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Peak Everything: An Interactive Look At How Much Of Everything Is Left
Scientific American has done a great summary of peak commodity levels as well as depletion projections for some of the most critical resources in the world including oil, gold, silver copper, not to mention renewable water, as well as estimating general food prices over the next half century. Generally speaking, regardless of whether one believes in peak oil or not, the facts are that stores of natural resources are disappearing at an increasingly alarming pace. And instead of the world's (formerly) richest country sponsoring R&D and basic science to find alternatives, the US government continues to focus on funding a lost Keynesian cause, debasing the dollar and perpetuating a system that will do nothing to resolve any of these ever more pressing concerns. Furthermore, as by 2020, the US will have around $23 trillion in debt (per CBO estimates), the government will be far too focused on using anywhere between 50-100% of tax revenues to cover just interest expense, than funding science and research. Then again it is probably only fitting that future generations will be saddled with not just $100 trillion in total sovereign debt, but will be running out of water, will see sea levels rising ever faster, will have no flat screen TVs, and will be using Flintstonemobiles to go from point A to point B. All so a few bankers and ultra-wealthy individuals don't have to recognize total losses on their balance sheets filled with trillions in toxic debt.
Some key highlights from Scientific American, as well as the year in which a given resource either peaks or runs out:
Oil - 2014 Peak
The most common answer to "how much oil is left" is "depends on how hard you want to look." As easy-to-reach fields run dry, new technologies allow oil companies to tap harder-to-reach places (such as 5,500 meters under the Gulf of Mexico). Traditional statistical models of oil supply do not account for these advances, but a new approach to production forecasting explicitly incorporates multiple waves of technological improvement. Though still controversial, this multi-cyclic approach predicts that global oil production is set to peak in four years and that by the 2050s we will have pulled all but 10% of the world's oil from the ground.
In many parts of the world, one major river supplies water to multiple countries. Climate change, pollution and population growth are putting a significant strain on supplies. In some areas renewable water reserves are in danger of dropping below the 500 cubic meters per person per year considered a minimum for a functioning society.
Renewable Water
Indium - 2028
Silver - 2029
Gold - 2030
Copper - 2044
Coal - 2072
Food Prices over next 40 years
Researchers have recently started to untangle the complex ways rising temperatures will affect global agriculture. The expect climate change to lead to longer growing seasons in some countries; in others the heat will increase the frequency of extreme weather events or the prevalence of pests. In the US, productivity is expected to rise in Plains states, but fall further in the already struggling Southwest. Russia and China will gain, India and Mexico will lose. In general, developing nations will take the biggest hits. By 2050 counteracting the ill effects of climate change on nutrition will cost more than $7 billion a year.
Full interactive analysis on resource depletion:
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surfsup--DHMO is some nasty shit.
http://www.dhmo.org/msds/MSDS-DHMO-Kemp.pdf
be careful, be very very careful.
- Ned
just....wow.
A water "atom"?
Golly gee, if Uranium is fissile, them water atoms should be too, huh?
Look, man, there are principles of physics in play here in terms of binding energy in molecules. Physics can describe to you which ones of them are exothermic and which are the opposite. H2O is so strongly bound because the H2+O reaction is very strongly exothermic. They have nothing to do with the discovery that the universe is highly righthanded
There are very good reasons WHY Uranium fission is positive EROI and water "atom" fission is not.
But, I'll say this straight out, if you don't know that water is not a fucking ATOM in the first place, you really ought to shut right the fuck up. Do not ever speak again on this topic.
Or - you could accept your role as teacher more gracefully. How do people ever learn if not by having their misunderstandings gently pointed out to them? Did your first science teacher call you a fucking ignoramus on the first day of science class?? On Day 200?? (Rhetorical questions)
+infinity
We are truly too stupid to survive. DU with a half life of half a billion years? What part of depleted do you not understand???
Hulk-check out the CANDUs for your answer--enrich the moderator. - Ned
Nice reactors, amazing what we can come up with when we use our heads...
Our Keynesian based form of capitalism cannot afford the truth about the earth's finite resources.
To admit that resources are finite would mean that our economic model would need to be scrapped for another model that would place emphisis on saving resources...the exact opposite of the consumer model. TPTB will not allow a new model so the system in place will continue until it doesn't.
The great thing is that the earth will continue with far less humans. This is a beautiful home that we have and we have fucked it up almost beyond recognition. I take a lot of comfort knowing that the earth will survive, but I wish no ill to all the humans that will perish.
Exponential growth...an idea who's time came...and is quickly going. Well, we certainly threw one hell of a party! :)
A certain vision of American life in the 90s and 00s promulgated the happiness of owning an SUV. Even though the Arab oil embargo of the 70s brought oil consumption to the fore spawning better gas mileage for a time, how soon it seems do we forget.
