolishness being injected into a serious discussion. I can’t remember who said but there is a saying about bad food- you don’t have to eat the whole meal to know it is deplorable – one bite will do to pass judgement in that case.
I am proud to be an unreconstructed redneck when it comes to pc.
As far as identifying the political leanings of a person who makes such a comment -I have NEVER heard one of that nature from a liberal democrat or anybody with a decent education and passable knowledge of current political reality- unless the maker is a business as usual mouth piece egging on the foot soldiers who don’t know who the enemy is.
But I have heard lots of fools talk about the government keeping its hands off of ” my Medicare ”. Such people are invariably as ignorant as mules and invariably so called conservatives. There might be one exception out of a thousand.
I am a conservative myself but I am thoroughly ashamed of what PASSES for conservatism in this country today.
Hi Old farmer mac.
You said:
“The SUPPLY of oil is not declining at nine percent because new wells are being brought on all the time.”
We are talking about estimates for a maximum post peak production decline rate. The IEA factors in the addition of new wells.
Years ago I remember reading an estimate (from Jeffery Brown?) of an eventual post peak depletion rate of about 7%. This seemed pretty reasonable to me and it has stuck in my head ever since. Now the IEA comes out with an estimate for a depletion rate of 9%! And the IEA’s predictions generally tend to be highly optimistic! Considering the extreme economic problems already evident since 2005, caused by oil production simply growing at a rate slower than the historical rate, but still at least growing, how can you possibly expect our fragile civilization to survive when decline rates reach 9%? Since the crash of 2008, the world economy has been gradually getting weaker and weaker in spite of massive injections of stimulus and quantitative easing and ZIRP and NIRP etc. All this with the daily world oil supply still growing! When the supply of oil begins to actually fall, it would be logical to assume that the situation will generally get considerably worse. Rapidly.
You also now say:
“I do not pretend to know how fast oil supplies will decline but I agree that they are apt to decline MUCH faster than one percent starting within the next few years and that the decline rate will not be steady.”
But that totally contradicts what you just said:
“Personally I believe economic growth everything else held equal can continue with energy supplies shrinking so long as the shrinkage is S L O W and fairly steady.”
If you say we should be able to keep the wheels on under certain specific conditions (S L O W and fairly steady), and then immediately admit that those conditions are unlikely be realized, then I am not sure exactly what you are saying.
You said:
“I personally occupy the no man’s land between the technocopians who believe in advancing technology and business as usual forever and the dormers who believe that a near total collapse of industrial civilization is already baked in.”
I guess I am a super doomer since I expect the TOTAL (not near total) collapse of industrial civilization.
You said:
“Insofar as EA is concerned – I too believe in free speech but not in utter foolishness being injected into a serious discussion. I can’t remember who said but there is a saying about bad food- you don’t have to eat the whole meal to know it is deplorable – one bite will do to pass judgement in that case.”
I don’t specifically agree or disagree with EA’s position. But you think it is “utter foolishness”. This brings us to the Achilles heel of your Leviathan saves civilization concept. Lot’s of people are carrying around lot’s of silly ideas about how things should be in the world. But you will never convince them to accept your “truth”. People will resist what does not seem to benefit them. It is just human nature. All the Leviathans of the world are already under severe stress from the resistance of their own people to the kinds of single minded policies you say we will need to adopt. I don’t doubt the Leviathans will try real hard, though, and make a big mess before they dissolve and take us with them. That is what they are doing now.
The bottom line is that we are not insects in a hive. We are individuals that happen to have evolved to live like insects in a hive. There is a limit to our Borg-ness. The constant tension between the individual and the collective means the social contract is, and has always been, conditional.
The irony of course is that the so-called doomers are their very opposite, because the faster this uneconomical crap can hit the fan and be done with the less doom for the planet.
This zombified talk about EVs sometimes as if it’s the be all and the end all of human salvation just pisses me off to no end. It even seems to hint at some kind of psychosociopathology.
And if something truly in harmony with nature is brought up, some of these mindsets might invoke the false going back to living in caves dichotomy.
I agree it is well past time for the end of the human plague on this planet. The sooner the better for all concerned. Let the die-off begin already. I’m getting bored and I already know how the story ends.
(Well, OK, I admit I’m not really bored at all. The opposite actually. I think we are just getting to the most interesting part of the story. Irony and epiphany at every turn. Veils are lifting. Being a doomer is a lot of fun.)
And yeah, the EV crowd. Wow.
does this die off you seem to be so eager for, include you, your family and friends?
Of course. That’s what die-off means, yes? For what it’s worth, my father died just this past week, and I would be happy to join him especially if it meant something of added value for those left. I know he would be proud of that.
Hi ezrydermike,
The die-off includes everyone. That’s just the way things go. I’m not glad we are going to have a die-off. But if all of the available evidence so clearly points to a social collapse and massive human die-off, it would make no sense to ignore that evidence just because I don’t like the effect it might have on me personally. That would be irrational. And if you begin with the premise that you will explore all of the possibilities, except the ones you find distasteful, you will never be able to form a clear picture of the world around you.
It might also help some people in thinking about the die-off involving friends, family, and themselves, etc., to put the sad human violins down for a moment and try to pick up the gradually-silencing chorus of animals that are left that humans are clipping out, , that share the same world.
Caelen,
I just recently lost my father also. I am very sorry for your loss.
” The sooner the better for all concerned. Let the die-off begin already.”
This comment is the one that poked me.
I see the shit storm coming. I know it is going to be bad. I understand that many forms of life including humans are in serious trouble.
I have a daughter. Sorry, I am not willing to sacrifice her and I am in no hurry to see billions of humans die off in some sort of starvation, Mad- Max Armageddon.
Anyway, perhaps this forum isn’t the best way to discuss these type of things. I mean no personal offense.
Hi ezrydermike,
You say:
“I see the shit storm coming. I know it is going to be bad. I understand that many forms of life including humans are in serious trouble.
I have a daughter. Sorry, I am not willing to sacrifice her and I am in no hurry to see billions of humans die off in some sort of starvation, Mad- Max Armageddon.”
I have a daughter, too. She will be 4 this April. So personally, I am not exactly thrilled with the idea of social collapse either. But intellectually, I have to admit that social collapse is unbelievably interesting.
Of course you are not willing to sacrifice your daughter. But why would you even say that? No one is asking you to. Think about it. The fact that the human species faces a near term rapid die-off will not be altered much by what any of us think/feel at this point. Might as well come to terms with that.
To truly understand reality, one must be able to accept the reality one finds.
Hi ezrydermike,
Thank you and my condolences in return.
I doubt this ‘die-off’ thing is going to be some kind of overnight apocalypse as though a war has just tore through everyone’s lives overnight at the same time. I suspect that it will be just more of the same processes that it already is and has been, just with maybe a shift toward a greater mortality frequency (and less births?) for various new reasons that won’t likely seem out of place or unexpected. It seems still possible to assuage a lot of pain, misery and suffering, and even cheat die-off, but much of this would involve the political, and you probably know how I feel about some elements of that.
I really dislike an ill/ill-advised system that has me & planet by the balls, that I know it does, that I know what kind of system I am dealing with, and where it’s likely headed. Where it’s likely headed, given its grip, makes me all the more impatient for its soon and rapid demise.
So if DGR and/or whomever could kindly speed up the process of its demise, that would be great…
Well said!
I can’t see where whatever we do can make much difference. Too many humans, it seems. The fun is in trying, and making ourselves feel better.
Buy an EV, solar panels, batteries, insulation, whatever feels good. Someone needs the business. And enjoy life. Que sera, sera.
Thanks. I am looking at off-the-shelf parts in groups and people to try to ‘make a difference’, but have no allusions that it is not a longshot.
$47.xx in Asia. Falling about 1.6%.
Multi decade projections are useless salary paid to people.
Do we have an assay on condensate? From anywhere? What’s in that stuff? I guess there’s no diesel or kerosene or any middle distillates? Or no?
Condensate sellers usually provide an assay when they sell the material. Condensate is the liquid which condenses at surface conditions from a natural gas stream produced from a “gas/condensate” reservoir. These fluids are kept in the vapor phase because the reservoir pressure and temperature are high enough.
The source rock, history, and actual reservoir conditions are variable, this leads to condensates which range from 40 degrees to 55 degrees API (I’m skipping a few outliers). I have a hunch the average is about 48 degrees API, but I’m not sure. Because condensate is derived from a natural gas stream the equipment can yield mixtures of condensates with NGLs. As a matter of fact, butane is found in a sales grade condensate, but it’s also found in NGL. It’s also possible to see small amounts of pentane in NGLs, and propane in condensates. So there’s a slightly fuzzy separation between the two streams.
The use of the term “lease condensate” is a bit inaccurate, this stream can be taken from a separator and sent by pipeline to a processing plant, where it is “shrunk” as the heavier NGLs are extracted. The condensate sold by tanker is stabilized and is a fine product we use as refinery feedstock. It’s loaded with hydrocarbons used to make gasoline.
Following on from Fernado, I found trying to find a single definition and composition rather difficult to say the least …..
Here goes :-
composed of short-chain alkane hydrocarbons (C5-C9) with API of 45 or higher , composing of ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes, naptha, plus others approximate to the gasoline or kerosine fraction of crude oil . ( often referred to as Natural Gasoline )
API differ I see from whose fields you talking about , Ie Gasprom differed from US Texas…..
Anyone feel free to correct me – seems there’s many grades of condensate like there are of oil
Forbin
The API 45 or higher is wrong from a purely scientific stand point. High pressure and high temperature gas condensate reservoirs can yield really heavy and dark colored condensates. The high temperature vaporizes what would have been part of a volatile crude oil column.
My point is that increasing gas production, in the form of associated liquids, condensate and NGL, is hiding the probable plateau or actual decline in global crude oil production (generally defined as 45 or lower API gravity crude oil).
A copy of my post from the previous thread:
Here’s a different approach to trying to extract some plausible global condensate estimates from multiple data bases:
OPEC dry gas production increased from 41 BCF/day in 2005 to 62 BCF/day in 2012 (EIA, complete 2013 data not yet available), an increase of 21 BCF/day.
Comparing OPEC (crude only) and EIA data bases (C+C) implies that OPEC condensate production increased from 1.2 mbpd in 2005 to 2.3 mbpd in 2012, an increase of 1.1 mbpd.
This would be an increase of 52,000 Barrels of Condensate (BC) per BCF/day increase in gas production, for OPEC, from 2005 to 2012.
The EIA shows that global dry gas production increased from 270 BCF/day in 2005 to 325 BCF/day in 2012, an increase of 55 BCF/day.
If we use the 2005 to 2012 OPEC condensate to gas ratio as a guide, this implies that global condensate production may have risen by about 2.9 mbpd from 2005 to 2012.
The EIA shows that global C+C rose by 2.1 mbpd from 2005 to 2012, which of course suggests an actual decline in global crude oil production (generally defined as 45 and lower API gravity crude oil).
Note that the high volume of US condensate production would fall in the non-OPEC data set, so in reality I suspect that the non-OPEC BC to BCF/day ratio is probably higher than the OPEC data set.
And a good 2014 article on condensate issues:
http://marcellus.com/news/id/109294/u-s-oil-industrys-billion-dollar-question-condensate/
Condensate should be defined as per my previous post. Don’t forget we engineers have a responsibility to book reserves which conform with SEC and licensing authority guidelines in many countries. The key elements we can use to separate condensate from NGLs are a) whether it condenses from gas and b) whether it has a vapor pressure which allows it to be out in a refinery tank.
That 60 degreeAPI or above definition in the linked article is either dumb or dishonest, or both. If that article is true, then we have to conclude oil company types are freaking crooks trying to peddle NGL as condensate. But the idea that somebody would propose a 60 degree API OR HIGHER limit is so incredible I wonder if the author didn’t take his notes backwards.
That 60 degreeAPI or above definition in the linked article is either dumb or dishonest, or both.
In all fairness the article does not state that condensate is 60 degrees or above, it merely quotes a Marathon executive who makes that claim. It also quotes others who say condensate is 45 degrees or above. The article, in that case is not being dishonest. The article doesn’t speak to the honesty of the Marathon executive.
Refiner Phillips 66 and midstream giant Plains All American have said condensate is oil with an API gravity of 45 or above. Meanwhile, Marathon Petroleum Corp’s top executive said in a recent interview he believed condensate should have an API gravity of 60 and above.
That is what the article is all about, that is “What is Condensate”. Perhaps the Marathon executive has reasons for wanting condensate defined as being 60 degrees or above.
If the Marathon “executive” really said that he’s trying to peddle a high pressure light condensate and NGL mix as “condensate”. You put a 60 degree API fluid in a tank and the vapors will explode. It just has too much butane and propane.
Here’s a chart I’ve posted before showing the refinery yields by API gravity (note that they refer to 42 API gravity oil as “condensate”). In any case, note the decline in distillate yield and corresponding increase in gasoline yield, just going from 39 API gravity to 42 API gravity:
Jeffrey, that’s a good chart. But as you mentioned they show a 42 degree API condensate. To get condensate to have 42 degrees API you would have to boil off the lighter components. Unless it’s an exotic condensate from a high pressure high temperature reservoir. I have seen a natural 42 degree condensate, it looked and smelled gorgeous, but they are rare.
And here is a chart showing sulphur content versus API gravity for several global crude oils. Note that the upper end cutoff is 40 API gravity:
The reason for the original assay question, that you guys jumped all over (well done), was a quote that I came across probably last year that was something like this:
[70% of the increase in Chinese oil consumption has been diesel.]
I hereby declare use of square brackets to mean a quote I know I saw, but don’t recall where.
Seems likely China would not be particularly different from elsewhere. And so, condensate is the wrong kind of liquid if it doesn’t have diesel in it.
An item from last year, about the refinery feedstock that Mexico needs to start importing.
Because of declining production, Mexico no longer has sufficient domestic light, sweet crude oil production to meet the domestic demand from refineries designed to process light crude, so they are going to have to start importing light crude, although they remain a net oil exporter.
In any case, the Pemex official quoted in the following article had an interesting comment about condensate (which is basically natural gasoline that is not of much use as feedstock for producing distillates like diesel fuel).
Mexico’s Pemex aims to start importing light crude this year
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/mexico-pemex-idUKL1N0QX2TL20140828
Ya, very good. I have been attacking my square brackets. Some interesting stuff: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/26/us-china-oil-stocks-idUSKBN0KZ11U20150126
“Diesel demand may have posted its first fall in more than a decade in 2014. State oil giant Sinopec, which accounts for almost half of China’s refinery throughput, said its diesel production fell 4 percent in 2014.
. . . (but later)
“Stocks of kerosene, used mostly as aviation fuel, fell 3.2 percent from last month.
Refiners have begun boosting jet fuel output at the cost of diesel to meet growing demand.”
So there really was no middle distillate demand decline. The refineries shifted from diesel to JP-whatever. Maybe they imported the diesel, and that was only 1/2 of refinery throughput. One would hope for better data.
Regardless, EIA here: http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH says China burned 11.1 mbpd in 2014, up relentlessly on the mazamascience graph, but since we are sneering (and should) at all projections of more or less everything, we should wait til 11.1 is something more than last year’s projection.
That EIA link has quite the piechart on sources of Chinese imports. They have done a helluva job of not concentrating anywhere. KSA is their biggest supplier and is less than 20% of the total. Angola (!) #2 at 14%. Russia at #3 and 9% (and growing re pipelines). Ron’s Angola chart is clearly in decline.
This, of course, matters for the inevitable American attempt to interdict their imports. No one country being overthrown and shutting off flow to China will hurt China all that much.
There is mention that China is semi dodging Iranian sanctions by importing condensate from Iran. This doesn’t make sense per the middle distillate issue.
Re JP-whatever. Good old JP-4 is no more. Phased out in the 90s for the less flammable JP-8. It’s the military jet fuel of choice, and I did not know it replaces diesel for most military ground vehicles throughout NATO.
The US Navy uses a variant JP-5 for its aircraft. More expensive but has some qualities deemed necessary for at sea work (I guess perpetual sloshing ?).
JP-5 has an even higher flash point (60 C/140F) than JP-8 (38C/100F).
When at sea, one takes precautions against fire – no good place to run to.
You mean hydrocarbons we can use to make diesel, I suppose. A stabilized condensate yields goodies to make diesel and gasoline. But it also yields jet fuel, and chemical feedstocks. It doesn’t yield much we can use to make bunker fuels.
Jeff just posted a chart showing very little middle distillate yield in condensate.
Good article from 2012 on “50 shades of condensate.”
http://www.ogfj.com/articles/2012/10/fifty-shades.html
I wrote “good stabilized”. The stabilization boils off the light components. What the field stabilizer can do (if it’s designed for that purpose) is to remove the lights, send them to the NGL stream, and allow the condensate stabilizer bottoms to be mixed with a medium weight oil. The idea is to maximize the market price if you have the flexibility. I’m used to doing projects to ship the product by tanker, those have much tighter specs than the condensate sold by pipeline in the USA.
Watcher, one more point, it’s important to understand the usual approach is to optimize project costs. I don’t want to imply an operator who sells a 55 degree condensate is stupid or doesn’t know how to prepare his products to maximize profits. When one has the luxury, the best approach is to keep the propane and butane out of the condensate, because it drops API and vapor pressure. We also have some fields producing h2s, and this gas can be driven off the liquid by boiling it hard in a tall stabilizer. The gas is taken to a sulfur recovery unit, then fed to a gas plant, and the plant returns the pentane plus in the gas back to the stabilizer to mix it with the “stabilized condensate”.
If you have ever read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, you’ll maybe see some similarities, the EIA’s story of projected oil increases is much the same as the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Imagine those charts as giant beanstalks.
It’s an interesting story about a kid named Jack whose mom is very poor. Jack sells the milk cow to the butcher in town and the butcher hands him some magic beans, a deal is a deal. Jack’s mom was not happy, threw the beans out the window and the rest is history.
Jack climbs the beanstalk, like all kids do at that age, and ends up rich after stealing the hen that lays golden eggs. The giant that claims he can smell the blood of an Englishman was not happy with Jack either.
“Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread,” said the giant. Jack gives the giant the slip every time, it’s uncanny.
A beanstalk, a giant, a poor widow, a kid named Jack, and a deceased father who had been killed by the giant, it’s a story to behold.
It’s a great story, but the EIA’s is even better.
Great Expectations for Greater Fools is the real story.
”Great Expectations for Greater Fools is the real story.”
This one line summarizes this entire set of future production predictions better than all the rest of our comments put together.
I have said often that the Court Jester’s traditional job – in large part- was to point out unpleasant truths in the royal courts – the Jester being the one person who could do so without worrying A LOT about winding up in a dungeon.
Ronald FOR CONGRESS .
He is a good solid clown because he works VERY hard at it. In congress he would be one of the handful of clowns really worth listening to.We could count on him to tell the truth on purpose quite often – where as the rest of them do so only occasionally and some of them only by accident.
Re: OPEC Net Exports
Based on the 2005 to 2013 rate of decline in the OPEC ECI Ratio (ratio of production to consumption), I estimate that OPEC’s post-2005 CNE (Cumulative Net Exports) are on the order of about 250 Gb (total petroleum liquids + other liquids, EIA data base). They shipped about 80 Gb from 2006 to 2013 inclusive, putting their estimated post-2005 CNE at about 32% depleted as of the end of 2013. I am putting Saudi Arabia’s estimated post-2005 CNE at about 40% depleted as of the end of 2013.
“Brezhnev Shale”? = Bazhenov shale?
I’ve looked at some of Bazhenov core but it is a huge formation covering a fair percentage of western Siberia (dwarfing Bakken). However, owing to facies changes, the rock is inhomogenous. So, fracking may work like a damn in some areas and not at all in others. For non-geologists, a facies change, as an example, could mean a rock formation transgressing from a sandstone to a shale to a limestone moving laterally in the same rock unit. I was told by Russian geologists that some Bazhenov Formation rock is totally unsuited to fracking. Personally I know nothing about fracking but this may be worth sharing.
Perhaps I should expand that slightly: Secondary porosity has been analyzed for shear wave splitting effects in the Bazhenov. In other words, various properties of shale zones have been tested by the Russians to identify the most brittle formation rocks (favorable for fracking and completion). So results have been highly variable and, in some cases, this variability has been seen across relatively short lateral distances: Not a good result! Not suggesting doom/gloom here, rather recommending caution about generalizations.
Doug, care to assess % area fracking viable vs not?
And please quote barrels/day for each area.
By close of business today, please.
This is Doug’s agent. A 280 page report on the Bazhenov potential can be made available to you for 1.5 million Swiss francs within 72 hours provided you utter the standard Illuminati secrecy oaths.
Watcher, Statistical Well Log Analysis of the Bazhenov Formation by: P.S. Kulyapin and T.F. Sokolova In: Seismic Technology; Issue: V11, No 3, July 2013. It’ll cost you a hundred plus bucks; I have a complimentary copy but I`d recommend spending the cash on a classical CD –unless you are a total masochist.
At least it`s written in English 🙂
Doug, I was trying to sell the IHS report for a 50 % commission!
Fernando, I`m learning, slowly. Maybe Watcher will buy that Bazhenov paper, from me, for a mere hundred bucks (plus postage). US Currency of course. What do you say WatcherÉ 🙂
Too expensive for
XX% of that Russian shale is frackable.
Gimme XX. Free. Today.
I recall Rosneft placing their estimate at 22 billion barrels: Bazhenov Fm. shale. It’s away too early to tell how these rocks will respond to horizontal drilling/hydraulic fracturing on a regional scale. Though the shales cover a vast area productivity has been demonstrated mainly in the so-called Greater Salym sector: Go with 22 bbl until you find some poor soul who knows what they’re talking about. I refuse to say more comrade.
Doug is spot on. I can’t discuss details but W. Siberia is full of trash rock. There’s potential in Samara and also in Orenburg. I’m surprised they haven’t established pilot appraisal wells in those regions.
Hey, my spellchecker missed it, what can I say. It is now correct however.
Thanks
The EIA projections almost all have an extreme discontinuity from current and near past production to the 2020 projected level. That alone makes their projections appear erroneous. The steep slope to reach the projected level does not seem possible, let alone the later projected levels.
My take is that the EIA projections have no real basis and should be ignored.
Of course the EIA projections have no real basis and should be ignored. That was the main purpose of the post, though not the only one. That is to show just how stupid the EIA projections really are and this should show us something about the EIA’s credibility on other fronts.
Right on. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I wonder if the REIA may not exist? The Real Energy Information Agency would be like the Men in Black, producing secret reports from a secret base located under the Washinton Zoo grounds.
Sorry to inform you but that agency has been privatized, sold to a shell company owned by a major oil company. It’s the Men in Black Gold now.
Hi all,
I have presented “reasonable” models for World C+C output based on Webjubtelescope’s Oil Shock Model with Dispersive Discovery in the past.
Most of these models use a World URR of 3000 Gb which includes 500 Gb of extra heavy oil which is modelled separately from the 2500 Gb of C+C less extra heavy oil (XH).
I tried to match the EIA’s 2014 International Energy Outlook, but trying to get to 99 Mb/d of C+C output results in extraction rates of 30% in 2040 from estimated producing C+C-XH reserves. Clearly the EIA thinks World C+C URR is higher than 2500 Gb. Currently extraction rates are estimated at about 5.7% in 2014, so I created a somewhat reasonable model which matches the EIA projection up to about 2025 at 85 Mb/d of World C+C output, extraction rates for C+C-XH must rise to 8.2% and then are assumed to remain at this level. The annual decline rate is about 3.1% in 2030 and then falls to 2.2% by 2050, World output would be 45 Mb/d by 2050. Note the extraction rate is for C+C-XH and annual decline rate is for C+C (including extra heavy oil). Extra heavy oil output from Canada and Venezuela is 9 Mb/d in 2050. EIA “data” beyond 2014 is based on the IEO forecast, after 2025, the model no longer matches the forecast.
Correction, “EIA thinks World C+C URR is more than 3000 Gb”, I mistakenly wrote 2500 Gb in the comment above.
DC, I think you are on the right track with this.
Take a look at how large the uncertainty of the extraction rate is at the current time (the dotted line). From the last post, numbers between 4.5% and 9% are being offered for decline rates of an average field.
The fact that you are showing extraction rates going from 4-5% and heading upwards of 8% in the next few years is substantiating that we are likely going through a significant change in BAU. This change is brought on by relying on fields with high decline rates (such as Bakken or offshore) or by the use of infilling (i.e. secondary recovery)
Large uncertainties occur when when you see a steep slope in the curve. No one can pin down the extraction rate exactly since we don’t know where we are on the curve, and thus we are seeing this large uncertainty.
If it is actually 9% now, we are likely lower in reserves and URR than we think.
The important point is that you can’t do this kind of analysis with Hubbert Linearization, as it precludes changing behavior over time.
If it is actually 9% now, we are likely lower in reserves and URR than we think.
The important point is that you can’t do this kind of analysis with Hubbert Linearization, as it precludes changing behavior over time.
Yes, that is my point exactly. Errrr…. my points exactly.
Ron, You are definitely more in tune to what is going on than the Oil Drum council board ever was. 🙂
Hi WHT,
I believe the 9% decline rates are for fields with little further development (new wells, EOR, etc.). If one looks at mature regions such as the US lower 48, the Hubbert Linearization tends to undershoot the eventual URR, so I am doubtful that the World C+C less extra heavy URR which suggests 2400 to 2500 Gb as the most stable result using a variety of endpoints for the regression. One can attempt to use a creaming curve type of analysis, but I think this misses the possibility of reserve growth or at minimum underestimates this potential.
I often misinterpret the comments people make. You said not too long ago you thought 2800 Gb might be a good URR estimate for C+C less extra heavy (extra heavy is Canadian tar sands plus Orinoco belt resources). Did I misunderstand? Perhaps you meant 2300 Gb for C+C-XH plus 500 Gb for extra heavy (XH) oil. Or you may have changed your thinking.
Arrg,
…so I am doubtful that the World C+C less extra heavy URR which suggests 2400 to 2500 Gb as the most stable result using a variety of endpoints for the regression.
Should read,
“…so I am doubtful that the HL is too low for the World C+C less extra heavy URR which suggests 2400 to 2500 Gb as the most stable result using a variety of endpoints for the regression.”
DC, Somewhere in that range. I am using the number as an aggregate total to estimate whatever they decide classifies as crude.
Hi Webhubbletelescope,
I am a little slow it seems. There were a couple of possible ranges for C+C less extra heavy one is 2400 to 2500 Gb (that is what I think you meant.) The other possibility is 2500 Gb to 2800 Gb, another is around 2800 Gb.
Generally I ignore trying to discover “crude only” amounts, that is a guessing game and just use the EIA’s C+C data, figuring out Canadian extra heavy output is not difficult, but determining Venezuala’s Orinoco belt output requires some guesswork.
One way to think of this would be to take Shell’s 3500 Gboe estimate that you used in the Oil Conundrum and assume this is C+C+NGL, then if we assume NGL URR is about 400 Gb (following Laherrere’s analysis) we would have 3100 Gb, then deduct 500 Gb of extra heavy oil and we have 2600 Gb of C+C-XH. So I guess another possibility is 2200 to 2600 Gb for the URR of C+C-XH, with a best guess of 2400 Gb.
I am also thinking that the URR of 2800 Gb you mentioned somewhere was for all C+C and the range you refer to is most likely 2200 to 2500 Gb for C+C-XH.
DC, I will have to revisit the numbers. I have been deferring to you because you do a good job of hawking over the details.
Thanks Paul.
I realize that your focus is elsewhere, just looking for another informed opinion.
Can you modify the model to show the hypothetical CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations attributable to each fuel? I prepared one and I can’t get above 630 ppm. But I ignore cement plants.
Hi Fernando,
What did you use for URR of coal, natural gas and coal? I get a lower value of about 520 ppm CO2, but I agree with the biologists that 2C above preindustrial average temperature (for the 8000 years from 6250 BC to 1750 AD) will be a problem and that 560 ppm CO2 equivalent is likely to lead to 3 C of warming.
Engineers usually use a factor of safety when designing things, but perhaps that is something that is not taught everywhere.
For those who are not engineers a factor of safety accounts for uncertainty by overbuilding. In the early days of building bridges for example, if the engineer thought the likely maximum load would be 20 tons, they would design for a 60 ton load just to be safe.
In the case of climate change, the equilibrium climate sensitivity(ECS) is uncertain and might range from 1C to 4.5C with a best guess of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Assuming the ECS is 1C is a little like building the bridge to handle 7 tons, when the expected load is 20 tons. So a factor of safety of 1/3.
Dennis,
I didn´t discuss the temperatures resulting from a given CO2 concentration. I tend to think the number has been set on the high side, but I am still waiting for the model ability to predict the future climate to be resolved.
There´s also the other side of that sheet of paper. If we start taking action and wreck the world´s economy and people starve to death, then we got a serious problem. The precautionary principle dictates we don´t make rash moves.
The key, as I see it, is to work the problem in both directions. We know we are running out of fossil fuels, and you and I know the CO2 concentrations are being overpredicted. I forgot what I used for that maximum case, let´s just say I threw a wad of stuff at it.
I also realized, after I did it, that a lot of oil and other liquids are used to make plastics. And that´s not very biodegradable, so it doesn´t end up as CO2.
So here we are, the top end CO2 is (let´s say) is likely to be between 520 and 650 ppm. Go look up the IPCC projections, and you will see their input to their models are bananas.
As far as I can see, the fact that we do run out of fossil fuels needs to sink in. The same applies to the greenhouse effect. But when you look at it like I do, it doesn´t matter, there´s a need to save fossil fuels. However, the need to save them isn´t really because the climate is really that bad. Right now it´s better. Later, it will get worse. In between, we are going to end up starving if we don´t figure out something. And as you know, I don´t go for the dreamy solar panel nirvana. I have to be shown that technology really works. Thus far, I don´t see a way out.
Hi Fernando,
I think the plastics are a pretty small part of total oil output.
Some of the IPCC scenarios assume more fossil fuels than are likely to be burned. We agree in part because eventually we will need to move on from fossil fuels. There are some policies which are counterproductive such as burning wood.
The question is does ignoring the potential impacts of climate change really help anything? Do you think it is likely to aid man kind in taking the actions necessary to move on from fossil fuels?
In fact you seem to be very selectively skeptical. For example you suggest the way forward is Coal to liquids, but you don’t seem to have much knowledge of how large coal resources are.
All fossil fuels will eventually peak and decline, if we don’t find something to replace them, then people will in fact starve.
The solution to both problems peak fossil fuels and climate change are the same. What you do not seem to realize is that peak fossil fuels is unlikely to solve the climate change problem on its own, unless equilibrium climate sensitivity is 2C or less and there are only enough fossil fuels to get us to 560 ppm CO2 equivalent.
So don’t give the starving third world argument, people have been starving for a long time and will continue to do so. That is very unfortunate and wishing it were not so changes little. The starving people argument is just a distraction, a smokescreen thrown up by those that think that fossil fuels will never deplete.
I didn’t say I thought coal to liquids was the way forward. I’ve mentioned it’s well known technology. And for those who cheered when Mr Bush and the Neocons blundered into Iraq I like to remind them the $1 trillion spent thus far could have been used to put together a huge coal to oil industry in the USA (that’s because they like to say we did it for oil, although I think it was mostly because the neocons and their democratic buddies like Hillary were chomping at the bit).
Hi Fernando,
You have made several comments suggesting that coal to liquids is one potential solution, this would be correct maybe in the short term, but it might be a lot of wasted investment if coal peaks sooner than many predict.
You have suggested using energy more efficiently, I agree that is a great idea. Do you think that will be enough by itself?
It is not very clear actually what you think will be the way forward. Nuclear maybe? It is not very clear.
It does seem clear that you think that spending on wind and solar is wasteful. What is not clear is your vision for how society transitions from fossil fuels to whatever you think might replace that energy as it depletes. Perhaps you don’t think such a transition is possible? The invisible hand might give optimal results if there were no externalities and people had perfect foresight of the consequences of their actions (rational expectations), but that is not the world we live in. You complain of wind and solar freeloading, but there has been plenty of freeloading by oil and natural gas companies.
Free parking lots, undertaxation for maintenance of highway systems (at least in the US). In fact if support for wind and solar had never occurred, the transition would be that much more difficult in the future, the invisible hand does not always allocate resources perfectly, particularly when future expectations of unending fossil fuel output prove to be false.
