Newest Peak, 2008

[PS_RalphW]

Easy oil stopped being extracted sometime in the early 20th century, I would say when mud systems replaced cable tool drilling systems, the end had already begun.

Considering that this changeover took place before any of us were born, have you noticed a declining standard of living since approximately 1910 which concerns you?

Of course improvements in technology increase EROEI, as the easy oil is drilled out. It also results in 'reserve growth' as oil which was previously uneconomic (or not yet discovered) within a field succumbs to new technology.
(You don't need me to tell you that , ReservesGrowthRulez). However, even with technology, we pick the low hanging fruit first. We didn't develop horizontal drilling until 30 years ago because it was an expensive technique to develop and we didn't need it until 30 years ago.

Most new oil field developments now start with 'enhanced oil recovery' techniques now, which were only used on the downslope of the recovery slope 20 years ago. We are getting to the point where new oil fields are getting increasingly expensive up front, with huge capital investments now against uncertain economic returns five or 20 years from now. EROEI wasn't an issue as long as the total energy supply grew faster than EROEI declined. Net energy still increased. It is only now, with supply essentially flat, that net energy is probably falling.


BTW, RGR, I am replying to this, not because I expect you to believe a word of what I write, but because it is an opportunity for the lurkers on this site to review my opinion and draw their own conclusions.

Thanks for that

[RGR]

[quote="snow hope"]

[RGR]

[quote="Andy Hunt"]

[RGR]

[quote="RalphW"]

[Norfolk In Chance]

I absolutely get the point. So tell me, what are your plans for a real worst case scenario versus a make believe one like Peak Oil?

My preps begin and end with clean underwear...

[Bandidoz]

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

Oh yes that reminds me of this cornucopian beauty:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... rrors.html

Personally I see the Olduvai cliff being more likely than such a scheme ever getting off the ground.


I *did* find this article interesting, however:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... trial.html

...reading it actually *increased* my doomerism - thanks! Although I found this reply somewhat reassuring (my emphasis)....

At Friday, February 22, 2008 5:49:00 PM PST, green with a gun said...

jd wrote, "However, it's still important to get an accurate picture of Cuban agriculture, as it is truly practiced today, since Cuba is being touted by Heinberg & Community SolutionTM etc., as a model. There is a definite mismatch between the hype and the reality."

Yep, I was trying to present an accurate picture of Cuban agriculture.

You comment that they have large fossil fuel inputs - but that pretty much all goes to their cash crops. And what's remarkable is that even with so little of their land devoted to food production for domestic consumption, they manage to produce a bit over half their nutrition. And that's largely without fossil fuel inputs.

So while Heinberg has certainly overstated his point, the fact remains that Cuba is able to feed itself without fossil fuel inputs. It is not able to earn foreign currency without fossil fuel inputs.

Thus, what Cuba demonstrates is that you don't need fossil fuels to feed yourself, but you do need them if you want to make lots of money.

The oil import figures, what you have to realise is that about two-thirds of Cuba's oil use is for electricity generation. Only one-third goes to cars, trucks and tractors. So a 20% decline hit them hard - you can't lower the power plant's consumption, you have to take the fuel from vehicles. Thus, they lost 20 out of every 33 litres going to vehicles.

In practice they tried to spread the burden out a bit, so that power supply became unreliable. But the fact remains that they took most of it out of transport and machinery.

That's why they've got these "camels" - basically trucks whose trailers are turned into buses - and other unwieldy half-arsed shit like that.

JD wrote, "And that makes me wonder: When the USSR collapsed, did Cuba suffer because of a pinch in oil, or because it has a shitty communist economy?"

Both, and other stuff, too. Basically they went hungry because the USSR had gone all Ricardo's "comparative advantage" on them. That was how the USSR tied its empire together - so Poland would produce coal and the Czechs mine iron and the Hungarians produce steel, and none of them would do much of the other.

Basically the commies believed in the ultimate goal of free market globalisation, that each country would specialise in a few products and import everything else.

So the Cubans were told, "look comrade, you can make sugar very well, don't waste land making grain, make more sugar, sell it to us and we'll give you grain."

Cuba replied, "but if we only grow one thing, that only works if we have massive fossil fuel inputs."