Since GM is on the taxpayer's dime, to recoup our losses let's sell :
325MM SUVs to China (out of population 1.3Bn)
Get 12 mpg.
19.5 gallons of gas refined from 1 barrel of light sweet crude.
Drive 'em 20M miles a year, or 1,667 gallons of gas.
Those Chinese SUVs could consume 27Bn barrels of crude a year.
The entire US Economy consumed 7.14Bn barrels in 2007 ...
Party on Garth.
This was the introduction of a report commissioned by the European Commission, precursor for the EU. The lays the foundation for many of the things we see today, including climate change, a new economic model, taxes, public spending, a global currency, and other seconomic scemes, all boiled down for you in the above "framework" policies. I'm partial to the "Citizen's Income" (sarc) The title is "The New Economies of Sustainable Development". This and other interesting ideas can be found at the author's site.
http://www.jamesrobertson.com/
Party on, bitchez! Indulge while there's still some good stuff left.
Remember, we already past Peak Caviar about 10 years ago!
The real stuff is no longer commercially available at all.
Hey, we can make corn chips with black food dye and call it caviar...in a few generations there will be no one left that remembers what real caviar was or tasted like...Just one more substitution in the ever changing 'basket of commodities' that the CPI is calculated from. lol
....and I expect that to happen with all other "peaked" commodities: we'll be settling for ersatz coffee, kerosene-burning cars, semi-desalted water, protein goo.....
There's a scene from the movie Soylent Green where Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston share a piece of steak that was stolen from a government official. Heston's character had never tasted steak and Robinson's had only distant memories of how great it was. They indulged in the precious stuff for a moment of bliss...
Yeah, I remember the flick well. Soylent Green is right up there with Blade Runner and a few others that I consider possible future scenarios.
Add 'Network' to that list as well.
I want you to go to your window, open it up and shout, "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore."
Then the cops will show up, charge your ass with terrorism and beat the craziness out of you.
We've been trying to score a copy of Soylent Green, but nobody seems to have it available on DVD. We love the old stuff, especially SF. And since we cut the cable, the good ones are now even more appreciated.
Found it on Amazon tonight
Your in luck,
Soylent Green dvd from Amazon $6.99
http://www.amazon.com/Soylent-Green-Charlton-Heston/dp/B0016I0AJG/ref=sr...
Cool. Thanks. Don't buy the last one ;)
edit:
Turns out that Amazon had at least one left, and it's now on its way to me. Along with Logan's Run, another example of the idyllic lifestyle we we only limit our population, lopping it off the backside instead of the front.
One thing I wonder about the world in Logan's Run. In the film, your life clock runs out at about 30. But if they keep breeding as humans are wont to do, would we learn in the sequel, "Logan's Jog" that the clocks used to run out at 65, then 55, then 45... and soon, they're going to be reset to 25.
Inquiring minds want to know the answers to these important movie questions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0
Another apocalyptic movie was A Boy and His Dog, though I don't quite remember it. One of my favorite movies is Brazil, this one I HIGHLY recommend.
That was a fine little film. Don Johnson was 'a boy.' Loved the dog too. We all talk to dogs, but how many of them can talk back?
And the weird part for my trivial soul was that one of the people behind the film, and who was the nasty mayor of the future city, was Alvy Moore, the guy who played ditzy Hank Kimball, County Agent on 'Green Acres.' Now THAT'S TRIVIA!
Most apocalyptic movies have little to recommend them, but there are a few with some nuggets worth mining. Of course, if you have the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew with you, even the worst sci-fi debacles can come alive.
Damn, if we could get Joel and the 'bots to do a running commentary during presentations by the Federal Reserve, then we'd have a SHOW!
CPI will eventually be calculated using the dollar menu at McD's...
"Hey, we can make corn chips"
Assumes we can grow corn (refer to "peak [potable] water" and peak phosporus [http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/01/peak-phosphorous-fertilizer-technology-...]). And people thought that "shit" was "waste!"
I'm sure we can all agree there will be no Peak Bullshit.
Bullshit will peak with the population...imo.
BULLSHIT
- (insert a fine stroke of sarcasm here)
Agreed...LOL.
We will run out of green ink and cotten paper by the end of next year.
Buy defunct county landfills and mine them.
Problem solved.
You mean like this?
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Manilas_Garbage_Dump_Offers_Lifeline_F...
Kind of like the veggie oil fans who think that we can power the world by just increasing the number of McDonalds...
In Mad Max America perhaps. I was thinking of something a bit more targeted and mechanically driven since most dumps segregate their trash. I've spent time in Manila, and it's masses are poor. Despiration leads to such things. If a despiration for flat-screen Tv's is great enough, there will be a motivation to find it.
The horrible case for peak anything is a scare tactic, and Americans fall for fear quite easily. Look at the graph posted for peak oil supplies on theoildrum and consider the fact that oil companies might just drill as needed by demand, and not just drilling for the sake of added reserves. This is a product of just in time supply chain, not TEOTWAWKI.
