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Media outlets tend to make it sound as if all our economic problems are temporary problems, related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, world crude oil production has been falling behind needed levels since 2019. This problem, by itself, encourages the world economy to contract in unexpected ways, including in the form of economic lockdowns and aggression between countries. This crude oil shortfall seems likely to become greater in the years ahead, pushing the world economy toward conflict and the elimination of inefficient players.
To me, crude oil production is of particular importance because this form of oil is especially useful. With refining, it can operate tractors used to cultivate crops, and it can operate trucks to bring food to stores to sell. With refining, it can be used to make jet fuel. It can also be refined to make fuel for earth moving equipment used in road building. In recent years, it has become common to publish “all liquids” amounts, which include liquid fuels such as ethanol and natural gas liquids. These fuels have uses when energy density is not important, but they do not operate the heavy machinery needed to maintain today’s economy.
In this post, I provide an overview of the crude oil situation as I see it. In my analysis, I utilize crude oil production data by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) that has only recently become available for the full year of 2021. In some exhibits, I also make estimates for the first quarter of 2022 based on preliminary information for this period.
[1] World crude oil production grew marginally in 2021.
Crude oil production for the year 2021 was a disappointment for those hoping that production would rapidly bounce back to at least the 2019 level. World crude oil production increased by 1.4% in 2021, to 77.0 million barrels per day, after a decrease of -7.5% in 2020. If we look back, we can see that the highest year of crude oil production was in 2018, not 2019. Oil production in 2021 was still 5.9 million barrels per day below the 2018 level.
With respect to the overall increase in crude oil production of 1.4% in 2021, OPEC helped bring this average up with an increase of 3.0% in 2021. Russia also helped, with an increase of 2.5%. The United States helped pull the world crude increase down, with a decrease in production of -1.1% in 2021. In Section [5], more information will be provided with respect to crude production for these groupings.
[2] The growth in world crude oil production shows an amazingly steady relationship to the growth in world population since 1991. The major exception is the decrease in consumption that took place in 2020, with the lockdowns that changed consumption patterns.
Figure 2 indicates that, up through 2018, each person in the world consumed an average of around 4.0 barrels of crude oil. This equates to 168 US gallons or 636 liters of crude per year. Much of this crude is used by businesses and governments to produce the basic goods we expect from our economy, including food and roads.
A big downshift occurred in 2020 with the COVID lockdowns. Many people began working from home; international travel was scaled back. The reduction of these uses of oil helped bring down total world usage. Changes such as these explain the big dip in crude oil production (and consumption) in 2020, which continued into 2021.
Even in 2019, the world economy was starting to scale back. Beginning in early 2018, China banned the importation of many types of materials for recycling, and other countries soon followed suit. As a result, less oil was used for transporting materials across the ocean for recycling. (Subsidies for recycling were helping to pay for this oil.) Loss of recycling and other cutbacks (especially in China and India) led to fewer people in these countries being able to afford automobiles and smartphones. Lower production of these devices contributed to the lower use of crude oil.
On Figure 2, there is a slight year-to-year variation in crude oil per capita. The single highest year over the time period shown is 2005, with 2004 not far behind. This was about the time many people think that conventional oil production “peaked,” reducing the availability of inexpensive-to-produce oil.
[3] Crude oil prices dropped dramatically when economies were shut in, beginning in March 2020. Prices began spiking the summer and fall of 2021, as the world economy attempted to open up. This pattern suggests that the real problem is tight crude oil supply when the economy is not artificially constrained by COVID restrictions.
An analysis of price trends suggests that most of the recent spike in crude prices is due to the tightness of the crude oil supply, rather than the Ukraine conflict. The Brent oil price dropped to an average of $14.24 in the week ending April 24, 2020, not long after COVID restrictions were enacted. When the economy started to reopen, in the week ending July 2, 2021, the average price rose to $76.26. By the week ending January 28, 2022, the average price had risen to $90.22.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Brent spot price on February 23, 2022, was $99.29. Brent prices briefly spiked higher, with weekly average prices rising as high as $123.60, for the week ending March 25, 2022. The current Brent oil price is about $107. If we compare the current price to the price the day before the invasion began, the price is only $8 higher. Even compared to the January 28 weekly average of $90.22, the current price is $17 higher.
Saying that the Ukraine invasion is causing the current high price is mostly a convenient excuse, suggesting that the high prices will suddenly disappear if this conflict disappears. The sad truth is that depletion is causing the cost of extraction to rise. Governments of oil exporting countries also need high prices to enable high taxes on exported oil. We are increasingly experiencing a conflict between the prices that the customers can afford and the prices that those doing the extraction require. In my view, most oil exporting countries need a price in excess of $120 per barrel to meet all of their needs, including reinvestment and taxes. Consumers would prefer oil prices under $50 per barrel to keep the price of food and transportation low.
[4] Food prices tend to rise when oil prices are high because products made from crude oil are used in the production and transport of food.
History shows that bad things tend to happen when food prices are very high, including riots by unhappy citizens. This is a major reason that high oil prices tend to lead to conflict.
[5] Quarterly crude oil data suggests that few opportunities exist to raise crude oil production to the level needed for the world economy to operate at the level it operated at in 2018 or 2019.
Figure 5 shows quarterly world crude oil production broken down into four groupings: OPEC, US, Russia, and “All Other.”
Figure 5 shows four very different patterns of past growth in crude oil supply. The All Other grouping is generally trending a bit downward in terms of quantity supplied. If world per capita crude oil production is to stay at least level, the total production of the other three groupings (OPEC, US, and Russia) needs to be rising to offset this decline. In fact, it needs to rise enough that overall crude production growth keeps up with population growth.
Russian Crude Oil Production
The data underlying Figure 5 shows that up until the COVID restrictions, Russia’s crude oil production was increasing by 1.4% per year between early 2005 and early 2020. During the same period, world population was increasing by about 1.2%. Thus, Russia’s oil production has been part of what has helped keep world crude production about level, on a per capita basis. Also, Russia seems to have made up most of its temporary decrease in production related to COVID restrictions by the first quarter of 2022.
US Crude Oil Production
Growth in US crude oil production has been more of a “feast or famine” situation. This can be seen both in Figure 5 above and in Figure 6 below.
US crude oil production spurted up rapidly in the 2011 to 2014 period, when oil prices were high (Figure 3). When oil prices fell in late 2014, US crude production fell for about two years. US oil production began to rise again in late 2016, as oil prices rose again. By early 2019 (when oil prices were again lower), US crude oil growth began to slow down.
In early 2020, COVID lockdowns brought a 15% drop in crude oil production (considering quarterly production), most of which has not been made up. In fact, growth after the lockdowns has been slow, similar to the level of growth during the “growth slowdown” circled in Figure 6. We hear reports that the sweet spots in shale formations have largely been drilled. This leaves mostly high-cost areas left to drill. Also, investors would like better financial discipline. Ramping up greatly, and then cutting back, is no way to operate a successful company.
Thus, while growth in US crude oil production greatly supported world growth in crude oil production in the 2009 to 2018 period, it is impossible to see this pattern continuing. Getting crude oil production back up to the level of 12 million barrels a day where it was before the COVID restrictions would be extremely difficult. Further production growth, to support the growing needs of an expanding world population, is likely impossible.
OPEC Crude Oil Production
Figure 7 shows EIA crude oil production estimates for the total group of countries that are now members of OPEC. It also shows crude oil production excluding the two countries which have recently been subject to sanctions: Iran and Venezuela.
If Iran and Venezuela are removed, OPEC’s long-term production is surprisingly “flat.” The “peak” period of production is the fourth quarter of 2018. The fourth quarter of 2018 was the time when the OPEC countries were producing as much oil as they could, to get their production quotas as high as possible after the planned cutbacks that took effect at the beginning of 2019.
Strangely, EIA data indicates that production didn’t fall very much for this group of countries (OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela), starting in early 2019. The 2019 cutback seems mostly to have affected the production of Iran and Venezuela. It was only later, in the first three quarters of 2020, when COVID restrictions were affecting worldwide production, that crude oil production for OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela fell by 4 million barrels per day. Production for this group then began to rise, leaving a shortfall of about 900,000 barrels a day, relative to where it had been before the 2020 lockdowns.
It seems to me that, at most, production for the group of OPEC countries excluding Iran and Venezuela can be ramped up by 900,000 barrels a day, and even this is “iffy.” Iraq is reported to be having difficulty with its production; it needs more investment, or its production will fall. Nigeria is past peak, and it is also having difficulty with its production. The high reported crude oil reserves are meaningless; the question is, “How much can these countries produce when it is required?” It doesn’t look like production can be ramped up very much. Furthermore, we cannot count on continued long-term growth in production from these countries, such as would be needed to keep pace with rising world population.
Figure 8 suggests that, indeed, Iran might be able to raise its production by perhaps 1.0 million barrels a day when sanctions are lifted.
Venezuela looks like a country whose crude oil production was already declining before sanctions were imposed. The cost of production there was likely far higher than the world oil price. Also, Venezuela has oil debts to China that it needs to repay. At most, we might expect that Venezuela’s production could be raised by 300,000 barrels per day in the absence of sanctions.
Putting the three estimates of amounts that crude oil production can perhaps be raised together, we have:
- OPEC ex Iran and Venezuela: 900,000 bpd
- Iran: 1,000,000 bpd
- Venezuela: 300,000 bpd
- Total: 2.2 million bpd
The shortfall of crude oil production in 2021, relative to 2018 production, was 5.9 million bpd, as mentioned in Section [1]. The 2.2 million barrels per day possibly available from this analysis gets us nowhere near the 2018 level. Furthermore, we have nowhere to go to obtain the rising crude oil production required to support the rising population with enough crude oil to supply food and industrial goods at today’s consumption level.
[6] Eliminating, or even reducing, Russia’s crude oil production is certain to have an adverse impact on the world economy.
Figure 9 shows the step-down in crude oil production that occurred in early 2020 and indicates that the world’s oil supply is having difficulty getting back up to pre-COVID levels. If Russia’s crude oil production were to be eliminated, it would make for another step-down of comparable magnitude. Major segments of the economy would likely need to be eliminated.
[7] When there isn’t enough crude oil to go around, the naive belief is that oil prices will rise and either more oil will be found, or substitutes will take its place. In fact, the result may be conflict and elimination of segments of the economy.
Our self-organizing economy will tend to adapt in its own way to inadequate crude oil supplies. Eventually, the economy may collapse completely, but before that happens, changes are likely to happen to try to preserve the “better functioning” parts of the economy. In this way, perhaps parts of the world economy can continue to function for a while longer while getting rid of less productive parts of the economy.
The following is a partial list of ways the economy might adapt:
- Fighting may take place over the remaining crude oil supplies. This may be the underlying reason for the conflict between NATO and Russia, with respect to Ukraine.
- COVID lockdowns indirectly reduce demand for crude oil. A person might wonder whether the current COVID lockdowns in China are partly aimed at preventing oil and other commodity prices from rising to absurd levels.
- Some organizations may disappear from the world economy because of inadequate funding or lack of profitability.
- Additional supply lines are likely to break, allowing fewer types of goods and services to be made.
- The world economy may subdivide into multiple pieces, with each piece able to make a much more limited array of goods and services than is provided today. A shift toward the use of other currencies instead of the US dollar may be part of this shift.
- World population may shrink for multiple reasons, including poor nutrition and epidemics.
- The poor, the elderly and the disabled may be increasingly cut off from government programs, as total goods and services (including total food supplies) fall too low.
- Europe could be cut off from Russian fossil fuel exports, leaving relatively more for the rest of the world.
[8] Countries that are major importers of crude oil and crude oil products would seem to be at significant risk of reduced supply if there is not enough crude oil to go around.
Figure 10 shows a rough estimate of the ratio of crude oil produced to crude oil products consumed in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. On an “All Liquids” basis, the US ratio of crude oil production to consumption would appear higher than shown on Figure 10 because of its unusually high share of natural gas liquids, ethanol, and “refinery gain” in its liquids production. If these types of production are omitted, the US still seems to have a deficit in producing the crude oil it consumes.
Perhaps all that is needed is the general idea. If inadequate crude oil is available, all of the countries at the left of Figure 10 are quite vulnerable because they are very dependent on imports. Russia and the Middle East are prime targets for countries that are desperate for crude oil.