To underscore this point: “You complain of wind and solar freeloading, but there has been plenty of freeloading by oil and natural gas companies.”
FF have received many times more subsidy than renewables. By far.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=subsidies+fossil+fuels+vs.+renewables&FORM=HDRSC2
Fossil fuels pay really high tax rates. In the past I’ve worked in countries where the tax was 80 %, and in some the marginal tax rate is in excess of 100 % (this of course discourages production above a certain level).
Dennis, I don’t have any solutions. I do know we have too much population, politicians can’t deal with it, and everybody dies.
Continued carbon loading in the atmosphere has little to do with the eventual end point temperature at this point. Certainly it is a factor, but since there is now enough to cause most of the ice to melt and reduce the period of snow cover, albedos effects are taking over. Add some methane and natural carbon dioxide release from melting tundra and forests burning, then anthropomorphic CO2 loading quickly becomes the smaller factor. It was merely the kicker to start the natural feedbacks.
Most of the ice isn´t going to melt. Most of the ice didnt melt in the Eemian. Albedo is doing fine, a little bit of temperature increase will balance the energy budget.
Besides, if Europeans keep insisting on cutting down trees to burn “biomass” then all the forests will turn into deserts. That should fix the albedo.
The Navy thinks the Arctic will soon have ice free summers, just right for heat capture at maximum insolation.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/09/us-navy-arctic-sea-ice-2016-melt
Snow cover is steadily decreasing, most of the loss is in the higher insolation times of spring and summer.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/snow-ice/snow-cover.html
Sure some forest loss will change the albedo, not as much as ice to water or snow to tundra however.
We do have one wild card up our collective sleeve, if the thermohaline circulation slows or stops the northern hemisphere will chill down and ice may start forming again. That would change the major albedo gain effect. However, the equatorial region would heat up much more dramatically as it gets isolated.
Of course what happens if we stop or slow down the burning of coal and high sulfur oil due to economic or societal collapse? There goes the albedo again.
Alan, those ice free summer articles in the Guardian come and go all the time. If the ice melts in the summer then the water freezes in the winter.
It doesn’t really mean that much. I think you’ll see there’s a lot of arm waving going on. The ice will get thinner, some of it will go away, but that’s not the really critical ice. That stuff floats on water.
Albedo wise, we seem to be doing fine. We need to monitor earthshine in the future and time will tell.
Fernando said ” If the ice melts in the summer then the water freezes in the winter. It doesn’t really mean that much. I think you’ll see there’s a lot of arm waving going on. The ice will get thinner, some of it will go away, but that’s not the really critical ice.”
I think you are forgetting that there is not much light up north in the winter. Spring, summer and fall melted ice make a huge difference in albedo. Frozen winter ice makes only a small or no difference.
Also, ice floating or ice on land, makes no difference as far as albedo. That’s for the ocean rise topic, which also reduces albedo.
Note: Jean Laherrere just emailed me and he seemed quite upset about a couple of things in my graphs. That is the historical data is in one year intervals and the projected data is in five year intervals. And also he was upset that my historical data quoted 2013 and 2014 data when the IEO 2014 Table 5A data only went through 2011.
I believe I explained in the second paragraph of the post that the data were on two different time scales. But for those concerned about the production numbers from 2012, 2013 and 2014. That data is also from the EIA. The EIA publishes C+C annual data which is where I got the 2012 and 2013 data and the 2014 data is the average of the first nine months of 2014, which I also explained in the second paragraph.
However the EIA does publish annual projections for the data I posted. Perhaps I will make a post on that soon.
World Crude and Lease Condensate production by region and country
Ron, you said clearly that you were adding the data for 2012 to 2014 and we should be grateful for you taking the effort to extend the data to 2014 in the graphs.
That said, I must agree with Jean Laherrere in that I also don’t like to see a graph with a distorted axis were some units represent one year while others represent five years. I would not touch such a graph because it gives a distorted view, like one of those curved mirrors. The right part of the graph is compressed respect to the left half. I don’t see a problem in using five years estimate if that is what you have, as long as the axis keeps the proper distances, i.e. the dots for the estimates should be separated by 5 times the space that separates the dots from the data.
Anyway is a minor point. You make your points very clear and I am grateful to you for sharing the information.
Javier, sorry that I, at first misinterpreted your post. I thought you said that I said that you should be grateful for… And indeed that is what you did say but not what you meant.
However… I posted the data exactly as the EIA presented it, only enhancing it with more data. And I explained the charts. I am very sorry if you had a problem with it. I trust most did not however.
Current Active Drilling Rig List
The North Dakota rig count is down to 136 with six on the “to be stacked” list.
136 must be around the number of rigs needed to keep output steady.
Do you know what that number is?
Canabuck, I suspect that you are correct, the number required to keep production flat would be somewhere around that number. However rigs are not the important thing right now, fracking crews are. From the January Director’s Cut:
The drillers far outpaced completion crews in November. At the end of November there were about 775 wells waiting on completion services, an increase of 125.
775 wells were awaiting fracking crews at the end of November. Even if the rig count is cut to well below the number required to keep production flat it will still take several months for the fracking crews to catch up. But I suspect they are cutting also.
Bottom line, I really don’t know what to expect in North Dakota. We will just have to wait and see.
I am waiting for EIA to announce that future increases in Oil supplies will originate from the Gas Giants. Titan alone has enough hydrocarbons to last more than 1000 years 🙂
“more than 1000 years”. You mean ‘…at current rate of production?’ 😉
Another chart using World C+C URR of 3000 Gb, but trying to match the EIA’s IEO projections out to 2035 at about 94 Mb/d. The extraction rate from estimated C+C-XH producing reserves would need to rise to 15.2% in 2035 (it only rose to 8.2% in 2025 in the previous case). I do not believe this “High Case” is reasonable, the point is to show that only unreasonably high extraction rates would make it possible and that the decline rate would be very high after the peak. In fact it looks like the “shark fin” scenario that some people foresee, I doubt we will ever see World C+C output above 80 Mb/d. Maximum annual decline rate in this scenario is 8.3% in 2036, maximum output is 94 Mb/d in 2035. Chart below.
DC, I agree that is the only way that such a growth would seem plausible, that they will have to heroically increase the extraction rates. But then that prompts a question … at what cost?
Another scenario with a plateau at 80 Mb/d from 2018 to 2028, extraction rate at 8.3% in 2033, maximum annual decline rate is 3.1% in 2034, this is on the optimistic side, but does not seem impossible. A lot depends on how high extraction rates can go worldwide and on oil prices and the state of the World economy.
The US extraction rate in 2014 has been about 14% of producing reserves, so perhaps an 8.3% extraction rate for the world is possible, this is unknown.
Ron Patterson expects a peak in 2015 (at the latest) so I created a scenario with a 2015 peak using the 3000 Gb World C+C URR (2500 for C+C less extra heavy plus 500 Gb extra heavy oil). This is a higher URR than Ron thinks is reasonable, by at least 300 Gb. The scenario for extra heavy oil is somewhat lower than the output expected in Jean Laherrere’s extra heavy oil scenario. The peak is 78 Mb/d in 2015 and extraction rates from C+C less extra heavy producing reserves remain under 6%, the annual decline rate is less than 1.86% through 2060.
I doubt that this scenario would look reasonable to someone with a pessimistic outlook as the expectation is for very high decline rates, extraction rates would need to fall to create high decline rates.
Dennis, truth be known, I have no idea how much oil is left. The point is all the cheap oil is gone, or is going extremely fast via infill drilling in all the super giants. All the other stuff, tar sands, deep ocean, shale oil, Arctic oil and so on is extremely expensive and declines very fast.
The EIA has almost all future oil coming from the Middle East where they believe huge reserves lie, and from Brazil, Kazakhstan, and Canada. I think we all have serious doubts about those Middle East reserves though some of us are more optimistic than others. And as far as Brazil, Kazakhstan and Canada are concerned, that is all very hard to reach and very expensive oil. Those reserves depend on the price of oil.
So I don’t know how much economically recoverable reserves are left. But I seriously doubt it is anywhere the amount either you or Jean believe. But what matters, and all that matters, is the amount that can be economically produced and at what rate.
Hi Ron,
There is no question that the oil will become more expensive as it becomes more and more difficult to produce. If oil prices cannot rise because the World economy cannot handle higher prices or because substitutes decrease in price so that higher oil prices lead to substitution, then it is possible that less oil will be produced. I am confident that Jean Laherrere’s URR estimates are the minimum amounts that are technically recoverable (C+C URR=2700 Gb). It is certainly possible that above ground factors such as economics, war, or technological progress may result in some of these resources being left in the ground or extracted at a much slower rate. So far there is little evidence of a slow down in the extraction rate, but that does not mean it cannot happen. If oil prices remain low over the long term that would tend to reduce the rate of extraction, but unless we enter a long term depression for 10 years or there is a World War, I doubt the extraction rate will fall.
If oil prices cannot rise because the World economy cannot handle higher prices or because substitutes decrease in price so that higher oil prices lead to substitution, then it is possible that less oil will be produced.
Substitution will have very little to do with anything except the continued destruction of the Amazon and Malaysian rain forests. There will never be enough of them to make much difference in liquid transportation but will make a lot of difference to the health of our ecosystems.
So far there is little evidence of a slow down in the extraction rate, but that does not mean it cannot happen.
Nonsense, there is every evidence in a slowdown of extraction rates. I showed a few days ago that the barrels per rig has dropped by almost half since 2000. I don’t have the stats but I would bet that the barrels per well has dropped even more. And as we turn to shale oil, the barrels per well, in North Dakota is 103 barrels per day. In the US barrels per well is about 10.5 barrels per day.
It is taking more and more wells to produce the same amount of oil. That is because the extraction rate per well is dropping and it is dropping all over the world.
Hi Ron,
The extraction rate is from producing reserves. From the shock model I can estimate producing reserves, which have been decreasing since 2000.
The annual C+C-XH output divided by previous year end C+C-XH producing reserves is the extraction rate.
Since producing reserves have been decreasing while annual output has been increasing the extraction rate has been increasing since 2000. Chart below with world producing reserves for C+C-XH on right axis in millions of barrels and annual C+C-XH output in millions of barrels per year on the left axis.
Of course we are talking apples and oranges here. You are talking about the extraction rate of oil left in the ground. I am talking about the extraction rate per well and more importantly the extraction rate per dollar.
Ron, It is pretty much the same thing — a fraction of what is left in reserves or per well is the same proportion in each case.
However, as you point out the overall decline rate differs depending on whether new wells are brought on.
Yes but as a percentage, the percent of oil in the ground, that is extracted each year is going up.
The percent of oil per well is going down. The percent of oil per dollar is going down.
In other words the percent of oil produced per unit of effort to produce it is dropping.
Hi Ron,
I think we agree, but you would probably disagree.
You seem to agree that the extraction rate is increasing (this is similar to saying that the depletion rate is going up).
I agree with your point that the effort required to produce the average barrel od oil is increasing. That is the reason that over the long term oil prices will rise.
I also agree with your point (stated elsewhere) that there will be a point where oil prices may not be able to rise further due to demand destruction and/or economic crisis (or perhaps social chaos in general). In that case some of the technical oil resources (those that could be produced if high oil prices supported their production) may never be produced and the URR will be lower as a result.
The only difference is that you are confident that this will be the case, I only admit that this may be possible, but do not think it is the most likely scenario.
but do not think it is the most likely scenario.
Dennis, if you could draw a scale of oil resources that could be produced at what cost, you would see chart with a line rising ever higher and higher as you price the production recovery of oil resources.
So to say “this is unlikely to happen” just makes no sense whatsoever. There are definitely resources that will be uneconomical to recover no matter how high the price of oil goes.
So the question is: “How much oil will be left in the ground due to the lack of capex required to recover it”?
To say there will be none is more than absurd. The only question is how much? I say the amount will be considerable because there is a limit to how high prices can go. That is the world economy, already in near shambles, can only afford prices so high before recessions around the world get worse.
You on the other hand seem to think: “Naw, the price will rise slow and people will adjust to higher and higher prices, therefore more and more oil will be extracted at ever increasing prices.”
What you don’t understand is that people can no more adjust to more and more drains on their financial resources anymore than they can adjust to ever increasing drains on their food supply. There are some things that people simply cannot adjust to.
Above roughly $60 per barrel, there begin to be much better and cheaper alternatives.
Above $100, the majority of oil use in the US has better and cheaper alternatives.
Above $150, the majority of world oil consumption has cheaper and better alternatives.
Above $400, there are no uses for oil that don’t have cheaper and better alternatives.
Hi Ron,
Please don’t put words in my mouth,
what I have said is that people will make different choices as prices increase.
Of course all the oil in the ground will not be extracted, only the oil that can be economically produced.
It comes down to this you think a collapse is certain, I do not. We define collapse differently, and when I have asked for your definition, I did not get an answer.
I don’t think of an economic depression as collapse because it is temporary, at some point in the future there is likely to be another depression, in fact it likely to be the only thing that causes the kind of changes the world needs to see.
I believe that your vision of collapse thinks that such a state will be permanent or rapidly worsening. I think that people will realize there is a serious problem, the Keynesian economics will be relearned and that Leviathan will get to work on finding solutions.
You my friend always see the worst possible outcome as the most likely outcome. That does not strike me as realistic.
Dennis, I have taken this thread to the bottom where things are wider. Please go there.
Substitution will have very little to do with anything except the continued destruction of the Amazon and Malaysian rain forests.
Unless of course substitution takes the form of conservation or electricity.
Hi Ron,
On substitution I am talking about trains, buses, car pooling, biking, walking, moving to more densely populated areas, electric vehicles, more light rail. I am not referring to biofuels, that is unlikely to be a viable solution. CTL and GTL are also unlikely to be viable because natural gas and coal will also peak and decline.
A lot more freight will be moved by rail in the future, short haul trucks could be electric, trains can be converted to electric from diesel. As oil becomes more expensive all of these things become more viable.
Those who think this is not possible lack imagination.
Hi Ron
I wish to state UP FRONT that I DO NOT know enough to estimate the future costs of fertilizers or labor or other agricultural inputs – nor does anybody else in my opinion.
Labor will probably continue to be dirt cheap in most places but fertilizers are energy intensive in the extreme and highly dependent as well on one time thru depleting natural resources.
(It may or may not be possible to eventually economically recycle most human wastes to extend the supply.My personal guess is that so called ” humanure” is going to be recycled on the grand scale at some point as a matter of necessity cost be damned. )
And tropical agriculture is outside my personal area of expertise as well.But the BUSINESS of growing sugar cane is not very complicated at all and as Fernando has pointed out raising cane for ethanol in the right places with current day costs for land labor etc is very profitable if it can be sold in the right markets and oil is at a hundred bucks or more.
You say ”Substitution will have very little to do with anything except the continued destruction of the Amazon and Malaysian rain forests.”
I heartily agree that we are headed to hell in a hand basket in ecological terms and I am very much afraid you are dead on about the destruction of rain forests.
There is also a very strong possibility that a huge amount of current cropland and some pasture land as well will be forcibly converted to biofuels production with horrible consequences for local people and poor people EVERYWHERE given that this conversion will force up food prices.
But do you really meant to say substitution will have very little to do with anything or did you just sort of get in a hurry and fail to add a little qualifying language?I know I am nitpicking to some extent.
I agree that in the near term biofuels are not going to amount to much in terms of the overall oil supply and that other oil substitutes are AT THIS MOMENT not yet really economical and practical. Biofuels are not going to amount to very much in relation to eighty or ninety million barrels of oil burnt on a daily basis ANYTIME SOON but as petroleum depletes and biofuels ramp up biofuels will become more and more important and we may wind up hooked on them – gut hooked like a fish that has swallowed a baited hook.
Heavy equipment from large farm machinery to mining machinery to highway trucks to locomotives and ships can run on natural gas and trains can be easily electrified.But the gas storage and distribution infrastructure is not there and it may NEVER be there.
So far as ships go there is no real reason they couldn’t be built to run on coal – ships are huge these days and coal is plentiful.It would cost more to build them and be a lot more inconvenient to refuel them but there can be no doubt coal will efficiently propel a ship if the choice is cheap coal or uber expensive oil.
And while it is for the moment still not possible to build an electric or plug in hybrid car that is TRULY cost competitive( in my estimation ) with a comparable conventional car I believe that oil will cost enough more and the price of electrics and plug ins will fall fast enough that they will be MORE than truly cost competitive within a very few years – perhaps as little as four or five years.
Shoe leather is not exactly a SUBSTITUTE for oil but shoes do work especially in the case of very short trips. I have lived in a city and found that sometimes I could walk to a restaurant or supermarket as quick or quicker than I could walk to my car and find another parking spot when I got back home.
OFM,
Ships have been the garbage disposal system for refineries for quite a while. They burn to lowest of low quality fuels, and allow refineries to avoid the expense of building cokers or hydrogenators, and simply heat it and pump it to a ship. The problem is the pollution police are catching up to them. As of this year or next, strict rules come into force on what a ship can put into the atmospher, especially around the coast of Canada and Europe, they either have to burn MGO, (diesel), install scrubbers while they burn Heavy fuel oil, or alternatively they are turning to LNG. Coal has not got a mention, no doubt due to the smoke and other emissions. They would also have to be steam driven. Hard to find a ships engineer these days with a steam ticket, as well as the capital to re-invent and build large steam engines for ships.
The last coal fired ships I heard of being built were 4 bulk carriers, for bauxite, to go from Weipa to Gladstone in Australia. Gladstone was the Alumina refinery and also at the time our largest coal export port. This was during the early 1980’s.
LNG is the most likely alternate fuel for ships, while the heavy fuel oil can stay at the refinery, add H2 + cash and make more diesel and gasoline.
Hi Toolpush,
I have read a little about the environmental reg’s being tightened up on ships forcing them to switch to alternative fuels when in inshore waters . It is my impression that mostly they manage it just by hauling enough good quality diesel fuel to run the ship engines on it and continue to so called bunker oil out in open waters.
It is my impression that the very tail end of the oil refining process leaves behind coke in ever smaller amounts because it can be upgraded to something useful in a modern refinery when oil prices are high. So far I think we are on about the same page.
Now it is my IMPRESSION that coke is not just as good a fuel in power plant as coal for one basic reason- that it contains a lot of nasty metal contaminants. Everything else should burn up in a well designed boiler.
Am I right on this point?
Now insofar as running a ship on coal – if oil of some sort is not available – and the choice is natural gas or coal – then I suppose that for the moment natural gas is a far better choice as a pratical matter both in terms of pollution and existing infrastructure. It could easily be piped dockside and it burns just fine in a diesel engine with just a little bit of diesel added to help it along.
But in the long run natural gas may be too valuable to burn it in ships given that it can also be used in trucks and construction machinery and put to other uses in small quantities at many different locations via pipelines. Coal is not easily distributed like gas.
So – Maybe it will turn out that coal is so much cheaper than natural gas that shipbuilders will turn back the clock and build coal fired ships again. This would take a while to get off the ground no doubt but the technology of steam turbines and coal fired boilers has been advancing right along even if these things have not been installed in ships for the last few decades.
I expect the factories that build both coal fired boilers and steam turbines could turn out new models scaled to fit inside a large ship without much trouble.And ships are so big these days the extra space needed would not really matter all that much.
Ship engines are the biggest single engines around and if they can’t be made to run economically on coal then the possibility of running anything smaller on coal probably close to zero.
I have read that existing giant diesels can actually be made to run on powdered coal but this doesn’t sound like a viable technology to me. Maybe if the engines were redesigned to get the coal powder into the cylinders efficiently and it could be ground fine enough and screened to be clean enough……………….. Even the tiniest pebble is pretty hard on a piston and cylinder wall.
Shoe leather is not exactly a SUBSTITUTE for oil but shoes do work especially in the case of very short trips. I have lived in a city and found that sometimes I could walk to a restaurant or supermarket as quick or quicker than I could walk to my car and find another parking spot when I got back home.
I do all my local errands on foot now. It’s healthier.
OFM,
An abstract of a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society points to something that could be very important if it turns out to be scalable: a group produced a catalyst that converts N2 to ammonia, using sunlight as the energy source. The catalyst is an Fe/Mo/S compound on the surface of a chalcogel (sponge structure). The stuff is black so it absorbs sunlight nicely.
The authors sounded bemused, watching this stuff producing ammonia, “going and going”, and they’re working to speed it up.
It sounds too good to be true, but the JACS isn’t noted for being subject to enthusiasms so it will be something to watch. The Haber-Bosch process uses a great deal of energy; it would be nice to see sunlight do the job instead.
And sunlight produces a great deal of energy- either direct or indirect thru PV-especially when there’s a great deal of sunlight- eg-Red Sea. Site your fertilizer factory there. Ship it all around the world’
Next problem?
Hi Ron,
Simple question (I hope), why does the tar sands deplete quickly? I know why it’s expensive (I’ve seen the operations in person. Wowsers!), but I don’t see why they deplete quickly. In fact, I’ve never heard that before and I try to pay some attention to these things.
Thanks.
Okay, I should have left the tar sands out of the “quickly depleting” group. They are only very expensive and ramp up very slowly. Ditto for the Orinoco Bitumen.
Sorry, I was just typing too fast.
Hi Ron,
So I don’t know how much economically recoverable reserves are left. But I seriously doubt it is anywhere the amount either you or Jean believe. But what matters, and all that matters, is the amount that can be economically produced and at what rate.
I agree that nobody knows how much will be produced. At $100/b (2014$) we have about 1300 Gb of 2P reserves (including about 300 Gb of extra heavy oil) and we have produced 1250 Gb, that is 2550 Gb of URR.
One could assume there will be no more discoveries and no reserve growth in the future, but most would question if that assumption was reasonable including Fernando(he expects about 250 GB of discoveries plus reserve growth) and Jean Laherrere (who expects about 200 Gb of discoveries plus reserve growth). I have used the Extra heavy URR estimate of Jean Laherrere (500 Gb) which Fernando agrees is reasonable, there are many who would argue these URR estimates are too low (the USGS amongst others).
I think your estimate is too pessimistic, Jean Laherrere’s estimates are very reasonable (though a little conservative in my view.)
Ron was nice enough to email me his data on World Oil Drilling Rig data. I took some of his data and charts and put together an article: DECLINE OF THE U.S. EMPIRE: Due To The Worst Oil Productivity In The World.
http://srsroccoreport.com/decline-of-the-u-s-empire-due-to-the-worst-oil-productivity-in-the-world/decline-of-the-u-s-empire-due-to-the-worst-oil-productivity-in-the-world/
I believe the only reason the U.S. Empire has not yet collapsed is due to its Dollar World Reserve Currency status as well the ability to flood the globe with soon to be worthless U.S. Treasuries.
It’s only a matter of time before the PHAT EROI LADY SINGS.
steve
Nice graph. When you say that the EROEI of tight oil extraction is 5:1, does that include the energy to produce and transport sand, clays, chemicals and water. Does it include the extra energy to repair the roads being wrecked by massive truck transport? How about the energy to replace rails, replace locomotives or rebuild them?
EROEI won’t ever be calculated confidently.
As always, clueless. Drilling rigs do not “produce” oil. Completed wells do. I guess that the “m” stands for million. So, I guess that US production of 8,500,000 bbl/day is divided by a current (average?) number of drilling rigs. So, 8,500,000 divided by 1,862 is 4,565. And, for the mid-east, 24,300,000 divided by 406 is 59,852. So, if the US shuts down all drilling rigs except one, we get 8,500,000 bbl/day from that one drilling rig? What is the mathematical relationship that we are trying to show here?
The US shale rigs are “resulting in” thousands of wells [in a year] that produce less than 500 bbl/day average, for the first year. If the 406 rigs in the mid-east are resulting in wells that produce, e.g., 2,000 bbl/day in the first year, then that is a comparison of the quality of the drilling prospects that has some meaning (especially if their new wells cost less than ours).
Here is a wacky idea.
Since US tight oil has been the only thing keeping world oil production growing for the last few years, is it possible that as the market has been flooded with very low EROEI tight oil, the world actually reached peak net energy? That might explain the sudden onset of the collapse of the entire commodities complex, including oil, beginning around June/July of 2014. This makes sense since it would be logical to expect to reach peak net energy at some point before peak oil, since overall EROEI is declining. And since we seem to be at peak oil right about now…
Come to think of it, this is not such a wacky idea after all.
The third annual Sustainable Energy in America Factbook released today documents the continuing dramatic changes in how the U.S. produces, delivers and consumes energy, and makes some projections and predictions about the direction of the energy sector in the future. The report was researched and produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and commissioned by The Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/sustainable-energy-revolution-grows-says-bloomberg-report
The 2015 edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook – produced for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, provides up-to-date, accurate market intelligence about the broad range of industries — energy efficiency, renewable energy and natural gas — that are contributing to the country’s move towards cleaner energy production and more efficient energy usage.
http://www.bcse.org/sustainableenergyfactbook.html
Written by economist … for economist.
oh and that thing about jobs…
“The solar installation sector is already larger than well-established sectors of fossil fuel generation, such as coal mining (93,185 jobs). The solar installation sector added nearly 50% more jobs in 2014 than the total created by both the oil and gas pipeline construction industry (10,529), and the crude petroleum and natural gas extraction industry (8,688). Solar employers are also optimistic about 2015, expecting to add another 36,000 jobs over the coming year.”
http://solarfoundation.hivesandbox.com/press-release-solar-industry-creating-jobs-nearly-20-times-faster-than-overall-u-s-economy/
REMINDER:
I would just like to kindly remind everyone that SOLAR & WIND are nothing more than FOSSIL FUEL DERIVATIVES. If we were really serious about running the world on renewables or better yet, on alternatives rather than burning oil, natural gas or coal, we should have done so 25-30 years ago in a BIG WAY.
We have just run out the clock. Can’t make it any simpler than that.
steve
dang it! No point in doing anything then. Looks like I picked a bad day to quit sniffin’ glue.
!
Right you are steve but…
Alt energy can and will play a part in our future but that future will be nothing like the quality of life that our current energy consumption provides and what ezry and others would have us believe is possible.
I don’t think I said anywhere what I believe is possible.
I have posted stuff about what other people think.
I have a couple hundred watts of solar and while it’s some great stuff it will not allow for the wasteful habits of “civilization”. The wife teaches cob building and has used pv in her buildings. For demanding applications proper sizing of panels to storage is imperative. As far as running our industrial society as currently configured….thumbs down.
Here’s the pattern. I (and many others) say I knocked off a BIG hunk of our BAU energy use by things like insulating and all that. Then, we say WITH THAT LOWER ENERGY USE , we then went on to solar and were very happy with the result.
Then the response- “Ah, sure, but you can’t have the BAU quality of life any more—” ! When the first thing we said was we DIDN’T DO BAU to start with.
Does anybody really read what the other guy writes any more?
As for quality of life. No, I sure don’t have the BAU quality of life- my solar quality of life is WAY BETTER.
Then the response- “Ah, sure, but you can’t have the BAU quality of life any more—” ! When the first thing we said was we DIDN’T DO BAU to start with.
What I can’t understand is this: If you believe in peak oil, then you most likely already foresee an end to BAU. So why do you fault solar for not being able to deliver BAU?
I think most people who support using more solar know that other things have to change, too. There needs to be more energy conservation and more energy use efficiency. There needs to be less wasteful consumption. People may need to go back to the days where families didn’t use four cars. Maybe kids walk to school again. And so on.
Boomer. You and I think alike on solar.
But I am puzzled by the grammar in your remark above. I Surely hope you don’t refer to ME, when you say
“You fault solar for not being able to support BAU”
since the whole point of my remark was that other people read me wrong and say I do support it– Absolutely the opposite to my intent.
I go farther than not supporting it, I strongly believe that life within the solar income would be BETTER than BAU, simply because what we do in BAU is very largely either worthless or flat out harmful. Like, for example, advertising, fat cars, huge lawns, and TV.
If we put those resources into what we NEED, we would all be happier.
I Surely hope you don’t refer to ME, when you say
“You fault solar for not being able to support BAU”
No, I wasn’t referring to you at all. I was talking about all the people who predict peak oil will destroy BAU, and yet won’t consider that solar has anything to offer because it can’t maintain business as usual.
If the limitations of solar are that it can’t maintain BAU, then how can it be worse than no BAU anyway?
I guess I just see faulting solar for not being able to maintain BAU as the wrong reason to discount it.
Of course, it can’t maintain BAU. But it might be able to sustain a new normal.
In other words, I see all that solar can support. Not what it can’t support.
Boomer & Wimbi,
After the removal the energy waste in our current system. There is plenty of room for quality of life from solar. Count me in with your solar views.
Here in SoCal, for 7k I can purchase a grid tied solar home system that would cover my $35 monthly electric bill and generate enough extra power for 1000 miles a month for a electric car.
The future is already here !
German Engineering
http://www.bmwusa.com/standard/content/vehicles/2015/i3/BMWi3RangeExtender/360Electric/overview.aspx?from=/Standard/Content/Vehicles/2015/i3/BMWi3RangeExtender/360ElectricRD.aspx&return=/Standard/Content/Vehicles/2015/i3/BMWi3RangeExtender/360ElectricRD.aspx
Us engineers gotta stick together. Right On.
7K? Holy cow! I thought I was doing just great putting it all together myself for house and car for twice that–2 yrs ago.
The extra panels I bought then at a “great bargain” to help my friends are now way more expensive than the ones I can get now retail just by picking up the phone.
The future is already here !
Yes, that’s what I keep writing here. Solar is here. It isn’t going away. I don’t have any predictions about how much electricity generation will come from solar, but solar is the best solution in some situations and I can’t see anything better for those situations. It works without having to bring in fuel. It can work off grid. It can work in units so small they can be carried in a backpack.
I don’t think anyone familiar with solar claims it will maintain BAU. In fact, that isn’t the goal. If anything, the goal is to end BAU and replace it with something else.
It can be, but Sanyo and others used the first production runs to make panels to provide power for the factory.
Remember oil and coal started out as wood derivatives.
A question about hedging
Let’s assume that a tight/shale player has their 2014 level of production hedged at about $80 per barrel for 2015. Isn’t the decision as to whether to proceed with a given well in 2015 still dependent on the projected economics for that well?
In other words, the hedge may provide them with a sizable profit, as oil prices decline, but isn’t the profit on the hedges a separate issue from the economics of the well? With or without hedges, if the estimated net present value of the well is 80% of the drilling and completion cost, why would the company proceed with drilling the well?
Jeffrey, the answer is quite simple. You are correct, the profit on the hedge is entirely a separate issue from the economics of the well. The reason is, contrary to what a lot of people believe, a driller or oil company that has futures contracts that allows him to sell oil at $80 a barrel, is not obligated to deliver the physical product. He can settle in cash. If he is hedged at $80 and his contracts all closed at $50 a barrel he can simply take the $30,000 profit per contract and walk. He can shut down his wells, sell them or whatever. What he does with his wells has nothing to do with his futures contracts profit.
Now some people may want to argue with me on this point but I am correct. I was once a commodities broker, albeit for a very short time. But I still had to take the very long series 3 commodities broker exam. I passed. A commidity futures trader, whether he takes the long or short side, is never obligated to deliver or take delivery of the physical product. He can always settle in cash.
As far as I am aware, the hedges are all paper transactions. I am not aware of shale companies entering into long term contracts with crude purchasers to lock in a price.
Also, it is difficult to hedge oil production out more than 18-24 months. Puts get very expensive. With SWAPS and cost less collars, margin can become too costly. Also with steep production declines in shale, ensuring the barrels long term is difficult. Finally, if the price spikes long term one can really get squeezed with a lower hedged price and rapidly escalating costs in an oil spike environment.
Hedging is good to flatten out the price swings. Don’t know how well it works when the hedges only go out to end of 2015 or early 2016 and no principal is due until 2020.
Price will have to go up big in next 2-3 years or most of the shale drillers will have neither the barrels nor the cash flow to pay the principal borrowed or roll it over.
Imagine the hassle if the royalty owner wants the hedge on his share?
Royalty owners may hedge their share if the have enough barrels and meet the counterparty’s financial requirements. Hedging is typically done on the basis of barrels per month, with one contract being 1,000 barrels, or about 33.33 barrels per day.