And, yes, I know about exponential functions.
Apparently you know about them but fail to understand them.
The 3% growth case requires our entire production base to double in 23 years. This means, because you "know about" exponential functions or whatever, bud, that we have to go out and find as much production as ALL THAT WE HAVE IN EXISTENCE AT PRESENT. All in the next 23 years. Against a backdrop of discoveries having peaked nearly 40 years ago.
This is while the few supergiant fields we have collapse in production. Burgan, at 8% decline, will halve in production every 9 years or so. Cantarell fell off a cliff.
You cornucopian polyannas make me absolutely fucking laugh.
Yeah, good ole Rich doesn't get it. I suspect that he thinks that he's above all those garbage dump divers in Manila because he's sophisticated? I've been to Manila (my wife is from Metro Manila, just outside where the big dump is) and my take isn't that this is the outcome of too many people and not enough resources. 2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day, start getting used to trending toward this figure...
Extraction will take energy (which, as I noted, CAN be wasted), and as energy declines there will be less and less mechanized extraction and more human extraction...
"Extraction will take energy"
A short and sweet definition of EROEI! As I said earlier, the longer this remains beyond the grasp of OPM managers, the richer I will get!!
Thanks trav7777 for trying to educate the ignorant.
It's sad how many people have strong opinions on matters that they have not studied.
Given that this is a finance site with many physics challenged members I sometimes wonder if we would have more success describing the problem in terms of us needing to survive on income from capital rather than by depleting capital. Probably not though since people tend to believe what they want to believe.
I knew us Michiganders had something going for us: the Great Lakes. We will recolonize the world once the rest of you perish from dehydration.
Not if they turn into the Great Salt Lakes once global warming kicks into high gear. There'll be human boneyards on the shores where people ended their search for drinkable water.
how do you figure? if both Greenland and Antarctica completely melt, sea level is expected to rise 220 feet. Lake Erie is 571 feet above sea level. I do not think the salt would make it above Niagara Falls. only Lake Ontario would be lost.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question473.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Erie
As a former Michigander, I love those lakes. They used to say that half of all the world's fresh water was tied up in those beauties.
In the same vein, 1/4 of the U.S. electrical power is created at dams here in the Northwest. We only use about 6% of it ourselves, so we'll have plenty when things get tough, right?
But more likely, all that fresh water will be stolen from you when they steal all our hydroelectricity here in the Northwest, "for the common good."
But we're Americans, so we'll tough it out, knowing that because of our sacrifice, somewhere, somebody a lot more needy than we are, is sitting in a nice warm Jacuzzi.
I'm not from the Midwest, but I love those lakes too. Amazingly, Lake Erie was close to extinction from algal blooms in the 1960s due to horrendous levels of phosphorus and nitrogen pollution. The Cuyahoga River feeding into the lake caught fire several times causing huge damage. It took a near catastrophe, but Americans got on the Clean Water Act bandwagon in a hurry in 1972. And the results speak for themselves.
The history proves one thing. It is possible to destroy a body of water even as big as Lake Erie with enough pollution. There is no self-righting mechanism that prevents destruction of the environment except the rule of law.
I'm sure that the "free market" was behind the big push to clean up the lakes, you know, because that crowd can do no wrong, it's not a "socialist" crowd...
If I recall correctly, the estimate is that about 95% of the population hates and/or fears change.
Change is coming. Fear it? Hate it? No matter. It's coming either way.
I see nothing to fear. Life goes on. We never really benefited from the big teevees and cheap food for sedentary first-worlders in the first place.
Learn to swim.
Never happens peacefully.
Yah, but the status quo ain't been so peaceful either, if ya think about it.
Holy shit man! All this time I've been worrying about an asteroid impact when I should have been worrying about my Perrier running out. Thank God I still have my bourbon.
I'm more concerned about peak J&B.
"Canadian Mist" Economical & smooth...
"Canadian Mist" The yellowing of the great lakes for American consumption?
Much like Georgians drinking North Carolina kool aid?
<evil grin>
I am rather partial to Rebel Yell, my own self!!
Climate changes everyday and long term forecasting is impossible. Just look at the forecast in the 70's that we were entering a long term cooling period and the exact opposite happened. Now we are supposed to be in a long term heating period and the opposite is happening. Climate is always going to be a wild card and thus should not be part of the model unless the model accounts for several forecasts from cooling to heating to neutral.
And every single person who died of cancer was once told that they didn't have cancer- so, they should all have believed that it would never happen?
Just wondering...
Gas prices here in Los Angeles are now back under $3.00/gal.
Prices are virtually unchanged after 5 years, even with all the "Peak Oil" hysteria in 2007.
Looks like "Peak Oil" will go down as one of the biggest investment theme frauds since "Y2K".
Yes Robo, as long as it is priced in almighty usd.