[9] Conclusion: We are likely entering a period of conflict and confusion because of the way the world’s self-organizing economy behaves when there is an inadequate supply of crude oil.
The issue of how important crude oil is to the world economy has been left out of most textbooks for years. Instead, we were taught creative myths covering several topics:
- Huge amounts of fossil fuels will be available in the future
- Climate change is our worst problem
- Wind and solar will save us
- A fast transition to an all-electric economy is possible
- Electric cars are the future
- The economy will grow forever
Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.
About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.
Although it inevitably gets more and more dystopian here at OFW, I have to say that it’s always like a kind of meditation for me.
With all the bad developments in the world, it’s the best place to get a bird’s eye view and a kind of panoramic view, based on the reports and anecdotes from users around the world.
I hope we can get a few more years together here.
I can hardly thank Gail enough for creating this place here for all of us.
I am glad you like it.
I am hoping we get put down as soon as possible … imagine the scale of the torture humans will carry out if this continues for years…
If anyone disagrees then please send your child to Fauci and ask him to do this to the kid:
https://www.rt.com/usa/538654-fauci-experiments-beagle-freedom-project/
https://cdni.russiatoday.com/files/2021.10/xxl/6178256a85f5404d99473d27.JPG
https://user-uploads.mixedmartialarts.com/original/4X/5/d/4/5d440c05179e41f913aa0cd3ead97fb464eb5ed2.jpeg
New York City Data Show Infection Rates TWICE as High Among the Boosted
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/04/21/new-york-city-data-show-infection-rates-twice-as-high-among-the-boosted-but-trickery-hides-low-infection-rates-among-the-unvaccinated/
It gets frustrating. The original analysis is done in as confusing a way as possible to try to “prove” the point that the NYC folks want to make.
With correction, the report shows that a rather confusing group of unvaccinated, partially vaccinated and those with documentation unknown does as well as everyone else, in terms of COVID rates.
Than you Gail for posting this on EARTH Day! Happy celebration for Tim and Edwin…pile it high and like rip Firefly….the Car manufacturer Subaru is showing how much it cares about making the planet better by helping to plant a million trees that are dying because of CC and deforestation!
Boy, ain’t that sweet….so I suppose we should all go out and purchase a Subaru now.
BAU…You got to love it!
Subaru Forester TV Spot, ‘National Forest Foundation Re-Foresting Project’ [T1]
As wildfires continue to ravage acres of forests, there is a growing need to replant the trees lost to the flames. In partnership with the National Forest Foundation, Subaru has created the Re-Foresting Project and pledges to replant one million trees in areas impacted by wildfires. The automaker assures that it is more than just a car company.
“Subaru. More Than a Car Company.”
The amount of exergy(Ex) in our system is not adequate to keep the equilibrium. The system will self organize into equilibrium based on the available exergy (Ex). I hope all of you have fun during this reorganisation 😉
I agree with about
“The amount of exergy(Ex) in our system is not adequate to keep the equilibrium. The system will self organize into equilibrium based on the available exergy (Ex).”
Trying to keep up the same amount of exergy during the reorganization will likely be impossible. That will push the new equilibrium down to a significantly lower level, I am afraid.
We are on the verge of serious food production changes. Tilling soil requires a lot of energy. I guess some no-till practices are ahead of us: the arable land will be abandoned or used for food production differently. Ploughing and digging the soil is something which is not sustainable.
Yes, MG..when an American Indian first saw a plow turning over virgin top soil ..the first remark that was made..
“Wrong side Up!”
Of course, there is a sub culture that is on the fringe of modern society.. Permaculture, that addresses that issue…sorry to report it has not made much penetration in the mainstream cultural consciousness.
I was involved at the start of it’s arrival here in the United States during the mid 1980s,
exciting moment for a young fella…and it’s promise…seems we will change when forced to change…Jay Hansen wrote of the lack of consciousness in our decision making…
And a lady friend of mine observed…we usually take the easy way out…
Visited a historic area and there was a display about a farm census taken in 1870 showing what was produced for the farms in the area. They had a mix of vegetables but it was mostly dairy with huge amounts of butter. I got the feeling buttered potatoes might be the future when the tractors broke down and fertilizers went away. Animals can graze marginal areas which can’t grow regular crops without fossil fuel inputs but the future might be nothing like the past so who knows.
supply of food might be less of a problem than transporting it to where hungry people live
The population will live a lot closer to where the food is grown, I expect.
the 10m inhabitants of a city won’t
Really don’t know, tilled land works well for crops, cows seem very inefficient and oh the green house gasses.
Just a comment, have skin in the agriculture game, hard to see what will work. Right now, those who followed the “get big or get out” maximum seem to be doing well and able to afford better soil maintenance which isn’t cheap.
Dennis L.
Cows are vastly more efficient than any field till agriculture ever conceived. Modern ag humans just ignore “ externalities” ( use of fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, rural depopulation, biodiversity collapse…….
I only do animal based forage harvest and gardening…… The collapse of the latifundium will be dramatic and all encompassing. They are but a house of cards held up by cheap energy…..
Greenhouse gases…… lol…. it’s minus 5 C and snowing where I sit,… the ice will come with the Heinrich event. The released carbon will grow grasslands like crazy…
The Mongols had it right all along….
yes – this
deep soils of US farmlands were created ecosystem in which herbivores grazing/fertilizing was a vital component – without them never would have built up the soils and US never would have been able to exploit what is essentially another “fossil carbon” source that we are close to having fully depleted.
I had heard that Mongols warriors used milk of horses as their traveling food supply so could travel light but hadnt realized that nomadic existance tied to all kinds of dairy animals– thanks for bringing up
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/09/right-now-did-milk-build-mongol-empire
But at least one mystery remains. Although 95 percent of the Eastern Steppe population lacks the gene variant for digesting lactose, ethnographic studies of modern nomadic herders show that between 30 percent and 50 percent of their summertime dietary calories come from dairy products. These range from mare’s milk (men will consume up to eight liters of fermented airag a day), to lightweight, calorie-dense curds that can be transported and stored for up to two years—in all, more than 20 different dairy-based foods. How these nomads cope with such extreme levels of lactose in their diet is unknown, but Warinner suspects they may have highly altered gut microbiomes that could be adaptive. This summer, she is beginning to test that hypothesis, working remotely from Cambridge with her field collection team in COVID-free Mongolia. She just might find that the Mongol empire was built on milk and microbes.
I foresee a future that was somewhat portrayed in the 1965 classic “ warrior herdsmen” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
The former vastness of American, Asian and African steppe prairies will come again. We have lost the incredible mega mammal diversity of the Pleistocene probably due to extraterrestrial impact event.
Regardless, as humanity dies back in this century the increased atmospheric CO2 combined with abandonment of incredible expanses of former, now degraded, ag lands will see an explosion of a unique post Agro industrial mega fauna.
A unique human culture may be reborn in these regions. Nomadic lives, restricted trade with urban enclaves. Old ways will come again, Comanche, Mongol, Hun, Scots Revier, Kurgan.
Electric cars lol, oh please spare me, build ox carts and learn to ride wild horses.
i think the usa is bound to divide into 5 or 6 conflicting states
4000 spent fuel ponds says no.
actually greenhouse gases and cows as a significant problem is a bunch of lies readily accepted by “right minded thinkers” based on faulty analysis.
Modern dairy and beef herds consist of significantly fewer animals than were supported by pre-industrial ecosystems and genetic improvements in productivity have significantly reduced populations over what they were just 50 years ago while producing more milk and more meat than previously produced by larger herds consuming greater amounts of feed.
Methane release from ruminant is in a closed loop carbon cycle – the methane is short lived in the atmosphere degrading into co2 and is quickly recycled back into plant matter which is eaten by a future cow/ruminant. If one does a closed loop mass flow analysis you will see that modern agriculture improvements in “feed efficiency” enabling reduced animal populations has reduce the total mass of methane in the atmosphere originated from dairy & beef production even with the releases attributed to CAFO facilities manure handling as opposed to pasture/grassland based “operations.” Thus modern cattle operations (dairy & beef) have not degraded the atmosphere wrt greenhouse gases but rather have reduced the impact.
Just another bit of faulty analysis that enables propoganda based on images that are readily manipulated and catch peoples attention even though a correct analysis reveals exactly the opposite of the general publics beliefs and allow distraction from the true cause of increased “greenhouse” gas concentrations in the atmosphere – the open loop extraction/processing/oxidation of fossil fuels and soil carbons.
Tilling/mineral fertilizers releasing carbon and other greenhouse compounds from the soil – well that is another matter!
Gooble Wurmers are caught in mass formation … they are unable to escape… it’s like CovIDIOCY … only different
The amount of methane a cow produces is directly correlated to her food.
Modern feed consist of high energy and ammonia input to grow meat and milk and fat fast.
The other side of that is the exhaust.
If UEP fails all cows will be dead and eaten within a week
That will certainly be a different way of food production than we have now. Farming now is largely operating diesel equipment. In poor areas people are eating well now in between food stamps and food banks. There is sometimes meat distributed at the food banks! Really this is a life culture for many. Income is absolutely minimized for food. You eat what shows up at the bank and stamps. Many people have lived there whole lives that way.
Its a interesting experiment. Less fossil fuel consumption on planet earth. Gail makes complete sense to me. What happens is unknown however. I feel it is unfortunate that fossil fuel consumption has allowed so many delusions about the nature of our existence, our philosophies and what sustains us. It is however part of the experiment. We know what happens when there is a lot of energy available for humans. Now we find out what happens when their is not quite so much. It would be helpful if there was not so much delusion. People seem to really like their delusions however.
In a way I am more optimistic than I have ever been. Poverty is not something anyone would choose. Just because we are poor does not mean that catastrophe. It may well allow us to have less delusions and to spend our time more appropriately.
If rejecting the injection means I get ‘rewarded’ with a life worse than that of a Jakarta slum dweller… I can’t say I’m overly optimistic.
I prefer the UEP.
It had to be done anyways but the “reason” now is a “reset”.
The question simply is who gets “the message” right…
Hint: Honk!
The AI in the Terminator franchise implements its ‘Judgement Day’ protocol, resulting in the near-extermination of Homo sapiens. Are we to believe that TPTB have something analogous planned for its accumulated arsenal of eye-CBMs? Why would they want to wipe out the very edifice (i.e., the 99.9% of the species) on which their wealth and power rests?
If you view from the logical perspective, you will never get the answer.
For those who are here for a long time and aware of what I am looking into “other perspectives”, there is more than what meets the eye.
Example: There are many rich or super rich people, is it that difficult to set up something similar to Youtube/Twitter/Facebook that does not censor anyone?
Nope ? Why? There are no coincidences in this universe.
!!!
Why hasn’t Trump done this — it would not cost a whole lot of cash to set up his own version of Twitter. And he’d immediately have tens of millions of followers…
Then he could invite all those others who were banned by Twitter to join…..
But he doesn’t…
Elon?
Dennis L.
I’m in agreement with Fast. Let it rain Nukes. Hopefully DC gets a welcome present first.
All supposed effects of a global nuclear exchange are based on simulations.
A lot of people struggle with simulations accuracy.
The question is: what simulation “result” gets funded/published.
Military research is pretty much walled off.
The US Navy was certainly worried about limits back in 2010, when I was one of quite a few people who invited to give our views on upcoming limits at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. I know that one person (whom I ate dinner with the night before) talked about the overfished oceans. There were even some science fiction writers.
You mean over- as in “unconventional measurements to be taken” to reduce the – in over- uhm? 😉
How 1960s Mouse Utopias Led to Grim Predictions for Future of Humanity
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/
I have posted this before but for the benefit of the new ones. We are at the final stage.
At the peak population, most mice spent every living second in the company of hundreds of other mice. They gathered in the main squares, waiting to be fed and occasionally attacking each other. Few females carried pregnancies to term, and the ones that did seemed to simply forget about their babies. They’d move half their litter away from danger and forget the rest. Sometimes they’d drop and abandon a baby while they were carrying it.
