Oil production can be confusing because there are various “pieces” that may or may not be included. In this analysis, I look at oil production of the United States broadly (including crude oil, natural gas plant liquids, and biofuels), because this is the way oil consumption is defined. I also provide some thoughts regarding the direction of future world oil prices.
Figure 1. US Liquid Fuels production by month based on EIA March 2016 Monthly Energy Review Reports.
US oil production clearly flattened out in 2015. If we look at changes relative to the same month, one-year prior, we see that as of December 2014, growth was very high, increasing by 18.0% relative to the prior year.
Figure 2. US Liquids Growth Over 12 Months Prior based on EIA’s March 2016 Monthly Energy Review.
By December 2015, growth over the prior year finally turned slightly negative, with production for the month down 0.2% relative to one year prior. It should be noted that in the above charts, amounts are on an “energy produced” or “British Thermal Units” (Btu) basis. Using this approach, ethanol and natural gas liquids get less credit than they would using a barrels-per-day approach. This reflects the fact that these products are less energy-dense.
Figure 3 shows the trend in month-by-month production.
Figure 3. US total liquids production since January 2013, based on EIA’s March 2016 Monthly Energy Review.
The high month for production was April 2015, and production has been down since then. The production of natural gas liquids and biofuels has tended to continue to rise, partially offsetting the fall in crude oil production. Production amounts for recent months include estimates, and actual amounts may differ from these estimates. As a result, updated EIA data may eventually show a somewhat different pattern.
Taking a longer view of US liquids production, this is what we see for the three categories separately:
Figure 4. US Liquid Fuel Production since 1949, based on EIA’s March 2016 Monthly Energy Review.
Growth in US liquid fuel production slowed in 2015. The increase in liquid fuels production in 2015 amounted to 1.96 quadrillion Btus (“quads”), or about 59% as much as the increase in production in 2014 of 3.34 quads. On a barrels-per-day (bpd) basis, this would equate to roughly a 1.0 million bpd increase in 2015, compared to a 1.68 million bpd increase in 2014.
The data in Figure 4 indicates that with all categories included, 2015 liquids exceeded the 1970 peak by 16%. Considering crude oil alone, 2015 production amounted to 98% of the 1970 peak.
Figure 5 shows an approximate breakdown of crude oil production since 1945 on a bpd basis. The big spike in production is from tight oil, which is another name for oil from shale.
Figure 5. Oil crude oil production separated into tight oil (from shale), oil from Alaska, and all other, based on EIA oil production data by state.
Here again, US crude oil production in 2015 appears to amount to 98% of the 1970 crude oil peak. Thus, on a crude oil basis alone, we have not yet hit the 1970 peak.
Prospects for an Oil Price Rise
Most recent analyses of oil prices have focused on the amount of mismatch between supply and demand, and the need to craft a temporary agreement to reduce oil production. The thing that is missing in this discussion is an analysis of buying power of consumers. Is the problem a temporary problem, or a permanent one?
In order for oil product demand to keep rising, the buying power of consumers needs to keep rising. In other words, some combination of consumer wages and debt levels of consumers needs to keep rising. (Rising debt is helpful because, with more debt, it is often possible to buy goods that would not otherwise be affordable.)
We know that in many countries, wages for lower-level workers have stagnated for a number of reasons, including competition with wages in lower-wage countries, computerization, and the use of automation (Figure 6). Thus, we know that low wages for a large share of consumers may be a problem.
Figure 6. Chart comparing US income gains by the top 10% to income gains by the bottom 90% by economist Emmanuel Saez. Based on an analysis IRS data, published in Forbes.
Figure 7 shows that world debt has been falling since June 30, 2014. This is precisely the time when world oil prices started falling.
Figure 7. Total non-financial world debt based on Bank for International Settlements data and average Brent oil price for the quarter, based on EIA data.
One reason for the fall in world debt, measured in US dollars, is the fact that the US dollar started rising relative to other currencies about this time. Oil is priced in dollars; if the US dollar rises relative to other currencies, it makes oil less affordable to those whose currencies have lower values. The big rise in the level of the dollar came when the US discontinued quantitative easing in 2014. World debt, as measured in US dollars, began to fall as the US dollar rose.
Figure 8. World Oil Supply (production including biofuels, natural gas liquids) and Brent monthly average spot prices, based on EIA data.
As long as the US dollar is high relative to other currencies, oil products remain less affordable, and demand tends to stay low.
Figure 9. Index of US dollar, relative to other currencies, compared to crude oil price.
Another issue that struck me in looking at world debt data is the way the growth in debt is distributed (Figure 10). Debt growth for households has been much lower than for businesses and governments.
Figure 10. World non-financial debt divided among debt of households, businesses, and governments, based on Bank for International Settlements data.
Since March 31, 2008, non-financial debt of households has been close to flat. In fact, between June 30, 2014 and September 30, 2015, it shrank by 6.3%. In contrast, non-financial debt of both businesses and governments has risen since March 31, 2008. Government debt has shrunk by 5.6% since June 30, 2014–almost as large a percentage drop as for household debt.
The issue that we need to be aware of is that consumers are the foundation of the economy. If their wages are not rising rapidly, and if their buying power (considering both debt and wages) is not rising by very much, they are not going to be buying very many new houses and cars–the big products that require oil consumption. Businesses may think that they can continue to grow without taking the consumer along, but very soon this growth proves to be a myth. Governments cannot grow without rising wages either, because the majority of their tax revenue comes from individuals, rather than corporations.
Today, there is a great deal of faith that oil prices will rise, if someone, somewhere, will reduce oil production. In fact, in order to bring oil demand back up to a level that commands a price over $100 per barrel, we need consumers who can afford to buy a growing quantity of goods made with oil products. To do this, we need to fix three related problems:
- Low wages of many consumers
- World debt that is no longer rising (especially for consumers)
- A high dollar relative to other currencies
These problems are likely to be difficult to fix, so we should expect low oil prices, more or less indefinitely. Lack of oil supply may bring a temporary spike in oil prices, but it cannot fix a permanent problem with consumer spending around the world.
It will take a lot to shake off my positivity.
The problem is shortage of cheap energy but then I think the universe is overflowing with energy. Einstein gave us E = mC2, so we know there vast amount of energy in a drop of water which just require a technical solution to solve the energy problem. My view is most problems are related to the social order, where those higher up the order are more interested in staying on top rather than helping humankind, when humanity evolves to the point where individuals can prioritise the good of the whole as more important than the basic drives of the Id then the universe will provide plenty of energy.
OK all wishful thinking
Not wishful thinking at all. You are perfectly correct. Also, I suppose you could say that humans are an integral part of the universe, and that the universe–humans and all–must solve its own problems. I’d also say that humans are “wired” to work together. So, whether or not we “succeed” is up to the whole. I don’t take it as essentially MY problem. Which leads to a quote from Haile Selassie: “Man (humans, individually or collectively?) proposed, God disposes.” We are only in a position to propose. My 2 cents.
You could run for the leadership of Delusistan on the groovy vision! Far out man.
The fact, if that’s indeed an objective fact, we have not identified any E.T.s yet, seems to support the thesis, that they are either so far ahead they are masked (invisible) from detection, or they don’t exist. Anyway, one of the most psychologically sound theories is that our universe is basically a tiny fraction of the multiverse, and humanoids on Earth are basically just a host organism, utilized as a penal colony for souls of past bad behaviour, deeds done in the “upper universe”. That would also fit nicely with the observation about deep psychopathic traits all around us.
going a bit off topic, but the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, maybe its been designed such that its hard for ET to come into contact with each other?
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/104-the-universe/cosmology-and-the-big-bang/expansion-of-the-universe/616-is-the-universe-expanding-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-intermediate
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In a few years, Slovakia will be the country with the oldest population in EU. The experts are looking for the model for lowering the state pensions:
http://ekonomika.sme.sk/c/20147365/buduci-dochodcovia-sa-musia-uskromnit-hlada-sa-model-na-znizenie-penzii.html?ref=trz
Yep, check the latest greatest article from Chris Hamilton:
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2016/04/overpopulations-depopulations.html
For the most coherent model, we have to make synthesis of demographics, energy, politics as they are apparently semi-dependent. The early peakers focused only on energy and had it wrong, it’s not true energy is the single driver.
As I’ve mentioned several times already the ~2025-35 period flashes on all key radars as probable important milestone for harsh systemic reset. Chris now provides more updated graphs along the same line.
That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have nasty market crash or wider war before 2020, but as I asked previously and Chris mentioned this time (for the first time?) – who can stop Japan or Europe to go into 1.000-10.000% debt levels? So for the near terms the propensity to paper over problems remains strong, demographic effects and depletion start kicking a bit later on. This is great news for younger folks who are willing to readjust their life plans, but not much of a good message for instadoomers or old folks yearning to see the “forest fires” before they depart.
Dear worldofhanumanotg,
the changes toward the depopulation were started in the time when the social benefits, purchasing power etc. started to deteriorate. And it was due to the lack of cheap energy. The population is a function of the cheap energy, this can be visible especially in the colder regions that will face significant population declines.
I lack the comparison of warm and cold regions in the analysis of Chris Hamilton. The cheap energy is the key for the population declines.
The limits of the increasing thicknes of the insulation of the buildings consist in the fact that the thick insulation finally turns your house into a cold cave, i.e. you must heat it not only in winter, but also in summer… The insulation will not save the cold regions from the lack of cheap energy for heating.
I would say that painting the houses with black colour is a better solution than adding more and more insulation, i.e. hot areas white colour, cold areas black colour:
http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-science/color-and-energy-matters
“On a 90 degrees F / 32.2 C clear sunny, day in Austin Texas, a white roof had a temperature of 110 degrees F / 43.3 C, an aluminum coated roof, 140 degrees F / 60 C, while a black, single ply roof, a temperature of almost 190 degrees F / 87.8 C (yes, one hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit, eighty seven plus degrees Celsius).”
Thanks, MG. This is simple (and cheap) enough for most of us to handle. And very effective, seemingly. Common sense, Nothing more.
you might get away with painting your house white, but unless you live in an isolated environment, painting your house black (particularly) would get you labelled as decidely weird in the uk for instance, and probably get you a notice from some environmental planning department
No black house would be complete without a black flag
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/files/2015/12/France-Paris-Attacks4.jpg
i think i recognise that guy
I think he used to be a plumber in London….
Depending on the season, a white or black tarp, respectively, could be draped over parts of a south facing wall…and/or, if possible, over all or parts of the roof.
Dear Artleads,
another possibility instead of using coloured tarp could be the house painted with the black colour with a construction in some distance in front of its walls grown over by grapevine (or some similar plant that sheds leaves in the autumn).
The historical houses of the people in the mountains like in Slovakia were built out of the wood that became black anyway:
http://www.spoznaj.eu/album/zuberec/medium/0004.jpg
True, MG. I think seasonal vines will do the trick. Although some people worry about damage to the walls.But then you mention a detached wall separate from the house wall. That could require a means to conduct the heat into the house?
Dear Artleads,
the detached structure supporting the seasonal vines would shade the black/dark coloured walls of the house in summer and, when the leaves are not present in the winter, the walls of the house can receive maximum sunlight. The detached structure would protect the walls from being damaged by the plants.
It is something like the double-skin facade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-skin_facade
MG
Exactly, I know people to whom this has happened: as temperatures rise in the English summer (contrary to rumour, it does exist!), the house interior remains too cold and heating has to be used more frequently than before the house was insulated.
Dear xabier,
the stupid EU mandatory insulation will prove to be a complete nonsense, when the citizens of the parts of the Europe with the mild to cold climate are continuing to fall more and more into energy poverty and the disruptions in the supply of energy from other parts of the world start to be a problem.
However, turning the houses into refrigerators using insulation can have meaning in warm countries:
http://www.tradearabia.com/news/CONS_268108.html
I am doubtful many people can live in Saudi Arabia, with or without insulation.
A big issue is how many workers it takes to support those who are not working. Japan is already reaching a point of declining working population, and Europe is not far behind. In years past, children started working in the fields when quite young. Also, the idea of retirement was unknown. Without a lot of fossil fuel servants, we will again need to go to a model of almost everyone working in some way.
True, one of the Hamilton’s graphs, deals with this very issue of changing ratio towards one worker per one grandpa aka 1:1, which is decades away, obviously the system snaps into disequilibrium from today’s order a bit sooner perhaps at ~ 1:2,5. However, Japan is leading this demographic trend and it’s not at the end of the road yet, Europe and Asia follows Japan with some delay (~1,5 decades), and those 3B and rising from RoW probably won’t ever develop fully further along the lines of technological civilization.
I strongly agree that children must learn by working–performing necessary services for their communities. But I don’t at all think that this can be arranged from the top down, or be driven by the macro economy. The latter is too big, unaccountable and impersonal. (For this reason, I’m also very suspicious of money.) I suspect it also requires more energy to organize society from the top down.
I don’t think top-down organization can successfully be done for very long. The Former Soviet Union collapsed; China seems to be headed that way, after a not very long upswing.
Don Stewart/Stefeun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLUMJKYaY3A
I looked at this video, and one stacked up behind it. There could be others stacked up. too. Very illuminating. Lots of BAU dependency, but knowing some of the scientific principles of passive solar can’t hurt.
Since I work on such an inefficient/primitive basis, any little knowledge I can pick up by osmosis is a help. Stuff lining your wall will moderate temperature.(My own experience.) But having a little science to help you is a plus.
Artleads,
Thanks for the video, but it’s too long (50 min), the guy looks confuse, and -overall- I’m not really interested with what he says 😉
My favourite: http://www.heliodome-uk.com
NB: not to be followed scrupulously (too much glass, for example), but all the basic principles are there, and for a very simple reason: the design, a projection of the double-cone sun-rays make with Earth equator, follows the trajectory of the sun, and is therefore auto-adjusted to the amount of sun you want in the house at each period of the year.
Thanks for the link. Very nice, but pricey and with “non traditional” upkeep..imagine roof/window leak repairs in your later years, the view into the valley is just stunning though. However, you can have similar space floor plan (not m3 volume) for fraction of that price by conventional building, partly earth-bermed north/east wall (Europe), and diy 10-20.000 liter solar heat tank with few dozens m2 panels. Energies are cheap and supply is non interrupted, so nobody/few people care.. yet..
yes don the new economics may be the end result after bau ends and is followed by years of unimaginable chaos and violence will we survive to see the new economics i doubt it
If there spent fuel ponds were not extinctors — then I would agree with you — except that I’d replace years with decades – even centuries…
Anyone who is alive right now and who is around post BAU – will experience a very grim existence — their lives will be a nightmare — starvation, disease, deprivation, violence….
I fail to see how that ends — in light of the fact that there will be no source of energy beyond trees… it is not like we get to re-start BAU at some point… We’ll of course try — and cut down all the trees in the process — surely.
Yikes! ! !
World oil reserves overstated by as much as 50%.
If that’s the case, then BAU cannot be sustained much longer.
Source:
http://peakoil.com/geology/the-peak-is-back
http://peakoil.com/geology/how-much-oil-is-left-3
Naaah, Fast Eddy’s “Mister Beast”, will just shut the tap off of “loser” nations….
Remarkable as it seems, so called just, decent, civilized societies will take the playbook of those from the past and reap what they need in a cover of morality!
Wasn’t the idea of “concentration camps” from Indian Reservations!
Yes, winners seem to justify their policies to enhance a secure “good life” at the expense of lesser people. We see it already today named “the war on terror”.
Yes, the Beast it is….the game continues.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pDlNIPCirLk
Watch out….
True dat. As the elevator descends, nations will be politely asked to get off. If they don’t, they will be pushed off. “Let’s go crazy!”
Yes, there will be much stepping off.
I can hear President Trump now
“We must maintain order and a degree of control to make it past these difficult times.
That is why I am placing our brave service men and women in harm’s way. America is great once again! Like in past times of turmoil, we are living up to our ideals of freedom and democracy. There are those that despise us for being so, and we must sacrifice to defend our noble and just character that our Founding Fathers displayed in equally threatening situations.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nKqCEuv5c6M
God Bless America
My view is of course that price determines what will actually be pumped. A lot of the remaining reserves will stay in the ground.
Speaking about “price”; remember some comments by the leader of Germany regarding “Economics”. One was concerning wages of then occupied territories. Seems not too concerned about wage levels in defeated nations…pay them half of what their worth and reap the profits.
Regarding advancement in technological output or production…..just build twice as much!
Adolf was also eager to let millions of Russians perish by starvation….the Beast be with him….in another words ….he kept things simple….as pur current leaders are doing today.
WTI, what is WTI?
It is something that does not really exist any more. The sweet crude that established the WTI standard just is not there any more. You pay a barrel but you do not get the amount of BTUs that are supposed to be in a barrel of WTI. That might also be a reason why the price must go down.
I mean, you get 1/3 of fracking sludge, 1/3 of Canadian tar sludge and 1/3 of saudi triple A rated loans in a package , wait, that has been the trick in another industry lately…
True…the Crude of today is certainly “sub-prime” 🙂
Citi: Here’s why oil prices may rise
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/17/citi-heres-why-oil-prices-may-rise.html
It expects Venezuela, Nigeria and Algeria to all see declining supply growth on lack of investment, political instability and social unrest, while Iraqi output may flatline. In particular, it expects Venezuelan output could fall by around 200,000 barrels a day this year.
But Citi isn’t expecting too much demand growth to ease the glut, adding that’s due to — not despite — low oil prices. It noted that from 2003-2015, around 55 percent of global oil demand growth came from oil-exporting regions.
“High oil prices were bullish for oil demand,” it said. “That feedback loop now is running in reverse.”
The Wall Street banks have different views on oil and oil prices. In my opinion they all have something right in a complex matter as oil, currencies, producers, consumers, globalization… and so on.
Too high oil prices leads to collapse… too low oil prices leads to collapse… equilibrium is impossible to find… roller-coaster oil prices leads to collapse… nothing is ever good enough… so… how long can this go on ?
Exactly! We don’t have an equilibrium point any more where oil demand grows.
That never crossed my mind. In that case there is only decline and chaos left ?
We seem to be awfully close to the edge. How exactly that will play out is not entirely clear. Perhaps slight of hand can be used to keep the system together for a bit longer.
And starvation … don’t forget starvation … the only question that remains is when.
’bout two more years.
From Forbes, 2015:
“Is the U.S. economy going to crash this year? Is the stock market going to crash in 2015? Is a bear market underway? The answer is a resounding “yes,” according to many pundits across the financial media from CNBC to the Wall Street Journal. Considering that some doom and gloomers have been predicting financial Armageddon since the book of Genesis should you believe them now? And if they are years early in making their calls, are they still correct?”
From The Washington TImes, 2014:
“there is a very large probability that the real end of the world will occur around March 4, 2014. The doomsday clock will ring then because the U.S. economy may fully crash around that date, which will, in turn, bring down all world economies and all hope of any recovery for the foreseeable future — certainly over the course of most of our lifetimes.”
From Investment Watchblog, 2013:
Systemic crisis 2013: with record stock exchange highs, the planet’s imminent plunge into recession. Despite a feeling of relative calm given by both the media and the American and Japanese financial markets going from record to record, the world economy is slowing down badly and a widespread recession is looming. The various players are fully aware of it and, in the face of the challenges of an imminent collapse, countries or regions are putting various strategies in place to try and limit the consequences.
