Category Archives: big oil

Iceburgs Attack New Zealand – well maybe they kinda drift by but

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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

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While the people who don’t want to admit that people are pooping on the planet so much that we are destabilizing the planet by citing bogus statistics or hacking emails that appear to challenge the L shaped curve for global warming over the last hundred years…the real destabilization continues. Which is the real point

.http://www.livescience.com/environment/etc/091123-icebergs-surprise-new-zealand.html

Environment

Etc! More Science News Out There...

Icebergs Surprise New Zealand

Submitted by Robert Roy Britt

posted: 23 November 2009 11:50 am ET

iceberg

An iceberg at Bauer Bay on the west coast of Macquarie Island has drifted from Antarctica. Credit: Brett Quinton / Australian Antarctic Division

At least a hundred icebergs have trekked from Antarctica toward New Zealand, arriving at islands off New Zealand in recent weeks after being set adrift perhaps 9 years ago.”The larger icebergs seen from Macquarie Island are tabular in shape, which indicates they have calved relatively recently, probably from one of the massive icebergs which originally calved from the Ross Ice Shelf nearly 9 years ago,” said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young in a statement released earlier this month.

More than 100 icebergs were seen in just one cluster, AFP reports today. Young says the smaller icebergs likely resulted from the breakup of a larger one.

“Everyone on station has their eyes glued to the horizon trying to spot new icebergs,” said Cyril Munro, acting station leader on Macquarie Island. “The scientists working on the southern tip of the island were astounded to see an iceberg of about 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] in length,” he said.

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Here are several maps if you would like to see the icebergs:

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_63nz_iceberg_20091124_200.pdf

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_61nz_iceberg_20091124.pdf

When they get to Tasmania we will be in big trouble.

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And then there is this

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsr62jU7bnmBi2Z-iKs_Mbgy-9rQD9C5TPD80

Icebergs head from Antarctica for New Zealand

By RAY LILLEY (AP) – 3 hours ago

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The alert comes three years after cold weather and favorable ocean currents saw dozens of icebergs float close to New Zealand’s southern shores for the first time in 75 years.

New Zealand maritime officials have issued navigation warnings for the area south of the country.

“It’s an alert to shipping to be aware these potential hazards are around and to be on the lookout for them,” Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman Sophie Hazelhurst said.

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Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline in the first such sighting since 1931.

It is rare for whole icebergs to drift so far north before melting, but a cold snap around southern New Zealand and favorable ocean currents have again combined to push the towering visitors to the region intact.

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Young said that having the icebergs end up near New Zealand is not necessarily linked to global warming, but said that the rate of icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf in recent years may have increased due to dramatically rising temperatures on the continent over the past 60 years.

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hmmm…things are different in the REAL world

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Electric Cars Are Coming, Electric Cars Are Coming – Just not to your town yet..

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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

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I mean unless you happen to live in the 25 lucky towns this model covers. Most certainly not if you want an electric car.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10398375-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

November 16, 2009 9:42 AM PST

CEOs endorse ‘foothold strategy’ for electric cars

by Martin LaMon A group of CEOs on Monday came out favor of a regional roll-out of electric vehicles in up to eight cities to demonstrate the viability of the technology and incubate the fledgling industry.

The Electricifcation Coalition held a press conference in Washington, D.C. and released an Electrification Roadmap, which prescribes the business and policy steps required to ramp up electric vehicle adoption.

There are 13 members of the coalition, including the CEOs of Nissan Motor, FedEx, Pacific Gas & Electric, and battery maker A123 Systems. The coalition was spun out of Securing America’s Future Energy, a lobbying group focused on reducing U.S. imports of oil.

Photos: Plug-in vehicles in Motor City

The Electrification Coalition argues that light-duty electric vehicles are the only technology that can cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions in the near term. Its report (click for link) focuses on what’s required to make electric cars available at large scale.

“I think we have the conditions for the mass market. But it’s going to take more time,” said Carlos Ghosn, the president and CEO of Nissan. “The investments to be made are huge. To make 50,000 batteries is a $250 million investment.”

Of all the major automakers, Nissan is the most bullish on electrification. It is releasing an all-electric family sedan called the Leaf in the U.S. and Japan next year. It projects that 10 percent of new cars sales in 2020 will be electric, which is higher than most analysts’ projections.

