Anyone going to EI Oil Depletion event, 24th Nov?

[RGR]

[quote="SunnyJim"]

[RGR]

[quote="MacG"]

[MacG]

Matt has huuuge advantage over you: He is at least honest.

I can't recall anyone questioning my basic honesty before, I usually just get the "he's crazy!" routine.

Making a living by peddling some freeze-dried as long as things stay glued together seems like a pretty minor offense compared to many other things people engage in to earn a living.

Matt most certainly does NOT announce to his supplicants as they arrive:

"Hi folks! Before the world ends ( enter within to see how ) I'd like to sell you some DVD's, maybe a "How To Become Amish" book, or a solar oven which won't do you any good at all when you get nuked, which is what I personally believe. But hey! Lets have a good time together prior to the end, and don't forget to buy something from me!"

Sorry...Matt's set up this "sucker the gullible" routine right out of school because his command of basic facts is abysmal for what passes for an ambulance chaser in the States. Haven't you ever even LISTENED to Mr "Uranium Is A Fossil Fuel" on the radio? All I can venture based on his performance in the oil and gas arena is that the BAR exam in California must just let anyone who can take a crap and hit the pot without missing pass.

Well, I used to work in a psychiatric ward when studying, and for some strange reason I start to remember what it was like to try to have a conversation with some of the patients...

[Vortex]

"It's only a flesh wound. My arguments are beating your arguments. I still say that Peak Oil isn't a threat. "

[SunnyJim]

Because none of these things depend on the ONLY the volume of oil produced around the globe. We've have had plenty of economic growth at lower levels of oil production, and we've had recessions while oil production was growing. We've had plenty of wars at lower levels of oil production, and I haven't seen anyone correlate absolute oil production and military activity yet.

That's because economic growth is entirely measured in monetary terms. It is almost impossible to determine world economic growth in any terms other than money supply. So when work done via fossil fuels drops, the world economy doesn't necessarily respond. Creation of money via credit can continue unabated, causing inflation (recently this has been hidden by cheap imports of foriegn goods) and only when confidence to lend vanishes do you get a recession. Economics 101.

Social unrest didn't seem all that high a concern during the 1957 peak oil, or the 1980 one, of the 1990 one, of the 2005 one, or even the current one.

Social unrest is heightened by a sense of injustice and poverty, something that happens as a result of a financial crisis, which as I outlined above, can significantly lag a downturn in the 'real economy'.

The volume amount of oil production just doesn't factor into any of the things you've mentioned. To make that argument, you should stick with price, or at least surplus capacity, because both of them have a piece of the critical other component completely ignored in the "peak oil concept".

Volume amount may not, but as I said before it is the sense of injustice (divide between rich and poor or haves and have nots) and perception of poverty that causes these things. Both of these things will be heightened by 'peak real economy'.

The key to all this, the key factor that you are missing in my humble opinion, is the link between work done in our economy (things produced, moved and services provided) and the use of fossil fuels. While I agree that efficiency gives us some gains, those gains will not be made without pain, and yes, we can probably organise our lifestyles differently to vastly reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. But if this re-organisation is left purely to the markets or to pricing, that re-organisation will be accompanied by blame, disatisfaction and social unrest. Goverments will find it convenient to pull a scapegoat from the global list of players and go to war with them than to confess the real reason why people are having to make do with less.

By far the biggest issue however is how the very smart people in charge of the creation of money via credit (i.e. the banks) choose to react when they realise that the work we derive from fossil fuels is likely to wane over time. In such a situation it will become obvious that the real economy will shrink over time (accompanies by boom and bust but each bust will be bigger on average than the preceeding boom). If you know the real economy is going to shrink then you have no motivation to lend. You will lend to emerging economies that have access to oil, but not in a shrinking one. This will lead to a deflation of the money supply via a halt on lending (money markets dry up). Under such circumstances the government must take the responsibility for managing the supply of money. They must balance the destruction of money. Banks will be recalling loans and not issuing new loans, which can lead to an under supply of money, or rather the monetary economy shrinking more than the real economy. To balance this they must judge correctly how much money to create via bail outs, rescues etc. This is what your government is doing now, and what a terrifically difficult job it must be. Hats of to them for trying. The banks simply create it in abundance till we have more money than work done, then they loose confidence and stop lending. The government have the very difficult job of balancing the tightrope of monetary contraction until the money supply better matches the real economy.