It goes on and on like this as far as I care to research it on the internet into the past. Experts have been predicting “the collapse” for a very long time and in modern times going back to 1973. If you predict something long enough, it is bound to eventually come true. Really, no one knows what is really going on or when and how it will happen.
This is slightly different …
e.g.
‘Ponzi lending? In China, 45% of new company debt is raised to pay interest on existing debt’
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-giant-bonfire-of-debt-needs-one-spark-to-become-an-inferno-2016-04-14
Only Fast Eddy knows for sure…..
tricky Pete says
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/germany-takes-the-lead-in-hvdc
also
DC appliances at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=dc+appliances&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=4960172584&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_9lotxnsr5f_p
Dear Finite Worlders
I recommend this to everyone:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/genetic-dark-matter-return-goddess-and-post-science-era
Will take 10 minutes to read article, 20 minutes or so to watch video of talk.
Sayer Ji is a non-medically certified person who has immersed himself in PubMed, the central repository of research related to medicine. He literally knows more about a lot of topics than the average MD…but he doesn’t practice conventional medicine. He is more adventurous than the average scientist, more willing to connect dots that a conservative might hesitate to connect. But I think you will find his conclusions challenging. It frankly reminds me of Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi’s book The Systems View of Life…everything is connected to everything else, in ways that we simply could not envision 25 years ago.
I believe it is a fact that the Industrial System that humans have constructed cannot continue. Sayer Ji’s talk may give you some ideas about what might come next.
Don Stewart
Reminds me of the book Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by Stephen Buhner.
Dear Finite Worlders
Suggest you read Charles Hugh Smith’s blogpost today in conjunction with Sayer Ji’s writings and talk:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr16/status-quo-failed4-16.html
The old scientific world view cannot be put back together, and the old economic/ political/ social paradigm cannot be rescued. We are moving into a world of lateral gene transfer, where your ‘wealth’ is what you can do today in symbiosis with a myriad of other independent actors, from microbes to other humans.
But the Old Order may not go peacefully, and great suffering will ensue. Also, most people will wish that the Supreme Soviet or equivalent was around to organize their lives….which is very unlikely to happen. Might result in War Lords, or might evolve into
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-25/emergence-of-a-new-economics
Bad omen for the latter possibility…Gandhi was assassinated.
Don Stewart
theres some brilliant ideas on this site. good find!
Artleads
Also on the issue of insulation, and perhaps pertinent to your concerns in New Mexico. The Black Range Lodge owners are interested in Natural Building. They hosted a Natural Building conference last fall. They have several natural buildings on the property. I will be there with grandchildren in a few months, and I asked if they would give them a little tour of the property. They graciously agreed.
So if you ever want to get away to a peaceful place far away from everything, you might stay a while at the Black Range Lodge and discuss natural building.
The Lodge is at high elevation, so might be less pertinent to river valley situations. Day maximums to night minimums is usually 30 degrees or more. So thermal mass might be a good idea.
Don Stewart
http://www.blackrangelodge.com
Don,
Please let me know close to when you decide to come to these parts.
Fellow worldsters—if you want to start your Monday with an insane head-banging laugh—read the article on this link about Saudi.
Ive clipped a section of it—just to give a flavour of it.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/24/saudi-arabia-set-to-reveal-vision-for-post-oil-future/
Quote clipped from above link———-Saudi Arabia has traditionally depended on the oil sector for 90% of its budget, but that won’t last forever.
On Monday, reforming deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is set to unveil his “Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” according to a fascinating profile by Bloomberg.
In an 8-hour interview, the 30-year-old prince outlined how he plans to make the economy resilient against commodity fluctuations. “We don’t care about oil prices—$30 or $70, they are all the same to us,” he said, with remarkable nonchalance.
As we previously reported, he is planning to start selling shares in national oil firm Saudi Aramco, ultimately building up a US$2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. By 2035, he expects those diversified investments to be the state’s main source of income.————
Sooooooo——based on the above, Saudi’s income is going to be based on “external” investments, which are themselves entirely dependent on continued supply of Saudi oil. Not only that, after sucking all their oil out of the ground and either selling it the the infidels, or using to finance wars with the infidels, they are selling shares to the infidels in an oil business which is running out of oil!!!
There’s someone banging on my door—men in white coats have come to take me awayyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
Let’s see that is +100 billion dollars per year and this year they saved -400 billion dollars.
Yep, the direct link for the original article is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-04-21/the-2-trillion-project-to-get-saudi-arabia-s-economy-off-oil
Speaking of the 31yrs old ambitious prince, there are roughly the following options:
– his policies will hasten the global collapse (my take 65%)
– his policies will hasten the overthrow of his political faction-clan inside Saudi (34%)
– his policies will succeed eventually (1%)
Anyway, the bottom line is, did he have access to the Aramco reservoir depletion books or not so far? He seems to behave he had been provided at least with some limited expose aka doing crazy future bets now.
thanks for the original link, I hadn’t read it—wondeful fantasy
it really does tear up the sanity claus
I have been watching this for some time.
More can be read here…
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-saudi-arabias-cabinet-approves-reform-plan-state-media-2016-4
For the Saudi’s to even raise the subject of “no oil” is startling since they always state such massive reserves.
I am in the camp with the late Matt Simmons (Author of Twilight in the Desert) and the theory that the end is already in sight for the giant Gahwar field. Water Cuts have been increasing rapidly over the past decade and new fields are not being found.
Moving the country to an giant investment fund seems absurd. A perfect addition to the BAU lunacy of derivatives and banking. This would turn the country into giant Leech which offers and created nothing, but skims profits and dividends from investments.
Divesting of 5% of Saudi Aramco (as a share offering) signals the lower value they put on the future of the company. Let’s dump some of this thing now while we can !
Here’s a scenario….
A financial collapse occurs 2 years after they switch from oil to “investing”. Currencies are re-valued, companies go bankrupt, and banks fail. In turn wiping out all sovereign wealth for the new “investment” country.
Time will tell, but running a country on the returns from it’s financial investments seem absurd. …. Unless they now have such extensive financial control of other countries and policies that the Saudis could pull the strings for some time and extend BAU.
and….
QUOTE:
“I think by 2020, if oil stops we can survive,” Prince Mohammed said. “We need it, we need it, but I think in 2020 we can live without oil.”
IMHO if the oil stops by 2020 there will be few investments worth holding and the Saudi Wealth fund will be the biggest single financial mess in the history of the world.
If Gahwar is in decline, then so is the whole world.
we should maybe pick out one single scary word there:
“IF”
–a week or two ago comments were flying around on here about when will collapse kick in. I set out my reasons why it would be 2022.
Now–if this desert prince is saying “if” we have no oil by 2020, and his head still seems to be attached to his shoulders, (unless it’s been photoshopped back on) there would seem to be an element of truth in what he’s saying–after all, if he doesn’t have access to reserve figures–who does?
the 2020 date is scarily close to my 2022 figure, given that when Saudi enters its final precipitous decline phase, we won’t know about it until it cannot be hidden. That will be after 2020—with things getting worse and worse for the Saudi people as their fantasyland begins to disintegrate, and the religious factions begin to turn on each other- drifting towards my 2022 date.
Conflict will shut down what’s left of any oilflow, and the Saudi regime will collapse altogether because once the US fleet sees there’s no oil there–they will sail away and leave them in their own killing fields,
Saudi will no longer be able to sustain its population, when that happens 30m people will suddenly realise they live in a desert with food and water for only 1 million people. The other desert kingdoms will lose the Saudi prop and also topple. They exist mainly through “finance”.
Iran might not be in such bad shape immediately–until war closes the Strait of Hormuz–the chokepoint that’s been obvious since the taners started using it.
Just over 4.5 yrs remaining…. he better get on the phone to his pimp and call in more beauty queens and blow … gotta make the best of what little time remains!
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/27/saudi_arabia_executes_people_over_drugs_while_its_princes_are_caught_with_tons_of_drugs_at_the_airport/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3507062/Saudi-prince-sued-owner-notorious-Hollywood-Hills-party-mansion-claims-trashed-100-000-month-rental-pad-wild-cocaine-stripper-fueled-party.html
THE TRUTH BEHIND SAUDI ARABIA’S SPARE CAPACITY
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/03/04/the-truth-behind-saudi-arabias-spare-capacity/
that story is some years old…..
Thanks Norman,
No need to open the link for me, I’m afraid I by far prefer your summary.
Someone else gave me a different link related to another story about Saudi Arabia investing a huge amount so it is no longer dependent on oil. I didn’t even look, the idea was so ridiculous.
are these guys just advising themselves on this problem, or are there paid advisers/economists in there
or are they just like the rest of us, completely at a loss about the future and where we’re headed, and just hanging in there on a wing and a prayer.
I didn’t read the article, but I would be willing to bet that there are paid advisors/economists behind this, showing the Saudis how investments elsewhere can save the day.
Putting aside the whole depletion of resources and system collapse the idea of living off of investments is fine. But as they have not had the discipline to build a nest egg for the last 80 years it is hard to believe they will change their character now.
I am sure there are thousands among the top hundred thousand rich folks in KSA that have large enough Swiss bank accounts to live happily ever after as long as BAU continues. They will not support cutting their grift to secure the future of the rabble.
Nest Egg : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-22/u-s-is-hiding-treasury-bond-data-that-s-suddenly-become-crucial
‘It’s a secret of the vast U.S. Treasury market, a holdover from an age of oil shortages and mighty petrodollars: Just how much of America’s debt does Saudi Arabia own? But now that question — unanswered since the 1970s, under an unusual blackout by the U.S. Treasury Department — has come to the fore as Saudi Arabia is pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East.’
Unfortunately…. the deal that Kissinger made in the 70’s was…. you guys get to become very rich (hot cars, hotter women, diamonds, coke, etc….) … but you are required to ‘loan’ (give) a large % of your petro dollar profits to the US.
In true mafia form … the US agreed to protect the Saudi’s from the bad guys (the baddest being the US… who would have had the King’s head on a platter if he disagreed — and found someone else willing to sign off on that deal)
And the thing is…
You never get to redeem any of that cash you loaned the US … if you try … well… good luck….
That’s the problem when you do deals with the Devil 🙂
One issue is that currencies naturally rebalance. If Saudi Arabia is not doing well, the natural tendency (which it must fight) is for its currency to drop relative to the dollar. It needs to have dollar reserves to try to fight this tendency. If its currency drops, it is as if the wages paid in Saudi Arabia become worth less on the world market.
Bumper Sticker seen on Uncle Sam’s Caddie
“What is MY OIL doing under your SAND”
Enough said…the big gun wins….
I happened to heard from old collegue, who moved to Saudi Arabia with his husband, that the husband has been hired to consult exactly on that sort of things and that was already few years back. Not that I would think that any amouth of consultation would help that sunking overpopulated ship.
We know that all investment is based on fiction today. If you read some sensible financial analysts, no one can understand why someone would invest in massively overvalued assets. But people do it. There is no crash as common sense is that the prices can only go up. As long as no one claims too much money out of the system, it will grow infinitely. Everything is priced on an “assumption of value” nothing HAS a real value. Gail, look at all the Chinese potiemkin villages. They are built because someone assumes that there exists a value in it. That it has no value does not matter as long as you find someone that pays more for the crap.
Therefore it is quite logical that the Saudis just sing to the tune. This can only be clarified unless the people come back to the Marx understanding that only human labour adds value. That is still far away, maybe 2022.
The thing is…
Argentina issued bonds the other day — and they were oversubscribed. Now who would be so eager to purchase bonds from a serial defaulter?
Institutional money was lined up around the block because although they know this is likely to end in tears — this is the only way they can gain any sort of yield in a ZIRP environment.
We have been seeing similar activity across the junk bond market for some time now
I interpret this as the financial community understands how this ends — it does not matter if you have what is perceived to be the safest investment (a US gov bond… a London property… gold….) … or a shitty Argentinian bond in your portfolio —- IT DOES NOT MATER — it is ALL going to zero….
So it makes sense to buy the junk and realize a higher return and dance to the sickening sounds of Air Supply.
So yes – there is no value — everything is worthless.
Very interesting presentation of data Gail. BTU’s rather than barrels makes lots of sense as does the focus on buying power: wages + credit. Lots of food for thought
Thanks! (Schinzy is a math prof. in France.)
Exter’s Pyramid (most risky to least…)
http://dzswc0o8s13dx.cloudfront.net/goldcore_bloomberg_chart1_03-10-14.png
Dear Fast Eddy;
This graphic is a little bit wrong. The most secure investment is obviously spare parts.
After BAU, your gold is only worth something if you know someone who has something that you want to buy, and wants a yellow metal rather than food/clothing/etc.
Gold – one ounce is worth a bushel of wheat.
Spare tube for your wheelbarrow – priceless.
Sincerely,
Pintada
Guns and Ammo also need to be added … very bottom
Or maybe none of them work.
They left out ‘case of canned beans and tuna’ below gold 🙂
Good point!
According to this site..
…this institute of higher education…
http://news.colgate.edu/scene/2014/11/urban-legends.html
the human death rate due to earthquakes in rural areas is greater than the human death rate due to earthquakes in densely populated urban areas. The study they reference is not identified.
Are they right?
If they’re not, no one is listening to them, anyway, so no harm done.
ARBP,
I only had time to scan this. Hope to read it later. I like the way the writer thinks. Not sure how he’s defining rural here, or whether he’s talking on a per capita basis.
Bank of Japan Owns Over Half of Japanese ETFs; Why Stop There?
In addition to being well on the way of cornering the Japanese bond market, the bank of Japan is even further on its way of cornering the Japanese stock market.
Bloomberg reports Bank of Japan Owns More Than Half of Nation’s ETFs.
The Bank of Japan may become an even bigger shareholder of the nation’s equities if policy makers decide to boost stimulus this week. The central bank’s holdings have been rising since it began buying Japanese exchange traded funds at the start of the decade, and now account for more than half of those ETFs.
https://mishtalk.com/2016/04/24/bank-of-japan-owns-over-half-of-japanese-etfs-why-stop-there/
Hmmm… so what if the BOJ owns the entire stock market?
Was there a lecture on that in Econ 101?
Yes, the chapter is called:
“A transition from market economy into command style production system”
Bringing demand up forcefully.
How the iPhone Will Maul Tech Sector Earnings
This is what we can look forward to this week.
Apple will report earnings on April 26 for the quarter ending March 31, its second quarter. According to Zacks, the ex-bad-items non-GAAP consensus earnings forecast is $1.97 per share. FactSet pegs it at $2.00 per share. A year ago, Apple reported $2.33 a share.
This would be a 15% year-over-year decline. It would be the first since the decline in the July-September quarter 2013. Apple could throw in miscellaneous disappointments in its numbers or its outlook – because it has been tough out there.
There has already been a slew of disappointing tech reports last week – the week of bad omens. On Monday, highflier Netflix scared investors with its lagging subscriber growth. Shares crashed 14%. They’re down 28% from their peak in January yet still sport a nose-bleed PE ratio of 330!
Other tech companies also reported inglorious results last week, such as IBM whose revenues fell for the 16th quarter in a row. The only hope is that it can continue to lay off people and buy back enough of its own shares – until what? No one knows.
On Friday, Microsoft rattled investors with a further decline in revenues, down 5.5% from a year ago. For the first three quarters of its fiscal year, revenues are down 9.4%. Among analysts, this triggered some “growth concerns” apparently. Its shares plunged 7.2% on Friday.
And Google, or rather Alphabet, rattled investors with disappointing profits and margin concerns stemming from higher mobile phone use and the growth in automated ads. Its shares dropped 5.4% on Friday. Between Netflix, Microsoft, and Alphabet, $68 billion in illusory stockholder wealth evaporated.
But Apple is bigger than any of them. According to FactSet, “Apple is expected to be the largest contributor to the blended earnings decline for the Information Technology sector for Q1 2016.”
These “blended” earnings are based on a mix of companies that have already reported and the consensus forecast for those that have not. FactSet’s numbers are based on non-GAAP ex-bad-items earnings. As reported under GAAP, earnings tend to look a lot grimmer.
And this blended ex-bad-items earnings “growth” for the tech sector is a decline of 7.4%!
Apple is the giant in the group. Based on these estimates, Apple is going to be responsible for 3.3 percentage points of that 7.4% decline.
More http://wolfstreet.com/2016/04/24/apple-iphone-revenue-decline-sinks-tech-sector-earnings/
http://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/US-apple-v-tech-eps-growth.png
One must also look at how well these companies are doing shifting from high cost labor in the high cost countries to low cost labor in the low cost countries. Also look at total number of employees which can rise even while revenues fall as the labor force is rationalized. Also look at how broadly or narrowly income is sourced from various countries. Apple having a dependence on a few first world countries.
All I am looking at is the declining sales and profits… that’s really all that matters.
I am not interested in the excuses…
Maybe PE ratios can go to infinity.
I can’t see why not! (sarc)
A friend of mine deals with LEED certification of buildings. This is a program that encourages energy efficient building — insulation,efficient AC, etc. I asked if a 12,000 sq ft single family house can be certified? It uses more energy than a inefficient 1200 sq ft house. He shrugged his shoulders and said “yes”.
Which brings up a larger issue: the – Jevon’s Paradox.
As a current example, now that the price of televisions have plunged, no one is buying a 19″ tv much reduced in cost and pocketing the difference, we are buying 50″ tvs
Yes the fraudulent opulence is mind blowing. Just a few generations ago, grandparents, parents, ten kids, and few more oddball adult family members (widows/aunts) all lived together, sometimes even plus the dairy animals, helping with winter heating. Nowadays, it’s all about opulent “freedom space”, single car drivers, most of the day empty houses or city flats. What a strange, perverse and unique epoch for mankind.
you mean you actually want to move in with the livestock?
or worse—have your inlaws move in with you?
Choose:
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/living-together-with-animals-johnson-moya.jpg
or
http://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/75b1d85b0104b2ee_4-2446/traditional-exterior.jpg
I’m going with door number two….
Why would you give up all that heat and have your goats outside?
Because the goats would chew throw all my clothes if I let them inside 🙂
“Because the goats would chew throw all my clothes if I let them inside:)”
Only if they got into your abilify stash. 🙂
how dyou know its not the same house
All comes down to what population density you are willing to have. For door number two many would need to be thrown under the bus.
Also heard about insulation material,
that can be very efficient, but embeds so much energy (used for its manufacturing) that it’ll never be able to compensate by the savings in heating costs it allows over the lifetime of the building.
I think something as simple as wallpapering could provide a bit of insulation, but I haven’t researched that. Insulation can be done inexpensively, though. That I’m certain of.
Stefeun wasn’t commenting about the cost of insulation, Artleads. He was commenting about the total amount of energy that is required to make modern insulation. He was talking about the embodied energy of insulation. The embodied energy of insulation must not be reflected in current prices because of cheap energy from fossil fuels is hiding the energy cost.
How did people in sedentary societies insulate their homes in cold climates before fossil fuels and what was the cost? if they did at all? It must have been much more expensive than it is now if it was possible. I suspect there was a greater priority on insulating animate objects such as humans than inanimate ones.
