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Guest Post: As Things Fell Apart, Nobody Paid Much Attention
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
As Things Fell Apart, Nobody Paid Much Attention
The American way of life – which is now virtually synonymous with
suburbia – can run only on reliable supplies of dependably cheap oil
and gas. Even mild to moderate deviations in either price or supply will
crush our economy and make the logistics of daily life impossible. – Jim Kunstler – The Long Emergency
Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it’s nothing but flowers
Talking Heads – Nothing but Flowers
America was a Garden of Eden with nothing but flowers, trees and
vegetation. We bit into the forbidden fruit of oil over a century ago.
It has been a deal with the Devil. Oil brought immense wealth, rapid
industrialization, 2.7 million miles of paved roads, and enormous power
to America. But, now the SUV is running on empty. In the not too distant
future the downside of the deal with the Devil will reveal itself.
America was the land of the free and home of the brave. Now it is the
land of the Range Rover and home of the BMW. In a few years it could be
the land of the forlorn and home of the broken down. Our entire society
has been built upon a foundation of cheap oil. The discovery of oil in
Titusville, PA in 1859 turbo charged the Industrial Revolution in the
U.S. The development of our sprawling suburban culture was dependent
upon cheap oil. Americans could not survive for a week without oil.
Commerce in the U.S. depends upon long haul truckers. Food is
transported thousands of miles to grocery stores. The cheap Wal-Mart
crap is transported thousands of miles across the seas from China.
Americans believe it is our God given right to cheap oil. We are the
chosen people. Kevin Phillips, in his brilliant book American Theocracy describes our love affair with cheap oil:
Americans constitute the world’s most intensive motoring culture.
For reasons of history and past abundance, no other national population
has clumped so complacently around so fuelish a lifestyle. For many
citizens the century of oil has brought surfeit: gas-guzzling mobile
fortresses, family excursions on twenty
thousand-thousand-gallons-per-hour jet aircraft, and lavishly lit
McMansions in glittering, mall packed exurbs along outer beltways.
Against a backdrop of declining national oil and gas output, Americans
consume 25% of world energy while holding just 5% of its energy
resources. As the new century began, Americans enjoyed a lifestyle
roughly twice as energy intensive as those in Europe and Japan, some ten
times the global average. Of the world’s 520 million automobiles,
unsurprisingly, more than 200 million were driven in the United States,
and the U.S. car population was increasing at five times the rate of the
human population. How long that could continue was not clear.
John and Jane Q. Citizen mostly ignore these trends and details,
and know nothing of geologist Hubbert’s bell-shaped charts of peak oil.
Senior oil executives sometimes discuss them in industry conferences,
but elected officials – many with decades of energy platitudes under
their belts – typically shrink from opening what would be a Pandora’s
Box of political consequences. Oil was there for our grandfathers, they
insist, and it will be there for our grandchildren; it is part of the American way.
Ignoring the facts and pretending that we can count on cheap oil for
eternity is delusional. It is also the American way. The age of oil is
coming to an end.
There are consequences to every action. There are also consequences
to every inaction. Over the next decade Americans will experience the
dire consequences of inaction. The implications of peak cheap oil have
been apparent for decades. The Department of Energy was created in 1977.
The Department of Energy’s overarching mission was to
advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United
States. In 1970, the U.S. imported only 24% of its oil. There were 108
million motor vehicles in the U.S., or .53 vehicles per person in the
U.S. Today, the U.S. imports 70% of its oil and there are 260 million
vehicles, or .84 vehicles per person. Jim Kunstler describes our bleak
future in The Long Emergency:
”American people are sleepwalking into a future of hardship and
turbulence. The Long Emergency will change everything. Globalism will
wither. Life will become profoundly and intensely local. The consumer
economy will be a strange memory. Suburbia – considered a birthright and
a reality by millions of Americans – will become untenable. We will
struggle to feed ourselves. We may exhaust and bankrupt ourselves in the
effort to prop up the unsustainable. And finally, the United States may
not hold together as a nation. We are entering an uncharted territory
of history.”
The land of the delusional has no inkling that their lives of happy
motoring are winding down. The vast majority of Americans believe that
oil is abundant and limitless. Their leaders have lied to them. They
will be completely blindsided by the coming age of hardship.
Factories & Shopping Malls
There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it’s all covered with flowers
you’ve got it, you’ve got it
Now it’s all covered with flowers
you’ve got it, you’ve got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you’ve got it, you’ve got it
I wish I had a lawnmower
you’ve got it, you’ve got it
Talking Heads – Nothing but Flowers
If Americans had any sense of history longer than last week’s episode
of Dancing with the Stars (how about that Bristol Palin!), they may
have noticed that the modern age has lasted a mere 150 years and has
been completely dependent upon cheap plentiful oil. This is a mere eye
blink in the history of mankind. American exceptionalism refers to the
opinion that the United States is qualitatively different from other
nations. Its exceptionalism is claimed to stem from its emergence from a
revolution, becoming “the first new nation” and developing “a unique
American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism,
populism and laissez-faire”. This feeling of superiority stems from the
belief that we have a moral superiority and God has chosen our country
to be a shining symbol for the rest of the world. It is the ultimate in
hubris to think that we are the chosen ones. An enormous amount of
credit for the American Century (1900 – 2000) must be given to pure and
simple luck.
Everything characteristic about the condition we call modern life
has been a direct result of our access to abundant supplies of cheap
fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have permitted us to fly, to go where we want
to go rapidly, and move things easily from place to place. Fossil fuels
rescued us from the despotic darkness of the night. They have made the
pharaonic scale of building commonplace everywhere. They have allowed a
fractionally tiny percentage of our swollen populations to produce
massive amounts of food. All of the marvels and miracles of the
twentieth century were enabled by our access to abundant supplies of
cheap fossil fuels. The age of fossil fuels is about to end. There is no
replacement for them at hand. These facts are poorly understood by the
global population preoccupied with the thrum of daily life, but
tragically, too, by the educated classes in the United States, who
continue to be by far the greatest squanderers of fossil fuels. – Jim Kunstler – The Long Emergency
Every accomplishment, invention, and discovery of the 20th
Century was due to cheap accessible fossil fuels. The American
industrial age was powered by cheap plentiful oil. One hundred and ten
years after the discovery of oil in Titusville, PA an American walked on
the moon. We harnessed the immense power of oil and rode it hard. An
empire was born and grew to the greatest in history through the
utilization of oil and oil byproducts. It is no coincidence that U.S.
GDP has been dependent upon the growth in fossil fuel consumption over
the last 150 years.