It looks to me like the way the long term shrinkage of the economy will work is this; banks will create money in the good times, till there is too much and we have overshot an appropriate money supply. Then the goverment will have to manage the contration of the money supply.

The problem with this way forward is that the tax payer will get hacked off. They will soon perceive that the banks take money in the good times and get bailed out in the bad times. This will cause social unrest and the need for a scapegoat to go to war with. If that scapegoat has access to oil all the better.

The alternative is for government to entirely control the supply of money. This would mean either 'nationalisation' of all the banks so that goverment can control money supply or stricter regulation so that the goverment can control how much money the banks create.

Difficult times. Certainly the ability for banks to create money and to make money from that process will cause further trouble in the future. It is the prime cause of our current state of economic turmoil and if it continues in cycles ever downward we can expect social unrest and worse.

[RGR]

[quote="SunnyJim"]

[SunnyJim]

That's because economic growth is entirely measured in monetary terms.

And so should any speculation on the effects of peak oil. Which is why absolute barrels produced doesn't matter.

What rubbish!!! The whole point of a monetary economy is to represent the 'real economy'. It is a balancing act. If you inflate money supply then prices go up, if you deflate money supply prices drop (and unemployment and bankrupcy ensue). Really you don't want inflation or deflation. To look at the economy (or work derived from fossil fuels) in purely monetary terms is a MASSIVE mistake. It leads to gross financial mismanagement such as happened in Germany between the wars, USA in the 30's, Argentina, Zimbabwei etc. You need to go back to school RGR and study economic along side oil reserves. You may know a bit about how to get it out the ground but your view of world economics is extremely rudimentary!

Social unrest didn't seem all that high a concern during the 1957 peak oil, or the 1980 one, of the 1990 one, of the 2005 one, or even the current one.

You didn't have a peak oil in the 80's. You maybe suffered the affects of oil shortage due to the Iran - Iraq war, but you certainly didn't have a peak oil. That was clearly a political situation temporarily messing with supplies. In the UK we had mass strikes such as the steel workers & minor's strike. Lots strikes in the 80's in UK, culminating in the huge poll tax riots in 1990.

Social unrest is heightened by a sense of injustice and poverty, something that happens as a result of a financial crisis, which as I outlined above, can significantly lag a downturn in the 'real economy'.

During the 1980 peak oil and recession, and significant downturn in the "real economy", we had malaise...I wouldn't call that social unrest in the same context as talked about by the likes of Savniar ( nuke'im! nuke'im! ). I am not familiar with your personal definition of "social unrest", but I'm betting its not the generic malaise that us Americans suffered through during the 1980 peak oil event.

That was an oil supply shock caused by the Iraq-Iran war. It was not and never was Global Peak oil. Of course in the US they probably thought it was being so insular and introspective. It did of course raise questions about the sensibility of depending on OPEC oil supplies.... As I said before in the UK the workers took matters into their own hands. I guess in the US the people have just given up really. After all their strikes and riots throughout the 60's and 70's, I guess they were just beaten.

The key to all this, the key factor that you are missing in my humble opinion, is the link between work done in our economy (things produced, moved and services provided) and the use of fossil fuels.

I limit my peak oil thinking to thinking about peak OIL....I most certainly do not lump all fossil fuels together. I am quite well aware of the total size of ALL fossil fuels involved in the powering of our modern economy. But peak OIL is not peak ENERGY and it is not peak COAL and it is not peak NATURAL GAS and it is not peak HYDRATES and it is not peak OIL SHALE ( the mineral ) and it is not peak TAR SANDS...etc etc.et

That's a hollow sentence. It means nothing, just a series of truisms that I agree with. You're still missing the link between work done in our economy and the use of fossil fuels.

