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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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I agree with this. At some point, tips/dumps will be rich resources for recycling plastics and metals. I'm not saying resources are infinite, I am just agreeing with the idea that we may one day reclassify old waste as a resource.
Peak Bullshit is more like it.
Just bring on 2012 and get it over with..
In a lot of ways I agree. 2012 smells like Y2K + Mayans. We will get to 2013. Bad things may well happen in 2012, but no more or less than 2011, or 2013 or 2050. Actually, with a fear of the number 13, I would expect more people to be worried about 2013 instead.
Unfortunately the most important peak--taxation of the rich-- was reached sometime in the early 20th century.
Actually a lot of those figures may be wrong. Most credible predictions on oil production say we've already peaked in 2008 or at the latest this year, and a new study from UC Berkley and the University of Texas says peak coal will occur in 2011. Most reachable coal estimates are highly exaggerated.
Do you have a reference? I believe that, given likely growth estimates for extraction ("production" is no more than a euphemism meant to pretty it up) still have a few decades to go. I haven't been following world-wide coal extraction because, well, if it gets to be that important we're pretty much fucked (scraping the bottom of the barrel).
The oil sands of Canada have 2.4 trl bbls Plus there are oil sands in Venezuela etc Also Sweden, Estonia and Canada have shales containing billions of pounds of uranium and oil Those shales are the Saudi Arabia of uranium. But if oil consumption rises to 100m bbls/day that 2.4 trl bbls last 70 years just on oil sands oil from Canada not including Venezuela Look up Petrobanks Thai technology EROI of 56. It uses oil sands oil not natural gas for extraction and uses less water. Funny how with 3.6bn population in 1969 we went to the moon but now population has doubled and we haven't been to the moon since. Peak innovation?
You raise a very important point. Having more people on the planet is actually reducing technological development (at least on a per capita basis but maybe also on an absolute basis). Why?
1) People are getting dumber overall. Survival of the fittest used to keep human intelligence elevated. Now thanks to liberal social policies any moron can have 10 children, while the smartest people have few if any children. Places in the world where IQ's are genetically low (West Africa, Mexico, etc.) have soaring populations because advanced countries are providing them with food and disease-curing technology.
2) Culture has changed. Democracy seems to celebrate and reward the lowest common denominator. Do politicians get elected because they're smart, or because they have a full head of hair and say non-controversial things and promise all sorts of kick backs and affirmative action payola? Why did the complex music of Bach and Mozart get replaced by rock-n-roll? Why did Shakespeare get replaced by Harold and Kumar?
3) Funds poorly allocated by the government. Science used to be about discovering laws of nature and making useful products. Now it's largely funded by the government and professional scientists spend much of their careers simply trying to create successful grant proposals. Research grants are handed out for political reasons or because a scientist is well connected or to encourage some "minority group" to get involved in science or because a proposal sounds good on paper (even though it's complete crap) or because the government thinks that throwing more money at science will make better science. Enormous amounts of money are thrown at "big science" projects (NASA, the Super-Conducting Super Collider, International Space Station, etc.) that the public seem to accept as worthwhile (they aren't) and which are really just massive kickbacks for political supporters.
4) Children not being raised in an intellectual environment. Used to be almost every child in the U.S. would be raised by a stay-at-home mother. That mother could talk to them, read to them, tutor them, feed them proper food, etc., which helped stimulate mental development. Smart children from smart families would read a lot; there were no computer games to suck up time and, before the late 1940's, no TV to further reduce junior's mental abilities. Not that TV is inherently bad -- it could be used to educate, but there's less and less of that going on (and more and more commercials and moronic sports programming).
5) There are less resources to go around per person. For example, children that grow up without proper food will have damaged brains. (This does not mean we should feed them!! It means we should sterilize their parents before those children are born.)
1) Is human intelligence higher in prisons? (where the survival of the fittest is still in effect)
2) Mozart and Willy the Shake have been augmented, not replaced.
3) Funds poorly allocated by capitalists...to 'discover' viagra.
4) True enough. Who made 2-worker families a requirement again?
5) We're more than capable of providing for everyone, should we want to do so.
"Used to be almost every child in the U.S. would be raised by a stay-at-home mother."
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/about.htm
Hm... I wasn't seeing mothers in those factories with those children...