The self centered delusional myopic American citizenry see no
parallel between the American Empire built on a foundation of oil and
the Dutch Empire built upon wind and water or the British Empire
established on the discovery of vast quantities of coal. The Dutch
Empire of the 1600s had 6,000 ships and 1,000 windmills generating
power. The British Empire used coal to power steam engines, pumps,
locomotives and ships and forged a great empire in the 1700s and 1800s.
Today, the Netherlands has a GDP lower than Mexico. The U.K. has a GDP
on par with Italy. You can be sure you are no longer an empire when your
GDP is on par with Mexico and Italy. The United States has grown its
GDP to $14.7 trillion by exploiting fossil fuels. The American Empire is
clearly waning as its dependence on foreign oil slowly bankrupts the
country. We consume 140 billion gallons of gasoline every year keeping
our suburban sprawl mall based lifestyle viable.
Cars, Highways & Billboards
Years ago
I was an angry young man
I’d pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it’s only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it’s nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we’d start over
But I guess I was wrong
Talking Heads – Nothing but Flowers
Americans believe our ingenuity, brilliance and blessings from God
have led to the elevation of our country to eminence as the greatest
empire in history. But, in reality it was due to a black sticky
substance that we stumbled across in 1859. Those who believe in American
Exceptionalism scoff at the idea that our empire would not exist
without oil. They prefer to ignore and downplay the impact of oil on our
society. Too bad. Here are the facts from www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/.
- Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US.
- Pesticides and agro-chemicals are made from oil.
- Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas.
- Most farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil-derived fuels.
- Food storage systems such as refrigerators are manufactured in
oil-powered plants, distributed using oil-powered transportation
networks and usually run on electricity, which most often comes from
natural gas or coal. - The average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate.
- In addition to transportation, food, water, and modern medicine,
mass quantities of oil are required for all plastics, all computers and
all high-tech devices. - The construction of an average car consumes the energy equivalent of approximately 20 barrels of oil.
- The construction of the average desktop computer consumes ten times its weight in fossil fuels.
- According to the American Chemical Society, the construction of
single 32 megabyte DRAM chip requires 3.5 pounds of fossil fuels. - Recent estimates indicate the infrastructure necessary to
support the internet consumes 10% of all the electricity produced in the
United States. - The manufacturing of one ton of cement requires 4.7 million BTUs
of energy, which is the amount contained in about 45 gallons of oil.
Our entire civilization will collapse in a week without oil. Try to
imagine life if the 159,000 gas stations in the country ran dry. We are
running on fumes and refuse to acknowledge that fact. We sooth our
psyche with delusions of green energy (solar, wind, ethanol); drill,
drill, drill mantras; abiotic oil theories; and vast quantities of shale
gas. The concept of energy required to extract an amount of energy
completely goes over the head of media pundits and those who prefer not
to think. If you expend 2 gallons of gasoline in your effort to extract 1
gallon of gasoline, you’ve hit the wall. We have sacrificed our future
in order to maximize our present, as William James concluded in the late
1800s:
“The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is
the sacrifice of the future for the present, and all the power of
science has been prostituted to this purpose.”
Americans have a fatal character flaw of desiring others to think
they are successful because they drive an expensive gas guzzling
automobile and reside in an immense energy intensive McMansion in
suburbs 30 miles from civilization. Delusional Americans have convinced
themselves that the appearance of success is success. Leasing $50,000
BMWs for decades and borrowing $500,000 to live in a $300,000 house has
already pushed millions of egotistical to the edge. Of the 250 million
passenger vehicles on the road today, 100 million are SUVs or pickup
trucks. The average fuel mileage is 17 mpg. Approximately 70% of
Americans drive to work every day, with 85% driving alone. They spend 45
minutes on average commuting to and from work and drive 15 miles to
work. The average home size increased from 1,400 sq ft in 1970 to 2,300
sq ft today, despite the fact that the average household size decreased
from 3.1 to 2.6. The bigger is better fantasy will be devastating on the
downward slope of peak oil.
Pizza Huts, Dairy Queens & 7 Elevens
Once there were parking lots
Now it’s a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
Now it’s a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it’s all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
Now it’s all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
Talking Heads – Nothing but Flowers
How will Americans survive without the 7,500 Pizza Huts, 5,000 Dairy
Queens, and 8,000 7-11s that dot our highways? The average Joe is so
busy tweeting, texting, and face-booking on their iPads, Blackberries,
and laptops, watching Dancing With the Stars on their 52 inch HDTV
bought on credit, or cruising superhighways in their leased Hummers to
one of the 1,100 malls or 46,000 shopping centers, that they haven’t
paid much attention as peak oil crept up on them. The globalization
miracle of cheap goods produced in China and shipped across the world by
cargo ship and then trucked thousands of miles to your local Wal-Mart
is wholly reliant upon cheap oil. Our own military has concluded that:
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely
disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach
nearly 10 MBD. – Joint Operating Environment Report
When worldwide oil demand slightly exceeded worldwide oil supply in
2008, prices surged to $145 per barrel. A 10 million barrel per day
shortfall is unfathomable by the purposefully ignorant masses. The
sprawling suburbia that now houses the American population will become
not viable when oil prices rise above $200 per barrel. Out-of-town
shopping and entertainment malls will be deserted. The prosperity borne
from the advent of oil is waning. Jim Kunstler explains the end game in The Long Emergency:
The entropic mess that our economy has become is in the final
blow-off of late oil-based industrialism. The destructive practices
known as “free market globalism” were engendered by our run-up to and
arrival at the world oil production peak. It was the logical climax of
the oil “story”. It required the breakdown of all previous constraints –
logistical, political, moral, cultural – to maximize the present at the
expense of the future, and to do so for the benefit of the very few at
the expense of the many. Even mild to moderate deviations in either
price or supply [of oil and gas] will crush our economy and make the
logistics of daily life impossible.
The United States is already tottering, as the oligarchy of the Wall
Street banking syndicate, global mega-corporations and corrupt political
hacks in Washington DC have pillaged the wealth of the country and left
a middle class gasping for air. The mood of the country is already
darkening as The Fourth Turning
gathers steam. The recognition by the masses that peak cheap oil is a
fact will contribute greatly to the next stage of this Crisis. Fourth
Turning periods always lead to war. American troops are not in the
Middle East to spread democracy. They are the forward vanguard in the
coming clash over depleting oil resources. We are entering an era of
strife, war, chaos and destruction. The facts of who controls oil supply
and who needs oil (U.S. – 25%, China – 10%) are clear. Kunstler bluntly
deals with the facts:
Fossil fuel reserves are not scattered equitably around the
world. They tend to be concentrated in places where the native peoples
don’t like the West in general or America in particular, places
physically very remote, places where we realistically can exercise
little control (even if we wish to). The decline of fossil fuels is
certain to ignite chronic strife between nations contesting the
remaining supplies. These resource wars have already begun. There will
be more of them. They are very likely to grind on and on for decades.