The small producers in the US sell oil to one of the many crude purchasing companies. Plains Marketing, LP is one of the largest ones. Those companies pay a price based on contact with the operator of the lease, and the royalty owners receive the same price per barrel as the operator. The crude purchaser may cut one check to the operator, who then does the accounting and cuts the checks to the royalty owners and other interest owners, or many times the crude purchaser handles that accounting and pays the royalty and other owners.
The hedging is almost always done through separate transactions with other entities. The price is usually tied to WTI because the counterparties want to eliminate basis risk. If the price goes up, the producer pays the counterparty, if it goes down, vice versa. Also, except for puts, which are paid for upfront, the producer must post a cash margin with the counterparty to insure the producer will pay.
I have always wondered how the shale guys take care of the margin, given they usually are cash poor. Lien on production?
Well, this won’t go well.
There are many ways to hedge. You can buy put options on an underlying vehicle, if you need to protect against that vehicle declining. You can short futures on that vehicle. You can borrow money to do either, and then sell swaps on the borrowed money.
All of them costs money regardless of risk. You pay commissions to buy the puts, for example. For your example, if you buy puts with a striking price of $80/b, they are currently priced at $80 – 50 or $30 plus a premium based on time left to expiration plus the commissions. If the price declines another dollar to 49 a day later, you are ahead $1 (minus the time premium erosion of 1 day). You are also down $1 on your production sale of the oil.
The key concept here is you buy enough puts to protect X barrels of production. If price rises, you make that money in production revenue, but you lose all of your commissions AND all of the time premium of the put. In effect, you have to increase the price of oil by that sum (commissions and time to expiration premium) to earn a profit beyond your hedge decision. If price falls, you shield yourself partially from loss, but earn nothing in net (because your production generates less revenue).
Unless.
Unless you didn’t “hedge”. Suppose you bought MORE puts than just enough to cover production. Then you are not an oil producer anymore. Then you are an oil securities trader.
So . . . the talk about “they are hedged so they are making money on the decline” is rather bogus. They are limiting loss, and they did it by sacrificing gain. If they didn’t hedge all their production, then they are losing money, but less than they might. If the price had gone up, their gain would have been attenuated by time to expiration premium + commission costs.
Bottom line: there are no free lunches. This has come up in the airline business often. Do you want to be in the airline business or the commodities trading business?
I see Ron just replied and reached the conclusion that the well economics are not going to be hedge related. I agree. There is no free lunch. The put just insures against loss. It doesn’t fix anything, and maybe most importantly, time passes and the positions have to be renewed at a new premium price.
Guys who do this are essentially deciding they know what the price is going to be. It’s unlikely they do, but they will wake up some morning scared and decide to insure.
One big problem with hedging is you cannot hedge if the price is already low. You can only hedge at the current price.
Watcher, the driller or oil producer does not have to hedge with puts, he can hedge by going short the actual contract itself. That way, if the price goes down he is guaranteed the contract price. Commissions are negligible and can be ignored. The price of the put however is quite substantial. If it was not then no one would take a chance by selling them.
So hedging with puts you gamble on losing the price of the put if the price goes up but do not lose any profit otherwise. If the price goes down you still lose the price you paid for the put but lose no more than that.
Hedging with the actual futures contract is quite different. I you go short and the price drops, you get the difference between the price of the contract and the price of the physical product. But if the price goes up you still must sell at the price of the contract. You lose any increase in the price of the physical product. Or you can just pay the difference if the price increases or collect the difference in cash if the price goes down.
Hedging with puts you always lose the price you paid for the put regardless. Hedging with the actual contract, short, you win if the price falls and lose if the price rises. Ignore commissions, for huge traders they are pennies on the thousands.
Oil majors fail to find reserves to counter falling output
Production from oil fields falls over time, because reservoir pressure drops as oil is extracted. Fields on average experience natural depletion rates of around 15 percent per year, industry executives say, but companies generally reduce this to 3-5 percent by sinking additional wells, injecting gas or by using other capital-intensive techniques.
Cutting capex will increase depletion rates, if past experience is an indicator.
So we can expect decline rates to increase from 3-5 percent to approaching 15 percent, depending on how much capex they cut.
Looks like peak oil was around 2007 for the five big oil majors and has dropped almost 3 million barrels per day since then.
The word chopped off in the chart below was “profit”. The profit can be found here: Oil Majors Prodction and Profit
Take BP out.they sold properties to pay for Macondo.
And don´t forget these graphs are showing the famous equivalents. Major oil companies are turning into gas companies over time. If you check their oil production, wash out their NGLs (it´s in their detailed SEC filings) you can see their crude and condensate is dropping.
Fields on average experience natural depletion rates of around 15 percent per year, industry executives say, but companies generally reduce this to 3-5 percent by sinking additional wells, injecting gas or by using other capital-intensive techniques.
I think the author meant to say decline rates instead of depletion rates. Otherwise this sentence makes no sense. Sinking additional wells will increase the depletion rates, not the other way around.
I tried to produce a more pessimistic scenario by decreasing the extraction rate from 6% to 3.2%. It is not clear what might cause this, possibly a severe economic down turn and lower oil prices or rapid technological development of oil substitutes once peak oil is widely accepted. I chose 3.2% as the bottom because this was the extraction rate for the model from 1900 to 1960, it could go lower than this I suppose, but I expect this will be when oil goes the way of the buggy whip.
Best estimate seems to be 11.1 mbpd for China 2014 and the US is over 20 again.
It don’t take much decline from the peak to start blockade of enemies, especially enemies with their own central banks that can print as much money as oil purchase requires.
Hi All,
I have presented 5 different scenarios for World C+C output above where the URR was assumed to be 2500 Gb of C+C less extra heavy(XH) oil and 500 Gb of XH for a total URR of 3000 Gb of C+C.
I have put them all together in one chart, the extraction rate on the right axis is for C+C-XH oil only, there is a separate model for XH oil which is the same for all 5 scenarios (and is simply added to the C+C-XH output to get C+C output).
Scenario 1 is the highest peak and highest extraction rate in 2050 and Scenario 5 has the lowest extraction rate in 2050.
Scenario 2 and 3 have similar extraction rates in 2050, but scenario 2 has the higher peak output.
Scenarios 4 and 5 have similar peak outputs, but scenario 5 has an extraction rate that decreases after 2020 to 3.2%.
In my view scenarios 3 and 4 are the most reasonable with reality likely to be between these two scenarios at least through 2035. Scenario 2 is plausible, but unlikely (less than a 25% chance).
Scenario 1 is very unlikely (1% or less) and scenario 5 is also unlikely (25%), though beyond 2035 anything might happen and a drop in extraction rates becomes more likely (50%), so after 2035 reality may fall between scenario 4 and scenario 5.
Jean Laherrere just sent me the following:
Ron,
someone asked about evolution of past IEO forecasts. Please find one graph from IEO 1995 to IEO 2014.
It is obvious that, in the past, EIA was too optimistic by over 10%
best regards
Thank you Jean!
I am pretty sure you think the IEO 2014 forecast is about as accurate as the 1998 forecast(or worse) which predicted about 110 Mb/d of all liquids by 2015, about 22% too high. For C+C in the IEO 2014 for 2030 they predict 87.5 Mb/d of C+C output, if we reduce this by 22% we get about 71 Mb/d in 2030, this is still likely to be too high, but may be possible, the forecast beyond 2030 even when reduced by 20% is just wishful thinking.
Could Brazil be the poster child for disastrous climate change:
http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/02/no-one-is-quite-sure-how-sao-paulo-will-survive-its-drought/385211/
http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-brazil-faces-recession-rousseff-drought/2627536.html
Look what it is doing to Brazil’s crucial bioethanol industry:
http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/2938053_brazilian-governors-join-to-halt-crisis-in-sugarcane-and-ethanol-sector.html
Sao Paulo is screwed. Their rainy season is largely over and what rain they have been getting hasn’t been widespread or heavy enough to raise the reservoirs at all. Then dry season, which last time went through FIVE TIMES as much water as they now have left.
The only question is how exactly it’s going to implode. Shut down industry and cause economic collapse? Keep going until it literally runs dry? Let people riot over two-days a week of water (lot of people in Sao Paulo…)???
Largest city in the Americas.
Think about Phoenix, AZ. They managed to build a suburb around an artificial lake. So inhabitants can sail to their neighbours by yacht. (How cool is that!). They loose an inch a day or so by evaporation of water that could otherwise serve as drinking water supply.
Civilization is about imprinting your cultural image on the wilderness. American civilization is mostly a copy of european civilization, which grew up in a cool damp environment. Unable to escape their cultural blueprint, Americans waste vast sums creating English lawns in the middle of the desert. They can’t imagine any other way of life.
This might look good in England though >;-)
Looks nice. The lawn concept adapted to the desert a bit anyway. Probably taken somewhere near the Wigwam Resort & Golf Club. OR maybe it was on the corner of Elm Street and Arbor.
An I be there is a wide underused blacktop road in front of it just pumping out heat into the surrounding houses.
If Arizonans wanted to live the desert life they would build high buildings on narrow shady streets to reduce per capita insolation. Instead the built sprawl and spend vast sums on air conditioning and lawn irrigation.
A garden my cats can’t climb on or chew. I need one of those 🙂
NAOM
Sao Paulo is screwed.
True, but not any more so than quite a few other places in the world… I’m sure you can do a little research on Google yourself, California comes mind and it could also be another poster child for disastrous climate change.
Anyways while things are pretty dire in Sao Paulo at the moment I don’t think it is quite the end of the road just yet. Here’s a site the gives the status of all reservoirs on which Sao Paulo depends: http://www.apolo11.com/reservatorios.php (site is in Portuguese)
I’m a native of Sao Paulo and just came back from a trip there and I talk to friends and relatives on the ground there on a daily basis. There is going to be water rationing in the city, however that doesn’t mean people will not have drinking water. Every Brazilian home has at least one water tank. My own home has two tanks of 1000 liters each.
While Sao Paulo is in the middle of a drought it still has flash floods in the city I think that quite a few people are going to be doing rain water catchment and storing some of that water in tanks before it floods the streets…
I assume you mean all the wealthy and middle class homes have tanks, but since I don’t know, I am asking. Water storage is common in poor homes and favelas?
Water storage is common in poor homes and favelas?
Yep! Pretty much. I’m not suggesting that there will be no pain for the poor or that the rich will suffer equally but even very humble homes in Brazil have water tanks. As far back as I can remember they have always been common.
Still it needs to rain in order to catch it.
It has been raining hard in the city, not so much where the reservoirs are. I talk to friends and family in Sao Paulo almost every day.
Mexico isn’t Brazil but water storage is pretty much standard around here. Older properties with asbestos cement tanks on the roofs and underground cisterns, newer ones with polythene tanks on the roof or on the ground. Local council has been distributing tanks. I have a typical 1,000 l tank on the roof plus a 5,000 underground. Even those who don’t have will still collect and save rain water in buckets and anything else available. Never mind washing water for the children, send them out in the rain 🙂
NAOM
Rainwater collection is pretty common in Germany as well, although it seems like a solution in search of a problem around here. It’s sort of a triumph of Germany frugality over common sense. The water that runs off the roof is commonly collected and used to water the garden.
LOL! I know, my German brother in law has quite the water catchment system set up to water his garden… Pst, don’t tell no one but he also has solar hot water >;-)
They will have to bring water by supertanker until they can switch their water supply to a suitable river source.
They will have to bring water by supertanker…
I assume that was sarcasm, right?
The fact that São Paulo is located on a plateau located beyond the Serra do Mar (Portuguese for “Sea Range” or “Coastal Range”), itself a component of the vast region known as the Brazilian Highlands, with an average elevation of around 799 metres (2,621 ft) above sea level, at a distance of about 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean, might put a damper on that plan…
Data from Wikipedia
On the other hand the current circumstances might give the Paulistas added incentive to clean up the highly polluted Tietê River and its tributary, the Pinheiros River, which were once important sources of fresh water and leisure for São Paulo. When I was there last month both of them were still quite full of water…
Or maybe build giant water pipelines like the Chinese are doing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project
Looks to me like Lula and Dilma spent too much on football stadiums and padding their party’s pockets and not enough on aqueducts and water supply. I don’t think the brazilian left is looking very good.
I’m no fan of Lula and Dilma but spending money on football stadiums had very little to do with the current situation. This is a consequence of very long term lack of planning by past politicians from both the right and the left. It seems that neither the right nor the left understands the exponential function or the negative consequences of continued growth.
Your comment also underscores why I find your comments about the left or communists or greens or whomever you imagine as being at the root of our problems in general to be profoundly naive. It really makes no difference at all who is in power at the moment. Your world view strikes me as profoundly outdated. I invite you to let go of the paradigm to which you cling so desperately and get past this simple black and white right vs left BS.
BTW I lived in Brazil under the military dictatorship, under right wing regimes and under the current so called left, trust me on this, it was/is pretty much the same old shit with occasional new flies buzzing around. In the big picture it hasn’t changed much.
Lula was elected president in 2002, right? He served two terms, his heiress Dilma served a term. That’s over 12 years to keep an eye on the problem.
In “Sao Paulo, a tale of two cities” the author reports serious problems with water supply. One issue he reported was the invasion and deforestation of water catchment areas by squatters. Another problem is excessive use of subsidized water.
I’ve been looking at the Brazilian experiment with the Worker’s Party, and it seems to be both corrupt and ill managed. This may be one reason why Dilma is getting to be so unpopular.
I also have an axe to grind with those two. They just loooove the human rights abusing left wing dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. So I have to confess I’m really enjoying watching Dilma get punished by God for her iniquity.
there is a thread on this that has some good links to reservoir data over at peakoil.com as well as some passed along commentary from local blogs.
http://peakoil.com/forums/s-america-s-largest-city-on-verge-of-collapse-pt-2-t70883.html
This is worth a read from Jeremy Grantham, it’s all worth reading, but I’d wondered about this part myself:
To move back to Saudi Arabia’s decision not to cut back, one thing they may have overlooked, as
most of us investors do, is unintended consequences. It is important to recognize in this case that the
short-term benefits are spread widely and thinly, but the negatives are concentrated painfully and thus
may destabilize the system. The economic pain from the lower oil price on Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria,
Libya, Russia, or the Gulf States might set off regional political disturbances or provoke some rash
action. Their debt problems combined with those of overleveraged oil sector companies might set off
global financial problems. Major shocks like this to the status quo are just plain dangerous, and Saudi
Arabia, which loves stability much more than most, may come to regret not having sucked up the pain
of selling less for a few years. Cutting back up to half the Saudi oil would have certainly cleared the
market for several years and very probably until U.S. fracking supplies peak . Even at its worst for the
Saudis, in four or five years isn’t selling half the oil at twice the price a real bargain? All of the fracking
oil that can be produced for under $100 a barrel will almost certainly be produced eventually anyway.
Current events are very probably merely postponing the production for a while. And the same goes
for the bankruptcy of some U.S. oil companies, whose properties will just be taken over by stronger
players. Neither of these events appears to be of any longer-term benefit to Saudi Arabia or OPEC in
general. Would it not have been better for the Saudis (and OPEC) to let the U.S. fracking industry
unload its easy production as fast as possible, peak out in three to six years, and then leave the Saudis
firmly in the saddle as the marginal producer once again? If I were on the Saudi long-term planning
committee that would definitely have been my vote anyway, especially with the recent passing of King
Abdullah, whose successor might not be as careful, generally successful, or as lucky as his predecessor.
http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/GMO_Quarterly_Letter_4Q14.pdf
He is very insightful and the only heavyweight in finance I have seen write about resource limits regularly.
I wonder myself if he is right on part of this. All the unpredictable dangers, yes. But on tracking, if they can put a 2-4 year dent in production, it may be long enough that they do not have to worry about it again. And, though it would have been slow to go global for obvious reasons in personnel, capital, and equipment, this may put an even longer crimp in global tracking as a learning curve. Then by the time it goes globe, the world is short oil anyway
I don´t know about all those countries, but I know a little bit about Venezuela and Russia.
Venezuela has an economic crisis, with 60+% inflation, a recession, and $10 billion in bonds they have to pay off this year. They also have to carry over $100 billion in bonds which require future payments. The government deficit is 15 % of GDP, and they just issued an illegal authorization for the army to shoot protesters. If oil prices stay low, their communist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, will be shot or will have to flee. This is a positive development. Meanwhile, Venezuela can´t destabilize anything. They are known to have used their cash to pay for communist and ultra left parties elsewhere. But unless they keep funding them using the $20 billion USD they stole, that source of destabilization is over.
Russia: I won´t get much into Russia other than to explain the Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine will keep fighting. And if the European Union wishes to send troops to fight these Eastern rebels there´s likely to be a real shooting war. In which case the use of nuclear weapons can´t be excluded.
I suspect the oil will still be there long after the Communists have gone.
Some of it. They are ruining the reservoirs with current practices. What they are doing is similar to putting a diseased rabbit in a cage with 10 rabbits.
Jeremy Grantham’s article is convincing on at least one fact.
“… I believe the simplest case is the right one this time: that it was not unexpectedly weak demand but relentlessly increasing U.S. oil supply that broke the market…”
I had until now wrongly accepted that there was an economic downturn at the end of last year. That downturn possibly caused by the high prices at the start of 2014 was the partial cause of the sudden price decline of oil. I have been studying the trade data for the last quarter of 2014 and that does not seem to be the case. Using South Korea as a surrogate marker for Chinese growth GDP was stagnant, volumes were slightly up, prices were down and profits were well down.
Guessing where the oil price may go in the next six months is not so easy. Jeremy Grantham suggests $30. I have my doubts. Calling a peak to oil production in 2015 is making a guess on the price staying low (<$80?). My bet is to expect the unexpected. I think 2015 will be an interesting year.
Based on the four week running average EIA data, US overall net oil imports fell from 6.2 mbpd in the week ending 6/13 to 4.7 mbpd in the week ending 11/07, a decline of 1.5 mbpd in the US demand for net imports of oil over a five month period, primarily due to a strong increase in US oil production, which put considerable downward pressure on oil prices, However, US net imports have recently rebounded, hitting 5.9 mbpd in early January, and most recently US net oil imports were at 5.6 mbpd in the week ending 1/30 (all four week running average data).
US and global light vehicles sales hit record levels in 2014, and a plausible estimate is that the net increase in global light vehicles may be running at about one million new vehicles per week (net being new vehicle sales less vehicles scrapped). In contrast, during the 2008 to 2009 oil price decline, global vehicle sales fell from 2007 to 2009, before rebounding in 2010.
52 million/year (net? maybe).
US 17. China 21ish. That’s 38. So rest of the world combined only has to add 14 million.
52 million X 365 X 20 miles/day driven = 379600 million new miles driven per year globally.
Avg 24 mpg call it, including F150s and SUVs etc. –> 15816 million gallons of fuel
/42 = 375.6 million barrels / 365 . . . over 1 million bpd of new global consumption from just 1 year’s car sales (because damn near none of them are EVs, and what small % they are will become smaller per January’s results).
Perhaps more important that global increase in consumption would be across all of 2014. The lower consumption meme doesn’t hold up.
Here’s a number for gross new light vehicle sales globally in 2014 (what’s the difference between 2014 sales and seasonally adjusted sales?):
Global light vehicle sales up 3.5% in 2014
http://internationalfleetworld.co.uk/news/2015/Jan/Global-light-vehicle-sales-up-3-5-percent-in-2014/0444017985
Anyway, I guess a ballpark number of about 90 million in new light vehicle sales for 2014.
I assume that the scrappage rate for China is pretty low, so the vast majority of new vehicle sales in China in 2014 and other developing countries (90% maybe?) represents a net increase in vehicles.
The Chinese car industry seems to be growing hand over fist, but the oil consumption has taken a pause in growth rate. From what I have seen, the use of heavy fuel oils have been in decline, while the use of gasoline, diesel and Jet-A1 has been growing fast. At some time the drop in heavy oil use slow as it is eliminated out of the system. The use of transport fuels on the other appears to have the ability to grow for a long time yet.
Oil is working its way up the value chain!
US new car sales are almost entirely replacement: US VMT is flat – no new miles.
OECD is the same – the real growth is in China (where average VMT per vehicle is very low because of congestion, and fuel efficiency regs are stricter). And, even in China some vehicles are being scrapped (if only because of collisions)- it’s not 100% net additions.
So, I have a very hard time seeing 50M net new vehicles per year.
Jeffrey, what did you base that estimate of a net of 50 million vehicles per year on?
Would it not have been better for the Saudis (and OPEC) to let the U.S. fracking industry
unload its easy production as fast as possible, peak out in three to six years, and then leave the Saudis
firmly in the saddle as the marginal producer once again?
The problem with this scenario is that the Saudis themselves know that they’re peaking right now. Cutting production in half for 2 years only buys them 1 year worth of oil production reprieve, while knocking out the frackers will likely buy them several years of higher prices.
The “Frackers” will not go away, and if prices rise they will return. Think of it as if they were gerbils hiding underground, waiting for the grass to grow.
I’m not talking about the frackers going away. I’m talking about a slow ramp up after prices recover. It’ll be similar the the post bubble housing market. The frackers are going to have trouble getting their hands on debt financing after a whole slew of them have gone bankrupt.
Fernando you are funny man “gerbils hiding underground” 🙂
You mean like in 2000’s during dot com era when truckers flocked to learn HTML and had to go back to trucking after few years.
You can only do the same bubble once because you run out of greater fools to finance the ponzi.
Nah. We know peak oil is coming anytime. When it does, prices will increase. When prices increase, the industry will start drilling and producing anything that yields a decent return.
Super cheap financing induced gamblers to get over agressive, but it’s not really needed. I would worry more about high oil prices driving all costs up, starting a deadly spiral. This is why we do need viable renewables. Unfortunately renewables are too expensive.
EVs are the bigger threat.
Fortunately they can’t be stopped.
I agree with you Nick. The hole counters are so focused on the supply side. That they are missing what is going to happen on the demand side. The Saudis understand the importance of EVs.
.03x=3 000 000 000 000 barrels of oil that can be extracted.
x=100 000 000 000 000 barrels of oil.
.08x=3 trillion, x= approximately 39 000 000 000 000 barrels of oil.
No need to wonder why it is only 50 dollars per barrel, the world is swimming in huge swimming pool of oil. The oil price swan dived right into it.
If the extraction increases to 5 percent, you gain another two trillion barrels if there are 100 trillion barrels of oil in total in all of the places there is oil here on earth.
If there are between 39 trillion and 100 trillion barrels of oil, of which only three percent can be extracted or maybe eight percent can be extracted, it looks like there may be plenty of oil still there, just can’t extract it all, not possible at this time.
You can see why the EIA can be at least hopeful, that the numbers might possibly be accurate. The amount of oil in the ground somewhere, everywhere, is staggering, maybe. If the truth be told, it won’t be gone in anybody’s lifetime.
I wouldn’t count on the EIA to be even close, but it is entirely plausible that the EIA is correct and the rest of the wacky world is all wet, out on a limb.
A Mad Magazine scenario with Alfred E. Newman smiling with that grin. Think of Alfred as Jack in the special Mad Magazine edition exclusively featuring the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Good for a laugh or two.
Oil in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, California, Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, Alberta, Athabasca, Ohio, Illinois, somewhere in Europe, who knows, wherever Europe is, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, the Gulf of Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, the Brent Sea, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Vietnam, China, India, Australia, just to name a few places where oil has been discovered, and I’ll bet there is more oil in some other places here on earth.
No real reason to believe that oil is going to go away that fast. Probably all wrong, again, but oil is here to stay for at least another thirty years or more, just has to be pumped out of the ground continuously.
What I saw in a video: over in Russia, an old car is cut in half, the rear seat of the old car becomes the front seat and a horse is pulling the cut in half car.
Problem solved.
If the EIA is correct, that oil is going to cost a bundle. We´ll just spend $200 per barrel to get every molecule we can find.
Hi Ronald,
About 1250 Gb of C+C have already been produced. If URR is 3 trillion barrels, that leaves about 1750 Gb left in the ground that can be produced with current technology. For a moment we will set aside the extra heavy (XH) oil of about 500 Gb (only about 10 Gb has been produced so far). The rest of the C+C less XH left to be produced is about 1260 Gb. Not all of this 1260 Gb exists as reserves, about 400 Gb either will be new discoveries or reserve growth from existing discoveries, so that leaves about 860 Gb of proved plus probable (2P) reserves and roughly 56% of these reserves are “producing reserves”, that is they have been developed and have begun producing oil.
The extraction rate is the annual C+C-XH production divided by the producing reserves, in 2014 producing reserves were about 480 Gb and production was about 27 GB (C+C-XH) so the extraction rate was about 5.6%, in 2002 the extraction rate was about 4.6% and the extraction rate has been rising by about 0.07% per year over the 2002 to 2014 period.
For the Low Case Scenario with a C+C peak in 2015, the producing reserves and extraction rate are shown below.
Maybe I oversimplify some of the math. har
480-27=453 gb
27/453=0.059602649
5.96 extraction rate.
2500-1250=1250
90 million per day
Eleven days, one billion barrels.
ok, twelve days to a billion barrels.
1250×12=15 000
15000/360
41 years of oil.
1250×11=13750 days
37.67 years of oil at a billion barrels every 11 days.
90×365=32.85 gb/year
1250/32.85=38 years of oil.
Probably an estimate that is generous.
I’ll go with increased efficiency and better management of wind and solar.
Build the windmills like the old style windmill that was built in the Netherlands. Not too far off of the ground and you eliminate the danger of eagles and vultures getting clobbered to death. Purdy much an answer to that problem.
When the wind blows, it must blow close to the ground, the old windmills worked not that far off of the ground, so they new style of windmill to generate electricity can be built to a more suitable height and still work, the cost of maintenance will be decreased and the windmill will look like it belongs to the environment. It can’t be that difficult to do. Seems like a solution to the problem of the monstrous wind turbines out there now making mince meat of eagles. Might as well be happy with the results. Another no brainer, so might as well change the plan to a new and better, improved plan.
Hi Ronald,
I take end of year reserves from 2013 as the denominator =480 and 2014 production of C+C-XH (74 Mb/d) 27 Gb which is 5.6%.
We cannot continue to produce at 27 Gb/year because the producing reserves keep decreasing, but if we could it would be about 46 years before we used up all the oil, in the real world you can only pump the oil out so fast. Probably the US extraction rate of 14% is the technical limit.
The world does not currently produce 90 Mb/d of C+C, and you are forgetting the 500 Gb of extra heavy oil in your calculations, it would be about 62 years if we included those resources, again assuming we could continue to produce at 28 Gb/year (including 1 Gb of extra heavy output) for all 62 years, which is not possible.
If we assumed a straight line decline we would run out of oil in 124 years in 2138 with an average output of 14 Gb/year over those 124 years. It is unlikely to look like that, but it is a simple model. Output would decrease by 225.8 million barrels each year in this simple model.
The USGS estimate is 3 trillion conventional, and another 1 trillion in heavy oil, and oil sands.
That’s another 100 years of production at current production rates. If production rates fall, you simply drill more wells.
Hi John B,
The extra 500 Gb of extra heavy oil will be developed very slowly so it might help a little with decline, it will also be very expensive, the first 500 Gb will be cheapest anything beyond that would be more expensive. The extra 500 Gb of C+C-XH over my estimate of 2500 Gb will not be a game changer (and I think the USGS may be too optimistic).
Lets take 4000 Gb and realize that 1250 Gb has already been produced, leaving 2750 Gb, we produced about 28 Gb in 2014, so that leaves 98 years of output at a constant 28 Gb per year.
If we assumed a plateau until 2040 and then linear decline output would fall to zero in 170 years. If output started falling linearly from 2014 output would last for 196 years.
Note that the constant output assumption would not work in the real world, as reserves deplete output will decrease.
Imagine your just drill more wells assumption, you realize this has limits, extraction rate can be increased, but it is unlikely to rise above 14% (current US rate of extraction from producing reserves).
The biggest problem with this kind of simple scenario is the assumption that extra heavy resources can be produced as quickly as C+C less extra heavy oil. These resources cannot be ramped up as quickly as conventional oil resources.
The extra heavy oil resources can help reduce the decline rate a bit, but they will not prevent a peak, with 1000 Gb of extra heavy(XH) URR peak would be about 2080 at around 18 Mb/d for XH oil only.
If we take the 1750 Gb of C+C-XH remaining resources and assume linear decline, output would be 38.5 Mb/d in 2076 and XH output would be about 18 Mb/d for 56.5 Mb/d, by 2107 C+C-XH output would fall to 19 Mb/d and XH output would have fallen to 12 Mb/d for total C+C of 31 Mb/d. Oil output will fall as long as oil resources are not unlimited. There will be greater demand from developing countries and diminishing output, and oil prices will become very high unless we move to alternative sources of energy.
I wonder how the USGS discriminates between “oil” and “heavy oil”. And whether they include ethane-propane-butane in the “oil” numbers.
Hi Fernando,
They use the term continuous resources (for extra heavy and shale plays like the Bakken and Eagle Ford) and conventional for everything else. If we assume the shale resource is small (50 to 60 Gb), most of the continuous resource is Orinoco and Canadian tar sands (at about 500 Gb each according to the USGS for TRR). The estimates do not include NGL, only C+C.
So the 3000 Gb estimate is for C+C less extra heavy oil and 1000 Gb for extra heavy oil. I think your guess is about 350 Gb for Canadian tar sands and 150 Gb for Orinoco or roughly 500 Gb for extra heavy oil, correct me if I have misunderstood.
I also think you have suggested about 2425 Gb for your estimate of C+C less extra heavy oil, again please correct any misinterpretation on my part. C+C less extra heavy is all world C+C URR minus the sum of Canadian tar sands and Orinoco belt URR (500 Gb).
If I have understood your previous comments correctly your World C+C URR is 2925 Gb (2850-3000 Gb).
Close enough. I don’t really worry those numbers that much. I only looked it over for that CO2 concentration guess I made last year. So they must be using something like say 8.9 degrees API as a boundary, plus say 800 centipoise.
Thanks Fernando,
You know a lot about the oil industry so your gut feel would be better than mine, have you read much of Jean Laherrere’s work?
http://aspofrance.viabloga.com/texts/documents
A lot of his work can be found at the link above.
A recent work (Feb 2013) on World oil is at link below:
http://aspofrance.viabloga.com/texts/documents
Yes, I read Laherrere’s work. I even quote him in my CO2 post. And I used to write a little bit in The Oil Drum. But I focused on deep water well hardware and things like that. I still read Gail’s blog.
Hi JohnB,
I modified my oil shock model to match the USGS 3000 Gb estimate for C+C less extra heavy (XH) oil, but left the extra heavy estimate at 500 Gb as in my previous models. As before the extraction rate is for C+C-XH and the XH model is done separately and the XH model is the same as in my previous scenarios. I think the USGS estimate is too optimistic, but if it were correct it is unlikely that the peak in C+C output would be before 2020. Chart below.
Hi Dennis,
That is an excellent chart. Only I don’t think it is an accurate forecast. What you have to factor in is the new CAFE standards, the growth of electric, and hybrid electric vehicles, the growth of biofuel, the growth of Hydrogen vehicles, the shuttering of oil fired power generators, and the replacement of home heating oil, etc. Factor all of that in, and you will probably see oil demand dropping.
I tend to think that oil production will either go sideways, or start declining soon, because of reduced demand. Perhaps the recent price drop is actually due to lower demand now?
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?product=oil&graph=production
Hi JohnB,
It is not exactly a forecast, it is a scenario that assumes oil discoveries will continue to be developed the way they have in the past (similar time from discovery to producing reserves for the average discovery) and that extraction rates from C+C-XH producing reserves will be as shown in the chart.
It may be that extraction rates do not increase as I have assumed in the scenario above. There will be a lot of increased oil demand from China, India, Brazil, and other developing nations and I do not think any decrease in oil demand fro OECD nations will be able to offset this over the short term.
If that assumption is incorrect we might see no increase in extraction rates. Chart below shows a lower scenario with previous scenario as dashed line (output only for “medium” scenario). I think the 3500 Gb URR is unrealistically high, but if it were correct a peak in 2020 or later would be likely.
I’ll say again what I have said before. I think the anti-solar people are freaking out about solar because it is happening. When they say it won’t work because of the grid, they don’t acknowledge that there people and companies leaving the grid. If the grid can’t be made to work, maybe it is time to invent a different system. And THAT is freaking them out. As more companies and consumers leave the grid, that means less money for those who supply the grid in its current form.