The shift presents challenges to auto makers that are unsure of consumer acceptance. Utilities and municipalities need to prepare in order to make these vehicles more consumer-friendly but they, too, are unsure what the volume of sales will be.

To take some uncertainly out of the picture, the Electrification Coalition advocates a “foothold strategy.” Six to eight cities would create a number of incentives for electric vehicles, such as preferential parking and public charging stations. They would apply for government incentives and then test out the system to help bring electric cars to “critical mass,” explained David Crane, the president and CEO of power generator NRG Energy.

In the first phase, the plan calls for getting 50,000 to 100,000 light-duty plug-in vehicles on the road per year in certain areas starting next year and then expand to 25 cities. Its report sets a target of having 25 percent of new vehicle sales be plug-ins by 2020, which is 5 million vehicles. A jump to 90 percent of new vehicle sales being plug-ins by 2030 would represent roughly 17 million units, according to data from consulting company PRTM.

For consumers, batteries should be owned and financed separately from the car itself, Crane said. Because batteries are an expensive component that makes it more expensive than a comparably-sized gasoline car, auto makers, including Nissan, are looking at ways to keep monthly car payments roughly the same by leasing batteries.

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Course, if you want to get around all this hemming and hawing and get going today there is ZAP:

http://www.zapworld.com/

100% Electric – Zero Air Pollution (ZAP)

ZAP is a leading distributor of affordable, efficient, 100% electric vehicles in the United States and has established a network of licensed automobile dealers throughout the United States. Plans for European distribution are underway as well. In January 2009, ZAP unveiled a high performance electric roadster called the Alias which is planned for deliveries in late 2010. ZAP launched the XEBRA in 2006. Our first automotive product comes in a four-passenger sedan version and a two-passenger utility pickup truck.. Almost all EVs sold are LSVs. With speed restricted to 25 MPH. Xebra Zapcars and Zaptrucks are licensed to go up to 40 MPH to fill the growing demand for electric vehicles in use for urban, in-town driving. Other vehicles sold by ZAP include the XL truck, the Zapvan Shuttle, and ATV called Dude and the always popular Zappy3 scooter line.
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So quit fooling around.

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Cap And Trade – An industry insider opposes it when industry proposes it

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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

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This is an example of what we have to put up with in this community. Springfield has been raped by corporate media purchases. First a right wing conglomerate, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, bought channel 20 and gave us an ex-CIA agent as a far right social commenter. Then Gatehouse buys our local paper, the State Journal Register, and in one week they give us an editorial in which Union Pacific says that they can ram as many freight trains down our throats as they want and the opinion below that Cap and Trade will kill the USA’s economy. This by the guy who lead the deregulation train before it derailed our economy. Thanks a lot man.

http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x801093616/Dan-Miller-CO2-curbs-would-be-devastating

In My View: CO2 curbs would be devastating

By DAN MILLER

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Posted Nov 07, 2009 @ 12:03 AM

 Regulations and mandates that force nationwide cuts in carbon dioxide emissions offer only speculative environmental benefits, if any, as a switch to wind and solar power will certainly cause more harm than good to the environment.

But command-and-control forces in Congress are headed in that direction, with the House narrowly passing a bill to cap CO2 emissions, and the Senate taking up a companion bill this month.
Engineers calculate that a stunning 600 square miles of wind turbines would be needed to produce the same 1,000 megawatts of electricity as a single medium-to-large coal power plant. That’s enough to provide electricity to about 10,000 homes.

Even in favorable locations, wind turbines can supply electrical power only about 20 percent of the time, meaning utilities still must have an alternative baseload source to compensate for wind fluctuations, and those alternatives are three: coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants. But by taking coal and natural gas out of production due to carbon dioxide restrictions, a massive and enormously expensive program will be needed to build more nuclear power plants to supply this baseload.

Further, wind turbine developments despoil nature’s beauty, and indiscriminately kill birds and bats, including many endangered species.

Writing last summer in the Boston Globe, Eleanor Tillinghast, director of the environmental advocacy group Green Berkshires, warned, “Cutting wide swaths of unspoiled forest for access roads, clear-cutting miles of ridgelines, erecting industrial structures with spinning blades that threaten migrating birds and the last remaining bats — these are irreversible actions with permanent consequences.”