The Soviets said, "we got plenty of oil, too, comrade."

Which all worked fine until the Soviet Union fell on its arse, and the US tried to stop anyone else trading with Cuba. I mean, if your major trading partner stops trading with you, and hardly anyone else will trade with you, you're f***ed, whether you're a commie or a capitalist.

Countries need to be able to trade. Ideology hasn't much to do with it.

Now the Cubans found a friend in Venezuela, so they're alright - they get oil in exchange for Cuban doctors. They're trading.

Where the Cubans had trouble was with communism, yes. What's rarely mentioned by all those praising Cuba's self-sufficient efforts is that at first Castro was against it. The people were going hungry, "the collectivised farms will save us!" he said. Of course, if the land belongs to the state and however hard you work and however much you produce you get the same pay, well, "I just work here, F--k it". So people abandoned the collectivised farms and started feeding themselves from their backyards.

The government went around tearing up the gardens and sending people back to the collectivised farms. But people were going hungry.

Now, old Castro may be a commie bastard, but he ain't stupid. He's seen what happens to dictators in other countries. If you want to have a dictatorship, you've got to do two things: pay the army, and feed the people. Fail in one or both of those and you're gone.

So he stopped getting in the way of the people feeding themselves, then saw that it was a smashing success, and decided to get behind it and claim credit for it. "Oh yes, I supported this idea all along Mr Heinberg." And the government was able to help a lot, years of biology research in medicine made a big difference to the localised agriculture.

They also broke up the collectivised farms, allowed private trade and ownership of foreign currency, and so on. Basically Cuban communism survived the death of Soviet communism by becoming less communist. It was that or revolution from the hungry masses.

Heinberg and his mates won't tell you that, of course.

The real lesson of the Cuban experience is simply that to feed yourselves, and feed yourselves very well, you don't need fossil fuel inputs at all. But if you want heaps of cash from trade, then you certainly need fossil fuels.

A second lesson is that the common people will be able to save themselves in times of trouble so long as the government stays the F--k out of the way. But Americans should already know that from Hurricane Katrina, where the government impeded rather than helped rescue and aid.

So long as we have our shit together, we won't starve from peak oil. But we will have less cash.

[kenneal - lagger]

I think we're supposed to be worried that growth in supply can't keep up with an exponential growth in demand, rather than the more academic question of when a 'true' geological peak will/has occur/ed.
....................................................
My concern is simply based on the absolute fact that our economic system requires exponential growth to remain stable and there is an undoubted limit to such growth in terms of fuel reserves, water, soil and other such essentials. ..........

You have avoided these points RGR.

There's no point in worrying about anything: that doesn't do anyone any good. Just get out there and do something to mitigate the consequences and do it early enough so that you aren't caught by unexpected consequences.

Or alternatively, do as RGR does : stick your head in the sand and wait for some wonderful new technology, such as fusion, to come and miraculously save us.

[RenewableCandy]

Or alternatively, do as RGR does : stick your head in the sand and wait for some wonderful new technology, such as fusion, to come and miraculously save us.

I always assumed he was waiting for one of us to shoot him. He'll be waiting for a long time: not very many trigger-happy people on these islands...

[snow hope]

So tell me, what are your plans for a real worst case scenario versus a make believe one like Peak Oil? Say, a comet impact on the Atlantic side of your little island? A nuke set off in London, and a subsequent quarantine into and out of the UK? What are your plans for a reversal of the earths magnetic poles? The shut down of the Gulf Stream and "normal" weather returning to the UK? Kind of amusing to think that "global warming" might include England being plunged into a deep freeze and its inhabitants needing to become like Eskiomo's isn't it?

All of these sound much more reasonable, relatively high probability events which are worth worrying about rather than peak oils which have been averaging once a decade since before you were probably born.

For the first time you have made me laugh!

Now lets see, you have told me you think that all of these are more likely events than Peak Oil.