While I agree that efficiency gives us some gains, those gains will not be made without pain, and yes, we can probably organise our lifestyles differently to vastly reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. But if this re-organisation is left purely to the markets or to pricing, that re-organisation will be accompanied by blame, disatisfaction and social unrest. Goverments will find it convenient to pull a scapegoat from the global list of players and go to war with them than o confess the real reason why people are having to make do with less.

I have not yet seen proof that when faced with a change in energy useage the first response of any normal group of people in the developed world is to go to war to steal it from others. Otherwise Jimmy Carter would have used the Iranian hostage crisis to cure THAT peak oil social unrest issue.

I didn't know you were a Carter fan! Read Brzezinski, who was Carters advisor in the 70's. He wrote a book called The Grand Chessboard, later boasted of drawing Russia into war with Afghanistan in 1979. He states examples where countries use war as a foil. n.b. Really I should have been more explicit, but I thought you would make the obvious connections. It seems not. Peak work from ff -> peak economy -> Social Unrest -> Goverment Reaction. Of course I shouldn't predict Goverment Reaction. The US government may not go down the war route. We don't know who will be in admisitration, and the US public don't have an appetite for war due to Iraq. However, Social Unrest will grow, and the goverment may choose to enjoy using say Russia's rising power as a deflection. Or not. It also remains to be seen how the US public react to shrinking wealth. I would expect some strikes and riots, but maybe the US public are too docile and beaten for that?

Are the English thinking about invading Norway in the near future because of all your social unrest related to the peak in your portion of the North Sea?

Hahaha! I hope your joking! We are positioning Russia as a common enemy. We also have the threat of extremist terrorism. We need a constant threat to justify all manor of things. When picking an enemy you don't pick Norway (but you were joking right? You're not that stupid I'm sure). You pick an enemy. who's culture is different, that can be seen as a threat to capitalism etc.

<snip interesting scenario involving banks and credit and such>

Difficult times. Certainly the ability for banks to create money and to make money from that process will cause further trouble in the future. It is the prime cause of our current state of economic turmoil and if it continues in cycles ever downward we can expect social unrest and worse.

Malaise is pretty bad. And as best I can tell, our current economic turmoil has been caused by idiot lenders who thought that housing values would increase forever, and idiot financiers who pretended it was true and built products acting on that basic deviation from common sense. Basic greed strikes me as the shorthand version. Seems more reasonable rather than any particular nefarious sounding long winded possibly oil related explanation.

I agree that is what caused this recession. But if work done had kept up with monetary growth we would have no recession. Basic economics dear boy, basic economics. Re-read my posts. I have often concisely stated my view on what caused this recession.

[Vortex]

Are the English thinking about invading Norway in the near future because of all your social unrest related to the peak in your portion of the North Sea?

I believe it was last year that during a gas supply discussion the Germans reminded Norway about what happened in WW2 ...

[RGR]

[quote="SunnyJim"]

[EmptyBee]

RGR take a second or two to look at the projections made by your own government: http://www.netl.doe.gov/KeyIssues/secure_energy.html

Note this chart particularly:


Now, are you seriously trying to argue that a near term conventional oil (and gas) peak isn't going to significantly disrupt this picture? Or that planning made in light of the above scenarios isn't going to be substantially derailed? Or that our expectations of the future looking pretty much like today aren't on similarly shaky ground?

[RGR]

[quote="EmptyBee"]

[Vortex]

With all this economic confusion and oil price decline, do you think that the Energy Depletion event is still worth attending?

[snow hope]

With all this economic confusion and oil price decline, do you think that the Energy Depletion event is still worth attending?

Yes, no matter how some individuals try to play it down, it is still a major issue that will cause chaos in the future imo.

It would be very useful if you could bring a report back on the event for the benefit of this forum Vortex.

[Bandidoz]

My professional body, the SPE, is better than your Energy Institute.

My oil industry associates are better than your oil industry associates

My domain speciality is better than that of your energy generalists.

My professional competence is better than your professional competence.

I am in a niche so I am more right than you.

I am very rare - I am special.

You forgot, "My cock is bigger than yours".

[Andy Hunt]

Look at my massive cock.