They will only aggravate a situation that, in and of itself, could bring
down civilizations. The extent of suffering in our country will
certainly depend on how tenaciously we attempt to cling to obsolete
habits, customs, and assumptions – for instance, how fiercely Americans
decide to fight to maintain suburban lifestyles that simply cannot be
rationalized any longer. – Jim Kunstler – The Long Emergency
Mr. Kunstler believes that the U.S. will be forced to downscale,
localize and adapt to a new reality. I wholly support his attempt to
warn the American people and would urge those who chose to think that
preparing for a more agrarian lifestyle that will be forced upon us by
circumstances is essential. No technological miracle will save us from
our fate. Decades of inaction will have a price. I truly hope that his
optimism that hardship will renew the American spirit will reveal
itself:
“But I don’t doubt that the hardships of the future will draw
even the most secular spirits into an emergent spiritual practice of
some kind.”
As I live in the outer suburbs and commute 30 miles per day into the
decrepit decaying city of Philadelphia every day, I’m less optimistic
that the transition will be smooth or even possible. Kunstler’s view of
the suburbs is accurate:
“The state-of-the-art mega suburbs of recent decades have
produced horrendous levels of alienation, loneliness, anomie, anxiety,
and depression.”
Families stay huddled in their McMansions, protected from phantoms by
state of the art security systems. Their interaction with the world is
through their electronic gadgets. Neighborhoods of cookie cutter 4,000
sq ft mansions appear deserted. Human interaction is rare. Happiness is
in short supply. As I sit in miles of traffic every morning during my
soul destroying trek to work I observe the thousands of cars, SUVs, and
trucks and wonder how this can possibly work when the peak oil tsunami
washes over our society in the next few years. Then I reach the bowels
of the inner city and my pessimism grows. This concrete jungle is
occupied by hundreds of thousands of uneducated, unmotivated, wards of
the state. They live a bleak existence in bleak surroundings and depend
upon subsistence payments from the depressed suburbanites to keep them
alive. How will they survive in a post peak oil world? They won’t.
The Hirsch Report and Jim Kunstler’s The Long Emergency
both were published in 2005. M. King Hubbert warned U.S. leaders
decades in advance about the expected timing of peak oil. The warnings
have fallen on deaf ears. We were busy with our wars of choice, home
price wealth, gays in the military, and the latest episode of Jersey
Shore.
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
»
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This fiction is the product of a mind that has studiously sucked up all the doomster porn he could find and/or a depressed character that is trying to exorcise the demons in his mind by literary effort.
Yummy doomster porn.
America is coming back strong. This time next year all this crying and moaning will subside to a dull roar. And all the glib nihilists chopping away at their keyboards will turn to something else to tear down. Twenty twelve will present an astonishing renaissance to everyone that doubted.
"Do not ask 'how?',
Let us go and make our visit."
Keep on smoking that great stuff . . . the clouds surrounding your vision is an added benefit.
Yeah - don't ask how "America is going to come back" because nobody's figured out a plausible answer for that yet...
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" morphed into we have nothing real to fear but reality itself.
But reality is so over-rated.
Carry on.
Yes, last time I looked the Gulf of Mexico and Canada and North Dakota were not foreign locations unfriendly to the West; If we don't allow ourselves to be fucked over by sientifically illiterate hippies with their global weather fantasies there's plenty of time to change the commuting paradigm. Electricity is meant to be generated from Urananium, and Thallium; we have a political problem; we appointed Jane Fonda as national nuclear engineer and inherited a permanent dis-advantage vis a vis France; which has a rational government and over 90% of the grid supported by nuclear power.
"...sientifically illiterate," from IQ 145. Funny.
I see ya caught that little oops too. HaHa. Milestones
"You can build a thousand ships and no one calls you a shipbuilder, but you suck one dick..."
that was but one of many.
Urananium and Thallium for electricity...news to me. I come to ZH to learn something new every day.
What I'm learning is how pervasive Dunning-Kruger/Downing Effect is. And to be perfectly honest it scares the fuck out of me.
There are a few of us here who are pretty sharp and we are all laughing at the same inside joke. The thing that stuns me is the audacity of the average intellect to think his stupid opinions have any fucking merit whatsoever.
I once read a science fiction story where all useful machines and processes were being performed by genetically-engineered lifeforms -- which seems much more sustainable and fitting for a planet based on biology. "Chew" on that for awhile!
It's tiring to hear this nonsense RNC soundbite repeated over and over by wingnuts. Evil liberals suppressed nuclear power. BS. Consider the truth if your Republican mind is capable:
Nukes generate electricity. Electricity has not been in short supply. Nukes are alternatives to coal and natural gas, which are abundant in the USA. Three factors prevent development of nuclear power:
1) Nuclear plants built safe enough that anyone would want them nearby are not cost-competitive with coal and natural gas. The last generation of nukes built in the USA were huge money-losers.
2) NIMBY. Show me the gated golf course community full of tea party wing-nuts that wants a nuke next door. Where do you live? How many nukes do you want in your town?
3) Unlike France, the US government (heavily lobbied by the coal industry, and influenced by Reaganite ideology) does not impose uneconomical investments on society like nuclear power would have been in the last two decades.
Jane Fonda and all those leftie enviros you love to hate so much have no power at all.
I want nukes in my back yard. I would seriously LOVE to have one of those little Japanese self contained reactors in my back yard, so long as I got free electricity for life.
Did you ever stop to think that both sides made a deal with each other to prevent nuclear power from growing? Environmentalists are not adverse to "deals with the devil", and neither is big oil.
Cantarell's production is not falling off a cliff because of a bunch of mexican hippies are stalling more development.
BTW - do any of you who quote "stated reserves" as an indication of future production rates actually believe that when all the OPEC countries doubled their reserve claims at the same time production quotas were being set up, that this was any more than an accounting trick to allow for greater profits?
"It's only an iceberg, this ship is unsinkable!" Imagine the nerve of the doubters, those whacko doomers!
The quesion is this: do you feel lucky?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daFb3J-cwLg&feature=related
Yeah, I think that more suburban housing and more fuel consumption is the right way to go! That increased demand will mean that the US will finally be able to exhaust it's oil reserves!
Actually, you're more like someone screaming about how the ship was gong to run out of fuel, ignoring the much larger and more imminent problem of government intervention.
We can work around changing energy requirements. We can't work around ever shifting and expanding government regulations.
You miss the point. Nobody truly deep down inside really gives a shit. We all talk about the course of future events all day long, sometimes politely, oft with passion and frequently devolving into bare knuckled challenges of pure ego. But it represents naught, for subsequent to the talk, actions remain dormant, redundant, for we, the arguing parties have done our part. I have told others that which they must do in order to essure my collective survival and prosperity.