Solar power likewise requires substantially more environmental destruction than coal. The Nevada Solar One array, the most efficient in the nation, requires 350 acres of land to produce less than 1/10th the power of a conventional coal-fueled power plant, and that’s at peak efficiency at noon on a cloudless day.

Both wind and solar power projects inevitably would require the construction of new transmission lines, often across otherwise-pristine lands, to reach energy-hungry consumers. The nation’s key wind corridor, from the Texas panhandle to the Dakotas, contains no major population center.

Further, wind and solar generators consume much more water than coal power plants, a serious problem in desert areas with the most sunlight.

All of that explains why so many environmentalists oppose further development of wind and solar power. By forcing construction of more of these projects, carbon dioxide restrictions will have a devastating impact on many of America’s most valuable natural treasures.

Dan Miller is publisher at The Heartland Institute and former chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, the public utility regulatory body in Illinois. He can be reached at
dmiller@heartland.org.

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More on this guy Miller later.

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Renewable Energy Fails And The Lights Go Out – This guy is so wrong in so many ways it is hard to count

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It is jam band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irZi18VR31M

This is a perfect example of an Oil and Gas shill. Actually at this point I guess I should call him a Carbon front man. Ever notice how it’s always a man? He ignores the subsidies paid to the Oil and Gas business right now, which are huge. He ignores the impact of the pollution (externalities you know). He ignores the fact that, as predicted, we are starting to use oil shale and oil sands which are marginal materials because we are running out of resources. Not because of “magical” new technologies.  He ignores the simple fact that if everyone in the world heated their water using geothermal or solar we could cut consumption in half….

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeRa3RtBiIU&feature=related )

In fact he sounds like a buggy maker or a whip maker right after the automobile was first introduced.

http://www.buggymuseum.org/buggytown.htm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757393,00.htmlhttp://www.tocreateyourdestiny.com/html/where_have_all_the_buggy_maker.html

Unlike those Talk Radio these days, I like to periodically present the other side of a case and oh boy, does this guy do it.

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2544

Posted on Nov. 05, 2009

By Peter C Glover

Renewable Banality: The Latest British Export

UK wind energy. Photo by Mitch: Flickr

Photo by Mitch: Flickr

I loved the true story of the Nigerian energy worker who, having received a pay check for $900, amended the figure to read $9,000. As the reporter wittily put it, “The check fraud proved entirely successful … right up to the point where he attempted to cash it.” That’s kind of how I feel about the renewable energy revolution. It will prove entirely successful in the eyes of the public and media — right up to the point where the lights start going out. And those lights will soon start going out, according to a new report.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxp6OIEZlk&feature=related )

I fully understand the romantic attraction of the clean energy revolution and the rush to replace ‘dirty’ fossil fuels. In the light of the war on carbon it’s a no brainer, right? Which is precisely why, just as diminishing EU and UK subsidies are prompting an industry exodus westward, the British renewables industry may be about to be given an unexpected investment shot in the arm from some of the world’s biggest multinational companies in one of the biggest analogs to the adage “I gave at the church,” in this case the environmentalism church. Companies, it seems, in their rush to appear politically correct are oblivious to how that renewable revolution is ushering in a new dark age in Britain.

Why the multinationals?

Speaking at a UK Confederation of British Industries (CBI) conference in October, the Bank of America’s head of power and utilities, John Lynch, named companies like Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and IKEA (the Swedish home goods company) as being potential new investors for Britain’s offshore wind industry. “This is the technology that the UK is leading in, and these companies are looking at ways to get involved,” Lynch told his CBI audience, “because it meets their own corporate social responsibility objectives.” Enthusing over the prospect of a massive new injection of funds for British industry, Lynch noted how the Crown Estate (which owns the UK seabed) had launched the offshore program specifically to enable Britain to meet its target of 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. Clearly nobody had told Lynch that in recent weeks the leaders of Britain’s biggest energy companies privately warned the government that its climate targets, contingent upon renewable sources replacing hydrocarbon fuels, are “illusory” and “delusional.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMdCLL9Q6Ck&feature=related )

as we say in the editing business … or dot dot dot

Put bluntly, Tucker shows that industrial scale renewable energy is, realistically and mathematically, an economic non-starter.

