World GDP in current US dollars is in some sense the simplest world GDP calculation that a person might make. It is calculated by taking the GDP for each year for each country in the local currency (for example, yen) and converting these GDP amounts to US dollars using the then-current relativity between the local currency and the US dollar.
To get a world total, all a person needs to do is add together the GDP amounts for all of the individual countries. There is no inflation adjustment, so comparing GDP growth amounts calculated on this basis gives an indication regarding how the world economy is growing, inclusive of inflation. Calculation of GDP on this basis is also inclusive of changes in relativities to the US dollar.
What has been concerning for the last couple of years is that World GDP on this basis is no longer growing robustly. In fact, it may even have started shrinking, with 2014 being the peak year. Figure 1 shows world GDP on a current US dollar basis, in a chart produced by the World Bank.
Figure 1. World GDP in “Current US Dollars,” in chart from World Bank website.
Since the concept of GDP in current US dollars is not a topic that most of us are very familiar with, this post, in part, is an exploration of how GDP and inflation calculations on this basis fit in with other concepts we are more familiar with.
As I look at the data, it becomes clear that the reason for the downturn in Current US$ GDP is very much related to topics that I have been writing about. In particular, it is related to the fall in oil prices since mid-2014 and to the problems that oil producers have been having since that time, earning too little profit on the oil they sell. A similar problem is affecting natural gas and coal, as well as some other commodities. These low prices, and the deflation that they are causing, seem to be flowing through to cause low world GDP in current US dollars.
Figure 2. Average per capita wages computed by dividing total “Wages and Salaries” as reported by US BEA by total US population, and adjusting to 2016 price level using CPI-Urban. Average inflation adjusted oil price is based primarily on Brent oil historical oil price as reported by BP, also adjusted by CPI-urban to 2016 price level.
While energy products seem to be relatively small compared to world GDP, in fact, they play an outsized role. This is the case partly because the use of energy products makes GDP growth possible (energy provides heat and movement needed for industrial processes), and partly because an increase in the price of energy products indirectly causes an increase in the price of other goods and services. This growth in prices makes it possible to use debt to finance goods and services of all types.
A decrease in the price of energy products has both positive and negative impacts. The major favorable effect is that the lower prices allow the GDPs of oil importers, such as the United States, European Union, Japan, and China, to grow more rapidly. This is the effect that has predominated so far.
The negative impacts appear more slowly, so we have seen less of them so far. One such negative impact is the fact that these lower prices tend to produce deflation rather than inflation, making debt harder to repay. Another negative impact is that lower prices (slowly) push companies producing energy products toward bankruptcy, disrupting debt in a different way. A third negative impact is layoffs in affected industries. A fourth negative impact is lower tax revenue, particularly for oil exporting countries. This lower revenue tends to lead to cutbacks in governmental programs and to disruptions similar to those seen in Venezuela.
In this post, I try to connect what I am seeing in the new data (GDP in current US$) with issues I have been writing about in previous posts. It seems to me that there is no way that oil and other energy prices can be brought to an adequate price level because we are reaching an affordability limit with respect to energy products. Thus, world GDP in current dollars can be expected to stay low, and eventually decline to a lower level. Thus, we seem to be encountering peak GDP in current dollars.
Furthermore, in the years ahead the negative impacts of lower oil and other energy prices can be expected to start predominating over the positive impacts. This change can be expected to lead to debt-related financial problems, instability of governments of oil exporters, and falling energy consumption of all kinds.
Peak Per Capita Energy Consumption Is Part of the Problem, Too
One problem that makes our current situation much worse than it might otherwise be is the fact that world per capita energy consumption seems to have hit a maximum in 2013 (Figure 3).
Figure 3. World Daily Per Capita Energy Consumption, based on primary energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy and 2017 United Nations population estimates.
Surprisingly, this peak in consumption occurred before oil and other energy prices collapsed, starting in mid-2014. At these lower prices, a person would think that consumers could afford to buy more energy goods per person, not fewer.
Per capita energy consumption should be rising with lower prices, unless the reason for the fall in prices is an affordability problem. If the drop in prices reflects an affordability problem (wages of most workers are not high enough to buy the goods and services made with energy products, such as homes and cars), then we would expect the pattern we are seeing today–low oil and other energy prices, together with falling per capita consumption. If the reason for falling per capita energy consumption is an affordability problem, then there is little hope that prices will rise sufficiently to fix our current problem.
One consideration supporting the hypothesis that we are really facing an affordability problem is the fact that in recent years, energy prices have been too low for companies producing oil and other energy products. Since 2015, hundreds of oil, natural gas, and coal companies have gone bankrupt. Saudi Arabia has had to borrow large amounts of money to fund its budget, because at current prices, tax revenues are too low to fund it. In the United States, investors are cutting back on their support for oil investment, because of the continued financial losses of the companies and evidence that approaches for mitigating these losses are not really working.
Which Countries Are Suffering Falling GDP in Current US Dollars?
With lower oil prices, Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with falling GDP in Current US$.
Figure 4. Increase in GDP since 1990 for Saudi Arabia in current US dollars, based on World Bank Data.
Saudi Arabia pegs its currency to the dollar, so its lower GDP is not because its currency has fallen relative to the US dollar; instead, it reflects a situation in which fewer goods and services of all kinds are being produced, as measured in US dollars. GDP calculations do not consider debt, so Figure 4 indicates that even with all of Saudi Arabia’s borrowing to offset falling oil revenue, the quantity of goods and services it was able to produce fell in both 2015 and 2016.
Other oil-producing countries are clearly having problems as well, but data is often missing from the World Bank database for these countries. For example, Venezuela is clearly having problems with low oil prices, but GDP amounts for the country are missing for 2014, 2015, and 2016. (Somehow, world totals seem to include estimates of the total omitted amounts, however.)
Figure 5 shows similar ratios to Figure 4 for a number of other commodity producing countries.
Figure 5. GDP patterns, in US current dollars, for selected resource exporting countries, based on World Bank data.
A comparison of Figures 4 and 5 shows that the GDP patterns for these countries are similar to that of Saudi Arabia. Because resources (including oil) do not account for as large a share of GDP for these countries as for Saudi Arabia, the peak as a percentage of 1990 GDP isn’t quite as high as for Saudi Arabia. But the trend is still downward, with 2014 typically the peak year.
We can also look at similar information for the historically big consumers of oil, coal and natural gas, namely the United States, the European Union, and Japan.
Figure 6. Increase in GDP since 1990 for the United States, the European Union, and Japan, in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
Here, we find the growth trend is much more subdued than for the countries shown in the previous two charts. I have purposely put the upper limit of the scale of this chart at 6 times the 1990 GDP level. This limit is similar to the upper limit on earlier charts, to emphasize how much more slowly these countries have been growing, compared to the countries shown in Figures 4 and 5.
In fact, for the European Union and Japan, GDP in current US$ is now lower than it has been in recent years. Figure 6 is telling us that the goods and services produced in these countries are now lower in US dollar value than they were a few years ago. Since part of the cost of goods and services is used to pay wages, this lower relativity indirectly implies that the wages of workers in the EU and Japan are falling, relative to the cost of buying goods and services priced in US dollars. Thus, even apart from taxes added by these countries, consumers in the EU and Japan have been falling behind in their ability to buy energy products priced in US dollars.
Figure 6 indicates that the United States has been doing relatively better than the European Union and Japan, in terms of the value of goods and services produced each year continuing to grow. If we look back at Figure 2, however, we see that even in the US, wage growth has lagged far behind oil price increases. Thus, the US was also likely headed toward an affordability problem relating to goods and services made with oil.
The Asian exporting nations have been doing relatively better in keeping their economies growing, despite the downward pressure on energy prices.
Figure 7. Increase in GDP since 1990 for selected rapidly growing Asian exporting countries in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
The two most rapidly growing countries are China and Vietnam. There seems to be a recent slowing of their growth rates, but no actual downturn.
India, Pakistan, and the Philippines are growing less rapidly. They do not seem to be experiencing any downturn at all.
Considering the indications of Figure 4 through 7, it appears that only a relatively small share of countries have experienced rising GDP in current US dollars. Although we have not looked at all possible groupings, the countries that seem to be doing best in terms of rising current US$ GDP are countries that are exporters of manufactured goods, including the Asian countries shown. Countries that derive significant GDP from producing energy products and other commodities seem to be experiencing falling GDP in current US dollars.
To fix the problems shown here, we would need to get prices of oil and other energy products back up again. This would indirectly raise prices of many other products as well, including food, new vehicles, and new homes. With lagging wages in many countries, this would seem to be virtually impossible to accomplish.
The Wide Range of GDP Indications We See
In this post, I am talking about GDP of various countries, converted to a US$ basis. This is not quite the same as the GDP that we normally read about. It is not until a person starts working with world data that a person appreciates how different the various GDP and inflation calculations are.
GDP in US dollars is very important because energy products, including oil, are generally priced in US$. This seems to be true, whether or not the currency used in the actual transaction is US$. See Appendix A for charts showing the close connection between these two items.
The type of GDP is generally reported is inflation-adjusted (also called “real”) GDP. The assumption is made that no one will care (very much) about inflation rates. In general, inflation-adjusted GDP figures are much more stable than those in Current US$. This can be seen by comparing world GDP in Figure 8 with that shown in Figure 1.
Figure 8. GDP in 2010 US dollars, for the world and for the United States, based on World Bank data.
Using inflation-adjusted world GDP data, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of crisis ahead. The last major problem was in the 2008-2009 period. Even the impact of this crisis appears to be fairly small. The 2008-2009 crisis shows up more distinctly in the Current US$ amounts plotted in Figure 1.
World GDP growth figures that are published by the World Bank and others combine country by country data using some type of weighting approach. Economists tend to use an approach called Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). This approach gives a great deal more weight to developing nations than the US dollar weighted approach used elsewhere in this post. For example, under the PPP approach, China seems to get a weighting of about 1.9 times its GDP in US$; India seems to get a weighting of about 3.8 times its GDP in US$. The United States gets a weight of 1.0 times its GDP in US$, and the weights for developed nations tend to be fairly close to 1.0 times their GDP in US$. The world GDP we see published regularly should be called “inflation-adjusted world GDP, calculated with PPP weights.”
The relationship among the three types of GDP can be seen in Figure 9. It is clear that GDP growth in Current US$ is far more variable than the inflation-adjusted growth rate (in 2010 US$). PPP inflation-adjusted GDP growth is consistently higher than GDP growth with US dollar weighting.
Figure 9. World GDP Growth in three alternative measures: Current dollars, Inflation-adjusted GDP is in 2010 US$ and adjusted to purchasing power parity (PPP).
It is also clear from Figure 9 that there is also a big “Whoops” in the most recent years. Economic growth is at a record low level, as calculated in Current US$.
World “Inflation” Indications
The typical way of calculating inflation is by looking at prices of a basket of goods in a particular currency, such as the yen, and seeing how the prices change over a period of time. To get an inflation rate for a group of countries (such as the G-20), inflation rates of various countries are weighted together using some set of weights. My guess is that these weights might be the PPP weights used in calculating world GDP.
In Figure 10, I calculate implied world inflation using a different approach. Since the World Bank publishes World GDP both in 2010 US$ and in Current US$, I calculate the implied world inflation rate by comparing these two sets of values. (Some people might call what I am calculating the implicit price deflator for GDP, rather than an inflation rate.) I use three-year averages to smooth out year-to-year variability in these amounts.
Figure 10. World inflation rate calculated by comparing reported World GDP in Current US$ to reported World GDP in 2010 US$. Both of these amounts are available at the World Bank website.
The implied world inflation rates using this approach are fairly different from published inflation rates. In part, this is because the calculations take into account changing relativities of currencies. There may be other factors as well, such as the inclusion of countries that would not normally be included in aggregations. Inflation rates tend to be high when demand for energy products is high, and low when demand for energy products is low.
Figure 10 shows that, on a world basis, there have been negative inflation rates three times since 1963–in approximately 1983-1984; in the late 1990s to early 2000s; and since about 2014. If we compare these dates to the oil price and energy consumption data on Figures 2 and 3, we see that these time periods are ones that are marked by falling per capita energy consumption and by low oil prices. In some sense, these are the time periods when the economy is/was trying to stall, for lack of adequate demand for oil.
The workaround used to “fix” the lack of demand in the late 1990s to early 2000s seems to have been an increased focus on globalization. China’s growth in particular was very important, because it added both a rapidly growing supply of cheap energy from coal and a great deal of demand for energy products. The addition of coal effectively lowered the average price of energy products so that they were again affordable by a large share of the world population. The availability of debt to pull the Chinese and other Asian economies forward was no doubt of importance as well.