But alas, it all ceases subsequent to the promulgations and self congratulatory prose of brilliant remanufactured and stolen thoughts.
That's why talk is considered cheap; behavior oft more properly termed hypocrisy.
"This concrete jungle is occupied by hundreds of thousands of uneducated, unmotivated, wards of the state. They live a bleak existence in bleak surroundings and depend upon subsistence payments from the depressed suburbanites to keep them alive. How will they survive in a post peak oil world? They won’t."
Seems like this group doesn't care? But they somehow vote in EVERY election and that's why Illinois is run by the Democrats. Their kids can't make it to school AND do their homework. They live in pit holes, but, hey, they put their faith in their political masters and vote straight ticket every time!
Since they don't work, pay nothing in taxes and only care about their cell phones, hub caps and bling - they sure don't care about any thing else.
Another fucking party hack... Yeah, like Arkansas is a bed or roses.
People, stop fucking voting! I'm tired of you all pushing your shit on me! I'm not responsible for the crap that you keep making (by voting in all your corporate cretins).
Now then, what the hell contributions do YOU (the superior one) make to society?
When/if the shit hits the fan, the middle class might be surprised to learn that inner-city folks, and the poor in general, likely are tougher than they are, and have better survival skills to boot.
Talking about finding new oil one of my spec shares is a small Norther Terrirtory of Australia company exploring in the Georgina Basin, where it has been assessed there are a potential three petroleum systems. Having done there exploration drilling they are about to commence a oil drill campaign.
Been in this one for a while and buying up stock on a regular basis at 0.006c
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20101108/pdf/31tr2lzbqc6ggg.pdf
Perhaps you might want to consider spending some of your hard-earned money on a good spellchecker.
Sorry, but I'm not going to help pull up your bad bet (propping up the price of this crap).
Peak oil?
PROBLEM SOLVED BITCHEZ!!!
BUY RHODIUM!!
http://www.tesla-secrets.com/
Does this thing really work ??
You owne one sudden Debt ?
[ahem] Professor Cat is in the house:
Radio waves are electrical signals in air. The radio signal coming from a radio tower are radio waves. With an antenna you can collect them for the music content, and you can also pull the electrical energy back out of them. This is how a microwave oven works; the food is an antenna (if it contains water) and the radio energy output of the internal Magnetron tube (or whatever they are using now) dissipates in the water in the food as heat. However, the radio waves in either broadcast radio or microwave ovens were created by a generator somewhere that probably ran on a power source (ie, your microwave oven is plugged into the wall AC) so all you are really doing is transmitting electrical power over radio waves to use somewhere else.
The radio power in your microwave oven is not however "free energy" nor does it "come from the sky". Nor does this other stuff which comes from a radio transmitter somewhere in your area. That tower is certainly running off the shared electrical grid, just like your microwave oven. You are using their power for your own purposes, which is just fine, but it doesn't come from the universe. It comes from coal or oil or hydro or etc.
Nothing is truly free in an ultimate sense. Basic physics still applies. Sorry.
The story that Tesla was railroaded by the utility companies may be true. It is also true that he was brilliant. He is one of my favorite engineers, ever. However he was also a brilliant crackpot; his idea was to transmit electrical power over air from the source into peoples' homes without wires, using ... microwaves. Well if you really were to do that you would turn their homes into microwave ovens to a degree. Sorta puts your "cell phones give you cancer" meme in a whole new light.
The idea that the Sun is full of positive energy and the Earth is negative and this is a huge battery that a few diodes and capacitors can exploit is ... loopy. Crystal unicorn Aquarian stuff from the '70s. If it makes someone happy, then I'm for it. Doesn't belong in a peak oil discussion.
Anything out in space, stays there. Cosmic rays are lethal, they are filtered out by the atmosphere and this is a good thing. We get plenty of harmless light (thank heavens) and we know many ways to use that. I mean here, growing plants and drying clothes. Even fossil fuels are nothing more than stored sunlight, put there by ancient fern forests and algae.
Excluding nuclear power, the Earth is run entirely from light energy from the sun and always has been and always will be. All else is illusion.
Merci.
The commiserations of the banal are infrequently soothed by the knowledgeable.
+1000 Many thanks for injecting logic and reason into this dialog!
The circuit in question looks a lot like a crystal radio receiver with a voltage doubler stage follower, which would indeed take incoming radio signals and convert them into a DC voltage -- free energy for someone, until the radio transmitter stops broadcasting. I wonder if it would work with silicon power diodes in place of the germanium 1N34s.
That amount of energy coming out of that "voltage doubler" couldn't keep a fleas nuts warm. Tesla was indeed brilliant but the Tesla cult is a bunch of paper hat fools...
Good god.. I have a vivid imagination and I burst out loud when i read this!
Thank You.
Here is a video of the the only free thing that isn't a scam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nkcsb1qIBs
That's all your gonna get fer nuthin...
Ugh.. yea. However, we are a great nation. We have an incredible spirit that is now awakening. We have plenty of Natural Gas and with the Internet the world has thousands of tinkerers in their garages working on free-energy.
There is no question that oil prices will climb, however, one must also first look into abiotic oil vs. "fossil" oil.
There are so many ways to keep all of the above moving, changing and improving. The only obstacle is last millennium's reptilian thinking. Soon, post 2012, there will be a complete and sudden shift from non-trust and pessimism to a full out renaissance.
cheers
Speaking of Natural Gas, just a few years ago the price was skyrocketing and we were short of supply and then all of sudden we are swiming in the stuff. Did everyone and there brother drill a well in there back yard or something?
as always and as Ron Regan said" Government is the problem"
we have plenty of nat gas which could run our cars and such for 200 yrs
we have worlds largest supply of coal which could provide electricity for our electric cars
we could build more nuke plants
we could drill where we know there is oil
on north slope what stops us..Fed gov
biggest problem to a low cost energy future
is government by socialist fascist oligarchs
+1 for you, Lexapro for the doomsayers
It's not just what goes in your tank that takes gas. Petrochemicals, plastics, the asphalt on the road, fertilizer, everything has oil in it. Can you make these things from natural gas?
Eroei (Energy return on energy invested) ie it's too late for that. Oil became the dominant fuel source because it's the cheapest. All of those energy sources are far more expensive to mine per unit of energy. Add onto that the cost to change over the infrastructure. Prices are going way up, forever.
Peak cheap coal http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-18/fridley-heinberg-discus...
"we have plenty of nat gas which could run our cars and such for 200 yrs"
How many cars are you claiming could be run off of NG, for 200 years?