Ironically, just as UK and European subsidy opportunities are dwindling and the revolution faltering, the retail multinationals may be about to reinvigorate the flagging UK program. And as the economic cost of renewables is being counted across Europe, Britain’s energy-climate policy is likely to be touted increasingly as the blueprint for others to follow. A rash of UK studies continue to sound alarm bells over the government’s current energy direction and, one of these, just published, should do the same well beyond UK shores.

Does it really take an Einstein?

In October, the UK energy regulator, Ofgem (The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets), warned that Britain was facing 1970s style power blackouts within just four years – a much shorter timescale than previously thought. Project Discovery cited the British government’s failure to renovate its “crumbling power infrastructure” due to compliance with new EU rules that will force the closure of a quarter of the country’s power stations by 2015. In a typically British understatement, Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem’s chief executive warned, “There could be a potential shortfall in the period 2013-18 … Life might be pretty cold.” Buchanan’s assessment is that only an “involuntary curtailment of demand” – power cuts – can conserve household supplies, unless the government acts urgently to upgrade its nuclear plants. Jeremy Nicholson, of the Energy Intensive Users Group, representing some of Britain’s biggest manufacturers, said that power cuts that hit UK business first would present a “material threat to heavy industry.” Nicholson also warned that once the crisis hit the 60 percent hike in British energy bills currently being acknowledged by the government will, more realistically, hit the 120 percent mark.

Bottom line? If Einstein’s E=mc2 as it applies to renewable energy doesn’t cut the intellectual ice for prospective investors and foreign governments alike, perhaps another will. Try this:

UK energy-climate policy, circa 2009 = a blueprint for black-outs.

See what I mean about a fraudulent check being entirely successful right up to the point

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But here is where his analysis shows his paradigm. He says industrial users have to have “so in so” amount of power. I say great. Let the industries that need it generate it in such a way that they generate no pollution. Thank you very much and usins in the residential market, well we will keep our alternative energies. Come on you ARE the smartest guys in the world right? oh..OR maybe not?

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQs4Ra_qEvI&feature=related )
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The Population Of Britain Falls To 2 Milllion After Spectacular And Bloody Die Off

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That is that there will be a massive die off when the cheap oil runs out. He also believes in euthanasia for the less fortunate.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2009/11/peak-oil-and-population-control.html

November 04, 2009

Peak oil and population control

Flintoff

Last week I had the miserable experience of interviewing a man who had accidentally survived a suicide pact with his wife.

Dr William Stanton, 79, has bone cancer and is plainly very ill: doctors give him three to eight months. His wife Angela was 74, and in good health, but didn’t want to survive him.

Dr Stanton happens to be one of the foremost proponents of population control in Britain, possibly anywhere, and has written articles and letters for anybody who will publish them, including his local paper and the New Scientist. But the latter stopped publishing him more than 20 years ago because – he believes – his views are regarded as being beyond the pale.

A geologist by profession, Dr Stanton has made a massive study of global population growth since the start of the industrial revolution, and suggests persuasively that the growth can be accounted for precisely by the advent of cheap oil. He contends that global oil production is at peak now, however, and that diminishing supplies will require the population of Britain to fall from around 60m today to just 2m in 2150.

Two million!

This will either happen inadvertently, he argues, as people kill each other for precious resources, or in a controlled way, as laws restrict women to just one child each, humane euthanasia becomes widespread to deal with people who represent a “net drain” on society, and immigration is made illegal – arrivals would be put to work in chain gangs, with other criminals.

In its own terms, Dr Stanton’s analysis makes some sense, but his prescriptions are utterly repellent. But when I said that, he told me I was being sentimental. Was he right?

You can read my Sunday Times interview here. If you wish to find out more about Dr Stanton’s views – and his struggle to get them into the mainstream – you should Google him.

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Unfortunately, in the long article of maybe a gazillion words, he mentions Bill Stanton’s beliefs on population in two or three paragraphs focusing most of the rest of the article on Stanton and his wife’s botched double suicide. The irony of his healthy wife dying and he being terminal with cancer and living is over exploited. Also the author spills a lot of ink on Britain’s law against assisted suicide and how 132 Britains went to Switzerland to do the deed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6897964.ece

November 1, 2009

William Stanton: I botched our suicide pact

William Stanton and his wife tried to end their lives together – but they only half succeeded. He says He’d do it again

Terminally ill Dr William Stanton from Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset who entered into a suicide pact with his wife Angela which he survived but left the otherwise healthy Mrs Stanton dead

John-Paul Flintoff Early one morning in September, William Stanton heard footsteps coming up the stairs of his cottage in Somerset. He knew who it was and panicked. “I shouted out: ‘Go away, Nigel, leave me to it, leave me to it!’”

