The last man standing....

[SunnyJim]

From what I can see there is no way that the western world is going to transition away from fossil fuel use in time to avoid a last man standing scenario.

I think Bush knows that, and that's why he's rolling into the ME guns a blazing. So, what if he's right and there is going to be a showdown between the major superpowers (Russia and USA? China has no fuel, but lots of people?). If that's the case then having enough gas to keep the factories of America powered is critical to America being the last power standing. Presumably the prize for the last country standing would be plundering of resources from the rest of the accessible world as the British did in the empire days. Could we see a return to slavery where the last country standing uses human power to maintain it's above average standards of living?

If Russia or China won then presumably we could look forward to spending our days down mines producing coal to send back to the motherland. Or farming wheat and potatoes to feed the Russian troops in Europe and those back home in Moscow.

I know these are extremes of thought and not very nice thoughts to be having, but really, is Bush actually trying to do us all a favour? What would our future look like if we don't secure an energy supply to match that of the Russians or Chinese?

[Andy Hunt]

If Bush was serious about the USA remaining on its feet, he would be supporting sustainable energy development as number 1 priority.

The idea isn't to be 'last man standing' . . . it's for as many countries as possible to stand forever, in some form or another. Even the 'last man standing' will run out of fossil resources in the end.

It's no use killing your enemy if you bleed to death from your battle wounds. Much better to stay out of the fight and lose a few pounds of fat.

Or maybe I am being a bit simplistic.

[mkwin]

The $800 billion spent by Bush could have been used to build a nuclear/renewable power grid massively reducing consumption of oil.

Iraq was about opening up their oil fields to the major oil companies there by increasing their potential to secure additional reserves plus it was good for all his supporters, the banks, the 'defence' industry and other US contractors.

Prime motivation = $$$ and power

[skeptik]

Prime motivation = $$$ and power

Correct. One must also bare in mind that the behaviour of psychopaths is never entirely rational. They tend to go for immediately visible short term gains without stopping to think through the long term implications of their actions. Thus their (hastily laid and shodily executed) plans eventually and almost invariably end in disaster.

Worse still, psychopaths, unlike normal people never learn from their mistakes. If anything goes wrong it's always somebody else's fault. The psychopathic mind is incapable of seeing things any other way. They are thus doomed to step in the same pile of poo over and over again.

[SunnyJim]

If Bush was serious about the USA remaining on its feet, he would be supporting sustainable energy development as number 1 priority.

The idea isn't to be 'last man standing' . . . it's for as many countries as possible to stand forever, in some form or another. Even the 'last man standing' will run out of fossil resources in the end.

It's no use killing your enemy if you bleed to death from your battle wounds. Much better to stay out of the fight and lose a few pounds of fat.

Or maybe I am being a bit simplistic.

Well I agree with that in principal, but lets say that what we're playing here is last man standing economically. Who's going to fire of nukes when the fuel could be used in a reactor? No one. Who's going to be in charge of global supply routes and trade routes? The country who has oil left. Do you really think the US will be willing to depend on Russia suppling it with what it can't produce? I should imagine the last country with a shipping fleet will largely be bringing in imports in return for what? The meagerest rations of fuel for the despots running the countries producing the goods?

Lets face it, at the point from which we're now looking (five years till crunch) most countries have left it a bit late for the nuclear option. Building them would take alot of energy. Renewables are great, but not a patch on oil. Especially for running a shipping fleet, or a submarine fleet (most are still diesel powered).

[SunnyJim]

I was inspired down this train of thought by posts by 'relayer' on the oil drum;

So here I am ready to engage in the most serious Chess game of my life, for all the marbles.

I have studied books on Openings (a must to be at all competitive). I have studied strategy and tactics. I have studied combinations and traps. I have studied the use of tempo, a fine point many ignore. I have analyzed games by the masters.

'My 60 Memorable Games' by Bobby Fischer has become my bible.

The game begins, relatively boring for the first dozen moves or so, both parties know the book moves. This game has been studied for centuries. The body of work is extensive. But then one player makes a departure from the literature, he thinks he has discovered something enterprising that may catch his opponent off guard. He starts setting up.

He will not make a direct move that indicates his true desire. It would be quite easy for the opponent to counter if he figures out the goal too soon. So the departure move is a fake, to mislead only.

In one of the games in the above mentioned book, it becomes clear that Mr. Fischer made a move early on in a game who's real purpose did not become evident for ANOTHER 17 MOVES!!!

He went on to win the game and the championship series that it took place in handily.

By being devious. And thinking farther ahead than his competitor.

I would think at this point it would be obvious that if you take any utterance of any of the participants at face value, you might as well fold up your board and go home.

It must make the behind close doors meetings extremely interesting, to say the least. Yes, no one can trust anyone else.

Yes, Bush says this and he says that. What does he really mean? I don't know. Likewise the other players comments, I don't know what to believe and what not to believe. I only no for sure not to take at face value any single thing they say.

They are moves on the board and more probable than not, setup to provoke a particular response for sometime later in the game.

Friendship between US and KSA? I don't know about that one, but I can see a certain mutuality of interest at this point. There is no guarantee that this exist, no. Nor that if it does that this will continue later into the late middle game or end game.

But it does rather seem to fit so far.

All quite fascinating, eh?

Bush doesn't have to know a darn thing, even how to play the game. He just has to be able to parrot the words fed to him. Convincingly would be a nice plus, lol. Heck, have Bushie act weird just so no one takes him seriously. You can be sneaky right out in the open then.

Think Rand Corporation and the other think tanks that have been around for decades, buildings full of supercomputers gaming the situation full time, over and over. TPTB and their advisors jockeying for position, all with an ax to grind.