The United States has been fairly protected from much of what has happened because its currency, the US Dollar, is the world’s reserve currency. If we look at the inflation rate of the United States using data of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the last time the United States had a substantial period of contracting prices was in the US Depression of the 1930s. It is quite possible that such a situation existed worldwide, but I do not have world data for that period.
Figure 11. US inflation rate (really “GDP Deflator”) obtained by comparing US GDP in 2009 US$ to GDP in Current US $, based on US Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
It was during the Depression of the 1930s that debt defaults became widespread. It was only through deficit spending, including the significant debt-based funding for World War II, that the problem of inadequate demand for goods and services was completely eliminated.
How Do We Solve Our World Deflation Crisis This Time
There seem to be three ways of creating demand for goods and services.
[1] A growing supply of cheap-to-produce energy products is really the basic way of increasing demand through economic growth.
If there are cheap-to-produce energy products available, a growing supply of these energy products can be used to increasingly leverage human labor, through the use of more and better “tools” for the workers. When workers become increasingly more productive, their wages naturally rise. It is this growing productivity of human labor that generally produces the rising demand needed to maintain the economic growth cycle.
As growth in energy consumption slows and then declines (Figure 3), this productivity growth tends to disappear. This seems to be part of today’s problem.
[2] Increasing the amount of debt outstanding can work to make the energy extraction system work more effectively, by raising the price that consumers can afford to pay for high-priced goods.
This increasing ability to pay for high-priced goods seems to come in two ways:
(a) The debt itself can be used to pay for goods, making these goods more affordable on a month-to-month or year-to-year basis.
(b) Increased debt can lead to increased wages for wage earners, because some of the increased debt ultimately goes to create new jobs and to pay workers. Figure 12 shows the positive association that increasing debt seems to have with inflation-adjusted wages in the United States.
Figure 12. Growth in US Wages vs. Growth in Non-Financial Debt. Wages from US Bureau of Economics “Wages and Salaries.” Non-Financial Debt is discontinued series from St. Louis Federal Reserve. (Note chart does not show a value for 2016.) Both sets of numbers have been adjusted for growth in US population and for growth in CPI Urban.
Debt is, in effect, the promise of future goods and services made with energy products. These promises are often helpful in allowing an economy to expand. For example, businesses can issue bonds to provide funds to expand their operations. Selling shares of stock acts in a manner similar to adding debt, with repayment coming from future operations. In both cases, the payback can occur, if energy consumption is in fact growing, allowing the output of the business to expand as planned.
Once world leaders decide that debt levels are too high, or need to be controlled better, we are likely headed for trouble, because debt can be very helpful in “pulling the economy forward.” This is especially the case if productivity growth is low because per capita energy consumption is falling.
[3] Rebalancing of currency relativities to the US dollar.
Rebalancing currencies to different levels relative to the dollar seems to play a major role in determining the “inflation rate” calculated in Figure 10. Currency rebalancing also plays a major role in determining the shape of the GDP graph in current US$, as shown in Figure 1. In general, the higher the average relativity of other currencies to the US$, the higher the demand for goods and services of all kinds, and thus the higher the demand for energy products.
One problem in recent years is that, in some sense, the average relativity of other currencies to the US dollar has fallen too low. The fall in relativities took place when the US discontinued its use of Quantitative Easing in late 2014.
Figure 13. Monthly Brent oil prices with dates of US beginning and ending QE.
The price of oil and of other energy products dropped steeply at that time. In fact, in inflation-adjusted terms, oil prices had been falling even prior to the end of QE. (See Figure 2, above.) The shift in the currency relativities made oil and other energy products more expensive for citizens of the European Union, Japan, and most of the commodity producing countries shown in Figures 4 and 5.
The ultimate problem underlying this fall in average relativities to the US dollar is that there is now a disparity between the prices that consumers around the world can afford to pay for energy products, and the prices that businesses producing energy products really need. I have written about this problem in the past, for example in Why Energy-Economy Models Produce Overly Optimistic Indications.
At this point, none of the three approaches for solving the world’s deflation problem seem to be working:
[1] Increasing the supply of oil and other energy products is not working well, because diminishing returns has led to a situation where if prices are high enough for producers, they are too high for consumers to afford the finished goods made with the energy products.
[2] World leaders have decided that we have too much debt and, indeed, debt levels are very high. In fact, if energy prices continue to be low, a significant amount of debt currently outstanding will probably be defaulted on.
[3] Countries generally don’t want to raise the exchange rates of their currencies to the dollar, because lower exchange rates tend to encourage exports. If the United States raises its interest rates, either directly or by selling its QE bonds, the level of the US dollar can be expected to rise relative to other currencies. Thus, other currencies are likely to fall even lower than they are today, relative to the US dollar. This will tend to make the problem with low oil prices (and other energy prices) even worse than today.
Thus, there seems to be no way out of our current predicament.
Conclusion
The world economy is in a very precarious situation. Many of the world’s economies have found that, measured in current US$, the goods and services they are producing are less valuable than they were in 2013 and 2014. In particular, all of the oil exporting nations have this problem. Many other countries that are producing commodities have the same problem.
Governments around the world do not seem to understand the situation we are facing. In large part, this is happening because economists have built models based on their view of how the world works. Their models tend to leave out the important role energy plays. GDP growth and inflation estimates based on PPP calculations give a misleading view of how the economy is actually operating.
We seem to be sleepwalking into an even worse version of the Depression of the 1930s. Even if economists were able to figure out what is happening, it is not clear that there would be a good way out. Higher energy prices would aid energy producers, but would push energy importing nations into recession. We seem to be facing a predicament with no solution.
Appendix
Growing Inflation-Adjusted GDP Comes From Growing Energy Consumption
We often hear that GDP no longer depends on energy consumption, but this simply is not true. Energy consumption is needed for practically every industrial process, because energy causes the physical transformations that are need (including heat, light, and movement). Even services that only require a lighted, air-conditioned office and the use of computers require energy consumption of some type.
An industrialized country can outsource manufacturing of many of its goods to other countries, but the need for energy products goes with this outsourcing. The transfer of manufacturing to lesser developed countries tends to stimulate building in these countries. As a result, on a world basis, the amount of energy consumed tends to remain close to unchanged.
Using data for 1965 through 2016, we find the following relationship between inflation-adjusted world GDP and world energy consumption:
Figure A1. World growth in energy consumption vs. world GDP growth. Energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017. World GDP is GDP in US 2010$, as compiled by World Bank.
Another way of displaying the same data is as an X, Y graph. A very high long-term correlation can be observed on this basis.
Figure A2. X-Y graph of world energy consumption (from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017) versus world GDP in 2010 US$, from World Bank.
This high level of correlation can be seen for other groupings as well. For example, for the grouping Middle East and North Africa, there is a high level of correlation between energy consumption and GDP.
Figure A3. X-Y graph showing correlation between energy consumption and GDP in the Middle East and North Africa.
If a person calculates the implications of this fitted line, energy consumption for these oil-producing countries is actually growing faster than inflation-adjusted GDP for these countries. This type of trend is to be expected if oil-producing countries are in some sense becoming less efficient in producing oil. This could happen for a number of reasons. One is that the easiest to extract oil is extracted first, leaving the more expensive to extract oil to be extracted later. Another possible reason for this trend is rising human populations in oil producing countries. These people drive cars and live in air conditioned buildings, driving up energy consumption for these countries. Whatever the cause, this loss of efficiency in oil production can be expected to at least partially offset growing efficiencies elsewhere in the system.
Gail, you are reposted on Rense.com via zero hedge
Thanks!
There are Trojan horses at work everywhere you care to look!
The flavour of the coverage of the Charlotte event (even here in faraway NZ)has become dangerous to any clear thinking person with some even modest sense of history. The groupthink that is being imposed is unbelievable!…..well umm actually – not!
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UY1ycBuAyxc/WZS2OeHQb1I/AAAAAAAAxvk/y_UV_sXAUdANg6PwQVqElJSYumP_bGkrQCLcBGAs/s640/fc5b82739c123ad7e5c696c12fa8478e.jpg
Evil begets evil….
Actually, you need to embrace reality.
Story and Myth brought fitness in the past. You are now a liability.
Of course Ben Friedman is a self-hater… he just made all that up because he hates his tribe….
Now why would he do that?
You need to understand that a Zi on ist and a j ew …. are not the same….
I’ve never seen that photo: one can observe that the huge symbol rising above them is based on the monstrance of the Catholic ritual, itself derived – like the costumes of Christian priests – from Mithraism. The male costumes are a kind of parody of pre-WW1 Prussian uniforms.
If only they had stopped at silly fancy dress.
A wonderful illustration of the rise of the irrational in stressful epochs.
Censor is killing my attempt to paste the full enlightened comment from ZH….
I suggest scrolling down the page to around the 40th comment:
Chupacabra-322 Veritas X- Aug 16, 2017 3:10 PM
The Zi—oni—-st Elephant In The Room
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-16/larry-summers-loses-it-trump-endorsing-white-supremacists-asks-how-supporters-face-t
I interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news…
Oil and debt -Bank of International Sentiments (The bank of the Elders)
http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1503f.htm
That is from a couple of years ago. I would imagine the debt level is higher now.
Germans Just Love Paying Sky-High Prices for Green Energy
http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/germans-renewable-energy-energiewende-subsidies/
I wonder how German industry feels about paying these rates …
Oh and btw …. g w is a hoax … and even if it were not … solar energy does not reduce carbon because they are made using coal…
So these fo ols are effectively burning money… for nothing
for agw to be a hoax
it would mean thousands of scientists, plus lay individuals making common sense observations
in hundreds of locations, universities, nations, languages, political systems
covering dozens of widely differing disciplines
all getting together in a hitherto secret location (s) and an unspecified time—or times
then agreeing among themselves to formulate the ‘hoax’ in a collective coordinated manner for an unspecified purpose, faking/revoking publicly available and verifiable data etc
To perpetuate the ‘hoax’, not one of the above breaks ranks and sells his/her story to the press, or seeks to gain personal advantage by exposing the setup/hoax in any respect. (I was there when we agreed to—etc etc)
all the above to consider, bearing in mind that scientists will sell their grandmothers to gain academic advantage over their peers
——–
just sayin
Lol, and if those researchers wanted more of that mythical grant research money they wouldn’t all say in unison the science is settled, they’d just say ‘hey, could be, we still not make more (expensive) research on it…’
One could say the same thing about solar energy … one could say the same thing about EV’s …
You could certainly say that about the world being thought to be flat at one point… in fact if you suggested otherwise you could lose your head.
I am 100% certain that if the g w people could have their way — they would be more than happy to see questioners murdered. Absolutely zero doubt about that at all…
How many people do you know who believe that recycling is a good think? Of course recycling is a ridiculous waste of energy… much better to make stuff from scratch…. People who would agree with that are very few and far between.
Just because everyone believes something does not make it so.
The problem I have with the G w narrative is:
– one of their own blew the whistle on his mates exposing that they faked data because the temps did no warm – why do they need to fake the data if the narrative is correct?
– of course the fact that the temps did no warm is in itself a huge issue
– then there is James Lovelock calling it all a farce
– and finally it is rather suspicious that Gore made his movie right after conventional oil peaked
It is not possible to prove that the planet is warming or cooling — because some places are warming and some are cooling — from the beginning of time.
The evidence is simply to uncertain
Remember – two months ago I was on the other side of this fence.
I deal in facts. And something does not add up here.
Germany’s greenhouse emissions rose in both 2015 and 2016, according to BP Statistical Review of World Energy. There are a couple of problems (1) Germany is trying to phase out nuclear. The shift of nuclear to fossil fuels raises emissions. (2) Electricity is only a small part of Germany’s total energy use.
Endless MSM wailing about G W …. and the leader in green …. burns even more coal…
Funny that….
Well, they do pay their workers the highest wages.
Of course, they do have a product that everyone wants.
A bit of education on the subject?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
Bayer threatens to leave Germany over high electricity costs
German chemical giant Bayer has warned that it may be forced to leave the country because of a rise in energy prices. The firm is already looking at increasing its foothold in emerging economies such as China.
“It is important that we remain competitive in comparison with other countries,” Dekkers told the magazine. “Otherwise, a global business such as Bayer would have to consider relocating its production to countries with lower energy costs.”