If you read the articles directed to the utility industry, you see that the industry is aware of the threat (or opportunity). You’ve got a few people trying to pass laws trying to stop any new energy developments in order to preserve the grid and the centralized plants that supply it. However, you have a number of younger entrepreneurs who see no particular reason why they should support an industry that was conceived over 100 years go and hasn’t changed much. These entrepreneurs want to experiment with other forms of energy generation, other forms of energy distribution, other forms of energy pricing and business models. One big advantage of what distributed energy distribution offers is flexibility. A lot of different experiments can be tried. The ones that work can be duplicated elsewhere. The ones that fail can be quickly abandoned.
Boomer, nobody is “anti solar”. That´s like being against motherhood or Santa Claus. Some people do point out the mother is an unwed 15 year old and Santa Claus doesn´t exist. But they are nattering nabobs of negativism. Like me.
Hi Fernando,
A combination of wind, solar, combined heat and power, nuclear, storage, widely dispersed and tied together with a robust HVDC grid, along with energy efficiency through retrofitting buildings and better building codes, building more railroads, light rail, better urban design. I imagine you could come up with other ideas, you like CTL, but I would want some good information on coal resources before investing too heavily there, and of course because I think there is a good possibility that climate change will be a problem, that would be near the bottom of my list. There is no one silver bullet, solar has the potential to be a large resource, other energy sources can be used for backup as needed. The intermittency problem is not insurmountable and there are a variety of the opinions on the issue, you have decided that your opinion is correct and that any analysis which arrives at a different conclusion is bad analysis.
There is a smoothing effect to widely dispersed intermittent sources of power which makes the problem much less intractable than you realize.
You know, you are right. We could try installing capacity equal to triple the demand, spread it all the way down to Morocco, build huge high voltage transmission lines hooked up to giant five story tall battery packs, build a bunch of hydropower dams in the Balkans and Norway, and cross our fingers an alien civilization lends us the money. But to make this work the wind turbines and the solar panels have to be built in Europe. We can´t afford to let Chinese capitalists profit from this huge investment as they sit there and burn all the world´s coal.
Hi Fernando,
I believe a lot of the wind turbines are built in Europe. Solar is produced in Germany, but is cheaper from China. I guess you don’t believe in free trade, which seems a strange position for a free market guy.
I agree that only solar and wind are unlikely to get the job done, there needs to be better energy efficiency, nuclear, combined heat and power.
I also agree that population is a huge problem which could be addressed with freely distributed (or heavily subsidized) modern birth control and education of women.
Eventually fossil fuels will peak, substitutes must be found. Wind and solar may seem expensive, but once the peak arrives for all fossil energy they will seem cheap in comparison to fossil fuel energy.
If the government is going to subsidize a particular technology to solve a common problem then yes, I stop believing in free trade with the Chinese. I don’t think its rational to sink the economy and have a commie revolution as the Chinese gain enormous profits using slave labour.
Hi Fernando,
Oil and natural gas were subsidized for a long time, at least in the US, probably in Europe as well up to 1990 or so. Would it be better to make renewables more expensive by restricting trade? China is still a dictatorship (like many countries besides Cuba and Venezuela in Latin America), but to a large degree has become more capitalist than communist in nature.
We could eliminate all subsidies, if you thought that made sense, but it would cost more in the long run because fossil fuel prices will quickly rise and electricity prices would be more expensive because the economy would be locked in to high cost fossil fuel generation and it would take many years before the economy could reallocate resources to the cheaper (wind and solar) resources. There would be a lot of wasted investment in this scenario.
Do you think fossil fuels will never peak? What is your guess for when they will peak?
You should check out Steve Mohr’s thesis, a summary at link below:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6782
Full thesis at
http://ogma.newcastle.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6530
His best guess scenario (case 2) has all fossil fuels peaking by 2018. Though the thesis (from 2010) predicted an oil peak in 2012 for case 2. His case 3 had oil peaking as late as 2019 and for all fossil fuels his case 3 (the high URR case) peaks as late as 2029.
In the Oil Drum piece there is a type where 3034 was supposed to be 2034, the typo is repeated in the summary in the following link:
http://www.countercurrents.org/mohr220710.htm
Boomer, I am going to have to agree with Fernando on this one. I am about as pro solar as they come. However I just don’t think it is going to be the savior of humankind as so many other pro solar advocates believe. Of course it will make a difference, but only a small difference.
And before you ask, no I don’t have a study to point to that supports this opinion. It is just my opinion from watching solar development over the years and reading the arguments on both sides of the issue.
Boomer, I am going to have to agree with Fernando on this one. I am about as pro solar as they come. However I just don’t think it is going to be the savior of humankind as so many other pro solar advocates believe. Of course it will make a difference, but only a small difference.
You guys don’t realize that I, too, have said mankind, as a whole, is likely to face some significant changes. Business as usual isn’t going to be sustainable.
What I am saying is that solar is happening and the reasons given as why it “shouldn’t” be happening strike me as invalid. Solar offers some unique advantages and will be appealing for those reasons. The grid problems are not going to be a concern if the solar users opt out of using the grid.
I haven’t tried to make a case for how much energy generation solar will produce. I’ve just been objecting to the reasons why solar won’t catch on. It already is catching on, for its unique properties.
In fact, if the business as usual collapses, solar becomes more valuable for the same reasons it is useful now when a natural disaster strikes. You can haul in a solar unit anywhere and get some power. If you are depending on a grid and the grid has failed, or you are depending on a gas or oil-fueled generator and you have no supplies, but you do have a solar unit, you have something going for you.
I suppose what I am saying is that perhaps rather than thinking of fossil fuels as a backup for solar, we may think of solar as a backup for fossil fuels. When fossil fuels become harder to get, or when their delivery system fails for some reason, solar can fill in the gaps.
Solar is one of the tricks in our bag as the world runs into trouble with fossil fuels, whether it be declining supply, pollution, concerns about CO2, and so on.
Correct. Renewables are fossil fuel extenders, very useful nonetheless, and should not be expected to fully replace the convenience and raw energy available from fossil fuels.
BAU will be replaced by NBM (New Business Model, adapted to some grid intermittency, more self reliant, lower energy consumption, maintaining business share more important than perpetual growth).
Assuming some semblance of today’s world persists, the sooner we get to NBM (with lots of renewables, conservation, and lots more) the less traumatic it might be. If the Ponzi debt scheme collapses it will be traumatic anyway. Regardless, BAU must yield to NBM, inexorably.
Renewables won’t yield quite the same lifestyle or support as many humans as FF, but they WILL be a significant part of the future. Dismissing them is folly. So is expecting something other than NBM.
BAU will be replaced by NBM (New Business Model, adapted to some grid intermittency, more self reliant, lower energy consumption, maintaining business share more important than perpetual growth).
Yes, this is what I am saying, too.
Too many people have been focusing on why solar won’t work because it won’t sustain BAU. That’s not the purpose of solar. We can’t have BAU for every long anyway, nor are we looking for technology that will maintain it.
Solar is part of a vastly different lifestyle. It’s coming one way or another.
Agreed.
I think it is the “vastly different lifestyle” part that blocks thinking forward from there. The revolting and terrifying idea of significant change forces many of us back to desperately hoping to keep things the way they are for our forseeable future.
Knowing what is likely coming scares me, and I’m not easily frightened. Glad I’m closer to the end of my life than the beginning, and relieved to have no offspring to worry over. Survivor or victim, interesting times ahead.
Let’s rearrange the deck chairs again, and sing a happy song.
What surprises me is that even among people who know peak oil is coming and the big changes it will bring can only see a choice between the current BAU, as long as it keeps going, and then utter collapse. Nothing in between.
I’m more optimistic than that. Yes, I think a lot of lives might be lost. But I think for those who remain, the live on Earth will get back to something more sustainable.
“In fact, if the business as usual collapses, solar becomes more valuable for the same reasons it is useful now when a natural disaster strikes. You can haul in a solar unit anywhere and get some power.”
The usual error.
If business as usual collapses, you ain’t hauling nothing anywhere.
If business as usual collapses, you ain’t hauling nothing anywhere.
There’s a difference between business as usual collapsing and a cessation of all human activity.
Things have been hauled before machines.
We seem to have a lot of black and white thinking on the peak oil forums. Some folks can’t envision functioning other than business as usual. I suppose if the peak oil people can’t imagine a world without business as usual, then it isn’t surprising that many other people also keep embracing business as usual because they, too, can’t imagine a world without business as usual.
So it would seem that perhaps one of the big problems facing mankind is that a lot of people think today’s world is the only possible option in their lives. If today doesn’t continue, humanity can’t exist.
Seems like the inventors in the world are a unique breed in that they at least think they can change things, even if they are wrong.
If you’re functioning, then there wasn’t collapse.
Sailing ships ain’t gonna carry all those containers from China.
Okay, then.
I will say business as usual won’t continue.
But what will replace BAU won’t be a collapse. It will be a new normal. Solar will play a role because it is more flexible than a centralized power generation and distribution system.
Solar has unique properties that make it better than other solutions in some situations. And one of those situations is if solar is already in place or nearby, and the grid is no longer functioning and no one can bring in new supplies of fossil fuels.
Think of solar as a supply of wood and matches. You keep a lot of these smaller units distributed in many places to have handy if you need it. And if climate change brings more natural disasters, you may need it increasingly more often.
Maybe the Chinese will build a train tunnel across the Bering Strait. Probably there will be less demand for Chinese labor as it gets more expensive and productivity continues to skyrocket.
I am pretty optimistic about the 21st century. I could be wrong. But a lot of the things people worry about around here are just silly — they are based on memories of previous problems. A lot of comment are imagining a replay of stagflation, or the Cold War, or WWII, or America’s Great Sprawl, or the hyperinflation in south america, or the population bomb and the episodes of mass starvation in the 20th century, etc etc.
We are entering an era of mind boggling change. Heck, gay marriage is legal in Alabama. Don’t expect a repeat of the 20th century.
It is unlikely there will be any big conventional wars. Unconventional warlike things will get worse. There will be wrenching cultural and social changes. The population will age considerably, and probably never come close to 10bn. Currency issues won’t matter, and financial crises will continue to to get rarer. There won’t be any world threatening plagues. The economy will continue to dematerialize.
The real problems of the 21st century are depletion of oil, the ecosystem and water, and global warming.
Another real problem will be mass boredom as robots take over everything, and chaotic social conditions as realism stops mattering.
Mankind is coming close to solving its economic problem and will spend its time pumped full of designer drugs and entertained by computers.
The whole thing may fall apart politically, but not for reasons we can imagine now.
Invent something to wipe out China with no risk. Then you’ve solved the problem (for America).
If you’re Chinese, invent something to wipe out America, etc.
China and the US currently need each other. I can’t see either wiping out the other.
If disaster comes and they become separated and can’t interact with each other, then both will likely do well without trade between them.
I said it before, and I will keep right on saying it: China and the U.S. are not going to war. Neither one is going to wipe out the other.
Your mental model is flawed…there is no percentage in one wiping out the other!
As was already said, while able, the two countries will cooperate and be dependent on each other…if global trade and communications break down, both counties will go it alone, and I would much rather be in the United States if there is a major global decline.
The Chinese will not build thousands of landing craft and load them up with soldiers and sail across the Pacific to storm our beaches. That is some clownish ‘Red Dawn’ crap fantasy. Nor is the U.S. interested in occupying China. Nor is either country interested in burning the other to cinders…no business case exist for any of this John Birch Society-like thinking.
China may possibly end up with Taiwan, and may possibly encroach on SE Asia (Vietnam etc) to acquire resources.
India and China are separated by the Himalayas…they may tangle over Himalayan water, but they may work out a deal.
China and Russia…that is an interesting case to ponder down the road…Russia’s population is declining…and Siberia has many resources. China has lots of people and an expectation of higher and higher material consumption.
England…well, it has too many people and not enough resources.
Japan…with their peacefully, gradually declining population and continued high education level and sense of civic duty, they may be a model to emulate.
Shuffling, I agree. Watcher just has a wild imagination and imagines things being solved by someone wiping someone else out.
There will be more wars, lots of them, but they will break out due to the collapse and one faction blaming another for all the problems. They will be mostly civil wars but many will cross borders.
” I suppose if the peak oil people can’t imagine a world without business as usual, then it isn’t surprising that many other people also keep embracing business as usual because they, too, can’t imagine a world without business as usual.”
Solar doesn’t put food on the table. 2/3s of the population live in urban areas that import food that travels an average of about 1200 miles. Fossil fuels are used to grow the food, harvest it, process it, and ship it to your local supermarket.
The economy is close to the tipping point and total Oil production is at or close to the peak. When the global economy falls back into a recession its likely to stay that way, permanently. Suppose you and everyone in your immediate family lost their job this year, at best only managed to obtain, infrequent part time work, would you make it? Would you lose your home (ie mortagage) car (car loan)? Even if you are able to make it, what about the tens of millions that can’t?
I leave you with this quote that very much applies to you:
““It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
–Upton Sinclair
The Bottom line: you are in denial by believing a transition can be made. The USA has gone on a war path, by invading or destabilizing about half of the middle east, in a vane attempt to maintain its empire. That wasn’t good enough, Now they are going after Russia. The USA is playing Russian Roulette with the world and this will not end well.
When the global economy falls back into a recession its likely to stay that way, permanently. Suppose you and everyone in your immediate family lost their job this year, at best only managed to obtain, infrequent part time work, would you make it? Would you lose your home (ie mortagage) car (car loan)? Even if you are able to make it, what about the tens of millions that can’t?
I think that is part of the process that will greatly reduce demand for fossil fuels. It may be the more realistic scenario to greatly reduce use of carbon-based fuels.
I do expect a big chunk of humanity not to make it. But I think among those who do make it, there will be more resources available. I think increasing global income inequality is setting the stage to allow the very rich to do well, and the rest of us, not so much.
In the back of my mind, I look around at what plots of land and what water might be available for my family to grow enough food to get by. That’s all I am hoping for. I don’t see life reverting to the Stone Age. But maybe to the Great Depression. I don’t think it is a pleasant scenario, but it might be necessary for the health of the planet.
I was born just before the great depression, and grew up during it. My 4 sibs, and my parents all remember the same thing. Poor, but not all that bad. Plenty to eat, lots of sense of community. People helped each other.
And here is where we part company Tech. The US is not on any warpath, the US is not trying to destabilize the Middle East. The US is not going after Russia. The US is not playing Russian Roulette with anyone. And the US has never had an empire and most of all, the US don’t want an empire.
You are not the only one on this list that has jumped on the “hate America” bandwagon by insinuating that the US is responsible for the vast majority of the world’s problems. That is pure bullshit, and it is the stinkingest bullshit I have ever smelled.
Hi Ron,
Well there are two extremes, love America or hate America, this kind of black and white thinking just escapes me. There are some people who look at some of the things that the US has done and say bad idea. Does this mean the US is responsible for all evil in the world? I don’t think so.
Does it mean that it was a mistake for the US to have invaded Iraq and destabilized the Middle East in the process?
I will let you defend that decision if you feel you must.
Dennis, the hate America folks are the ones that see everything in black or white. You know those guys who point to something Ronald Reagan did 30 years ago and say “see, that proves America is up to no good.”
Nothing is black or white and I have not once gave even the slightest indication that is how I see things. In fact that is what really pisses me off. That is people who see no difference between former administrations and the one we have now. Or people who see no difference between former congresses and the one we have now.
Bush II and his boss Cheney, invaded Iraq. Obama is trying desperately to extract us from everything Bush and Cheney did. But the America haters give him no credit and paint him with the same brush.
Goddammit Dennis, nothing is that black or white. That has been my point all along. But you guys see everything in black or white. If America is involved then they are up to no good. That is just how you see it.
And where did this “American Empire” crap come from. America has never had an empire and has never wanted one. We could have kept the Canal Zone. The diplomatic thing to do was give it back. We could have kept Okinawa, the diplomatic thing to do was to give it back.
I just wish you guys would try to see things as they truly are rather than paint everything black that America is involved in. Take off your fucking blinders, nothing is always black or white.
I will not defend the invaion of Iraq because Bush II was just stupid when he did it. Bush I knew better. Every president is different Dennis. Every situation is different. Every world problem is different. But if America is involved in any way, even a diplomatic way, you see that as pure black, pure evil, America meddling. Nothing is that black or white Dennis. Why the hell can’t you see that?
Bush II and his boss Cheney
Totally agree. I could not have said it better myself.
Ron Wrote:
“The US is not going after Russia. The US is not playing Russian Roulette with anyone. And the US has never had an empire and most of all, the US don’t want an empire.”
Which countries doesn’t the US have a miltary base in? (hint, not many) The US is an empire. The US has about ~5% of the worlds population but consumes about ~25% of available resources. The US has significant influence in Europe, Japan and few other Asian states. If the US doesn’t have an empire why does it have the largest miltary industrial complex in the world? Is that just for fun?
The US most certainly has destabilized the Middle East, through it foreign policies as well as it’s Regime change initiatives. The US has been deliberately flaring up tensions with Russia. First it was over Syria (which the US armed and trained insurgents that later became ISIS). What reason did the US bother to even get involved in Syria in the first place?
Then it was Cyprus since Russia had a lot of banking ties there (Cyrus was the only EU state that had bail-ins. Even Greece didn’t have bail-ins), Then it was the Ukraine, by overthrowning the elected gov’t and installed an ultra-right wing party. Which countries does Russia have troops in (besides Ukraine)? Which nations did Russia send in troops? which nations had Russian taken action to overthrown gov’ts? Of course the US is going after Russia, How can you not possible see this?
I am not pro Russian. I am simply observing the history unfolding.
Ron Wrote:
“You are not the only one on this list that has jumped on the “hate America” bandwagon by insinuating that the US is responsible for the vast majority of the world’s problems. ”
When did I say I hate America? When did I say America is to blame for the world’s problems? I see the world is moving down a war path, and unfortunately the US is leading that path. Its that simple. No other country in the world has anywhere near the level of militarism as the US has in the past 15 years. If fact I can’t think of a single Western or Asian nation that has invaded or initiated some form or regime change besides the US. Since ~2001 or even back to the end of the cold war. The US has invaded Afghanistan (semi-understandable, but still has troops after nearly 14 years). Iraq (which turned out to be the biggest disaster), Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Every time the US begins an new campaign it never even bothers to plan an exit strategy. The US goes in on some hair-brained excuse and leaves the region in total anarchy. The mess left later increases terrorism and spreads to the adjacent states. Libya is now in a civil war, Iraq is in a civil war, Syria is in a civil war, Afghanistan is a basket case. Explain to me how any of this makes any sense or how the World is a “better” place caused by US foreign policy. I don’t hate America, but I do hate American foreign policy. I suspect that more than half of Americans (with any intelligence) would agree that US foriegn policy has been a complete disaster. Instead of working to bring the world together or at least some stability, its turning everyone to reach at each other throats.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-arming-the-rebels/
As the world struggles under depletion, not only from energy, but the oceans have been depleted of fishing stock. Aquifers are drying up (as you already know). All of the worlds industrial powers have astronomical amounts of debt. How can this possible not end in war? When in history when a regional or global crisis of this magnitude, not caused war? Rome was sacked, Europe fell under fascism during the great depression. WW1 was about European imperialism. Japan became militant to obtain resources beyond its boarders in the early 20th Century. Since when do nations end a crisis without war and conflict, especially when resource become constrained? I am sorry to say, it never happens, and this time won’t be different.
I get the impression that you think war is off the table and that collapse will be contained inside nation borders. I simply beg to differ.
Ron Wrote:
“Nothing is black or white and I have not once gave even the slightest indication that is how I see things.”
I never said you did made any such suggestion! I was merely pointing out that war is an almost certain outcome as the collapse unfolds and resources become constrainted. In nature (human or wild life), the biggest players always use their weight to take the resources they need to survive from the smaller players.
You said it yourself indirectly when you dicussed how man has taken over about 97% of the land and displaced the rest of nature to the point of extinction. Human demand for resources will not limited to other non-human species. Man has been murdering man since day one. There is absolutely no theory or explanation that states it won’t continue.
I merely pointed out that the US has begun. its by far the biggest player (military) on the planet. It will use its weight to push the smaller players around. It does not matter who or which party is in control. I never stated I hate America. I only pointed out current affairs.
I don’t know, perhaps I’ve struck a bad cord, that you don’t want to fathom the idea that collapse will end in war. I didn’t think it would upset you, but clearly it has. My apologies.
I think the USA has a serious foreign policy problem. The problem is worsened by American’s inability to understand they have a problem. The bs about “hate America” is jingoistic name calling. What I really hate is to see the USA start wars it can’t win, support odious regimes, have a two faced attitude about torture, and spend so much effort kowtowing to the Israel lobby. For a long time quite a few republicans and democrats have both been pushing for really stupid policies. And the people’s blindness just allows this problem to grow.
Tech Guy, I have never even hinted that war will not be part of the collapse. In fact war will be everywhere during the collapse, big wars, little wars, civil wars, all will be ever present during the collapse.
Hint: Brevity is the soul of wit. Nobody reads really long posts.
Hi Ron,
I guess you confuse what I have said with what others have said. The US has done some bad things, but that does not mean I think everything has been bad. My point is that your reaction to criticism of US policies has sounded very black and white, that if your not with us you are against us.
I agree with your take on Obama doing his best to extract the US from the middle east, the area is very volatile and there are few easy answers to what should be done in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. I am far from an expert on the region. The empire stuff was someone else, I have simply pointed out past actions by the US when it felt it’s sphere of influence was threatened.
I cannot imagine the US reaction if Russia should support a coup to install a Mexican government with ties to Russia. We might react very calmly and diplomatically I suppose.
Believing that America is the bad guy is easier for some americans than facing the real truth — That america doesn’t really matter that much any more.
The country has done well for itself over the past few generations, but there is no denying that its significance relative to the rest of the world peaked in 1945.
The first half of the 21st century will belong to Asia. The second half will belong to Africa. That’s where the people will be.
The only real hope of North America keeping up with world population trends (or even with Nigeria) is getting a half a billion Asian or African immigrants.
Tech
You have a flaw in your analysis. You trying to imagine what will happen in the future based on set of rules and convention that are present now. You have to understand, that everything in this life on this planet is impermanent. So rules and conventions that are right now established will change. It is hard for you, or anybody else to envision these changes right now.
If you don’t have a job you will get a welfare cheque. they will print it. but they are printing it now anyway. if you work and can’t be paid cash you will be paid in pork hogs. If ten’s of millions of people cannot pay the mortgage well than the concept of mortgage will not be applicable anymore. You will stay in your apartment as a last option.
If you think that any of these “solutions” did not happened in other societies that collapsed then you have not researched enough. When Soviet Union collapsed there was no concept of mortgage, salary was paid in dozen eggs and pork hogs, and your garden your veggies on the balconies. These so called “solutions” ARE TRANSITIONS.
So yes, I agree that life will be little bit different in the future than now. But it is what it is. You just have to accept it.
Ves Wrote:
“When Soviet Union collapsed”
Lets talk about Europe during the early 20th century. Russia fell under Stalins control, which enslaved and killed about 60 Million Russians. In Europe, we had the rise of Fascism. In Asia we had Japan become a Militant nation, invading much of Asia (China, Korea, the Phillipines, Parts of south east Asia, etc). Much of it over resources.
Sadly, I see similar events beginning to unfold. It make take another five years to become more visible to most. As an observer to human nature and its violent past, I very much doubt this time it will be any different. I think we’ll see another rise of Dictatorships in Europe as the crisis unfolds. Greece may have just elected Europe’s first new “charismic” leader in 80+ years. Spain and probably France are probably not too far off doing the same.
Consider than when the SU collapses, the majority of its people had already adopted self-reliance for basic needs. The Soviet system forced most people to be self-reliant, since it its state industries never really paid a living wage. Most people had large gardens and didn’t need a car to obtain food and other resources. Eastern Europe was supported by the Western Europe. When the global falls into a crisis, there will not be anyone coming to the rescue. As I recall there was also a very nasty war in Yugoslavia, and other civil wars in the Islamic states south of Russia, that were part of the SU. Russia imported lots of food from the US (under the exchange of Uranium for US Reactors) which prevented mass starvation. The collapse of the SU wasn’t as pleasant as you seem to recall.
The US and most of the West is unprepared. A breakdown of the system would result, in millions unable to provide for themselves. They don’t know how to grow food, raise chickens, etc. Farming isn’t something that you can learn overnight.
For the past 50 years most people only know obtain food and other resources from stores. In the US, when ever there is a storm, the store shelves are empty in just a few hours. A popular quote by the US miltary is “America in 9 meals away from anarchy”.
In my opinion it silly to compare the collapse of the SU, to a collapse in America.
Ves Wrote:
“But it is what it is. You just have to accept it.”
I think you mis-understand my view. I think I am one of the very few here that has already been working to be self-reliant. I am relocating to a rural region. I grow some of my own food (hopfully most of it after I move and I have more land available). I am completely ditching BAU, but I don’t think anyone (or very few) are.
I don’t think Spain will fall in the hands of communists as lng as the Germans don’t allow the Greeks to blackmail the euro zone. The obvious solution is Grexit. Let everybody observe the meltdown. What europe doesn’t beed is that imbecile Kerry coming here and advocating war with Russia over a territory full of Russians who speak Russian and don’t want to be controlled by their historical kraut enemies.
There will be no Grexit as collective punishment or to teach someone a lesson.
And for practical reasons there will be no Grexit anyway, since it is the worst and most expensive option.
These various ideas, about whether or not the Leviathans will go to war, are all critically dependent on the timing and speed of collapse. Post peak, just maintaining civil order within the various Leviathans will be practically impossible. The Soviet Union did not set out to conquer the world when they began to collapse. The government just dissolved.
In the midst of their death throes, the Leviathans may try to get their wars on, but they will not be effective, except in accelerating collapse (though that might not stop them from trying anyway).
I think Ron is probably right to forecast mostly civil wars. I don’t agree with his timeline. I think things are going to unfold more rapidly.
The U.S. could handle a fast decline with EVs and a temporary doubling of average vehicle occupancy from 1.2 passengers to 2.4.
Carpooling – the horror.
Some observers have suggested we have been in decline for decades.
I’d say we’re in decline now.
So maybe things will continue to erode, bit by bit, and people won’t perceive it as a “fast” decline.
And one person’s idea of decline may be another person’s idea sustainable living.
I don’t think in terms of collapse.
This is more along my way of thinking: An article from five years ago on steady state economics.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/peter-victor-deficit-growth?page=1
Boomer II,
Some observers have suggested we have been in decline for decades.
I’d say we’re in decline now.
I am one of those observers that has been suggesting that we have been in decline for decades. If you failed to notice that we have been in decline for decades, it is not surprising that the onset of collapse feels like the onset of decline to you.
I am one of those observers that has been suggesting that we have been in decline for decades. If you failed to notice that we have been in decline for decades, it is not surprising that the onset of collapse feels like the onset of decline to you.
You misinterpreted what I said. What I was saying was this:
Some economists are saying we have been in decline for decades. (What I didn’t say was that I agree with them.)
I’d say we’re in decline now. (What I meant was that it is hard for anyone to refute we are in decline now.)
I honestly don’t know what you are trying to say in this forum. I’ve asked you before what your goal is and I still don’t know. It’s not clear to me.
Boomer II,
I am trying to study the world, so as to understand it better, while there is still time.
The most under appreciated and misunderstood aspect of collapse is the psychological one. The reason I know for sure that we face collapse, and not just decline, is that humans are so good at self deception. I try to comment on people’s preconceptions, rather than their specific arguments. This never fails to illicit ever more evidence of the denial that has lead them to construct that view in the first place. In having these conversations, I hope to spotlight these inherent flaws in reasoning (reasoning based on hope) caused by the ubiquitous human optimism bias.
Through this process, I hope to convince people that we have just crossed a very important tipping point. The general decline of civilization has ended. The collapse of civilization is already underway.
What is your goal?
My goal in this forum is to know as much as I can about the economics of fracking to anticipate whether it will expand in my area and if it does, whether it will crash and leave a mess.
My goal for me personally is to live out the rest of my life. I don’t anticipate being around more than 20 years, given my age, so I won’t see the worst of whatever is coming.
I was interested in doing something meaningful in the world with the rest of my time, but I’ve come to realize my generation is not the one to make the big changes. Younger generations are the ones who are going to have to make the world a better place. I just hope everyone in my generation doesn’t get Alzheimer’s and become a drag on younger generations.
Beyond making peace with myself for the rest of my time here, I want to think my kids and grandkids have a chance at survival.
Through this process, I hope to convince people that we have just crossed a very important tipping point. The general decline of civilization has ended. The collapse of civilization is already underway.
This is the part I don’t understand. Let’s say you do convince them that a collapse is underway. How do you want them to respond to that information?
I also mull over the fact that even if you warn people that times will get tougher and they should be prepared for that, you also need to allow them to enjoy the moment.
Now, for folks like me who advocate reducing consumption, enjoying the moment means doing something that doesn’t require spending any money or consuming limited resources. Enjoying the moment could mean sitting outside on a sunny day and appreciating it, even if you know that sunny day could be the result of changing weather patterns.
It’s sort of a Zen approach. You don’t want to spoil the Earth, but you also need to go with the flow some times so you don’t make yourself and those around you crazy.
People survived horrible conditions in concentration camps and yet some of them have been able to carry on. The human spirit and ability for survival can be quite remarkable.
I think human civilization will change as oil becomes harder to get and more expensive, but I don’t view that as necessarily a negative. As long as the species survives, that’s perhaps all we can hope for as a species. And if the species ultimately doesn’t survive, that’s the circle of life here on Earth.
Boomer II,
Like I said before, I doubt I will convince anybody. But I hope to see something akin to a light bulb turning on.
Yes, people should take time to appreciate the beauty in the world around them. All the more so, since time is so precious. Carpe diem.
No one is suggesting that solar will cure cancer or save the habitat of the great apes.
Just that it, together with wind, nuclear etc., has the *potential* to greatly reduce CO2 emissions, which most models show as the primary cause of an excessive human “footprint”, aka overshoot.
Hi Ron,
Is there data or a chart available that tracks just conventional Oil Production Excluding shale, Tar Sands as well as expensive oil Ultra-deep, arctic, etc. Another words, a chart of just the “Cheap Oil”. I would be curious to see how fast its declining. I think its probably going to be a very important factor for the global economy.
Thanks
Sorry Ron, but I know of no such database. I would be very interested in looking at if if there were.
“I would be curious to see how fast its declining.” Well yes, that’s a question but I’d rather know the rate that cheap (easy) oil is depleting. Because decline rates are currently “artificially” low owing to oil field “creaming”. When you drill horizontal production wells into shrinking caps of oil fields, decline rate changes are minimized — for awhile. Obviously you already know this. Anyway, didn’t Jeff indicate that decline rates in legacy fields is averaging >9%.
9% came from the IEA via John Kemp and it was backed up with a methodology.
That’s gross. Not net. Net being defined as infield drilling offset.
Don’t think it’s defined as enhanced techniques, though it should be (and probably would be larger), but perhaps can’t be because if the techniques are used, you can’t measure a decline without them.
The item we have not noted re this IEA 9% number is how badly it blows that Harvard paper out of the water.
At a 9%/year gross decline rate from existing production, the global industry has to run pretty fast, just to stay in place.
In order to maintain current global C+C production for 11 years at a gross 9%/year decline rate, we have to replace the productive equivalent of every currently producing source of C+C in the world over the next 11 years.
I looked at the Baker Hughes worldwide rig count just now. I am embarrassed that I had not looked at this previously. I did not realize just how many more rigs are running in the US and Canada compared to the rest of the world.
Assuming US and Canadian rig counts continue to fall, I think Ron Patterson’s article above could be on the money.
IHS keeps a field by field production profile for all large firlds. If that’s not published then they make a guess. I’m not sure if they still do it but wood Mckenzie published every year a set of books with property by property details. This included OPEX. I also consulted for a company which carried huge proprietary production and cost data bases. But those are confidential and if you want to see them they cost a pile of cash.
The Baker Hughes Rig Count is out. Oil rig count down 83, almost as bad as last week.
I just saw a chart which showed US oil rig count from 2000 to present. If I knew how to post it I would. Really emphasizes the frantic drilling activity in the US 2010-2014.