You can insulate with straw bales
or shredded newspaper
Both of these materials have pluses and minuses as insulating materials. Straw bales are very tricky when it comes to moisture/ vapor drive A lime plaster and a large overhang is the only thing that works. I personally would only build with this material in a dry climate. Now add the embodied energy of the lime plaster (including all energy inputs please), the metal lathe or chicken wire and the four foot steel roof overhang. I like straw bale but it requires very strict implementation. The cellulose also is a new kid on the block. It absorbs moisture readily and has shown some tendencies toward mold and odor. Its is not a light insulation. Not deal breakers just more things to consider. Lava rock in earth bags shows the best promise for a “natural” insulation. It is of course a non renewable with substantial embodied energy footprint. Once again a plaster with its embodied energy is needed.
As embodied energy is only 20% of the energy usage of the house over its lifetime the real reduction in energy use comes from reducing heated space and passive solar. In cold climates creating smaller insulated winter quarters pays big dividend both from a conservation and resilience perspective.
Not sure what a Sedentary society is. Is that the goth babes at the mall? Pre industrial tech usually went to personal insulation using animal pelts and these were quite well thought out and implemented garments from both insulation and moisture/perspiration control. Structures were usually not insulated per se. Snow shelter are amazingly comfy. In many primitive culture the most miserable time was after summer but before snow accumulation enough to create shelter.
” In many primitive culture the most miserable time was after summer but before snow accumulation enough to create shelter.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Snow is good insulation.
“How did people in sedentary societies insulate their homes in cold climates before fossil fuels and what was the cost? ”
Well, the best prepared people simply lived in caves. There are ~30 million people or so – about the population of Canada or California – who live in caves in China. In the right rock formations, it can be dry and clean and quite comfortable. The caves in Cappadocia in Turkey have been inhabited for thousands of years. Should stay around 8 celsius year round.
Thatch or grass roof has been used in Europe for centuries, if not millennia. Straw can be used in the walls. You just replace the roof and wall insulation with new straw every year, since you harvest the grain anyways. Fairly labour intensive but otherwise cheap. They still make buildings with thatch-like roofs in the tropics.
For the most part, insulation seems to have been pretty poor prior to the end of world war two or there about. Without the ability to make the roof and walls waterproof, and keep moisture and wind from blowing through, it would be quite hard. Also, without modern stoves, you either have a fire in the building filling it with smoke, or you have a giant hole where all the heat escapes.
I stayed a night in a cave hotel in Cappadocia… if you’ve got insomnia try that….
Of course it had plumbing and lights and a very nice bed….
there were no sedentary societies before the industrial revolution. You might call the 20th century the first sedentary century. In any event, no animal is intended to be sedentary.
the only ‘sedentary’ people were the aristocrats and the clergy (plus a few hangers-on). They owned the land which provided their economic support by means of 000s of workers who laboured from dawn till dusk on subsistence wages and conveniently died before they got old.
They also produced lots of kids to provide the “renewable energy” for the landed gentry (my own g-grandmother had 21, 14 of whom survived to adulthood. Most of the boys went down the mines, the girls became servants of one sort or another. (that was 1870s onwards.) There have been no real alternatives until our own time. I have had a sedentary life—which ultimately probably wasn’t good for me. (i spend money on gym membership instead, something beyond my g/father’s comprehension) But at least I’m alive .
Homes were not insulated, you had a fire and that was it. It wasn’t particularly pleasant.
The bigger your home, the bigger the fire you needed. If you had a castle and wealth, you hung your main rooms with tapestries, and slept in a fourposter bed with curtains. You also had servants to stoke fires in all your rooms. The UK is littered with crumbling castles and mansions that could not survive without the servants/land acreage to support them. (their place is now taken by tourists)
As humanity pushed north out of the tropical regions, survival has always depended on consuming the energy resources of some other entity—be it a tree (Living or fossiled) or another animal (meat and fur)–plus foodplants.
Thus a nation such as Finland, which at the moment is very prosperous, will not survive post oil because all they have is trees, which will be very quickly cut down and burned.
The deep economic crisis Greece faces as the recession enters its fourth year, as well as the new fuel taxes introduced by the government, have caused a sharp increase in the price of heating fuel.
The arrival of winter, coupled with record prices for fuel and the fact that household budgets have decreased, has forced tens of thousands of families across Greece to turn off their central heating.
As a result, the old wood-burning stoves and fireplaces have seen a revival, creating a lucrative market for legal importers and salesmen of firewood, but even more so for illegal loggers who collect and sell their product without a permit.
These illegal practices are causing serious damage to Greece’s forests. Deforestation has become a real problem – particularly since the start of December – due to illegal logging, the forest service of the Ministry for the Environment reports. The official figures suggest that thousands of hectares of forest have already suffered severe damage.
See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2011/12/23/rise-in-use-of-firewood-to-heat-homes-causing-deforestation/#sthash.uTgunTSB.dpuf
One needs to keep in mind that most people in Greece would still be using other means to heat their homes… most are not using firewood…. because other fuels remain available and people have the cash to pay for them…
Now imagine what happens when other fuels are not available — and EVERYONE is forced to resort to firewood to heat their homes….
I can imagine a hedge fund jack ass on CNBC observing this play out and explaining how his fund has huge investments into forestry and firewood distribution companies…
There’s some sort of joke involving seeing trees and forests in the above comment….
7.3B people will make short work of what’s left of the planet’s forests — not only in the colder areas but also in the equatorial regions – they’ll be using wood to cook — as well as to make tools for farming … and weapons for killing each other….
Earth can be renamed Planet Easter.
“7.3B people will make short work of what’s left of the planet’s forests ”
That seems pretty optimistic (pessimistic?) that you think there will be that many people cutting down and burning trees. I think the starvation and disease will thin those numbers greatly, in short order – within 3 months from the day the grid goes off, I suspect.
7.3B can do a lot of damage in 3 months…
All of Europe only had 150M people in the early 1800’s ….
http://www.thuto.org/ubh/ub/h202/wpop01.png
And they did this
https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ce97819490eca3ad4acabdee79f36b5b?convert_to_webp=true
Primarily before industrial uses became so widespread, land was being cleared for agriculture, and wood was being burnt for household fuel and direct industrial uses (like boiling dyes, forging and smelting metal, etc).
Wood was the primary fuel all over Europe until its shortage meant it was finally economical to pay men to dig ridiculously deep holes and extract coal from the earth.
https://www.quora.com/What-were-major-causes-of-deforestation-in-19th-century-Europe
We’re about to pick up where we left off… but with a whole lot more bodies wanting to keep warm and cook food
On the positive side — there isn’t going to be any food to cook for very long — the hordes will quickly kill and eat all animals (and small children as they are most succulent) .. and as we know … virtually all farmland will be useless because it has been farmed and ruined with petro chemical fertilizers.
On the mega positive side…. everyone will be extincted by a combination of starvation, disease, violence and The Spent Fuel Ponds….
Starvation will kick in big time within a month max (when people run out of food at their homes and the shops empty for good) so if the trees can make it through till then they win!
When I listen to the leaves of the trees rustling in the breeze I can here them whisper to each other ‘it’s almost over… the freak show has finally done itself in…. the chainsaws are about to be silenced… the axe blade to rust into oblivion … and finally … we return to peace and tranquility’
I wish I had been born a tree…. a majestic Redwood would be my choice… imagine the view!
http://www.carto.net/neumann/travelling/usa_westcoast_05_2002/07_oregon_caves_redwood_highway_no_1_westcoast_25_05_2002/02_redwood_tree.jpg
interesting take on timber usage in ironmaking, and the fact that people will go on burning it no matter what
http://oem.bmj.com/content/62/2/128.full
Art leads. City bus with a long side facing south and newspaper stacked on the other sides. tinfoil suspended with cordage with air gap on the roof. Goats inside and lots and lots of sharp sticks.
Sharp sticks for the goats? I’ll look up cordage. Didn’t know the term.
I found that when I made primitive shelving from cardboard boxes that lined the room, temps were moderate winter or summer. I also wet paper and squeeze into tight balls, then dry it in sun. All kinds of mixtures and papers can make for variety. Some better than others. Dries hard as rock. Super insulation. No cost or technology whatsoever. I just use what is thrown away.
Keep in mind… there won’t be any paper post BAU…. I can imagine current stocks (including currency bills) being burned up very quickly by people trying to start fires to cook and keep warm…
So many things we take for granted…
Artleads,
Not sure your insulation performances are that high.
Insulation factor depends on 2 parameters :
– Conductivity Lambda (mostly = % of air-cells enclosed in the material),
– Thickness of the panel.
You cannot have both thin and efficient, from conductivity point of view, even if you replace air-bubbles with vacuum (high-tech).
The very thin layers you see sometimes are for radiated heat, which represents small part of total heat, at low temperatures.
Aluminium layers are also added on one side of rockwool (or other), as a wall against moisture.
Artleads
You might like to consult this website…Don Stewart
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/QandA/natural/insulation.htm
Q: How effective is mud as a building material for cold climates?which other natural materials can be used?
A: (Kelly) Mud, as in adobe, cob, rammed earth, etc., is basically a thermal mass material and therefore provides little insulation to keep a house warm in a cold climate. For this reason it is a good idea to use earthen materials on the inside as much as possible, where they can help maintain comfort by storing heat. If mud is used to make the shell of a house, then adding some sort of insulation material on the outside is possible. Natural insulating materials include strawbales, volcanic rock, rice hulls, wool and cotton, some of which can be put into earthbags for construction. Another approach to insulating walls built of thermal mass materials is to build a double wall, with an open gap in between them, which can be filled with insulation or even left void.
Modern insulation materials made from fiberglass, cellulose, polyurethane, etc. will probably last for centuries if not exposed to the elements. So although these days they tend to end up in landfill. Once they are no longer manufactured they will undoubtedly be sought after by the descendants of those who survive the end of BAU and go on to build the post-apocalyptic world.
Unlike wind turbines and photovoltaic electricity generation systems, insulation materials can potentially repay their production costs dozens of times over, protecting their users from the cold and saving them lots of firewood for generations to come. Double-glazed windows and simple but reliable passive solar water heaters that work without electrical power should also command high prices.
” Double-glazed windows and simple but reliable passive solar water heaters that work without electrical power should also command high prices.”
Yes. The powerful will want all the dumped materials too. So maybe ordinary communities had better start warehousing these materials out of sight ASAP. As to money, I have no idea how that will work.
I think I remember a study showing that LEED certified buildings use more rather than less energy than other comparable buildings.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/04/30/leed-certified-buildings-are-often-less-energy-efficient-than-uncertified-ones/#286df01615d8
http://built-envi.com/do-leed-buildings-save-energy-yes-no-it-depends/
Jevon’s paradox strikes again.
Morgan Stanley Joins The $20 Oil Club
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Morgan-Stanley-Joins-The-20-Oil-Club.html
Morgan Stanley says that if the U.S. dollar appreciates a mere 5 percent, it could force crude oil prices down by another 10 to 25 percent. Oil is priced in dollars, so a stronger dollar makes oil relatively more expensive for all consumers using currencies other than the dollar. Morgan Stanley says that while the oil glut is responsible for oil prices falling from triple digits down below $60 per barrel, the fall from $55 to around $35 largely comes from the strong performance of the U.S. dollar over the past year.
Oil tumbled last week on volatility in Chinese markets after the country sought to quell losses in equities and stabilize its currency. A 3.2 percent increase in the U.S. dollar — as implied by a possible 15 percent yuan devaluation — may drive crude in the high $20s, Morgan Stanley said. If other currencies move as well, the shift by both the dollar and oil could be even greater, according to the report. 11 Jan 2016
Thanks! Morgan Stanley has it right. If other currencies are lower relative to the dollar, it is as if the buying power of workers in those countries is that much lower. Prices will go down, because of affordability.
Goldman Sachs – The New Oil Order
http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/the-new-oil-order/#overview
They said some interesting things, one thing was that the U.S market is no longer the swing consumer after the shale revolution, today it is the Asian market that is the swing consumer. Since Asia is a low wage cost economy, the Asian consumers are much more sensitive to a rise in oil prices and will therefor pull back demand at a lower oil price, which would lead to lower global oil prices for longer.
I think the real situation is more layered than that, also the low wage story is not there anymore, Asian societies have structured into mega wealth, wealth, and some low wage brackets already.. While the west/north is heading towards horrendous demographics, so the young are jobless/under employed, don’t buy (and increasingly won’t) as much houses and flats (multi generational sharing is coming back), the same for carz and overall consumables, hence less energy demand.
On the other hand Asia recently has lifted up significant %share of their billion plus populations into spending and credit/debt levels, where they buy-lease minimum $15-20k carz, invest in expensive city flats, uni degrees, travel abroad etc. So even though their infrastructure build up is slowing down, the new personal consumerist attitudes are not yet saturated. This trend obviously affects the relative energy consumption.
The owners of the global system are primarily interested into their “churn” – should the Asians became the new(only) pillar of the consumption and debt/credit leverage, the systemic owners will gladly throw their impoverished compatriots under the bus.
I guess it won’t take that long for total proof of the claims above, at the moment the Asians have not bought visibly many crown jewels in the west/north, but there a few examples already like Volvo cars, IBM (notebooks) and so on. They are apparently scouting around big European energy utilities now, if that’s get passed, here is a confirmation, you will be dumped to a new landlord..
Why would Asia want to invest in a basket case like Europe ? We would just bring down Asia with us if they get too exposed to Europe.
I guess Asia’s exposure to the European market for their exports is a problem today… and the reason (among others) that China is trying to make a transition into a consumer market ?
Not Asians — China. China is the only driver… and that can’t last http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-lemmings-of-wall-street/
Anyone notice this http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-25/singapore-consumer-prices-decline-in-longest-slump-on-record
I think that China has experienced a pretty similar price decline for its imports–not sure that I can find the link though.
Interesting! In the 2008-2009 crisis, it was the US, Europe, and Japan that pulled back fastest and hardest in response to high oil prices. Prices of assets (homes) fell and and debt defaults became common.
I guess high oil prices wont sink the U.S today, the U.S seems to suffer from low oil prices today. Europe might sink due to high oil prices, but on the other hand low prices might sink European banks since they are heavily invested in emerging market… anything might sink Europe… I’m surprized that Europe hasn’t collapsed already.
The high dollar is helping the US today. We in the US are doing relatively better than the rest of the world. I agree with you about Europe. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a break in the European Union, about the same time Greece/Spain collapse.
Thanks! Practically the first thing a person reads is, ““The decline in oil prices is, on balance, we think a positive for global economic activity. The oil consumers are generally getting a boost.” – Jan Hatzius” If only companies could actually extract the oil for that amount. Also, if only, the world economy could actually run without fossil fuels and other energy supplemental products.
I wish that they would include text summaries. Videos and podcasts take too much time, especially when I am fairly sure that what they are saying is not really right.
Funny … oil’s been priced very low for over a year now … and it’s not juiced the global economy one bit… it continues to disintegrate…
Of course that is because ‘growth’ has been all about adding massive amounts of debt to the cooking pot… and now everyone is up to their eyeballs in it…
Autos are the perfect example — when they ran out of people with good credit to sell cars to — they had no choice but to sell to anyone with a pulse — nearly 30% of the auto market in the US is subprime…
Who do you sell to next? Do you give 100% loans to 16 year olds who have just passed their drivers test? How about selling cars to dogs – I can see the tee vee spot now ‘hey dogs – no need to chase cars anymore – just come down to Bob’s Toyota and we’ll get you into a top of the line 2016 vehicle no money down no payments for 5 years! Woof Woof…)
This Goldman Sachs clown knows this — obviously — he’s probably trolling for more muppets with these statements — telling them one thing then fleecing them by doing another.
That’s the way finance works — generally when these guys say something they are not trying to help you — they are hoping to screw you.
If you need medical advice… go and see a doctor.
If you need legal advice… go and see a lawyer.
If you need economic advice… DON”T go Wall Street… they will just steal your money. Jim Rickards
Another interesting comment was that oil producers had more options today than to just sell oil… they could also sell equity.
As long as people believe there is always more that can be extracted profitably, equity sales will be the right choice.
🙂
Durable Goods Orders Increase, Led by Defense; Autos Decline 3%, Shipments Down 0.5%
by mishgea
Durable goods orders for March rose 0.8% following a downward revision in February from -2.8% to -3.1%. Motor vehicle orders fell a steep 3.0%. Shipments declined 0.5% but core capital goods shipments rose 0.3%. Core capital goods revisions were hugely negative.
https://mishtalk.com/2016/04/26/durable-goods-orders-increase-led-by-defense-autos-decline-3-shipments-down-0-5/
Time to start offering autos to 16 year olds…. the deal could be that they pay half their weekly allowance…
I would also suggest that welfare bums and street addicts be invited into car show rooms and be allowed to drive away in the vehicle of their choice with the understanding that they will make payments when they find jobs…. Perhaps the Alliance for Poverty can get involved and guarantee a full tank of gas per month paid for by the taxpayer – after all this would be a good cause since the car is a home — and the gas would allow the owner to keep warm/cool….
Or maybe the car companies can just churn out cars and dump them into the ocean and announce that sales are booming.
Whatever it takes…. whatever it takes…. nothing is too crazy….
“Or maybe the car companies can just churn out cars and dump them into the ocean and announce that sales are booming”
I sometimes wonder if they’ve been doing this. I’m in the new car delivery side of the auto industry (Australia) & I always hear what a booming month last month was on the news when it was a crap month for deliveries
I hardly can recall a month when they said it was a bad month yet the trucks have stood silent in the yards & the sales people spend their days playing solitaire on their PC’s………………………
Rule nothing out.
fish need homes too
I read that new car dealers were trying to “sell” cars by using more of them as demos for a short time, and selling them to the used car portion of their dealership. They then could be sold at significantly discounted prices.
IBM falling apart… Apple is cutting iphone orders…. the beast is slowly dying
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3967378-significance-ibms-astonishing-achievement
Maybe so, or maybe not…the Beast is one tuff Dude…just like Charlie Bronson
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Kg_H1dGqI
The Beast may appear to be tough … but starve the Beast and he quickly weakens and dies… the Beast feeds on profits growth… you can fill him up with gimmicks… but these have no nutritional value….
He may appear happy and full… but he is not:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/120/257942767_ce65ac36dc.jpg
Nahhh, Mr. Beast has more moves that will fake us all out for years to come….remember, Fast Eddy, the Beast only cares about the “buffers”, between them and the rabble…the rabble don’t count for sht….I see the Beast lingering on …..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7EAuLL9n42s
He won’t going down…..at least in our lifetime….we no doubt will…
Mr. Fast, it is an exciting renaissance. A young and dynamic hot bed of innovation creating new value. I’ll make you a one sided bet if in ten years you are not impressed with the results I’ll buy you a beer. Yes, yes, no need to give me the speech on doom.
Having a blast building the future,
Ed
I have on the slightest clue as to what you are trying to express.
Are you saying Facebook is going to save us?
Eddy I am making a positive statement about IBM.
sarc!
Perhaps overly dramatic but hey that is the fun of the internet no need to be restrained. Perhaps overly optimistic but hey one can dream. Worry not I have six months of food stored and a fair supply of hand tools.
An engineer with hand tools means something is going to get moar broke. 🙂
Also, sales were last increasing when dollar was relatively low in 2012. IBM following pattern of all industry.
and also dont forget driverless car technology with that in place we can make do with a lot less cars the end of private car ownership baulite will continue indefiniteley
The only difference between a driverless car and a cab is the driver. The drivers income has to be replaced by welfare. Driverless cabs would need to drive further than privately owned to pick up customers, wouldn’t this lower lifespan? The only saving is in parking spaces.