Dutchman Dekkers complained that Germany, which has the highest energy prices in Europe, was becoming less attractive to energy-intensive sectors such as the chemical industry.
A Bayer Schering female researcher at work
Bayer employs some 35,000 people in Germany
“Energy prices will continue to rise and they are already the highest in the EU,” he said.
German energy prices are expected to rise following the decision by German authorities to shutter its nuclear power plants. Last month, parliament sealed plans to phase out nuclear energy by 2022, making the country the first major industrial power to take the step in the wake of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant.
http://www.dw.com/en/bayer-threatens-to-leave-germany-over-high-electricity-costs/a-15300384
How to Kill an Industry
Germany’s massive push into renewable energy has a dark side. As green policies drive up the cost of power, entire industries are shrinking.
The fate of Biblis is only a tiny sliver of the vast economic upheavals that began when Germany launched its energy transition that simultaneously phases out all nuclear power, winds down coal and other fossil fuels, accelerates the push towards alternative sources of energy, and builds the new grid infrastructure to make it all possible.
The fact that Germany is a world leader in green power is by now familiar.
Much less familiar is the price the country is paying for it, not just in cold hard cash, but in growing losses and dislocations across the entire economy.
https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies-markets/how-to-kill-an-industry-479057
http://images.amcnetworks.com/blogs.amctv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/TWO-MULES-FOR-SISTER-SARA.288.jpg
I agree—
This will need to be realized.
I guess the conclusion is that even small penetrations of “renewable energy” are not compatible with high profit margin, growth driven industries.
We shall see.
” Threatening” is just a mental masterbation.
Let me know when the Big Boys actually act.
High European energy prices drive BMW to US
When BMW, the German carmaker, was considering where to build an energy-intensive plant to manufacture carbon fibre for its forthcoming i3 urban electric vehicle, it did not pause long before selecting Moses Lake, Washington.
The $100m plant – operated with joint venture partner SGL Group – relies on hydroelectric power produced by dams on the nearby Columbia river. They generate electricity that costs just 3 dollar cents per kWh.
The equivalent electricity in Germany, where the lightweight carbon fibre is shipped to for processing and construction, would cost six times as much.
Joerg Pohlman, managing director of the joint venture, said: “The main reason for wanting to be based there was to secure an adequate supply of energy from renewable sources. But another decisive factor was the low energy price.”
Europe’s comparatively high energy costs are increasingly a source of concern for its industry, which fears a loss of competitiveness, particularly in energy-intensive sectors.
“The exodus has started in the chemical, automotive and steel industries. If Europe doesn’t change course, that process will accelerate and at some point not be reversible,” he said.
In March, Voestalpine said it would construct a €550m direct reduction plant in Texas, creating 150 jobs that will produce so-called “sponge iron”, a pre-material of steel production, which will then be shipped back to its Austrian steel production sites.
“It would have been impossible to build a comparable plant in the EU, not least because of a lack of competitiveness in terms of operating costs,” Mr Eder said.
https://www.ft.com/content/be69a732-ab5a-11e2-8c63-00144feabdc0
My fees for tutoring you are escalating Duncan…. I am going to need you to settle today’s bill….
Even without the big surcharges to cover the cost of solar and wind, European electricity prices are higher than those in the US. Part of this is because natural gas tends to be higher-priced in Europe. (The US natural gas price is too low for US gas producers, but that is a different problem.) Also, some of Europe (but not Germany) imports its coal, and that tends to be high-priced. I don’t know about the price of coal from Germany, including transport costs. With the plan to close down nuclear, electricity prices can only go up.
German energy policy is making America Great Again!
“With the plan to close down nuclear, electricity prices can only go up.”
Yes and luckily the Germans can afford it, or live smaller in better insulated houses and perhaps even crank down the wood pellet burner heater a few notches:
http://topforeignstocks.com/2016/02/16/household-savings-rate-germany-vs-usa/
If we keep our fingers crossed about the financial system.
Historically, a disproportionate share of the cost has been borne by the residential rates. This “Fortune” article says,
‘Aside from the GHG emissions from the Gigafactory, it is necessary to consider the greenhouse gas emissions from mining, refining and processing the materials used in the Gigafactory. The materials used in batteries consume a tremendous amount of energy and resources to produce. The various estimates of the energy to produce the materials in batteries and their greenhouse gas emissions shows the high impact that battery manufacturing has on the planet.’
etc etc… but can you tell this to the believers?
Its not renewable energy, its more accurately ‘derivative energy’.
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/lithiums-limits-to-growth/
Once indoctrinated by the MSM… facts no longer matter….
Cover your ears and lying eyes now. “Renewable energy” = let’s just throw the whole periodic table into the fire and burn it.
Excellent and thorough paper analysis!
At the same time, Bloomberg says that in the first half of the year, investment in renewables in Germany was down 34% from a year earlier. Between 2015 and 2016, there was a 14% decrease in investments.
Euan Mearns writes:
Don’t know if this was posted yet or not but Is Fe.ma planning something? re: Black Sky Events?
According to former Florida Congresswoman Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, “Black Sky Events,” though largely dismissed as a remote possibility by most, will occur…it’s just a matter of when, not if. More from Paul Joseph Watson:
“Cars would have no fuel. Restaurants and grocery stores would be bare. Electricity could be out for months in such an event,” writes Mike Vasilinda.
According to former Florida Congresswoman Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, North Korea’s saber rattling is making top brass “anxious” about potential society-changing disasters.
“It’s not “if” but “when” a Black Sky event will occur,” writes Vasilinda, an alarming statement given that she discusses meeting with “members of the U.S. military, National Guard Adjutant Generals, officials from Homeland Security, Department of Energy, FEMA, NOAA, and experts from the utility, distribution and supply sectors,” at a private summit held in Washington DC.
Perhaps it’s time to do a little doomsday prepping?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-10/black-sky-hazards-feds-wargame-widespread-power-outages-and-cascading-infrastructure
It is so easy to get caught up in the “normalcy” of our modern society. It is easy to forget how artificial it is – and how vulnerable we really are. Black Sky Events are an alarming reminder of this.
Our lives have become thanks to fossil fuels – comparatively ‘location-free’.
For instance, I could now move to live anywhere in Europe or the British Isles, and -wit enough money – lead much the same life in terms of housing, transport, food stuffs, heating, cooling, clothes, etc.
By way of contrast, read any good account of life for ordinary people before this unreal fantasy took off, ie pre-WW2 rural life, and it was all about location – geography and local resources determined the material texture of one’s life in every detail.
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-falling-eroi-kills-westinghouse-2-u-s-nuclear-reactors-construction-halted/
“As a refresher for newer readers, the falling EROI means that it’s taking more and more energy inputs to produce less and less net energy for the market. For example, in 1970 the U.S. EROI of its oil and gas industry was 30/1. Thus, the burning of one oil barrel worth of energy produced 30 oil barrels to the market. Today, shale oil production comes in at a whopping 5/1 EROI, six times less that the profitable energy in 1970.”
5/1 is beneficial IF combined with higher EROI conventional oil and natural gas and coal.
of course, this combination will not last forever.
by 2030, falling EROI will be disastrous to the economy.
and that is VERY SOON.
I have personally worked with EROI quite a bit. I would not go as far as what you are claiming. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/07/22/researchers-have-been-underestimating-the-cost-of-wind-and-solar/ You need to understand whether the calculations have been done in a reasonable manner. I would argue that for solar and wind, they have not.
falling EROI is going to be a disaster for the economy.
higher EROI products are depleting: conventional oil and natural gas and coal.
by 2030, EROI may be too low to run the economy.
and that is very soon.
“As a refresher for newer readers, the falling EROI means that it’s taking more and more energy inputs to produce less and less net energy for the market. For example, in 1970 the U.S. EROI of its oil and gas industry was 30/1. Thus, the burning of one oil barrel worth of energy produced 30 oil barrels to the market. Today, shale oil production comes in at a whopping 5/1 EROI, six times less that the profitable energy in 1970.”
And what is falling EROEI? Another way to say that is declining net energy, but when I wrote about that earlier in this thread, Gail told me I was wrong. So I’m really confused now.
You could have growing net energy with falling eroei, because eroei is just a ratio.
thats a loaves and fishes theory
if you have 1 person sharing a gallon of petrol—that works
if you have 5000 people sharing it—it doesn’t.
the planet has too many people wanting a share of resources
this is why people only have prayer left as a salvation for our future.
Lets not mix up two mighty trends, affordability treadmill and incompetence. Simply Westinghouse is no longer able to compete with more modern and better organized stuff from Russia-China-S.Korea in this industry..
http://s.quickmeme.com/img/0f/0fcd49769000eec975e3a9e6a0149b879fef01fe02f56c146559c7e66f41c66c.jpg
But the new reactors Russia and China (some of them anyway) are building are the same design (AP1000)?
Looks more like modern day “capitalism” is buckling before “modified” capitalism, aka China, Russia…
Sorry to have to point this out once more.
Figure 3 purports to show that world daily per capita energy consumption is currently 4.8 thousand BOE. Please be so kind as to correct it. Thank you. 🙂
and today WTI oil is below $47…
hi there, Kurt.
He’s back!
Well above, well below, well above, well below. And around we go round round round round like a record baby round round round round. Until the producers collapse in a sea of red ink and bankruptcy.
Thanks! It does sound a little high, you are right. I fixed it. I meant Thousandths of a Metric Ton. This is of course kilograms, which sounds a whole lot more reasonable.
“[3] Countries generally don’t want to raise the exchange rates of their currencies to the dollar, because lower exchange rates tend to encourage exports.”
Why wouldn’t a country want to “encourage exports” ? Politicians always talk about exporting more as a great achievement, and to be striven for.
I think you are misreading that. Countries do want to encourage exports. One way to do this is to lower the exchange rates of their currencies to the dollar. i.e. if the Euro is high compared to the dollar it tends to discourage tourism.
Yes, you’re right, of course. If Gail had written, “Countries generally don’t want to raise the exchange rates of their currencies to the dollar, because higher exchange rates tend to discourage exports”, I’d have got it in one. 🙁
Tourism is, in a sense, a kind of export. When the exchange rate is lower, more people can afford it.
Some of them have figured out that if they raise their exchange rates, it makes their citizens poorer, in terms of being able to buy goods and services on the world market. Also, they make themselves poorer, in terms of buying imported raw materials (like metal and oil) for making goods. So while they may sell more, their costs will also be more. And their people will be less happy with them.
Scanning the comments on those 3 articles condemning Trump for his ‘support of supremacists’ — and they are laced with anti se.mitic vitriol…
The storm troops are massing…..
If this is a correct interpretation of what is going on — then it would explain why the E lders are unable to easily unseat Trump — you can’t just JFK him …. because that could trigger a civil war….
We know who owns the MSM — and the MSM attack dog is snapping at Trump…. but Trump understands that they have their limits….
Is he reminding them of what happens if they go too far — by inciting the very people who could very easily be incited to participate in a holocaust 2.0?
Or perhaps this is all much ado about nothing….. who knows.
Here’s another view on Trump. I don’ know if the author is right, probably not, but who knows? In desperate times like these, everything is conceivable.
“The Deep State didn’t want Hillary. They wanted Trump, precisely because he is vain, narcissistic, weak, incompetent, very geo-politically ignorant, incapable, intellectually lazy, in short: tractable, docile, manipulable, a multi-billionaire, New York City bloviating buffoon with a seriously bad case of the “wannabes”.
The Deep State is accordingly playing Trump like a fiddle. They’re playing him for the chump that he is. What’s that? You think that you “elected” him? …
So now Donald Trump is beset by the very officials whom he personally appointed to high office! He loaded up his government with Neocons, military-industrial-espionage complex war hawks, Goldman Sachs Wall Street banksters, Zi-onists and more.
He’s under political assault by his own, back-stabbing appointees — and he has no one but himself to blame. If he had such a weak, unprepared understanding of the political environment in Washington, DC, such a weak and poorly thought out philosophy of governance, and such a deficient understanding of the various power factions, major political players and operatives in Washington, DC, that he appointed a government full of individuals opposed to his own political program, then he had no business offering himself as a candidate for President…. Trust me on this. The Deep State has set all of this up. Trump is just the chump that they need, and they have skillfully maneuvered him into position, to undercut him, knowing that the inevitable reaction of the weak, narcissistic, little-big man is to overcompensate, to try to save face. In this case, what the Deep State wants is war, a big one, a nuclear war, by the looks of things. And Trump is the chump they have selected to push the button.
http://eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.pt/2017/08/president-chump-strikes-out.html
Thanks — but I have to dismiss that explanation because I firmly believe that Potus has zero power in terms of who runs the world and how they go about it…
Based on what I observe — the Federal Reserve has that power.