If it's the current number, then fine, I could basically agree (though actual numbers and consumption would have to be verified). BUT... if you're talking about changing over the bulk of existing cars to NG, then wouldn't that mean that there would be a faster draw-down, an increased extraction and consumption which, simply, would mean that that 200 years worth of NG supply would now be less than 200 years worth?
Presenting single-dimension information on a multiple dimension problems is, well, problematic.
Is the US capable of supplying all of it's NG needs? in 2009 it imported 3,751,360 million cubic feet of it (http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_a.htm). Also ask what of the ramifications of the US decreasing NG imports from Canada, that doing so would mean less money to Canada to turn around and buy US goods: moral of story: it's much more complicated than "drill baby drill."
As for the other things... no mention of quantities of given energy sources/materials. Sadly, way too many people believe that demand creates supply: seal yourself up in an airtight room w/o oxygen and let me know how well demand works out for you.
BTW -
USGS downgrades oil potential in Alaska reserve (http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2615324520101027) Heroin junkies always believe that they are going to get the next fix... sooner or later, however, they won't, and the probability of encountering life-threatening situations in their quest of the next fix is extremely high (likely).Spot on Seer,but I would rather deficit spend with Canada than the middle east though, that way Leo can keep averaging down on his solars...
Abiotic oil is like a dragon, interesting to think about but doesn't exist. And if oil was created abiotically we're still on our way to doom via CO2 emissions.
Dragons do exist, as it so happens. They might not be as impressive as the fire-breathers of the old stories, but they are certainly deadly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon
CO2 is likely sequestered by natural processes such as serpantinization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentinization, which leads to the production of more methane.
There is no free energy. Scientifically illiterate dreaming is useless. Uranium and Thallium exist; the problem is grotesque human stupidity.
Tell that to the atom and every f'ing thing that is moving.
All their energy comes from within, there's no external stimuli?
Are you saying that you want to power the world on Brownian motion?
Sure, to a certain degree, solar, wind, and wave power are ultimately derived from atomic interaction - but so is petroleum energy and everything else for that matter. But so what? It's not like you stick a plug into the "aether" and your toaster is going to work...
Thermodynamics is a bitch.
How much U232?
Enough to provide baseload plants for the world past say 25 years from now?
Nope.
The problem is grotesque human arrogance.
As Dr. Albert Bartlett says, the biggest problem is the inability to understand the exponential function. Sigh, we've created an environment of better living through ignorance...
um, IQ "145," do you mean perhaps THORIUM?
I think he means u235...
Err... That's the one I know and love... Yum.
Human stupidity: Very little demand for it, yet a seemingly infinite supply! Who sez God doesn't have a sense of humor? :>D
I take it this guy doesn't like oil???
Is that a question or a statement?
If one states that it's not a good idea to set oneself on fire does that mean that one doesn't like fire?
It's a questment. I take it you don't like it either?
Quote du Jour
Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.
Chinua Achebe
Author of Things Fall Apart
Absolutely!
And we've got to first understand that there should be no gods or masters. Also need to understand that "democracy" doesn't scale (only smaller groups can maintain a true democracy).
OT: City of Hamtramck asked the state of Michigan for permission to file bankruptcy; state told city to go borrow some more money instead to tide them over.
Abiotic oil fools. Mother earth gushes new oil quicker than fat bastard can fart
If only someone could figure out how to convert Indians into bio-fuels this planet would be a lot cleaner and more prosperous.
Already been done, but I don't think it has a taste for one ethnicity over another.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/10/eatr-robots-are-coming-this-isnt-funn...
Just hope your not the Hors D ervs...
We aren't running out of oil. We are running out of cheap oil, perhaps, but the current supply is good for 100+ years, and that doesn't include natural gas.
We've basically run out of cheap oil already. Everything's all secondary, tertiary extraction of primary oil fields and non-conventionals like oil sands and offshore are hardly cheap.
I suppose it depends upon how one defines 'cheap'. Most old US oilfields average about 40% depletion, due to available recovery techniques when they were drilled. Now, we can get considerably more out of these wells, and do it profitably when oil is $75/bbl.
SCALE! S-C-A-L-E! SCALE!
Economies of scale. Deploying old equipment to scattered old wells will be expensive. And building new equipment ain't going to be any cheaper.
A plea: please provide some reference to all these numbers that (people) put out there, like $75/bbl oil and "200 years" of supply of <x>. Also, provide some rate of change on this stuff! Sure, maybe we can extract the first barrel at $75, but then what about the next? How many fucking barrels are you talking about? SCALE, more than one-dimensional equations, PLEASE!
Oh, yeah, which is why the technology reversed the US's decline in oil production.
Oh, no wait...it hasn't. We're still dropping.
There is no such thing as "cheap" oil. That's a goddamned piece of shorthand these idiot writers insert into PO discussions in order to try to pretend that really we won't have less oil, we'll just have the same amount or a growing amount, it'll just cost more.
WRONG. We will have LESS OIL past peak.
If oil were $5000 a barrel tomorrow, I guarantee you production would spike and stay up for a hundred years or more.
You don't understand the concept of efficient use of resources. As the price goes up, other means of production become profitable. Oil might become so expensive that it isn't used for fuel anymore, but so what? You will just hit a point where some other energy source is economical. This isn't a binary equation like you seem to think. It doesn't go from oil based society one day to Flintstones the next.
If oil went to $5k overnight, most of the world would be starving in 3 days.
I don't think any of the peak oil advocates here are saying we're going to a pre-industrial economy overnight.
Most of us seem to think we're going to have about 50-75 years of war, starvation, and misery between here and there.
Gee, a hundred years huh...and then what?
Natural gas, oil sands, coal gas, methane hydrates, nuclear, etc.
None of those (even in combo) get you past a horizon of 200 years, thanks for playing.
Sustainable: > 10,000 years.
If 10,000 years is your idea of sustainable, nothing suffices. I wouldn't even take a bet on the human race being around that long.
My God, we are going to run out of charcoal to fuel our steam engines in twenty years! What will we do? Society will surely collapse!
Christ, 200 years from now we'll be harvesting stars from other systems for christmas tree decorations, or some other such ridiculous thing. Why do you even care? Let the future think about that with the free time you buy them by being productive with what you have today.
Hey, are you Obama? I'm sensing this overwhelming theme of "hopey-changey" thing with you (and other believers in unicorns).
I'm sure that we can allow the grow-or-die meme to exploit us to oblivion. I'm thinking that I'm going to hedge against this...
NOTE: If you are in India I'd be really, really worried. Energy collapse there is going to be very ugly...
I work in the O&G industry.
yeah, people like you are burning zillions of bCf of NG up in Alberta to make synthetic oil barrels and proudly proclaiming how we are STILL GROWING.
Nobody in the oil business wants to hear about EROI
We can't even keep our current infrastructure up and running now - and you guys want mag-lev trains and a new energy grid for the whole world. Ain't gonna happen.