At this point, I don't think there is a single variable that could change that they haven't gamed to death already. If not they are incompetent and need to be replaced.

Chess is a beautiful, complex game, the Game of Kings. I actually was quite good at it at one time. Led my high school team to the Minnesota State Championship. Played 1st board every match (no one could take it away from me, and boy they tried, hehe) and never lost a single game in match or tournament play for 3 years. I was within 150 points or so of Master, probably would have made it in another year or so if I had continued playing tournaments.

This oil thing has even more variables, so fascinating, and I believe very apt analogies can be drawn from Chess.

When you see one of the players trumpeting to the press, what is he doing? Telling you the truth? Yea right...

No, he is saying something for a reason. He may be establishing a position for a move further into the game. He may be setting you up for a combination. He may be setting a trap for a player he doesn't like. You just don't know for sure. He may just be trying to take your eye off of something else, a distraction.

Like Chess, all you have is the pieces on the board for sure. Look at what your opponent does, not says. Analyze as objectively as possible. It is best if YOU move in such a way that he has to respond to you, thus dictating the flow of the game to your best advantage while you develop position. You can make an opponent's strategy meaningless if you beat him to the punch.

Use your pieces to their best advantage. Get your Rooks out of the corners and into the game, pair them up, use them, they are the most powerful pieces on the board next to the Queen. The US has a military machine that is unmatched at this point. You think they aren't going to use it?

However, don't look for the overt or obvious reasons behind moves. Be devious, like Fischer, look for the deeper possibilities. Misdirection can be extremely important, the longer you can fool your opponent, the less able he will be to respond effectively when he discerns the main threat.

The main real tool the Saudis have is production. Let's see what they say this week, and then wait to see if they really follow it up afterwards, lol. This time lag between words and action in this part of the game is tiresome, but can not forget what they say, have to see if their actions later are real.

Production increase? Don't bet on it, I don't think they can for more than a very short period, a few months at best maybe. What excuse will they have this time? Outside Opec projects coming online? Ethanol stealing volume from crude? Refining capacity bottlenecks? How about blaming it on the oil sands? Market well supplied?

Yea right to all of the above. Give us something new for the talking heads to cuss and discuss, please.

Or maybe, increase output a few hundred K bpd and trumpet to the world about how much spare capacity you have. Would not be at all surprised by this. Surely they have a little spare capacity left and this could give their mouthpieces in the MSM some real ammo to put the hurt on us POilers.

I would love to be on the inside in this game. I think I could maybe even contribute meaningfully if given access to all the facts. Without putting my Rooks in harms way. Sometimes the threat of a move can be better than the move itself.

You can read the whole thread here

Then I started thinking what the end game actually is. In chess it's fairly simple, check mate. In the current global geopolitical situation it is control of energy and resources. When only one nation has oil and gas left they will control trade. You don't have to directly fight your enemies, just outlast them on the power front. USA have a long way to go to minimise their energy use, and secure enough energy to outlast the other players, but maybe, just maybe there IS a masterplan, and we see the steps being played out slowly before our eyes.

[Totally_Baffled]

I think one of the issues predicting the future - is that we simply do not know how little fossil fuel the world COULD run on.

70% of oil consumed is used for transport, of this 70-80% is the personal motor car.

The remaining 30% is used for "making stuff" , of which 90%+ is probably useless shit.

The amount of uranium, coal, gas etc we use to generate electricity is simply enormous in the context of the proportions used for ueseless shite.

As for the US - dont forget they will still be producing 5mpd of oil for another couple of decades yet.

They could even plateau for longer if they crack shale, heavy oil and start drilling the shite of the east, west coasts and ANWR.

They have F--k loads of coal, this could last for centuries if they lowered their electricity consumption to somewhere near sensible levels. As does their Neighbour Canada.

They have F--k loads of Uranium, as does their neighbour Canada.

The even still have quite a lot gas - they just waste shit loads of it.

Indeed - if the US went really isolationist - I suspect that bio fuels via switchgrass (via marginal land rather than arable) could make a 5-10% contribution or so (at lower consumption rates), without meaning starvation at home.

The biggest issue I see for the US is the Mexican invasion. 90 million starving mexicans is going to piss off a lot of yanks!

The scary thing is - the most energy poor continent seems to be Europe

All the oil and has is in decline and most is the North Sea.

Got a bit of coal (Germany, Poland etc) - but little Uranium.

If a US led war is started it will be about protecting the current ridiculously high wasteful standards of living rather no living at all IMO

Rant post mode off

[SunnyJim]

Hey, I'm not saying the US stance is right! Please don't think that. I'm willing to live a very frugal life in a strawbale house growing veg. And I could be happy doing it. I'm just trying to understand what the US's game is. What motivations are there, and what the end of the oil age might look like.

[Andy Hunt]

The problem the US has is that in order to protect its energy supplies it has to maintain military control over half the world - most of which is passively or actively hostile to this control.

Russia on the other hand has only to protect its own borders - a big difference.

I don't doubt that the US has a plan. Whether it is likely to work is another matter entirely.

[SunnyJim]

Hmmm. Wonder if they do Russian courses at the local night school?

[Andy Hunt]

Zdrastviotye tovarisch. U tebye bochka maslov?

[SunnyJim]

I'm impressed, but clueless....

[SunnyJim]

Я не имею никакую идею вы намереваетесь Andy!

[Andy Hunt]

Я не имею никакую идею вы намереваетесь Andy!

I was saying, "Greetings comrade! Do you have a barrel of oil?"

From '101 Useful Russian Phrases For Post-Petrocollapse Britain".

[SunnyJim]

Hehehe. Must pick up a copy from WHSmiths at lunchtime....