But I suspect it will come true, with subventions and penalty taxes it will initially be cheaper than owning. When noone owns a car anymore, taxes and fees on driverless has to increase and it will turn out to be more expensive than owned car was.
Commuting will be less attractive than unemployment for a few more.
Thank God Netflix is cheap and food and housing is free.
still the obsession goes on—that if—by some miraculous means—we can continue to have rotary motion in the form of wheeled vehicles, that our civilisation will continue into an ever-expanding prosperous infinity.
wheels do not deliver wealth—wealth has allowed us to have wheels.
but over time, humanity has managed to get the two juxtaposed—
vehicles, whether driverless or not, consume energy—cars are driven to a place of ‘work’ where you consume even more energy–you get paid wages—which you use to buy ‘stuff’ which itself is embodied energy.
that is how our current society functions
battery powered boxes on wheels are a side issue.
we live in an energy economy–not a money economy. Unemployed people are still energy consumers. If not, they are dead. That energy has to come from somewhere, —cornucopias are a figment of politicians and economists imaginations
Wealth and Wheels…
Ivan Illitch calculated back in the 1970s that, in aggregate, ie when all hidden fees are accounted, a person goes (almost) faster by foot than by car.
http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/energyequity/energy_and_equity.html
Lots of insights about what he called counter-productivity: technology is supposed to help us, but in reality we very quickly become its slave.
I’d say that the high word always goes to the component that allows dissipating the most energy. If human labour is leveraged, then human being, the worker, is no longer in control, it’s the machine, or the organization/firm, that dictates the pace.
As a contractionist I believe this is part of the reason we will have turkey this christmas, and some kind of christmas food for many years.
People have cars they don’t need, if not they take buses or trains when they could walk or bike.
We live in to large houses, and generally waste a lot of money.
And this has been going on for at least 20 years, still I don’t personally know a single person who admits this, they have a smartphone (and Netflix). So it’s not like protests are expected, much less riots.
Sorry… I meant downsizing of cars, houses, kids, jobs has been going on for 20 years
You don’t seem to understand. While we could increase efficiency by using less energy for the current tasks, this only frees up energy to be used for other tasks. The system as a whole must consume ever increasing amounts of energy to grow, or else it collapses.
Energy is the economy:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/world-total-energy-and-real-gdp.png
If you try to cut peoples’ wages and benefits, people get angry, and they start protesting and rioting. Trying to get people to accept cuts to pensions, social services, etc is very difficult.
Yes – try cutting these pensions and you’d have howls of protest… and a huge teacher’s strike on your hands…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2016/04/22/mapping-the-100000-illinois-teacher-pensions-costing-taxpayers-nearly-1-0-billion/#2ce0fef14334
Not sure DJ,
Sometimes we just can do without, sometimes not.
In many in-between cases, certain technologies, we rendered ourselves and the whole infrastructure we live in dependant of it, and even if you can “do without”, it’s much more complex than it used to be ; notwithstanding we’re no longer adapted ourselves to a whole range of efforts, and skills.
Matthew,
You’re correct I don’t understand.
I understand the virtual economy must grow, and that is looking hand.
The need for growth in the real economy I don’t understand.
People only understand gross nominal, so just give them a small nominal rabies and then inflate, tax and fee it away.
Protests and riots seems to be more of a southern thing, and what does that give them anyway? Politicians can only steal and distribute value, not create it.
“The need for growth in the real economy I don’t understand.
People only understand gross nominal, so just give them a small nominal rabies and then inflate, tax and fee it away.”
That part is more difficult, and I’m not certain about it, either. I think the problem is that if the real GDP is contracting, you end up with deflation instead of inflation; the decline is accelerated. So a 2 percent drop in energy might cause a 4 percent drop in nominal GDP, for example.
Normal, low inflation is a function of increased credit. It is a completely different phenomenon from hyperinflation, which is caused by panic and loss of faith in the currency. You cannot simply print normal inflation into existence; someone has to borrow money, and people need to have a reasonable expectation that the debt will be paid, or at least serviced.
Stefuen,
Technology is most often irreversible, and bureaucracy and a lot of stuff.
But a lot can be done without or less, and mostly it is the expensive stuff: house, car, kids, health care, food.
Maybe DJ, at an individual level.
Not even sure. A Swedish study 1 or 2 years ago showed the “green-conscious” class consumed more than average population.
And BAU light is not an option, anyway.
Our system must grow, or die.
Green idealists fail to make grade, says study
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/24/ethicalliving.recycling
While that seems pretty true, 200 people is a pretty small group. For sure, there are people trying to promote veganism, saying it is our duty to eat food that uses less carbon, and stop having children, but then they fly all over the world. Oh well, at least their conscience feels good. As long as they don’t try to force anyone else to do anything, I guess it is fine.
It doesn’t take a degree in basket weaving (or a study) to work out that the more affluent people on the planet are the least green – even those who profess to be members of the Green Brigade.
I am thinking of the green types I know – they shop organic… they recycle — they are always telling me about wonderful new green technologies .. the most recent was a lithium batteries push bike …
But they drive car(s).. which they trade in every few years… they have modern generally large homes with AC… they take leisure and business trips … they buy more stuff than less affluent people… they eat the best cuts of meat and fish… if I were to generalize I’d say that virtually everyone I know who is of affluence is living to a standard that their income allows…. their carbon footprint would dwarf that of a poor person
Yet they believe they are green.
And they all hold diplomatic level passports from the Kingdom of Delusistan..
And the next time one of them tells me I MUST remember to bring my own bag to the shop hopefully someone is standing by to video tape the end result:
Less and BAU should never be mentioned in the same sentence.
Less leads to a deflationary death spiral and the end of BAU
the physical size of cars might have been going down for the last 20 years—but that means nothing because the numbers have been going up over that period (and longer).
Though typical big cars (say Jaguar Land Rover ) have been rising at 6% year on year for several years.
There are 1 billion vehicles on the road. Musk’s cars will not replace them for decades, only add to them.
The problem won’t be solved until they all come to a halt.
same with houses, many (but not all) are smaller, but the relentless march of them goes on across the countryside. A time lapse camera would show them spreading like baceria in a petri dish
It is still an increasing use of finite energy
Stefuen,
Consumption equals somewhat more than income.
So we have established that greens in Sweden earns more than average.
Norman,
Are you saying we have more houses despite same population?
Not impossible if a normal household before was 4-5 person and now 1-3.
UK population is growing, and home occupation/density is getting less, so new housing in constantly in demand
They can only be paid for by ever increasing energy consumption. When that goes into serious decline, houses will become unaffordable at any price.
builders will crash, just as energy companies will crash
“Are you saying we have more houses despite same population?”
Where do you live, that you have Zero Population Growth?
A contractionist.
You seem not to understand the implications of contraction.
It means negative growth or recession. That means that people get laid off because people are buying less.
Laid off people buy very little leading to more layoffs. And so on. Eventually it leads to companies going bankrupt and more layoffs — which means the financial system experiences a credit crisis…
If a contraction is left unchecked — the entire global economy collapses.
Let me know if you have any questions about this. As it stands – you are hoping for the collapse of civilization – I doubt that is what you really want
contraction in societal terms is like imagining you can breathe in, without the problem of having to breathe out again
++++++++++++++
Details!
Thanks for posting this! It gives valuable insights as to what happened when.
The article, which as written in 1973, starts with the sentence, “It has recently become fashionable to insist on an impending energy crisis.” He notes in the introduction, “Over lunch in Paris the venerable editor of that daily, as he accepted my manuscript, recommended just one change. He felt that a term as little known and as technical as “energy crisis” had no place in the opening sentence of an article that he would be running on page 1. As I now reread the text [this introduction written in 1978], I am struck by the speed with which language and issues have shifted in less than five years.
The timing of the 1973 statement is after the book “Limits to Growth” was published in 1972, but before the big run-up in oil prices in 1974. Of course, M. King Hubbert had published his first “peak oil” paper in 1956 and Hyman Rickover gave his famous speech in 1957. (I can’t get the Hubbert link to open, but I haven’t been able to find a better link.)
I notice in looking at the EIA website that gasoline prices had been rising in nominal terms pretty much from the time the series began in 1949 (but BP does not show a corresponding run-up in nominal oil prices–I suspect something is wrong somewhere–my guess is that BP had a hard time piecing together mixed indications during this period, because it was a time of transition from the US Texas Railroad Commission’s System of managed production to a mixture of oil production from around the world.) US imports of crude oil started creeping up in 1945 and started taking a real spurt upward in 1971. By 1978, crude oil imports maxed out. (In early days, cruse oil imports corresponded very closely to “net import.” In recent years, we have been producing a lot of oil products for exports, so it is better to look at “net imports”–something that is not available for early years.)
If I look at the US CPI-Urban, all items, it started creeping up in 1966, and by 1968 was 4.7% per year. By 1973, it was 8.9%, and by 1974, it was 12.1%. Clearly, something was going wrong quite early–even before US peak oil.
Also, your point, “I’d say that the high word always goes to the component that allows dissipating the most energy. If human labour is leveraged, then human being, the worker, is no longer in control, it’s the machine, or the organization/firm, that dictates the pace,” is a good one.
You have to be able to get to and from work. Or feed yourself by other means.
While I agree its stupid the jobs are geographically concentrated that is the reality.
A big bonus with concentrating people is they don’t need mechanized movement.
“While I agree its stupid the jobs are geographically concentrated that is the reality.”
There are many solutions. Live closer to work. Ride a bicycle, the one invention that actually increases efficiency by allowing a human to move faster than walking, while actually using less energy.
Of course, mass transit is the enemy of the automakers, so in North America a great effort was spent to destroy transit and create suburbs far away from work to necessitate owning and using cars. This was not something that just happened organically; car makers, particularly General Motors, actively worked to create the system we live in.
But even in europe, which seems to be built opposite (in many cases “impossible” to take the car to work), “we” still insist living in large cities with long commuting times making biking impossible.
And for some reason, to make matters worse, the permanent welfare recipients prefer also to live in these cities, and for some reason what they prefer matters.
If we didn’t cram ourself into cities of 1-10 million it would be easier … but as they say, whenever an office moves – 9 times out of 10 it moves closed to the CEO.
until the industrial revolution, work for the general population could not be (on a daily basis) more that an hour or so walking distance from where you lived, otherwise the EROEI factor just didn’t work out.
Thus london is creaking now, because the essential workers needed to run the city, are being squeezed out by parasites who think the city produces wealth exclusively for them.
So workers on low wages have a choice–they either cram into tighter and tighter spaces while rents go up and up, or move out of the city to where the cost of commuting is beyond the payrates for the jobs they do
either way, the city becomes unsustainable.
” workers on low wages have a choice–they either cram into tighter and tighter spaces while rents go up and up, or move out of the city to where the cost of commuting is beyond the pay rates for the jobs they do either way, the city becomes unsustainable.”
Good point! Another way workers can no longer afford to live on their wages.
In New York City you can tell the apartments being rented by Irish immigrants they are the ones with eight pairs of dirty work boots in front of the door. Sorry to hear English workers are too delicate to hot bunk. Hire some third world workers willing to. In the past there was never an expectation that the servant class would ever have enough money to marry, to own a house, to have children. It is a return to the the normal normal.
Meanwhile… every year we get another Philippines dropped on the planet with 100 million new consumers being added…
“with 100 million new consumers being added…”
Well, we can take advantage of Jevon’s Paradox. We can get more efficient, and so consume more as a whole by bringing the price down for others who can’t afford to consume as inefficiently. Better to have 100 people on mopeds than one in an SUV, I think. At least, if the goal is to maximize growth.
Idea is to replace more and more human labor with fossil fuel energy (or hydro or whatever). This reduces the ability of workers to buy the output of the economy. This is certainly not what is needed.
you would in theory need fewer cars to service a community—but that would mean fewer cars being manufactured over any given period. Cars are built on the economy of scale, so the cost would go up.
Either that, or the driverless car would simply be a universal pod on wheels
right now, all cars except taxis sit idle for probably 80% of the time—probably more, so car workers would be laid off.
car workers need food, housing etc etc, which has to come from somewhere
if its not coming from car factory wages, it has to come from welfare, or some other employment created to occupy them.
But all occupations consume energy
—there seems to be a hole in my bucket—tra–laaaa
Great fairy tale!
its a fairytale christopher told to children like us by the ‘elders’
Always find articles about human population projections a lot of fun to read, such as these;
“China has to worry about the risk of too-low fertility, instead of too-high fertility,” said Zuo Xuejin, a demographics researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s time to lift administrative restrictions on fertility, allowing child-bearing-age couples to decide by themselves the number of children they want to have.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1937440/china-adds-34m-people-population-greying-trend
o forestall an imminent decline in the workforce, the South Korean government will raise the current retirement age from 55 to 60 in 2017. It is also considering raising the retirement age for civil servants from 60 to 65. By enabling older workers to continue contributing to the economy, the government hopes to sustain economic growth while reducing the tax burden on the shrinking younger population.
But there are concerns that there may not actually be enough jobs for the growing number of older workers. And intergenerational tensions may heat up if the younger population sees an increase in the retirement age as an obstacle to their own job opportunities.
The impending demographic crisis, the South Korean government is looking to technology. For instance, it wants to see one robotic device in every household by 2020 to help ease the burden of elderly care and boost the country’s female labour participation rate. South Korea already has the world’s highest robot density. In 2014 there were 478 robots per 10,000 workers, according to the International Federation of Robotics. But the country is set to leverage on automation even more.
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/03/25/south-koreas-demographic-dilemma/
There are also mounting calls for the country to welcome back overseas Koreans and to even look to immigration to increase the population. Mindsets in South Korea are slowly changing and the country has demonstrated in the past an incredible ability to overcome great adversity. When the dust finally settles, a more dynamic South Korea might just emerge from this crisis
Yes Sir, all points to BAU no matter what….Boy, are many folks going to be in for some big surprises
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvSzUKUBlU
Robots are going to solve So. Korea’s problems! Very creative. If So. Korea needs more jobs for older workers (those between 55 and 60, so not very old), adding robots doesn’t seem to be the right approach. Bringing back expats doesn’t seem to help either.
Indeed Gail! One has to have a sense of humor to read through these expert analysis of future challenges.
When the SHTF, I’ll be playing this song as loud as I can….with a smile…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4
This is a brilliant blog, the economic models are lucid and well supported by the data.
I think mankind needs economic cycles, booms and busts shake the social order and create opportunities for people who contribute the most to progress. I also (like to ) think that the universe is abundantly full of energy and there will be plenty available when mankind is ready for it. Did stone age man ever imagine the power that could be obtained from coal? Did coal age man ever imagine the Oil age? or the nuclear age?
I read solar power is heading to 4c/kw is that enough? maybe in 5 years will be much cheaper. maybe battery technology will advance and solar energy will be cheap to store for use when needed. Alternatives are coming, just hope I theres enough fossil fuel to tide us over, but as I said I do think society benefits from cyclical shakes.
In what year do you project we will replace 1% of the worlds power usage in one year?
renewables replace over 20% global already expected to hit at least 26% of total by 2020…maybe by 2030 we all be wondering what oil is?
http://www.iea.org/aboutus/faqs/renewableenergy/
The real story is that we are adding a lot of generation that is used very little. It really depends on fossil fuel back-up. They can talk about the huge amount of generation, because it is so unproductive.
maybe by 2030 we all be wondering what oil is?
By 2030 we will be wondering why everyone is dead.
How much fossil fuel energy went into the creation of the renewable?
Invest in E-cat now!
The only true renewable is oil. The time frame is rather inconvenient.
“The only true renewable is oil. The time frame is rather inconvenient.”
Renewable means “can be replaced in one human lifetime”, which we define as 65 years. So, no, oil is not “renewable”.
Most of the renewable energy is hydro.
Solar and wind are insignificant and they are not renewable.. unless of course you think solar panels and windmills grow on trees.
And now I will perform a magnificent trick – watch me explode your brain with facts:
Replacement of oil by alternative sources
While oil has many other important uses (lubrication, plastics, roadways, roofing) this section considers only its use as an energy source. The CMO is a powerful means of understanding the difficulty of replacing oil energy by other sources. SRI International chemist Ripudaman Malhotra, working with Crane and colleague Ed Kinderman, used it to describe the looming energy crisis in sobering terms.[13] Malhotra illustrates the problem of producing one CMO energy that we currently derive from oil each year from five different alternative sources. Installing capacity to produce 1 CMO per year requires long and significant development.
Allowing fifty years to develop the requisite capacity, 1 CMO of energy per year could be produced by any one of these developments:
4 Three Gorges Dams,[14] developed each year for 50 years, or
52 nuclear power plants,[15] developed each year for 50 years, or
104 coal-fired power plants,[16] developed each year for 50 years, or
32,850 wind turbines,[17][18] developed each year for 50 years, or
91,250,000 rooftop solar photovoltaic panels[19] developed each year for 50 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
https://i0.wp.com/www.theoildrum.com/files/ncmo01_0.gif
A partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items)
One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like:
http://www.ranken-energy.com/products%20from%20petroleum.htm
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
Solar – After Hundreds of Billions of Dollars of Subsidies and R&D and this is what we get?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bernstein-energy-supply.jpg
http://bluecollarbadass.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/knockout-muhammad-ali.jpg
You’ve confused “electricity” with “total energy”.
Here, they mention 0.16 TW installed capacity out of 15.8 TW:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
Keep in mind renewables are intermittent, so they would only be producing 1 percent of the world’s energy if the sun was shining and the wind blowing everywhere at once. Also, they are probably going by nameplate capacity. So, let’s be generous and say 20 percent of 1 percent of all energy being used at any given moment is from non-hydro renewable.
YES, EXACTLY. Total energy not just electric and actual produced not name plate. Fir PV derate by 0.25 name plate to get actual produced. Also do not include the hydroelectric that existed before 1990. For example Hoover Dam and Niagara Falls installed by Edison in 1895.
Remove hydro – which is actually a feasible electricity production system but which is at capacity because there are only so many rivers one can dam —- and what do you have in terms of alternate energy?
Next to nothing.
And that will NEVER change significantly because it cannot
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
“We have many a monument of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our scientific age, a true monument of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering”
– Nikola Tesla’s speech at the opening ceremony of the hydroelectric power station, January 12, 1897
I doubt you’d find anyone who’d disagree with that statement.
Everyone wants to live comfortably… now some may say they don’t need all this … but they won’t even try turning off the electricity for a weekend — so they would be if I may … full of shit.
And that is exactly why there was never a choice… if anyone wants to lob accusations accusing others of marching us to the cliff side …. then throw a stone at yourself….
We are all complicit.
From Jamie Dimon to Scott Nearing….we have all immersed ourselves in the joys of BAU and the fossil fuel age….
we may all rage at Rockefeller’s acquired billions—but we all helped him spend it, one way or another.
We could use coal to harness water power for electricity!
Looking in the report 2014-2020 net additions 700GW renewable, 450GW nuclear and fossil fuel. Out of 18TW world energy consumption (Wikipedia) that is 0.65% per year for renewables and 0.42% per year for nuclear and FF. So in 154 years we will have added an amount of renewables equal to current usage.
If you have different numbers please show them.
You are confusing money and energy.