The few secluded spaces housed a population Calhoun called, “the beautiful ones.” Generally guarded by one male, the females—and few males—inside the space didn’t breed or fight or do anything but eat and groom and sleep. When the population started declining the beautiful ones were spared from violence and death, but had completely lost touch with social behaviors, including having sex or caring for their young.
Any similarities with what we are seeing in our present society?
I am afraid so.
I bet the mice tried to normalize tranny behaviour including encouraging young mice to mangle their gens and swap gender…. while legalizing child touching by dirty filthy bastards too.
It is a wonder to me, at this point of the world where we have 80% of the people who are blissfully unaware of what is going on and what will happen in future, another 19% who felt that something is not right but perhaps will right itself later on (i.e. back to the good old days of 2019) and the last 1% who felt that the end is nigh.
Imagine sitting in a meeting with the top management and do a 5-year plan.
How nice it would be to be part of the 80 % …
How nice it would be to be part of the 80 % …
It is destiny that you are not part of the 80%. It is not something that you have control.
Don’t believe – it is because you are curious and decided to investigate.
The 80% don’t investigate and intellectually lazy.
Try again – sit down and watch TV (especially news) for 3 hours straight. You will know that all of us here don’t watch TV. Personally I don’t watch TV (news, etc,) for more than 25 years. I have no newspapers fort he last 30 years
You cannot because you are different
At one time read FT, WSJ,Economist, FA regularly, subscriptions. Gave up when Economist predicted $10 oil, sort of in same class as nuclear electricity too cheap to meter.
Dennis L.
It’s not so bad being a MOREON I suspect … they don’t even know they are MOREONS… in fact they often believe they are highly intelligent…
There are people like that on OFW…
Whenever they are confronted with questions that might pierce their delusion … they have a defence mechanism — it’s called ignore the question.
I’m working on next year’s budget for a small non-profit right now! Lost $3k last year and they hope to recover (membership will have to go up rather than down, and expenses will have to go down rather than up). Hard for me to tell them straight out that it’s not going to happen. I foolishly volunteered to be the treasurer two weeks before the two weeks that were supposed to flatten the curve.
This is a fascinating interview that will enlighten us about the Jews, Khazarians, Venetians, David Icke and even Charlemagne. It goes way back to the days of old when knights were bold and the Chinese set up an earlier belt and road network called the Silk Road.
“Debunking The Myth of ‘The Khazarian Mafia'” (Part One — Tuesday, April 19th, 2022/19 Nisan, 5782) by Mr. Matthew J. L. Ehret
https://rumble.com/v11l2i7-r-and-b-lecture-the-khazars-part-one-tuesday-april-19th-2022-by-matthew-ehr.html?mref=6zof&mc=dgip3&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LowellJosephGallin&ep=2
One thing that Matthew Ehret talks about near the beginning is the importance of divide and conquer as a technique in getting control for people. If one group can be divided among itself, they will fight each other. It seems like resource shortages lead to groups divide and fight among themselves, anyway.
The video sounds interesting, but it is hard to find time for them.
Thanks for this — I’ve read the Protocols and it’s not clownish at all… it’s a bit dated but then it is dated – written in 1903….
The thing is…
As Henry Ford said when asked about their authenticity – from what I observe of the world – it ain’t a hoax.
Thank you for the new post Gail! We certainly seem to be in dire straights. all we have is the moment.
My things seem to be catching fire a lot in Russia. Its like a x-files poltergeist episode. The Moskova, now a hypersonic missle development agency and the largest solvent producer. I suppose they built those s-500s because they look pretty in the parade.
Woman, 31, catches Covid twice within three weeks in Spain Scientists report shortest known gap between infections in fully vaccinated healthcare worker; my analysis of this situation
https://palexander.substack.com/p/woman-31-catches-covid-twice-within
VAIDS!!!
I was speaking to a triple vaxxed mate and wife in Asia – they seem to always be sick (even though they are both fit and otherwise healthy). Sick again when we spoke — but now they both have very swollen lymph nodes on their necks — this has persisted so they saw a doc – antibiotics prescribed – no effect… they looked a bit confused (as one would if one was tripled up but still getting quite sick) — I asked if they had covid again — didn’t really give me a yes or no on that… probably because they don’t want to acknowledge the useless injections…
VAIDS!!!
The MOREONS are wrecking their immune systems…. they believe all the illnesses that they are contracting are long covid — sooooo…. they boost more!
hahahahahaha…. now that is funny!!! So funny I am gonna get M Fast over here and smack her on the butt… come on M Fast git over here so I can give you a butt smack… cuz it’s funny.
Maybe you can start a new trend. For every person that gets a triple vax, you whack M. Fast on the bum. It’s sort of like an Angel getting its wings.
What have you got against that poor woman?!?!?
Rodster has gone medieval… Anyway, that is what happened long time ago….. like it or not, that is the real history (not our fake history of political correctness) 😉
or norm…
https://youtu.be/IU28GHMcYxM
Thanks Gail for the article. I remembered cleared when this blog started up, renewables were the talk of the day and we have plenty of people saying that it is viable and many here said it is not possible. Those same people who said it was not possible then and still not possible now are still around in this blog. Many commenters left and new ones came in.
Then the topis shifted to having resource constrain but renewables was still discussed. Today, what is the point of talking about renewables.
Looking back, we did not know when we are on the downward curve of the Hubble graph but right now, I think we are there in the downward slope.
Good luck and all the best. Seems like time is running out….
Was just chatting with a guest… he saw my massive mountain of coal out back…. but was non judgemental mentioning Tesla’s are powered with the same thing …
Then I got a short lesson on how graphite batteries are the silver bullet — why are we not spending a trillion dollars on getting this tech rolled out? (I dunno I says … I wanna say cuz it’s fake news… but I don’t)… and then fusion is looking really promising (I say ya I heard that … I wanna say – it’s been really promising for the past 50 years… but I don’t)
Isn’t it interesting how one can’t really say these things in real life…. it’s no different than someone trying to convince you that 1+1 = -4 … it really isn’t but if you try to tell them they are delusional… they’d get all mad at you and stuff… and who needs that
@fast eddy, Did your guest just assume that unlimited reserves of graphite exist?
https://www.fastmarkets.com/imf-report-suggests-possible-85-shortfall-in-graphite-supply-by-2050
Based on the IMF’s research, at current production rates, graphite supply would show an 85% gap versus demand by 2050.
SNIP
In the case of graphite, around 60% of supply is based in China [down from 85% in 2013, probably because China’s graphite production is permanently past its peak], with a further combined 20% coming from Mozambique and Brazil.
https://www.fastmarkets.com/imf-report-suggests-possible-85-shortfall-in-graphite-supply-by-2050
I made a bet with some mates who are all into renewables back in 2018. I said that renewables would be seen for the non starters they really are by 2022. That is pretty much where we are at. Conveniently they have forgotten that bet.
‘Evidence’ that ‘renewables’ will not save ‘us’?
“27.8 Final summary
Current thinking is that global industrial businesses will replace a complex industrial ecosystem that took more than a century to build. The current system was built with the support of the highest calorifically dense source of energy the world has ever known (oil), in cheap abundant quantities, with easily available credit, and seemingly unlimited mineral resources. This replacement is hoped to be done at a time when there is comparatively very expensive energy, a fragile finance system saturated in debt, not enough minerals, and an unprecedented world population, embedded in a deteriorating natural environment. Most challenging of all, this has to be done within a few decades. It is the authors opinion that this will not go according to plan. This report has produced new numbers that are quite different to previous studies.”
https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf
I see Gail helped review that report. Looks interesting.
Hirsch did such a report of DOE perhaps thirty years, he presented at ASPO in DC, nothing was ever done.
Dennis L.
This is a report by Simon Michaux. I have corresponded with him quite a bit with respect to several reports that he has written (while he was in the process of writing them). I think that, very much before the linked report was written, my discussions with him changed his views quite a bit. I’m not enough of an engineer to tell if precisely the numbers he comes up with are correct, but his report certainly “tells it like it is.”
One has to pretty much record the discussion then replay it … but even then I am not sure….
This is the roadmap:
https://www.irena.org/publications/2020/Apr/Global-Renewables-Outlook-2020
More devices, more systems, more computers, more management, more storage…
Happy building ever after.
Growth: inquestionable!
PAU: Plunder as usual.
No Lithium: no Probem a lot of steel and concrete that can be “bought on the free market” will do the trick:
https://orf.at/stories/3244198/
Crames with 6 concrete blocks for 1 MW for 30 sec each.
Actually I am not an economist to make any judgements but it looks like a good sales pitch to me.
Italy puts 25C limit on air conditioning as Ukraine crisis forces energy rationing
Schools and other public buildings in Italy will be forbidden from setting their air conditioning to any setting lower than 25C from next month, under a scheme intended to help the country dodge an energy crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
The energy rationing initiative, called “operation thermostat”, comes as Italy on Wednesday penned a deal with Angola to ramp up gas supplies from the southern African country.
A declaration of intent was signed to develop “new” natural gas ventures and to increase exports to Italy, a statement from the Italian foreign minister announced.
Ministers also travelled to central Africa on Wednesday in search of alternative gas suppliers to Russia, from where Italy imports about 45% of its natural gas.
A debate over energy squandered through air conditioning arose after the prime minister, Mario Draghi, ironically used air conditioning as an example of something Italians might have to sacrifice in return for peace in Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/operation-thermostat-italy-limits-air-conditioning-amid-energy-crisis-fears
Hoping for a hot summer!
As long as there is enough energy to pop the corn.
This thing bears resembles with the substitution programs Italy enacted during WWII – they used paper for shoe soles and other such dead end programs.
I can imagine that ‘The Guardian” wants to help Drahi, but the point is that he was not ironic and “operation thermostat” comes thanks to his idea….
Great article Gail – Thanks
Really like Figure 10. Although this article focused on oil – might be interesting to explore similar wrt Gas & Coal and also all primary energy combined in future?
Some questions re the labels on bar graph:
1) NA ex US = Just Canada or Canada+Mexico?
2) Europe ex EU – is most of this supply from Norway? How bad would Europe ex Norway look?
3) I guess Japan not included in Asia/Pacific ex China since seperate bar? I not really aware til recently how bad off South Korea is oil wise – as bad as Japan and worse other energy limited high manufacturing production countries (China,Germany.) If group SouthKorea w/ Japan so have Asia/Pacific ex China/Japan/South Korea might not look as bad for rest of Asia? Combined Japan+South Korea would still need magnifying glass?
I used BP’s groupings, on one particular exhibit from their report. I was using totals for wide areas and backing out similar information for a few individual countries that were shown separately.
1. NA ex US seems to be Canada+Mexico. I expect that it is Canada with the favorable balance.
2. Regarding Europe ex EU, UK and Norway are oil-producing countries outside the EU. If you want the part without the UK and Norway’s production, look at the EU group. The calculation came up with about 4% of crude oil consumed was produced by countries in the EU.
3. The Asia/Pacific region excludes any country I listed separately on my chart. That would be China, India, and Japan. My title was too long to fit. Data was not given for So. Korea.
Thanks
Thank you for all you do, I truly appreciate the time and effort you put into giving us all the facts.
You are one of the very few that I believe and trust. God bless you and family.
You seem to be saying, at the end, that we shouldn’t dwell on the collapse to come but just act as though it won’t come. But your last sentence then suggests that making religious beliefs a focus is a potential way to fix this problem (“no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps…”).
Maybe religious beliefs can offer some people some comfort, some of the time, but this doesn’t help those who can’t make themselves believe in something without evidence. Still, it would be nice to think that any suffering we experience during the collapse, will be more than made up for in some other existence after our deaths. But then what was this life for?
You make a good point about the energy cost of energy.
Ed, I think your comment went to the wrong thread. It was probably meant for this one.
“What is the purpose of life?…To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool!”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/280365-what-is-the-purpose-of-life-to-be-the-eyes-and
Life is just the next step in the evolution of the universe.
First there was energy, then matter, then life.
The purpose of life, is to spread life to all corners of the universe, thereby allowing for the next phase of the evolution of the universe.
Humans are the only species we know of capable of spreading life through the universe.
Most likely though we will continue on our petty use of energy, squabbling among ourselves until we destroy life on this planet, instead of spreading life to the rest of the universe.
Life is just life. It’s an interesting collection of elements.