Potus understands this — as do the members of the Senate and House.
There is no need to ensure a compliant person is elected president — that is understood when you decide to run for office.
JFK found that out the hard way….
And I suspect that if Trump or Obama or Bush or Clinton were to ‘go off the reserve’ they would be invited to the white house movie theatre — handed a bag of popcorn — and a soda…
And made to watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU83R7rpXQY
Because the country and the world — are basically f789ed….. showing that to Trump would not work…. if they blew his head off that could result in the black swan that takes down BAU i.e. a civil war … which would result in martial law… which would be really really bad for restaurants…. and retails sales… and just about everything….
If this is really what is going on then the El Ders must be wringing their hands in frustration ….
Poor George…
http://www.sott.net/image/s12/252154/full/soros1_1496566b.jpg
It seems to me that the above-mentioned author thinks that the real power lies in the hands of the military / security apparatus, and not in the hands of the financiers/ecentral bankers. We all agree that POTUS is not in charge of anything. The question is who really move the strings above the puppet-potus? I’ say in BAU times the money-changers are the guys who give the cards, and when SHTF it’s the millitary turn (until not).
Definitely.
The money changers call the tune while BAU is operational — but when the men with the guns see that the money changers have nothing to offer — they will kick them out on their wrinkled asses.
FF to the 3:35 mark to see what that moment looks like:
In a self-organized system, all pieces need to be working together for the system to function. So all are needed in different ways. But a failure can happen in multiple ways.
No, the real powers are the banksters. The Federal Reserve is just a mouthpiece of theirs. It is they who have a squirrel grip on the politicians and the MSM. It’s been so for over 300 years.
There is a rumor that Melania is really Colonel Melania Kruschev of the KGB. And another rumor that she’s a high-level MK Ultra/Monarch Beta slave.
But best of all is the story of the mural at the Denver International Airport “In Peace and Harmony with Nature”, painted by Leo Tanguma in 1994, which includes portraits of Donald and Melania side by side …..
https://youtu.be/FWZbIEPi2QM
If that is coming from Colin Powell…then it has to be true!
https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2011/03/powell_un_anthrax.jpg
proves they’re not all locked up yet
So what do you make of Webster Tarpley’s analysis of 9/11 ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Ja-W5LWVk
An internal coup? If so, Cheney (an ex-CEO of Halliburton) would surely have been in on it.
I did buy and read Tarpley’s Synthetic Terror when it came out in 2005—it’s a page turner that will keep you riveted and make you miss your bedtime— and I also “bought” his analysis as “very plausible”. I think hat story would make a great movie. Synthetic Terror is a lot more readable than the two books on this subject of Dr. Ahmed, a lot more exciting than the David Ray Griffin stuff, and it’s a lot neater and more logically laid out than Mike Ruppert’s tome Crossing the Rubicon—as useful as all these are. And Tarp is also the guy who earlier tied the Red Brigades to NATO intelligence as a GLADIO operation. I have to respect him as an independent scholar and a master of his material.
On the other hand, mere mortals are never going to get the complete and unvarnished truth surrounding 9/11. The Big Octopus has spewed out so much ink that it can operate in the darkness most of the time. I did entertain faint hopes that Trump might order the leading Neocons to be water-boarded right after putting Hillary in jail, but he seems to be almost as afraid of them as George W. Bush was.
About the worst thing said by his detractors about Tarpley is that he’s a buddy of Lyndon LaRouche. Down at the James Randi Forum that’s considered as bad as loving Satan or Hit ler.
The chart below shows a Tarpley-esque view of the political world.
http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2006/04/20/375105/FLOWCHART.png
I agree about Tarpley. I think he has a good grasp on politics. Unfortunately, his views on economics are very defective, since he believes the 2008 financial crisis was “engineered “by the banksters/el.ders, and he seems to have no idea about resource limits.
All in all, I think Michael Ruppert is a lot better than him.
JMS, Michael Ruppert is the one that started me in my discovery of how effed we are when I saw the documentary he was in, “Collapse”, all the way back in December 2009…there was no way I was just going to watch that documentary and think nothing of it..I immediately started digging in the rabbit hole…it was, as you know, a very deep rabbit hole 🙂
Never regretted taking the red pill though!
“And Tarp is also the guy who earlier tied the Red Brigades to NATO intelligence as a GLADIO operation”
I think the first guy who connected those dots was Gianfranco Sanguinetti, in his 1979 book “On Terrorism and the State”, and that Tarpley, much to his credit, does not forget to mention.
ITEO, I think that many of us had that kind of decisive meeting that turned upside down all our beliefs and values. It’s as if we had suddenly crossed an invisible wall and found a new dimension of reality.
My awakening moment, I told it here already, was a blog of George Mobus, in feb.2012. At the time I had not even heard of peak oil! Fortunately, I was mentally prepared to get Mobus’ message. “Of course”, I thought immediately, “how could I have been so stupid? This is so obvious.”
But i only got the full picture when I found OFW, many months later.
As with the JFK story — we will probably never know exactly who did what with 911….
“..the Bay of Pigs thing” has been reconstructed deep enough by several historians already. So, it’s more or less well known who did what in such classic compartmentalized operation, hit teams, political and msm cover up, the circles ordering it, .. etc. If you are bored enough you can spent thousand hours on it and or also get some digest from people-authors like David Talbot , Jim DiEugenio, ..
People just don’t care, this is stuff for history aficionados, while hundreds of millions YT downloads you can find for some Asian CGI unicorn sweetheart stories or similar crap. People are hopeless..
Polls indicate most people do not believe the official narrative … but so what … there is nothing they can do about it….
Interesting view!
Bitcoin?
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/570cb87b5bd33022b93a0272/5743255a746fb9088462a1e9/1464019506295/c22cb6033f069963e4a07f627e3e9627.jpg
Here’s an article that goes to Gail’s graphs and concerns about deflation:
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/08/16/2017/meeting-minutes-reveal-fed-concerns-about-inflation-unemployment
‘Meeting Minutes Reveal Fed Concerns About Inflation, Unemployment’
“Why Is Inflation Slowing? The Fed seemed a good bit more worried about the recent inflation slowdown than has been evident in recent minutes. In June, it dismissed lower inflation as due to one-offs (mobile phone pricing, mainly), which always seemed suspect. Now that the soft inflation prints have continued, the Fed is more concerned. “Many [worried about a] likelihood that inflation might remain below 2 percent for longer than they currently expected.” And, “Several indicated that the risks to the inflation outlook could be tilted to the downside.”
An economy that depends on debt really needs some inflation to help inflate the debt away. Very low inflation is a problem.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-16/gary-cohn-reportedly-disgusted-deeply-upset-trumps-last-few-days
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-16/jamie-dimons-memo-jpmorgan-employees-i-strongly-disagree-president-trumps-reaction
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-16/larry-summers-loses-it-trump-endorsing-white-supremacists-asks-how-supporters-face-t
What do these 3 men have in common?
Think about what happened in Germany prior to and during WW2….
Is Trump getting set to go to war with the El Ders?
The next person after Trump will likely be worse, though.
es the l;ast thing the world needs is a potus who thinks god put him there
‘Opiates generally make you feel like you have a warm, protective blanket draping all over your body while having a sense of well-being.’
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/222310-what-does-taking-an-opiate-feel-like
Just what you need when the power has gone off — and the grocery stores are empty!
Story Time!
Must be 12+ years ago …. I’m with a buddy in Saigon …. he scores what he believes to be blow in Pham Ngu Lao St…. I tell him I don’t think that’s blow (it was crystally … in a straw)…. he says – you don’t think so? Nah – can’t be…. nobody would have cash in Vietnam to buy blow…. ya maybe he says …. so we trundle into the toilet for the grand experiment….
We soon ended up back at the hotel — and I recall lying on one bed and he on another — and just staring at the ceiling for hours — it was like being in a coma — we were completely aware of everything— we could talk and move — but did not…. we just stared… nothing mattered
After some hours of this — the sun came up and I think I said — maybe we should go to the roof and lie at the pool? Sure he says — but we didn’t move for quite some time…
Finally we made it to the roof — and continued the coma on two lounge chairs…. then it started to rain — but we just laid there on the lounge chairs … in the rain…. finally one of us said — maybe we should go inside….
Eventually we returned to ‘normal’ and went out for lunch and beers.
And we reached the conclusion that the straw was full of heroin.
Not exactly a fun experience…. but then again — it was not unpleasant.
Under normal circumstances i.e. BAU functional — I would not try that again — but when BAU goes — and there is no hope to return to normality — and death awaits…
I could see how achieving that state — then kicking off — would be very pleasant indeed.
damn fast eddy you did cocaine
so are you banker who does no cocaine unlike other
In a pinch … the go to would be happy happy happy
http://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/MAC28_PTSD_CAROUSEL04.jpg
Don’t get me started 😉
If it was not exactly fun, than you didn’t experience ‘the or-gas-im of the soul.’
The topic of ‘self deliverance’ is a polarizing one. The best way to check out is morphine, pheno-barbital, and an Antiemetic. The second best way to go is inert gas. That will be my plan B for post BAU Nitrogen and an exit bag. The building jump and the cut rock work, but are violent. (then again they’d all be ok if you slam some H beforehand)
I do not recall such an experience… although I have experienced a great awareness — during other experiments…
I am really liking the OD Option…. and I am confident that just before the masters enter the bunkers… they will be kind enough to give us all that we need to end it painlessly…
There must be a pharma ETF for this….
Ha, that option would work for you, since you wouldn’t ‘crave’ it until it’s time. You suck at copping though. You can taste test the difference between Mr Rocks and Mr Jones. 😉
I plan to face off the challenge armed only with my trusty fruit knife!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c2/43/f9/c243f9a119d2b3ee6ea4a2061cad8b87.jpg
You might not be able to make it up the stairs if you drop some of the high grade opiates coming your way post BAU…..
Oil-46.78. David, where are you David?
Synthetic Heroin Is Too Powerful for the Overdose Antidote
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-16/heroin-era-antidotes-can-t-handle-overdoses-in-age-of-synthetics
The dots are starting to connect….
These are the drugs that will be distributed to everyone — when the end comes —- in family-sized packages….. and when the starvation — and the radiation poisoning arrive….
We will willingly use them —- to go quietly into the night….
Gather the family together — when they feel hungry or sick …. take a pill… then another … then another….
Floating … floating … floating … bliss…. nothing…
This is far more preferable to the rock cut…. so much easier…. so wonderful….
It is… The Solution.
After a while somewhat interesting article:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2017/08/which-eroi-do-we-need-to-collect-berries.html
Obviously, berries, nuts, few cowies, chickens, apples, pigs, .. can easily feed people per relatively small plot. That’s not the problem, the issue are rather the competing warring attitudes and urges of the human ape over perceived relative advantages of their peers be it slightly sunnier spot or better grazing grounds etc. There is no solution to it, apart from generational selection for non violent or unjust setting of disputes and some share-distribution for smoothing the violent natural cycles, and that’s simply not possible to put into genes in few generation runs. And it’s quite likely just lofty doctrinal illusion perception about the possibilities of our species or any Earthy species anyway..
Addendum: understandingly these “positive” traits are present in our culture and civilization already, but it’s never 100% saturation, hence minority violators can always swing and topple the system into pyramid like structure of some kind of patronage..
Plus even if such redemption of humanity was ever possible and should materialize one “shiny hippy” day, there are also powerful natural world overshoot loops and limits.
So, we are again to square one.
Humans are most likely just a product of the Earth’s systems at this particular stage tasked with the goal to launch and conclude another significant terra-forming phase, which resets the whole system into new starting position, new mad race of different living forms can begin anew.
How fitting that we – the cancer — are going to be wiped out by — radiation…
http://www.wecarecancer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/elektatop.jpg
http://nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower/CurrentReactors/world_map.png
+++
Even if people decided just to settle down to gathering berries,etc, in a life of pastoral simplicity and general good-will, it would soon be noticed that the distribution of good things was not even, changes in weather patterns would destroy once high-yielding regions or, if all went well, population would soar beyond the means to support it – leading to genocide and war in an attempt to seize more fertile areas and survive.
The only solution, – bringing everyday peace to these competing peoples – is kingship. Which brings its own problems, requiring ever greater EROI to maintain itself. And so the wheels turn…….
The Golden Age must always turn to the Age of Blood.
Koombaya … can only ever exist…. in a song….