Now if I were in your position — and I read the following — I would have an epiphany…
But some in your position … would read the following … and remain faithful to their solar delusion.
Replacement of oil by alternative sources
While oil has many other important uses (lubrication, plastics, roadways, roofing) this section considers only its use as an energy source. The CMO is a powerful means of understanding the difficulty of replacing oil energy by other sources. SRI International chemist Ripudaman Malhotra, working with Crane and colleague Ed Kinderman, used it to describe the looming energy crisis in sobering terms.[13] Malhotra illustrates the problem of producing one CMO energy that we currently derive from oil each year from five different alternative sources. Installing capacity to produce 1 CMO per year requires long and significant development.
Allowing fifty years to develop the requisite capacity, 1 CMO of energy per year could be produced by any one of these developments:
4 Three Gorges Dams,[14] developed each year for 50 years, or
52 nuclear power plants,[15] developed each year for 50 years, or
104 coal-fired power plants,[16] developed each year for 50 years, or
32,850 wind turbines,[17][18] developed each year for 50 years, or
91,250,000 rooftop solar photovoltaic panels[19] developed each year for 50 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
https://i0.wp.com/www.theoildrum.com/files/ncmo01_0.gif
A partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items)
One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like:
http://www.ranken-energy.com/products%20from%20petroleum.htm
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
Solar – After Hundreds of Billions of Dollars of Subsidies and R&D and this is what we get?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bernstein-energy-supply.jpg
You have been listening too many people telling silly stories. This is one is called, Solar Power to Cause Summer Blackouts in California. According to it,
This is a related story: http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/
It is called an off switch.
I am not a power system engineer but from my limited understanding PV DC to AC converters will not over drive the line. So no need to even disconnect. If the power is not needed the converter will not draw power from the DC (PV panel) side. This causes no harm to the PV panel it just increases the voltage to a point where the back current flow equals the forward current flow in the PV cell and NOTHING HAPPENS.
Don’t you reckon that if it were that easy … the power system engineers would have done it…
Further on this … let’s say California were to build out solar farms so that they could replace coal while the sun is shining…. the problem is you still need to be able to produce just as much electricity using infrastructure powered by coal — because the sun does not always shine …. particularly at night.
So you end up with two complete systems — which of course drives the price of electricity through the roof.
Germany is getting a taste of that at the moment.
Solar power is just plain stupid in so many ways…. but the bongo drummers vote … so it exists.
“It is called an off switch.
NOTHING HAPPENS.”
Well what happens is the inverters of these large scale PV farms BLOW FREAKING UP.
Average mean time to failure 3 years
That cant be you say.
Think about it all power generation has been AC
We have no prior need or design for large scale DC to AC power conversion.
kaboom kaboom
laddadadaa
just another day on the solar farm
Wow! Good point.
Today we celebrate the 146th anniversary of the Act of Vision. It was 146 years ago today that the brave men and women of our strategic defense forces did what was need to be done to insure the continued existence of our families, our nation, and our way of life. With their coordinated release of the vector in all the world’s major cities outside of our great nation they within a matter of weeks reduced the global population to 60 million. A level we know is supportable by hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar power. With the best farm land, with the fisheries no longer over exploited a golden age began. Today with the two child commitment we live without hunger, without war, without significant disease. With our stable population of 200 million we will continue our advance into the future and into the universe.
We also honor the selfless monks of New Zealand and their founder Eddy Fast. They traveled from nuclear reactor to nuclear reactor installing simple and durable hydraulic ram pumps. Most of the order died in their work. But they were able to secure most of the worlds reactors. It appears Eddy Fast had become an expert on water pumps after years of preparing for the collapse fixing and replacing hundreds of water pumps.
Good luck! You need fossil fuels to support hydro, nuclear, wind and solar power. You also depend on depleting minerals.
Doomster dreaming
On a winters day
Id be warm and dry if I was in LA
All these other people
Should be blown away
From a free market point of view it is expected for solar to become cheap due to high prices inviting investors to increase the supply while prices are high. It is also expected that once installed solar PV will pay itself off, the comparison is done against the current price per Kw/h supplied by your current provider, if the price is high it will pay off sooner, ( the sales pitch of PV panels salesmen).
I might be wrong but I believe that an acurate cost-recovery forecast should be done comparing to the current price of a panel divided by its Kilowatts produced in average during a year, while it is unlikely that panels become dramatically effcient in terms of electricity production, the price will certainly rise as we expect them to replace current fossil fuels besides providing energy for economic growth and off course if the materials being used are less abundant and more diffcult to get than coal for instance.
while it may seem that your investment will be paid back sooner (with high prices) in time Panels will become less and less affordable for an increasing number of people.
Then we have the lifespan of a panel… off course in 25 years we will have panels capable of duplicating the energy output every year right?
I wonder how many times I need to post this before I smash through the brick wall….
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
The Lemmings Of Wall Street
Yes, the credit intoxicated land of the Red Ponzi just tied one on for the record books. During Q1 it generated new debt at a madcap annual rate of $4 trillion or nearly 40% of GDP.
For example, this week underwriters sold $16.5 billion of Argentine sovereign debt from an order book that was over-subscribed to the tune of roughly $50 billion; and priced it at a yield (7%) once reserved for German bunds. Yet has the world’s greatest deadbeat nation and serial defaulter suddenly, magically rehabilitated itself, and even before its last financial scofflaw regime was even properly buried?
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-lemmings-of-wall-street/
Another good article from Stockman — that could be a great article — if he could only explain why the central banks are continuing to push the limits of economic insanity.
Why are they blowing up the system — in their attempts to keep it alive David?
Thanks for pointing out the article. I can’t write in such florid prose, but perhaps I can explain why such things are happening–something that maybe is more important.
There are plenty of places to go to read about symptoms … but only one that identifies the disease …
+1
The Bank of International Settlements looks at the increase in debt of the oil industry from $1 trillion in 2009 to $2.5 trillion today.
Basically, the oil industry is today a debt slave controlled by the banks. The banks control the oil industry and the price of oil. The oil industry is forced to produce oil at any price to service the debt.
https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1503f.pdf
Dear Finite Worlders
Worth reading:
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/we-could-be-witnessing-the-death-of-the-fossil-fuel-industry-will-it-take-the-rest-of-the-economy-down-with-it
Don Stewart
See shortonoil posted a couple of comments….let’s just say I’m looking at the POST modern civilization….ready or not….what is left of it…
The article post provided alarming financial facts….recommend fellow FWers take a read, thank you for sharing…
thanks Don (i think)—sheessh—that really scared my day
maybe one of the best pieces I’ve read on the subject in a long time—absolutely pulled no punches.
Confirmed what I’ve been banging on about for years—and I still hate reading the truth.
Good comment over there, Norman.
An amusing article, leaping from a rather good description of what is quite likely to be coming as the fossil fuel economy falters and dies (wars, civil wars and repression, totalitarian control and murder, mass unemployment, famine, etc) to the vision of some sort of (to paraphrase) ‘networked, local, societies of human parity made possible by amazing -as yet uninvented – communications technology, and all just so very clean and renewable ‘ as the shining City on the Hill to which our grand-children will be making their way through all those horrors.
Not very convincing, is it?
Why do quite good analyses so often end up with these rather lame Visions? Is it meant to ‘inspire’? Can authors not take the truth?
“Why do quite good analyses so often end up with these rather lame Visions?”
It is a whole lot easier to place an article with mainstream media (as well as academic publishers, Green publishers, and a lot of others) if you can come up with a “happily ever after ending,” no matter how implausible.
I like this most: ““Nowadays, the world average value EROI for hydrocarbons in the world has gone from a value of 35 to a value of 15 between 1960 and 1980.”
ahem, today we have the year, let me have a look on my watch…
I think scientists never have the guts to corner themselves wiith claiming that there exists a final single end point. They always put an exit strategy inside. You see it in the IPCC report “carbon reduction technology after 2070”. Well, sounds good!
Since BIS is cited there to be on the energy case, no doubt the energy sector debt will be papered over again, but only after the vultures pick it up for pennies, as the previous manic cycle of housing. The faith of progress/believe in the system starts severely corrode once and only the early signs of harsh depletion become visible, and that’s decade or two or three into the future, depending on our path through more or less economic stagnation profile, which does help to mask it. Meanwhile, outliers on the periphery like Venezuela already shutting power grid each day for several hours would be popularly explained by other reasons. i.e. bad regime not EROEI issues etc.
“Meanwhile, outliers on the periphery like Venezuela already shutting power grid each day for several hours would be popularly explained by other reasons. i.e. bad regime not EROEI issues etc.”
Yes, it is obviously the incompetent governments that allow El Nino and drought conditions. The MENA region dictators obviously allowed drought to destabilize their countries. They should simply have made it rain more.
Don, the article includes the phrase “if population growth and/or economic growth are to be continued”. They are no to be continued. People have to deal with that.
not to be continued
Yes Ed,
I also noticed several other wold assumptions, such as “clean energy” (ie solar panels grow on trees without any input nor care).
BTW, it’s a repost of an article by Nafeez Ahmed:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/we-could-be-witnessing-death-fossil-fuel-industry-will-it-take-rest-economy-down-it
Wild, not wold (even if in high plains..)
Stefeun and Ed
Nafeez Ahmed covered a lot of ground. He didn’t pursue everything to its logical end, as I might have preferred. I just thought I would call it to people’s attention as being not at all like the MSM story featuring a heroic struggle between the scrappy American shale drillers and the nasty Arabs.
What is missing in almost everyone’s analysis is the circular nature. The oil companies have to get paid and the civilians have to earn enough to pay them, while using the products of the oil industry in order to make some money. In a sense, it’s a question of how far we can levitate off the ground. And I think that is a very complex question. BW Hill’s model tries to address the issue head on…by making some assumptions that BAU will continue to rule the roost. Hill says things like ‘we have built billions of engines that run on gasoline and diesel’, which is behind his skepticism that we can run the world on engines designed to run on natural gas liquids or natural gas…or the light tight oil. The scale of the change is simply too great. Besides the question of generating enough surplus energy during a time of crisis to actually build all the new engines.
Many things to think about.
Don Stewart
Don, yes the article makes some important points that get little air time.
“‘we have built billions of engines that run on gasoline and diesel’, which is behind his skepticism that we can run the world on engines designed to run on natural gas liquids or natural gas…or the light tight oil. The scale of the change is simply too great.”
Someone on FW said that gas engines can be converted to run on ethanol. It’s a subject I stay away from, but FWIW, Land to produce ethanol and money to pay workers would be scarce. But for the near future, I wondered if the Cuban model of keeping gas engine cars going using wire and chewing gum seems like something which could be scaled.
Dear Artleads and Others
Attached for your consideration is the link to some videos that Eric Toensmeier assembled as companions to his new book Carbon Farming. You can watch as much or as little as you wish. I have listed some that I find particularly relevant (not necessarily on the right track). Following the list, I pose some questions for the viewer…Don Stewart
http://carbonfarmingsolution.com/carbon-farming-videos
System of Rice Intensification
Conservation Agriculture Large Scale in USA
Organic No-Till USA
Multistrata Agroforests in Brazil
Perennial Biomass Crops in Canada
Woody Agriculture in USA …Badgersett
Perennial Grains USA…24 Hours of Reality…Land Institute
Rainwater Harvesting with Stone Lines in Kenya
*Compare the System of Rice Intensification with the Conservation Agriculture Large Scale in the US. What jumps out at you? Which do you think you should be working to implement RIGHT NOW?
*Do you think there is a future for the Organic No-Till in the USA? Suppose that a farmer had a tractor, a seed drill, and the crimper in good working order. Also a source of on-farm produced biofuel. Would his investment count as a ‘capital good’ which might get him through some bad years?
*Don’t you feel stupid when confronted by what the farmer in Brazil has done? Toensmeier, while willing to sequester every pound of carbon he can, thinks that Multistrata Agroforests and the closely related tropical HomeGardens are the best solutions. Along with, possibly, new crop varieties adapted to Temperate zones.
*The Canadian plan is to keep BAU functioning with wood pellets. Are you convinced?
*Badgersett and The Land Institute have a contentious relationship. Badgersett has belittled The Land Institute’s work. Badgersett’s plan is to provide commodity nutrient fractions to the industrial food system so that ‘food’ can be manufactured in the same way it is today, just from trees rather than annual crops like corn and soybeans. The Land Institute is quite willing for farmers to sell to anyone, but farmers like Gene Logsdon are enthused because it resurrects the possibility of the small plot grains. Different in mechanics but similar to the Rice Intensification program. Where would you place your bet?
*What the poverty stricken farmer in Kenya is doing with his rocks and his steel lever is similar to what Geoff Lawton has done in Jordan in the Dead Sea Valley. It’s just that Lawton is able to command excavators because he has more money to work with. But in the final analysis, both aim to build a system which doesn’t need much in the way of external inputs and is pretty low maintenance. If you are a fairly well-to-do Westerner in 2016, should you be looking for an excavator, while simultaneously teaching your children how to use rocks to control water?
Don Stewart
Don,
Will try and get to the link soon. 🙂
Although there were too many videos to watch all, I watched quite a bit. It’s quite remarkable to see so much good information all in one place. I read a little, then go outside to the garden, where I can see some points of relationship. For instance, mostly from an aesthetic impulse, I’ve been doing no-till carbon gardening. So these videos put names to some of what I do mostly by instinct. Almost anything I do has been done before with much more scientific application. I particularly liked the clip below. Agroforestry: mixing food and tree production. They sell wood to supply the nearby heating system. Trees grow better around farming. (Shares irrigation?) All systems are integrated…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCPs-Uyvt8
Agroforestry, stakes and perspective
What you have here has the makings of a free online university. Astounding research, and lots of practitioners who can try out what’s being shared, then report back to all. A kind of seminar situation.
It’s not that governments don’t know. It’s that decisions have already been made to protect the vested interests that have effectively captured government policymaking through lobbying, networking and donations.
That’s where I started to lose interest…
Then when the author started to bang on about ramping up ‘renewable energy’ rapidly… I decided that I’d instead use that time to chew my fingernails …
Regarding the energy company bankruptcies, this week Draghi announced that the ECB will buy corporate bonds. ZH asks, is the ECB about to bail out the US shale industry? In other words, we could see a replay of the subprime mortgage bailout, where the Fed bought subprime mortgages 100 cents on the dollar to bail out banks.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-22/spv-loophole-ecb-just-unleashed-qe-entire-world-and-may-have-bailed-out-us-shale
It seems to me that if there are a lot of defaults, the Euro truly will be weak–much weaker than planned.
Thanks! Nafeez Ahmed is a good writer.
Thanks for your responses Sir Tagio?, Dolph911 and Gail. I am aware of the Revelations you cite Gail and I have often pondered their meaning. I sure hope they are wrong as that world would not be a very nice place to live. I have read all of FOFOA’s work since around 2009, comments too, and have also read ‘The Gold Trail’ from which FOFOA extrapolates since around 2009. I subscribe too. I couldn’t recall the commentor bringing up the oil issue Tagio so may have missed that or thought nothing of it at the time, but I do think oil is pertinent and that’s why I follow Gail too.
I understand the fragility of the system so 2 years ago I sold my little home in the city and now live on an organically certified 40 acre hobby farm with over 300 fruit and nut trees in a lovely part of the world. I have everything on this farm should a collapse scenario take place…. wood heating, wood heated hot water, wood cooking, an awesome veggie patch, gravity fed fresh water and of course an abundant supply of nuts and fruit. It’s not my farm but I pay a minimal cost to reside here which is often contra’d via a bit of work on the farm. I haven’t had a 9-5 job since I left that white collar world. I am a minimalist as much as one can be.
The reason Gold interests me is that, in my opinion in this crazy world we live in, there are very few options left to safely store your wealth. I am unable to afford a rural property of my own outright as the house prices here in oz are an insane (bubble), stocks are bubbled too with crazy P/E ratios and of course money in the bank being inflated away via the stealth tax. Nothing of paper risk interests me. I certainly don’t want to become a victim of usury again. I’m not interested in amassing mega amounts of money, just enough to get by enabling me to live in the present. One of my favourites:
“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
– Lao Tzu
So that’s me! Thanks to all here.
Zeb, yes i used the handle Sir Tagio when i was commenting over there.
Use razor blades, they are compact, light and in high demand. Also buy a Razorpit sharpener so you can sharpen blades, such as Mach 3, as a service.
I hadn’t thought of that. The new sign of wealth will be the ability for men to shave.
Actually, that is true…George Orwell wrote that the “down and out” men placed high value on a clean save during the Depressionary Era in England.
I’ve got a few hundred blades in storage… could be a very valuable barter item! (if I pretend this is not an extinction event….)
I’ve had the same electric shaver since I turned 16 (i’m 29) and it runs on 3 volts of batteries which would be very easy to replace if needed. Should last me another 20 years it shows no signs of weakness at this point.
Ya … you’d just go down to the 711 and buy a new pack of batteries…. and a brand new tooth brush!
All you need is some business which can make batteries, and some way of transporting these batteries to you. I would expect that making and transporting these batteries requires are lot of other things–functioning electric grid, functioning oil production, functioning international trade, etc.
Another fragment of ancient wisdom, which I find calming and balancing:
‘You possess only what you cannot lose in a shipwreck.’
Good way of putting it. It is hard to depend on solar panels on top of the house. If you have to move on foot to a new location, it is hard to bring solar panels and everything else (wiring, inverter, back-up battery, and application you are depending on) along.
But is gold safe? Yes gold itself is inert, but it can be stolen or lost, the exchange rate can go down (as it has in dollar terms since 2011). It has premiums, storage costs. It can be outlawed or confiscated.
For full disclosure, I have gold, but I’ve grown to dislike it. I would much rather have just a simple bank account with a stable currency that pays interest. But this is denied to me, and I think the risk of bank and currency failure is nontrivial, that’s why I hold gold, for that period which may be coming.
In aussie dollar terms, XAUAUD it isn’t doing so bad given the depreciation in the AUD due to the commodity price rout. In fact, it’s been the best investment outright. Anyway, enough about Gold. It’s neither appropriate or on topic here. Thanks Dolph911 and Sir Tagio.
as a fairly low level prepper, food i laid in 10 years ago (and which is still perfectly eatable) now costs four times what I paid for it,
That seems to me a store of “currency”
dolph
And the other wonderful characteristic of gold: you can be killed or tortured for it.
If society breaks down far enough, (police on strike, corrupted by criminals, etc) that sort of behaviour becomes prevalent to a degree which we fortunate ones can hardly conceive.
I’m placing my bets on toilet paper And tuna cans….In the former Soviet Union these were most prized possessions and highly sought after…no sht!
Vince & Norman,
That one is called Alpha Strategy. Buy everything you need for the rest of your life (and your kids). Inflation protected, no management fees, no tax on interest etc.
How do you protect it all, and keep the food fresh? What kind of life can you have, if you erect walls around yourself?
One could build something like this https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d3/bf/5a/d3bf5a2dbd540b8b191b24b437d02cc1.jpg
But the thing is…
This is not a revolution or a natural disaster or a war that we are facing — all situations that are short-lived… after which things return to a BAU state.
The bunker would be a good idea in those situations.