We don’t know if humans (that’s us) are capable of spreading life through the universe. Where is the evidence? I suspect they are incapable. They seem incapable of maintaining life on this rock, after all.
spreading life ‘through the universe’ requires more energy than we have at our disposal on earth.
it requires ‘technology’ as yet unthought of, let alone invented.
we do not have sufficient energy left in our economic system, to devote to the problems of taking humankind beyond the confines of the planet, let alone beyond our own solar system and into ‘the universe’.
and even if we did manage it, and find another planet able to support life on our terms, does it not seem likely that other life forms would already be established there, who might not be exactly overjoyed at our murderous species turning up.?
Perhaps I should have added Keith’s space solar, metals from asteroids and use of methane, hydrogen and oxygen from Titan for the energy source..
Or perhaps just /sarc ….
‘For I, Allah, was a hidden treasure, wishing to be revealed in my Creation’.
(Koran)
…and “his” instrument for some funny manifestations just to see what happens next.
Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the wo/man?
The famous saying of the Jesuits, I believe.
This time really is different
“This is why this time is different. In the absence of an alternative, cheap, high-density energy replacement for finite fossil fuels, there is no financial means of preventing a permanent depression – quarter after quarter, year after year of negative growth until the economy comes back into balance with the energy and resources available to us. And while a process of managed de-growth might have been possible had we acted sooner, the reality is that we have been so conditioned to the myth of infinite growth on a finite planet that only a small minority would have ever voted for a politician who advocated de-growth. ”
This time is different because there is no way out…
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/04/20/this-time-really-is-different/
I am glad I am not in Europe. The end is even more clearly coming into close view.
EU just introduced Green pass(pre-text Covid). They are desperate to shift the coming blame. Their entire Civ. is based on resources from foreign parts.(From Slaves to Diesel) We are really entering the thick of it.
I thought I could survive anything. Having lived a low energy life-style most of my life. But the coercion this past year I did not expect. I now know the City is the last place to be after 2030.
Europe and even the EU are very heterogeneous grouping and what happens in europe does not spread to all european players at the same time and in the same amount. When you look at energy generation capacity and food growing capacity the eastern european countries are very well situated. All ex-ussr satellites have sufficient capacity of electricity generation through legacy power plants (nuclear and coal, and all of them have internal coal reserves) and all of them are food exporters for at least some food products and commodities. I believe that when things get really tough the eastern europeans have what is needed to re-organize (control landing) but they first need to solve the vertical matrix of political control which vectors what is left of EU in the coming years to be lunch for USA.
More than likely Gail, the end is materializing: we can stare into its eyes, if we have the courage, and feel the hot breath steaming in our faces here in Western Europe.
Or, we can go shopping for rubbish, plan holidays in the sun, get a 3rd vaxx to be able to get there, and buy over-priced houses at the peak of a bubble market, judging by what I see around me……
Kindness extends to those that have dreams shattered also. There is strength in kindness.
Jimmy Carter took some steps in that direction. It didn’t help him out very much.
That is an excellent summary of the situation. No way out except extermination (or face ripping)
Thanks, Gail. The graphs help put things in perspective. The US really were instrumental in delaying the collapse with its huge increase in production from about 17 years ago. But that looks to be a one time thing, though it’s surprising that no other country has really applied the fracking technology the way the US did. Is it really that unique in the world?
Whether the 2018 peak in total production is the absolute peak will not be confirmed for several years, especially as earlier peaks were later exceeded. However, the per capita peak being more than a decade and a half ago is telling. It would be interesting to see a graph of net energy for oil production. I wonder if that would show a peak being as long ago as the per capita peak.
Shale oil has not been very profitable in the US. If it were really profitable, it would be a whole lot easier to export the technology. This is probably the number one issue making the technology hard to export.
There is also a problem of urban locations. I understand that there seems to be quite a bit of shale oil or gas under the City of Paris. Underneath Paris is not the ideal place to drill.
Also, property laws are such that citizens in the US can profit from shale oil extraction under their property. This makes them willing to go along with the plan. I don’t think that mineral rights work that way in most other countries.
It looks like the US did fracking for national security reasons. Other nations are not so strategically organized.
I think that at this late date, other countries could get the benefit of the technology, if they really wanted it. For example, Argentina seems to be trying it somewhat. I know that China has considered it. Early research was a government sponsored industry effort, from what I remember.
The US lost 300B on shale .. maybe others can’t raise the cash…
More likely there are other issues – lack of water — I read something about UK shale being too spread out to make sense… not sweet spots…
Geology has to be one of the major factors….horizontal drilling through undulating layers of rock isn’t going to return much oil….while costing a fortune….
Perhaps costs moved to the future?
Dennis L.
Besides financing, there also seems to be a shortage of materials to complete fracks. From what some of the oilfield guys at POB and Oily Stuff blogs say, there is a shortage of fracking sand so that some wells could not be completed until more sand was available. There are also reports of the tubing being harder to get, that the quality is lacking, and it blows out more often than before.
It also seems like qualified help is hard to find these days. Maybe covid got them or they moved on to other work.
This is only hearsay, albeit from sources in the oilfield who should know.
Is it new technology? I have often heard that fracking is old technology….just marketed as new tech… it still is the same old way of getting oil out of the ground according to the people that have been fracking for years. I think the increase was due to super low interest rates that one could borrow several million to try and frack….now that is going away.
It is technology from 1862. Oh, the modernity!
Didn’t they drop dynamite down the hole to facture the rocks back then?
@Sam, Yes, fracking tech was demonstrated in the 1960s as “proof of concept” but then put on the shelf because it was too expensive.
I think shale had a best year profit of 500 billion in 2013 but still borrowed 600 billion that same year. To me shale only works mostly with money printing. Excluding the sweet spots. This is why no other Country has done it like the U.S.(reserve currency/world bully) It I remember, it costs ten million just to drill an exploratory well. It was a band-aid solution to keep a leash on OPEC a little while longer. And make some people wealthy. Just my opinion.
Thank you Gail, your articles are always to the point and food for thought.
“We are likely entering a period of conflict and confusion because of the way the world’s self-organizing economy behaves when there is an inadequate supply of crude oil.”
‘Conflict’ is from Latin fligere, to strike (together), from PIE *bʰleyǵ, to shine, also the root of ‘blitz’, lightning (which both shines and strikes). Thor is appropriately the god of both lightning and war – and of strength and fertility. So, we have root word associations of war and shining, and religious associations with strength and fertility.
Similar associations appear in the Slavic pantheon.
> War deities/ Slavic
Jarovit, god of vegetation, fertility, and spring, also associated with war and harvest
Perun, god of thunder and lightning, associated with war
Svetovid, god of war, fertility, and abundance
Zorya Utrennyaya, goddess of the morning star, sometimes depicted as a warrior goddess who protected men in battle (wiki)
Associations of war, lightning, fertility. So, for the ancients, associations of war with light and fertility. Modern culture is more likely to associate war with darkness and death. That is quite the ‘contrast’.
The ancient associations are likely from the perspective of the victors, as war led to conquest, abundance, an extension of the means of life. The ancient IE religions are those of happy warriors and victors. War was a part of their ‘light’, the ‘truth’ of the world and how it works. It is all about strength.
The moderns? They act in the same way but they pose differently. They project a different ‘morality’, a contrary ideology. The assumption is that it is ‘better’ to be miserable about war. They at least pretend to see war from the perspective of the vanquished rather than the victors, as something to mourn and that is somehow contrary to life.
What is more ‘sinful’ for modern man than to enjoy war? What raises more of a question mark over one’s character? Is it still credible, socially acceptable, to enjoy war and to celebrate it? Only in so far as one conquers over the ‘evil’ enemy. A prior moralisation is required, the vindication of one’s ‘moral goodness’, before war, at least in its conclusion, may be celebrated. ‘It is over, and the good side won.’
As I say, that moralisation makes no difference whatsoever to how moderns actually act. States obviously do not take ‘morality’ seriously, it is just a game to manipulate the moralised masses.
What is more contrary to modern associations than a _god_ of war? (lol) Light and fertility, abundance and life?
Perhaps moderns have simply lost the ability to simply enjoy life as it really is? Their default setting is that of the miserable vanquished, and enjoyment is allowed only as a moralised act. Have humans really been ‘improved’ for the better or just ruined in their natural sensibilities? Their behaviour remains the same but they are now perpetually ill-disposed toward it. They are, perhaps, sick… of life, of strength, of light, as the ancients would have it?
Interesting! Thanks for your insights.
It is clear that the Old Testament prohibition against killing did not prohibit killing others in war. The prohibition was only against killing your fellow kin folks.
War has been seen as necessary. I hadn’t thought about it being more than necessary, something that is desirable like fertility.
+ humans love killing … I guarantee that if I was granted the exclusive rights to hold gladiator games I’d be a billionaire in a few months…. the MOREONS would be All Over This…
I’d fill stadiums.. the PPV would be off the charts…
Even the MOREONS who would call it barbaric (because they were told it was…) but deep don’t they’d wanna be screaming kill kill kill!!! along with everyone else.
Cuz. We love that kinda stuff
People who love ice hockey, rugby and football would probably also cheer on gladiators if it were the only entertainment.
At school we studied the letters of Pliny the Younger: his attitude was ‘once you’ve seen one gladiator show, you’ve seen them all’.
Quite right; but the huge Roman arenas surviving to this day show that he was in a very tiny minority.
Violence is the theatre of the stupid, and even the intelligent but psychopathic, like Bill Gates & Co.
That may be a later impression of the gladiatorial contests. The Romans of the day did not conceptualise or experience the contests as cruelty for its own sake. They exhibited martial values, which were foundational to the existence of Roman imperial civilisation, and the superiority of Rome over its enemies.
The combatants were mainly slaves who were captured as enemy soldiers, and who ‘redeemed’ the unmerited gift, of being spared, through martial acts. They were dressed as enemy combatants, and their defeat illustrated the martial superiority of Rome. It is, in part, geopolitical propaganda for the masses before the age of TV.
So, it was about martial virtues and geopolitical superiority rather than about cruelty for its own sake, which is an alien, imposed perspective. Romans saw gladiators through the prism of nobility and virtue and not through a prism of depravity or misery, and the ‘meaning’ of the contests was framed in those terms. They were later maligned and misrepresented in some quarters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator
Hahahaha… and feeding people to lions was what – spiritual? hahahahahahaha.
Come on — they were not different that people today – blood lust is in our DNA… we love killing … and watching killing…
Notice how everyone slows to a crawl — when passing a car crash hahaha… they love it!
They were not gladiators. The bestiarius was a form of capital punishment for serious criminals. They were publicly exposed naked and unarmed to fight lions. It would have been a warning to subjects to avoid serious crimes, and it would illustrate how man stands in the world without the benefits of civilisation. The strength of man lies in his civilised combine, and that was illustrated in the fate of enemies of the state. Those are the terms in which bestiarius were conceived and experienced. It is essentially a political act, while the gladiators were geopolitical.
> As a means of torturous capital punishment, death by wild beasts was a punishment for enemies of the state,[3] a category which included those taken prisoner and slaves found guilty of a serious crime. These were sent to their deaths naked and unable to defend themselves against the beasts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestiarius
What would win – a lion or a tiger or a grizzly bear?
The thing is…. the grizzly would never have contact with the other two so that’s intriguing – maybe they’d not even fight?
The point is that it was not cruelty for its own sake. Civilisation is not the opposite of cruelty, which is just a part of life, rather civilisation sublimates cruelty into socially acceptable and useful forms. There is no civilisation without cruelty.
The gladiators and the bestiarius are ancient examples. Schooling kids fulltime from the age of 4 is a modern example, as is forcing people to work for money; the entire system of socialisation and criminal enforcement. Society gets things done with the carrot and the stick.
Cruelty, even in nature, is practical, as life devours itself in order to live. Civilisation utilises cruelty in very many complex, practical ways. It would infantile to ‘condemn’ cruelty or its sublimation. Those who imagine that they are ‘too good for this world’ know what they can do. The slanderers of life had best remove themselves from it.
Absolutely!
I went to a Detroit Colorado playoff game many years ago and a massive brawl broke out on the ice — the crowd went completely insane — I was sitting next to my brother and even you tried to scream into his ear he could not hear what you were saying — it was that loud.
