The End of Employment

[jonny2mad]

I wonder if there was a Ralph in ancient rome going well people have said for years barbarians would sack rome and destroy the empire.
its been claimed for years we would fall but rome is eternal

I imagine Roman Ralph being active shortly before the visigoths visited

can see him being led off in chains wondering whats just happened

[ceti331]

You don't get to claim "permanent decline" during a period of growth in economic output. People in America changing their behavior and buying less fuel for their cars, allowing them to export more. Growth in liquid fuels production is not permanent decline. More folks in the UK continuing to buy cars, and having the fuel to operate them is not permanent decline. Less growth…is not decline.

must be a nice comfortable rock you live under.

Decline….when it has happened before…was not PERMANENT.

correct, because there was plenty of fuel left to dig up.

[vtsnowedin]

[

You don't get to claim "permanent decline" during a period of growth in economic output. People in America changing their behavior and buying less fuel for their cars, allowing them to export more. .

Reality check here. The US has not been an exporter of oil for thirty-five years. Currently importing a net 7.5 million barrels each day. Some export of finished product and some crude swaps of course but no net exports on the bottom line.

[Ralph]

Decline….when it has happened before…was not PERMANENT.

correct, because there was plenty of fuel left to dig up.

Sure. So we've got plenty of fuel left to dig up. Are these facts so really hard to find? This one has been in circulation for more than half a decade, did everyone just not notice?

[ceti331]

Sure. So we've got plenty of fuel left to dig up. Are these facts so really hard to find? This one has been in circulation for more than half a decade, did everyone just not notice?

Lies, damn lies and statistics. finding the right stats, explained with the wrong logic, you can get any point across.

So, to cut through the BS, you need to apply some common sense to make sure the numbers are saying somethigin that makes sense.

This isnt' quantum mechanics or something where nature is doing something counter-intuitive.

We dig up fuel, we burn it , its gone.

we have economic problems , eg housing bubble->2008 -> ...

The most reasonable explanation, by far, is that the approach of peak oil crashed the financial systtem. The housing bubble was collective realization that infrastructure cannot be improved, so hoarding good locations to live (which are set to shrink as it goes into decline) is a good idea.

So, if you find some figures that say "look, we've got plenty", i call BS, it doesn't match whats happening in the big picture. Some half truths, some ommisions, maybe even some outright lies (politicians and businesses can do this), but there's plenty of ways to get the same result as lying without *technically* lying, there's entire careers based around this skill.

The whole up-phase of the housing bubble is evidence enough that we're in serious trouble. The fact people thought house prices were ever set to rise. PERMANENT SCARCITY.

[PS_RalphW]

I'll just point out one more time, that graph the Raven keeps posting is pure fiction. Oil already costs $110 /barrel and has for years, but arctic production has barely started in Russia, and is all but abandoned by the oil majors, who are uniformly cutting capital expenditure, because they cannot find oil to develop at $110/barrel. None of the last three categories
(oil shales (kerogen) gas to liquid or coal to liquid ) are remotely economic at $110 and probably won't be at any price. Their EROI are too low.

Also, the 1T barrels displayed for MENA resource is also a blatant fiction.
They probably have less than half that.

I could go on, but I have work to do.

[Ralph]

Sure. So we've got plenty of fuel left to dig up. Are these facts so really hard to find? This one has been in circulation for more than half a decade, did everyone just not notice?

Lies, damn lies and statistics. finding the right stats, explained with the wrong logic, you can get any point across.

Are you advocating that peak oilers will stop soon, or warning me of your intentions and methods for how you intend to refute the work done by the IEA?

We dig up fuel, we burn it , its gone.

we have economic problems , eg housing bubble->2008 -> …

Selective memory…or knowledge…is this the part where you cherry pick only "economic problems" you like, versus all the others?

You recall the panic of 1893?

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-grea ... 012-7?op=1

The most reasonable explanation, by far, is that the approach of peak oil crashed the financial systtem. The housing bubble was collective realization that infrastructure cannot be improved, so hoarding good locations to live (which are set to shrink as it goes into decline) is a good idea.

It is not the most reasonable explanation. It is the explanation you LIKE. Completely different than what it actually WAS.

Greed. People treating their houses as a Ponzi ATM machine, and the banks encouraging them to do it. More expensive fuel to commute to work didn't break these people's backs…not being able to afford their housing debt as they upscaled and refinanced their homes did.

So, if you find some figures that say "look, we've got plenty", i call BS, it doesn't match whats happening in the big picture.

You are free to call BS on whatever you wish…when you have a more solid reference on the amount of things left to be dug up and burned, then you can pretend that you have a source that doesn't have your natural bias that revolves around refusing to face the facts of the matter.

You can have your own conclusions, you do not get your own facts. And the FACTS are that there is bunches of stuff to dig up, and yes it might be at the more expensive end of the scale, but it is happening NOW, and it certainly isn't stopping folks from making the great move west, airplanes still fly, the cars still get in traffic jams, and the tractors still run on liquid fuels in the fields. Transoceanic shipping, vacationing Brits, UK car sales, and so on and so forth.