But this time is different. There will NEVER be a return to a BAU state. When you emerge from your bunker the world will be in pieces.. there will be no energy other than trees …. life will be horribly brutal…
All the bunker does is buy you a bit of time … there is no Hollywood ending here
Gail,
The book Alpha Strategy (Puglsey) was written in the 80s in context of BAU remaining. He acknowledges risk of theft or fire, and that things go out of style. And that certain things (toilet paper) take to much space.
But what you get is inflation protection and possibly a discount to a low risk. Compare this to a money market fund which possibly could track inflation but then you have fees and taxes.
In hindsight you should have put it all in the stock market and enjoyed 15% annual returns. But still a clever book.
I can imagine being tortured to reveal the position of a stash of tuna cans… then killed ….
Really Fast Eddy….OK…what goes around comes around. Can easily provide an ending like this to those that kill you
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JSCid-iOoe0
I can easily boogie trap the stash so no one lives to open a tuna can!
Always think two steps ahead partner.
Good one, Vince!
Ya but so what – you are dead too.
Like you are gonna live forever? Fast Eddy what are the odds to make it through the bottleneck? At least you can have some control over how and what terms.
That’s what!
Oh, to answer about your chances. Well, a cat has a better odds surviving a fall from a plane than you making past BAU. Here!s the scientific answer for ya…
So you are a goner anyway
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VlfdaEU7tDw
I am glad you brought up FOFOA because I followed him for many years.
To be sure, gold might become more valuable but that’s debatable. It is heavily controlled. The problem with gold is that other than sitting in banks, gold has little value. It’s not a good means of exchange, and it has little use value.
Therefore one can make a credible argument not to waste time with gold, just like one can make a credible argument not to waste time trying to change people, or save the system, or anything like that.
The only people who generally have it right are those that say, “make as much as you possibly can, and enjoy as much as you possibly can”. It’s what everybody else is doing, and it conforms nicely with human psychology.
Right now, even as I type this, there are millions and millions of people in this world who are:
1) chasing money
2) creating more useless waste and calling it culture, and endlessly consuming recycled music, movies, sports, and other entertainments
3) pigging out on whatever food they can get their hands on
4) having parties and doing drugs and having lots of kinky sex
5) making babies and thinking each one of them is God’s gift to the universe
Do you think any of these people care about peak oil, or ever will? Do you think any of these people care about the environment or future of the planet? Do you think any of these people ruminate on the decline and fall of civilizations? Do you think any of these people plan for even the slightest hiccup in the system?
No. They are, every last one of them, basking in the seemingly infinite energy of fossil fuels, and doing so with abandon, with hardly a care in the world.
Give up on humanity! Everything will be so much clearer and better once you realize this. You must utterly, completely give up on the outcome. Remove yourself from having any stake in how this plays out.
“Give up on humanity! Everything will be so much clearer and better once you realize this. You must utterly, completely give up on the outcome. Remove yourself from having any stake in how this plays out.”
I love this comment, so brilliantly put as are so many on OFW.
I like what George Carlin once said about having no stake in the “Freak Show”. He was a note taker by his own admission.
I too have become as detached from the outcome of the freak show which is why I have very few friends. If the friends I have knew how I champion the end of this collective insanity they call reality I’d have no friends at all…………………………..
As much as I like being alive to watch nature (or what’s left of it) in all her beauty I sometimes envy the courage Michael C Ruppert had to exit this asylum………………..
“You must utterly, completely give up on the outcome. Remove yourself from having any stake in how this plays out.”
These words by themselves don’t assume that one has to given up on life. Giving up on the outcome isn’t the same as giving up on everything else.
Hello Artleads & thank you for your comment.
I’d never give up on life as I’m intrigued on how the freak shows demise plays out.
I’m in it for the long run……………………..
I think it was Derrick Jensen (?) who said he was able to hold two conflicting ideas at the same time……………ie “The world is so f****d but life is so good”………………………that’s how I feel.
Life is wonderful if you live in the first world with a myriad of energy slaves but I know the day of those slaves is coming to an end & psychologically we need to prepare for that………………………………………………………………….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9CjBtv7j78
I believe you are referring to the primitive Scott Fitzgerald.
Repeating this link Don Stewart shared.
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/we-could-be-witnessing-the-death-of-the-fossil-fuel-industry-will-it-take-the-rest-of-the-economy-down-with-it
For the latest indication of how bad the recession in the US sector field is, we took a look at last night’s Schlumberger results which were modestly better than expected, beating expectations of $0.37 by one cent, however as usual the non-GAAP adjusted bottom line did not tell the full story. The Company’s net income plunged nearly 50%, to $501 million, or 40 cents a share, from $975 million, or 76 cents, a year earlier.
Profit fell in the first quarter as the company, which helps explorers find pockets of oil underground and drill for it, adjusts to shrinking margins in North America as customers scale back work. Customers are slashing spending by as much as 50 percent in the U.S. and Canada.
“It’s a weak beat mainly because they guided estimates down,” Rob Desai, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis, who rates the shares a buy and owns none, said in a phone interview. “North America came in weaker than we expected.”
The world’s No.1 oilfield services provider said its costs to do business in North America exceeded the revenue it earned there in the quarter, the first time it had negative margins in the region since oil prices started falling in mid-2014.
“North America was the biggest surprise to the downside, with negative margins, which did not occur during 2008-2009 oil drop,” Edward Jones analyst Rob Desai said.
The company was pressured from the collapse in crude prices were seen in North America, the world’s largest hydraulic fracturing market, where Schlumberger reported a loss of $10 million, before taxes. Elsewhere, the company announced earlier this month plans to cut back activity in Venezuela, holder of the biggest oil reserves of any country, due to unpaid bills.
The the real tell of what is coming came from the company’s going forward actions. Not only did SLB cut its 2016 capital spending budget to $2 billion from $2.4 billion, and hinted at further cost cuts. The company also cut another 2,000 jobs in the first quarter as the world’s largest provider of oilfield services sees the industry in an unprecedented downturn. The global headcount dropped to 93,000 at the end of the first quarter with the reduction, Joao Felix, a spokesman for the company, said by e-mail. More than a quarter of Schlumberger’s workforce, or roughly 36,000, has now been cleaved off since the worst crude-market crash in a generation began in late 2014.
If anything these cuts suggest that the true picture for the US shale space is getting worse not better.
And the punchline was what Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paal Kibsgaard said: “The decline in global activity and the rate of activity disruption reached unprecedented levels as the industry displayed clear signs of operating in a full-scale cash crisis. This environment is expected to continue deteriorating over the coming quarter given the magnitude and erratic nature of the disruptions in activity.”
We are confident this lack of downstream demand from the company that has the best visibility into the US shale sector is why oil is up another 2% even as virtually all oil producers are now ramping up production to even higher levels in a furious attempt to beggar their mostly OPEC neighbors.
Schlumberger CEO sees full-scale cash crisis in oil sector
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/schlumberger-ceo-sees-full-scale-cash-crisis-in-oil-sector/ar-BBs57md?ocid=spartandhp
Go get me my pistol babe. Honey I aint see right from wrong. Dylan
Just came home from a spring party with the firm. The union leader and I had a short discussion. He actually believes that Finland can do with solar power… well we have both had a few glasses of vine… but I could see in his eyes that he was not interested to continue any further discussion about anything ever again with me.
The oil sector cannot get along without the contractors who do the drilling for them. It is one of the many places where we need all pieces of the system.
Posted this earlier so not sure whether commenters skim previous replies…..’Too right FE. Been lurking here for a year now and I like your comments. To Gail, awesome blog and thank-you. You are a shining light. It’s a daily read for me and thanks to all the comments too, too many names to list. Anyone hear read FOFOA?
Glad you like my blog.
If you mean fofoa.blogspot.com, I am afraid I don’t read it. FOFOA is about gold. Gold only works it there are things to buy. I would expect as a medium of trade, silver coins would work better than gold, simply because they are of closer to the correct denomination. But even this is iffy. Read Revelation 18: 10-13, regarding the collapse of Babylon.
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
There is no historical evidence of JC apart from Christian writers – surprise, surprise. History has been edited by them to fit.
No Roman or Palestinian on the ground at the time makes any mention of JC.
And the Romans were good a recording history.
Seems to be a Mystery Cult created much after.
& filched from other traditions – well known amongst serious scholars.
“There is no historical evidence of JC apart from Christian writers ”
Incorrect. Secular writers of the time, such as Josephus and Tacitus wrote of him.
“There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings,[11] and the only two events subject to “almost universal assent” are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
All passed down and “corrected” by xtians.
All well known by serious scholars
I have evidence of the Tooth Fairy’s existence. I recall putting my tooth under my pillow and getting money.
Therefore the tooth fairy exists. Do not try to argue with me because my faith is strong. It is unshakable.
Funny Jesus didn’t mention anything about the end of cheap to extract oil leading to cataclysm… surely he would have known…
At the end of the day a 10 year old could predict various general bad things such as disease and pestilence hitting the planet — they were the norm before BAU.
FE, I got to say I’m really impressed by you. A very knowledgable man and I’ll just leave you with this to ponder and a question why is it that the Jews don’t teach climate change because practically every book of the Old Testament mentions something regarding it. Just check out for yourself the most important one here Jeremiah 23:19-20
“During the summer of 1853 Oberlin was struck with a severe drought. The hay fields were dried up so there was no feed for the cattle. The cattle soon must die and the harvest fail unless rain comes. Crops had withered, wells dried up, and the parched earth became powdery.
On Sunday morning the church was filled. Not a cloud was in sight and no one expected a drop of water to fall from the skies that day. The situation was desperate. Finney arose from his chair walked to the pulpit and lifted his voice in prayer.
‘O Lord! Send us rain. We pray for rain. Our harvests perish. There is not a drop for the thirsting birds. The ground is parched. The choking cattle lift their voices toward a brassy heaven and lowing, cry ’Lord give us water…We do not presume to dictate to Thee what is best for us, yet Thou dost invite us to come to Thee as children to a father and tell Thee all our wants. We want rain! Even the squirrels in the woods are suffering for want of it. Unless Thou givest us rain our cattle must die…O Lord, send us rain! and send it now! For Jesus sake! Amen
“In the preachers voice,” reports the California minister, “was the plaintiveness of a creatures cry. I do not know whether any pencil caught more of this wonderful prayer, but all who heard it had to tell of its bold importunity. It had the pathos and power of an Isaiah.”
Then the pastor-revivalist poured out his soul in a searching sermon, ’hewing close to the line,’ from the text, “I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love.” “Not many minutes did the sermon go on before a cloud about the size of a man’s hand came athwart the summer sky,” says the California preacher, “It grew fast. The wind rattled the shutters of the old church. Darkness came on the air, joy aroused our anxious hearts as great raindrops pattered on the sun-scorched shingles of the monumental old church.
Finney’s lithe figure, tall as a Sioux warrior, ruddy as a David, trembled. His clarion voice choked. God had heard his cry. The sermon was never finished, for torrents of water poured from the prayer-unlocked heavens. The preacher bowed over the pulpit and said, Let us thank the Lord for the rain.”
He gave out the hymn, When all they mercies, O my God my rising soul surveys, Transported with the view, I’m lost in wonder, love and praise.”
The congregation could not sing for weeping. Then Finney lifted heavenward a prayer of thanksgiving and praise. “I can remember not a word of the closing prayer, but the reverent and relaxed figure, the pathetic voice, the pallid and awe-struck countenance, are vivid as if it was yesterday; the plank sidewalks of the dear old town splashed our garments as we walked home from a short service, of which life’s memory must be lasting.” This is the testimony of the student who sat in the gallery and saw and heard Finney that morning.” {pg. 126-128 Miller}
Hi Zeb, I used to read him before he went behind a pay wall, so I am not familiar with his work for the last 2 years. There was a very interesting kerfluffle in his comments section about a year before he went behind the pay wall. One of his readers raised a protest and said that FOFOA’s analysis did not take into account any of the oil or other resource contrstraints, and for that reason the result FOFOA predicted (based on the concept known as “free gold” ( a technical concept that is not what it sounds like) and a gold revaluation of say 50k per ounce to save the would after all paper wealth burns (goes poof) in the collapse of the international monetary system) would not come to pass – it was too late, because the prediction assumed continuing vibrant international trade, not a global collapse. I am putting this more succinclty and possibly better than the protestor did, but that is what the jist was. Some people thought this guy was a troll, and he certainly had an abrasive personality, but I thought his points were well taken and offered sincerely, but the regulars just made ad hominems and did not address his fundamental criticism. Anyway, this guy said he was going to sell his gold and go buy a homestead now and start preparing for the real future instead of waiting for the gold version of Nirvana to occur in which ppl could continue liviing the BAU fanatasy with riches beyond the dreams of avarice. I liked this guys comments, because he had put his finger on the achilles heel of the FOFOA analysis (IMO) and everyone went on by just ignoring it.
Zeb, further to Gail’s point and citation to Revelations, see Steve from Virginia’s excellent comment here: http://ineteconomics.org/ideas-papers/blog/towards-a-theory-of-shadow-money
“money is worth only what it buys and nothing more (regardless of changes to money’s form).”
Good point!! That has been the conclusion I have reached as well.
“money is worth only what it buys and nothing more (regardless of changes to money’s form).”
Hmmmm ‘and slaves, and souls of men. Rev. 18
Wow, could this be the reason as to why Jesus prophesied that one day soon mankind will be forced to receive either a mark in their hand or forehead to be able to buy or sell anything. {Rev. 13:16-17} and why it is forbidden by God under the penalty of eternal damnation.
Ultimately it is what the cashless system wants and by way of it to legislate morality by controlling ones bread and conscience as Dostoevsky so expertly pointed out and wow look the words by none other than its grand architect Colonel House. A Jewish American who was originally a cotton farmer from Houston, Texas who turned politician becoming an American diplomat and finally a presidential advisor to President Woodrow Wilson as well as banking. He had enormous influence over American foreign policy and was one of the main architects overseeing the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles as well as the Council on Foreign Relations and the United Nations and most significantly the Federal Reserve. In his novel called PHILIP DRU: ADMINISTRATOR: A STORY OF TOMORROW 1920-1935 {how prophetic a title} this is what the author fully says:
“[Very] soon, every American will be required to register their biological property in a National system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging.
By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will affect our security as a chargeback for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be forced to register OR SUFFER NOT BEING ABLE TO WORK AND EARN A LIVING.
They will be our chattel, and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through taxation, secured by their pledges.
They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two would figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability.
After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debt to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably reap to us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor to this fraud which we will call “Social Insurance.”
Without realizing it, every American will insure us for any loss we may incur and in this manner; every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and, we will employ the high office of the President of our dummy corporation to foment this plot against America.” http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6711
Everything is falling into place just as Christ Jesus prophesied thorough his disciples 2 thousand years ago.
No wonder Jesus threw the money changers out of his Fathers temple.
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
AND THE SOULS OF MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
imagine please line up here for your hand or forehead insertion and allotment of bread or oil or what have you thank you very much????
Wow, does anyone truly understand just how evil and sinister everything really is about this doomed planet of ours?
Our distance from the discovery/colonization of the Americas is aprox. 25x generations, although proto int. finance developed even earlier, the basis for our current credit-debt is at least ~15x generations old, and we are fast burning fossil energy and industrializing for lets say past 8 generations. So, it’s highly unlikely this all goes down within the span of one single generation, profound-milestone crisis occurs perhaps soonish, but it will be long staircase collapse process with ups and downs. So at certain juncture, not necessarily the very next crash, the money concept would have to profoundly reformed, most likely along the lines of some authoritarian-command style redistribution of food, energy, tools and spare parts. So if you are moderately rich and past fifty-sixty yrs of age, chill out and enjoy the spoils.. the worst won’t come so soon..
Although as we witnesses these days at the royals birthday gig, some people manage to keep lucidity into their 90-94yrs, ooops that would be 40-46 yrs from today aka the epoch of caca meeting the fan, time seems to be very relative concept..
The problem with collapses is that governments are affected, probably quite early. They must function with many fewer workers, if they function at all. I am doubtful that they really can implement authoritarian command style redistribution of food, energy, tools and spare parts. Governments will become more like 90 year old people. If they are there, they cannot be relied upon to provide much of a function.
It is the underlying physical resources that count. We have reached the limits of a Ponzi scheme and it is only smoke and mirrors that can delay the inevitable denouement of loss of confidence and the rush to the exits.
That is all there is to it: We have a BS system which just holds until the herd stampedes.
Dear All
Here you will find some familiar thoughts, cast in slightly different terms.
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-world-industrial-system-as-bacteria.html
Use one of Gail’s illustrative charts.
Perhaps contrary to Interguru’s wishes, they do blame it on physics.
Don Stewart
Found his essay revealing and show use the constraints we act under…thanks for posting, Don.
Here is one of my earlier postings
Here is a quote from the Don Stewart’s referenced article
Cassandra uses physics correctly — to set broad parameters. My point ( and his ) is that for the details that dominate most of our discussion, such as helicopter money or low-carbon agriculture, physics does not add any clarity ,
The really fascinating part of that article on Ugo’s site is its question why we haven’t been able to change since we first grokked the problem in the 70s with the original Limits to Growth. Answer, because it was already too late by that point, locked in, and the system – at its institutional and operating system level – had no more capacity for a radical change in direction, it was and is just a slave to its own inertia. Powerful article.
Dr. Geoffrey Chia has a good open letter to the Doctors for the Environment Australia up at Doomstead Diner in which he makes arguments explains that it’s too late for anything but indiviudal initiative anymore. http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2016/04/21/open-letter-to-doctors-for-the-environment-australia/
We are hardwired to react to immediate dangers. (Watch out for that tiger in the grass!). Only some of us ,as individuals, can sacrifice our present well-being for future awards, I do not know of any society which has done so.
Thinking of our environment as the commons, this is known as tragedy of the commons.
Norway has tried… creating a sovereign wealth fund with some of its oil revenues.
That won’t help though — because when things go sideways the fund will vapourize.
They may as well just blown the cash while it still had value.
Exactly! You have to spend the money while it still has value. Saudi Arabia will have the same problem.
On a personal level — there is no point in saving for the future… there is no future… at least not one where whatever currency you are holding (or other asset) has a role to play…
Do not get caught in the normalcy bias – if this is not an extinction event it is without a doubt – the end of civilization — don’t worry about that bank mortgage — there will be no banks…
My advice is to run wild (within limits as you don’t know when the end will come…) — be all that you can be — don’t worry about rainy days ahead…. heck I’d even recommend re-mortgaging a house if your property is paid off — if you get an option to take a lump sum pension payment take it…. sell the family jewels and blow the cash…. liquidate education funds…
And never never ever bother investing… that is plain foolishness.
Take inspiration from Stilgar and take a trip — speaking of Stilgar — any updates from Italy? Have you overdosed on the food and wine yet????
I was reading through the comments here http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/24/ethicalliving.recycling and thinking that I am getting onto my ninth long haul flight since December next week…. but I feel good about all of this because I sometimes put stuff in the blue box…
Hot damn I even have a solar powered pump!! (which still doesn’t function so I will be putting the controller into a courier box this week — it will be sent to a company in Auckland by airplane — to be repaired likely with a replacement part from China — then shipped back to me…. )
All I need know is a Tesla — then I could hang out at Starbucks with the Green Krowd flaunting my creds… I bet the hippy chicks would swoon at the mention of my great big solar pump….
Hmmm Tesla … top speed 250km per hour…. I don’t imagine there would be any surviving the rock cut at that speed….