How much oil does it take to produce my anti-depression meds, and transport them to my foreclosed house?
its option expiring day isnt it? such a scheme...makes me sick
23rd?
I don't know why ZH let this asshole print this garbage here. ZH you don't have to fill space with this retard, I'll read you anyway. But if this bastard keeps coming back, I will not.
Hit the road dickhead.
I am, matter of fact, I was just going out to buy a 56" LCD TV on your money. And after that maybe look at the new I-Phones. Keep up the good work. By the way I'm getting a little low on funds, could you do some overtime?
And, don't bother showing up to my farm looking for food!
Is that a promise?
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win!"
Gandi
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Fallacy alert: Even if we accept the premise that all "truth" is initially ridiculed and opposed, that doesn't mean that any ridiculed idea is truth.
When you get to the 'violently opposed' stage, the likelihood of truth increases. The falsehoods generally die out at the ridicule stage.
Yes. When the violence starts is when you sense the game is totally on.
Nerve. Hit.
God, there might be hope.
People have been messing up their local environment for millenia. Floods or earthquakes like in Pakistan or Haiti used to clear out an area for generations. Now there's no where to go due to national borders, or people stay because some bit of aid arrives by planes. All the doomster articles sound the same after a while, mostly quoting each other in a circle jerk of a downward spiral. I think most of those people just need to leave the US to find a place where they belong, but are afraid to step out of their comfort zone. Learn how to dehydrate food, grow crops in a small area, and live on fewer calories, it'll all be fine, people are great at adapting. Until whenever, enjoy what there is, but in a controlled manner. Everyone dies eventually anyway, seems like a waste to be depressed until that day comes.
So, we ignore the lessons of the past because they aren't pallatible?
If we could go back in time we'd support the Haitian's drive to fuck up their land so that future generations would be eating mud? And right next door is the Dominican Republic, which happened to have instituted policies that, essentially (though indirectly), promoted environmental conservation.
Sorry, as a farmer it's pretty clear that there are consequences, and that without proper stewardship we can find ourselves really fucked.
The consequences are real, whether you want to hear them or not. And yes, many people are "profiting" from the "doomer" side of things, which is the case with ANYTHING. The world has been to heavily influenced by positive feedback loops, such that when any negative feedback is introduced it jerks. Note: it's not an issue of "positive" or "negative," it's an issue of the correct influence of a given thing: sawing one's leg off could be viewed as being negative, but sawing it off in order to remove oneself from a surely life-threatening situation could be viewed as a positive.
Sure, junk the farmer.
Next you're probably going to tell him how easy it will be to increase the productivity of his land ad infinitum.
Peak Oil is a ways down the road; the far more serious problem facing us in the European Debt Crisis, which I believe will be the catalyst. Here's my ideas on peak oil;
http://themeanoldinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/10/peak-oil.html
I like your blog.
Cuba was saved by an aggressive urban agriculture program utilizing worm manure (vermicompost). They also managed to import something like 10 thousand oxen to replace tractors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYnDXXA4icw
I am a strong believer in appropriate levels of technology.
Peak Oil is history. Conventional oil production peaked in 2008. Replacing it gets more and more difficult from here on out.
"Peak Oil is a ways down the road"
Again, saying so doesn't make it so. Where are the facts to back up this assertion? That you know that it's down the road, what makes you the seer? And that it hasn't already occurred, how do you know if so or not?
How can you expect to be taken too seriously when you misdefine Peak Oil right at the outset?
Peak Oil is merely when net production maximizes. It has nothing to do with demand.
Peak oil is not about physical scarcity -- there will always be petroleum products available at some price. The issues are net energy and ROI. Read the history of Easter Island.
The world isn't Easter Island. England ran out of trees (for charcoal) too, but their civilization only flourished rather than failing.
Easter Island consumed the sum total of their arboreal resources in government driven excess (erection of monuments), rather than in the private pursuit of economic growth. Those trees weren't burned for fuel, or if they were, they still had plenty of other things to burn for fuel, like grasses and shrubs. If they needed more energy for something, they could have had it if they sat and thought about it for a while.
So what you're saying is that their technology/culture failed to save the day.
The parallel seems apt to me.
England flourished due to burning coal. But make no mistake - coal was the cheapest, nastiest way to heat your home and cook with. It was out of absolute necessity it was taken up.
This time around, however, we don't have this easy an option out. Oil runs 96% of our transportation network, and is by far the most versatile energy source. The only realistic way to currently replace this with (say) electricity, is through a combination of sources (solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tide, wave?), and it would require a substantial upgrade of our electricity grid (our current grid can carry around 12% of the energy in use, if memory serves me right).
England also expanded to become a colonial empire, which meant that it was able to pull in coal and later oil from its possessions. England was decaying into the early 1980s, when the NorthSea fields yielded considerably oil largess. Those fields are now past their peak production point, which is why England is becoming far more dependent upon Russian Natural Gas. I'd contend that England's civilization is now once again in decline.
"Easter Island consumed the sum total of their arboreal resources in government driven excess (erection of monuments), rather than in the private pursuit of economic growth."
WTF does "economic growth" mean? People throw this around like it's some magical fucking god.
As far as their demise being the result of "government driven excess," there wasn't any monolithic government, it was all tribal. As a matter of fact, it was "competition" that did them in, competing tribes in pursuit of stupid-assed beliefs (represented by physical items). Remove all governments and you'd still have people pursuing stupid-assed beliefs that would almost certainly be centered around physical demonstrations (to ill effect).
Disclaimer: I'm no supporter of governments, nor am I supporter of stupidity and poor logic.
Little governments demanding unreasonable sacrifices of their citizens can be just s bad or worse than big ones. If tribal governments allowed economic growth, we would have asended to a higher plain of existence by now, having mastered space and time.
"Economic growth" means the production of greater amounts of goods and services with decreasing marginal capital inputs (usually with one large capital investment--like making a brick oven so you can cook ten times more food with the same amount of fuel vs an open fire). By decreasing the capital inputs required to create a good, while inputing the same amount of labor, you get savings. Savings can be used for many things, specifically to think up new ways to do things.
A free comic that explains things fairly thoroughly: http://freedom-school.com/money/how-...nomy-grows.pdf
Defense Department seems to think the potential for supply/demand imbalance in global crude oil stocks is a primary threat to national security. So if you think Kunstler is just trying to sell books, what is the conspiracy theory behind the DoD findings?
Allot of good points , allot of bad point, Food distubution networks are what they are, steam power needs just somehting to burn. We got the water.
This one was stand out "An enormous amount of credit for the American Century (1900 – 2000) must be given to pure and simple luck."