I have not read how the native Australians managed to keep at it for 50,000 years. But I hope to get some information on that soon.
aborigines sustained themselves for 50k years by a very simple expedient
they had no concept of land ownership—group territories yes—but that’s a different thing (think lions etc)
once you own land that becomes your energy resource, it is inevitable that you want more
why? because you have status, and your offspring demand status, so they must either take your territory or take someone else’s—hence conflict which has been going on for 000s of years
These humans may have caused the climate change that affected the center part of Australia, because they hunted the megafauna.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aboriginal-australian-searching-toilet-stumbles-49000-evidence-earliest-human-settlement-a7394731.html
Yes, most people haven’t understood that Australia in 1788 was already a man-made environment and just about everywhere. The predominance of the fire resistant eucalypts the greatest change to the vegetation
The same way we did — but on a micro scale
They had tribes (we have countries) — that fought over scarce resources…
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2013/05/the-long-bloody-history-of-aboriginal-violence/
Then the new kid came to town — and he smashed their faces in — and sent what was left of the rabble to eat worms and play their jibbereedoos in the desert.
Koombaya is not possible.
The new kid sleeps quite well – thank you — and he ain’t givin it back that’s for sure!
You can dress him up nice … but you can’t take the human out of the human….
https://markchanski.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/violent-men.jpg
Michael Moore predicts Trump-driven economic crash and advises not to invest in stock market
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-moore-predicts-trump-driven-economic-crash-and-advises-not-to-invest-in-stock-market-2017-08-11?siteid=YAHOOB
Moore is an internet junkie. I wonder if he reads FW? He also talked about peak oil in his 2001 book “Dude wheres my country”.
There is a revolving article door on predictions of the imminent collapse of the stock market. Even though we’ve gone X number of years with a new prediction almost every day that all failed, the predictions keep coming because once the market does fall, whomever it was that accidentally got it right, will never let us forget and try to sell us a book in YouTube videos.
that seems only fair
Michael Moreon Moore
Martin Armstrong believes that there can be no crash since the sheeple are not invested. In fact, he believes that the “government cycle” is coming to an end and that governments will lose control of the bond market. The “private cycle” will move up as people will be desperate to get their cash into something tangible – i.e. the stock market
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/blog/
The fact that everyone is writing about the coming crash – and that it has not happened – suggests that he might be correct. The controlled-media would love a crash as they would be able to blame it on Trump.
Recall when the China market was crashing a year+ ago?
That looked like the black swan… but nope — the PBOC said not gonna happen.
And they threatened short sellers with prison time — and bought up the market with newly printed cash…
And the market came to its senses — and the correction ended….
See http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/plunge-protection-team.asp
You cannot fight the CBs…. they run the world — and they will just change the rules if you are beating the house…. and they have a printing press — so they can easily offset any shorts…
I predict global stock markets will be at record highs — the moment BAU collapses.
You may be right.
You think the stock market is actually something tangible?
More signs point to Mark Zuckerberg possibly running for president in 2020
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/mark-zuckerberg-could-be-running-for-president-in-2020.html
Talk about a Liberal comeback! LOL Trump would be terrified
Posters appeared in California
F**K ZUCK
2020
The candidate for millennials?
🙂
Right wingers on reddit always call him Mark Cuckaberg! LOL
F**K ZUCK
2020
Good one!
now i will tell little story about my country
india is gonna number one country in population in less than 7 years on paper
unofficial india has already has become number one in population
https://scroll.in/article/846853/india-is-set-to-become-the-worlds-most-populous-country-by-2024-but-is-it-ready
also on side tracks job openings literally has stop after demonetization
for ex all my friends are unemployed since graduated for college
i was think how epic collapse of india will look like
TW – got any stories about inadvertently snorting H? Must be readily available in India….
in punjab highest drug addict state in india
The northern Indian state of Punjab votes on Saturday for a new government. But the biggest issue confronting voters is not jobs or corruption, but a drugs epidemic that is sweeping the state.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38824478
Meanwhile, India is reporting economic growth of something like 6.1%. I don’t think that is really the case.
Google Moves Into the Business of Thought Control
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-14/google-moves-into-the-business-of-thought-control
That’s a crowded space…. dominated by the MSM….
i got banned from the peak oil barrel site for sharing the articles talking about an upcoming oil shortages? Good grief! Banned for talking about peak oil from a peak oil blog! LOL doesn’t surprise me though. I emailed Dennis one time and asked him a question and he told me he thought peak oil might never happen because EV’S would cause peak oil demand first. LOL
Come on inside Cliff and don’t play with those DelusiSTANi kids!! We don’t want you picking up any bad manners.
Are you dumb enough to work for Cheeto Jesus?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-nominees-idUSKCN1AW1MK?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28Reuters+Politics+News%29
I like Cheetos. Regular Cheetos. Not the Flaming Hot or the Puffs. Just the old regular plain Cheetos. Too bad Cheetos don’t sustain life and are not sustainable. Ice cream sandwiches are good too. The regular ones. And Eskimo Pies. Haven’t had a Eskimo Pie in years. Maybe I will try one and see if it tastes like it did 40 years ago.
I agree, Cheetos are happening!
As a backpack food, their weight to caloric value is excellent!
Don’t forget pringles. I have a storage container filled with pringles, Diet Coke, and rum. Just in case.
Meh, Pringles leave a bad taste in my mouth. Cheetos just leave a lot of junk in my teeth.
jalapeno cheddar rule.
Rumour has it Pringles will last 20 years in storage… due to the chemical inputs…
Three thousand years from now, mutant humanoid archeologists will be excavating nuclear shelters and discovering stores of food entombed with their occupants and their gold, jewelry and other stuff they thought they’d need for the afterlife, and the scientists will be favorably impressed that the Pringles are still edible.
Summary of German Armed Forces Peak Oil Study
Looks like they predicted the election of Trump:
“…people will experience a lowering of living standards due to an increase in unemployment and the cost of oil for their vehicles. Studies reveal that only continuous improvement of individual living conditions provide the basis for tolerant and open societies. Setbacks in economic growth can lead to an increase in the number of votes for extremist and nationalistic parties.”
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/german-military-peak-oil-summary/#comment-40318
We are no different than wild animals. If the animals are well fed and cared for they get along well with humans and other creatures. But, if they get hungry or they are treated badly, they will eat you alive. We are not a superior species.
I was discussing this with Madame Fast yesterday here in Bali ….
She was trying to understand why many of the people in the small villages do not act in a civilized manner….
For instance — we used to have a large garden when we lived here — and trying to be good neighbours we gave extra produce to the neighbours…. they did not thank us — in fact they showed up asking for more…
I could cite a range of similar examples of what we would consider uncivilized behaviours…
I suggested to Madame that perhaps their behaviour is ‘normal’ and our behaviour is ‘artificial’
Think of a dog — if you give him food does he say thank you? Of course no — he sits their waiting for more…
Why do we say thank you? Because we have been trained to do that — we are ‘civilized’
The people in these villages have not be trained to say thank you — they sit there like a dog asking for more….
I would suggest that they are living closer to our true state — that of the animal…. and that we are no different than…
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/3f/b2/d6/3fb2d6e380133e5b66f143e23da43b34–animal-portraits-family-portraits.jpg
And I suspect this is how the villagers perceive us to some extent — the way we live — the way we act — is to them — completely unnatural…
Right. Before Charlottesville, regular commenter Tim Grove mentioned he was into a lot of alt right stuff. Does he think even more forthright strains will attain power in any Western countries.
The whole alt-right / alt-left is a play on the weakness of people to identify with one of two groups. As if there are only two choices. One is good and one is bad. We won’t tell you which is good and which is bad. So choose sides now people. Now go to war you plebs.
itsimportant to stand back and look at the bigger picture on that subject—if we mere mortals can figure out that oil must deplete with a decade or so, you can be certain that our elected leaders know it too.
the American nation was created on a surplus of cheap fossil fuel energy — -oil coal and gas.
So what has this got to do with current politics?
Fossil fuels are now the only means by which industrial nations can continue to exist — -as they deplete, the struggle to deny that reality will get nastier.
Remember that WW2 and the rise of fascism was a battle for resources. Ideology was a smokescreen
We are in the final battle for resources, which is why there is the great belief in “prosperity for ever’’ — -and the gullible voters believe it.
Hit ler promised to “make Germany great again”, Nations were invaded on Hit lers order alone — -he consulted nobody, convinced of his own infallibility— -does that sound familiar?
Oil may seem the be in a glut right now, but that is a mirage. It will fade. As the oil depletes, the struggle for literal survival will begin — -this is what we are witnessing . Fascist leaders fighting for positions of power, because they know what will happen when oil leaves the industrial system.
Fossil fueled industry is our only source of employment and social stability. Remove that and social chaos becomes inevitable.
When that happens, martial law will be imposed, and whoever happens to be in power will make himself dictator.
and to follow on with what i was just blathering on about:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-america-headed-for-a-new-kind-of-civil-war?mbid=nl_170815_Daily&CNDID=24125701&spMailingID=11702702&spUserID=MTMzMTgyMzIzMTcwS0&spJobID=1221366042&spReportId=MTIyMTM2NjA0MgS2
give that some serious thought
Hilary Clinton is top subhuman with the alt-right, it seems. LOL.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5PbRYPmu6DU3xdVCWdfjUBuVzBE=/800×0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9054793/Screen_Shot_2017_08_15_at_2.19.58_PM.png
another of my blatherings-on:
”soldiers fall in behind whoever pays their wages”
if we mere mortals can figure out that oil must deplete with a decade or so, you can be certain that our elected leaders know it too.
Our elected leaders, I’m not sure, but our unelected leaders, certainly.
+++++++++++++++
my point was, that even if our elected leaders realise what the future is, they can do no more about it than we can
OK, so let’s choose. Which is worse: communism or fascism? Your votes, please.
And what President Trump said about violent alt left people with clubs, who can show a good video link with this? I need the proof.
I found the vid on YouTube that D was talking about. Its pretty easy to find. Violence seems to be a universal thing.
C’mon – share it, you cuck!
I have an intense hatred for the right — that is at least equaled by my intense hatred for the left…
Both are stew pid moreons who march to the beat of their favourite ‘news’ source — which tells them what to think…
Feed all of them meatballs laced with rat poison
http://dxuoddg10rgxw.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/17023351/disdain.jpg
Well put Greg.
Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching Libtards and Trumptards beat each other senseless.
The entertainment value of that is priceless…..
It has a nice slapstick comedy aspect to it. People with precious little common sense beating each other senseless and senselessly over the location of a statue that has been serving as a local landmark and a pigeon perch for over a century. After a bit we become desensitized to this kind of violence and we start to appreciate the Tom & Jerry-like inanity and insanity inherent in the situation. However, for those among the seriously injured or dead, and their loved ones, it is truly tragic.
Yep — we sit back and half a laugh — but to those knee deep in it — this is serious stuff!
Recall Taleb’s first book where he describes being in meetings with these ‘very serious people’ and wanting to burst out laughing at their seriousness….
I’ve been in a similar situation on occasion, even going back as far as meetings of the school governors when I was a pupil’s representative. I remember a discussion about bullying and racism. A well-educated well-meaning middle aged lady who was also a member of the borough council said that she could understand why bullies might pick on the West Indian boys as they were so racially different, but that she couldn’t see why they would pick on the Indians and Pakistanis, as these groups were basically Indo-Europeans.
I knew I had to sit through this speech without laughing, as the occasion and the speaker’s seriousness demanded that, but as a 14 year old I couldn’t quite manage to maintain a straight face. You’d need to be fairly well educated to make such a distinction, but you’d also have to be totally clueless about what motivates bullies.
lol
>>>>> prosperity begets democracy, poverty makes it an orphan<<<<<
the same thing in 8 words
few can accept the meaning of it though
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/612020-1.jpg
I ditched my smartphone two years ago. And TV is gone too. No radio either. No XM or Sirius for me either. I just read and watch they world march off a cliff. If I do happen to see something on TV, especially “news” it is unbearable to watch.
No smart phone or tee vee (it has been 40 years).
Do have a radio in the car.
Smart phones are just data mining and location devices.
I am a former Apple Employee and consultant.
I am a software engineer and sys admin. And I can’t stand computers anymore.
We can’t stand them for completely different reasons. My problem is that I don’t know how to work the technology, and am offended that it takes so much to learn. So I won’t learn, and as one gadget “fails” (printer recently) I let it go, don’t replace it, and work around the gap–the way they say the loss of one sense is compensated for by the hyper development of another…
There are lots of differences between slavery and technology actually. For instance, technology doesn’t whip you, beat you or break your legs for refusing to use it.