Looks like oil rig count hovered between 125-300 from 2000-2007. Started to climb 2007-2008 to over 400, then fell sharply to below 200 in 2009. From late 2009-2012 shot up from under 200 to over 1,400. Stayed between 1,300-1,400 until 2014 when shot up to 1,600 and then recently has been in free fall.
The chart also illustrates lag times with regard to reaction in count to oil prices. For example, rig count did not recover from 1998-1999 slump in crude prices until the middle of 2000. Also, rig count low point in 2009 was May, even though price bottomed in February, and did not hit pre-crash levels till early 2010.
I am posting the obvious, and maybe a review of the long term rig counts has been discussed here. Based on history, absent a quick spike back above at least $80, it appears the oil rig count could fall well below 800. Just a guess on my part. Would be interesting to know where future US oil production would be if rig count fell below 800 or below 500, with 500 being the high water mark from 1991 to 2010.
Finally, a note on US offshore rig counts. It appears that they have never really recovered much from the Macando well disaster. Seem to just hover around 55-65. Hard to see how this rig count will result in major boost in US offshore production, as EIA has predicted.
This is shaping up to be a very interesting year.
Shallow here is the US rig count from 2000 according to Baker Hughes.
That begins to look dramatic
Ron. That is the rig count for oil and gas, I think. Look at the one for oil only.
Ron, the chart you posted is all rigs. Look at then one for oil only. It shows that US has not been anywhere near the number of oil rigs seen from 2010-2014 since the 1980s. That is the point I am making. If we drop to 800 or below, which looks likely, US oil production will decline quicker than EIA is predicting.
If WTI stays under $60 for 2015, we may exit 2015 with 500 oil rigs or less.
Shallow, on the Baker Hughes site I am unable to locate the historical US Oil Rig Count. I have downloaded every excel sheet there and I can find nothing that lists the historical oil only rig count. Help me out here.
The chart I found is on The Business Insider Website. I wondered about it so I went to the EIA site and did not find a chart, but did find monthly numbers which confirmed what I posted above, that we have not seen rigs seeking oil in the 2010-2014 numbers. Since maybe the 1980s. If I recall, the EIA numbers didn’t separate oil v gas rigs until 1990, but did have rig count going back to 1973.
I admit I need to learn some computer basics. If you cannot find the info, I will see if I can get one of my kids to help.
Hi Ron,
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=79687&p=irol-reportsother
Go to North American Rotary rig count and US oil/gas split sheet
Got it, thanks Dennis. I simply overlooked the fact that there was more than one page on that link. I did not see the other selections displayed at the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet.
Thanks for posting the chart Ron.
I don’t know what will happen to oil production with such a big drop, but by the end of the year, we will know. Just thought oil rig count increase and what appears to be an even more dramatic decrease was worth discussion.
Dennis, I agree that gas rig drop without corresponding drop in gas production could be telling that oil will not fall despite rig count drop. However, I wonder if the horizontal oil wells, on the whole, are as prolific as the horizontal gas wells. I think maybe they are not, but that is just my guess.
Hi Shallowsands,
I think the LTO plays will decline in a similar fashion to the shale gas plays, possibly faster. Remember that we need to look at field decline rather than well decline, for the Bakken if no new wells were drilled the maximum 12 month average annual decline rate is 31%, bot this quickly falls to 20% by year 2 and to 15% by year 3. The average over the first 3 years is 22%/year, this is similar to the shale gas decline rates of around 24%.
Note that if we consider natural gas rigs, there was a big decrease in the number of gas rigs from 2008 to today, but natural gas output has been pretty flat. With lower prices only the areas that are most productive will be drilled and output per rig goes up, or that is what has happened in the natural gas side of things. Some of that may just be because of associated gas in the Eagle Ford and elsewhere, but I doubt that associated gas output can account for all of the increased natural gas output per rig.
Looking at EIA annual data the associated gas from oil wells has been decreasing since 2000, also annual output from shale gas wells has increased from 2 TCF to 12 TCF from 2007 to 2013.
Overall US natural gas output has increased from 20 TCF/year to 24 TCF/year from 2008 to 2013, while the natural gas rig count has dropped from 1600 rigs to 300 rigs.
Perhaps a drop in the oil rig count from 1600 rigs to 800 rigs will allow C+C output to remain flat, time will tell.
Hi Dennis,
That is one scary oil rig graph. Look how small dip was in the 2008 compared for potential dip today.
Ves, I agree. What would be also be interesting would be to put the $$ spent per rig on the same graph. Prior to 2009, the land based oil rigs were probably spending less than one million on average. Now it is probably north of 5 million.
I bet the majors have studied this to the extent that they know fairly certainly what will happen. I have been waiting for some mergers in the shale plays, but so far nothing. Maybe its to early?
Hi Shallow,
I have argued here in October when price crash was evident that no majors will step up. Some people were so convinced that this will be usual so called “free market” where strong hands eat weak ones. But I was right nobody is coming to rescue. The reason is there was nothing worth rescuing in the current environment. So far in this little corner of oil patch of Bakken side of Canada the only acquisition that I am aware is from, get this “private Grain Elevators business” that bought few wells from probably distressed small operators. I mean comon Grain Elevator business!!! They have experience in oil business like Exxon would have in making Scotch 🙂
So obviously this to me looks like Garage sale in my neighborhood where 90% is junk or has only sentimental value but very little economical value.
Hi Ves,
One thing that is different is that when rigs dropped from natural gas drilling they moved over to oil in 2008 to 2014.
The low natural gas prices mean that the rigs have no where to go. I imagine all the stacked rigs may lead to a reduction in rig leasing rates and the cost to drill will come down a little. Some of the oil guys like MBP and Mike have mentioned this in the past.
Also keep in mind the scale of the chart. In 2008 oil rigs dropped from 400 to 200 and back to 400 over the course of 13 months. If oil prices recover in 2015 the way they did in 2009, then we might expect rigs to drop to 800 and then be back to 1500 by Dec 2015, so we might see 800 oil rigs in May or June and then a quick bounce back to 1500 rigs 5 or 6 months later. A lot depends on oil prices, I expect we will see $75/b by Dec 2015 (Brent price in US $) and I think we will be back to $90/b by Sept 2016.
And the monthly world rig count data is out also, same Baker Hughes link as above.
Note the only area with an increase in rig count is the Middle East. I can back this up with what I am hearing in my job search. It is the only area where there is any action. The question is, is this extra Middle East drilling to make up declining production? or to increase capacity?
I suspect I maybe able answer some of those question in a month or two, because it appears that is where I will be heading.
Stay tuned.
Also the international count to react more slowly to the lower oil price as contracts tend to be longer in nature and will have a longer term to effect.
Be careful there and good luck to you Toolpush.
Thanks Shallow,
I believe Qatar is fairly stable. They just seem to being trying to destabilize other countries, as in Libya. I may get some good oil on why Qatar has taken their sudden plunge in oil production, and their chances of recovery.
Hey Push, howzit? A mate of mine just got back from a well control event in Qatar and based on what he told me I’d say don’t go to the beach unless you absolutely have to.
Historically I have always given Kerr McGee credit where credit is apparently not due and recently found this cool story. I’ll bet you will appreciate this:
http://www.offshore-mag.com/1/volume-74/issue-4/60-years-of-offshore/offshore-at-60-remembering-the-creole-field/offshore-at-60-remembering-the-creole-field-full.html
Keep a bind on it!
Mike
Thanks Mike,
Maybe that is why Qatar’s production has been down, as Ron has reported. They have been storing there excess on the beach and not reporting it? smiles
Things offshore have certainly moved on offshore since the Creole field days.
Hi Mike,
Great to see you here again. Hope the bump in oil prices is helping and hopefully my guess that the oil prices may bounce back quickly like they did in 2009 and 2010 is not too far off.
Be safe.
Toolpush,
Off topic for this thread (and not alone in that): I read the other day one of those unattributed statements, to the effect that there are many wells in the Marcellus that have been drilled, cased, cemented, and fracked, and are just waiting for pipelines to become accessible to begin producing.
It’s the “and fracked” part that I’m wondering about. That doesn’t sound right to me. Help?
Synapsid,
Yeah, we keep hearing stories of Marcellus wells being drilled and waiting for pipelines. It made sense in the early days, there was no pipeline takeaway capacity, and wells had to be drilled to hold the leases. But it surprises me that his would still be a problem, as surely all the lease wells would have been drilled by now, yet I have seem articles stating up 1000 wells waiting for pipelines. I have no idea if these are true stories or not?
In the bigger picture the Marcellus is waiting for new takeaway capacity, which will head to Chicago, Gulf coast, North East and South East. RBN actually has a post on it today, but I would have thought the infield lines would mainly be in place.
https://rbnenergy.com/living-in-fast-forward-curves-top-drivers-to-watch-in-the-northeast-gas-market
Now to your main point, why would you spend the money and frac the wells? Good point! I suppose if we knew why they drilled these in the first place, may help us understand the picture a little better. I can only think that they were exploration type wells, and they wanted to get a flow rate to book reserves? Other than that, I really don’t know why.
toolpush,
Thanks.
How long could a fracked well remain shut in, and then be productive? Can it sit quietly, or is there a limit?
Something like this
It depends. Some of them could start making a lot more water. On the other hand some will start producing a lot more oil. A well producing very little water would be an excellent candidate to shut in for six months to see what happens.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/andy-hall-sees-oil-rebound-to-65-beneffiting-shale
”’The current rout is distinguished from the crash in 1986 — which left crude trading below $25 a barrel for four years — because OPEC countries today have almost no spare capacity. This time, shale oil will soon be needed to make up for production declines all over the world, pushing U.S. prices to as high as $65 a barrel, the head of Astenbeck Capital Management wrote in a Feb. 2 letter obtained by Bloomberg News.”’
Well there you go…….
My guess is that ” …pushing U.S. prices to as high as $65 a barrel…” will not be sufficient to make up for global production shortfalls. Plus there are major wild cards, such as the reports out of Russia last summer saying their 2015 production is expected to decline by 2% and at a greater rate for 2016. That is a very big deal to me and it got virtually no news coverage. I know a guy that works in the oil services business (substrate catalysts and ceramics). He hadn’t heard anything about this. His company recently had a major riffing (reduction in work force) due to diving sales.
Likewise with increasing instability in the ME, who knows how long the Saudis will manage to keep a cap on potential political chaos with in the magic kingdom. Also there are players over there, like Iran, that would love to ram a monkey wrench into Aramco’s infrastructure.
Could make for a very interesting year in all the wrong ways.
Brent futures for March 2015 are at $57.99/b.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-crude-extends-rally-1-004621719.html
Brent futures posted a 9 percent gain on the week, their biggest since 2011, and 19 percent over two weeks, the largest since 1998.
“The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a 300-page PDF outlining the grim future of transportation infrastructure in North America over the next thirty years, and inviting debate on the issue. The report presents a vision of 2045 with LA-style traffic jams in Nebraska, trains too full to pick up any more passengers and airports underwater due to climate change — all in a climate of chronic under-investment, even at levels needed to maintain existing transport infrastructure. Among possible solutions outlined are self-driving cars using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2I) crash-avoidance technologies, such as those currently in development by Google — and in fact transportation secretary Anthony Foxx was joined by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the launch of DOT’s “Beyond Traffic” initiative.”
Good News here is that is ONLY 300 pages !
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/04/2244211/dot-warns-of-dystopian-future-for-transportation
“Among possible solutions outlined are self-driving cars…”
Makes me wonder if we will see LA style traffic jams with NOBODY even in some of the cars.
That “airports underwater” is so cool. I needed an example of government bs.
Dennis wrote: Please don’t put words in my mouth, what I have said is that people will make different choices as prices increase.
Now come on, that statement does not reflect what you have been saying for months. You said the price could get very high and people would adjust to higher prices. Saying that people will make different choices is not saying anything. People will make different choices no matter what happens, or if nothing happens. To say that people will make different choices is a totally meaningless statement.
It comes down to this you think a collapse is certain, I do not.
I think collapse is certain if oil never get scarce and stays cheap forever. Oil is not the only thing that will cause collapse, it is just one of the most obvious things. Some people are totally blind to the other things that are happening that will cause collapse, like overpopulation and the obvious destruction of the ecosystem that supports life on earth.
We define collapse differently, and when I have asked for your definition, I did not get an answer.
Well hell, I was not aware of that. I always thought it was obvious what collapse means. It means total collapse of the world’s economies, all of them. Not all at once but falling in succession rather like dominoes. It means food riots all over the world. I means a massive die-off of the world’s population. I believe that just as we are now in overshoot, the collapse will drive us to undershoot. During the riots and mayhem as many people will be killed as starve to death. At the bottom point of undershoot, there will likely be no more than half a billion people alive.
I don’t think of an economic depression as collapse because it is temporary, at some point in the future there is likely to be another depression, in fact it likely to be the only thing that causes the kind of changes the world needs to see.
I believe that your vision of collapse thinks that such a state will be permanent or rapidly worsening. I think that people will realize there is a serious problem, the Keynesian economics will be relearned and that Leviathan will get to work on finding solutions.
Leviathan? Just one Leviathan? You think we can weather the storm while the rest of the world crumbles like stale cornbread? Or do you think all the Leviathans will get to work on finding solutions. They should get to work because a few of them in the Middle East and Africa are in the second stages of collapse right now. Some of Europe is already in the first stages, like Greece.
You my friend always see the worst possible outcome as the most likely outcome. That does not strike me as realistic.
Dennis, almost every species save Homo sapiens have already suffered the worst possible outcome. 10,000 years ago humans and their animals represented less than one tenth of one percent of the land and air vertebrate biomass of the earth. Now they are 97 percent. So we already know that the worst possible outcome can happen for every species save one. But you think that last one will survive and thrive while all the rest are driven into extinction, or near extinction. That does not strike me as realistic.
Ron,
You said:
“Well hell, I was not aware of that. I always thought it was obvious what collapse means. It means total collapse of the world’s economies, all of them. Not all at once but falling in succession rather like dominoes. It means food riots all over the world. I means a massive die-off of the world’s population. I believe that just as we are now in overshoot, the collapse will drive us to undershoot. During the riots and mayhem as many people will be killed as starve to death. At the bottom point of undershoot, there will likely be no more than half a billion people alive.”
I completely agree with everything you say above.
My only questions would be: Why won’t crossing into depletion cause things to go wrong at a much faster pace than we are used to? We are talking about the absolute end of economic growth, after all. Things aren’t going too well in the world as it is, with ever diminishing growth. Shouldn’t we expect things to get worse much faster with negative economic growth? Basically, why shouldn’t we expect the next economic depression to rapidly worsen into wide-spread monetary collapse, and from there into world-wide social collapse and die-off? What about a very rapid, near term collapse of the kind put forward by David Korowicz?
Stephen Jay Gould found that equilibrium is surprisingly punctuated in the history of life on the earth. I think that humans have a very limited capacity to envision the rapid change that is possible in nature. When immoveable objects are subjected to irresistible forces, the immoveable objects turn out to be immoveable only in our imaginations. The stability that we are accustomed to is just an illusion.
Futilitist, and I agree with everything you say. Depletion of fossil fuel, especially petroleum, is very likely to cause a fast crash. My point in arguing with Dennis was to point out that the collapse will happen even if we never run out of fossil fuel.
All these substitutes, solar, wind, biofuels, trains instead of cars and all that will, in the long run, or likely even in the short run, change nothing. The problem is too many people destroying our niche. We are well over twice the long term carrying capacity of the earth, likely three or mor times, and nothing is going to change that without a whole lot of nasty stuff.
I hate the phrase: Carrying Capacity.
“……The cascade of current extinctions, however, is related mostly to destruction of habitat, and displacement by introduced species. Chemical pollutants, over harvesting and hybridization have played smaller but still significant role. While the actual extinction rate is difficult to pin down, there is no doubt that the planet is in the midst of a mass extinction of major proportions. The most conservative estimates place the extinction rate at 1000 times the background rate…..”
“…Edward Wilson estimates 27,000 species are currently lost per year and that by 2022, 22% of all species will be extinct if no action is taken. Niles Eldridge estimates 30,000 per year currently….”
http://www.whole-systems.org/extinctions.html
Carrying capacity: The total amount of life the earth can carry.
The earth is at 100 percent of carrying capacity and has been since the Cambrian. If one species increases its numbers that means another species, or several other species, must decrease their numbers.
No, to many (most?) Carrying Capacity refers to the number of humans the earth will support; therein lies the problem — egotism. To hell with giraffes et al.
“In population ecology, the carrying capacity is the population size at which the population growth rate equals zero. Population size is constrained by food availability, competition with other species, and interactions with predators and diseases. When the population size is smaller than the carrying capacity, the population growth rate is positive so populations increase in size and when population size is larger than the carrying capacity, the population growth rate is negative so that populations decrease in size. Eventually, these populations will either increase or decrease in size until the population size equals the carrying capacity at which time the growth of the population will stop. The carrying capacity represents a stable equilibrium of population size.”
According to the UN Carrying Capacity is a wide a wide range of population numbers: Two-thirds of the estimates fall in the range of four billion to 16 billion (with unspecified standard errors), with a median of about 10 billion. They’re talking about people. They’re always talking about people!
Finally, at risk of sounding even more tiresome than usual, I called my best buddy, a wildlife biologist, who said: “For us, Carrying Capacity usually refers to the species under consideration. I study wolves so I normally use the term as the number of wolves that a given territory will support.”
Now if you decide to eavesdrop (not recommended) on a den of lions, Carrying Capacity might refer to the population of eatable creatures nibbling grass beyond the front door. Or, if it happens to be a male lion talking, he’s more likely thinking about his harem and to him Carrying Capacity would equal one – Him. But what the hell do lions know about anything? 🙂
The earth is at 100 percent of carrying capacity and has been since the Cambrian.
Technically if that were 100% true then the term ecological overshoot would have no practical meaning because it couldn’t happen. Fossil fuel use by humans has allowed us to overextend our impact by at least temporarily providing us with massive amounts of energy which we couldn’t have otherwise naturally extracted from ecosytems due to the laws of ecosytems thermodynamics. As it is there has been a bit of a lag effect.
Methodology Overview
Global Footprint Network’s core research calculates both the Ecological Footprint, the demand on nature, and biocapacity, the capacity to meet this demand, of more than 230 countries, territories, and regions; approximately 150 are covered consistently by the NFA source data sets and reported…
…Today, most countries, and the world as a whole, are running ecological deficits. The world’s ecological deficit is referred to as global ecological overshoot.
This is one of the main reasons I think that when the easy energy finally runs out for good and collapse occurs it will be a very hard fall indeed. And while I don’t think alternative energy sources will stop the collapse of BAU I still have some hope that it will at least cushion the blow to some degree. Unfortunately I don’t have much faith in the King’s horses and engineers being able to put the ecosystems Humpty Dumpty back together again.
meant to include link:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/methodology/
I wrote: The earth is at 100 percent of carrying capacity and has been since the Cambrian.
Fred replied:
Technically if that were 100% true then the term ecological overshoot would have no practical meaning because it couldn’t happen.
No, that statement is correct. But perhaps we have different definitions of carrying capacity. If any species increase its numbers above carrying capacity for that species then there must be die-off. And I mean die-off in the time it takes a member of that species to starve, not years or decades. But then I look at carrying capacity in terms of all life, not just humans.
Example: In Northeast India the Bamboo flowers, then fruits every four years. Black rats, in a given area will number under 100. That is the black rat carrying capacity for that area. But when the bamboo starts to fruit, the black rat carrying capacity begins to rise dramatically, and the rat population expands right along with the increased carrying capacity. In one area their numbers rose from about 100 to over 4,000. Then after about six months the bamboo fruit is all gone. If there are rice or corn fields in the area the rats will devour them. The area will maintain its rat carrying capacity due to the rice or corn. Then when the crops are all gone the rat carrying capacity drops to near zero. The rats die-off.
The rats were in overshoot as soon as their numbers got much over 100. But their carrying capacity kept rising and their numbers kept rising with it.
See: Nova: Rat Attack Aired August 3, 2011 on PBS
Program Description
Once every 48 years, bamboo forests in parts of northeast India go into exuberant flower. Then, like clockwork, the flowering is invariably followed by a plague of black rats that appear to spring from nowhere to spread destruction and famine in their wake. For the first time on film, NOVA and National Geographic capture this rat population explosion.
Hi Ron,
I have never said that people will slowly adjust and everything will be fine. I have said that high prices for fossil fuels will affect people’s choices, you have repeatedly said that people’s behavior will not change. I agree. The way that people behave is that they make choices in how they allocate limited resources, based on personal preferences, current prices and expected future prices.
The choices that people make makes a difference and an increase in fossil fuel prices will make a difference in those choices, if you think not you are wrong.
Leviathan is a symbol for the modern nation state, I think it is pretty clear that there is more than one nation state.
For the reasons that Old Farmer Mac has given on many occasions collapse is likely to be uneven, with some nations weathering the storm better than others. Once there is a crisis there will be rapid change instituted by nation states, the man on the street will realize that fossil fuels will continue to get more expensive and they will be rationed for things like farming and the military.
The population can decrease through widespread promotion of modern birth control methods, making them low cost throughout the World. Total fertility ratios have been cut in half in the last 50 years if they are cut in half again in the next 50 years we will be at 1.25 births per woman and population will decline rapidly. The world can make this transition, it will be difficult, there will probably be another great depression as the world tries to adjust, collapse of human societies worldwide is a remote possibility, but it would require only worst case outcomes for every potential problem. If that seems realistic to you, I would call you a pessimist. I find Old Farmer Mac’s take much more realistic.
According to the UN the world’s population is currently growing by approximately 74 million people per year. Current UN predictions estimate that the world population will reach 9.0 billion around 2050, assuming a decrease in average fertility rate from 2.5 down to 2.0. Meanwhile, human life expectancy is increasing. In developed countries, the number of centenarians is increasing at 5.5% per year, which means doubling the centenarian population every 13 years. I estimate that people over 65 account for more than 80% of health care costs. So every year a greater percentage of available money is used simply to keep people alive. This will go on until…….when?
”This will go on until…….when?”
The simple answer is until it doesn’t. 😉
My guess is that it will go on in most places for another couple of decades in most parts of the world.
But I don’t foresee the population hitting ten billion. It seems much more likely to me that the Four Horsemen will be long abroad and very busy well before we get to ten billion.
Thee UN is predicting that based on current birth and death rates. One part of that prediction is that Nigeria will have a billion of those 10 billion. That seems hard for me to believe.
Even the low fertility scenario has Nigeria at 644 million in 2100 more than triple the present population, that is population momentum in action, the child bearing and younger portion of the population is quite large. TFR doesn’t reach replacement level (2.1) until 2073 when population is at 547 million and still population grows due to momentum. This is for the low fertility scenario, the numbers are higher for the medium scenario.
Dennis, you are looking at a long term peaking and decline of world population.
Total fertility ratios have been cut in half in the last 50 years if they are cut in half again in the next 50 years we will be at 1.25 births per woman and population will decline rapidly.
There are more than one thing wrong with your scenario. First, if it were true, it would still take hundreds of years to reduce the world’s population very much. Your statement “population will decline rapidly” is just flat out wrong. China has had a one child policy for decades now and their population is still rising. It is a thing called “population momentum”. In areas where the population is relatively old, like Europe and parts of North America, the population will decline rapidly. But in cases where the population is young, like almost everywhere else in the world, the population will continue to increase for many decades before it starts to decline.
Another thing wrong with your scenario is that it is just flat wrong about the continuing decline of fertility rates. They will not drop below two. Look at the chart below. The fertility rate in Asia, home of half the world’s people, is actually rising. Total Fertility Rate
And another thing wrong with your scenario is that we just don’t have two hundred years to wait for the population to start to decline. It will rise to perhaps 8 billion before the collapse hits.
Then the population will start to decline… rapidly. But not because people simply decide to have fewer kids.
Actually China is seriously considering reversing its one child policy owing to the enormous pressure on families via old age care. In any case, India’s population is expected to increase by 60+ percent by 2050 as are numerous other countries. As mentioned above, costs & efforts looking after the aged is becoming an enormous strain on many (most) societies. This should be factored into these arguments, in my opinion.
Hi Doug,
Using UN data I created the following chart of India’s TFR. How about TFR of 2 by 2020 and 1.5 by 2040.
“How about TFR of 2 by 2020 and 1.5 by 2040?” Not a chance. India has a TFR of 2.8: decreasing slowly. Its population has exceeded that of the continent of Africa by 200 million people; however, since Africa’s population growth is nearly double that of India, it is expected to surpass both China and India by 2025.
According to the UN estimates, Chinese TFR fell precipitously from the 1960s to the late 1990s but has remained constant for the past 15 years or so, at its current level of 1.77. But this may reverse shortly.
India: Total fertility rate: 2.51 children born/woman (2014 est.)
Hi Doug,
In 1980 India’s TFR was about 4.5, so in 34 year it has dropped a lot. If you call his a slow decrease, than a slow decrease is all we need.
Hi Ron,
As Total fertility ratios fall population drops more quickly than you realize.
Reality may fall between the 1.5 and 1.75 Total Fertility Ratio (TFR) lines on the chart below.
Chart below with UN’s medium and low fertility scenarios.
Dennis, I need the link to the creator of this chart. If you made it, what was the age distribution assumed for Asia and Africa? That is, what will be the effect of population momentum?
At any rate, as my chart shows above, the projected fertility rate for the world does not fall below 2. 2 puts us at 10 billion in 2200 according to your chart. 2200 is at least 150 years after the collapse so….
Hi Ron,
the first chart, is from paper at link below
http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol28/39/28-39.pdf
The figure is from page 11 of the paper and the caption is below:
Figure 1: Global population size from 2000 to 2300 resulting from alternative global fertility levels as indicated (TFR to be reached by 2030-2050 and then kept constant) combined with a maximum life expectancy of (a) 90, (b) 100 and (c) 120 years
Figure (a) with a maximum life expectancy of 90 years was the figure I used (I think higher average life expectancy is unlikely).
The second figure I produced myself using data from the following link:
http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm
I plotted the medium and low fertility scenarios.
Dennis, I started reading the paper and got this far:
RESULTS
Even under conditions of further substantial increases in life expectancy, world population size would decline significantly if the world in the longer run followed the current examples of Europe and East Asia.
If only, if only, if only. If only everyone else in the world had the good common sense to do what folks in Europe and East Asia, (China and Japan), are doing, then could fix this damn population problem.
There are reasons Europe’s population is declining, and China has a totalitarian government that has the power to say “one child and no more” but no other nation on earth has either the power or the inclination to do that. And Japan is highly educated and women have power just as they do in Europe. Few other places on earth, outside of North America, is that the case.
If only, if only, if only.
I will repeat slowly. For the World the total fertility ratio has decreased from 5 to 2.5 in 45 years, The UN Low fertility scenario has World TFR at 1.75 by 2053, you can assume this is wrong. The paper was written by very well known people.
Do you think there is something magic about a TFR of 2.1 that it can not go lower than this? That has often been the assumption in the past, but many countries have proven that this assumption is false.
Sometimes we have to revisit the thinking that we formed when young. I read The Population Bomb in my youth and was impressed.
You can say “if only” all you like, read the paper in its entirety, the curves match the UN low fertility scenario through 2100, the population momentum theme you always throw out, is not as important as you think. The range of 1.5 to 1.75 from 2100 on is reasonable.
I suppose a World population of 3.5 Billion by 2200 may not be enough to help, but it would be better than 10 billion. You insist that TFR cannot fall below 2.1 or 2.2 for the World as a whole. I think that assumption will be proven false in the next 20 years. As on most things we will have to disagree, time will sort it out.
It is an encouraging sign that Nigeria was able to get its cases of Ebola under control fairly quickly.
Maybe they should try to get low cost (or no cost) modern birth control to all of the young women in Nigeria, they could be an example for other African nations.
Unlikely to happen though, on that we might agree. Or not.
I will repeat slowly.
Dennis, don’t do that. Don’t talk to me like I am a child. That is insulting.
Do you think there is something magic about a TFR of 2.1 that it can not go lower than this?
No, there is nothing mgic about the fertility rate. You are the one that keeps bringing up fertility rates, not me. Fertility rates simply don’t matter at the stage the world currently finds itself in. We are currently deep into overshoot. We passed the point where fertility rates matter about 3 billion people ago.
Sometimes we have to revisit the thinking that we formed when young. I read The Population Bomb in my youth and was impressed.
In 1968 when The Population Bomb was written the world had about one half the current population. Ehrlich simply underestimated the amount of destruction the earth could take before it crashed. But that was his only mistake. Everything he predicted in that book will happen, but about double the population he thought it would.
But since The Population Bomb was written, millions of species have gone extinct. The oceans have gone from an area of bountiful food to almost nothing. The world still had a lot of life in 1968, now it is almost dead.
3.5 billion by 2200? Good Lord man, get real. 2200 is 185 years from now. We will not last another 50 years before the crash.
Forget about fertility rates. It is way too late for fertility rates to matter. It is way too late for anything. We are locked in. The ecosystem of the oceans is already destroyed and the ecosystem of terra firma is almost destroyed.
Three words Dennis: It’s too late!
Hi Ron,
Most of the world is making good progress, only sub-Saharan Africa has very high TFR. South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Signapore, and most of Europe have very low TFR 1.5 or less. Most of Latin America is close to 2, India has made very rapid progress.
You only see the bad it seems. Progress can be made, just not as fast as you or I would like.
Hi Ron,
You have said in the past, you don’t know when collapse will be.
Would it be fair to say you expect it by 2050 or before?
The assumption of a 2.2 TFR is likely to be incorrect. There are many countries where the TFR has stabilized well below 2.2. Education for girls and widely available low cost birth control are keys. Progress is being made, the TFR has been cut in half since 1965 from 5 to 2.5, this is a fact.
Chart below shows UN estimates of World and Asia TFR from 1950 to 2010 and the UN low fertility scenario from 2010 to 2100.
Dennis, why did you show “Low Fertility Scenario”? That is just as likely as the “High Fertility Scenario”. If you had wanted to be fair you would have shown the “Most Likely Fertility Scenario” which would have the one in between.
However this is all academic. It really doesn’t matter. Population momentum will easily carry us above 8 billion. However I doubt it will ever reach 8 billion. The die-off will have begun before it reaches that point.
And yes, I do expect it before 2050, but even if it doesn’t arrive before then, it will arrive soon thereafter that date.
Hi Ron,
The medium fertility scenario assumes fertility will tend toward the replacement level. This is not a very good assumption as it has been violated already in many places as outlined in the paper I linked to.
There is no likelihood attached to these scenarios, based on the evidence the low fertility scenario is the most likely scenario. The high fertility scenario can be likened to an EIA International Energy Outlook for C+C output and has a similar likelihood. The medium scenario is about as bad as it might get and the low fertility (or lower) is most likely.
The UN is expecting 8bn in 2024 I think. That’s 9 years from now.
Hi Illambiquated,
If the medium fertility scenario is followed, that will be correct. Currently the World Population estimate by the US census is between the low and medium fertility scenarios. If that trend continues population would be between 7.7 and 8 billion in 2024. In 2100 it would be between 6.7 and 10.8 billion. I think the low fertility scenario will be closer to reality. Better contraceptive availability and education for girls in Africa and a few countries in Latin America and Asia will help make that a reality.
Fertility rates are falling quickly and look likely to keep falling. I don’t think it has to do with being smart. Give women an education and a choice and birth rates fall by themselves. For example the Chinese are loosening their rules but it isn’t raising the birth rate.
But birth rates aren’t really the issue. Population growth is now being driven by increased longevity. The population pyramid is being turned into a tower, and the big increases in population are in people over 35.
What is driving
Hi Dennis,
You said:
“The world can make this transition, it will be difficult, there will probably be another great depression as the world tries to adjust, collapse of human societies worldwide is a remote possibility, but it would require only worst case outcomes for every potential problem. If that seems realistic to you, I would call you a pessimist. I find Old Farmer Mac’s take much more realistic.”
The collapse of human societies worldwide is not a “remote possibility”, it is a certainty. You are seeing it backwards. We don’t need everything to go wrong to have a collapse—we just need to have a collapse to cause everything to go wrong! Worst case outcomes are effects of collapse, not the direct cause of collapse. As the energy available to civilization begins to decline, it should be expected that any potential problems will just get worse, trending toward worst case outcomes.