Without a doubt – if I am permitted to run Gladiator Sport with exclusive rights globally + gambling rights — I’m the first trillionaire
Ahh, but that no ordinary rivalry. Shanahan crashing into Roy in midair was my favorite…
Gail, we can see some of the same associations of war in the OT psalms – strength, light, lightning, fertility, abundance, happiness.
> Ps. 144 Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:
2 My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.
6 Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.
12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
13 That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets:
14 That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.
> Ps. 18
12 At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
14 Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.
28 For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
32 It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.
34 He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
44 As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
Nice analysis Gail — I knew I should have bucket listed the shit out of 2019… cuz there is absolutely no way we are going back to that BAU again…
The world economy may subdivide into multiple pieces, with each piece able to make a much more limited array of goods and services than are provided today.
I wonder about that … just thinking about building supplies as an example… if there is no local substitute the construction industry crashes — huge numbers lose their jobs… deflationary death spiral results…
Also even if countries try to produce locally — what does a nail or a piece of drywall cost if you do that… that would make building anything totally unaffordable…
No doubt the urge (driven by Mr DNA) is to attack and pillage other countries as depletion accelerates… but there would be no winning for very long if that transpired… at some point it all unravels because countries collapse and unplug from the supply chain… or they default and crash the financial system…
Conventional Oil peaked in 2005 http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/C-Cdec141.png
Shale in 2018.
According to Rystad, the current resource replacement ratio for conventional resources is only 16 percent. Only 1 barrel out of every 6 consumed is being replaced with new resources
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Biggest-Oil-Gas-Discoveries-Of-2019.html
Shale binge has spoiled US reserves, top investor warns Financial Times.
Preface. Conventional crude oil production may have already peaked in 2008 at 69.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) according to Europe’s International Energy Agency (IEA 2018 p45). The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows global peak crude oil production at a later date in 2018 at 82.9 mb/d (EIA 2020) because they included tight oil, oil sands, and deep-sea oil. Though it will take several years of lower oil production to be sure the peak occurred. Regardless, world production has been on a plateau since 2005.
What’s saved the world from oil decline was unconventional tight “fracked” oil, which accounted for 63% of total U.S. crude oil production in 2019 and 83% of global oil growth from 2009 to 2019. So it’s a big deal if we’ve reached the peak of fracked oil, because that is also the peak of both conventional and unconventional oil and the decline of all oil in the future.
Some key points from this Financial Times article: https://energyskeptic.com/2021/the-end-of-fracked-shale-oil/
Shale boss says US has passed peak oil | Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/320d09cb-8f51-4103-87d7-0dd164e1fd25
Our fossil fuel energy predicament, including why the correct story is rarely told https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/11/10/our-fossil-fuel-energy-predicament-including-why-the-correct-story-is-rarely-told/
SEE PAGE 59 – THE PERFECT STORM : The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel https://ftalphaville-cdn.ft.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
“The global economy was facing the worst collapse since the second world war as coronavirus began to strike in March, well before the height of the crisis, according to the latest Brookings-FT tracking index. “The index comes as the IMF prepares to hold virtual spring meetings this week, when it will release forecasts showing the deepest contraction for the global economy since the 1930s great depression. https://www.ft.com/content/9ac5eb8e-4167-4a54-9b39-dab48c29ac6c
Collapse Imminent: https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-collapse-and-pandemic-simulation/
The Illusion of Stability, the Inevitability of Collapse http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-illusion-of-stability-inevitability.html
Fed is sharply increasing the amount of help it is providing to the financial system https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/23/fed-repo-overnight-operations-level-to-increase-to-120-billion.html Banks did not trust each other – similar situation when Lehman collapsed
Oil Gluts – do NOT indicate we have found more oil. We just pumped what’s left too fast.
Summary In 2019 a second Perfect Storm was approaching – the central banks had been doing ‘whatever it takes’ for over a decade…. Essentially nothing was off the table — throw the kitchen sink at pushing GFC2.0 into the future. In 2019 the guns were blazing but the beast was no longer held at bay…
What do you do when you are burning far more oil than you discover — and your efforts to offset the impact of expensive to produce oil push you to the edge of the cliff? You can accept your fate and allow the beast to shove you into the abyss…. Or you can take the ‘nuclear option’ and shut down as much of the economy as possible, preserve remaining oil and pump in trillions of dollars of life support to keep the system feebly alive.
Punchline: The problem global leaders face is that if you unleash the nuclear option without some sort of cover, the sheeple and the markets would be thrown into a panic and you risk blowing things up prematurely. So you need a reason for putting the global economy on ice — one that does not spook the masses – one that is big enough to justify such epic amounts of stimulus and extreme policies — and one that allows you to explain ‘this is just temporary – once this is gone — we will get back to normal’
A pandemic is the perfect cover.
End Game – Covid was foisted on us as cover for the response to peak oil (if we don’t slow the burn oil prices go through the roof and we collapse) but it is also being used to convince billions to be Injected. The Injection is meant to cause extremely deadly variants similar to Marek’s .. only worse because we are deploying into a pandemic https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous.
“Mass infection prevention and mass vaccination with leaky Covid-19 vaccines in the midst of the pandemic can only breed highly infectious variants.” https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/
French virologist and Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier called mass vaccination against the coronavirus during the pandemic “unthinkable” and a historical blunder that is “creating the variants” and leading to deaths from the disease.
The Vaccines and Boosters will Result in a Catastrophic Outcome – From a scientific viewpoint it is, therefore, difficult to understand how booster immunizations using vaccines which are not evolution-proof could prevent a highly mutable virus from escaping neutralizing anti-S Abs while driving the pandemic in a catastrophic direction, both in Israel and worldwide. How can the WHO stand by and watch as this additional experiment unfolds, soon to be followed by other countries? https://thehighwire.com/videos/vaccine-expert-warns-of-covid-vaccination-catastrophe/
If you have a large pool of hosts that all have the same fixation, then you have a large number of individual labs in which to have such a mutation occur. You have far more hosts in which to have random chances occur, all selecting for a mutation that attacks one specific weakness and that weakness is in most of the population, so once it’s out, there is no stopping it. And if this fixation prevents the hosts from developing strong new immunities based on these novel pathogens, this becomes iterative. you get wave after wave of pandemics until you wipe out the susceptible population. https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/homogenizing-herd-level-antigenic
The reason for this is that 8B people need cheap energy to live. They would starve without it. And 8B people without food would result in epic starvation, violence, rape and cannibalism. Industrial civilization ends soon after peak oil. Unfortunately we also have 4000 spent fuel ponds that will boil off and release toxic substances for centuries. These facilities cannot be controlled with computers and energy. So even the few remaining hunters and gatherer tribes will die as they consume these toxins in the food, air and water.
The PTB understand all of this and that is WHY every leader is on board with the Injections. There is NO way out of this — so they have decided to mitigate the suffering as much as possible by putting us down and here is the mechanism https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/why-the-ongoing-mass-vaccination-experiment-drives-a-rapid-evolutionary-response-of-sars-cov-2.
Also note – when BAU collapses the PTB will not be insulated from the violence or starvation – or the spent fuel ponds. They are likely to be scapegoated and targeted by violent hordes. There system of power collapses with BAU so their protectors abandon them (or worse – turn on them). They have chosen to go down with the ship rather than be skinned alive by angry mobs who will be blaming them for the fact that their families are starving.
The only way to sidestep the many negative influences now occurring is to become a free tenant peasant.
Intern? Slave?
You can be our domestic slave woman any day, Gail. It would be a privilege to have you about the place with your intelligent conversation. 🙂
The landowners won’t like that prospect too much
Analysis of Offical Government data finds Covid-19 Vaccination increases risk of Death due to all-causes in all Age-Groups
“Official UK Government data indicates substantially increased mortality rates in many individuals vaccinated with the COVID-19 injections, over the unvaccinated”
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/04/20/analysis-gov-data-finds-covid-vaccination-increases-risk-death/
Professional Athletes suffered at least 890 Cardiac Arrests and 579 Deaths following Covid-19 Vaccination in the past year; & FIFA Football Deaths increased by 300%
“With cases like these becoming impossible to ignore, even a mainstream media sports channel in Australia speculated that the health issues could be linked to COVID-19 injections, and one of the hosts acknowledged that multiple players have suffered from heart issues and Bell’s palsy following COVID-19 booster injections”
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/04/20/increase-athlete-cardiac-arrest-deaths-covid-vaccination/
It would be good to have more information on excess mortality, for a number of different countries, split between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. I suppose a person might be curious with respect to how many of those excess deaths were clearly from COVID and how many deaths were from other causes.
If there is a real problem with excess deaths in the vaccinated, it seems like it will show up in life insurance data, among other places.
Although not broken down by vaccination status, insurance co’s have already documented a huge surge in deaths in the prime working age population where health risks are normally relatively low:
Protesters are demanding that Castillo lower water, electricity and gas prices, as well as rewrite the country’s market-friendly constitution.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/peru-inflation-protests-grip-tourist-capital-cuzco-gateway-machu-picchu-2022-04-19/ Maybe they should also demand free food forever haha
This is FANTASTIC FOOTAGE! https://rumble.com/vy0brv-1.5-hours-of-vaccine-adverse-reactions.html
This is how Children go to school in Shanghai.. https://twitter.com/i/status/1516411234362474515
SWINE FLU VACCINE WAS COMPLETELY BINNED AFTER LESS THAN 30 FATALITIES.
Anyone with half a brain has to ask what is going on here?
EURDRAVIGILANCE… 43,005 FATALITIES
3,984,978 INJURIES (From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,879,995 ) are serious injuries.
The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 43,005 fatalities, and 3,984,978 injuries following injections of five experimental COVID-19 shots (the first adverse reactions to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine were recorded in the past 2 weeks):
https://vaccineimpact.com/2022/43000-deaths-4-million-injuries-following-covid-19-vaccines-in-european-european-database-of-adverse-reactions/?
Hahaha…. sure he is… can it get any more ridiculous?
Nance’s Twitter account appears to be very active with retweets and personal tweets for someone allegedly fighting in a war. One wonders how he makes the time to maintain a social media presence while dodging Russian bullets but also getting cellular reception since Ukrainians have needed Elon Musk’s Starlink space internet since infrastructure has been severely damaged.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/im-done-talking-msnbc-analysts-quits-fight-russians-ukraine
Coming soon $20 bread loaves https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/california-grocery-workers-score-double-digit-raises-after-unified-and-militant-threat
Password sharing is part of the problem – that’s what you get when things are tough https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fnetflix-earnings-q1-2022-11650325682%3Fmod%3Dhp_lead_pos1 Friends in town have told me that they share all sorts of PWs with friends and family back in the US.
Norm? https://www.bitchute.com/video/DfDaQSYYNaiq/
Children below 5 years old are undergoing clinical trials.
“Dr. Daniel Leonard, a pediatric hospitalist who is working on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial for these kids, said people are driving in from several states away to take part.
“We’re here in south central Nebraska, and while many may not think that this would be the epicenter of scientific progress, the influx that I’ve had with people from Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa — some driving eight or nine hours each way overnight to participate in the study,” he said. “They are dedicated”
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/19/health/covid-19-youngest-children-vaccine/index.html
https://rumble.com/v11foyp-jim-breuer-gets-attacked-by-a-covidian-in-harrisburg-pa.html
Gotta be a vax death – https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/tramper-found-dead-fiordland-named
US Strategic Reserves today and where they will be by end of October ‘22
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ5ZUATXIAE27Ea?format=jpg&name=small
Thanks for the new opportunity to expose mike and norm as ….
i welcome that too eddy
though the simultaneous, and inevitable exposing of you is hard on the stomach, as well as other sensibilities.
i suppose i should be flattered that your first comment, now that you are awake, should include me, i have no desire or intent to be anyone’s nemesis, but if you persist with consistent foolishness, the task seems to be mine.
i really do not want it.
i prefer the exchange of equal intellect.–or preferably higher— you do not provide that—merely the usual chalk on the skoolyard wall. you seem unable to comment without boosting self through the denigration of others.
such is the definiition of the weak.—which you know yourself to be.
no doubt the usual innuendoes will persist—– again, the hallmark of the inept and weak in that respect too. I really do cringe at the thought of that.
lack of knowledge on any subject is thus made glaringly obvious.
my only comfort is knowing that the amount of time you spend online means you spend less time inflicting yourself on others in RL
i think many here are willing to accept that as a necessary sacrifice
Halliburton CEO on US Shale:
“Halliburton’s hydraulic fracturing fleet remains sold out and the overall market appears all but sold out for the second half of the year.“
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ03rOPX0Ac_yaJ?format=jpg&name=large
Forget seasonal charts. Just look at this…
(Incl SPR)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ0VFklXsAcr5Z4?format=jpg&name=large
Or more extreme: below for crude & products incl SPR.