One difference that jumps out of this conversation is that in some cases you can just say “No” to technology. I know several people personally who have given up their smartphone because they felt it had become an addiction—like gambling or cigarettes or alcohol or caffeine or hard drugs can be. Very few slaves have the opportunity to just say “No” to slavery.
In a broader sense, one could make the argument that Taleb is correct in that we are as a society enslaved by technology rather than merely addicted to it. But even here, the idea is based on a conflation of the two terms, which have traditionally been linked by metaphor: as in Ray Davies’s “Who thought I would fall a slave to demon alcohol”
Contrast this dependence with the insightful line from Roy Batty in Bladerunner: “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave!”
So Taleb is conflating two different quite things; addiction being a form of dependence and slavery a socioeconomic institution.
SOMEBODY’s channeling the spirit of Theodore John Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
http://orig12.deviantart.net/5bcb/f/2011/138/d/7/nope_avi_by_narutodude96-d3go3wu.jpg
great article by Gail but i think collapse of bau will be starting after this
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-03-28/the-next-perfect-banking-storm
those looking for when the next financial crisis might be should set a reminder for Jan. 1, 2018.That’s when a host of new rules are scheduled to come into force that are likely to further constrain lending ability and prompt banks to only advance money to the best borrowers, which could accelerate bankruptcies worldwide. As with any financial regulation, however, the effects will start to be felt sooner than the implementation date.
Two key rules are slated for 2018: The leverage ratio set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and International Financial Reporting Standard No. 9, defined by the International Accounting Standards Board. Other rules that require banks to stop using their own internal measures to assess risk start to be introduced from next year.Basel III has already been blamed for reduced liquidity in global markets and slower credit growth. What’s about to be rolled out will be a steroid shot to that.
I agree. Basel rules are likely to be a problem. What we think are solutions are part of the problem, when we need increased debt to keep the system going.
Do you really think those things will happen? Is it actually possible that the people in these positions don’t fully realize the problems doing any of these things could cause?
I think the central bankers/planners are trying to throttle an out of control engine. They don’t realize the cable is broken.
At some point they are left with no good choices to keep BAU alive — so they take the least bad option—- to buy a few months .. or even days…
If the Fed were looking at the situation — they would of course have the far more info than we get – without the fake news component to confuse them…. and they saw that current policies were going to cause an implosion of BAU next week….
Then they’d be forced to move away from those policies — to policies that might get us past next week…
Case in point – interest rates — if the data points are interpreted and indicate that ZIRP was going to shred BAU next week … then they would look at raising them — even though they know that raising interest rates is not conducive to keeping BAU alive….
But they would move in that direction if they say the ZIRP policies were going to collapse BAU in the very near term…. and raising them would push the end of the world event further out…
I don’t think many on FW expected to be here as we head into the second half of 2017….
So one has to assume that they are well-informed — and that they are making the best possible decisions based on intensive analysis of the data — otherwise BAU would have already ended.
It’s like watching a sports match — and your team is getting killed — you are sitting in your armchair screaming ‘you stewpid bas-tard — how could you miss that easy goal!!!’
It all looks so easy — but let’s say you could swap spots with the star on your team…..
They don’t understand that changes that look like they will make the system look temporarily more able to withstand negative force, in fact add a different type of negative force themselves. The system needs growing debt. The changes they are adding tend to shrink the growth of debt.
The gods are located in Basel and they have now decided to cull the herd.
Hegelian Dialectic
America
Thesis (Obama) Antithesis (Trump) Synthesis (?)
American politics went dark after the Financial Collapse with Obama as an almost religious icon of Hope.
Europe
Thesis (Christianity) Antithesis (Islam) Synthesis (?)
Angela became the Big Mutti (Mother) when she welcomed the refugees. The next leader will be the Big Mufti or the Muslim Kill3r?
As the adults we are we all point the finger at Kremlin: “Putin did it! He is a Putin Puppet!”
“America
Thesis (Obama) Antithesis (Trump) Synthesis (?)”
My suggestion would be to put “place” before people, eliding T and A. 🙂
In June, following the June FOMC meeting, we laid out a plan in terms of how we would actually do our balance sheet normalization. How we would allow Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities to gradually run off our portfolio over time.
And so the plan is out there. It’s been I think generally well-received, and fully anticipated. People expect it to take place. In the last FOMC statement, we said that we expected this to happen relatively soon. So, I expect it to happen relatively soon.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Text-of-AP-s-interview-with-NY-Fed-President-11817897.php
I see Dudley said,
“My own view is, if I had to say today, we’re probably going to see a balance sheet five years from now that’s probably in the order of 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 trillion rather than the 4-1/2 trillion dollar balance sheet.”
So in his view, they will not sell very much.
“Switzerland’s second-largest supermarket chain will begin selling insect burgers for human consumption after the country’s food safety laws were revised.
Coop said insect-based produce such as the flour burgers and balls of protein-rich mealworm would go on sale next week.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/15/mealworm-burger-insect-food-sale-switzerland
Fast Eddy is a child of creative thinking… But the elite is ahead of him… They have already moved on to an industrial scale to feed us with worms.
I see. I am not sure I want to be the first to try them. I believe they ate (or still eat) insects in Southeast Asia. Some of the survivalists talk about eating insects.
I can imagine the Green Groopies pulling up in their EVs and actually buying these things — and then bragging about how tasty they were at the Organic Coffee Shop (where the finest fair trade coffee is flown after being separated with pure spring water from the shit of a jungle cat….)
Another bizarre case of our contemporary times for your attention..
There has been a guy in Denmark building submarines diywise, successfully, depends how you count it, after a ~decade+ he progressed refining it each successive project to gen/ver4 of such ships and started to participated in diy suborbital rocketry as well. This culminated in sort of merger of efforts in which his sub was positioning floating launch platform for these rockets, eventually he started on his very own team of rocketry.
Now here is the grand finale, few days ago, he gave a ride to a Swedish journalist girl, working for “trusty organizations” of TPTB such as NYT-Guardian-Vice News. For some unknown reason, the girl was immediately proclaimed as missing and in very short hours the sub captain was charged with homicide, mind you – no body no nothing. The case is being reported as he killed her again for unknown reason, supposedly damaged the evidence by scuttling/sinking the sub, and rescuing himself..
PS mind you that fast paced investigative marvel is all taking place when Danish Police looks another way when Pakistani and other gangs are brutalizing the country
PS2 just providing you with possible insight and clues into the priorities of the Deep State like entities, the pecking order inside the system, and what to expect from it all as we march further..
https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/10/Sputnik_nautilus_660.jpg
He, like all the inventors who tried to change things, will be buried. That’s how it all goes.
“Leading central banks now own a fifth of their governments’ total debt, a sign of the scale of the challenge they will face in unwinding unprecedented stimulus measures deployed over the past decade.
“Since the financial crisis emerged, the world’s biggest central banks have carried out large-scale purchases of bonds and other securities in a bid to boost the global economy by driving down borrowing costs for households and businesses.
“In total, the six central banks that have embarked on quantitative easing over the past decade — the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England, along with the Swiss and Swedish central banks — now hold more than $15tn of assets, according to analysis by the FT of IMF and central bank figures, more than four times the pre-crisis level.
“Of this, more than $9tn is government bonds — one dollar in every five of the $46tn total outstanding debt owed by their governments.
“The ECB’s total balance sheet recently topped that of the Fed in dollar terms. It now holds $4.9tn of assets, including nearly $2tn in eurozone government bonds.
“The BoJ’s balance sheet has also just topped that of the Fed, with $4.53tn of holdings, of which 85 per cent are Japanese government securities.
“The Fed’s balance sheet has expanded significantly several times in the past, including during the second world war when it soaked up debt sales in a bid to improve market conditions. But the current era is the first time in history that such a large group of central banks have undertaken such a substantial volume of co-ordinated buying over the space of nearly a decade…
“Central banks’ bond buying has profoundly affected markets around the world, pushing investors into a hunt for yield that has resulted in an era of unprecedentedly low volatility, with junk bonds the best-performing asset since the financial crisis, cash flowing into emerging markets, and equity indices hitting a series of record highs…”
https://www.ft.com/content/ae19e60e-81b0-11e7-94e2-c5b903247afd
“Challenge they will face in unwinding unprecedented stimulus ” – The Central Banks will not unwind anything. It is impossible. There is not enough energy or resources on planet Earth to back those stimulus dollars. There is a limit to growth. And the stimulus that cannot be unwound is a symptom of it. If we were not reaching limits, unwinding the stimulus would be easy since the economy would be all fired up and running on all cylinders by now.
Well put. You know we are in systemic crisis when years of historically low interest rates and trillions in stimulus do not generate a robust and holistic recovery, and when low oil and commodity prices do not encourage sufficient demand to rebalance markets.
Good points!
Right. Low interest rates lead to high asset prices. That is why equity indices are hitting record highs (except today).
Lensman commented on Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar.
in response to Fast Eddy:
Shouldn’t you have to pay a fee to be able to view Fast Eddy’s posts? Kinda like you have to pay to watch a boxing match — surely it is worth something to watch Fast Eddy beat the daylights out of DelusiSTANIS.
Everything you have ever said is derivative. Nothing original.
No Nobel for FE.
Hang on …. Orlov was the first to mention the issue of nuclear power stations being a problem post BAU….
However he was wrong. It would be a relatively simple matter to shift all hot fuel out of the power stations into fuel ponds in the days prior to the collapse of BAU….
The real issue — which he failed to recognize — is that the fuel ponds are many thousands of times more dangerous than a reactor…
In fact they represent extinction
I will take my Doomsday Award for that original contribution to the discussion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/1f3a8158c606e99bf8b7b1ad96eaf6ef41d39c66.gif
“However he was wrong. It would be a relatively simple matter to shift all hot fuel out of the power stations into fuel ponds in the days prior to the collapse of BAU”
Someone seriously believes this? Maybe a slim chance if everyone first admits that the collapse of BAU is inevitable and the process was started probably 20 years ago and it wouldn’t be simple no matter when it was done.
It could be done — and it would be done — if the commanders thought it would help humans survive (after all – they do not want to emerge from their bunkers to be met with a mouthful of radiation)
But it won’t be done — because the people with the power to make it happen — understand that is solves nothing…
The spent fuel ponds are the extinction event — shuttering the plants is pointless….
as I’ve said before, why not make borate shakes in those ponds? do we have enough borate to make them? i think the water won’t have to circulate, if you add lots of borate, a major neutron absorber. it does stop the rod load/unload cycle, and it is an admission of societal failure. ah, there’s the rub.
but, that’s what the Russians did at Chernobyl. pour lots of boron on the hot pile via choppers and then cover with concrete. let it sit for a few thousand years. meanwhile, observe interesting two, three-headed deer and bears evolve in area, like in that movie, the Island of Dr. Morreau.
I dunno — why don’t you ring up the nuclear physicists who deal with such issues — and ask them why they don’t do this….
Sometimes the best inventions are the simplest ones…. the one’s that leave you saying — why didn’t I think of that!
yeah, we need to get more heads looking at this than mine. there must also be a load of gamma, x-ray and high-energy beta radiation to deal with, and the heat being generated.
Consider that the cores of Fukushima are only kept under control by pumping tonnes of sea water onto the area where they are located … every single day since the accident…
A relatively minor problem compared to what is coming — and we have BAU fully function — yet we are unable to solve it….
we might start with a letter to Arnie Gunderson. he’s a well respected critic of Fukushima. let me outline something, post it here, and you (and others) can edit. please give me a day or two, i have its lots of deadlines to meet by end of this week. or you can start something, FE.
I’m 99.99999999999% certain that there is nothing can be done with the spent fuel ponds… so will leave this to others to look into
Name commented on Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar.
in response to Fast Eddy:
Re MSM…. Remember way back when if you read a propaganda pieces in the MSM … well actually it is redundant to use the term propaganda piece… but anyways…. When you read one of the endless lies that pervades the MSM… And you used to be able to comment on the slop? And then in … Continue reading Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar
GW is a science thing, not MSM thing.
Just like solar is a science … and not something the MSM tells us that we should believe in.
Right?
Solar is a political thing. Are there science publications that wind and solar can power economy?
Solar panels and wind turbines could power the economy. They could create jobs building and maintaining them. Sure thing. IF, IFFFF, IFFF OHHH-NLY we had the cheap energy to do it. And that cheap energy has traditionally come from fossil fuels. Unless another cheap liquid fuel pops up solar panels and wind turbines will have to wait. Oh, but then why would we need solar panels and wind turbines!