I agree that it would be pessimistic to insist on collapse (and worst case outcomes) in the absence of an energy decline. But we know that we face a severe energy decline, so “worst case outcomes for every potential problem” should be expected. That is not pessimistic, it is just realistic.
Besides, the general optimism bias in humans really renders the whole optimist vs. pessimist thing just a false dichotomy. And an inflammatory one as well. Being labeled a pessimist is generally seen as a bad thing in society.
Except that we do not know that we face a severe energy decline.
Wind, solar and nuclear are scalable, high EROEI, affordable, etc.
Hello Nick G,
When you say that we do not know that we face a severe energy decline, I assume you are not referring to doubting the oil peak itself. I assume, instead, that you are cryptically suggesting that we will not have a severe energy decline post peak because alternatives will come to the rescue to fill in the energy gap left by declining oil. Is that about right?
If so, I think your position is just silly on so many levels. It is hard to know where to begin. But here is my basic argument: We might not know everything, but we do know, for an absolute certainty, that massively switching to so called alternatives takes time. As in decades! And we have very, very good evidence that world oil production is about to enter it’s inevitable, irreversible depletion phase very soon, thus triggering a very big loss in overall available net energy to civilization if alternatives can’t fill the gap. We also have pretty good evidence of what to expect for overall depletion rates, and they look to be pretty severe. We also have very good practical, real world experience that has shown that alternatives aren’t actually competitive unless oil prices are high (right now oil prices are low). And it is not hard to imagine that transitioning to alternatives would be practically impossible in a rapidly declining economy.
So, given all of the above, if rising oil prices do begin to stimulate your much hoped for transition anytime soon, the coincident damage to the economy will certainly act to inhibit the already slow alternative transition rate. At the same time, the oil depletion rate will continue to get steeper, making the overall situation ever worse (positive feedback style). Thus, it seems vanishingly unlikely that alternatives could possibly win the race to fill the gap in net energy created by the oil decline. Civilization is hanging by a thread, Nick.
That’s been the peak oil doomer argument since the early 1900s.
Here’s why that won’t ever happen.
1. There’s plenty of oil left in the ground. The USGS estimate is 4 trillion barrels. That’s enough for another 100 years of consumption @ current rates.
2. The peak doesn’t matter. Conventional oil peaked 10 years ago, and no one noticed.
3. The switch to renewables is already underway. I posted a story on a Vermont town that is 100% renewable today. Solar and wind are both doubling every 2 years. EV sales are doubling every year. By 2030, most cars on the road will be electric.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXv7iR1AJk
Hello John B,
Speaking of old arguments, you said:
“1. There’s plenty of oil left in the ground. The USGS estimate is 4 trillion barrels. That’s enough for another 100 years of consumption @ current rates.”
That is obviously irrelevant. The energetic cost of oil extraction keeps on rising. So does the price. We have seen that the economy cannot handle high energy costs. So that means that we can reasonably expect to leave most of that oil in the ground.
You also said:
“2. The peak doesn’t matter. Conventional oil peaked 10 years ago, and no one noticed.”
No one noticed? Seriously? You haven’t detected any adverse effects? OK.
And finally:
“3. The switch to renewables is already underway…etc.”
That’s great news!
Yes, the economy can handle high energy costs. The 2008 “financial collapse” was nothing more than a mortgage loan “pyramid scheme” that was bound to implode sooner or later. That had nothing to do with peak oil. Main Street was not affected. At least not in my neck of the woods.
I actually agree with you on oil getting more expensive, and most of it staying in the ground. But not because we can’t. It will be because we don’t want to, because the alternatives are cheaper, and cleaner.
No, the economy cannot handle high oil prices. You say the mortgage loan “pyramid scheme” was bound to implode sooner or later, but it didn’t actually implode until high oil prices triggered the implosion. Think about it. You call that a coincidence. Very convenient. And the latest oil crash is another example of the economy not being able to handle high oil prices. You ignore that evidence as well. And you ignore all of the evidence that the overall economy was badly damaged in 2008. And I don’t suppose you notice any signs of weakness in the current world economy. Nice. And then, having ignored all of that, you restate that your original wish that alternatives will save us, while ignoring all of the reasons why that can’t possibly happen. Awesome.
I don’t see why anyone would believe your position. Your reasoning on the whole topic is very poor.
Alternatives are replacing fossil fuels. That is not a “wish”, that is a fact.
The only “wish” is from doomers that WANT to see a collapse. You keep waiting for that collapse, like Charlie Brown waiting for the “Great Pumpkin”.
You might as well forget about it, because it’s not going to happen.
The problem with the severe doom scenario is that if there is nothing anyone can do to prevent economic disaster and total loss of life, then people aren’t going to bother to do anything. They’ll just doing BAU, figuring they might as well enjoy their final days. Live it up and then die.
If you tell people none of us will make it out alive, and that the Earth is going to be a dead planet before long, then why should we attempt to mediate that outcome? If the dead planet is inevitable no matter what we do, why should we listen to you? If there is no hope, we can just tune you out because your message isn’t helpful to us.
If, on the other hand, you want humans to change their behavior, then you have to show that there is a reason for them to do it.
‘Alternatives’ is a bit of a misnomer. There is no real alternative to fossil fuel.
I think it’s a bit like this:
One day you have a pickup truck that drives you your 200km daily commute and helps you haul/build stuff on the weekend and so on, and the next day you wake up to find that all you have is a bike and a trailer attachment for it to do the same stuff. The bike/trailer is your ‘alternative’. Good luck with that.
…Oh, and everyone else finds themselves in a similar predicament at about the same time… Oh, and many are losing their jobs… Oh, and banks are failing… Oh and more social unrest is brewing…
“…Each person’s needs are fed by the skills of many others… But the connections that make society strong, can also make it vulnerable…” ~ Caroline Jago, Threads
Boomer II, you are just repeating what people have said before before. We are in overshoot loop. Boomer II, you are just repeating what has been said before before. We are in overshoot loop…
Remember, it’s not just you, but the dynamic as a collective. We appear prisoners of this dynamic. You can get off the train and join an ecovillage. Go ahead. Get off the runaway train and create or join an ecovillage or sustainable community. Forget about POB. It doesn’t reach a critical enough mass of an audience.
You can get off the train and join an ecovillage.
Joining an ecovillage is a positive idea. I wouldn’t put that into a doom scenario.
I am talking about people who say there is nothing people can do. If people are told there is nothing they can do, then there is likely nothing they will do.
Hi Boomer II.
You said:
“If you tell people none of us will make it out alive, and that the Earth is going to be a dead planet before long, then why should we attempt to mediate that outcome?”
Exactly! Why attempt to mediate an outcome you cannot mediate?
And:
“If the dead planet is inevitable no matter what we do, why should we listen to you?”
You aren’t listening. But if you did, you might begin to see things differently.
And:
“If there is no hope, we can just tune you out because your message isn’t helpful to us.”
That is what you are already doing. You are essentially declaring that if there is no hope, it is better to just be irrational.
That is what you are already doing. You are essentially declaring that if there is no hope, it is better to just be irrational.
What am I doing that is irrational?
Is no longer driving, and walking 95% of the time irrational? Is it more rational to drive all the time until the oil runs out or is no longer affordable?
Boomer II also said:
“I am talking about people who say there is nothing people can do. If people are told there is nothing they can do, then there is likely nothing they will do.”
There is no chance that anything I say will cause people do anything that will allow the world to avoid the inevitable apocalypse. The same is true of you.
Besides, what are you exactly suggesting people do?
There is no chance that anything I say will cause people do anything that will allow the world to avoid the inevitable apocalypse. The same is true of you.
So what is your goal? Wouldn’t it be better to get off the computer and spend time with your daughter?
Boomer II
You asked:
“What am I doing that is irrational?
Is no longer driving, and walking 95% of the time irrational? Is it more rational to drive all the time until the oil runs out or is no longer affordable?”
Of course not. Your are kinda moving the goal posts a lot. I said it is irrational to let hope drive your rational expectations. This has nothing to do with driving or not driving a car.
By the way, I have no hope whatsoever that we can avoid the total collapse of industrial civilization, yet I don’t even own a car. I also walk a lot. We have a lot in common.
You also asked:
“So what is your goal? Wouldn’t it be better to get off the computer and spend time with your daughter?”
How I manage my time is none of your business.
My goal is to learn as much as I can about everything.
By the way, I have no hope whatsoever that we can avoid the total collapse of industrial civilization, yet I don’t even own a car.
I guess I see no value to me personally to operate under the assumption we are headed toward a total collapse of industrial civilization.
I’d like to see the entire world consume less, use less energy, and use fewer resources. Because of that, the concept of going back to life as it was pre-oil or even pre-industrial revolution doesn’t strike me as bad. Because mankind has survived so much already over its existence, I think there is some form of sustainable lifestyle for the species. Therefore, I have hope.
Now, it is possible that something could happen that makes life on Earth impossible for everything other than perhaps some very simple, very hardy life forms. But if that is the case, then life on Earth starts over, yet again.
In other words, as long as man survives, even if it means going back to a very simple lifestyle and having a lot fewer people on Earth, I have hope.
It’s important to pursue the truth.
The truth is that we have better and cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels.
EVs are faster, quieter, and cheaper. Wind, solar and nuclear are better, cheaper, cleaner in so many ways.
It is important to recognize lies and agendas wrapped in the lip-service of the pursuit of truth.
Anyone promoting Nuclear power at this stage of the game clearly doesn’t care about the truth, and probably not you either.
John B,
Alternatives are replacing fossil fuels. That is not a “wish”, that is a fact.
You are just kidding yourself. You only see what you wish to see.
The only “wish” is from doomers that WANT to see a collapse. You keep waiting for that collapse, like Charlie Brown waiting for the “Great Pumpkin”.
I can’t speak for other so called doomers. I sure don’t want to see a collapse. But if we are going to have one anyway, I would just rather see a quick, humane one.
Anyway, it’s just a stupid meme that I have heard often. Anyone who sees a collapse must be wishing for it. Anyone who would wish for collapse is obviously insane. Therefor, doomers are insane. Insane people should not be listened to.
That stupid meme is really just a projection. I accuse you of wishful thinking. You don’t like this, because subconsciously, you know it is true. You experience cognitive dissonance, which is painful. You react by trying to turn the same accusation back on me (projection). In doing so, you reveal that you assume that I must reason the same way you do. With wishful thinking.
You might as well forget about it, because it’s not going to happen.
It is already happening. Open your eyes.
“But we know that we face a severe energy decline, so “worst case outcomes for every potential problem” should be expected.”
No you don’t know. We assume, we speculate that we will face severe energy decline in future. What you are talking in that your sentence above is survival strategy the humans species has developed and one that is deep within our instinctual memory is the predisposition towards a negative bias. The instinctive survival brain has a tendency to weighs all events and situations with an approximate two-thirds bias towards them being dangerous or detrimental to survival in some way.
Our ancestors could make two kinds of mistakes, thinking there was danger when in reality there was none, or thinking there was no danger when there actually was. The cost of the first mistake was needless moments of anxiety in anticipation of unreal danger, while the cost of the second mistake was possible death. Consequently the human brain become biased to make first mistake many times in order to avoid making the second mistake even once.
Ves, if there were ever a classic case of a person not being able to see the forest for the trees, you are it. You gave a perfect, and very likely correct, example of how individual human beings behave. Such behavior will not keep seven billion individuals from doing what they have been doing all their lives. And that is trying to survive and prosper damn the consequences to other human beings and double damn the consequences to any other species.
We are deep, deep into overshoot. We are destroying the ecosystem that supports life. All other species are already deep into the collapse stage. That stage for the human species cannot be far behind.
Ron, what you don’t want to accept is paradox of life. In reality most events and situations are neutral and are only labelled as “good” or “bad” when a particular perception is attached to them. The rabbit that is preyed upon by the fox would perceive the situation as highly negative as it means death, whereas the fox would perceive the situation as highly positive because it would allow it to eat and possibly feed its offspring. An impartial observer can see the good and the bad of this event and therefore see it as neutral.
So you can only accept this paradox of life on this planet. You are not going to change it.
In reality most events and situations are neutral and are only labelled as “good” or “bad” when a particular perception is attached to them.
Exactly! Nothing is black or white. That is what I have been preaching for the last three days. Ves, if you are not going to read my post then you should not comment on them.
So you can only accept this paradox of life on this planet. You are not going to change it.
Again, you seem to know absolutely nothing about my position on anything. That is exactly what I have been preaching fort the last ten years. Anyone on this list who is familiar with my past postings will tell you that my favorite saying is: We are but observers to the grand scheme of things. We are powerless to alter them. I have stated, dozens of times over the past ten to twelve years: People who actually believe they can change the world have visions of grandeur.
Really Ves, you should read more of my posts before you comment on them.
“Ves, if you are not going to read my post then you should not comment on them”
I have no idea what are you talking about. You agree with some of my post (by repeating the same thing that I said) but you have urge to swipe at me for commenting on Futilitist post and not yours. Whatever. I have no time for this conversation.
Nonsense: The “Reply” was to my post. And the first line of that post was:
Ron, what you don’t want to accept is paradox of life.
I am Ron, Futilitist is not Ron. You were clearly replying to my post. I am glad that you have no time for this conversation because you are far too mixed up to carry on any conversation.
It is true that the world is economically integrated in terms of present day business as usual but there is nothing about global economic integration that is written in stone for the ages.
THERE IS such a thing as ” common sense ” which when combined with a sound broad knowledge of technology, geography, history etc enables a person to see what might or might not happen.
I hereby issue a challenge to ANYBODY to explain to me WHY the USA and Canada cannot survive peak oil and other peak resources over the next century or so- with the understanding that a really bad ecological collapse might take us out along with the rest of the world. An anoxic atmosphere would be the end of humanity.Acidification of the seas might polish us off. Global warming MIGHT get bad enough to destroy society as we know it.
But barring asteroids, super volcanoes and such ecological disasters as really bad runaway warming there is absolutely no reason at all to ASSUME that collapse in the short to medium term – the next century or so – is baked into the picture on a GLOBAL basis.
It is unlikely in the extreme that any other country will grow powerful ( near term ) enough to actually launch a physical invasion of North America- whereas the USA IS powerful enough to invade another country – for now at least – and make the invasion stick- if things get bad enough to go bare knuckles and without embedded reporters to keep the folks back home upset.
It has long been said that no civilized person should ever actually observe the making of law or sausage. Those of us with memory enough will remember that the Democratic frontrunner for the next presidential election favored going to war – and we all know it was mostly or in very large part a resource war.
Before the people who really run this country – meaning the top thousand or so in the federal government- will allow it to COLLAPSE they will invade any goddamned country they please and the reporters and the cameras WILL be left at home.
It may not come to that of course. When things get REALLY bad in a lot of places the most useful people and machinery – if it can be moved – will be moved to the US. ( Or to any other country still strong enough to compete and likely to survive -China Germany Russia etc)
A SMALL country such as Bolivia with a large quantity of a very valuable mineral will have no more chance of defending itself than a rabbit and will either be swallowed up outright or will see the writing on the wall and ally itself with the US or maybe China – possibly even Russia.OR maybe Brazil. Brazil might be powerful enough to be a good mutual defense ally by the time the shit is truly in the fan.
((((Ron says we don’t have an empire and are not interested in having one and in the usual strict definition of the word he is as usual dead on.But we do have a new sort of empire held together by mutual interests and mutual advantage and the desire to present a united front to potential common enemies.
So while the Phillipines are not part of an American empire in the old sense they can be said to be a part of one in a newer sense of countries allied with the US as a matter of choice but also as a matter of ” no choice”. The Phillipines would not have a prayer of standing against either the Chinese or the Japanese if either of those countries decided to invade.)))))
Somebody PLEASE explain to me in simple English just what it is that we MUST import into North America to survive once we shift into survival mode.
And we should keep in mind that even in Muslim countries the local powers that be have occasionally promoted small families.
Now insofar as the teeming masses of China and India and Africa are concerned – they are very likely to die off in very large numbers barring extremely good luck in managing food production, energy efficiency, and birth rates.
Neither China nor India is capable of launching an actual physical invasion of any country not physically nearby and other than the nearby places such as Vietnam and Korea all the places really worth invading are pretty much bullet proof given geography, nuclear weapons, and alliances with very powerful countries such as the US.
But just for fun – let us suppose India manages to build up a formidable arsenal of ICBM’s and then decides to drop a few dozen neutron bombs on Pakistan.
OR that a desperate US were to decide to drop a few dozen neutron bombs on Kuwait Iran Iraq the UAE etc . In either case who could do anything about it after the fact?
MAYBE the Russians or the Chinese would threaten to nuke any people we try to put on the ground. They might actually do it too.
But doing it might mean a flat out nuclear WWIII.
ANY COUNTRY doing any of these things might mean WWIII.
Genetic engineering is probably the fastest moving important relatively NEW technology these days.
In a few more years it may be possible for any fair sized group of well financed professionals to create a new disease that spreads fast and is generally fatal. Maybe as few as a hundred people working with the sort of equipment now available at any large university doing a lot of basic research will be enough.Maybe they could have half a dozen such diseases ready for release.
Such a disease might wipe out so many people globally that it results in collapse. OR it might just wipe out most of the competition for the remaining resources depending on who releases it and how well prepared they are in terms of protecting their own population.
The possibilities are endless.
But I have yet to see a good argument to the effect that collapse MUST happen globally and silmantaneously in time and space.
I have never argued that any country or group of countries will pull thru without suffering grave injuries. But some MIGHT. I believe some probably will. This does not mean these countries are going to survive and continue to enjoy a business as usual economy forever. I am just saying that industrial civilization is not NECESSARILY going to vanish sometime during the next century .
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
I agree.
I am only a tad more optimistic that collapse may not happen, but only if a crisis results in relatively “good” leaders (more like Roosevelt and Churchhill and less like Hitler and Stalin) coming to power in the more powerful nation states. This is more a matter of luck I suppose as it seems we have had few really great leaders in the past 50 years, though that may be because a severe crisis allows a leader to show their stuff.
Your main point that a Global collapse is much less likely than some foresee is dead on.
The EIA predictions are notoriously wrong. Many believe this is done on purpose to signal the population that BAU is still going strong. Don’t worry, be happy!
From EIA Oil price projection done in 2004:
http://www.worldoil.com/August-2007-Systematic-bias-in-EIA-oil-price-forecasts-Concerns-and-consequences.html
“..Crude oil prices are determined largely in an international marketplace by the balance between production in OPEC and non-OPEC nations and demand. In the reference case, the average lower 48 crude oil price is projected to be $23.61 per barrel in 2010 and $26.72 per barrel in 2025 (Figure 93). In the high world oil price case, the lower 48 crude oil price increases to $32.80 per barrel in 2010 and $34.90 per barrel in 2025. In the low world oil price case, the lower 48 price generally declines to $16.36 per barrel in 2010, then rises to $16.49 per barrel in 2025…”
Yes. All predictions are a claim on the present. Especially for an entity created by politics like the EIA, and the IEA. Sadly it works. Even in my country the government is feverously building freeways like its 1955 and when pushed on the subject of likely oil availability and price (not that this is the only thing that makes no economic sense with this ridiculous programme) they point to EIA predictions and accuse, like some here, that anyone who suggests otherwise is a crazied Greenie. Commie is usually thrown in too for old times sake. Or Watermelon as our Spanish friend would say.
These predictions are about justifying BAU. No one will ever be held accountable in he future when they’re wrong. They are entirely about now. And what we collectively should do. That is to say government spending and regulation.
Roads Of National’s Stupidity.
That’s how I plan to refer to them in years to come.
More trouble for Shell:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28964-will-shell-s-drilling-rigs-find-the-welcome-mat-or-the-boot-in-seattle
I suppose Seattle can lose out on the income. And Shell can move elsewhere. We faced this problem (Alaska’s taxes) when planning an Arctic project many years ago and I voted to cancel it. But the real killer was the ice.
Shell jumped the gun in the Chukchi (probably believed climate models which showed less ice). The economics will probably be much better if they wait five years. But they need federal government extensions. Another option is to negotiate a deal with the Alaska authorities to reduce that tax.
It is a multi-national, after all. It could work from Bellingham, Vancouver BC, Prince Rupert BC. All have good airports for timely freight and personnel changes, as well as rail service for heavy equipment. Let Seattle cater to Satrbucks, Amazon, Micro-Soft, and other parasitic industries. Working ports would be glad for the business.
What would be he response in Vancouver?
It has rising political literacy.
Prince Rupert I only encounter when fly fishing the Skeena System.
It seems a bit remote, but is deep water enough.
Paulo,
Seattle’s isn’t a working port? Could’ve fooled me.
Ron Wrote,
” I believe that just as we are now in overshoot, the collapse will drive us to undershoot. During the riots and mayhem as many people will be killed as starve to death. At the bottom point of undershoot, there will likely be no more than half a billion people alive.”
What, no wars? I am confident they will be many wars or one very big war before billions starve to death. Looks like to me the US has already started that scenario. Who will be next to get invaded, droned, or destabilized by the US? How much longer can the US continue to throw its weight before there is a major global backlash?
As I recall, early in the Vietnam civil war, the US sent in Miltary trainers which became embedded in the South Vietnamese forces. All that is need is another Gulf of Tonkin to send in thousand of US ground troops to the Ukraine.
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/army/2015/01/21/ukraine-us-army-russia/22119315/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
Perhaps the US can push over weak gov’ts in the Middle East without the fear of repercussions. Its different ball game when they try to do the same with a Nuclear power. This could all go down very fast.
As I recall, early in the Vietnam civil war, the US sent in Miltary trainers which became embedded in the South Vietnamese forces. All that is need is another Gulf of Tonkin to send in thousand of US ground troops to the Ukraine.
If you recall that then you must be about as old as I am. I was a young man then, now I am an old man. The president who made that decision is long dead. Almost every member of congress who was alive then is now dead, likely all of them.
But those who hate America and blame America for all the problems point to something like that, something far in America’s past, and say see, see what they did. Hell Teddy Roosevelt snitched the Isthmus of Panama away from Colombia just so he could build that damn canal. See, see how America behaved. They snatch property from other countries just so they can build a canal.
The US is far from perfect. Bush II was a stupid idiot who thought he could win Iraq for Democracy. Obama knows better and, for six years has been trying to undo the stupid things Bush did. But American haters paint all presidents, past and present, with the same brush. And they paint all congresses past and president with the same black paint.
No nation is perfect, but some at least try to do the right thing. And they may make a lot of mistakes in the process. So nothing is black or white, everything has shades of gray. America is gray but a lot closer to white than the gray of a lot of countries, past and present.
Oh, one more point. Bush II was a typical republican. There are some very smart republicans. And there are others who are just average. But most are like Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, and James Inhofe who believes God will not allow climate change. That is they are dumb as dirt. 😉
Ted Cruz graduated from Harvard Law School Magna Cum Laude. The head, Prof Alan Dershowitz described him as off the charts brilliant. Different ideas does not equal “dumb as dirt.”
And, since I was born in 1941 and was in the Army 1962-1965, I can add some information to your story. After invading Cuba (failure), Kennedy started imbedding troops into Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson “created” the Gulf of Tonkin excuse to send hundreds of thousands of ground soldiers to Vietnam. Being born just prior to Pearl Harbor I was around to see one of our supposedly best presidents, Roosevelt, throw hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans (men, women and children) into concentration camps. Truman ended WWII with two atomic bombs on civilians and then followed up with a war in Korea to save the Koreans. In the 1970’s, our weakest president, Carter, ruined the economy and was a foreign affairs disaster. So, you might like the current crop of democrats, but all those Presidents were also democrats.
Don’t remind me of Nixon. I am just pointing out that there is shared blame for what some would say are past mistakes. I do not think that it adds anything to identify those that you do not agree with as dumb as dirt. But, maybe you are a past debate champion like Cruz was at Princeton.
Living in little old New Zealand, I must confess to being unaware of Ted Cruz. So the above exchange piqued my interest, and having done a bit of research on the gentleman concerned, I can indeed confirm Ron’s diagnosis – dumb as dirt – absolutely, not a shred of doubt about it. No doubt he was an expensive piece of dirt to buy, but unmistakeably dumb as.
Yes, one can be highly educated, even a debate champion and still be dumb as dirt. It is because of one’s indoctrination early in life. If bullshit is planted into your head, strongly enough, at an early enough age, it will be there forever.
The priest’s adage: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”.
We all had indoctrination when we were young, but it depends on the strength of it. Very good indoctrination must be repeated over and over again, every day. It must be beat into the child’s head over and over again.
Prayer at every meal is just one example, or continuous babble about the subject, Fox news on all the time, daily and almost continuous talk about the lazy poor, welfare queens and other republican nonsense. Such continuous babble heard at a very early age will mold the mind like cement forever. Then such indoctrination will leave one locked into a paradigm of bullshit for the rest of their life. It will leave one dumb as dirt about how the world actually works.
Ted Cruz is a very intelligent but dumb as dirt human being.
In my rural area, Fox is the only news channel on in public places like restaurants, doctors offices, etc. Our counties are red as a beet.
Look at a US map which breaks down in red and blue the vote by county. The map is red, except at the urban areas where the population is located.
I think much of the political divide is an urban rural thing.
US governments usually lie to the people so they can start wars. And the media really helps. I’ve made it a hobby to watch the way they distort information and crank up the war machine.
And Ron, nobody here “hates America”. To me it’s a simpler issue. I spent a lot of time in Texas, most of my family lives there, and I have seen too many kids come home with bullet holes, and it was for nothing.
You know I’m a cuban refugee, I hate comunists, I love the country because it was the only one which stood up to help us, and I can’t stand human rights abuses.
But I also spent a lot of time outside, had access to a lot of information you guys don’t see, and gradually I learned the USA government was full of idiots.
I know there are a lot of idiots in the USA. I write about them often. But the issues are far more complicated than you seem to believe. But Putin is not an idiot. I seriously doubt that he thinks the US is looking for a base to invade Russia. He is just a lot smarter than that. In fact it is alarming to think that anyone who knows anything about the USA could possibly be that dumb.
Putin simply wants his empire back, that is the main motivation for his actions in the Ukraine. He is furious that his predecessors let it slip away.
Are you watching only NATO’ TV? Everybody a little bit informed knows that America is behind Maidan. (Even Obama agreed on that).
So, telling that “Putin simply wants his empire back” are word told by brain washed Zombies. The only (and big) Putin’s problem, is that he is sitting on one third of the world’s ressources…..in peak oil times, this is a difficult position.
I watched Russian TV. That’s where you get all that shit.
Just like every first world nation, the US has diplomats in almost every nation. So does Russia. But Russia has far more power at *Maidan than the US ever had. But the US has not one foot soldier in the Ukraine. The US could not possibly force the Ukraine to do one thing they did not want to do. If there was any deal brokered in Kiev, Russia was just as much involved in the negotiations as was the USA.
To assume that because negotiations went one way and not the other that it was all the USA’s meddling and Russia had nothing to do with it is just plain ignorant.
Russia was involved in all negotiations on Maidan from the very beginning and is still involved.
EU-US-Ukraine-Russia Negotiations on the Maidan
*Maidan is the central square in Kiev.
There were two elections in Ukraine recently which conformed that this nation wants to go west. They know that sticking with Russia is hopeless. But Putin has different plan, so he is destabilizing Ukraine with military.
Other thing is that Ukrainians should have waited one year, and kick out Yanukovych in elections, instead of being impatient and do in on Maidan square.
Putin wants his empire back? What exactly is it he is supposed to want back? Broke bankrupt indebted countries full of tens of millions broke indebted people whose lives are fully dependent on buying resources and energy from Russia? Really? Are you saying that instead of making tens of billions from the sale of those resources to those countries every year, Putin would prefer to conquer them and have to feed them for free while facing a guerilla war on the occupied territories? Where do these silly ideas come from?
Strummer, I don’t think you would know a silly idea if it hit you in the face. And who said he would have to feed them. Did Stalin feed them? Hell no, he just let them starve. And why did every Soviet leader after Stalin defend the empire with soldiers, guns and walls of concrete and barbed wire? What a silly idea.
Ok, let me get this clear, are you really suggesting that Putin’s goal is to conquer the countries of the former USSR, add them to Russian territory and then starve them to death?
By the way, I lived my whole life in the former country of Czechoslovakia, and I can assure you that some of your views on eastern european history are outright bizzare.
Strummer, for Christ’s sake, stop being so goddamn silly. Putin would like Russia to be like the old Soviet Union but of course he has the good sense to know that will never happen. But he does think he can have the Ukraine back. And that is exactly what he is trying to do.
And you know, I really don’t think the folks in Eastern Europe thinks that is bazaar at all. In fact, in light of Putin’s recent actions concerning the Ukraine, no sane person on earth should think that bazaar.
Nobody can stop Putin from taking the Ukraine if he wants it. As Merkel said today, no amount of weapon deliveries by the West to the Ukraine will convince Putin he can’t take the Ukraine.
The only question is what price Russia would pay if he continues his current course.
Ron, I lived in Russia. My Russian language teacher was a graduate of the Russian military academy, Frunze. I had close Russian friends who advised Duma members. And I can assure you, Russian military and national defense doctrine includes the buffer space concept. The Russians are pretty sure they will get invaded on a periodic basis, and their strategy includes being able to take the punch by withdrawing and stretching the enemy supply lines. NATO presence in the Baltics is already a serious threat. But having NATO 400 km from Moscow just isn’t acceptable. They will fight. And this was the thrust of a white paper I saw several years ago. USA moves into Georgia in the South, the Baltics, Poland and now Ukraine are seen as part of a plan. The same applies to that cockamamie nuclear shield. What the USA neocons are doing is risking nuclear war. I suppose they don’t care for the USA nor for Europe. But the Russsians realize where all this is coming from. They will target the appropriate cities.
Our family doctor from the early sixties until he died was a Dr Sutter who was a Cuban refugee as well.
He was a good friend of our family even though we had very little money and so did not ordinarily mix socially (back in those days) with professional people such as doctors. But he visited with us and ate with us and reciprocated. For a physician he was extremely well informed about gardening and farming in general. Matter of necessity when he was growing up in Cuba.
Fernando knows what he is talking about.
I have known a few other refugees from communism personally as well as Dr Sutter. and I have read a number of books written by people with first hand experience of communism.
And for a long time after that my personal physician was a Dr McMillian who was a refugee from the Canadian national health care system.
He said he could do better as a truck driver in the US back then than he could as an MD in Canada considering that truck drivers need only a few weeks of training before starting to earn some money.
I do however support a move towards a European type health care system for this country. The medical establishment here has grown way the hell ”too big for its britches” and must somehow or another be reformed. I don’t think half way measures are going to work.
Too bad the Ocare legislation was so poorly written and so poorly implemented but I expect it will probably remain on the books in more or less recognizable form. Hopefully the republicans will be able to improve it without actually destroying it which is of course the republican party goal.
Come on, Ted Cruz was born in Canada. That is where his intelligence came from. Everyone knows that. When his folks moved south, well….
Actually, in all seriousness Ted Cruz scares me. When I see his strident ‘debates’ and reactionary politics I look very carefully to see if he is sporting a toothbrush moustache. Loose Cannon come to mind?
Paulo,
So we’re dumb as fence posts if we come from Canada? You may be right on that score.
Doug
I saw Ted Cruz give a speech, hewears cowboy boots, thats kind of cool. I noticed rand Paul doesn’t.
Meanwhile this is happening; see chart below. These two lines were in lockstep last century, no growth without ever more energy consumption. The booming 20thC, that world that formed all the commenters here, that world that you were all pretty successful in. Surely this is the task now, or at least a crude image of the task [agree GPD is a flawed and blunt metric], for this century. Divorcing the rate of human wellbeing from the rate of our consumption of the biosphere, and in the right direction.
Imagine if the PTB actual leant their shoulder to this task, instead of scrabbling to continue BAU. And remember per capita that is even a more extreme change.
Someone up the comment stream said we can have a better than BAU world, and I agree. The 20thC was not only insanely violent but also its undeniably great advances were all pretty brutally wrought from this earth, with extremely high cost.
I am not starry-eyed technophiliac, yet we can we not see here the beginning of an improved paradigm?
Now consider this:
You do realize that “GDP” includes Government spending?
Hi JohnB,
The claim that government spending should not count is silly.