Leave It to Beaver’ and ‘Ozzie and Harriet’: American Families in the 1950s” (1992)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18055393/1960s-Course-Coontz-1950s-Families
The 1950s which everyone seems to use as the "standard," was an aboration, in essence a big marketing setup for what was to come (but could never be sustained). Look outside of this decade and you will find that your (liberal?) view quickly fails in the light of real scrutiny.
Maybe if your parents had been sterilized I'd never have had to waste this energy trying to un-do what your highly-susceptible-to-propaganda-brain has been programmed for?
Too late, they're already running the country.
Cool...now can you make it not cost 3x to retrieve something we can use?
I'm a mildly militant agnostic when it comes to climate change and peak oil. ie. "I don't know and you don't either!"
In both cases the people feeding us the bull (figures, charts etc) stand to gain money &/or power if we buy it.
Also, established trends need to continue for the prophesied outcome to occur. In the case of "global warming" the trend has at least faltered, and probably failed. In the case of "peak oil" the trend appears intact, however there is little or no independent data, and it is sure that a perception of scarcity supports the price.
How many "Gull Islands" exist around the world? How many more extraction estimates are waiting to be "upgraded" before production begins?
http://www.usgs.gov/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=21&id=1131&artlang=en
If one presumes the figures are correct, many things could happen to change the trend. For example: What will happen to China's oil imports after its building bubble busts?? Will they still import for storage? US demand could decrease further and is unlikely to increase soon unless the Northeast has unusually cold winters.
If we have an oil shortage "peak oil" will be handy to take the blame, while oil companies rake in trillions and reluctantly ramp up production. Meanwhile govenment gets to increase control of all motor transport
Not to mention wars will probably be fought over resources. The Nation that can grasp something valuable and fight off weaker nations that want it too, will then prosper. The rest have to learn to either go back to living in the 1800's without oil or band together and remove this strong nation.
Or do what Brazil did. Make fuel without oil. While the USA was in the grip of a Embargo, Brazil started to implement a non-oil fuel program. Now it has been a few decades and Brazil is doing quite well.
"Not to mention wars will probably be fought over resources."
Probably? Can anoyone name a war that wasn't fought over/for resources? Remember: look at the initiator; and, "spreading democracy" is complete BS.
"Or do what Brazil did. Make fuel without oil. While the USA was in the grip of a Embargo, Brazil started to implement a non-oil fuel program. Now it has been a few decades and Brazil is doing quite well."
Would you care to elaborate on the cause and effect? Would you be willing to wager that Brazil is "doing quite well" BECAUSE it is making fuel without oil?
OK, because I'm more interesting in stamping out ignorance than in making money off of suckers, and the fact that I might not make it back to this point to counter any dataless-driven rebuttal from you (or others), I'll just go ahead and spare you the loss by saying that Brazil's ethanol use constitutes roughly 7% (or 9%) of their total liquid fuel consumption. People have been duped into believing that Brazil was the model for ethanol (sustainable?) production; the ones doing the duping were the corn industry, who, btw, have managed to surpasss Brazil's ethanol production, using massive subsidies and inferior feedstock (sugar cane is far more productive than corn). Meanwhile, Brazil's soil is degrading very rapidly (same with those Iowa corn farmers' soil): cause and effect?
Oh yeah, Brazil is "doing well" because its per-capita energy consumption is 1/4 that of the US: if the US dropped its energy consumption to 1/4 it too could meet its CURRENT needs (for a while). That, and the fact that they, drum roll please, had major discoveries of oil!
Best that "alternatives" will do for us is to just keep the lights on. Unforuntately many will continue to read with the lights off...
But will we be damned by half measures because we can't completely eliminate the plausability that inaction may be viable? I may disagree with their projections on the consequences of inaction, but you have to be willfully stupid to avoid the necessity of action at this point.
So, why only apply fatalistic coloring to only one side of the equation?
"The chief cause of problems is solutions." - Eric Sevareid
first sentence: Downing effect. Google it. That's you. You don't know so nobody else must either.
Listen, some DO know.
M. King Hubbert didn't concoct the Peak theory math in order to help the fucking elite, douche. I mean, seriously, man, stop talking out of your ASS, ok? Turn the TV off, get off ZH, and go do some freaking reading.
There's little or no independent data of peak? Look, dude, the USA peaked in 1970. It happened, ok? How stupid should you feel, I mean really embarrassed that you DO NOT KNOW this yet you feel confident enough to actually SPEAK in a discussion about it?