Deep down, you know its only a matter of time.
I very vividly remember buying gas at $1.10 around 1990 and thinking all was well, the good times.
Most significant is the surge from 2003-2004: $1.59 to $2.88 Average National.
From what I could tell, July 2008 was peak in production at 86.6 million bpd.
We have efficiency to work with..but production of oil per day will for sure peak and oil will be all be gone in 100 years.
Oil was discovered in Texas for the first time in 1901. Here's a chart for you bitchez: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/BrandonDS/Peak%2520Oil/TexasOilProduction.gif&imgrefurl=http://energyandourfuture.org/story/2006/11/25/8304/2136&usg=__CKIP0sOqefz6WSdxww-7DzWv2zE=&h=296&w=614&sz=7&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=XvDGDpi0QaxA5M:&tbnh=82&tbnw=170&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtexas%2Boil%2Bproduction%2Bhistory%2Bchart%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D676%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=391&ei=Om-NTMnVBsH_lgfg_4Vg&oei=Om-NTMnVBsH_lgfg_4Vg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=85&ty=28
Math.
Man will remain creative and Earth shall support 20 billion peeps one day.
"oil will be all be gone in 100 years"
No, it'll never ALL be gone. Lots of oil will be left in the ground because it'll take too much energy (read "cost") to extract it than what's gotten out.
For a simple test, let's say that you really have to have Snickers Bars in order to live. The bars can readily be found burried in the ground; however, all the easy bars have been found, leaving remaining ones burried much deeper in the ground. Your assignment is to HAND dig in order to acquire that Snickers bar. Problem is, that Snickers bar only provides you with 280 calories (2.07 oz bar) and it takes 500 calories of digging to get it. You going to dig for it?
Yes Seer, NET ENERGY... The very reason we are sitting in front of our computer screens and not out throwing spears but don't waste your time trying to explain it to these fucking morons... They choose to remain ignorant...
"What you resist persists"... Carl Jung ;-)
I guess I will have to plant 10 apple trees, and a potatoe field to maximize my time. Many people in this world will be subsitence farmers for a time. That sucks on it's own merit, but we are not "All going to die". I cannot believe the people on this board that has such understanding of Keynesian economics (although really should be called Friedman economics for our period) swallow the supply-side snake oil of scarcity over abundance.
How are you going to get the farmland back from the corporations - for large numbers of people?
WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT 20 BILLION PEOPLE ON EARTH???????????????? WHAT FUCKING PURPOSE WOULD IT SERVE????????????????
I want 100 billion. So that one of them will be future Einstein and Tesla's. They will find an efficient way to grow at that time period too. Maybe by then the world will have different political systems that don't buy votes from non-productive individuals. I am sure some people such as yourself will proclaim scarcity and "We are all going to die". Caps off please.
Raging Idiot
"They will find an efficient way to grow at that time period too."
You're confusing processes with resources! Efficiency is about process, NOT resources! You cannot be efficient with stuff if it doesn't exist, not unless you measure efficiency with utilization rates (not using any = zero utilization).
But... speaking of growing (one of the key elements in Food, Shelter and Water), we've already had an "efficient" means for growing food. Problem is that this "efficiency" has resulted in the destruction of soils (and water- eutrification of the Gulf of Mississippi being one example). Sigh, techno-heads (techonolgy-will-save-the-world folks) never seem to have a clue about real life, about soil.
"Maybe by then the world will have different political systems that don't buy votes from non-productive individuals."
And you're working to make this happen how?
But yeah, we could use more "productive" individuals, such as the kinds that brought us Enron and BP, or all the ones who run the capitalist empire- the banksters.
Ask yourself this: do we really want MORE production, given that production means increased exhaustion of EXISTING resources (not future "to-be-determined" ones)? Is this not the "bigger-is-better" argument? If so, a bigger city must certainly be better. And if this is the case, just how well is New York City doing? Underneath, this thinking is EXACTLY the same that is used to justify increasing the size of government.
Einstiein, Tesla... Too bad there's not people around now like them. Oh, how about Stephen Hawking?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT8tjXVEwd8
He thinks we might not survive 100 years because of population growth and use of finite resources.
JT-"Stand on Zanizbar"
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Stand+on+Zanzibar...
Brunner did pretty well back then.
Of course, the declining population dynamics conflict with some projections. Some in decline, some in increase.
- Ned
Perhaps...
Gekko will not be pleased with your comment Robo ;-)
Sigh, for some reason I had been under the impression that you were smarter than this...
Years ago I argued against all the folks clamoring that oil prices were going to go up (and stay up). I warned that you can't beat the big folks, that if you take up one side of the bet/wager that the biggies will load up on the other side and crush them; bet that prices go up and they'll kill demand by killing jobs... Which would you prefer, $30/bbl oil and being unemployed, or being employed and oil at $150/bbl?