The last time total US inventories were that low was in June 2014 (red line) when a wall of international projects from years of capex as well as max US shale growth hit the market. It’s pretty much the opposite now.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ0ZF_GXEAEpByv?format=jpg&name=large
OilX, a consultancy that uses imaging data from NASA satellites to measure flaring, estimates that Russian output fell to a low of 9.76mbpd. April represents a big drop from the 11.1 million of February, before the impact of the invasion of Ukraine, and the 11 million of March.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ25QhWXIAEunIM?format=jpg&name=large
Thanks for the charts.
For quite a while, the US was disproportionately “completing” “drilled but uncompleted” wells. So new wells were being drilled to a much more limited extent.
I would be willing to bet that a fair amount of equipment used for drilling new wells was taken out of service, due to lack of demand. The situation is “sold out,” but this level may not represent a huge amount of drilling capacity. We will have to see what happens, and how quickly.
I have heard that Russian oil production is way down, as you show. OPEC and other organizations were counting on Russia to increase their production this year.
Liberty CEO warns of tight U.S. frac market, will not add new fleets
DENVER- U.S. hydraulic fracturing firm Liberty Oilfield Services on Thursday warned that demand for fracking services will outpace availability, adding that it has no plans to build new frac fleets.
The second-largest fracking services company said pricing is rising, in part due to inflation, and that it still anticipates hitting mid-cycle returns this year. Access to frac sand and labor remain an issue, it said.
“The current lack of equipment and rising demand from U.S. oil and gas producers echoed comments earlier this week by oilfield rival Halliburton. Its CEO said its fracking fleet was sold out and the rest of the market appeared to be fully booked for the second half of the year.”
“There is now more competition for frac fleets and not every oil producer that wants to secure services will be able, Wright said.”
https://www.zawya.com/en/business/energy/liberty-ceo-warns-of-tight-us-frac-market-will-not-add-new-fleets-mk44wqs1
I’m trying to get the skinny on propane. Indefinite shelf life as long as the tank doesn’t leak, but obviously less energy dense than gasoline. Natural gas delivered via pipeline so in this way makes it similar to electricity which is wired in. Propane is like gasoline in that both can be stored in containers and be portable for short term energy requirements. So what’s going on with propane production and how is this different from natural gas?
Petroleum is made up of hydrocarbons which have different length chains and different structures. When I look up natural gas, one source says:
“Natural gas is a hydrocarbon mixture consisting primarily of saturated light paraffins such as methane and ethane, both of which are gaseous under atmospheric conditions.”
I then find “Methane is a chemical with the the structure CH4.” A diagram shows the carbon atom in the middle, with four hydrogen atoms coming out from the center. I next find, “Ethane is a chemical with two carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms, so the formula is C2H4.”
When I look up propane, I find, “The propane chemical structure, or chemical formula, is three carbon atoms branched with eight hydrogen atoms (C3H8).” It seems to have several different arrangements of these atoms, according to the diagrams.
In general, the fewer the carbon molecules, the “lighter” the hydrocarbon. Very light hydrocarbons need to be frozen to a very low temperature to be made into liquids. The more carbon molecules, the heavier the hydrocarbon, and the higher the temperature at which they can be stored as a liquid. I would deduce that propane is easier to store because it is a somewhat heavier molecule than the molecules typically found in natural gas.
Distilling oil that is extracted is done by separating the petroleum into substances with different boiling points. In general, the very short chains are least valuable and hardest to store. The asphalt portion has very high molecular weights. It can be “cracked” to produce shorter chains, useful for diesel and gasoline. But it is virtually impossible to go from short chains to longer chains.
Impossible wrong word; most certainly possible to link short chain to make long chain fuels – I would say energetically limited/economically non-competitive in world with existing fossil fuel hydrocarbons as about twice the cost of fossil energy derived fuels. Need excess/outside source energy to provide reaction energy as well as the energy that is stored in the new chemical bonds created to lengthen chains.
Germans made long chains from short chains (syn gas to diesel) in WWII using Fischer-Tropsch process. Syn gas can be made from residual biomass (switchgrass, cow manure etc) doesnt need to be made from coal. All about economics and finite availability of catalysts not technical process feasibility. Above a certain price point or limitation on supply availability for conventional diesel, then countries like Australia and New Zealand which have large coal reserves per capita might could extend their local use of existing internal combustion infrastructure by implementing coal to diesel but not a general solution worldwide.
Plenty of newer technology to go from short chain to long chain. Exxon operated a plant on order of 14000 bpd in New Zealand for about a decade. Converted methanol to gasoline. Natural gas/methane can be physical/chemically converted to methanol or you can use biological processes to make methanol or other alcohols (ethanol) direct use as fuel substitutes or feedstock for other fuels.
Gates (as much as despise him) even funding a company to convert atmospheric CO2 to methanol to gasoline/diesel as a means of storing excess intermittent “renewable” electricity. Claims they have catalyst which makes potentially economically feasible as means of making “renewable” fuel. No commercial scale yet. Energy/electricity for storage as fuel would come from hydroelectric (might work) or (not mentioned by A2F) excess nuclear – of course their PR also touts solar PV but we all know what a loser that is. Saving the planet baloney but there is a process which can fabricate gasoline or diesel starting from basic CO2 molecule.
None of these work economically/structurally w/ BAU and/or current population densities. With a smaller population w/ societal structure for lower per capita energy a portion of energy could be stored/converted by such processes to allow energy dense fuels to enable some heavy construction or limited extraction industry perhaps limited trans-continental trains – never going to power a ubiquitous automobile centric waste maximizing civilization such as what we currently have. Role as special fuel for special purposes much like solid fuel rocket boosters are now.
https://www.exxonmobilchemical.com/en/products/technology-licensing-and-services/methanol-to-gasoline-synthesis
The MTG process uses a conventional gas phase fixed bed reactor that is simple to operate and can be readily scaled to the desired size from 2,500 B/D to more than 20,000 B/D. In the first application in New Zealand, the process was successfully scaled up from 4 BBL/D to 14,500 BBL/D.
https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2017/12/22/carbon-engineering-demonstrates-air-fuels-technolo/
Even cracking long chain hydrocarbons to make short chain hydrocarbons tends to be expensive.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diesel-Gas-oil-share-of-oil-tends-to-rise-with-price-1024×617.png
The above link is to a chart that I made that I didn’t have room to talk about in the post. The diesel share of crude oil tends to be higher as the price of oil rises. People at the American Petroleum Institute explained to me that when the price of oil is high, it makes economic sense to crack more of the very heavy molecules to make diesel and gasoline.
My understanding is that making gasoline from coal is both expensive and water intensive. Even when oil prices were high before, US proposals seemed to go nowhere.
Gates, with his astronomic IQ, hasn’t twigged that the problem with fuel is having the means to make use of it
if we don’t have all the other material cheaply available with which to make stuff, and the buying power as individuals to buy stuff, then energy from any kind of fuel is at best of only marginal use, or no use at all.
@norman, Funny you mention Gate’s “astronomic IQ.” I have no reason to challenge this, yet his reading recommendations on youtube are middlebrow or at least unchallenging. How to explain this apparent disconnect? It could be due to a personality factor. He also bandwagons on media and political fads when he clearly has enough clout to push back. Perhaps many smart people are mentally lazy and only use their brain power when they really have to. Perhaps low Need For Cognition which measures curiosity.
I think it’s a Gladwell book — the guy with the nearly 200 IQ is a total failure — if I recall he works on a dude ranch… and does part time p or n gigs when he can get them..
Lots of people have 140 IQs… I suspect most of achieve nothing more than some 100-120… Gates got lucky…
To think the same luck applies to issues other than his industry (and keep in mind he stepped back from that years ago because it was too complicated to stay on top of)… is a stretch.
It’s funny how people seem to think someone who has had success in business and made lots of $$$ knows everything about everything. They hang on their every opinion…. Depending on the topic a bag lady might be more wise.
just my personal observation….but those who appear to be exceptionally intellectually gifted, sometimes seem to have a tunnel vision problem.
Hawking for instance, is undoubtedly clever, in his own field, yet offers the soltion to humankind’s problems ans ‘spreading ourselves to other planets’.
Hawking is acknowledged as ‘clever’, so such utter drivel is picked up by the media, and people believe it.
Musk was clever enough to create Paypal—so follws a similar path by hiring rocket scientists who are only too happy to take his money in pursuit of similar nonsense, and does a similar thing with EVs, and people follow that too–certain that EVs are going to save us
Propane only has one molecular arrangement CH3-CH2-CH3. It is only when you get to butane C4 that can have different arrangements.
Sorry. Don’t count on me to be a chemistry teacher. My chemistry mostly ended when I was a high school junior. I also had one short course in college. I need to look up most things.
Still comes out as C3H8 which is heavier and was your point methinks. You did mention different arrngements, so job well done.
Twas not a criticism just a helpful correction. 🙂
The other thing that is relevant is that there is very little propane. Typical natural gas is 90%+ methane, and most of the rest is ethane. So propane is good for small applications, like barbecuing, because it is portable, but it can not be scaled up.
SpaceX engineers go nuclear.
https://medium.com/predict/ex-spacex-engineers-are-developing-a-mini-nuclear-reactor-27fae3450209
A one million watts reactor. Enough to charge 1000 Teslas or 3000 if batteries are used. The neighborhood nuclear reactor.
vehicles are not the problem
the problem lies in vehicles having a purpose
Trying to figure out if I should get a bicycle for local travel. If so, should I get an E-bike, from which there are many models to choose from?Catherine Austin Fitts on Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog interview last Sunday said “get a bicycle.” Transportation, yes, but if I am not working, then why transport myself anywhere if I am now just a non- productive consumer? So a bicycle not capable of carrying groceries may not make sense except for recreation. But transporting groceries ? What good is a utility type bicycle if there comes a time when there is no stuff or food to haul, or if there is, you’ll get picked off by some gangs and your stuff and your bike stolen? 10 miles to the farms out here in eastern costal NC. Maybe an E -bike may make that 20 mile round trip manageable as far as saving on gas even though some offsetting electricity penalty. We hear about EV’s but E-bikes may be more realistic. With so many brands and types, I assume they are a success and will be the fastest growing transportation niche. Am I wrong?
How do you charge an ebike when BAU has collapsed?
I have the capacity to charge one of the E-bike batteries with the 2000 watts of solar panels and 500Ah of battery storage, with the usual MPPT and inverters, still stashed in storage but not much else. Maybe enough capacity for a single trip per week. My thinking is changing. Even if you have a huge off grid power source, the components like the MPPT chargers to run it may break down or at the other end, the devices you want to power, like refrigerators or even small microwaves may break down. An electric wire to nowhere. Kind of like a bridge to nowhere. How will we get f*cked? Let me count the ways.
How do you keep the hordes from taking your set up?
Where would you go on the ebike? There won’t be supermarkets – or shops … or anything like that…
Hope it’s a mountain bike cuz the roads will be in ruins within a year or so of the end of BAU as the weather busts them up.
purpose means making a profit on your journey–however in takes place
Well put!
Drive the car to the nuke heated greenhouses and pick up veg on to the vat grown meat facility heated/cooled/and run by nuke electric. Over to the kids school powered by its nuke. Then to work at the Tesla factory yes you have it powered by the industry nukes.
A helium cooled reactor must operate at much higher temperatures. First, heliumis in short supply now. The reactor supposedly can power 1000 homes. Estimate a typical home electricity bill of $400/mo. This would give income of $400K/mo…let’s say $4M/yr. All of the exotic materials and complexity in this thing seems expensive. Operating overhead and grid maintenance ( for the local power cooperative) of 1000 homes will chew up a chunk of this…perhaps 25%. Doesn’t look like a knock out to me. Plus the operation at higher temps means less reliability and more material failures. This sound like something for the elites to buy.