1. Comet impact in the Atlantic - last occurence maybe 65 million years ago. Chance of survival in the UK - none. Assuming we get little notice, no plans - bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
2. Nuke set off in London - 2 nuclear bombs set off in anger so far. Chance of one in London - unfortunately quite high in the next few decades. Impact on me in Belfast - depends on the weather. I happen to have an interest in weather, so usually know the current wind direction and the outlook for the coming week. Mitigation will depend on weather, got some food stocks, know how to tape up house to reduce impact. If the fallout drifts directly our direction we will have big problems, but survival chances reasonably good, provided it isn't all-out nuclear war.
3. Magnetic pole reversal - occurrence every few hundred thousand years, could occur fairly suddenly, but unlikely in my life time. Impacts will involve bombardment of earth with cosmic rays as earth's magnetic shield reduces for a few years/decades. Mutations will occur - new life forms and life changes will occur. Protection will be offered by caves and under earth hideouts which the vast majority of people will not have access to.
4. Gulf Stream shutting down would cause an average drop in temperature of about 5c in the UK. So weather closer to the North of USA - coastal state. Maybe a few months of snow cover/year. Certainly much colder in winter than we are used to, but they survive it in the US and Canada, so with adjustment we will have to cope. Last occurence about 11 thousand years ago. It is something that has a small chance of occuring and I would know the signs as it started and would act swiftly to move southwards to Spain - yes I have planned a little for this one should it occur in my lifetime.

And you think these are more likely than Peak Oil? And you say that I/we are fanatical? Oil, which was only discovered in 1857 is going to last longer than the next comet impact, the next pole reversal and the next gulf stream switchoff (it actually moves South to Portugal I understand). Well this has been fun RGR - I now understand you much better.

[RGR]

[quote="Andy Hunt"]

[RGR]

[quote="kenneal"]

[RGR]

[quote="snow hope"]

[AndySir]

The financial system obviously doesn't depend on exponential growth in case you haven't noticed, we haven't had any for awhile. The economists have a word for REVERSE growth, its called a recession. And of course there are limits to stuff, not that I agree that everything on your list has limits, but it is quite reasonable to allow the economics of supply and demand to sort it all out. Like it has been for quite some time now.

We haven't had any for nine months or so and the panic is already quite evident. That's not a panic of diminished expectations - I think we are all aware our economic system cannot handle this.

Pretty sure money supply increases exponentially in our economic system. Sustained reverse growth collapses the currency and pretty effectively amplifies by a factor of ten whatever the underlying problem was.

Whether we can rely on market forces to sort it out is an ideological position and I suspect that that gulf is too great for us to ever shout at each other over. But I can't believe you could seriously defend the statement "the financial system obviously doesn't depend on exponential growth". You must have a better knowledge of economics than that.

[Adam1]

Ok, haven't we've provided RGR with enough entertainment now. We're not learning anything here (surprise, surprise).

What is the point in you spending so much time here RGR? Since, you think the whole limits discourse is hysterical nonsense, why do you waste your time on PowerSwitch? If I was 100% convinced that an idea had no merit at all, I know I wouldn't spend a lot of time immersing myself in it. What's the point? You've said you find it fascinating observing our conversation, maybe you think you are a bit like a scientist observing in fascination a phenomenon. If that's the case, shouldn't you restrict yourself to lurking? Aren't you "contaminating your data" with your posts - or are they part of your little experiment?

Shouldn't you return to your world of belief in perpetual growth - "to infinity and beyond"? Shouldn't you be writing or contributing to a cornucopian blog, so that you can develop your ideas and move on? At the moment, you sound like a broken record, obsessively stuck in the argument about when/if oil peaks. Aren't you getting bored too?

[Andy Hunt]

Duncan and the Olduvai Gorge 2008? Don't know what you're talking about I'm afraid.

3rd post on this page.

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=1720

Interesting that you would pretend to know this particular reference PRIOR to its earth shattering prognostications, yet forget about it after it has supposed happened, but didn't, don't you think?

Was the end of the world supposed to be in 2008 according to Olduvai Theory? Who is Duncan?

I have heard of Olduvai Theory (can't remember where from) but have never heard of this Duncan character or 2008 being the end of the world. Maybe I have not been paying attention in lessons.

Interesting that you choose a post where I am saying what a great idea EVs would be. Why would I say that if I thought TEOTWAWKI was going to be in 2008?

My understanding of Olduvai Theory is that it is describing some kind of 'bottleneck' at some stage in the future. I didn't realise there was an actual date attached to it. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a bottleneck of some description, it has happened before to humanity in geological history.