Nigel, a neighbour and family friend, did not go away. He came into the bedroom and found Stanton in distress and his wife Angela lying dead with a plastic bag over her head.

The Stantons had made a pact to end their lives together and put it into effect just days after the director of public prosecutions revealed how he would apply the law prohibiting assisted suicide. It did not work out as they planned and stands as a terrible cautionary example for anybody thinking that self-inflicted death is easily arranged.

I met Stanton last week in the neat and pretty bedroom where Angela’s body was found. I noted a commode in the corner and a trolley-load of pills beside Stanton, who was sitting up in bed. He is 79 and obviously unwell — his doctors say bone cancer will kill him in three to eight months — but he complained only that the pills make him lethargic.

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For a better exposition you might look here:

http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2005/07/oil-and-people.html

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, Ireland

ASPO Newsletters, Article Number 573 (July 2005)

The population of the World expanded six-fold in parallel with oil production during the First Half of the Age of Oil. William Stanton, author of The Rapid Growth of Human Population 1750-2000 (Multi-Science Publishing, 2003) contributes the following analysis of how population will have to return to pre-Oil Age levels. Let us hope that it does not come to this, but the options explained do have a certain chilling logic.

Reducing Population in Step with Oil Depletion

by William Stanton

Recent articles in the ASPO Newsletter have agreed that the explosion of world population from about 0.6 billion in 1750 to 6.4 billion today was initiated and sustained by the shift from renewable energy to fossil fuel energy in the Industrial Revolution. There is agreement that the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves will reverse the process, though there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable global population would be.

In this time of energy abundance, and the complacency it engenders, the vast majority of the general public assumes that what the future holds is “more of the same”. They argue, if pushed, that the expertise inherited by post-fossil-fuel scientists and engineers will allow a smooth transition into a new kind of energy-rich world in which renewable generators will produce as much energy as fossil fuels do now. Such a view is untenable because it ignores the fact that almost all materials essential to modern civilization will be orders of magnitude more costly, and scarce, when they have to be produced using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

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Or more to the point read the original:

http://www.relocalize.net/files/Futures%20proof.pdf

By the By, if he is right there would only be 12 million people left in America. Best estimates for Native American populations the were 21 million..

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What Is Worse..A leaking oil well…Or one that leaks and catches fire

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I do not normally post twice in one day but the contrast of this story with the cute little story is laugh out loud funny and sob in you beer sad..

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/11/02/whats-worse-than-an-oil-rig-leaking-into-the-sea/

What’s worse than an oil rig leaking into the sea?

November 2, 2009 10:21am

by Kate Mackenzie

An endless fire on an oil rig, perhaps.  The West Atlas rig and the Montara wellhead platform operated Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production burst into fire on Saturday, 10 weeks after it began spewing oil and gas into the sea. The fire can’t be extinguished as gas from the well is fuelling it, but PTTEP says it is preparing 4,000 barrels of heavy mud to pour down a relief well to try and kill the fire.

The leak is already looking like an environmental disaster – and the political fallout is also growing. Greens and the opposition are attacking the government, and controversy is building over the environmental reports carried out so far by the Australian government – with critics saying that surveys should have looked at the southern side of the rig instead of just focusing on the northern side, where the oil was thought to be billowing.

The West Australian government, meanwhile, is using the disaster to argue that the federal government should not take jurisdiction for offshore oil and gas.

As for the oil and gas industry, well, it doesn’t look good, analyst Peter Strachan told the ABC:

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For what he said and more please follow the link….but then you know what he said, “OH Shit”.