So "call BS" however you'd like, just don't expect those of us who can read current events, fly, get caught in those traffic jams, and check out occasional car sales figures to interpret the information the same way and conclude…oh yes….liquid fuels are so expensive…people just can't afford them anymore and this was because of peak oil…well…a certain subset of oil anyway….well…only the part of the upstream hydrocarbon production apparatus that I like, versus all that stuff I don't like, that I will pretend doesn't exist because…well…I want it to.

Some half truths, some ommisions, maybe even some outright lies (politicians and businesses can do this), but there's plenty of ways to get the same result as lying without *technically* lying, there's entire careers based around this skill.

I recommend you stop immediately, and learn a new career? Sorry…not really sure what to tell you, but opening up your reading list to the experts in the field, paying attention to organizations that spend more money measuring these things than the GDP of small countries, pay attention to the science being done on the topic, I would recommend all of them. Gotta start somewhere I suppose.

The whole up-phase of the housing bubble is evidence enough that we're in serious trouble. The fact people thought house prices were ever set to rise. PERMANENT SCARCITY.

Hey, I'm with you there. Just not on pretending that housing idiots became housing idiots because of oil supplies. Guys like vtsnowedin didn't even FLINCH in the face of near quadrupling prices, versus some of the rest of us who ran away from long commutes and the ensuing CO2 emissions so fast that we left our friends and neighbors wondering what happened.

[Ralph]

I'll just point out one more time, that graph the Raven keeps posting is pure fiction. Oil already costs $110 /barrel and has for years, but arctic production has barely started in Russia, and is all but abandoned by the oil majors, who are uniformly cutting capital expenditure, because they cannot find oil to develop at $110/barrel. None of the last three categories
(oil shales (kerogen) gas to liquid or coal to liquid ) are remotely economic at $110 and probably won't be at any price. Their EROI are too low.

Also, the 1T barrels displayed for MENA resource is also a blatant fiction.
They probably have less than half that.

I could go on, but I have work to do.

The IEA, correctly, doesn't care about EROEI any more than the oil companies do. The amounts listed on the IEA reference are actually quite reasonable, and could be quite a bit larger, as determined by the scientists who work on this type of thing, rather than just well educated Brits without experience on this topic, but who want what they want, facts be damned.

It should be noted that the reference was built in 2008, and real prices for the same development would obviously be higher now.

It should be noted that these arguments were also being used contemporary to the Natural Gas Cliff in America, and by folks like Berman in 2009. The result was certainly not what the chicken littles were praying for, and the same result in other arenas is just as reasonable.

For those who haven't paid attention to what "drill baby drill" did to make Robert Hirsch and his 2005 report look like pandering to the chicken littles.

Can everyone see the point at which Hirsch was using inflated natural gas resource estimates to proclaim that oil estimates should be similarly constrained? See what happened immediately upon the publication of his report?

Can anyone tell me what it is called in the UK when someone is so wrong that a decent chuckle over their conclusion is the only way to put the right spin on their foolishness?

[RenewableCandy]

Yes: Dead cat bounce.

[PS_RalphW]

That gas production graph ends in 2010. Since that date growth has levelled off considerably. The US still has a lot of shale gas, but not at the current wellhead price. If the US required environmental standards mandated currently in the UK, littyleshale would be economic at twice the current price.

[snow hope]

It has taken a while but I have just managed to work out the game the Common Raven is trying to play..... It is a game all children used to play when they were very young, "I am right and everybody else is wrong....."

The way to deal with that kind of behaviour is to ignore it and the child will soon get bored and move onto something/somewhere else.....

[Ralph]

Yes: Dead cat bounce.

The US is scheduled to become the worlds largest natural gas producer this year perhaps? Our cat has bounced higher than anyone else on the planet….40 years after peak natural gas in America.

Try it, then you won't have these kinds of problems.

The UK's dependence on foreign imports of natural gas isn't a new phenomena and neither is a politician choosing to blame the private sector for rising prices which have more to do with international market forces than supposedly profiteering utility bosses. Since 2005, the UK has been a net imported of natural gas after stocks in the North Sea began to peter out. This has exposed British consumers to the "vagaries of global gas markets", according to Graham Freedman, senior analyst European Gas & Power at Wood Mackenzie.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... trica.html

[Ralph]

That gas production graph ends in 2010. Since that date growth has levelled off considerably. The US still has a lot of shale gas, but not at the current wellhead price. If the US required environmental standards mandated currently in the UK, littyleshale would be economic at twice the current price.

May I recommend more research into the worlds largest gas producer, less guessing from the well educated who can't be bothered to google first.

Still going up…and it has slowed the rate of increase….



but that in part is because some rigs are running around doing this..AT THE SAME TIME…..may I recommend some activity on the part of the Brits, rather than complaints about how unfair it is that some countries have bootstraps to pull on..and DO.



How long does ASPO think it will be before we repeak the US? The EIA says in a couple years…..I am curious, how many million barrels a day did ASPO predict the US would increase its production? Knowing the geology of these tight formations and being well informed on the resource pyramid?

Anyone tried a Hubbert linearization on this one yet?



So can anyone tell me why Colin Campbell ignored the geology of tight formations when he put this forecast out?