The physics of the situation makes it impossible for us to change. We look out for our own good. Our own good seems to be greatest when we and our children can live as long as possible, we can travel comfortably, and we can have the temperature comfortably controlled. Maybe a few individuals can live very minimally, without modern conveniences, modern medicine, and all of the things we have become accustomed to. But society as a whole cannot live in this way.
“But society as a whole cannot live in this way’
Nor would anyone want to….. given the choice….
One’s own genes are the most important.
This is why parents, particularly mothers, will sacrifice their lives to save that of their child.
They think it’s free choice, but it isn’t.
Nature has evolved us to be that way, because fitness to survive is nature’s yardstick, and that is the ultimate test.
If our offspring in a collective sense, fails, and we go extinct through our own stupidity, then nature will unknowingly seek out another avenue of life promotion which may or may not be more successful than we have been.
nature is emotionally detached from the outcome.
Dear Interguru
Sometimes ‘low-carbon agriculture’ really is mostly about physics. For example, we had a cloudburst this afternoon and I was thinking about the heavy raindrops hitting bare soil (not my bare soil, I have everything covered). There is a saying in certain segments of the ‘sustainable agriculture’ community that the most destructive force in the world is a raindrop on bare soil. That boils down to physics first and biology second. Human psychology has little to do with it all.
A factoid that I have heard is that, over a 30 year period, one third of the water erosion will occur in a single rainstorm which is particularly violent. That factoid owes a lot to physics, but also some to biology (e.g., soil aggregates which resist degradation and permit infiltration).
So I don’t sell physic short….Don Stewart
The author is the same one who wrote the previous entropy-related article that Ugo posted.
A suburban Denver school district is arming its security staff with military-style semiautomatic rifles in case of a school shooting or other violent attack, a move that appears unprecedented even as more schools arm employees in response to mass violence elsewhere.
The guards, who are not law enforcement officers, already carry handguns.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/colorado-school-district-arms-security-guards-rifles-n558776
http://writingfix.com/images/for_kids/crazy_monkey.jpg
What about helicopter money?
If the US printed $1000 dollars for every US citizen.
It would help the consumer spend, it might lower the value of the dollar and you would not need more debt?
I tend to agree, it’s an exercise in can kicking but I would take it a lot further. Say 1K a month for 12 months, for every registered taxpayer subject to means test. It would stimulate spending, it would generate tax revenue, it would help small businesses and generate employment, it would piss off the pay day lenders and some financial institutions and it would of course lead to a huge government deficit and inflation, hopefully not hyper inflation.
In more normal, robust times it would of course be ludicrous to even suggest something like that but we are way beyond normal times and just about anything goes IMO.
I was commenting on an FT.com article the other day … and some clown accused me of not understanding Econ 101…..
Econ 101? What is this — 1996??? Or is it an Infinite World?
Economics should be dropped from every university in the world – in light of recent developments
https://printthelegend.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/laugh-start.png
Yes FE,
A lot is to be learnt from those guys who were unable to forecast the GFC, and are now unable to explain what happened: they teach you where NOT to go.
: The Bank of Japan must lower its minus 0.1 per cent interest rate to about minus 1.0 per cent for the country to conquer deflation, a former deputy governor at the central bank said on Thursday
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/bank-of-japan-must-cut-key-rate-to-1-0-to-beat-deflation/articleshow/51920875.cms
The BOJ should make negative interest rates its main policy tool because it is difficult to further expand government debt purchases due to losses the BOJ is incurring on these investments, former BOJ Deputy Governor Kazumasa Iwata told reporters.
Households and commercial banks have criticised the BOJ’s negative rate policy for placing an excessive burden on savers and the financial system, underscoring the daunting challenge faced by the central bank in its quest to cast off deflation.
“For Japan to achieve its mission of completely escaping deflation, the BOJ has to consider further expansionary policy,” mainly through further lowering the interest rate, said Iwata, now president of the Japan Center for Economic Research.
Seems to me you guys are right…they don’t have a clue….will do ANYTHING…or at least try anything
One thing that those who lower interest rates lose sight of is the fact that the consumer is ultimately at the bottom of the pyramid that determines how many goods and services will be sold. In Japan, an awfully lot of those consumers are at or near retirement. Apparently, the government retirement program doesn’t pay very well, so people must save for their retirement. The fact that there are few children adds to this pressure, because people cannot depend on their children to take them in, in their old age. More and more of the young people also have jobs that don’t pay well.
If the government starts taking money out of savings for retirement, the reaction of the people in or near retirement can only be more hoarding, rather than buying new homes and cars. This will make things worse, not better. There is really no need for new homes in Japan; the population is shrinking.
Id skip the means test, it would be efficient just to give to everyone, the poor will spend.
What about all of the other debt, tied to claims on future energy which will never materialise? And I bet that rather than the US dollar going down, it will get even stronger as a result of this sort of shenanigans. Why? Because every other economy on earth will see their currency collapse as deflation is exported by the US on a gargantuan scale, sending stock markets crashing and the dollar soaring. :P. None of the old shit works or makes sense anymore…growth is dead. Get it?
The other economies are suffering because US consumer is not spending.
At the moment they are taking money from US consumers (pensioners and savers) and handing it to banks and government, no wonder the consumer is on strike.
Hold on pal, pensioners don’t have any money. That’s why they’re on a pension.
And there are no more savers in America. Fully 47% of Americans wouldn’t be able to scrape together $400 in an emergency.
As we reach limits, the economy becomes less and less efficient–less output per unit of input. This all gets hidden by more spending on “complexity” (more hierarchy, more technology, more education, more pollution control, more government). The consumer (aka “common worker”) gets less.
Helicopter money to consumers could be efficient, fair and democratic?
But not do much good, unless (1) it continues indefinitely, and (2) somehow, there are resources to buy with the helicopter money.
Just when I saw in the newspaper an article telling that the key for people to avoid loosing their jobs due to automation is education. Right?, nowadays paying for superior studies has become quite cumbersome not to mention the oversuply of graduates is shrinking the salaries for new applicants and also for older workers, Masters, and PHD required for better positions reduce the years of the productive age of a person, increases the debt to be paid if you used a loan finally to find out you are too expensive to be hired by the company you wanted to work for.
The safest job is working for a government bureaucracy, such as the US federal employee pension system. There are so many rules and it is so convoluted, that all attempts at automation have failed. That or healthcare, etc, since each little jurisdiction has its own rules. Also law. Anything like that where humans can make arbitrary, non-standard rules, or the rules are subject to interpretation.
Any job that requires following procedure, that has objective standardized rules, and standard units to work with, is most vulnerable to automation.
That is exactly the problem I was talking about–too much spent on education, too many with advanced degrees, short careers, and low pay, even with the advanced degrees.
Yup. Agreed……hyperinflation of the USD.
Prince, the songwriter, singer, producer, one-man studio band and consummate showman, died on Thursday at his home, Paisley Park, in Chanhassen, Minn. He was 57.
His publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, confirmed his death but did not report a cause. In a statement, the Carver County sheriff, Jim Olson, said that deputies responded to an emergency call at 9:43 a.m. “When deputies and medical personnel arrived,” he said, “they found an unresponsive adult male in the elevator. Emergency medical workers attempted to provide lifesaving CPR, but were unable to revive the victim. He was pronounced deceased at 10:07 a.m.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/arts/music/prince-dead.html?_r=0
I am thinking…. what superb timing…. Mr Prince’s DNA will not get the opportunity to force him to scratch and claw to survive when collapse hits…
Really??? That is just pathetic FE. He was a brilliant musical genius. Go climb into the hole you crawled out of and don’t come back out – ever.
Kurt, I could be wrong, but I don’t think FE was disparaging Prince. Just suggesting he was spared the grim future FE and others foresee.
I liked Prince, but…”brilliant musical genius” That’s debatable.
Quite true as I grew up in that era. I tend to reserve “brilliant musical genius” for the likes of Davis who singlehandedly changed jazz for decades.
Miles Davis
Miles was a great admirer of Prince.
He was also a great admirer of Michael Jackson. That said, Miles Davis was the most innovative musician of the 20th century. He started many careers of musicians who are now considered legends. Such as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, George Benson, Mike Stern, Al Foster, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and that’s just a small sample.
The comment has nothing to do with my opinion of Prince … I agree — he was an incredible talent.
The point I am making is that anyone who reaches the end of the road right at this time — is fortunate — as they get to die with dignity.
All of us on the other hand — will die like starving dogs — or shot down like dogs by desperate men.
Seeing as things are about to get a little crazy….. let’s sing along:
He ain’t no Brittany Spears lip syncing karaoke star….. that’s for sure…..
Load up another glass of red … then click this….
An affectionate BBC spoof, from years ago, of “The Antiques Roadshow” looks at Prince’s wardrobe. Fast forward to 1 minute and 6 seconds to see the relevant part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4z7GSULCBA
RIP Prince. I suppose even pop stars have a sense of humour.
Thanks! That is music I really like, apparently from a Bosnia benefit concert.
Dear Finite Worlders
Fans of George Mobus may like to listen to this podcast…Don Stewart
Last Wednesday I was interviewed on the FSN podcast with Cris Sheridan. You can hear the interview here: http://www.financialsensenewshour.com/broadcast/insider/fsn2016-0415-mobus-u4t7x9w.mp3
The concerns about energy and the economy are still at play. In this interview Cris was interested in my work on the relation between money and energy and Biophysical Economics. Long time readers will recognize these themes from my blogs of yesteryear.
In the not-too-distant future I will be reporting on some of the exciting developing situations vis-a-vis systems science. I’ve just returned from Linz Austria where I participated in an intense week-long conversation re: systems science research and systems literacy. Some very important developments are under way. Till then…
Thanks for the link.
Thanks! I know George Mobus. The tape reminds me of some issues I have forgotten about.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-20/one-commodity-trader-writes-what-happening-has-absolutely-no-reasonable-explanation
What? A story of financials unsuccessful guy moving into commodities segment, and failing there again.. ZH is whining yet again about the “unfair markets”..
Sorry, if your are not member of the club, today’s game is either to be employee of the system and do what you are told (and perhaps steal just a little bit under the table in the process), but in order to duke it out as “an independent” you have to be super smart dancing five dances at once with the banksters, constantly re-balancing and predicting/front-loading their steps, which is imho impossible longterm. The extreme examples of few whiz kids evidently capable wining sometimes against them is no good recipe to base your career on, the fact maestros might exists, it’s silly as he is not one of them. People are dreamers and fantasists, they want to emulate the luck of the very few who gut lucky past 2-3cycles, each time scoring 20bagger ^3, hence the story how poor “anti establishment” but smart trader became a billionaire.
Strange–huge volumes of commodities futures being traded. System is behaving very unusually.
‘financial engineering’
Artificially driving up prices to create inflation, wages will follow. Of course there will be some unintended consequences.
The big problem is that wages don’t generally rise as energy prices rise. Did your wages increase dramatically, before mid 2008? The fact that they did not is the primary reason behind the crash. Energy is use to make all kinds of goods and services; we can’t get along without it, unless we get along without the goods and services.
That’s correct. It’s artificial, they hiked minimum wages in California already, i believe more will come. They have reached the end of debt, it’s possible that they raise wages and cover up the losses for companies through ECB bond buying, which is already announced. It won’t solve energy shortage, but at least we know what’s coming.
Like this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-25/ecbs-visible-hand-unilever-issues-debt-0-coupon-006-yield
They will monetize everything, indirectly wages. Everything blows up as soon as oil shortages become obvious and people start bartering instead of trading stocks.
What Capital Exactly Is Flowing to and From China
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2022716-what-capital-exactly-is-flowing-to-and-from-china/
It seems as if Chinese companies are paying off their Dollar debt. Could this explain the spike in issuance of new debt in Yuan ? Are Chinese companies borrowing in Yuan and then exchanging them into Dollars to pay off their overseas Dollar debt ?
This is part of the unwinding of the carry trade, with respect to China. Also, paying off of Chinese debt, before the yuan devalues more. All of the borrowing of China is temporarily pushing the currency up. It is hard to see how this can continue for long. What is China going to use the borrowed money for? More condos? More cement factories? More steel mills?
“What is China going to use the borrowed money for? More condos? More cement factories? More steel mills?”
Silly goose of course not. They have plenty of those. What they need is more customers.
They need to use the newly acquired funds to offer zero interest loans to consumers payable with a 20 year balloon payment. The loans can be used as collateral to borrow even more money to continue the practice. Two decades of BOOM.
You could get a job working for government planning!
Hi Gail, I’ve been thinking about some of the issues raised in your article. Much of the response I could make is already covered elsewhere my those more skilled in financial matters than I. I’ll simply say that through the wonders of QE it is possible to expand debt – and credit – in such a way as to create the illusion of excess money without the money getting into the hands of those citizens who spend.
That mirage allows borrowing at low, even negative rates of interest.
The problems start from this. Remember that money is labour, or energy, paid for in advance, OK? Then think about commodities, principally oil and gold, that have both strong linkages to energy use, deep futures markets, and lowish primary production costs.
I have no idea exactly how much of either of these commodities is already paid for by derivatives, but I suspect that several years supply of oil is included. If the debt continues to expand, then eventually all the oil that will ever be produced will be paid for. And then, more oil will be paid for than will ever be produced.
If that happens, I do not see any other outcome other than a systemic collapse.
Debt allows oil prices to be a lot higher than they would otherwise be. Futures contracts further add to this illusion that we can in fact, earn an “energy profit” on high cost oil that we extract. We have used debt to such an extent that we have little idea what the “real” price oil would command, without the illusion that we can forecast a high future profit on barrels extracted today. The system is in danger of collapse.
…”We have used debt to such an extent that we have little idea what the “real” price oil would command, without the illusion that we can forecast a high future profit on barrels extracted today. The system is in danger of collapse.”
Agreed Gail. The same could be said for Gold….
Pulling future production (whatever it may be) into the present via debt is unsustainable. It’s all going to end in tears unfortunately….and then Gold will be revalued to absorb the mess. It’s the only commodity (sarc) that can achieve this without affecting the price of other ‘things’…..because it is not a commodity…..it is money par excellence, representing payment in full.
Gold represents payment in full. The only “catch” is that there must be something to buy. I expect that if there is not enough food to go around, those who are growing it will not take gold for it–they may, however, trade for different types of food to get a more balanced diet.
Buying anything depends on an economy that “works”. Without international trade, there is very little of our modern economy that can be manufactured. Modern agriculture will pretty much disappear, as will maintenance of the electric grid and so-called renewable energy systems.
Because we live currently in an energy economy, the real price/value of oil is represented by the calorific value contained within it, and extracted from it in order to do work via our machines and industry.
In previous times, (18thc farmers in Ohio say) oil was a damned nuisance because it seeped out of the ground and polluted streams and wells. Nobody knew what it was or where it came from.Thus it had no value other than occasional use as a patent medicine or waterproofing canoes maybe.
when we no longer have machines in which to use/burn it, oil will once again have no appreciable worth. This is why we cannot project oil use/consumption into a future where we cannot guarantee the ongoing production of machines with which to use it.
As the future of all of us is tied up in the use of such machines one way or another, we should all be suitably terrified of what will happen without them.
As to the value of gold, that factor exists because
A —gold is relatively difficult to come by and represents a big energy input to get hold of
and B;—- It is the only naturally occurring metallic element that does not degrade over time.
That factor always guarantees its “value”, even over 000s of years. But it still only represents the energy you can buy with it. (on our terms)
Right now, with gold at $1250 an ounce, ten ounces of gold will buy you a half-decent car, or 500 gallons of fuel maybe.
But Post BAU for instance, a good draft horse might cost you 100 ounces—if you can find one, and if anyone actually wants your gold. Gold itself might be suspect, if there’s nothing to buy with it.
Take Inca and ancient Egyptians, who had so much of the stuff, that they didn’t need it as a token of money/value in the sense that we know it
When the Spanish looted the new world and shipped all that gold home, it drastically destablised the Spanish economy. Their own gold became devalued against the Inca stuff.
The Egyptians had a job creation system which involved digging up gold then burying it again in tombs. Their basic currency was food itself. They paid their tomb diggers with food energy directly.
Gold to them wasn’t money, like the Inca it was ornament–it didn’t degrade.
What you are talking about is covered in an excellent article here:
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2014/12/30/of-heat-sinks-debt-sinks-a-thermodynamic-view-of-money/
I have already posted it once, sorry, for reposting but I really like it.
Thanks for reposting the link. I have been known to forget about things, or miss them the first time around. I agree–it is very good. I love the reference to Revelation 18:10-13 as well.
Hedge funds have suffered their worst quarter in seven years after more than $15bn was pulled out by investors starting to fight back against the high fees being charged across the industry.
Letitia James, public advocate for the New York pension scheme, attacked managers who “balk at negotiations for investor-favourable terms” believing they “could do no wrong, even as they are losing money”.
“If they were truly fiduciaries and cared about our members, they would never charge large fees for failing to deliver on their promises,” she said. “Let them sell their summer homes and jets, and return those fees to their investors.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/72b5a244-06fd-11e6-9b51-0fb5e65703ce.html#axzz46RELW2OB
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/soros-says-china-s-debt-fueled-economy-resembles-u-s-in-2007-08
He forget to mentioned that that’s multiplied by 100 😀
OMG, I sound like an imbecile here, my English is so poor. lol!
We can understand you quite well, thanks!
Hi,
From Fukuoka’s grandsons
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/109/chp%253A10.1007%252F978-4-431-55828-6_8.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fchapter%2F10.1007%2F978-4-431-55828-6_8&token2=exp=1461195487~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F109%2Fchp%25253A10.1007%25252F978-4-431-55828-6_8.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Fchapter%252F10.1007%252F978-4-431-55828-6_8*~hmac=1ce102b272a3227a1843e0a5eb49b3fa5db48d329b4872062ffc8f2fa0928f69
Made up my numbers, 5 million usd required to cool down Atucha NPP on solar
If you put food waste in a plastic bag and let it rot for a year, the result is a godawful, stinking, somewhat liquefied mess. I’ve asked what would be the effect of stuff like that on nuclear waste, but no one ever answered.
You’re trying to compare apples to oranges. High-level nuclear waste would kill the microbes responsible for the liquifaction of the food waste, if initially present, so that would not change as you describe, i.e., it would be preserved. By itself, most nuclear waste would emit radiation (alpha, beta, gamma and X-rays) as it decays, and produce heat. Over time, only the long-lived half-life isotopes would remain, but that’s a long, long time for some plutonium isotopes.
So what do you think about the Fukuoka experiment?
“If you put food waste in a plastic bag and let it rot for a year, the result is a godawful, stinking, somewhat liquefied mess. I’ve asked what would be the effect of stuff like that on nuclear waste, but no one ever answered.”
Probably catch fire and blow radioactive smoke everywhere.
The rumoured cause of the incident at WIPP was that some do-gooder decided to replace the normal zeolite filled cat litter with “organic” cat litter. The organic cat litter was made out of actual organic material, which caught fire from the heat and radiation causing a fire underground amongst the nuclear waste, and perhaps a bit of it made it out into the surrounding environment.
But what if you bury the sludge with nuclear material 6′ underground? I’m thinking of a kind of chain of submergence-with-sludge that is repeated many times, till all the hazardous material is gone?
The article has to do with the use of contaminated compost in producing food near Fukoshima.