Maybe Elon plans to import helium from the moon on Space X, ha, ha!
Gail, thank you very much for the extended analysis of crude oil production. It appears obvious to me that we’re at “peak oil production” or “peak oil availability”, and that the flexibility in supplies to overcome shortages is going away. Even if new reserves are found, the alarm bells are going off and the hoarding has begun. The climate change agenda is an attempt to retain control of existing reserves and supplies while the political and economic impacts worsen. And that will make things worse.
Fossil fuels, especially diesel, are an integral part of the modern economies, and as costs increase and supplies decrease, the ripple effect will get amplified, and not in a good way. It’s human nature to “wait and see” and “go with the flow” and other reactive approaches to these kinds of predicaments, so a hard landing is an understatement of what’s ahead. A “sudden stop”, an economist’s worst nightmare, seems more likely. Individuals can take steps to reduce their carbon footprints, convert to more localized economies, and prepare for short term outages and disruptions of various goods and services. But my impression is that events will be impacting us on a large scale, and it’ll be very difficult to avoid the fallout for almost everyone.
Dear Gail,
I look forward to this bit up rough sailing as I know the world will be a better place once we have all stopped using so much oil. We are all going to die at some point and as a follower of Stoic philosophy, I have an acceptance of death that some people find disturbing. I will try not to say, “I told you so!,” to my friends when they are upset at events to come.
You are so correct when you say that developing a more spiritual understanding of life makes even this dramatic news much easier to contemplate.
I am so grateful for your thoughtful and thorough analysis.
Maxine Rogers
You are very welcome!
Gail thanks for the nuts and bolts oil article. I am enjoying it.
wp test1
As production declines so too will the population. It appears to be accelerating now.
Mexico just stated that they plan to halt oil exports starting in 2023.
This makes sense when you consider the largest oil field Cantarell peaked in 2003 at 2.1 million bopd and now in 2022 it is producing approximately 159,000 bopd.
The crisis on the southern border of the US is going to expand as more people in mexico and central america decide to head to the US.
The world is moving into extreme disorder due to the collapse of Industrial Civilization.
The EIA says 0.6 million barrels per day is imported into the US from Mexico accounting for 9% of US imports. I wonder where the US will get the new 0.6 million barrels per day from?
We mostly export it back to Mexico, after we refine. We report the refinery gain in the process.
We are really selling refinery services, as I understand the situation. Our refineries can make very low sulfur diesel.
Ah, well that’s good. So we can do without Mexico’s oil. According to the all knowing WWW, the US consume about 20M barrels a day and produce about 12 million a day. I don’t know where the extra 8 million per day come from.
They believe EV’s will make up the short fall.
US also gets 8% of its imported oil from Russia. That would presumably mean 17% of our imported oil has to be replaced in the next 8 months! Biden and Kamala better put on their thinking caps.
HUGE thanks and massive Kudos for your usual Brilliant work, Gail.
Our Demented Fool of an Idiot POTUS here seems to have bought into the Green New Deal
He is on camera rushing to a crowd of kiddies at a rally, stating, “Look into my eyes, I promise you we are going to eliminate hydrocarbons”!
An interesting issue to consider is price causing demand destruction.
$5.00 gasoline here in Reno Nv., and seeing $6 plus in California, the car capital of the country.
There is likely going to have to be a choice made by the lower tier folks on the economic ladder of buying gas or groceries.
Perhaps the high prices will enable the Saudi and other Middle East princes to buy more French mansions, and mega yachts being dropped by the Russian big wigs?
Another couple of months of the Russia / Ukraine debacle I am speculating will shake a lot of leaves off the trees.
The U.S. and the West seem to want a couple more years. The War plays into there narrative. The ruling class wants to remain at the apex of the human pyramid. But they need a new economic framework to manage the feat. Capitalism no longer works for them because it needs growth. And we know growth is dead. What is happening now is just as manufactured as the Oil shocks of the early Seventies. To make the new reality palpable to the palette of the population. I am P.
i want to be wrong
but there would appear to be only 2 economic frameworks
the one we are in now…ie capitalism
and the one we discarded in order to make ourselves capitalists
ie–autocratic feudalism
there might be a third way—but that is simple hunter-gathering
“I promise you we are going to eliminate hydrocarbons”! – I guess he doesn’t understand that plants (carbohyrdrates) are also hydrocarbons. That would make an interesting headline: “Biden promises to eliminate food supply!” In 2020, he also said he was going to cure cancer. He may not remember what he says from one day to the next.
Middle East and Russia have oil worth stealing. Japan, Asia-Pac, EU have little, expect hardship and riots.
I believe the middle east is already divided in an agreed to way by the three powers (China, Russia, US)
Russia and north arctic and the black sea are still in play.
if nations steal oil, or any other resources, from other nations, then the oil they steal is used up in the ensuing wars to keep hold of it. Same applies to food. It has to be used to feed the armies that stole it.
this is why Germany and Japan lost ww2
they had to loot their prime energy resource from elsewhere, then had to use it to hold onto it
Whereas the USA extracted it for free from their home territory, and it was available in vast surplus.
I enjoy a nuts and bolts article on oil. Thank you. Figure 10 says so much! I am surprised Africa is doing so well. I guess it is for the reason they consume so little, so maybe not surprising.
The available oil is scattered around. Egypt and some other old producers are well post peak. Even the countries that extract the oil don’t use very much of it.
“News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.”
Yup! It looks increasing likely that Julian Assange will be extradited to the US on espionage charges. So if this happens, which Journalists will have the go-nads to turn against their respective governments, fearing imprisonment and torture? That’s the sole purpose of the Press, to keep the Government, “honest”. Julian Assange tried that and now he is potentially being handed off to the American Crime Syndicate aka US Gov’t.
Here is a comment I liked from a recent JMG article.
‘There’s an all out war against imagination that has ramped up in 2022. The Good People have decided that their control of The Narrative must be absolute. I guess they can’t imagine why anyone would dare access or save any information different than what They know is right.’
Assange still has it good. Gonzalo Lira was a US citizen too, but he was gone within two months of starting to say things.
Gonzalo Lira was a fool to say anything from a warzone: 1/ words from the powerless are futile , 2/ he therefore merely sealed the warrant for his arrest/torture/death.
To die just for some pointless chatting online!
apparently he just re-emerged. alive but unable to get out of kharkov. so I was wrong.
Let’s hope Gonzalo learns the wisdom of silence….
Kharkov is not really my thing… but norm?
https://youtu.be/FLyQNsIrZl8
Not sure what he hoped to achieve by his actions…. did he post any footage of any actual fighting?
At least that would be entertaining
Amazing that the US is going to prosecute Assange. We lack jurisdiction. Since he is neither a citizen nor resident of the US, he is not obliged to obey our laws. The increasing lawlessness of western elites is disturbing.
If he was present in the US when committing an act deemed illegal he can be tried in the US. If it was all outside the US and not illegal where it happened then I agree with you.
Yet another thoughtful and carefully researched article from Gail Tverberg.
Thanks very much. I am still trying to learn the ins and outs of Excel 365, so I have lots of graphs with strange quirks that I found it necessary to redo.
Without an increase in oil consumption there is no growth. There is talk about “core” countries being ok but I wonder if this is true. Everything is so interconnected right now. I don’t know what happens to Europe. Can they redefine the currency an manipulation ? And how much time does that buy us?
Sam who is more survivable 1) the core citizen that drives 30 miles in a beat-up F-150 pickup truck to his/her job as a Walmart greeter or 2) the Indian software engineer who commutes 15 miles with 7 fellow coders in their WV van.
I think it will be, core last to go, but core defined by what you add to the “core” corporations.
Yes Ed how can the core function if it can’t get replacement computer chips, diodes ..,,, capcitors etc.. the core countries have built in so much complexity that I think they will go down with the ship as well.
See Energyskeptic.com for a very detailed article about why computer chips will quickly be gone for good.
The ruling class knows what we know. WEF is the neo-Club of Rome. It is obvious now. They speak in tongues. Decarbonization means peak oil. Why not tell the World?
They have the tool’s to shape narrative. Covid has shown that. But if they were to tell the World, then the World would demand the ruling class to participate in the process. The New normal. Which would mean no private jets or 100 foot yachts. Instead, they have devised rules which we are not even aware of yet. What happens when you play a game which you don’t know the rules to? You play poorly.
superyacht or shack
any kind of future means everyone must turn their lights off.
no one is willing to do that
The primary question of “the process” is if the people get up their a*s and take it in their hands and organise bottom up or if they honk in the streets to ask their governments to do it for them.
Unfortunately when the people vote for “old” normal, they are already on a dead end in any case. They do not know why so they stick to it.
If they knew more about energy related topics, the decision could have been made easier for the population but it might emerge more decentralized and “creative”.
That of course is a thing that must not happen at all.
Keep the people in a struggle AGAINST a “reset”.
That is better for them than struggle FOR a “reset”
what only might include resetting the resetters.
it is possible to have an economic system that moves forward consistently
this requires a consistent input of fossil fuel energy
the alternative is a collapsed economy, this happens when energy input fails.
it is not possible to have a ‘reset’ economy as some kind of deliberate act by an external , vague. power.
given time, a collapsed economic system will ‘reset’ itself, purely through economic necessity of survival through barter and so on.
how that might pan out is anybody’s guess
it will certainly not be planned by anyone as a deliberate act.
Well, I get the point and I would have agreed to it some 20 years ago when I did not understand “power structure research”
The Top of the top have all the experts and they have all the computing power and they have all the money and they have… you get the point.
If the story is a managed demolition, the Reset is actually a pretty bold strategy. Also Agenda 2030.
I recommend to investigate the legal frameworks behind it.
Not owning a car means not burning fuels and so on.
We are not at zero FF yet.
I think that some people really have a plan and they stick to it as you could see in the government reactions globally with c9/11.
Go to court? Forget it!
If you manage the world in this fashion (Shanghai) you might be able to get some “organized civilization” through the bottleneck.
no matter how much computing power and money you have—you canot ‘create’ energy
and that is the problem
Interesting post.
Just a primary reaction. I live opposite a farm with 28 dairy cows in a mountainous area in France. A farm with 60 hectares divided into 45 plots. In fact, an economically unprofitable situation. I ‘work’ regularly when it suits, giving birth to calves, shearing the sheep, grazing and caring for the ‘hobby’ draft horse. The other day I asked my farmer how many liters of diesel he used per year to run this extremely unprofitable farm with his three tractors and other smaller machines.
It was a topical question because of the rising diesel costs in France. He had to think for a while and then arrived at a diesel consumption of roughly between 6,000 and 7,000 liters per year.
Let’s divide that by the number of cows and you end up with 300 liters of diesel per year per cow!
That is an interesting and at the same time very insightful calculation that shows how dependent we are on fossil fuels for our food supply. If you go back to the time before the ‘diesel’ and tractors let’s say 1950 it becomes clear how short this ‘fossil’ era will actually last.
At 10 gallons of milk per cow per day we have 0.082 liters per gallon of milk or 0.021 liters diesel per liter of milk. At one euro per liter still OK 2 cents per liter of milk goes to diesel.
I studied the photo at the Solvay Conference 1927 again, the School of Athens in modern world
Here are the nationalities of the people involved
Belgian – 3, which is understandable since Belgium is the host country
Holland – 3
Britain – 3, including one Scot
France – 6
Austria (none from Hungary) – 4
Denmark – 2
Swiss – 1
USA – 2
I talked about Irving Langmuir the last time. The other one was Arthur Compton, who was born in Ohio but his mother’s surname was Augspurger and his older brother’s name was Karl, a spelling not used frequently in USA (Carl is preferred),meaning he is at least half immigrant.
Australia – 1, Lawrence Bragg. His father was a prof at the Univ of Adelaide, which was like the end of world, and he stayed down under till the age of 18 so although he stayed British and didn’t really go back to Oz after that he does qualify as ‘Australian.
Poland – Marie Curie.