For a broader view of gasoline prices in the US:
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_...
exponential increase in the number of oil wells has kept production flat, hence the price. Production is currently hinged on the last remaining supergiant, Ghawar.The other two supergiants collapsed in less than 2 years time due to injection methods, so it shouldn't be too long before we see the effects that $5 bucks a gallon gas and total lack of energy policy have on our society. The present financial crisis is just a preview of things to come...
I'll take the other side of that bet, most likely all in and leveraged by Oct. 2011, but long every turn up in the 10ema between now and then, with stops!!
i think you want to play this as loud as possible.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4ZWccudEM
.
Wait till deflation and oversupply really begin to take a bite out of prices.
As well as taking a bite out of employment. Yeah, prices may look good, but only if you have a (decent) job. Less jobs means lower volumes, which means decreasing (reversing) economies of scale. So, how sure are you then, that prices WILL go down?
Another population limiting marketing scam.
Stopped reading at 'rising sea levels'.
Barry was elected...sigh.
Bzzt! You give too much credence to mankind and marketing. Sorry, but nature's running the show, and you'll accept whatever it dictates; and given that every other living organism subject to overshoot, well, I wouldn't be quick to bet against this happening to humans as well.
I hate to break up your intelectual Louis Rukeyser moment, But the markets are getting set up to surge as we speak. Time to batten down the hatches.
It is a good thing our troops are in Afghanistan getting all those "Trillions" of dollars of precious metals and minerals out of those mountains.
Something that hasn't peaked is the bullshit on this site.
Futures are rocketing, along with Asian stocks.
Looks like a bad day for the perma-gloomers, survivalists, and naysayers tomorrow.
Like I said, I'm expecting the "worst of the worst" stocks to outperform into year end.
Underinvested hedge fund managers will be grabbing the worst junk possible with the highest short interest.
I'm betting that the worst two sectors (oil services and semiconductors) will be upgraded en masse tomorrow to get a good short squeeze going.
oil up smartly and DXY getting crushed...liquidity spigot?
Let's see if the whole thing reverses trend AGAIN when oil crests 80
Here we go again with another article which will draw 500 posts from idiots who cannot do basic math, do not understand basic science, and wish to engage in magical thinking.
Re-read ALL of those charts, each says "at current production levels." Where is the GROWTH? The whole fucking article and EVERY goddamned one like it is misleading on this basis alone.
Look, motherfuckers, Gold production peaked in 2000, and helium in 2002. Look it the fk up. Within the US, I posted on one of the previous articles on oil the peak dates of nearly every significant industrial base metal. Yet, STILL we hear nonsense about how oil production will grow forever from morons. Despite its production having peaked in 5 dozen nations on the planet, and petroleum engineers planning for the bell-shaped production curve in EVERY single fucking well they drill.
Perhaps it's time to start moderating these forums, not for political leaning or agreement with the hosts, but for basic intelligence. The captcha is obviously not cutting it.
trav28, You're blunt and often dead-on.
The problem is that the captcha gives your retries. After a while they get the 2+2 = ? and can start commenting.
The problem with this place is that the group is so focused on "We are all going to die" you haven't figured out how to NOT NEED captcha to defeat bots. I eliminated that need about a year ago on my site.
The same way mankind will take it's shit sandwich of low growth and probably world war because of it and move on afterward, innovating solutions for the next growth cycle.
I love this site for economic reporting and the Durden team is impressive in this regard. But pardon my french Trav and Seer why not simply state your hedging for a short-term supply crunch, profit from it and call it a day? You can email me at jrines@ragingdebate.com or call my cell phone if you want a real debate. It is 603-953-3388. I think I will change my screen name to a real one too.
I'm sure they'd be happy to debate with bots...their Markov chain-generated blather might be smarter than that of some of these posters.
No. Industrial society will decline for a minimum of 100 years. Oil is the equivalent of each person having 100 servants. Peak oil means we're heading towards a new dark ages.
"call my cell phone if you want a real debate."
You're kidding, right?
You have shown exactly ZERO ability to offer up anything that even resembles debate logic and you want to waste people's time and money (phone minutes) talking to you? Why the fuck would anyone want to listen to a tape-loop of "doomers are wrong, unicorns will save us" message? I think that you'd be better served getting out into the real world: go travel and see what the world is really comprised of (no, it's not 5-star hotels and enless resources, it's comprised a good 4 billion people living on $3/day or less). Go feel gravity, touch soil (anyone serious about the future would be best served understanding soil biota).
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
Albert Bartlett
The world's population is about due to be thinned out a bit - it too has reached its peak
Peak (oil, water, gold, rare earths, wheat, take your pick) theories are based on a static view of man and the environmernt. They reason, poorly, that conditions that exist today will define conditions in the future. Man is nothing if not a dynamic creature. So, for example, the shrieks about starvation decades ago were drowned out by the Green Revolution. Now a second green revolution, genetic modification, is just starting and already positive benefits for food production are enourmous. In both cases these developments were vigorously resisted and disparaged by the same people who now scream about peak (oil, water, etc). If it comes down to a choice between someone going hungary or peak resources being disproved Erchlichians will take starvation every time.