There are a lot of arguments on the subject. Jacobson and Delluchi are best known for their argument that a 100% Wind, Water, and Solar powered grid is possible. This is one version of their proposal.
There have been various articles debunking the idea (including my 2009 Oil Drum article, about an earlier version of the proposal)
A recent debunking that is good is http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full.pdf
Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar
by Christopher T. M. Clack, Staffan A. Qvist, Adam R. Brandt
Excerpts
I guess realistic new energy storage and transmission infrastructure has to function like spider webs. They just stick on to what exists already.
Al Gore … Inconvenient Truth — not political?
Here’s my version of An Inconvenient Truth… the world runs on fossil fuels — the cheap stuff is finite — there are no alternatives — you will soon be dead.
Don’t imagine primary teachers would be downloading my version for the kiddies to watch …
Every single year since that movie — we have burned more fossil fuels than the last…. EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
Because if we don’t we die. Every bloody economist on the planet would acknowledge that inconvenient truth
So pray tell why did Al make that movie — when we know – and the commanders know — god damn well that my version is the correct one?
Create a fake problem — create fake solutions.
It takes their mind off of the Truth that I have laid out — and with peak conventional hitting the sheeple needed something to distract them from the reality ….
Look at the Mars story — how the f&*( does something so ridiculous get the front page? It belongs in The Onion … but hope — I saw MIT scientists discussing how to go about it on Bloomberg some months ago — top scientists discussing utter nonsense as if it was reality.
You are being played — it is so obvious
Marcus T. Monihan : Yeah, but if enough PV panels are erected and connected to the grid, then at some point renewables will power the production of renewables.
What are the choices? Try to make the transition to renewables or throw up our hands in defeat, because as of now there are no other viable solutions. Fusion is still years away – FF burning is causing GW – nuclear is unsafe (see Fukushima & Chernobyl), so the only option is to get busy deploying as much of this stuff as we can and figure out the problems associated with it as we go along.
Not gonna happen Marcus:
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
The world consumes approximately 3 CMO annually from all sources. The table [10] shows the small contribution from alternative energies in 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
“The assumption that technology, market mechanisms or shale gas will save the day is made so often, with such confidence and is backed by so little actual knowledge and expertise, that it leads one to suspect that the interlocutors are expressing a cultural mythology rather than offering a reasoned analysis. In addition, we are quite at a loss with respect to timing. These [biophysical] constraints are emerging now. More grandiose plans, more targets or investment in breakthrough technology, more well-meaning chatter about a green New Deal mostly miss the point, firstly, because imagining is really not a substitute for reality, and secondly, because in all probability, it’s too late.”
David Korowicz – ‘Trade Off’.
Economically shale makes zero sense — however you would be hard pressed to find anyone who did not believe shale is totally awesome — look at the hundreds of billions if not trillions being poured into this by believers who think they are going to get rich…
Just because most people believe something … does not make it true.
“Yeah, but if enough PV panels are erected and connected to the grid, then at some point renewables will power the production of renewables.” – I’ll fix it for you: If enough PV panels are erected and connected to the grid, then at some point the grid will collapse from the extremes of intermittency that cannot be throttled.
Not really. If we count the stuff right, there is either no net energy gain out of the stuff, or practically no net energy gain.
Euan Means has a good article about renewables. Worldwide investment in renewable energy reaches US$ 4 trillion – with little to show for it.
I don’t have pets, but last night one of gods creations, a fly, flew into my apartment. I named him Oscar. He has been walking up and down on my arm. I think he is feeding off me. After a shower he lost interest in me and started to examine my apartment. I usually don’t … Continue reading Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar
you should leave some food out for him.
after the fly lays its eggs on the food and they hatch, you will have a bunch of little Oskars which are called maggots.
then you can name them.
ATTENTION DOOMY PREPPERS!
Food is going to be a challenge in your little house on the prairie world …. the above discussion got me thinking of an idea that you surely will find very helpful….
All you need is a handful of rat guts…. so don’t eat those when you roast your sewer rats! — leave it outside for a few hours and let flies deposit their eggs into the meat….
Then all you have to do is wait for the eggs to hatch into maggots… scrape them into a pot — and you’ve got yourself a tasty meal….
You can continue to reuse your meat in the same manner until it rots so badly even the flies won’t touch it.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/27/article-2349763-1A89BB4D000005DC-389_306x273.jpg
Don’t forget to say Thank you Fast Eddy for the wonderful idea
There is a very simple solution to many of our present ills. It starts with the recognition of one simple fact: that government does not fund government, that its deficit is the whole of its expenditures.
After that comes a revolution. The reign of big government and its enslavement of the taxapayer ends and the reign of the public banker begins. $10,000CDN for the flaw in our idea.
https://mbparty.ca/10000-public-finance-challenge/
Look — a refugee from DelusiSTAN has washed up on FW….
Gary … here’s a towel… and a bowl of soup…. now I strongly suggest you read through the archived articles on this site.
The problem we are facing is related to the fact that we are out of cheap to extract oil and other resources.
No government – no person — no policy — can fix that.
I have heard this before, back in the 1800’s I believe. Energy is getting cheaper all the time save when government steps in to mess it all up.
Now stop reading 19th century ideas and get with the modern era unless of course you are the obstinate sort, which no government – no person – no policy can fix.
The question is whether, over time, it takes more joules to extract each barrel of oil or million BTU. Just about all here would say, of course. You beg to differ but I suspect you really haven’t considered it in energy terms.
in the 1800s, energy got cheaper because they found a way of pumping water out of deeper coalmines. (it really was that simple)
then they dug canals/ built railways to shift it around
All costs indirectly end up being energy costs, including lease costs and interest payments, because these costs need to be paid with oil revenue. Even taxes need to be paid with oil revenue.
While oil was cheap and plentiful, government was exceedingly generous to the plebs, and look where that got us.
It is very difficult to greatly reduce programs like Social Security and Medicare.
These folks have a problem. Our financial system is a way of dividing up goods and services. Price signals give suppliers of energy products, metals, and other goods an indication of how much of these goods how much they can spend to create them, and still make a profit. More debt adds more wages, and also directly adds demand for these goods, so helps pump up demand.
Adding more debt in theory gets more resources from the world supply, except that this approach also pushes the currency down relative to other currencies.
‘Deep’ Subprime Car Loans Hit Crisis-Era Milestone
Recent deep subprime car-loan performance ‘awful’: Equifax
Growing delinquencies coincide with increase in competition
“We’re seeing an increase in delinquencies across all credit scores, but in the highest credit quality, it’s just a basis point or two,” Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts said in an email Tuesday. “In deep subprime, the rise is more substantial.
What stood out to me was the issuers. Those that have been doing this for a decade or more were showing the ‘better’ performance, while those that were relative newcomers were in the ‘worse’ category.”
The reason for the increase, she posited, is that lenders have loosened underwriting requirements as more firms tap into a declining market for car loans, not that there are more customers with worsening credit profiles.
“It isn’t a case of chasing a larger subprime share,” Cutts said in an email Tuesday. There’s been “almost no change in median credit scores. That means they are letting other underwriting characteristics slide,” she said, referring to the lenders that issue the bulk of subprime loans — so-called monolines that specialize in one area of the credit market and dealer-finance companies that work specifically with car sellers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-15/-deep-subprime-car-loans-hit-crisis-era-milestone-as-woes-mount
So…. as auto sales continue to plunge…. the reaction is …. make even dodgier loans…. to try to boost sales numbers….
http://www.salisburyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/bigstock-Help-needed-Drowning-man-s-ha-41740057.sm_-1.jpg
Meanwhile… “Americans’ debt level notched another record high in the second quarter, after having earlier in the year surpassed its pre-crisis peak, on the back of modest rises in mortgage, auto and credit card debt, where delinquencies jumped. Total U.S. household debt was $12.84 trillion in the three months to June, up $552 billion from a year ago, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report published on Tuesday.”
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/americans-debt-level-notches-a-new-record-high/wcm/211a6523-497f-455d-8d7c-a027ac8e7b8b?fref=gc
Debt needs to keep rising for the economy to grow.
Yes. No debt = no money.
The declining domestic food production in Slovakia:
The derelict grain silo and mill complex in Eastern Slovakia
https://kosice.korzar.sme.sk/g/68779/schatrane-mlyn-a-silo-v-kosiciach-kedysi-pycha-dnes-hanba?ref=https%253A%252F%252Fkosice.korzar.sme.sk%252Fc%252F20625244%252Fkosice-maju-miesto-duchov-ake-inde-na-slovensku-nenajdete.html&photo=p2705303
btw mg how much food in Slovakia is come from other countries
The share of the domestic food on the shelves of the stores in Slovakia:
https://a-static.projektn.sk/2017/05/podiel.png
Grey: foreign, imported food
Orange: domestic production
Source: https://dennikn.sk/767889/podiel-slovenskych-potravin-v-obchodoch-opat-klesol/
Technically it’s all imported… because the fossil fuels used to grow the food are imported….
Yes, only small amounts of food could by grown without the fossil fuels.
I can see the direction this is headed!
Reportedly in post Soviet block area ~150M people were knocked down from *middle class status since 1990s sweeping wave of Democracy etc. It was a nice boost for extend a pretend in the West. Basically, the outsourcing bound to Asia and hostile take over of CEE, contributed mightily in giving the West few more decades of comfy living. History is simple, you trust us, you loose your shirt, although the Asians are bit smarter as there might be a payback time, actually it has already happened in certain sense..
*meaning by human development index (schools-hospitals-education-happiness-free/family time), not measured by “luxury items” specimen penetration per capita..
Why takeover of CEE? The Soviet bloc was no charity: when the Soviet Union bankrupted, it fell apart. In the same way, when the so called West (or China or whatever business partner) goes bankrupt, the desintegration ensues.
The standard of living in the Soviet bloc was not very high in all aspects and in all countries. It is thanks to the higher debt, that the CEE countries continue to function, the Russia continues to function, the West or China continues to function…
Such views of the world like “takeover” are ridiculous old-fashioned imperialistic views that have nothing to the with the reality: Russia still supplies a lot of energy (like oil and natural gas) to CEE and the West…
Apparently, you don’t get the message of my post above. The CEE being taken over, simply depicts today’s reality, where their national product moved into the West, as they are not largely working for their own betterment but as ~1/5th wage near slaves condition in companies, which they don’t own, legally not control (EU shared legality mirage), spiking debts, no nothing.. Only Russia and few of their closest -stans allies were able at least partly rectify it, so to speak turn tables on the situation of past ~3decades.
The Soviet Union was not able to pay for the products from CEE, so CEE turned to the West. Moreover, the products from CEE were less competitive, the lack of investment into the new technologies (like robots and sophisticated machines, computers) made the products from CEE unsaleable.
The imperialist view is really ridiculous. The West is totally dependent on the workforce infusion from other countries, including CEE.
Furthemore, the higher wages and lack of workforce make the production move from CEE to other parts of the world. You can not force somebody to accept low wages, when these wages are not sustainable. The production simply stops.
Accepting low wages is a temporary phenomenon, which, finally, leads to the end of the production. When you have cheap local workforce, you can produce there. But when there is no more indispensable (cheap) workforce, then the system collapses, including the so called imperialists…
I’m afraid you don’t grasp the point of the post.
The convergence of purchasing power and other top metrics of CEE towards West have been on purpose stalled (while productivity clearly risen), only tiny and delayed increments have been allowed, on purpose. There is giant sucking sound and that’s the suction of profits, return on capital, which the 1/3-1/5th wage earners of the CEE are sending back to the W center. This redistribution effect have mightily contributed to prolongation of the lifespan and level of prosperity of the W.Europe in its current form, along side money printing etc. As always in history it’s a con game dropped on beyond gullible “cattle like” public and its masters, aka just another human farm manifestation.
Even the Reich ver3.0 paid higher wages throughout CEE, than Reich ver4.0 (EU), at least for the time being early war stage, before the whole European continent was out of then exploitable resources by 1943-44 and it went into severe rationing..
“have been on purpose stalled” – that is a conspirational view of the world. The population did not want to work for the Soviet Union and the population turned to the West as a better option: they got at least something in comparison to the bankrupted Soviet Union.
Slovakia decided to be isolated in the 90s and this lack of the foreign investment had sever economic impact on the standard of living of its population.
You always choose from the options that are at the disposal – like Germany hugely exporting to China which was ready to absorb their machines after 2001.