Although she was born in Russian Poland, which might make Russia and Poland qualify because of her, she did most of her work at France and if she stayed at Warsaw she would not have gone anywhere. Still, since I have to be fair, given Bragg’s example I will consider her Polish.
All of them were western and central European, American and (although the claim is tenuous) Australian.
If the rest of the world other than the countries named above sank to the sea on 1928, I have to say again, the world would have missed nothing.
I agree completely with your conclusion. Both American political parties live in worlds of fantasy and lies. Democrats sell the fantasy that renewables will solve the problem. Republicans focus on meaningless issues like culture wars, which is strictly a distraction. Global crude and condensate production has peaked. Historically there is a 2 to 3 years lag from a production peak before knowledge/political leaders are willing to admit that there is a problem. Time is running out to initiate a massive nuclear investment program.
Unfortunately, someone posted a link recently showing that the processing of the uranium fuel mostly goes through Russia. There is also a question of the total quantity of fuel available. Recycling is theoretically possible, but it requires a long supply line. Also, maintaining the transmission lines is a real headache. If requires a complex supply line and a lot of oil.
fantasy and lies is the only world we have left
“Republicans focus on meaningless issues like culture wars” – That’s backwards. It is Dems who are obsessed with implementing cultural revolution. It is more important to them than econ issues, with the possible exception of “climate change.” Also, a “massive nuclear investment program” would not solve our problems or even buy us that much time. Nuke power can’t solve the transport problem, uranium mining requires oil (I get this from an article on energyskeptic.com), and we just don’t have the material and skilled human resources to build vast numbers of nuclear power plants all at once. Nuke plants are very materials intensive. And then there is the peak U235 problem. I know nuclear enthusiasts often deny it, but I saw where even the pro-nuke World Nuclear Association acknowledged it. It should peak this decade, or maybe a little bit longer if we are lucky.
There is an alternative, and that is building out nuclear power on a wartime schedule to between 2X and 3X current total electricity production today. This will enable us to deal with the climate change problem we have (now locked in by methane clathrate tipping point and Amazon tipping point) and have many people survive the coming heat events, extreme storms and agricultural failures. It will provide enough to replace fossil fuel for most transportation uses.
If we don’t the problem will be that we won’t have enough fossil fuel to make the transition from fossil fuel to nuclear. And by then, our climate fate will be sealed for a few thousand years.
Solar and wind cannot save us. They are marginal EROEI at best. At worst they consume more energy than they produce. Solar and wind are a recipe for global disaster.
‘building out’ nuclear power stations requires colossal input of fossil fuels
that might be accommodated.
but
using the ‘output’ of nuclear power stations also requires fossil fuels.
electricity is of little or no use unless it can be ‘converted’ into another energy form.
We can infer from observing what’s been happening on the energy infrastructure front that The Plan — The Deliberately Enacted Plan — has been NOT to build more nuclear plants, but rather, to turn existing ones off, for the past two decades. The Intention, we can speculate, has been to crash the world economy hard enough to create the very crisis the world is now on the cusp of.
again
deliberatley crashing the world economy has to have a purpose.
please explain what it is Tim
it can have no commercial benefit to anyone
it can have no political benefit to anyone
without a viable economic system, global resources, even at a diminishing rate, cannot be utilised.
so
please explain?
switching off nuclear power plants might be a mistake, but i do not see it as a ‘grand plan’ by the mysterious cabal were hear so much about.
Tim and Norman, maybe the politicians have been misled by the PV and wind folks.Maybe turning off the nukes is just due to stupidity.
When we have daily blackout in Germany and the US we can start to plan an energy future.
C’mon. Don’t tell me that “overpopulatoin” and related topics have never been in the mix.
‘overpopulation’ is a direct and specific end product of the availability of cheap surplus energy.
there are too many of us, but our economic system is entirely dependent on the productivity of all 8bn of us.
it isn’t possible to select the useless among us and get rid of them. (that has been tried before, in case you’ve forgotten your history books–it doesn’t work)
it isn’t possible to decree that certain nations are ‘basket cases’ and so should be eliminated.
getting some kind of conspiratorial fixation that ‘they’ are planning that, is a dangerous nonsense.
Why dangerous? Because gullible people believe it, and look for scapegoats where there are none. No ‘elites’ exist, no ‘cabal’ trying to kill off 90% of us to preserve world resources for the exclusive use of a priveleged few.
Bezos, Musk and Gates may have much to answer for, but this does not make them stupid.
they are fully aware that their solvency is entirely dependent on the rest of us
i’ve said this over and over—-but i don’t expect it to make the slightest difference to anything
your information is outdated, sorry.
just how and why MM?
As Huval Harari pointed out recently: There is a clear difference between their dependency for their solvency on some sort of collaborators with some mental skills and useless eaters. There are far too many useless eaters. A Person having taken the jab qualifies because his mental strength is not sufficient to come with “them” through the bottleneck.
Also per capita energy consumption easily makes for a targeted group of people qualifying as useless. A lot of people in the West took the jab. I do not know the numbers in Bangladesh. But a Bangladeshi is no threat to limited FF rationig policy.
your correlation escapes me MM
If methane clathrates were a tipping point, it would have tipped in the Holocene Thermal Max when north hemisphere (and possibly global) temps were 2 to 3 degrees C warmer than today. And the lungs of the earth? That is phytoplankton, not the Amazon. Trees tie up about as much oxygen as they release. However, potato plants are good net oxygen producers.
A reduction of population by 90% or more is inevitable
Figure 10 is a very nice synthesis of which way conflict is going to go.
figure 10 says both Japan and EU are in for much hurt. Japan has a long history of being super frugal so I see the EU as having the worse time globally.
By the old playbook EU should steal Russia’s oil and nat-gas. That will not happen because of nukes. It will be dark and cold in EU winter of 2023/24
Time for four families per house for warmth and four workers per commute car for five euros per liter diesel.
the world has a problem with a drop off in energy input, crude oil is just the manifestation of it that we see all around us right now.
had coal been our only carbon based source of life enhancing energy available, we would have reached this point about 100 years ago.
ie we would have gone on extracting coal at an ever increasing rate to power our transport systems–it is perfectly possible to gasify coal to power engines. These might have become quite sophisticated, given the need for it. Wars would probably not have been quite so all-encompassing, (no aircraft), but we would have accessed the energy in there somehow.
had we reached this point 100 years ago, by now we might be well on the way to our slide back into the age of the horse and cart, with probably only half the world population we have now.
It might just have been possible.100 years ago, millions of people in the world had not had their lives disturbed by the promise of oil.
now we demand that our mythmakers find ‘alternatives’ so that we can go on with this (growth) forevever
Or perhaps politicians and educators have found that the way to sell their services is by providing likable myths that the general population will believe. They know that no one likes a disturbing forecast.
Economists have conveniently worked around the problem of the need for energy by the way that most of their models are set up. People can get Ph.D.s without knowing how the world really works.
“People can get Ph.D.s without knowing how the world really works.”
There it is….plain and simple.
Yet we are supposed to “listen to these experts” and do what they say.
Famous OLD note.
Bachelor of Science = Bull Shite
M.S. = More Shite
PHD = Piled Higher and Deeper.
As Taleb notes, “Intellectual Yet Idiot. IYI.
I like the phrase ‘likeable myths’. Apropos.
Neoclassical economics is an absolute farce. Energy is ignored, and “labor” is what does everything, and it’s just one kind. Just appalling. Friedman’s influence on economics has been poisonous. But, there are a few who have good work.
Keen’s paper is the first I know of to bring energy into the hoary Cobb-Douglas equation. He bases it on Garrett, which is below.
Keen, et al. (2019) A Note on the Role of Energy in Production.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.11.002
Tim Garrett’s paper is the most significant for economics of the past century. And it’s ignored by neo-classical economists, who actually believe money doesn’t significantly matter. This paper allows precise calculation of the economic effect of cutting production of energy.
Garrett (2011) Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9717-9
“…the human system grows through a self-perpetuating feedback loop in which the consumption rate of primary energy resources stays tied to the historical accumulation of global economic production—or p×g—through a time-independent factor of 9.7±0.3 mW per inflation-adjusted 1990 US dollar.”
the most important part of any job is keeping it
to that end most politicians and economists will bend any truth, no matter how unlikely
politicians in particular know that they cannot get elected by telling the truth.
Former president Carter can attest to the truth of your statement.
i was thinking of him when i wrote that
Bad times a comin’. Russia’s liberation of Ukraine the first act in an increasingly violent world.
Food rationing to start soon. new zealand hogs will loose weight so that’s a positive.
Savings to lose their purchasing power as too much fake fiat chases too few goods in a reduced energy economy.
Gold will rise. Safe haven for savings.
Suicides through the roof. new zealand will lead the way.
World war 3 already started in the hunt for energy with Dementia Joe supplying the Ukraine. Will go nuclear soon. Russia will be bombed. They will retaliate against US vassal NATO.
Chinee will make faint for Taiwan but go after their real target sad new Zealand for its food and massive energy resources. Onshore coal and offshore oil and gas.
new zealanders will tell chinee “stop, because you are hurting our feelings”. Chinee will carry on regardless. Sad new zealanders will finally realise that the woke world is as fake as the new zealand dollar.
Please tell more about NZ on shore coal and off shore oil and gas.
Lots of coal in the mountains and various places. Lots of oil and gas under the sea.
Eg. Pike River but you need Australians to mine it. Kiwis too stupid. Whole thing collapsed on them.
Import chinee for labour.
Thank you for a new post
We must depopulate. Only solution to falling oil production. I volunteer New Zealanders as the first to die. They won’t be missed by anyone.
It would be good if there were more alternatives.
A one child per couple would be an alternative. Yes super disruptive not clear if we could keep the system working but we can at least try. No retirement work till you drop.
probably too late for population control to make a difference in the outcome. The wolf is at the door already. Also, it would violate “reproductive rights” and “privacy rights” as construed since 1972. Huge political fight where both cultural left and right would be aligned against you. And all that to reduce the fertility of native born Americans to 1.0 from probably 1.5 or so right now. There have to be better ways to spend one’s political capital.
And let’s not forget that fewer people would collapse BAU.
Two thirds of the population uses little or no oil.
Yes we have a population problem but it is the top one billion of the economic ladder that needs to go.
They use oil indirectly by using plastic, food grown by oil, using equipment produced by oil, etc.
problem is
if that happened the next billion on the ladder would try to take their place
Everybody around the world uses lots of oil. Even the peasants.
Indonesian village families commonly keep cows and goats which are kept and fattner in stalls. They are fed grass cut from roadsides. As everyone does this, it is necessary to ride a motorcycle some distance to find and retrun with uncut grass.
No petrol means many fewer cows and goats.
Most places can have two seasons of rice a year only because they have petrol driven pump irrigation for the second, low-rain season.
No petrol, only one harvest instead of two.
Java has 800 people per square kilometer.
@jef jelton, In the 1960s, you would have been right. Now the whole world is dependent on oil except for the very remotest peoples who are few in number.
“We” and “we”… After you sir, after you…
The Beak will lead by example perhaps…?
More a supervisory role. Distributing the fentanyl.
Nice.
Management has always been thus; do as I say, not as I do…
Beak you S a t a n i s t 😉
Minister of Fentanyl Distribution?
Minister of Happiness. MoH
Is it possible the ‘Beak is Fasts …. Beak??? 🤪
If collapse leads to conflict over limited non renewables, anyplace that has significant oil reserves will be contested including NZ’s southern basin. Although it currently has nonexistent military capability, Geophysically NZ would be a great location defensively, particularly for a maritime power like US. The one energy type that we are least likely to run out of is heavy fuel oil, so when we scrape bottom the one arm of military most likely to remain operational is maritime.
How about we use the free market. What would you expect in exchange for you having a 2 year time limit on your life?
Fear has coralled a lot of people to take a partially tested product via injection in the belief it will give them more time on the planet.
I believe the promise of several virgins in the afterlife is used in some cultures in exchange for early demise.
Name your price could be the next big on-line thing?
i returned from the dead when i found that virgins thing was a big con
Yep, the mossies get the virgin afterlife deal.
I’ve still got my Canadian Passport so I can opt out.
Eradicate childcare subsidies. That will help bring population down. Make it harder to access.
Just have days of the year when it’s legal to hunt them. That’ll bring down the feral population quickly.