Just as an example, the techonology of hydrocarbon exploration has changed radically with the development of computers, wireless transmission, and the learning curve. Has anyone observed a modern hydrocarbon survey underway? It is a huge, complex and expensive undertaking that produces far greater and more accurate geological information. Since this technology is so new very little of the earth's surface has been subjected to this new technology. When every bit of the earth has been surveyed by the lastest geological exploration technology we can reasonable talk about how much hydrocarbon there might be. But of course by then there will be even better geologcical exploration technology, smaller more powerful computers, better sensors.
Then you have to consider the substitues for oil. For example natural gas which has very recently just begun to be discovered in enormous quantities. It will be substitued for oil because it is cheaper, available and more convenient. Where I live the peak oil people are fighting tooth and nail to keep NG from being developed. You would think that if they were truly worried about shortages they would welcome this new development.
Beyond this there are tar sands, oil shales, coalbed methane, methane hydrates, synthetic methane production (synthetic methane can be made from CO2). Thomas Gold postulated the abiogenic formation of fossil fuels. One of the reasons we are developing oil in deep water is because development in easier locations is proscribed. One of the reasons we have a rare earth shortage is because rare earth mines were shut down. The same peole who scream about peak this and that are working assidously to prevent resources from being developed and made available for use. One wonders if some big money might be behind it all.
JFC, there is no getting through to you...
Google the downing effect...that is YOU.
YES, they have done a goddamned thorough survey of the earth, discoveries peaked in 1954. This is like trying to discuss tennis with someone who doesn't know what a racket is.
Oh boy, we're all saved because someone "postulated" that a rabbit can be pulled out of the hat!
Abiotic oil, yeah, right. And then, assuming that there's plentiful fossil fuels to burn, what, Einstein, do you think would then happen? More clearing of carbon-sinking, oxygen-generating forests to create more roads, parking lots, home and business sites, more fields of susceptible mono-crops?
Bzzt! The thread is about peak EVERYTHING. I don't recall hearing about abiotic phosphorus or abiotic iridium.
"For example natural gas which has very recently just begun to be discovered in enormous quantities. It will be substitued for oil because it is cheaper, available and more convenient."
More wishful thinking... saying so won't make it so. First, you're wrong that "they" have "just begun" to "discover" ENORMOUS(? what the kind of factless, measurement-less crap is this?) "quantities." Massive amounts/quantities have been being found for a LONG time ALREADY, and they've been burned up... I will agree that using natural gas to propel vehicles makes far more sense than using it to boil partially formed oil from tar sands in order to propel vehicles (energy conversion = energy loss), BUT... greater use will mean quicker exhuastion of said resource (read about Jevons Paradox). As far as natural gas being more convenient, I beg to differ- it's not what the insurance companies believe: higher risk translates to higher cost.
I really feel for all you people that are so scared of losing this unsustainable way of life, that you thrash around and utilize such flawed logic that one could drive a Mack truck through it (assuming there was the fuel to do so :-) ). Such is the behavior of the common drug addict.
Silver bitchez. This is the most bullish article for silver... EVER. Given that manufacturing is so low I find the 19 year time horizon VERY optimistic. Also, silver is not recycled, as they claim, which means at these levels silver is a steal.
It's a good thing not too many people believe in peak oil yet.
There will be plenty of believers when Ghawar does a Cantarell...
Too bad it doesn't give a shit whether you believe in it or not.
When I was in High School and the Arab oil embargo of 1973 happened, gas prices tripled. Time Magazine was quick to run an article that predicted the planet would run out of oil by mid 1990's. Did that happen?
No, of course not. We aren't peak "anything". To claim we are is an insult to God who provides for us. He has foreseen our needs and has met them with abundance.
WTF cares what some dweeb at Time magazine writes? Read Deffeyes for the scientific analysis. Read the Hirsch report. Ask yourself why all the alternate energy sources didn't come online as predicted when oil hit $40 bucks a barrel...
Well if you don't care, then please don't respond to my posts. And don't use my posts to post your spam. Thanks
You are a moron...
Funny, that's what I thought of you when I read your post.
Now ignore me, and be on your way.
Once upon a time people said that DDT and radiation were safe. You would have us beleive that we should just trust YOUR masters and that everything will be OK? Yeah, I'm sure that you'd not be profiting in any way (be it "saved" from such masters for not speaking out about their harm to others).
We certainly have an abundance... of debt.
There is also something called free will and we have not been using this free will much to the benefit of our fellow brethren.
Have you seen our "fellow brethren"?
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Yeah, now that you mention it, I was in the store the other day and the shelves were still filled with "free will!" I couldn't believe it!