Why Germany Slips When China Swoons
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/international/germany-china-economy.html
“The German export machine has been fueled by the growth of emerging markets. As developing countries like China now pull back, it is leaving Germany more vulnerable, and by extension Europe.”
So pure capitalist and hegemonic logic exercised clearly by West over most of the CEE quasi colonies is now conspirational view? Sorry, you are providing beyond gullible type of thinking here..
If it is easy to import food, what is the point to maintaining a country’s own production–or so the thinking goes.
Venezuela answers that question!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYPsygSHnAs this short video explains the next system which the elites believe will keep ‘BAU’ going
once this new system is established I am not sure how long “BAU” will hold up it could go on for a lot longer than anyone thinks is possible
Forgive me for not watching….
I am operating under the assumption that if I were a member of the global elite… we would not be telling anyone about our Plan B… and we certainly would not be dropping details onto a short video on Youtube.
Give your head a shake.
Here’s Plan B – although nobody will admit that
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l6XQ4Hh8Fxc/maxresdefault.jpg
No doubt “plan B” is bunkers. Otherwise, there is no real plan. I think Central Bankers are just throwing crap around to see what sticks in a vain hope to keep BAU alive another day. When the time comes, “plan B” is to run for the hills.
These folks have not figured out that we have a debt based economy, and that flows will tend to decrease over time. They are sort of confused. If they think this will save us, they don’t understand how the system works.
Also, all currencies are linked to the SDR currency, presumably by a fairly fixed ratio. Doesn’t that give us the problems we had with Greece and the Euro, fairly quickly?
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this.
I can imagine people are saying to themselves–“The next crisis is going to be a whole lot worse. We need to figure out a new currency.” The Special Drawing Rights of the IMF was the thing that they came up with.
Instead of the system being debt-based, they want the system to be asset based. I am very doubtful this will work. One of the things flashed up on the screen was “Nodes are limited/resources are unlimited.” They need to read OurFiniteWorld.com. I am afraid resources are limited. We operate on flows, which are disappearing. Trying to substitute assets won’t work. The value of the assets will disappear as well.
thanks for looking into it Gail fresh eyes revealed that statement of unlimited resources which I did not see so it sounds like a flawed plan but we shall see if they proceed with it I think BAU may be extended but who knows for how long perhaps a decade if were lucky
Night comrades.
Run with the hunted.
“Hypersonic missiles are virtually unstoppable. The whole idea of the carrier is the ability to project power. But with no method of protecting themselves against missiles like the Zircon the carrier would have to stay out of range, hundreds of miles out at sea,” a naval source told the UK’s Sunday People. “Its planes would be useless and the whole basis of a carrier task force would be redundant.”
I’ve often wondered about aircraft carriers… they are like castles but they float on water…
Surely if someone unleashed a barrage of missiles at one of them — there would be no way to shoot them all down …
I would imagine they would be completely useless in a real war
Yep–
Anyone who can shoot back, at this point in missile technology (Iran, India, China, Russia), can easily take them out.
They are totally useless – just like GB wasted their money on battleships until WWII when their empire fell. See John Michael Greer for some good predictions of US military failure.
“U.S. Navy chief of naval operations Adm. John Richardson notes that there is a substantial network of sensor systems and guidance required to make a precision-guided ballistic missile arrive on target. Disrupting that electronic command-and-control system could be an effective defense, even if shooting down the missile on its terminal approach would be unlikely. “Our response would be to inject a lot of friction into that [targeting] system,” Richardson said at a panel discussion last June.”
In military warfare there is a back and forth regarding technology. One day something seems unstoppable, followed by new tech that renders it obsolete and on it goes.
The Big Dogs show up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXWE6H55FA
And this is just normal fire.
How about this?
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/russia-develops-mach-six-anti-ship-missile
I like the Russians from the standpoint they don’t fool around. In this case they used the Somali pirates as targets to test their firing system. Wow, that was fast and a long distance away.
https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/nicksand.jpg
(you peasants will never know)
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3olhwaRAiJA/WZBndXdGLZI/AAAAAAAAxoY/7s8qGsFkziAoxpzsc8y7hbVWRMsYXPWIgCLcBGAs/s640/trump-fascist_2-666×498.jpg
POTUS is like a limp dick….
The real power is the Fed…. the only way we get Trump the Dictator — is if they determine that is necessary.
Funny how people point at Trump — when the NSA is the real tool if anyone wanted to establish a dictatorship…
And as we have seen — not a single Potus has done anything to roll that power back.
Think about it….
Yep, think about it.
I know this may possibly be challenging.
Simple stories by simpletons are often just that- stories to make freighted humans something to hold onto.
http://quotespictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/i-can-get-away-before-the-storm-hits-away-from-a-world-in-which-opiates-have-become-the-religion-of-the-masses.jpg
http://thefederalistpapers.integratedmarket.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/obsessed-with-trump.png
http://michaelpramirez.com/uploads/3/4/9/8/34985326/mrz021817-color_orig.jpg
The media just follows the bouncing ball. Trump is the one doing all this stuff – they’re just reporting it. What I can’t figure out is why Trump just keeps playing to the deplorables. Why not try playing to the majority of the populace? Why is he so cavalier about eliminating healthcare? Why is he so racist? Why is he is ready to go to war? He’s not really someone suited for the White House. He’s better suited to be in charge of a mafiosa gang laundering money to develop real estate.
Trump is just the warning shot for the US. The real deal is yet to come.
Trump is a result of 1 in 6 people being on food stamps, 100m people of working age without real jobs (25% plus unemployment – shadowstats), and a declining net energy per capita for the US – 6% of world popn getting 25% of resources was a stat that I recall.
The best thing the snowflakes can do is get out of the way, let him implement his policies and watch him fail; the energy is not there for him to succeed. Instead, when he fails he and his cause will become martyrs, and those who stopped him the targets.
If that deplorable Hillary had let Bernie through then we could have watched him fail instead.
Remember that 80 odd years ago the Germans didn’t just wake up one day and think that A.dolf was a great idea; they were desperate for some way out and Hit. ler had the one-liners to give them that hope. Trump was the candidate that people thought actually listened to them. The establishment from either side didn’t want him, and I bet he is feeling the heat now. be interesting what he comes back from golf camp with!
I do not think he is doing any of those things…The guy that just departed did all that for sure he was also the one that sold out to Russia.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XXC5qafTgCA/WZHMykjsH-I/AAAAAAAAxrs/HOFei0DJbE48-MBxIrZRd2gVSfdQwS6DACLcBGAs/s640/colbert%2Bpopcorn.jpg
http://www.artberman.com/bnn-interview-permian-reserves-smaller-shale-gas-revolution-media-myth/
Can someone tell Art that shale is what stands between us and this
https://cf.geekdo-images.com/ln_YrR1jtiYIJi2-Ohit1lbM5Ig=/fit-in/246×300/pic1965255.jpg
Shale is not a retirement party … it is a wake for BAU….
OPEC is not producing at full capacity.
oil supply is plentiful for the next decade or so.
it is the demand side, the affordability of oil, that could be the bigger problem.
by the mid 2020’s, we should see.
and that is SOON!
Oh right — OPEC is cutting back production — to drive the price of oil higher ….
And each time they do that the shale plays race to pump out even more oil…. which drives the price back down again …
And yet the Saudi’s keep on doing the same thing over and over….
Did you ever consider that this is a ruse — that the KSA has peaked and they are unable to maintain their production…
And the El ders have ordered Wall St to make sure that shale pumps as much oil as possible — even if it drives them deeper into insolvency….
Did you think that the financial MSM was going to actually run a headline:
SAUDI OIL PRODUCTION PEAKS – END OF CIVILIZATION IMMINENT
There is a thing called logic… and another thing called common sense….
Some have neither…..
They just blurt out whatever the MSM has told them to believe.
the MSM never talks about peak oil coming in the mid 2020’s…
because that is VERY SOON.
“Did you ever consider that this is a ruse — that the KSA has peaked and they are unable to maintain their production…”
yes, actually, I often consider that possibility.
KSA decline rates, if any, are minimal, so I don’t see that being a major concern.
OPEC as a whole is definitely not producing at full capacity.
though the world may not ever need their full capacity.
time will tell, in a decade or so, which, again, is very soon.
“the MSM never talks about peak oil coming in the mid 2020’s…”
I never see them talking about peak oil at all. Whenever I talk to people about it, they always say the same thing, “Gas prices are cheap so there must be plenty of that stuff, so there isn’t any peak oil.” MSM seems to have the same opinion, or at least they aren’t letting on what they think because they don’t talk about it. If you know of an MSM source that does, let me know.
Peak oil is the wrong story. It is unfortunate that the story got spread as widely as it did. The real danger comes from prices that are too low to maintain the system. The result is collapse, like many civilizations before us. The basic problem is falling energy per capita (not necessarily absolute level being terribly low). This can be food energy, or other energy. The system cannot shrink, so it collapses. Single countries within a world system are somewhat more resilient. This time it looks like we are having a problem at the world level.
Peak Oil and G W have one thing in common — they are both widely believed — but they are both wrong.
‘KSA decline rates, if any, are minimal, so I don’t see that being a major concern.’
I assume you read that in the MSM
You and I are never going to be privy to this information – the MSM is never going to be given this information — only the ultimate insiders get this information ….
All we can do is make educated guesses…
What do we know?
We know damn well that the KSA is not cutting production to drive shale out of business.
We know that shale should long ago be out of business because the entire industry is a sea of red ink.
We know that Wall Street is providing funding to shale plays that continue to expand operations – even if that means they lose even more money per barrel — and that shale plays that scale back do not get funding and go out of business.
If I can see the above the KSA can see the above…
The logical conclusion is that the Saudis are in big trouble… and that shale is all about trying to get oil onto the market….
So that we do not have a 2007 scenario where oil spikes — and takes down the global economy….
Well the Saudis are doing a lot of water injection and infill horizontal drilling on top of the water. Historically what the Saudis are doing to Ghawar ultimately recovers more oil BUT, ends in a seneca cliff collapse in oil production. So, when Saudis fields begin to decline, watch out, the exports will disappear very quickly. They know this. You can’t change the laws of physics. This day of reckoning is nearing and an IPO is evidence of this.
Full capacity depends on price. Get the price up to $300 per barrel, and I bet that OPEC could produce a lot. At this point, they are just trying to keep from collapsing from lack of revenue.
Twilight in the desert. The Saudi Aramco offering is a going out of business liquidation.
That is a good way of putting it.
We seem to need lots of myths!
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A9r5TuS2ezU/WZNyd7wKoBI/AAAAAAAAxuE/jW8O23SGbJobJYm42-zWUaulVulyLwkewCLcBGAs/s640/Screenshot%2B2017-08-12%2Bat%2B10.57.35%2BPM.png
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So true
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-hitler-wanted-to-destroy-russia-everyone-needs-to-remember-how-that-ended-vladimir-putin-120-24-44.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2adQb23FssY/WZNPxwH8caI/AAAAAAAAxtg/dLVncJDiy3EY2wzU0Plr5QpcuXYizwfFACLcBGAs/s640/Screenshot%2B2017-08-15%2Bat%2B12.46.37%2BPM.png
and it’s very possible that, if not for the DNC,
Bernie would now be POTUS.
Yep–
The DNC would rather have Trump, who is more aligned with their economic interests, than Bernie.
Something to thank the DNC for then. The US and world dodged a bullet when they shoved Bernie aside and trampled over him in the rush to impose Hillary.
Bernie Sanders believes that we must transform our energy system away from pollutive and dangerous fossil fuels, and towards energy efficiency and sustainability. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, and we need to greatly accelerate technological progress in wind, solar, and other alternative power generation. Bernie believes energy efficiency is crucial for cleaning up the planet, slowing global climate change, making the country more secure by gaining independence from foreign oil, and creating thousands of jobs.
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-energy-policy/
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GettyImages-687339814-1280×720.jpg
When The Grid Goes Down
http://peakoil.com/generalideas/when-the-grid-goes-down
OMG an EMP!!!!!!!
the end of BAU ASAP!!!!!!!
I mean, let’s throw giant amounts of stress and worry upon our families as we tell them that we need to prepare for this catastrophe that will most likely never happen in our lifetimes.
The grid will end … but not because of an EMP…. and most definitely in the lifetime of most people on this site
My favorite–“Arm the whole family.” I suppose you take the guns with you everywhere: to the grocery store; when dropping kids off at school. I suppose that is what the gun racks in trucks in the US South are for.