I checked to see how Japan’s reference values for Cesium compare to those elsewhere. They seem to be a lot lower than in the US and Europe. http://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/japan-new-permissible-levels-of-radioactivity-in-foods/ The new Japanese limits seem to be a lot lower than those used in the US and Europe, so are conservative limits compared to those of other countries. http://bmfoodcoop.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Japanese-Food-Safety-Report.pdf
So maybe the short half-life of cesium is allowing compost to now be safe in this regard.
Oh la la!
Careful with that link My computer seized up when I clicked on
As a PhD physicist I wish everyone would stop using physics as a model. Obviously everything is physics, but that does not shed much light on the processes.
As an example, it is trivial to say that our brain is subject to the laws of physics, but that does not shed any light on the hard question of consciousness.
In the same way our civilization is constrained by laws of energy and thermodynamics, but that says nothing about now we will respond to these constraints.
Because we’re not sure to get 100% accurate and reliable conclusion, we should stop any discussion about a given topic??!!??
What kind of an idea about science is that??
(Better I stop here)
Don’t stop the discussion, just realize that the laws of physics can set very broad limits but give you very little insight on the details.
In terguru,
Sorry I warmed up a little bit quickly, it seems.
I think we agree, in fact. Physics doesn’t give you “The Truth”, but the little light it sheds is very useful, IMO, in the same way as financial approach is, and psychological, sociological, etc…
Our situation must be examined under biggest possible number of angles, and I consider Physics, especially Thermodynamics, as being one of the most important ones, as it encompasses almost all of the processes and allows to both take the largest frame as well as focus on tyniest details.
Interguru,
Just made you a nice little reply to say we probably agree.
Not displayed. Hope it’ll show up soon.
Interguru
I agree that naive physics can be very misleading (I don’t want to rule out some ‘sophisticated’ physics). For example, one might say that the Second Law requires that human society constantly degrade from some original ‘Golden Age’. But such a presumption is simply not consistent with history. We know that the civilized world enjoyed a high standard of living during the bronze age, which was followed by a centuries long dark age, which was followed by the flowering of the Mediterranean societies, which was followed by a dark age, which gave way to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
While I am not a professional historian, I don’t think there is any simplistic Physics explanation for why the Enlightenment happened when it did. As I recall, Newton did his major work while he was a refugee from the Plague epidemic in Cambridge. While it is understandable from a human psychology standpoint that the peace and quiet of the farm may have been conducive to deep thought, it is hard to trace that back to Physics.
On the other hand, the decline from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age probably had something to do with the exhaustion of the ability to produce Bronze. Which has something to do with the laws of Physics.
Don Stewart
Don,
The Renaissance can be seen a the dawn of the biggest Dark Age ever,
because we then chose to go for a materialistic view of the world, that certainly allowed big acheivements, but also lead us into current dire situation.
We lost our relationship with “the Cosmos”; we’re just starting to realize that and catch up, but ‘m afraid it’s far too late, the overshoots are to big already, our complex system will have to shift to something brand new (that we can’t imagine, granted).
What I wanted to say here is that the description of a given fact or situation depends a lot on where you’re talking from.
I agree with you about the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and the emerging effort to correct course, But IMO that correction entails recognizing the sacred in everything, including the Renaissance and Enlightenment. So I’m thinking it’s the disregard of the sacred (and not primarily the outward civilizational forms) that took us where we are. Recovering the sense of the sacred within a new, “industrial detritus” hunter gatherer, small-band global order is not guaranteed to save us, but it could. Nothing can be discarded.
Or we might turn it all around, and suggest that if we had been truly, rationally, materialistic, then the finite nature of resources would have been taken into account when this crazy ride began in the early 19th century.
Instead, we adopted magical thinking; ‘How exciting, this will never stop!’ Seek and we will find, etc…..
Magical thinking, childish wishful-thinking, combined with immensely powerful extractive technologies: a disaster!
Right Xabier,
Can be seen this way too!
Rational (powerful) means for irrational (undetermined) goals.
Rush to nowhere
Akin to panic?
it has been suggested that a cogniscent earth, having recognised it was carrying a surplus of fossiled hydrocarbon, evolved human beings to get rid of it
our task is nearly complete
Norman,
“Cogniscent” or not, doesn’t change anything.
Throwing in some consciousness or intention may embellish the narrative and by the way discharge us of any responsibility, but in reality it has nothing to do with the story, which is the same wether there’s a supposed fairy at work, or not.
As I see it, postulating the existence of higher powers is simply an easy way to label the manifestations of emergent properties, new phenomena that appear in certain conditions.
All the time, in fact, such as self-organisation.
Is Mamma Nature a higher power?
Animism has always had a certain appeal for me….
Bonjour FE,
Yes, some narratives, some “magical frames” as Artleads put it (or approx.) are rather pleasant, and let open doors to imagination a.s.o., contrarily to some other rigid sets of dogmas, as monotheist religions mostly are.
La Pacha Mama, together with Pacha Papa (Sun and Rain that sow her), is of those ‘open’ myths, that provide a support but don’t close discussions, well, afaik.
Much better delusions than those on the platter of bullshit served up by the main players in the Relgion-Industrial Complex…. 🙂
http://www.worshipideas.com/wp-content/uploads/offeringplate2-640×360.jpg
http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA2LzEzL2Y0L1B1Y2suODkyZGIuZ2lmCnAJdGh1bWIJMTIwMHg5NjAwPg/c6538ddb/a38/Puck.gif
If a border-line was to be drawn between good and bad narratives,
I think the criterion would be RESPECT of the other species and the environment in general.
Either you’re part of the whole, or you keep fighting against everything, to preserve a waning identity.
i wasn’t postulating the existence of a higher power—i don’t believe in one
merely putting forward the the suggestion that the earth, of itself, might have mechanisms of which we are unaware, by which it preserves itself over the long term.
there is no ”conscious awareness– only an end that must achieve a balance by which the biological structure that makes up the environment we live in can continue to exist for the benefit of all.
The millions of years of plant and animal life that gave us the oil coal and gas that we burn so freely, could, in a grand scheme of things, be being discharged as no more than a global fart in which humankind has evolved to play an essential part. (Think 200 years of hydrocarbon discharge set against the historical age of the Earth itself)
The dinosaurs have been an infinitely more successful species than us. Right now they hang around our bird tables and look pretty. With us gone, and the field left clear, who knows how they might re-emerge again. They certainly have the logical body-structure to take control and be stewards of the earth as they once were
Norman,
I was speaking “in general”, I know your position.
Love the new name you found for the Industrial Revolution: the Global Fart.
As for the next “family” that will take over, I wouldn’t bet on dinosaurs again, I think Nature will go for something more exotic (wild guess).
The choice is broad, when you look at this “new tree of Life” they recently issued.
yup—my friday contribution to scientific terminology
Stefeun—thinking of the next species in terms of evolution—it has to evolve from something that already exists in some form
Fishy things are out, because they are confined to water, Leaving water might take 50 m years of evolution
land animals are out because they are confined to land (obviously). Evolving to build boats would mean taking the same path as we did.(tools)– So that’s no good
Insects are constrained by gravity die to their exo-skeleton arrangement limiting physical growth.
Creatures without skeletons can only exist in water above a certain size
So that only leaves birdy things, of some kind.—which essentially is a re emergence of the species that dominated the environment in the first place, the dinosaur physical model.—a dino/bird has gripping hands, stereo vision, a prey killing beak, climate protection, and fast unlimited movement anywhere on earth to facilitate eating and procreation, using navigation systems we can’t begin to understand. . It s only real predators are bigger birds if you think about it
I might have missed a trick there—no doubt a finite worldster will point out any errors.
There seems to be an issue of rising concentrations of energy, and humans (and the human brain) are at the top of this. I don’t know what this does for the problem.
Eric Chaisson (Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature) has done work on this.
Yes Gail,
Availability of marerial and energy resource (sinks included) is no doubt important for the level of complexity “our” future complex system will be able to reach.
But with respect to biodiversity only, it looks like the long-term trend is quite robust and needs ‘only’ 10 million years to recover, even after dramatic extinctions (up to 95% of species..?), and all that with solar budget only, of course:
https://omicron.aeon.co/inlineimages/0175f023-7ef3-4374-a779-6747ee8f5147/show_Phanerozoic_Biodiversity.jpg
The chart is from this essay:
https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinction
The article says,
As the earth warms, we can expect an increasing number of species. The earth is not permanent, just as the sun is not permanent. Ultimately, the number of species must fall, when the temperature of the earth falls.
Of course, nothing says that humans will necessarily be in the future list of species, regardless of how many there are. We are very good at dissipating energy, however.
A blogger on NBL had some interesting thoughts re what might be called “magical thinking.” He referred instead to the impossibility of ditching some version or other of “trance.” In his opinion (and mine) it’s not possible to do without a magical belief system. It’s just that the trance we have now re industrial civilization isn’t working well for us! A different trance, and one that we can live by (hence more rational?) type of trances is required.
Stefeun, never forget about the Maximum Power Principle. If you do not extract the resources, someone else will do and overtake (overrun) you in the end. The constant need for struggle is a bug in the evolutionary system that was fixed with predators and diseases. Humans have just a bit more intelligence that allows them to understand a predator and kill them all or invent sanitation and antibiotics. The MPP has been mentioned as a new law of thermodynamics and it massively applies to dissipative structures, we had Gail’s articles about that recently. Physics does not really apply to dissipative structures. Now law in physics explains why Delta H produces a cell or an organism, I bet that is why it is not accepted. The other laws of thermodynamics apply very well to our world and the above article shows that BTUs is what we need. The media only talks about barrels, that is utter nonsense.
MM,
I agree, my comment was only to underline that things can look different, depending how you look at them.
It’s very easy to label something as being good or bad or whatever, but when you look closer, the reality is always more nuanced.
WRT the MPP, it’s actually a principle, highlighted by HT Odum, for Ecology, that works pretty well in lots of situations, but actually does not comply with the 2nd law of Thermodynamics.
There’s another “principle”*, called MEP, for Maximum Entropy Production, that encompasses MPP and is fully compliant with the 2nd Law. (*: I’m using quotes because it should be called the 3rd Law, but unfortunately the démonstrations aren’t fully completed yet).
It’s based on Ilya Prigogine’s works about dissipative structures. To make it short, things appear much clearly and complete my when you look at from the Entropy point of view, while power/energy alone let some shades.
French physicist François Roddier explains this at length and provides examples of appliances rangeing from mechanics to sociology. His works are currently being -slowly- translated into English.
I know I have had a researcher in the US write to me saying something very similar–MPP is close, but not really right. It is really maximum entropy production.
MM,
The whole thing about dissipative structures is that they temporarily and locally reduce entropy, in order to raise it faster globally.
As usual, very simple basic principle that leads to very complex outcomes.
And by the way is subject to partial interpretations…
I agree to some extend; the physics used to explain how limits affect the economy that I have seen so far are more cosmological or Holistic in scope, they fit as explanation to must problems easily but disregard concious decisions by the financial, entreprenur and consumer sectors, they aren’t useful to have a forecast for economy cycles apart from reminding us that we are step closer to the ultimate end. there is also a gap in the interdisciplinary aproach to economics althoug it sheds some light to the technical view of XX century analysis of finance and economicy which are clearly engulfed in their own theories to the point the can`t see beyond growth and maximizing profit.
In the other hand it seems to me that mainly “peak oilers” are more concerned on communicating the issue at hand and simply stoped bothering on seeking.. Maybe not solutions but possible outcomes.
However that doesn’t mean Physics are useless it only means… “Experts” have not developed nor applied them in a more technical fashion, to me is like saying that maths or quantum Physics have nothing to do with economy, biology or even psychology, and at the same time it can’t be the best and only way to develop these other disciplines.
It is like Don Stewart pointed out in his post in regards to lack of information and models
.
In terms of our response or preparation will depend on how much right information we can get before the time’s up and off course our human nature.
What do you think?
Rather agree, but. not sure maths and logic can do “a better modeling”. Perhaps it’s all there right now
A bit off topic I came across today:
As there was frequent discussion about solar electrical pumps for water I recommend this reading for water pumping:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram
Well, it needs a constant water input like a river but can pump quite high and has very long operating times (30 years ?) without any need for other energy.
water rams are excellent – the can last decades – limited water volume would be the only issue with these (far better than hauling water with a bucket though!)
Except energy to make replacement parts for the pump. Pumps rarely last that long.
Rams should last decades without any replacement parts.. they are quite simple machines…
Sure are simple…Remember an article run by MothervEarth News that featured a DIY version….
http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/hydraulic-ram-pump-zmaz79mjzraw.aspx
And a YouTube how to video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nFZYD05I29s
Of course, do it now because after BAU you will be SOL
Remember seeing one working….and they do actually perform
This is the first video showing the parts and assembly of the ram pump…very good production to watch…the pump only cost about $150 in parts and a few hours to put together
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CG0laNqJWY0
Trump Hints He Would Replace Janet Yellen
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-20/trump-hints-he-would-replace-janet-yellen
Now wouldn’t that be interesting… given the tail wags the dog …
Interesting… removing the man from the $20 bill — who said this about central banks:
“You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.” (Andrew Jackson, to a delegation of bankers discussing the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, 1832)
Right around the time that this fellow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Mayer_Rothschild said this:
“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, … The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.” Nathan Rothschild
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-20/treasury-removes-jackson-20-bill-will-replace-him-harriet-tubman
Of course that battle was eventually lost — no politician would dare utter what Jackson did back in the day….
Little treasures here, rewind to ~26-28min and ~37-41min segments each..
https://youtu.be/gU-xVYLtO_E
#1
Thatcher predicting backdoor EU federalism and destroyed national sovereignty through ECB powers over interest rates
#2
feudalism: production->distribution->debt
capitalism: debt->distribution->production
(my practical addendum: hedge funds make billions on this simple observation)
Reuters – Anti-slavery crusader Harriet Tubman will become the first African-American to be featured on the face of U.S. paper currency when she replaces slaveholding President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
Me – Let’s just hope that all debt slaves wont get any crazy ideas and rise against their masters.
When the oil slaves we use now dry up, we’ll revert back to the human variety of ages past
Now, who will we feature on the bill then?
A donkey ?
Rumor has it that Lincoln was trying some actions on the central bankers similar to old Andy, introduced the Liberty Dollar I believe, which upset them, of course. Then, something unfortunate happens in the Ford Theater and of course we have the usual lone gunman who has a great motive and is hunted down and quickly and conveniently silenced before telling any tales. Maybe just a coincidence, who knows. Sure is a similar MO.
Too right FE. Been lurking here for a year now and I like your comments. To Gail, awesome blog and thank-you. You are a shining light. It’s a daily read for me and thanks to all the comments too, too many names to list. Anyone hear read FOFOA?
Dear Finite Worlders
Some ruminations about the U shaped value of information. Prompted by reading in Dan Levitin’s book The Organized Mind. Particularly pages 308 and following.
If you would like to know what the future holds for oil, the economy, and your personal circumstances, there are a few billion well chosen words that you might choose to read. By the time you die, you might have waded through some respectable percentage of them, but they probably wouldn’t have done you very much good. The solution that Adrian Bejan would suggest is to rely on compact, scientific laws. Bejan would modestly suggest that his Constructal Law is one of the tools you should have in your kit bag.
First, let’s look at what happens when we try to absorb data without any real frame of reference. We can call it ‘multitasking’. Levitin gives overwhelming data to confirm the information that multitasking is a very bad idea. Nothing of significance gets accomplished in 2 minute bites. And the more 2 minute bites we have inflicted upon us, the worse our overall performance gets.
On page 309, Levitin gives us a very nice curve showing the relevance of higher and lower volumes of data to performance. If we have just one or two data points, we tend not to perform well. If we have a hundred data points, we tend not to perform well. We perform well with some optimum number of data points. In terms of buying a house, the optimum is about 10. That is, you can compare 2 houses with 5 data points about each, or 5 houses with 2 data points each, but 10 houses with a hundred data points each will encourage you to make poor decisions.
Nevertheless, in an experiment, ‘although optimum performance came with ten to twelve pieces of information, players at every level asked for more information’.
‘Separate research by Kahneman and Tversky shows that people are unable to ignore information that is not relevant to them, so there is a real neural cost of being presented with information you don’t care about and can’t use.’
‘Then the question becomes not one of how many things you can do at once, but how orderly you can make the information environment.’
Bejan tackled the ‘order’ issue. Once Isaac Newton figured out that F=MA, lots of details could be forgotten by those who had mastered the Law. Newton’s Law worked very well for a long time. Only when we began to look at things on the fringes, such as the very small or the very fast moving, did the law begin to reveal its fragile foundations.
There are two outstanding examples of ‘laws’ which purport to tell us the future of the oil business and the economy and shed light on our personal circumstances. The first example is the Hubbert curves, which are back in the news thanks to Mason Inman’s book about Hubbert and Daniel Yergin’s claims that Hubbert didn’t understand Economics and so is simply wrong at the foundation. The second example is BW Hill’s Etp model which claims to quantify the future of oil based on the interaction of the cost of producing oil products and the value that society derives from those products. Specifically, Hill claims that our global society can no longer afford to produce new oil, because it costs more than it is worth. Hill’s model includes economics, because it makes claims about how much money the non-oil economy can generate using oil products in order to pay the oil economy for producing the products.
I do not wish to argue the details of Hubbert’s model nor the merits of Hill’s model. Instead, I want to point out those areas where I believe our knowledge may be lacking. In short, we are unable to process all the raw data coming at us…failing Levitin’s charge that we ‘make the information environment orderly’.
*We do not have time series data which shows us the ‘net energy’ we are getting from oil
*We do not have sophisticated economic theories which relate how GDP relates to changes in the availability of net energy
*We do not have good models which relate how the Constructal Law might be impacting the economy’s ability to produce oil, while at the same time reaching Second Law limits
*We do not have good models which relate how consumption of oil products relates to the functioning of the Ecosystem on which life depends
If you have read the strenuous efforts the Obama Administration is exerting to keep the details of the back room dealings on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a secret, you may begin to get a glimmer about why the most powerful government in the world is not making much of an effort to give us the theories and data we need to make sense out of what is happening. We are just happily counting barrels and cheering for more debt.
Yet Dan Ariely, the Behavioral Economist at Duke, showed that ability to select relevant information is at the foundation of wise choice.
The second issue I would like to highlight is related to the U curve for information. Suppose that there is a U curve for oil and GDP. That is, human well-being is maximized with some amount of oil, but that amount might very well be less than the average American is using today. We cannot expect an American to demand to use less oil, any more than we can expect them to recognize that they are suffering from data overload. Dan Ariely, has shown that fewer choices are frequently best for a consumer. Could it be true that a simpler life based on lower consumption of oil and less generation of data, coupled with more understanding of the fundamental Laws, might be better for us? It seems to me that we ought to know the answer to that question…even if we don’t have any very good ideas about how humans might become Sapient and actually do something with the knowledge.
Don Stewart
*We do not have time series data which shows us the ‘net energy’ we are getting from oil
*We do not have sophisticated economic theories which relate how GDP relates to changes in the availability of net energy
*We do not have good models which relate how the Constructal Law might be impacting the economy’s ability to produce oil, while at the same time reaching Second Law limits
*We do not have good models which relate how consumption of oil products relates to the functioning of the Ecosystem on which life depends
excelent points Don thank you for sharing them