Whether it “should” count or not isn’t the point. The point is that Government spending has skyrocketed in recent years, adding to the GDP numbers.
Hi JohnB,
It is expected that government spending would rise as a proportion of total GDP during a recession. If it did not, the recession would be much worse. Hoover tried to cut spending from 1930 to early 1933, the results were not good. I am assuming you have a basic understanding of introductory macroeconomics, it is pretty straightforward stuff.
If Government spending is good for the economy, why not spend $4 trillion/yr, instead of $3 trillion/yr? Or perhaps $5 or $6 trillion/yr?
Perhaps it’s government spending that you don’t understand?
Let me explain it. Politicians vote in their pet projects. Government Contractors collect taxpayer dollars, and then “reinvest” those dollars back into the Pol’s campaigns. Remember the $500 hammer? And you think this is somehow good for the economy?
Take a look at the real numbers:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Hi JohnB,
Do you agree there should be some government spending?
If not you would be an anarchist.
The proper government response in a recession is to increase government spending. Only the Federal government can do this, most states have laws against deficit spending, though such laws do not make much sense to someone who understands economics.
Should borrowing not be allowed?
There can clearly be too much debt, for individuals, businesses or governments.
Government spending can be wasteful, that is a matter of oversite.
Who needed the $500 hammer, the military? Should we cut all military spending then? Doesn’t really sound like a good idea.
If you think there should be less government spending, that is fine. I think government incentives either through tax breaks or spending can improve infrastructure and move things in the right direction.
My guess is that the excess spending (as in large budget deficits) during the Reagan and Bush administrations were fine, but when a Democrat is in office government deficits are terrible.
The idea that government spending should not count, words escape me.
Hey that was a really nice hammer 🙂 You do realize that many of these boondoggles are Republican ideas, though I think both political parties are bad in this regard.
Link below for the Bridge to Nowhere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
Government spending has not skyrocketed in recent years, no matter what Fox news tells you.
Hi PatrickR,
It is much better to do that type of analysis for the World rather than a single nation. The US has outsourced a lot of its production to China, looking at the Whole World eliminates this distortion.
The chart below uses IMF GDP data using the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) method and Primary Energy Data from BP
Hi Patrick R,
Here is a chart for the World that is similar to the chart you presented.
GDP is PPP from the IMF and Primary energy data is from BP.
Ta
Your welcome.
Constant dollars of GDP produced per kWh of primary energy consumed, since 1965:
Hi Kam,
The source for the data? Is GDP PPP or at market exchange rates? Using market rates tends to distort things because many countries such as China set artificial exchange rates and do not let their currency freely float. PPP=purchasing power parity and is the preferred measure in international economics.
Kam’s data appear to be based on constant US dollars converted from market exchange rates
Would you agree that PPP would be the better measure?
Well worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh45igK4Esw
Greece Exposes the Global Economy’s Achilles Heel
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-02-06/greece-exposes-the-global-economy-s-achilles-heel
Greece exposed it’s own Achylles heel: it’s corrupt, the people fall for commnist and populist hacks, and they don’t know how to make a living in the euro zone. They need to exit and go their own way, go through 30 years of living in poverty shouting communist slogans, and then the ruins can be settled by Turks.
It seems to me that there are only degrees of difference between Greece and most other OECD countries that are living beyond their means, in terms of tax revenue as a percentage of government spending, e.g., the US.
“e.g., the US” I expect Watcher will appear shortly on this: re printing presses and what not.
Somewhat.
Greece can’t return to the drachma.
They have to buy oil. They don’t have to buy anything else. But they have to buy oil.
There would be systemic issues in this situation. The price in drachmas for a barrel would explode, and so would the new Greek Central Bank’s output.
Because they HAVE to buy oil.
This would expose the overall problems with money in general post 2008.
The lesson of 2011 was that the wheels must keep turning. The situation in Greece looked even worse then, but by decree money was declared non money by forcing a “targeted default” of Greek debt PRIVATELY held, and then disallowing ISDA from declaring a swap triggering default.
The mechanism of “collapse” will not be money. Money can be changed by decree. Oil is the mechanism. Not money.
And of course oil’s not that important. We have better and cheaper alternatives right now, and they keep getting better and cheaper.
Oil is dirty risky and expensive – the sooner we replace it the better.
It will be replaced with bombs and bullets.
Soon.
Patience.
Hi Jeff,
Another big problem is that Greece does not have its own currency and cannot use monetary policy. This is why the Euro was never a good idea.
If there was actually a single European Nation state and the individual countries were just states that were part of a Union like the original USA, a single currency would make sense. There are good reasons why Switzerland, the UK and other nations chose not to give up their currency.
Greece should drop the Euro and go back to the drachma.
What monetary policy could be more growth oriented than the current euro policy? The Greeks would have nowhere to go with their policy, so there is no reason to have a separate one.
If there was actually a single European Nation state and the individual countries were just states that were part of a Union like the original USA, a single currency would make sense.
What relevant difference do you see? This thinking sounds clever, but I don’t believe there is anything behind it.
Of course it makes a difference. Part of surplus in the EU export nations would have to get recycled in deficit nation. It happens all the time in US within the states; it happens in Canada within provinces, it happens in Russia within their regions.
Hi Ilambiquated,
In the United States we have our own currency and have control over out monetary and fiscal policy. When there is a recession in one part of the country, maybe an oil bust in Texas for example, income flows from the federal government to those areas in the form of transfer payments for unemployment compensation and welfare payments for the poor. At the same time lower income (due to higher unemployment rates) leads to lower tax payments to the federal government. For the most part you don’t have people from the West or Northeast complaining about those deadbeats in Texas the way many Germans complain about the Greeks. If there was truly a European government, areas of Europe that were doing poorly would be supported by other areas of Europe, in the way that Texas gets supported in my example above.
The fact that European nations would never give up their sovereignty in this way is the reason that none of them should have given up their currency. This is very evident to an economist and is the reason that many European counties chose not to join the Euro.
You do understand that to get out of a recession requires more than monetary policy. If not, very briefly, a recession tends to lead to interest rates close to zero when monetary policy is used.
In many cases these low interest rates are not enough to get the economy growing.
So with fiscal policy to work in a recession a country must run budget deficits, the government must spend more than it collects in taxes and borrow the difference. Greece is not allowed to borrow any more, it is stuck, an exit from the Euro is its best option. Then it can default on existing debt and do its best to borrow from whoever is willing to to take that risk (at high interest rates) and use fiscal policy to get its citizens back to work.
I haven’t heard many Germans claiming about deadbeat Greeks, but the point about unemployment money is not unreasonable.
However, the Germans wouldn’t be sending the Greeks unemployment money if they left the Euro either. And leaving the Euro will not give the Greek government the leeway to borrow more money for Keynesian pump-priming.
The whole “sovereignty” is meaningless if it doesn’t give you any additional options. what options would leaving the euro give Greece? To devalue their currency?
As to the EU not supporting poor regions, that is simply not true. EU structural and cohesion funds are most of its budget and are targeted at just this kind of thing, as the following link makes clear.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-597_en.htm
I have never heard a serious economic argument against joining the EU. It’s mostly just nationalistic noise in the Murdoch controlled press. The claim that it limits the options of finance ministers makes little sense.
The only clear objection is that instability in some regions could lead to high interest rates everywhere, but that hardly seems applicable. A lot of it comes out of the City of London, which is afraid that a single currency would expose them to continental pressure.
The big advantge of a new currency is that there is no debt service. In Greek at least 25% of government revenue goes into debt service. With a new currency Greek can spend 25% more without taking on new debt at all.
Hi Ilambiquated,
There are very good arguments for not joining the Euro. By doing so the nations that do so give up monetary policy as an instrument to deal with a recession. Countries that have there own currency are much less limited in how much they can borrow to finance deficit spending to support expansionary fiscal policy.
A short article from 2011 on the problems of the Euro is linked below. Basically higher inflation might have helped the countries that were doing poorly (loose monetary policy or an increase in the money supply), but the countries that needed this policy have no control over monetary policy. This is where not having your own currency is a problem.
Imagine Germany was in a deep recession and it was at the limit of any allowed borrowing under EU rules, now the ECB decides that a restrictive monetary policy was appropriate with no more than 2% inflation for the EU as a whole. In Germany, due to a faltering economy the economy is suffering from deflation. Under those circumstances, would the Euro seem a good idea to most Germans. Possibly yes, but those who have read and understood Keynes would realize that leaving the Euro would be the better option.
Forgot link, sorry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/opinion/krugman-killing-the-euro.html
In my view it would be better for Greece to have both. Keep the Euro and introduce the drachma as second currency. Many countries did this historically and still do it today. Cuba for instance and even France not so long ago.
Hi Heinrich,
When did France do this? I am not sure how two currencies works, unless one of the currencies is pegged to the other, if the drachma were pegged to the Euro, it would not help at all. You either do it or you don’t. That is up to the people of Greece. If I were a Greek citizen and it were put to a referendum I would vote to leave the Euro, I doubt that most Greeks agree with me.
I don’t know if this is really applicable but in Europe, it’s common that one account can have multiple currencies in the same way that one brokerage account can be used to buy multiple stocks. Many Canadians have $US bank accounts (second currency) for travel or whatever. I have a Renminbi (Yuan) account at my bank here in Canada to facilitate Asian travel and my wife has her Euro account in the same bank. Maybe you’re talking about something else? I expect these currencies are pegged somehow?
Dennis,
Thirty years ago France had a New Franc and an Old Franc for quite some time. Most Communist Eastern Europe Countries had – and still have – the Dollar and now also the Euro or previously the German Mark at the same time. Eastern Germany had for some time the Eastern Mark an the Deutschmark at the same time under circulation. In some shops (Intershops) it has not been possible to pay in the official currency. In the Weimar Republic there have been even three currencies under circulation at the same time. So the examples are countless. Even today in some regions in Germany (der Chiemgauer) there are some currencies under circulation besides the Euro.
Heinreich,
The new franc old franc was just a change in value 1 new franc=100 old francs, not really different currencies just a transition from older to newer currency with a fixed exchange rate.
Cuba isn’t an example of a well managed economy. If you travel through Camagüey province you will see fields full of marabu, a thorny plant which resembles a giant weed. Those fields used to be planted or full of cattle. So today the Cuban dictatorship lives from social parasitism (money from free Cubans, money they suck from Venezuela, sexual tourism, etc).
Fernando,
You do write some quite intelligent comments, however that last one, wasn’t one of them.
All the best,
steve
That is because Fernando buys the narrative imposed by MSM regarding Greece unlike the narrative on other topics where he has his own experience (oil topics) or he got experience with interaction and visits to other countries and people (e.g Russia topics). So it is very clear that if someone wants to create their own version of reality they only need to create a perception. And people just buy that perception and say that is reality. But monetary game is same everywhere.
Let’s watch the Syriza communists destroy the Greek economy. If you think I’m a media groupie, I suggest you visit my blog and check the ones I like to read this month. But I usually don’t list what I read in Spanish, with a couple of exceptions.
Fernando,
1. You are watching one sick tree while the whole forest dies around you.
2. Another original doomer concept is that the amount of available net energy is a strong predictor of the type of politics we will see.
High net energy=good politics (harmony and peace)
Low net energy=bad politics (disharmony and war)
Bad politics acts as a positive feedback to accelerate collapse. But it is not the direct cause. It is just an effect. [b]Energy is the cause[/b].
Here is a great example of bad politics:
[b][i]Greece exposed it’s own Achylles heel: it’s corrupt, the people fall for commnist and populist hacks, and they don’t know how to make a living in the euro zone. They need to exit and go their own way, go through 30 years of living in poverty shouting communist slogans, and then the ruins can be settled by Turks.[/i][/b]
~Fernando Leanme
The fact that you are pointing fingers, choosing sides, and damning a whole nation of your fellow humans to decades of horrific poverty, is really just a byproduct of available net energy. Think about it. When available net energy drops, [b][i]we[/i][/b] have to fight to maintain [b][i]our[/i][/b] share. Sadly there is no choice. You are just following your instinct.
3. How do you think all this divisiveness might affect your grand plan for alternatives?
Fernando,
1. You are watching one sick tree while the whole forest dies around you.
2. Another original doomer concept is that the amount of available net energy is a strong predictor of the type of politics we will see.
High net energy=good politics (harmony and peace)
Low net energy=bad politics (disharmony and war)
Bad politics acts as a positive feedback to accelerate collapse. But it is not the direct cause. It is just an effect. [B]Energy is the cause[/B].
Here is a great example of bad politics:
[I][B]Greece exposed it’s own Achylles heel: it’s corrupt, the people fall for commnist and populist hacks, and they don’t know how to make a living in the euro zone. They need to exit and go their own way, go through 30 years of living in poverty shouting communist slogans, and then the ruins can be settled by Turks.[/I][/B]
~Fernando Leanme
The fact that you are pointing fingers, choosing sides, and damning a whole nation of your fellow humans to decades of horrific poverty, is really just a byproduct of available net energy. Think about it. When available net energy drops, [B][I]we[/I][/B] have to fight to maintain [B][I]our[/I][/B] share. Sadly there is no choice. You are just following your instinct.
3. How do you think all this divisiveness might affect your grand plan for alternatives?
(sorry to repeat but I might as well learn your flavor of HTML now)
Fernando,
1. You are watching one sick tree while the whole forest dies around you.
2. Another original doomer concept is that the amount of available net energy is a strong predictor of the type of politics we will see.
High net energy=good politics (harmony and peace)
Low net energy=bad politics (disharmony and war)
Bad politics acts as a positive feedback to accelerate collapse. But it is not the direct cause. It is just an effect. Energy is the cause.
Here is a great example of bad politics:
Greece exposed it’s own Achylles heel: it’s corrupt, the people fall for commnist and populist hacks, and they don’t know how to make a living in the euro zone. They need to exit and go their own way, go through 30 years of living in poverty shouting communist slogans, and then the ruins can be settled by Turks.
~Fernando Leanme
The fact that you are pointing fingers, choosing sides, and damning a whole nation of your fellow humans to decades of horrific poverty, is really just a byproduct of available net energy. Think about it. When available net energy drops, we have to fight to maintain ourshare. Sadly there is no choice. You are just following your instinct.
3. How do you think all this divisiveness might affect your grand plan for alternatives?
(OK, hopefully 3rd time’s the charm. Crosses fingers and gets ready to quit trying.)
That’s better. Sorry again.
Next year in Constantinople and Trabzon. Greece mistake was to join EU, which squandered sovereignty to USA. God damn, consumption is so appealing. Greece people were always disagree with that, but who cares in the west. Democracy in the west applies only when it’s suitable. Ho Chi Minh would win in any open pure election in South Vietnam, but that’s not when democracy applies, right? All eyes on Greece, of course, can they say No to EU and neo-colonial policies of the west, as they did say No on October 28, 1940.
NYT article on massive problems with Greek health care system:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/business/greek-austerity-spawns-fakery-playing-nurse.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Greek PM raises a new issue:
Reparations from Germany for damage to Greece during the Second World War:
http://news.yahoo.com/greece-moral-obligation-claim-german-wwii-reparations-pm-192051560.html;_ylt=AwrBJSBVvNdUcTUA4WzQtDMD
Cute…
…So when does this next 2008-type thing– the next stairstep down– arrive?
I imagine it helps to keep in mind that the current state-industry metastasis is a function of relatively-cheap/abundant energy?
…And that the next 2008-type thing will be worse? How much worse?
Dare you entertain it? I know some of you are older and rely on the status-quo for your insurance, health care and pensions, but dare you entertain it? Objectively?
Iran gets its missile defense system (blowback):
http://iwallerstein.com/panic-about-panic-russia-and-the-world-system-today/
just announced transmission of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran. Long promised, Russia had cancelled the arrangement in 2010 as result of pressure from the West. Russia is now going to fulfil its initial promise. This serves to reinforce Russian support for Iran’s inclusion in the decision-making processes of West Asia. It both puts pressure on the United States and helps to check Saudi Arabia’s attempt to maintain itself as the key Sunni Arab state. Already, with the accession of King Salman, the press is full of discussion about the fragility of the Saudi position.
S-300…[big yawn].
Ron, this is a quote from cytochrome’s link
“Finally, in Ukraine, the Russians pursue a careful policy. Not totally in control of the Donetsk-Luhansk autonomists, Russia is nonetheless making sure that the autonomists cannot be eliminated militarily. The Russian price for real peace is a commitment by NATO that Ukraine is not a potential member, about which there are different views within NATO. Everyone is playing a high risk game in Ukraine. My guess, and it is in large measure a guess, is that sanity will prevail and a political deal realized. I would say, watch Angela Merkel after the German elections. She (and Germany) want a deal but are not yet free to pursue it.”
As you can see, there ARE quite a few reports the Russians are focused on keeping NATO at arm’s length. In this case the media you read doesn’t give you the full story. But the intelligence reports and what I get from Moscow tell me they are signaling very hard they will not allow a NATO presence so close to Moscow.
“The world’s richest sovereign wealth fund removed 32 coal mining companies from its portfolio in 2014, citing the risk they face from regulatory action on climate change.
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), worth $850bn (£556bn) and founded on the nation’s oil and gas wealth, revealed a total of 114 companies had been dumped on environmental and climate grounds in its first report on responsible investing, released on Thursday. The companies divested also include tar sands producers, cement makers and gold miners.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/05/worlds-biggest-sovereign-wealth-fund-dumps-dozens-of-coal-companies?CMP=share_btn_tw
ZH is splashing a brand spanking new shale bailout mechanism.
China.
Probably worth noting that over the past 6 years any time anyone was teetering and needed a bailout, China would always be mentioned. Happened with Greece in 2011.
Herein 14,137 words (including names of commenter and dates) were used in one streak to discuss renewable energy such as wind and solar. It was frenetic how people jumped on this subject and did not want to let it go. I would be thrilled if as many words would be used to discuss peak oil which, after all, is the raison d’être of peakoil.com.
FT piece on fall in rig numbers:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/98d1646c-ad45-11e4-bfcf-00144feab7de.html#axzz3R5vzStEw
“But be warned, not all rigs are the same. Technological advances in drilling mean that all sorts of productivity increases have been made over the past few years and that you need to look below the headline numbers. For example, horizontal drilling, along with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has led to big output increases in shale oil and gas production. But rig count numbers show the number of horizontal rigs has not fallen as much as other conventional rigs.”
And there I was thinking that big output increases in shale oil are only due to big investments… 🙂
peakoil.com?!
LOL! maybe you should head on over there, at the moment they’re having a discussion about cancer rates post Fukshima
Fred M,
I believe nGass meant peakoilbarrel.com, not PO.com.
I agree with the point he/she/it made, myself.
Notice: There is just no new data or anything to create a new post from right now. So I will not have another new post until sometime Monday. The OPEC MOMR is due out Monday morning and I will have a post on it a few hours later with all the OPEC production charts. Hope you can last until then.
Ron
On April 6, 1917 democrat President Wilson had the US Congress declare war on Germany. Germany never declared war on the US in WWI. The US (Wilson) never signed the Versailles Peace Treaty of WWI. Wilson never got the US to join the League of Nations (his idea).
God, I hate republicans – they all are dumb as dirt. Just the way I was raised until age 7.
Too bad. I was never indoctrinated myself. My dad was a democrat but he never talked about it much. He talked a lot about religion, bit very seldom at home. He loved to argue around the courthouse square. He was a Baptist. But there was never prayer at the table, except on rare occasions when we had company for Sunday dinner. All my family were religious, but lukewarm religious, except my oldest sister who married a preacher.
I was extremely lucky not to have been indoctrinated with religion. Every other member of my family just assumed I would be religious just like them, just not a fanatic about it just as they were not. But I was a skeptic even as a teenager and a full fledged atheist by the time I was about 23. I loved to read non fiction and I read “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine about that time. That did it, that was the trigger that pushed me over the edge.
However I did almost join a church once, in about 1965. I started going to the Unitarian Church. I wanted to become part of the Civil Rights movement, march and demonstrate and all that stuff. The Unitarians were always involved in that kind of stuff. But it never happened. There was never a serious demonstration in Huntsville Alabama so I never got the chance. Today one of my deepest regrets was that I never got a chance to march or sit in or do any of that stuff. I would just love to tell my grandkids that I participated in a Civil Rights demonstration back in the 1960s. But it never happened.
Oh well, life is full of disappointments.
Edit. Sitting here reminising I guess I owe a lot of my Dad. In all my life I never heard him utter the N word, not once. Was that his way of not indoctrinating me with the southern racism that was so prevelent in the deep south in my youth? He never talked about it, one way or the other. I know I heard the word a lot, almost everywhere I went, just never at home.
Hi Ron,
I was raised roman catholic and started questioning it at about the age of 15. By 25 I could speak the words “I don’t believe in God” knowing that if I was wrong, I would spend eternity in hell. Now I realize religion is just another tool of the rich and powerful to control the masses.
I knew there was some reason I liked you. Even though most of the time I criticize your comments. I enjoy your website. Thanks
Around 400 AD, some clever promoter, came up with this “original sin” scheme. This new slant on that old fairy tale implied everyone inherits the sin of Adam, at birth, and is thence disconnected from God. So, all those babes, boys and girls alike, were suddenly filled to the brim with sin: I’m informed this can actually be cured, however, through Baptism, a marvelous solution. The down side is that no one in our family has been Baptized (a form of indoctrination, in my opinion). At least over the past five generations!
I can’t even remember when I quit believing in the old white haired gentleman surrounded by a light so bright it is death to look at him but I was still very young.
I actually joined the church sometime about twenty years or so ago when I finally grew wise enough to understand how much it meant to my parents and a few close relatives who are absolutely convinced that eternity in a lava lake is tho only alternative. It didn’t cost me anything much except a temporary loss of dignity and a dunking in lukewarm water inside the church. Back when I was a kid the old folks built a log and branch dam across a COLD mountain stream and you were apt to catch a cold from getting dunked.
I still don’t post any comments or discuss these matters and sign my own name due to the possibility of unnecessarily severely upsetting a few good people who might accidentally run across such comments.
It doesn’t matter as a practical matter whether a god or God exists. Religion is a major facet of the human mind. We look up to leaders and ” God” is the ultimate alpha leader. Most of Patton’s men never saw him in the flesh. Most of Robert E Lee’s men never saw him in the flesh. The fact that NOBODY at all has ever seen ” God” in the flesh is easily overlooked.
I would personally far rather be in the place I am when the shit hits the fan than in a society that does not have lots of believers in the sort of religion practiced in this particular area. The NEA which I once belonged to is not going to send anybody around to see if I have firewood and water and beans but the local Baptist church does and will continue to do so as long as it is able.
My well educated liberal friends all love poor people at a distance – they support food stamps medicare free school lunches etc etc etc – but when and if the shit hits the fan they are not going to have an EXISTING tightly structured local organization composed of LOCAL folks who all know each other well – tied together by a century of local history – with their parents and grand parents and children all buried together on the grounds.
The local Baptist church is as functionally close to the extended family /clan /village as anything that exists in the modern developed world these days. I view it as good insurance.
The hundred dollars I contribute to the community fund every six months or so goes as far as a thousand dollars in tax money in terms of actually supporting local hard up people who need help. The only paid bureaucrat in the whole church is the pastor and he doesn’t get paid very much at all.
Societies need some sort of cultural glue to hold them together. Religions are far from ideal but on the other hand ideal solutions to problems are extremely rare and maybe even non existent. As I see it when religions as such fade out things are fine in places such as rich modern Scandinavian countries.
But in other countries things are different. Lord Chesterfield IIRC said that when people cease to believe in God they do not henceforth believe in NOTHING. A physicist says that nature abhors a vacuum.
Dostoevsky has one of his principle characters say in the Brothers that if there is no God then anything goes – there are no rules. This not precisely true but it sure does throw a lot of light on the nature of morality. We need to agree on some absolute or at least near absolute values and such beliefs have to be hung on some sort of framework like clothing on a mannequin in order to be clearly visible and easily understood.
A wealthy well educated and just society can function without religion as such playing a major role as evidenced by say Norway or Germany.
I am not so sure any other sort of society can function without religious underpinnings .
But in a country lots of poor people somebody will assume the power and the space vacated when religions fail. It is worthwhile to look at Nazism as a religion. Ditto communism. Both are social and philosophical systems that replace a god as the arbiter of values with the state as personified by leaders such as Stalin and Hitler.
I make this comment in order to throw additional light on the complex nature of societies rather than as a definitive argument for or against religion.
Religions and religious leaders are often as corrupt and evil as any other sort of cultural meme.
But just about every body else has pointed out the downside so I need not bother with that . 😉
Mac, I don’t buy your religious generosity arguments. Re Norway, this country is the least religious in Europe but as a percent of GNI assistance, Norway has the world’s highest. On a personal level, people my wife and I know who make significant individual (no strings attached) contributions to Third World families are all positively irreligious. Yes, throughout Africa you find schools built and supported by various Churches where all kids are welcome, providing they join the flock. Is this generosity or is it simply buying new conscripts?
Both generosity and attracting members.
Church operated schools in my part of the US don’t work at attracting members except for the ones at the bottom of the heap.
If and when the shit hits the fan and things go to hell in a bucket – all the way to hell in a bucket- the local Baptist church will continue to function. The social services department of the state government will not.
Of course I hope things don’t get so bad as that.
I am argueing that religion is as integral a part of human nature as family tribal loyalty or nationalism – it is an evolved behavioral meme that is just about universal. You can dispose of it in a place as prosperous and well educated as most of Western Europe but one day you are apt to wake up and find something else has filled the leadership vacuum left behind that you conceiviably might like even less than a religion.
We all have to believe in SOMETHING. Lots of people organize their beliefs around a religion.
It is possible that at some point our natures may change but I don’t think such a change is in the cards. People seek out a group or tribal identity. If they are shallow minded enough they may just find their identity in being rabid sports fans or Nazi storm troopers. Others actually more or less worship technology. I know some law enforcement people who I suspect look on their badges and uniforms as emblems of authority granted them from government they come pretty close to worshipping in terms of believing it makes everything in life possible.
Maybe you will get it when I say you are advocating for membership without even realizing it in your sort of society – which is no doubt a very fine society and far superior in many many ways to the one I live in. But once the wealth is gone – and it will not last forever- what will your society be like?
Right now with plenty of disposable income your peers are willing to support those less well off. If your income shrinks drastically who are you going to support to the extent you can with such charitable contributions as you are able to make? People in the immediate neighborhood or total strangers?
Maybe I can get PART of my point across a different way. I have a friend who works for the city of Richmond Va who is a housing advocate whose primary business is to fxxk with poor landlords. He has collected over a million bucks in salary and benefits already and he has never ever ever contributed ONE ACTUAL square foot of decent housing to the poor people of the city thru his work.
Smokey looks after himself and the city government looks after itself. After that maybe something gets done for the people of the city.
The church operates pretty much the same way. This should surprise nobody at all since both are the products of behavioral evolution.
Smokey would never spend another hour advocating for poor folks with housing problems if his salary was cut off and I know a couple of social workers well enough to know that they spend absolutely ZERO time ” off the clock ” doing social work. They don”t give a damn about their clients except in the abstract. They are just numbers and names to be dealt with in a computer system. Follow the rules and don’t rock the boat and go home at four thirty or five pm and forget the job until eight am is their motto.
I on the other hand being a rolling stone have been in and out of the rental business for a long long time. For a person like me with a broad range of trades skills and friends who were capable of organizing and financing a renovation this work is a good fit- you commit for only a few weeks or a couple of months.
For what my old buddy Smokey has collected in salary and bennies we would have BUILT ten new houses thus actually DOING something about the housing issue.
The STATE in all its various forms from the meter maid to the Supreme Court Justice is just another evolved behavioral meme that looks after itself first and all other things second.
Both state and church are natural outgrowths of our evolving the intelligence to be able to organize and live and work in large groups.
For what it is worth if things get better and better over the long haul I expect religions in general to recede in importance perhaps even to the point of becoming a historical curiosity.
But I do not expect things to get better. Religions may make a huge comeback within the next century or so.My guess is that they will in most parts of the world.
Now I don’t pray and I read the KJB as well as various other religious tomes only for insight and sometimes inspiration . I have zero doubt that when I die that is the end of me. The Pope is just another politician so far as I am concerned. The current ones are at least morally superior to the Borgias. I have never met a tv preacher who didn’t impress me as a person I would prefer lived far away. VERY far away.
But I am glad that at least some of the idiots around me believe that they will go to hell if they misbehave badly. They are not afraid of the law. The law is so inept at catching people these days the crooks and thieves just look at getting caught as bad luck like having an auto accident or getting hurt on a construction job.
Telling them – actually convincing them – that there is no god and no hell is a VERY bad idea in my opinion. And there is pretty much a zero chance of changing them for the better in terms of their attitudes toward other people and the community.
Welfare for such people is not something they see as a temporary solution to their problems. They see it as a way to get money and food and medical care much more easily than actually working for these things. I ACTUALLY LIVE among such people – they comprise fifteen or twenty percent of the local population. Another thirty or forty percent takes the church and the teachings of the church seriously and generally succeed in living modest but dignified lives by actually following the teachings of the church – such as turning away from strong drink and living modestly.
The church is a mutual support organization that works remarkably well. The members actually compete in order to see who can take the best care of their aged parents rather than drive the biggest truck.
TOO BAD for me that I chose not to have children and am now old without any.
But the church sends somebody around to check on my and my old Daddy on a regular basis. Social services does not. Not that I need looking after – yet.
Other folks in other places mileage will vary of course.
Now would I cut off the welfare NOW ? Of course not. Only a fool would even seriously consider doing so. We have problems enough as it is without unnecessarily creating ten times as many.
But we ARE in a hell of a fix and I am honest enough like Fernado to admit that I do not have answers. But I do know that some possible solutions are not workable over the long run.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again OFM. You are probably the wisest living person I know. Maybe not wiser than Socrates, but I didn’t have the opportunity to listen to what Socrates had to say in any kind of first person way.
I should bundle up your comments from here and The Oil Drum and preserve them for posterity.
Seems to me that a lot of religions get people to accept that life will be shitty, but they will be rewarded in the afterlife.
Now the good thing about this is that is has some semblance of long range planning. You tell people there are things they should do which may not feel like it is in their self-interest, but it will be in their eternal interest.
I think one of the problems we have with religion in the US is that we have a big segment who believe religion is going to reward them in this life. And they should have to the freedom to do what they want now because that’s what God wants.
There are a few evangelical groups which are promoting more concern for Earth and the environment. It would be nice if that caught on, but seems like most of the far right believes religion, wealth, and consumption should go together. In fact, some of them don’t much like the Pope because some of his comments (while seemingly more Christ-like) go against the “spend, consume, me-first” religion they prefer. I mean, who ever thought Christ wanted people to sacrifice?
If you think the story of Jack and the Beanstalk is all fantasy, get a load of some other story that is even more far out, just out there, no ifs, ands, or buts, about it.
There is this story about a cat who became a spiritual leader of some religion. The new leader is believed to be an incarnated soul from some other past spiritual leader. It is just fantastic, unbelievable, the story that gets told, you can’t make this stuff up.
Anyhow, a search team on horses is dispatched to discover where and who this new spiritual leader is. They go out into the wilderness and actually find this young child who recognizes one of the horsemen and calls him by name.
The search party returns to the spiritual palace in a faraway land. The new spiritual leader is blessed, the investiture, and the devout followers channel their devotion to the new spiritual leader that came from the old.
Fact is, the story is true.
The new spiritual leader was born on July 6, 1933 and two years later, he was on his way to become the Dalai Lama.
Then the Chinese invade Tibet, a million Tibetans die, and the world ignores what happens.
The world is civilized and yet not.
There’s this other document out there that is just as bizarre. It’s about a group of souls who decide to be free and independent from despot, a bad king, a ruthless ruler.
Here’s what they had to say:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Who believes such nonsense? A creator who gives humans unalienable rights is a knee slapper, all bunkum and bosh, pure poppycock.
What a crock.
Everyone knows there is no such thing as a creator and any idea that the creator can give humans unalienable rights is by far and away a story that nobody can possibly believe.
Humans have no rights, life, liberty and happiness are not on the agenda, so forget about it.
This so-called, imaginary God up in heaven just thinks He can do things for humans like life, liberty and happiness, but it’s not true.
There is no god, so forget about your God given unalienable rights, they don’t exist.