Edward Bernays, on behalf of the "free market," vastly superior, "producers" helped hijack that free will. Maybe, just like those advocates for more big government, we just allow them to do MORE because, maybe enough hasn't been done?
How great is hopium, unicorns and leprechauns!? :-)
Brilliant sarcasm!
And for anyone who would actually buy this I ask: NOT A SINGLE PERSON WAS EVER DIAGNOSED AS HAVING CANCER _BEFORE_ THEY HAD IT, WHICH, GIVEN THE ABOVE LOGIC WOULD MEAN THAT BECAUSE THE SITUATION HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY EXISTED THAT IT CANNOT THEREFORE EVER EXIST. Or, because someone missed the timing at one point in time that that somehow negates the possibility of it ever happening.
I once had a landlord who was in the "god will provide everything" camp. I told him to go sit his ass out in an empty field and then report back to me. To be fair, not all folks believing in this fail to follow the "god helps those that helps themselves" line of thinking: my landlord thought and believed in the literal; might have worked before Adam and Eve messed up their rental agreement, but since then we're pretty much on our own to provide for ourselves; and, we've only got this one planet.
I won't quote passages, but you can google the answers that show you're incorrect.
Thanks for sharing NOTHING. You're so good at providing us with plenty of NOTHING. I suppose it's because your head is so filled with NOTHING.
Again, thanks for giving us NOTHING! Clown!
And one time, when I was 7, I found some matches and was playing with them and my Mom caught me and was quick to tell me that I would burn the house down. Did that happen? No, of course not! Obviously "fire" doesn't burn things, because it didn't happen to me then. Moms are so stupid.
+1000!
Thanks for the compliment. However, I find your use of Arabic numerals and mathematics symbology to be an insult to God. ;)
Yeah, houses never burn down (rolls eyes).
But it's just so odd that no critical resource have ever just run out forever....WOW.
... and, therefore, they never will! WOW indeed.
Geee, I wonder if that's because we moved onto other means with different critical resources (LIKE WE SHOULD NOW, IDIOT).
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/eisland.html
Easter Island has nothing to do with what I said. I'm speaking world-wide, not some remote desolate place.
You truly are a willfully stupid person, that you cannot acknowledge the similarities.
For the level of technology on Easter Island, it is directly analogous to the level of technology on Earth today.
Both are surrounded by hostile, unlivable environments that could/can only be traveled infrequently with great risk and much capital, based on available technology: ocean and space.
In both cases, leaving is not an option for the majority.
In both cases, resources are finite.
In both cases, human demand (greed) is infinite.
Peak oil does not mean that the resource runs out, idiot.
How can there be any meaningful discussion when you people are absolutely ignorant?
It implies that the resource is running out, hello, hello. Earth to travis.
How about earth to JLee2027, for completely missing the goddamn orbit around peak oil theory?
The only implication is that you are woefully ignorant to the point of uselessness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Educate yourself before you reveal deeper structural ignorance.
LMAO! If you were here I'd hand you a dollar bill! Oops! sorry, I didn't mean that as an insult :-)
He has foreseen our needs and has met them with abundance.
Does he expect our needs will continue, forever. Or are they expected to end at some point? If our needs are expected to end at some point, could it also be true that his provision is not open-ended, that it is not infinite?
Or - can infinite growth occur in a finite world?
The fallacy of scarcity is one of the most powerful tools of the "ruling elite".
-profd
Seems history proves you wrong. The "ruling elite" seems to have been unable to overcome a scarcity of resources on Easter Island (many, many other examples available).
My understanding is the gathering and distribution systems are the issue not the level of resources.
Hmmm...I'm surprised that no one has even mentioned Michael Ruppert...or the "Collapse" movie...
Regardless of whether or not Ruppert is correct and/or completely insane, it is a very "entertaining" (one way to put it) watch.
HIS main point is that it is insane to continue to use our resources (especially oil) as if we have an infinite supply...when we clearly do not.
More specifically, HE believes we probably already hit peak oil...and given how dependent western civilization is on oil, along with what he refers to the "infinite growth paradigm" (i.e., our economy has to keep growing or it basically dies), we've hit what he refers to as a/the "bumpy plateau" - an era in which when/if the economy really starts picking up, growth will be slowed/halted by spiking oil prices. This will eventually lead to (or has already initiated) what is essentially a "collapse" of modern, western civilization...
I'm not saying I think he is correct...but it is a pretty interesting and well-made documentary...and is definitely worth watching.
One small correction...
We will never hit $23,000,000,000,000.00 in debt by 2020. We will have defaulted on this long before 2020.
I wouldn't bet against this... one isn't likely going to be able to compute fast enough when hyperinflation hits; the debt number could be near infinity right up to the second that it all collapses... Never say never.
I think we're in violent agreement...