Luck had nothing to do with it. It was poor people fighting and dying for the rich people. Luck maybe in the war of 1812 where almost supernatual intervention occured but thats about it.
Take a couple of steps back and you will soon notice that everything is going up -- even gold and silver as early as this afternoon.
So, what is the effect of a contraction of credit on the levels of oil consumption? Seems that the author presumes we continue at our current rate of consumption. My guess is that we scale back (err are forced to scale back through ancillary issues) and give ourselves an extension on material oil shortage.
We could very well have everything in this vision play out exactly as proposed but simply by virtue of a contraction in credit...
We enter a sawtooth pattern - the economy improves, oil demand increases, the price of oil climbs to an unsustainable point, the economy crashes, the demand for oil crashes, rinse and repeat. Each "recovery" will be to a lower level, each recession will be just that much deeper.
my money (pride?) is on a nose dive in the next 3-5 years, followed by a flat line of 5-20 years, followed by sawtooth pattern in perpetuity, changed only by development of alternative, energy efficient fuel... which will be very difficult given the state of the credit system at that time (barring another Tesla knocking on humanity's doorstep), presuming it is even possible.
Bingo.
My favorite descriptive is that of the slinky going down the stairs. We're all familiar with the stairs, so we don't bother really noticing them, concentrating, instead, on the flight of the slinky, really only bothering to note when it's hit its current apex -we're not looking down because we've been programmed not to- cheering along, along, until, we hit bottom!
The slinky represents the great distraction, the toy, the feel-good thing to be distracted by. The sawtooth, on the other hand, represents work... I'm thinking that people might be better able to absorb the slinky analogy seeing as they've been focusing on it so well...
Double Bingo.
Triple bingo? (there are bingo parlors around here, incredibly small city that has not legalized gambling, that are slap ass full of people every night of the week... thinking of going just to watch real people instead of the recordings of them playing bingo on a reality show).
The closest, largest peak is in Ehrlichian, Keynesian, Enviro-nomics. We are somewhere past the apogee of that particular body on nonsense.
Sigh, another subtle dig at the environment...
I can't understand why people can bash Keynesianism for its inability to recognize limits, and then on the other hand bash environmentalism because it recognizes physical limits. Quite pathelogical, quite Bernaysian if you ask me...
How long has Cuntster been preaching peak oil? It seems I've been hearing this for years and oil prices go up and down up and down. How many books has he sold? How much oil did it take to produce those books? How many flights has he taken around the country and how much driving has he done to peddle his books? hmmm.... I think this dude has used a lot more then me!
And you feel superior?
That someone cannot present you with the ultimate knowledge of timing doesn't mean that the information/facts is/are incorrect.
Hey, and how stupid was Jesus running around burning up all those calories informing people? And, how was His forecast, anyway?
How many years were CNBC douchebags laughing at Peter Schiff?
There are actually a lot of happy people out there it's just not good for television nor is it politically correct to be happy. One must hide there happiness while others are suffering. Happiness is easy to attain. Turn off the news. Turn off the noise. Focus on your family and just live your life without caring what other people have or don't have. Be thankful for what you have. Does it really change your life one bit whether or not the guy down the street gets a million dollar bonus? Doesn't change mine. If he get's it or the government clawsback, it doesn't change what i gotta do everyday to take care of my own.
In general I tend to agree with you, but... one also cannot afford to bury one's head in the sand, as doing so may end up visiting some not-so-good, un-happy stuff on oneself. If I hadn't have had my ears and eyes open to what the programmers were saying when all was happy in the land of the McMansion I'd be sitting stuck in a worhtless house instead of being on a farm.
I believe the appropriate thing to strive for is balance.
"This concrete jungle is occupied by hundreds of thousands of uneducated, unmotivated, wards of the state. They live a bleak existence in bleak surroundings and depend upon subsistence payments from the depressed suburbanites to keep them alive. How will they survive in a post peak oil world? They won’t."
Exactly Jimbo. They will have to suffice as a food source. I call them zombies when I see them walking around and paint them with a cross-hair on the temple. They are going to be hard to eat but the ample supply will serve as a nice replacement for beef and chicken.
Ahes to ashes... I tend to think of compost...
That people are willing to jump over the cliff of capitalism in pursuit of shiny things, well, I've tried warning folks, but one can only do so much (I'm afraid that the force of Edward Bernays will just have to burn itself out such as happens with any other rampant/virulent disease).
Well if they have any rampant/virulent disease I'll just keep them on the grill for a while longer. "Never eat human unless it's well done", is what I say.
The Department of Energy’s overarching mission was to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States.
yeah right. It was to give high paying jobs with great retirements to friends of politicians. It is the quintessential GOVERNMENT AGENCY - PRODUCES NOTHING AT A GREAT COST!
Damn straight! Just think of all that wasted money that could have better been directed to the private sector banking folks! (same ones that ONLY care about Wall Street, have no real accountability to actual people [at least with the govt it's written that there's supposed to be accountability]).
Agree with some, disagree with a little, but you have to give it Mr. Quinn for passion, consistency, courage and the weirdest taste in music (from my perspective).
Great read.
Answers to peak oil will come from dis-continuous innovators like me, but the majority (moral or otherwise) will not allow the radically new, because it challenges the status quo of an already tenuous time.
Another piece of technological hubris is that better always means higher/more complex/more expensive technological advances. That is the parallel track to cheap oil that has kept this dystopia rolling.
Thankfully, I think we are about to reach infinity and by god, the rails do meet!
ORI
http://squareandc.net
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
So, you can't handle the Talking Heads...
Music for urban Westeners, very well recorded and produced. I dig it.
Green L, I've listened a lot. Now I play my own ( http://youtube.com/user/Aadinaadam ), mostly, or prefer silence. The 3-4 minute song is a shame, in my opinion. The result of ever shorter spans of attention.
And the lyrics... anyways, remember, all, ALL successful bands are establishment mouthpieces. You're being had and you will not find out how or when.
Just see the Madonna/Brit Spears/Miley Cyrus bandwagons.
Food for thought at the very least.
Plus, it is a well known fact, that the beat of most of this music is anti-heartbeat (as in out of synch with it) creating the slightly mad moods at rock concerts and the like as an example.
Sorry, but if you reject the main-stream, then you've got to kick the whole kit and caboodle.
It's a fractal world and that axiom is bigger than any of our powers of self-determination, especially in the current context.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
You're being sarcastic, right?
I get the marketing manipulation thing (note my repeated reference to Edward Bernays), but I'm afraid that one can go way overboard on finding a PLAN hidden in everything.
Mostly, however, I'm bothered by anyone lumping the Talking Heads with Spears.
And what about George Carlin, was he a plant by TPTB? (to trick us all?)