Shake those chains.
It’s not God we have to fear, it’s Mother Nature.
Now I realize religion is just another tool of the rich and powerful to control the masses.
Well yes, but it is a lot more than that. “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” And I don’t have to tell you who wrote that. But one I like better is “Religion is the have for the have nots”. I don’t know who wrote that but I seem to remember hearing it somewhere.
I personally think that it is easier to believe in a God than to believe that the universe started from nothing. I do not think that most humans can even contemplate “nothing.” By that I mean, no singularity, no space, no time, no three dimensions let alone other dimensions, no parallel universes – well just “nothing.” If you can actually contemplate nothing, then some math equation certainly cannot show/describe/explain a resulting Universe. There can be no equation that can describe nothing – if there were, it would automatically violate my rule of nothing.
Clueless, it’s not a case of “either-or”. That is either believe the universe started from nothing or it was started by a male being who is jealous, vain and so vindictive he will torture you forever if you don’t believe in him. You really don’t have to believe in either one.
And the existence of anything, even a supreme being, violates the rule of nothing.
personally think that it is easier to believe in a God than to believe that the universe started from nothing.
Anyone can chose to believe anything they wish, it changes reality not one wit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbsGYRArH_w
For me, whether there is a God, or whether the universe started from nothing, or whether the universe has always been here in some form, all comes down to the same question. Humans have yet to answer what gave rise to the universe. If you say God started it all, then we still have to ask “Where did God come from?” God could be the Big Bang. But what came before that? If nothing, then what is that?
I think there is a lot humans don’t know.
I know there is a lot humans don’t know. But the point I would like to make is that even if a person cannot accept that the universe came from nothing that doesn’t mean you know where it did come from.
The reasoning of the theist goes something like this: The universe is so perfect and ordered that it had to be the work of an intelligent being.
So far so good, but at this point he goes off the track:
Therefore this higher intelligence we will call God. He inspired a book, his infallible word. He gave us free will. He set rules we must follow. We must worship him because he is a jealous God, a vindictive God and will torture us forever if we disbelieve in him.
And of course it goes on and on with every schism of religion having a different version of the infallible word of God. The whole damn thing is just so silly that a fifth grader would find it ridiculous if he/she were not indoctrinated from birth.
I think what holds the God thing together, unlike scientific investigations about the universe, is that you are not supposed to ask what existed before God. You’re just supposed to accept on faith that God exists and where God came from is none of your business.
Therefore, you don’t have to know anything other than God created everything, you just go about your lifestyle, and don’t ask questions. Kind of sounds like a dictatorship, in a way, which is what Mac was saying. Any sort of celebrity or ruler or leader can take on the form of a “god” if you believe the word comes from the top and you should follow it as best you can.
Personally I think this God started off OK but then totally fucked things up. The universe, excellent, sound engineering, nice esthetics but people? That cruel, vindictive, mostly ignorant, self-centered two legged species determined to trash a perfectly good planet. What the hell was He thinking about?
God made the mountains
God made the sky
God made the people
God knows why
I don’t believe Jesus is coming back, but there are times I wish he would and he’d go to the people doing the most damage to Earth in his name and tell them they are f*ing up.
Of course, if Jesus were coming back, I would have assumed there have been many atrocities over the ages he should have put a stop to. If not then, why now?
And if he came back, most people wouldn’t believe him anyway.
That cruel, vindictive, mostly ignorant, self-centered two legged species determined to trash a perfectly good planet. What the hell was He thinking about?
Well if you go to the Bible you will find that ‘God’ created man in his own cruel, vindictive, and self centered image and specifically told him to disregard the exponential function…
Genesis 1:27
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”…
Never really worked for me though, which is why today I worship the RAINBOW-SNAKE Goddess
Australian Fertility God/dess
Also known as ALMUDJ, KALSERU
The Great Creator Serpent
In charge of Fertility, Growth and Refreshing Rain.
The RAINBOW-SNAKE is a bit of a mish-mash, with a kangaroo’s head, a crocodile’s tail and a python’s body, all decorated with water lilies and waving tendrils.
The Snake has many names and comes in male and female form. YINGARNA, the female, is the original Mother of Creation, and her son NGALYOD is the Great Transformer of Land. Family portraits go back 8,000 years, which makes the Rainbow Snake one of the oldest religious symbols. And it’s still going strong today.
Source: God Checker
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/australian-mythology.php?deity=RAINBOW-SNAKE
If nothing, then what is that? I think there is a lot humans don’t know.
Humans, well, at least a very few of us, now know, that ‘Nothing’ isn’t ‘Nothing’ anymore.
Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you can’t even measure them.
Lawrence M. Krauss
That version of “nothing” is more like the no beginning and no end concept of the universe that I included as an option.
I like reading about these various concepts, but it is still hard for me to get my human mind around the idea that the universe has either always been in existence, or it had a start, and if so, what was there before the start?
I got it straight from God
“Where were you when I lay the foundations of the heavens and the earth.”
in other words – You don’t know nothin’, man, so quit talkin’ like you do and eat your oatmeal.
Something from Nothing…Quantum theories…
None of this information answers your question, but it give insights on the possible directions/forms such answer could have. I don’t know if humans can actually ‘know everything’, but I do know that we (at least some of us) will keep trying…those who try and those who support trying will find the voyage of discovery enjoyable..those who choose to close their minds to further inquiry and adopt their favorite prepackaged religious constructs will find such inquires either meaningless, tiresome, insulting, or blasphemous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/did-the-universe-come-fro_b_739909.html
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/07/how-the-universe-appeared-from-nothing.html
I like ‘the ‘Turtles all the way down” theory… 🙂
Shuffling Along,
I think it’s early to be having this discussion. Quantum mechanics is elegant and extremely useful but until it (or something new) is extended to include dark energy and dark matter, we remain with a HUGE gap in understanding the nature of reality. Perhaps String Theory, or one of the other GUTs floating around, or something entirely new, will come along and enable humans to address “origin” questions in a satisfactory way: Perhaps it will be an eternal mystery.
Assuming you don’t already know, dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen with telescopes which accounts for most of the matter in the Universe. Even worse, Dark Energy is an unknown form of energy which permeates space and tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Really big questions!
String Theory seems to be a box canyon. It did produce some elegant math.
We are missing something major (Smolin thinks it has something to do with time– something Einstein’s Block Universe says doesn’t exist).
We are still working out the Standard Model from the 1970’s.
cytochrome,
“String Theory seems to be a box canyon. It did produce some elegant math.” Must confess, even with my wife’s help String Math totally defeats me. And, she differs with your box canyon metaphor saying: It’s the opposite, more like a manifold of valleys radiating from a point: Immeasurable numbers of valleys. I wouldn’t know.
Dark matter and dark energy are purely hypothetical yet. Dark matter is postulated from the absence of enough matter in galaxies to hold them together gravitationally. We look at what glows and calculate mass, then find it falls short. First things to check are the observations, next check and see if we need a new theory of gravitation. Instead the dark matter fudge factor was thrown in to compensate for an apparent shortage of glowing matter. Dark matter must not only be non-radiating, it must be very dense or transparent. Otherwise we would see the effects of dust clouds interfering with light transmission.
Dark energy is postulated to be a property of space that increases as the universe expands, therefor accelerating the expansion.
All these results depend upon a few (sometimes one or two) measuring sticks. Red shift of the light spectrum and brightness of know types of stars are two of the measuring sticks.
What we don’t know is if light is changing over long periods of time or if the rules of the universe have changed over time. We don’t know what dark matter or energy are (if they exist at all). We also do not know if the red shifts seen or the brightness of supernovae actually relate speeds and distances in these long range cases.
In the same passage, Marx said that religion “is the heart of a heartless world.”
My father used the phase “Jesus Christ” all the time. I never heard the “F” word. I didn’t think he knew it. Then one time, one of the springs broke on the garage door. We finally got the door up, put a 2×4 under it to hold it up, got the car out of the garage and changed out the spring. Then the new spring lifted the door a couple of inch higher and the 2×4 landed on the hood of the car. Oh, he knew the “F” word.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, you have to baffle them with bullshit.
Ask Brian Williams how that is working out for him.
Some unintended consequences all because he is one poor prevaricator.
In other words, dumb as dirt.
The truth is better.
The 1865 Guano Recovery Act was an imperialistic move by the US, i.e. the guano was stolen and slave labor was used to mine the guano. Quasi-imperialism is an oxymoron, no such thing.
Chinese laborers were shipped to islands off the coast of Peru and were enslaved to mine guano. The US and Europe owes China billions in unpaid labor costs. har
Pelicans and cormorants can fill an entire island with heaps of guano, their daily business became big bidness for capitalists. W.R. Grace became wealthy in the trade of guano; a familiar name in the world of finance.
Mining guano was a big bidness, still is, and Peru was dependent upon the income to the tune of 80 percent of the budget, a budget of 22 million dollars and 16 million of it was from guano.
Analogous to what oil does today.
If it weren’t for the development of synthetic fertilizers, the guano would have been gone a long time ago.
https://yaffle53.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/a-history-of-the-peruvian-guano-industry/
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/38/najafi_burnett.php
The Haber Process doubled the human population.
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/haberbosch.html
meanwhile, the steelworker strike…..
“The plants where members of the United Steelworkers have been on strike since Feb. 1:
LyondellBasell plant in Houston; Marathon plant in Texas City, Texas; Marathon co-generation facility in Texas City; Marathon refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky; Shell refinery in Deer Park, Texas; Shell chemical plant in Deer Park; Tesoro Corp. refinery in Anacortes, Washington; Tesoro refinery in Martinez, California (idled); Tesoro refinery in Carson, California.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/07/united-steelworkers-strike-spreads_n_6636634.html
“Walk-outs at BP Plc’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery and the company’s joint-venture refinery with Husky Energy in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday would bring the number of plants with striking hourly workers to 11, including nine refineries accounting for 13 percent of U.S. refining capacity.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/8/united-steelworkers-widens-oil-refinery-strike.html
Some interesting EIA annual Louisiana natural gas data, through 2013:
2012 to 2013 annual rates of change:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_dcu_sla_a.htm
Overall Dry Gas Production: -21.0%/year
Gross Withdrawals From Three Sources of Gas:
Gas Well Production: +6.5%year
Associated Gas Production: +4.9%/year
Shale Gas Production: -32.8%/year
It seems to me that this is an interesting case history of a reduction in overall drilling in a shale play, the Haynesville Shale Play in this case, while they presumably focused on the “sweet spots.” Note that these rates of change are all net changes, after new wells were added. The gross underlying decline rate from existing shale wells in 2012 would of course be higher.
Incidentally, note Louisiana shale gas production was increasing at 55%/year from 2009 to 2012.
And at the 2009 to 2012 rate of increase in Louisiana’s shale gas production, it would have met 100% of US natural gas demand by the end of 2017.
At the 2009 to 2012 rate of increase, Louisiana’s shale gas production would have met 100% of global demand by the end of 2020.
Oilsands foes in the U.S. are getting visits from FBI
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/02/07/oilsands-foes-in-the-us-are-getting-visits-from-fbi.html
Larry Hildes says it’s been happening the last few months in Oregon, Idaho and Washington state. He says one person got a visit at work after having already refused to answer questions.
“They appear to be interested in actions around the tarsands and the Keystone XL pipeline,” Hildes said in an interview. “It’s always the same line: ‘We’re not doing criminal investigations, you’re not accused of any crime. But we’re trying to learn more about the movement.’ ”
He’s advised activists not to talk — and they mostly haven’t. That lack of communication has made it a little complicated to figure out what, exactly, the FBI is looking for.
-Snip-
The other person, Herb Goodwin, was visited at home by an FBI agent and a veteran detective from the local police force in Bellingham, Wash. He said the federal agent told him: “We’re here to ask whether you’ll answer some questions for us about Deep Green Resistance.”
That group, DGR, calls itself a radical environmental movement that believes the biggest problem with the planet is human civilization itself. It proposes a shift back from agriculture to a hunter-gatherer horticultural lifestyle.
It also proposes a four-step program called decisive ecological warfare, a long-term plan calling for the sabotage and dismantling of planet-harming infrastructure.
If they define themselves as a “radical movement” why shouldn’t the FBI be interested in them? I’m a Canadian and generally in favor of pipelines but I’m certainly not against the police checking out radical movements.
Canada’s an open-air prison, Doug. A nice one, maybe a little like Norway’s, but a prison nonetheless.
You’re a big boy now, yes?
Nation-states are terrorist organizations. (That’s why we have ISIL. It’s their bastard child.) They’re a new form and won’t likely last for much longer.
It is about time we start thinking in those terms and acting in solidarity with the planet as a whole, and those creatures of it, beyond these artificial, arbitrary elite enclosures we mindlessly identify with.
Hi Caelan,
There’s stuff going on I don’t like. I hate the fact police and bureaucrats don’t seem to have any real accountability, for example. You may be overstating your case somewhat though. What may happen is we become a police state in the future (how far away?) in the name of “public order”. I’ve sort of discussed this with Old Farmer Mac on occasion.
However, if it’s any consolation, my wife might agree with you, at least judging from how she was totally pissed by the way she was treated by Canada Customs last time we went to Europe. 🙂
Cheers, Doug
Doug, we cannot have any accountability from a system that is fundamentally based on unaccountability (and worse).
It is like talking about how to stop/control the symptoms of a cancer while ignoring the cancer.
Back from China, I had my baggage turned inside-out and laptop searched by a bald tatooed post-pubescent male in a Vancouver Airport customs clown-suit with an attitude that clashed with my own. My inner Zen-master helped me to narrowly manage to stop myself from jumping the counter. Of course they found nothing but one pissed cit’. That’s actually a very bad find. They are going to lose, but they’ll drag a lot of goodness down with them. They are going to lose by their own hands.
“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” ~ Henry Kissinger
Just a qualification: ‘Bald and tatooed’ is all fine and nice and is offered as a simple ‘descriptive element’. I have nothing against either or both and in fact know of someone who fits those two specifics here, drives the city bus, is very nice and cool and even went a little out of his way to help smooth out an issue I once had with my bus pass. Of course he is not likely going to be rifling through my baggage or laptop anytime soon unless it is forgotten on the bus. ‘u^
I’m a Canadian and generally in favor of pipelines but I’m certainly not against the police checking out radical movements.
I’m a Canadian too, but we differ on the “checking out radicals” part. You made me do some more thinking (as well as making me see that my take on the article was not as obvious as I had thought.)
First, I looked at the website and Facebook page, and could not find the words “radical movement” on it. I don’t know how or why the reporter decided on that specific characterization, as the story does not cite any interviews with DGR members. Might have something to do with language: one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter and all that. I selected the quotes, so some of the blame is mine.
These guys seem to model themselves as a Sinn Féin to an environmental IRA- a political organization at arm’s length from a military wing. From the DGR website: Note: Though the resistance movement will have different phases and parts, the Deep Green Resistance organization is, will always be, and is committed to only being an aboveground group. Discussing escalating dissent is not in itself a crime. Planning is another story, but they don’t seem to be doing that. From the “Strategy: Decisive Ecological Warfare” section of the DGR Website: “The hypothetical actionists who put this strategy into place are able to intelligently move from one phase to the next…” I’m not a lawyer, but I’m fairly certain this section doesn’t constitute conspiracy.
Which brings up another point. These guys have a website. If the FBI wanted to find out more about them, they could phone. (They have a “Contact” page.) Or observe and infiltrate, etc., and if they find anyone doing more than discuss in a hypothetical manner, arrest them. Basic police work.
Or they could go around and question everyone in the anti-pipeline movement in order to put a chill on anti-pipeline dissent.
Did they really think that by doing these “cold call” interviews, someone was going to come forward and say ” Yeah, last week, Jimmy asked if I wanted to join a DGR-influenced resistance cell and bomb a pipeline, but, like, I had bowling, so I couldn’t go.”? There are two possibilities (which are not mutually exclusive): 1) the cops really think this might work, or 2) it is a program of intimidation.
A tiny subset of the people who are against abortion will bomb abortion clinics. If everyone who was against abortion was harassed in this manner regarding clinic bombings (especially if there hadn’t been a recent bombing, or evidence of a conspiracy to bomb), there would be hell to pay.
The danger here is the tarring with a broad brush. I devote some time and energy to groups like TTC Riders and the Toronto Environmental Alliance. If I thought it would mean attention from CSIS and the RCMP’s anti-terrorism guys, would I do less? Would I stop entirely?
How do you differentiate an “environmentalist” from a “radical environmentalist”?
And what if the powers that be decide that they are one and the same for their purposes?
-Lloyd
A little disclaimer- I’m not a member of the group or related to them in any way (never heard of them before this morning.) My argument is based on their web presence and the article I posted the link to. My interest is in the chilling effects of the actions of the FBI and local law enforcement on the environmental movement as a whole. Or, if you’re a Fox news guy, my interest is in the possibility of government funds- your tax dollars!- being misused for partisan political purposes and/or private economic advantage, instead of being spent on Army stuff, which God would prefer.
That group, DGR, calls itself a radical environmental movement that believes the biggest problem with the planet is human civilization itself. It proposes a shift back from agriculture to a hunter-gatherer horticultural lifestyle.
It also proposes a four-step program called decisive ecological warfare, a long-term plan calling for the sabotage and dismantling of planet-harming infrastructure.
While I agree that our current civilization has serious problems, these individuals sound profoundly ignorant of reality and dangerous to boot. I would think this is exactly the type of organization that should be investigated by the FBI.
My own beliefs continue to evolve. People tell me this indicates that either I am wiser than most people or too dumb after all these years to know what I believe in.
I don’t know anything about this particular organization but my thinking involving the power of Big Brother to know everything or almost everything is about the same now as my thoughts about nuclear power.
Just about the only thing that scares me more in either case -is less rather than more or more rather than less. There is probably nothing else currently in existence that is as potentially dangerous as a poorly designed designed reactor with lots of spent fuel on site. But on the other hand – what else is going to be nearly as good about keeping the water flowing and the lights on and the toilet flushing when the shit hits the fan?
A reactor is generally well secured against terrorism of the garden variety at least and it can run for a couple of years at a time – allowing time to adapt to disruptions in the delivery of coal or natural gas brought about by war or natural disaster. It is naive in my estimation to believe there won’t be disruptions of this nature.
The same sort of arguments apply to Big Brother getting bigger and bigger. The what ifs pro and con are enough to stagger the imagination.
Now here is a piece from Der Spiegel which I believe anybody and everybody who participates in this forum should read.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/navy-sailors-possibly-exposed-to-fukushima-radiation-fight-for-justice-a-1016482.html
I would LIKE to believe otherwise but I have no doubt the Pentagon routinely covers up this kind of trouble with the support of the executive and congressional branches of government.
I want to ask anybody who has links to European and Asian websites that publish in English to post them here. There are only a few that I know about and they charge for access beyond an occasional article. The sort of sites I am interested in cover nature energy politics and culture as well as basic science of any sort.
Thanks in advance as usual.
Fred, by your comment you seem unable or unwilling to fully transcend your state/matrix prison which will take you/us down with it.
You talk a good talk for the most part hereon, but if push comes to shove, the FBI? Really?
Your prison officials FBI, CIA, NSA, USA, XYZ et al. have no legitimate ethical authority because they are by coercion, by force, by violence, by the point of a gun, a guided missile. And look what they’re doing as symbionts to industry, to say nothing of their military industrial complex’s interventions since Eisenhower.
Send the FBI to DGR? Sounds rather hypocritical.
I guess some of us cannot be counted on to shed some blood, even life, for love, love of planet, of life, of liberty. No, talk is cheap for some. Big talk sometimes, but still cheap.
Freedom or death. Too many have been pacified and petrified beyond hope. The Matrix’s final recoding after the Agent Smith fiasco is running smoothly again with no anomalies in sight…
I guess that if we’re already dead/empty inside, what does it matter that everything outside that matters dies along with us?
Since I made that comment I went to their site to see what they were about directly from the horses mouth. I still think they are profoundly misguided and ignorant about reality. I think if they are serious about advocating sabotage to infra structure they are going to receive the full brunt of the police state. For the record I believe there are better alternatives for change other than blowing things up as much as I hate a lot of the results of our stupid civilization. To be very clear I am not sending the FBI or any other arm of the police state to them, they have already done that to themselves by openly advocating ecological warfare. Weather I like them or not the FBI has a job description and it includes investigating groups who advocate violence. If these people had half a brain they would work for change in other ways. For one they probably just have to wait a bit and the civilization they so despise will fall of its own accord.
I believe radical change is coming anyway and I feel no need whatsoever to condone violence in any form! My sincerest apologies!!
“If these people had half a brain they would work for change in other ways.” ~ Fred Magyar
They do! But you seem to need to read/link-select a little more and look into them before commenting…
Example:
“The strategies and tactics we choose must be part of a grander strategy… A grand strategy is necessarily diverse and decentralized, and will include many kinds of actionists. If those in power seek Full-Spectrum Dominance, then we need Full-Spectrum Resistance.” ~ DGR
Civilization will bring itself down, it appears yes, but how soon this global one before there is anything left?
With regard to (condoning) violence, you appear to view it in very limited fashion. For many, it seems taboo, frankly. But in any case, you advocate, condone and/or support one of, if not the, worst kinds of violence– the monopoly on violence that is the violent apparatus of the state– when you pay your taxes.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” ~ John F. Kennedy
– Irony from the man who was both president of this apparatus and had his brains blown to bits– likely by agents of that very app.
[http://youtu.be/D64KcZsD82E&w=333.33&h=250]
…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D64KcZsD82E&w=333&h=250%5D
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D64KcZsD82E
Caelan,
I can choose to place myself in harms way as a form of protest. I can choose to not pay my taxes and suffer the consequences. I do support civil disobedience. Those are things that may or may not help promote necessary change. However it is my firmest belief that there is no advantage in openly advocating, promoting and or actively engaging in destroying infrastructure through sabotage. Let alone causing physical harm to individuals who who would end up as nothing more than collateral damage.
On the other hand, I can and would support activities such as the one in the video posted by ezyridermike below.
As long as we keep in mind the effects on some people of chilling effects and that we are having this discussion from within our respective prisons. If you don’t want to blow up your bars on your cell door and would rather quietly tunnel under the floor during the times that the guards are not looking, that’s your prerogative and might work better for you. Not all styles are going to fit all personalities and thus be as successful accordingly.
I’ll leave you and fellow prisoners with this grist:
“Christian Bay’s encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires ‘carefully chosen and legitimate means’, but holds that they do not have to be nonviolent. It has been argued that, while both civil disobedience and civil rebellion are justified by appeal to constitutional defects, rebellion is much more destructive; therefore, the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience… McCloskey argues that ‘if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience is more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience.’ ”
~ Wikipedia
“The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one’s adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative.”
~ George Jackson
“Lance Hill criticizes nonviolence as a failed strategy and argues that black armed self-defense and civil violence motivated civil rights reforms more than peaceful appeals to morality and reason.”
~ Wikipedia
“Peter Gelderloos criticises nonviolence as being ineffective, racist, statist, patriarchal, tactically and strategically inferior to militant activism, and deluded. Gelderloos claims that traditional histories whitewash the impact of nonviolence, ignoring the involvement of militants in such movements as the Indian independence movement and the Civil Rights movement and falsely showing Gandhi and King as being their respective movement’s most successful activist. He further argues that nonviolence is generally advocated by [the] privileged… ”
…
“William P. Meyers argued that nonviolence encourages violence by the state and corporations… with notions of non-violence in a deliberate (and successful) attempt to render [groups] harmless and ineffective.”
…
“D. A. Clarke… suggests that for nonviolence to be effective, it must be ‘practiced by those who could easily resort to force if they chose’. This argument reasons that nonviolent tactics will be of little or no use to groups that are traditionally considered incapable of violence, since nonviolence will be in keeping with people’s expectations for them and thus go unnoticed.”
…
“Indian guru Osho Rajneesh heavily criticised teachings of nonviolence, on psychological and spiritual grounds:
‘…For five thousand years people have been taught to be non-violent; they have learnt the trick of pretending. And all that has happened is that they have repressed their violence… Let there be a riot, and all that piousness simply evaporates as if it had never been there…
This violence erupts again and again in this country because of the teaching, a wrong teaching, which is based on repression. Whenever you repress something, it will come up again and again.
I teach you awareness, not repression. That’s why I don’t talk about nonviolence. (…) And the more you become aware, the more your life will attain to silence, peace, love. They are by-products of awareness.”
~ Wikipedia
“Gandhi was not a pacifist; he believed in the right of those being attacked to strike back and regarded inaction as a result of cowardice to be a greater sin than even the most ill-considered aggression.”
~ What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage, by Norman G. Finkelstein
another way?
“When David takes on Goliath, sometimes he finds some unlikely allies. On May 15, 2013, Ken Ward, a life long environmental campaigner, and Jay O’Hara, a devout Quaker from Cape Cod, anchored their little white lobster boat in the path of a hulking black coal ship at the Brayton Point power station in Somerset, Massachusetts, successfully blockading the unloading of 40,000 tons of Appalachian coal for the day. Calling for the immediate closure of the plant, and others like it, as the only sane course given the state of climate science, the Lobster Boat Blockade kicked off a summer of action drawing attention to the plant and the coal being burned in Massachusetts. But that’s not the end of the story. Three days before they were go on trial this September, they heard from their lawyers that the prosecutor was contemplating reducing or dropping the charges. When Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter walked into the courtroom on Monday morning they knew this wasn’t going to be a normal trial. In fact, a trial never even occurred as District Attorney Sutter made the unexpected move to dismiss the most serious charges and reduce three others to civil infractions. But the district attorney’s decision to dismiss and reduce the charges turned out to be only an opening salvo.”
CFC Keynote – DA Sam Sutter & Jay O’Hara
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxwzo7BOMk#t=84
Made a word cloud from the comments so far: “It’s just all about more oil for people, Ron.” 😉
Interesting. But how it ‘God ‘ not show up?
He works in mysterious ways 🙂
corn huskers or watermelons?
“For years, Republicans (and some Democrats) have been trying to push the Keystone XL Pipeline on the American public. Only recently has President Obama made it clear that he will veto any piece of legislation that approves the project, so TransCanada has decided that they are going to circumvent the U.S. Government by trying to use eminent domain claims to seize the land that they need to build the pipeline.”
https://www.freespeech.org/video/keystone-big-land-theft
They eminent domain argument won’t apply until -if- the construction permits are issued or at least approved in principle which will or will not be issued at the discretion of state and federal officials. Since this is an interstate project the feds will have a good bit to say. ESPECIALLY in this case or any case when crossing the border.
Most of what the lawyer is talking about is true enough but ” need ” is never determined by the opinion of a handful or a thousand landowners along a road or pipeline route. Need is determined by bureaucrats a long way off who take into consideration a ” million ” other factors including (SOMETIMES UNFORTUNATELY ) the political fortunes of the legislators who appointed them or by the legislators themselves. The highway department just about anywhere and everywhere takes land pretty much as it pleases when the state and local government decides doing so is in the public interest.
There is no ” absolute” test of the concept of need. NEED exists in the mind of the people with authority to allow condemnation to proceed.
I am personally opposed to immortal alien octopus life forms aka corporations having so much power BUT the facts dictate that they MUST have it these days since so much ESSENTIAL infrastructure is corporately owned such as water rail electrical communications etc rather than collectively owned by us all as public property. Whether this is good or bad is a subject for another discussion.
Maybe I am wrong but it is my impression that the majority of the people in the states where the pipeline will be built are in favor of it. Ditto the governments of those states and so far as I can judge most of the people of the whole country as well.
The arguments the lawyer spews about not being able to know the future costs of possible accidents is hogwash in the sense that if this were a legal test then NOTHING would EVER get built.The risks associated with pipelines are well known and have been taken into account when building LOTS of pipelines. Nothing NEW here.
The Keystone war is a BIG BIG mistake on the part of the environmental camp. Sometimes people draw a line in the sand that simply cannot be defended and make the mistake of posing it as a do or die moral and technical issue.This is such a case..
While they have so far fought a successful delaying action they have contributed mightily to a republican take over of congress and seriously enhanced the odds of the republicans winning the White House as well. The NET loss for the environment and for all us is HUGE.
Beyond that they have shot off some MORE environmental credibility toes when it comes to honest environmental campaigning that MIGHT win over middle of the road people who understand the basic science and basic nature of the economic situation.
Nobody other than a FOOL- pardon the harsh language but I have no patience for utterly naive people- actually believes stopping the Keystone will stop the tar sands from being developed. Hence stopping it was the WRONG place to draw the CO2 war line in the sand. There are millions of people who fully understand that this was a flawed and dishonest stand on the part of the green faction.
They made the Keystone into a poster child – one they could NOT rationally defend – and set that poster child right out in the wide open political debate where it was easily co opted by the opposition.If there was ever a case of taking candy from a baby this was it.
If I had been consulted -considering that I am just being an old retired fart in an easy chair my being consulted about ANYTHING is good for a belly laugh-I would have recommended using the pipeline as a club to extract some serious money for conservation projects and research and that sort of thing out of the opposition as well as guaranteeing the highest possible engineering standards. That path would have been a big win for environmentalism in general while helping AVOID the republican takeover of the legislative branch.
Ten to one the pipeline gets built within a year of the next presidential election. If it doesn’t the Canadians will figure out a way to build pipelines east and or west and maybe even north and the oil will still find it’s way to world markets.Barring a general economic collapse of course.
The young folks out in the boonies in Canada are fast developing a taste for the modern high consumption life style and the old folks who are opposed to allowing pipelines cross tribal lands are soon going to be joining the greatest tribe of all- the tribe of the dead.My guess is that getting pipeline permits arranged in Canada to take the oil to the coast will not take more than five years maybe ten at the most if for some reason the Keystone IS permanently blocked.
In the mean time if we work closely with the Canadians we will have a better claim to the oil when the peak oil monster finally crawls out from under the bed and takes a huge bite out of the backside of the economic ass of the world.
I personally BELIEVE in peak oil IS a CATASTROPHIC problem -just not yet- and being a Yankee ( redneck southern flavor ) I also believe in looking after the USA first Canada second and Mexico third given that Canada has more to offer in goods and less in trouble. Everybody else is farther away and separated from us by a nice wide ocean.Geography counts.
fwiw…
the lawyer is Mike Papantonio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Papantonio
I had a look at RBN today. It put a smile on my face to see what a marvelous jobs those drill crews are doing in the Eagle Ford.
https://rbnenergy.com/getting-better-all-the-time-productivity-improvements-crude-production-and-moores-law
The first block of bars shows that EOG’s drilling time declined from 22.3 days to drill a well in 2011 to only 8.9 days in 2014, a reduction of 83%. The next group of bars simply translates that metric into the number of wells that a single rig can drill each year by dividing 365 by the drill time. In 2011 one rig could drill 16 wells in a year. In 2014 that number was up to 41.
So I thought I would look to see how they are progressing in the Bakken as they were such gun hands.
They have 5 rigs drilling in Mountrail, with the following spud dates, 11/8/2014, 12/14/2014,12/11/2014, 12/16/2014, 1/23/2015.
You will notice all bare one was spudded last year giving 55 to 90 days on a well. Not a good read at all.
Either they are having down hole issues,
Can’t pay there bills
or maybe they are driling too fast and do not have time to fill out their reports for the government agencies.
From RBN, I feel they must just be drilling too fast to report, smiles.
Does anyone have any ideas of what is going on?
In fact there are 12 rigs out of 136, that are still working on 2014 wells. 2014 was 40 days ago. When the oil companies talk about 20 day wells, I am sure they don’t mean the average well, but only their very best one.
Toolpush, not certain what’s up with those well EOG is on. I’ve heard though they drill fast. I’ve only been up here a little over half a year but haven’t seen a well go over 23 days. Good crew, dialed in strategy and a little luck will give you 15 day wells, I’ve seen it. Heard of faster too.
Bakkenhand,
Thanks for the feed back. Good to see we have some people up there with their feet on the ground, you realize now we know you are there, we will expect more input from you in the future? lol.
As for EOG, and what you are saying is correct, then they must not be reporting when they finish wells. At a guess, they may only report when they move to a different pad.
What is your trade? and I hope your job is safe as I am sure there is cut backs to come.
Stay safe.
A common headline today is that Chinese imports have collapsed. Reality is shown in the image below. The cost of Chinese imports has collapsed.