Web bots are a funny thing... sort of like reading tea leaves. Take it for what it's worth... day traders will junk it... sensible people with a timeline longer than the tip of their nose may not. Caveat Emptor.
Later this year... major stock market correction coming... something on the perphery is going to induce this (think "derivatives"). We're going to see a massive outflow of money into guess what?... that 's right 2s and 10s.
Since we're in a bifurcated economy, deflation continues to settle in at an aggressive pace in hard assets - home prices continue to fall; consumer spending dries up, real prices start to fall between 3 - 5 % annualized. However we continue to see real inflation in food and precious metals. However, at this stage, it's not hyperinflation.
Fed goes from QE fire hose strategy to QE 5-gorges dam strategy and compresses the yield curve in a surreal fashion. They know they're #ucked, but do so in last ditch effort.
Now throw in a Hungarian or Greek default, or an Israeli attack on Iran and you'll have all of the ingredients of a default on the USD. From here, we see hyperinflation kick in within 6 to 8 weeks. Silver shoots above $600 and we see the emergence of a barter economy for 3 to 5 years. US Gov makes several attempts to devalue USD over the course of 18 months with the emergence of a new currency.
We won't make it until 2020 under the current projection of $20,000,000,000,000.00 of US Gov junk debt.
I was just playing with your "never" statement, it really doesn't matter to me because in the end the result will be the same- collapse, which, it appears we're in agreement with.
Peak comment cause I must
Comment field is required..
There is no shortage of Wall Street criminal elements, as many of you already know,
In the early 1800s whale oil from sperm whales was i great demand as a fine lubricant and oderless oil for lamps. Other whale oils tended to have odor. There was concern that the sperm whale stock was being depleated by overhunting.
Sixty years ago, the transition metals were chemically curosities, some what intractable.
Most of these elements are common enough in the crust; we may just have to accept the labor of recycling.
"we may just have to accept the labor of recycling" refer to my "Snickers bars extraction" analogy somwhere (above).
now ya' gone and made me hungry ...
Lets not forget peak Phosphorous, that will send food prices sky rocketing...until they learn to better extract the stuff from our piss that is.
Good point.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/11/food_for_thought
The US could easily curb wasteful use of commodities. It wouldn't be good for sales though. So the US gives people more & more worthless pieces of paper to buy goods made of steel, copper, oil etc. despite the fact we dont NEED this stuff. Our grandparents lived just fine on a much lower standard of living... but that wouldn't be good for Wall St. lobbyists etc. As long as we can exchange more and more paper for commodities and waste real goods because we have paper... we will continue to be a wasteful society.
We would survive on a lower standard of living, the government doesn't want that to happen, Keynesian economics would fail immediately. Its fundamentally based on waste. Think about it.
There are only TWO things that are "wasted," time, and energy.
I do not agree that we're based on waste so much as our systems produce, as a natural consequence, lots of wasted energy. Has very little to do with loaded economics terms...
We need to stop digging for copper and start recycling them out of rotting homes and dead commercial properties all across the USA.
There is plenty of water, just start building factories at the sea coasts by the dozen to take salt and ship it out and pipe fresh water to the rest of the USA.
Salt combined properly with other things burns quite nicely thank you.
And also capture the rain and clean it up. All weather relies on evaporated water.
No water means no weather globally right?
I don't live long enough to worry about half the stuff 100 years from now.
100 years ago it took 80 days to ship Tea by Windjammer from China to here people are impatient now and want thier tea right now.
Never mind the rotted old technology, too labor intensive.
But some day those antique stores and flea markets will become the next 5th Ave type place to go for those still able to spend money.
Stop worrying about what is left. Our Pioneers and Pilgrims did not lie awake at night worrying about Lumber and forests. They only found bigger and better trees by walking westward for a time.
And then they hit the Pacific...
They crossed the Atlantic prior to walking across the USA west.
Then they hit the Pacific. Sure.
Then they sail it and met the Japanese, Korean and China
Someday someone will pay these people cheap wages to turn out cheap products and import them while releasing entire domestic industry as irrevelant and unnecessary.
Sorry, I was trying to keep with the Peak Everything theme. They eventually ran of of bigger and better trees due to geological, geographical, and biological constraints. Peak Redwoods. I have an interactive graph here somewhere...
I am with you on that.
Lumber figures out by Railroad in the Pacific NW over the last.. 150 years or so is plenty.
I hear another spot saying that we bring in workers on Visas to do work here cheaply then they learn and go back home overseas and teach others there how to do it and later WE buy from them because no one here is left to make the widget.
Awesome. When the copper value of the McMansions exceeds the appraisal value, our housing "problem" will be OVAR!1!eleven!!
McMansions rarely use high-quality materials like copper piping. Best of luck redeeming your PVC.
I was thinking more of the wiring, but if you can't even find copper wire in McMansions, the PVC can be burned to heat your tent. ;)
So, when will landfill mining for some of these elements become plausible?