Anyone who has ANYTHING to do with petroleum would simply laugh their ass off at what you say, because you are laughably clueless.
What I'm saying may seem like an insult; that's because it IS...and it is warranted.
Mr Insulting:
Since i've been an officer in my state level Mensa group for over 20 years, i guess that IF one of us is suffering from the "dowing effect" it is not i. Yes, the TV is on sometimes, but i require those who watch it to wear headphones so it does not disturb my research!
Certianly there are lots of folk that think they "know", and some who also have an almost religious belief in the imminent arrival of peak oil.
By lack of independent data i mean that most "known" world oil reserves and production are state owned in countries that make the US government look like a paragon of transparency. Maybe someone in the CIA has the true data but, if so, it is probably highly classified.
It is not necessary for Mr Hubbert to be employed by the elites for them to use his theory for their purposes. Sure, US production and admitted reserves peaked long ago, but, was that merely a strategic economic choice by the elite, nicely timed to suit Mr Hubbert's theory?
I did notice that did not respond to my comment about the "secret" Gull Island reserves, nor my link showing the USGS upgrading admitted reserves in the Bakken formation by 25 times. How much more of this is there, and how can anyone know on a worldwide basis?
the intersection of the increasing number of perspectives with
the increasing capacity of perspectives to intersect. what is the word/phrase?
the paucity of abundance. tsunami of phase transitions? phase transition?
feedback noise? leverage? post mortem per ca pita insult um? irony insult-us?
smokum if ya got em? get rhythm....
NRBQ- "Get Rhythm"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u8UmdH_CM4
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just say no....
NRBQ "Get A Job"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXYYPkKxlDE&p=E61FCE4E534A86A1&playnext=1&index=27
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import / export fusion, ongoing.
Serious PUI. Posting Under the Influence.
apologies, :-$
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ZiixkruCY&feature=related
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peak everything turns me blathering random, need a quest..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-PQbdmQRwc&feature=related
Edmund Fitzgerald
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1Ou9q0M-0&feature=related
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl-CfQvz21Y&feature=related
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and this tooooooooo.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwzRkjn86w&feature=related
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includes all the verses..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlB9VftOcI&NR=1
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"green lights". no more.
all red. i must
sto p
Weak sauce.
The weakest thing about so-called peak oil theory is that its proponents can't get straight what they are claiming.
Are you claiming oil production will someday peak and then decline, because there is a finite amount of oil in the ground? If so, duh duh duh duh, everybody with a functioning brain understands that, and anybody who disagrees can be rightly mocked for believing in unicorns and leprechauns.
Or, are you claiming that oil production is likely to peak very soon, say by 2014 as Scientific American is claiming? If so, you need to do some further research. There is not one single actual professional oil industry analyst who agrees with you (working for the industry and not just selling books). The fact is, many fields that were planned to come on line by 2014 have been delayed due to weaker than expected demand.
Which brings up another important point: the stronger the global economy grows, the sooner we reach peak oil. I don't care which you believe: fast recovery and sooner peak oil, deepening crisis and farther off peak oil, or somewhere in between. Just be consistent.
JFC, that is EXACTLY what Peak Oil means!
WTF? There are fucking 20 studies out there, some of whom forecast Peak prior to now, some after. Your statement is factually wrong. As of now, the DATA shows a clear C&C peak in 2005, and an all-liquids peak in 2008. It remains to be seen as to whether these will hold but we are within the window that consensus studies identified as probable Peak date ranges.
"The fact is, many fields that were planned to come on line by 2014 have been delayed due to weaker than expected demand."
If a bullfrog had wings...
Perhaps you're missing the point that the tired consumer can no longer consume, that they can NOT push on a string?
The POINT is that there isn't enough demand to justify "producing" more oil, and if that demand to INCREASE "production" isn't there, then it therefore follows that "peak 'production'" CAN happen due to a lack of demand. Damn those people anyway, for not wanting to slave harder, go into more debt so that they can keep those oil "production" numbers propped up!
Like the rational folks know/understand, there will end up being a LOT of oil left in the ground. In the end the blame will be that god didn't provide us with enough energy required to extract that engery- damn!
Updated DOW weekly chart:
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
Thank u, i found this for a long time.
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