I believe he said peak "CHEAP" oil. That would actually be more of a correct statement than most people realize. I have never, nor will I be a believer of Peak Oil. BUT....PEAK CHEAP OIL, that is a totally differnt kind of bird.
They are concurrent events.
No, they are not. The cost of getting the oil is not fixed over time. Perhaps you intend to semantically quibble about the definition of cheap, but that sophistry won't hold up for long.
Well, if you want to split hairs - the "peak" in production would be the point where the greatest production is reached. "Cheap" oil, would correspond to those points on the production/demand curves where supply is increasing over demand. Excepting some exceptional decline in demand greater than the decrease in production post-peak, oil will get more expensive near the top of the production curve where it flattens. Post peak, it will continue to trend higher, though it will have its plateau "bumps" due to economic destabilization affecting demand.
If you overlay a graph of the historical price of oil and the historical production of oil, the corellation will be apparent.
No they are not. Supply of oil is not a binary or linear relationship with price. As price rises the supply of oil expands. This is all based on cost of extraction. For instance the amount of known $20/bbl economic oil is pretty damn low, the amount available at $80/bbl extraction costs is much greater. People don't seem to realize that at $150/bbl (whether that's cheap or not is debatable) the amount of oil that can be economically extracted is vastly expanded. Most of the oil we have found still remains in the ground. Technological improvement also brings costs down over time.
Look at natural gas, Marcellus Shale basically was a game changer for that market. It meant nothing not long ago and all of a sudden improvements in technology turned baren farm lands into a massive natural gas find.
I'm not making the case that oil isn't a problem or invalidating the author's point in any way. American's consume a ton and need to get leaner. The whole world needs to utilize its resources more wisely. That said most of the peak oil people tend to not grasp these concepts and while its not complicated, they maintain an overly simplistic and sensationalistic view.
"As price rises the supply of oil expands."
Oh, I get it, if there's enough demand there WILL be supply! Again, this logic is analogous to one being locked in an airtight oxygen-free room expecting to get oxygen by merely demanding it!
How about you back up your assertions? Show us the production output as oil crossed into the $150/bbl range.
Economies of scale! People just don't understand this simple concept! Only via significant increases in production can there be a realized (though, in the whole scheme of things, only temporary) decrease in cost. A decrease in oil production means an increase in production costs: under-utilization equates to increased per-unit-output costs. As people pay more for energy it means that they have less to spend on other things, like goods, which then results in those things being in less volumes, which then introduces a reverse economies of scale to those goods, which further means that there will be less to go toward energy, thereby causing further decreases in energy production...
If something cannot go on forever, it won't...
Why are you mentioning RESERVES economical at a certain point in a discussion of FLOW RATES.
Look I will say this one more time: PEAK OIL DOES NOT DEPEND UPON PRICE.
If TOMORROW, the ENTIRE USA decided to never consume another barrel, the USA would STILL be past-peak! We could pump it and burn it all just for SPORT or sell it for $1/bbl. The PRICE does NOT MATTER to the geological phenomenon known as PEAK.
Jeesh, I cannot believe how dense the zheeple are.
I suggest posting a summary in the forms section. It will be legendary. You have promised in the past but I know your busy. I'm sure the link to your summary will be used again and again.
Never?!?
Listen, never covers a lot of territory. When you were 5 years old, you swore you would never get tired of watching the TeleTubbies.
I have never, nor will I be a believer of Peak Oil.
You have some very very good company.
The Church during the middle ages said;
(Paraphrasing)
I have never, nor will I be a believer in the Earth revolving around the sun.
Let me guess, Financial Major right?
Geology class wasn't nice to you was it.
Peak Oil, Like the law of gravity really doesn't care if you believe in it or not.
It is the point of the maximum oil pumped per day from a Well, Field, Region.
You probably aren't into "Fact" it seems, just incase,
Here's some for you. Countries, Peak Production amounts, Year and how much they are down from it.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5576
and
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/peak-oil-reference/peak-oil-data/production-and-peak-dates-by-country/
easy explanation for why this is: because you are an idiot!
There is NO SUCH THING as peak CHEAP oil.
Oil wells peak irrespective of the fucking $/bbl cost of the oil coming out of them! It's as if the oil doesn't KNOW how much it "costs"!
Extraction is based on the operational costs associated with operating the well. NO, I repeat, NO for-profit organization is going to continue to pump if it costs MORE to do so than is realized for acceptable profit: yes, I realize that in some instances, such are trying to kill competition (corner the market) some for-profit entitites might undercut themselves, but only for a brief time.
"Cheap" has to do with supplies ample enough to keep the bulk of consumers continuing to consume. As I have noted over the years, economies of scale also works in reverse. Less demand can also result in increased prices as cost-per-unit goes up (operational/production costs increase due to under-utilization of plants and equipment); and, at some point operations will cease, even though people may "want" oil: I'm sure that many Haitians would love to have a bunch of oil, but their wanting it doesn't create the supply.
Demand for whale blubber collapsed. So too will it for oil one day, whether it happens as the result of some new energy source (highly unlikely), or be it because we all become Haitians, it matters not, but it WILL happen.
Boy this article really touched some nerves of the Zero Hedge Boys and Girls.
Enjoy the show. This is class-A post-modern angst in all it's raw, brutal, denialist glory. You gotta love it. They'll someday write a new Bible for a new religion based on all this fury and betrayal.
I love this shit! Thank you guys!
And Soylent Green was fiction, Right?
It's all fiction if you stick around long enough.
Tell Nancy Pelosi to stop flying, problem solved.
When did ZH (a financial/econ blog) develop such an appeal to the lunatic lefty fringe?
When did ZH develop such an appeal to the wingnut denialist fringe?
Since we are discussing oil & hard times ahead, today's
Green tip of the day has to do with edible oils:
I am a strong advocate of sunflower oil for many reasons. The Russian army back in the 19th century used to give soldiers out in the field sunflower seeds. Sunflower oil is very healthy and can be used for cooking. I am using it in an 80% sunflower/ 20% virgin olive oil blend from a Spanish company, Torres & Ribelles
http://www.torresyribelles.com/p-95/SPANISH-BLEND/Lata-1G-Spanish-Blend-(BL51LBTRUS)
I buy one gallon metal cans for about $14 to $15 USD.
Stock up plenty!
Ack! I hate it when people promote "solutions." Reason being is that it opens the door to pure exploitation. The next thing you know we'll all be programmed to subsidize big Ag in growing sunflowers!
I don't have a problem with any "solution" in particular, my concern is with/over scale. Take your pick, the commie govt or the fascist corporatists, doesn't matter, the RESULT will still be the same- we'll have THE "solution" rammed down our throats!
BTW - what's the shelf-life of sunflower? (and what are the storage requirments?)