Oil Bubble – No way! There would have to be a Market in Oil for there to be a Bubble

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There is no such thing as supply and demand in the liquid carbon fuel markets so it is tough to argue that there was a “Bubble” per se in the run up to 140 $$$ oil. For instance, oil spikes and gas hikes are being blamed on a “weak dollar” but in fact should be attributed to the fact that 2 major refineries in the US have been shut down and a 1000 workers laid off. In the case of the oil spike, speculators clearly ran up the price. Nearly 25% of the oil mysteriously “disappeared” from the market, only to reappear as the market fell. Those are the classic “finger prints” of a speculator driven rip off. But some people want to fog the headlights with argle bargle.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161551563

An oil bubble

Mary King

Monday, November 2nd 2009

Following on last week’s topic, some have suggested that maybe, like the housing bubble in the US, the spike in oil prices and their subsequent collapse could have been an oil price bubble that also pulled up the prices of natural gas.

First, we should examine the phenomena that govern the life cycle of the economic bubble-its start, growth and eventual collapse. There is no consensus on what causes a bubble. Further, one view is that a bubble can only be identified after it has manifested itself in all of its stages. It is not clear-cut since even now after the collapse of oil prices there are still questions as to whether there was an oil economic bubble. (Did we have a housing bubble?).

One thesis is that high market liquidity is necessary, though not a sufficient condition for its start. This encourages people to invest in a particular asset both to preserve the value of their money in the face of inflation, but also to sometimes sell at a higher rate later to make, as it were, a killing.

What was of particular concern in the US housing bubble is that people were persuaded to enter into mortgages that they could not really afford while the prices of the assets were rising. High liquidity encourages mark-up inflation across the board and investing in a bubble suggests that such activities may also be seen as hedges against headline inflation.

At the peak of the bubble the price fetched by the asset is far greater than the real market value, even to produce it from scratch. When the bubble bursts, prices fall and many are left with an asset, say, houses, for which they hold inverted mortgages whose values are far in excess of what the asset is worth.

Also, the mortgagee may not be able to service these assets and we have heard stories of people returning the keys of houses to the banks and walking away in the aftermath of a bubble. Looking back at the investment frenzy of the bubble many commentators have remarked on the herd instinct of the investors -more like a stampede as the herd races towards a cliff.

Last week’s article demonstrated that because of the absolute elasticity of the supply of paper-oil on the futures market, this market on its own, without reference to the economic fundamentals of the physical-oil market, cannot support a bubble. Therefore, the evidence, if any exists, has to be sought in the physical market.

In order for speculators to influence the trend price of physical-oil, futures and index investors have to continue to buy large quantities of physical-oil and hold these quantities off-market. There is no evidence that this occurred and if it did it would have to be immense quantities to manipulate a worldwide physical market as large as the present crude oil market.

Yet because of Peak Oil a bubble in oil prices could be established. Oil inventories were not excessive and any increase that there was can be explained away by the fact that oil use, particularly in China and India, also increased, impacting positively on the associated inventories.

Another test for an oil bubble (Stuart Sandiford in the Oil Drum, “Is Oil in a Price Bubble”) is the rate at which the asset price increased and if this was faster than exponential growth a bubble is in the making.

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dot dot dot (as they say)

If one were to examine the depreciation of the US dollar (the currency in which oil/gas prices are quoted) then with the US dollar now pegged at 1.09 Euros, the lowest it has been for seven months, it is clear that oil price adjustment is in part related to producers trying to counteract the depreciating US dollar and (temporary) stockpiling.

As the US dollar depreciates the TT dollar (tied to it) also depreciates, compounding its local depreciation against the US dollar. Thus our foreign revenues will reflect this US dollar depreciation, stockpiling and the resulting price volatility.

maryking@tstt.net.tt

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Nobel Prizes This Year Reflect A Turn Toward A Steady State Economy – Elinor Ostrom is a perfect example

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While there was huge howling on both the right and the left about Barack Obama winning the Nobel Prize, I think it was mainly because they don’t understand that we are shifting from a “growth” paradigm to a “sustainable” paradigm and the Nobel people were publicly recognizing that fact. I think if they all knew what that meant, they would be howling even louder. What Barack and company have understood is that standard politics is about to become irrelevant. That is that the Growth method of economics is about to become obsolete and with it a whole way of life.

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/30218?tid=14

The sustainable economics of Elinor Ostrom

2009-10-14 17:56


It was not by chance that Elinor Ostrom was awarded this year’s Nobel prize in economics.

Global warming, along with the preservation of the quality of our environment, has become the most pressing issue facing the human race.

The presentation of this year’s Nobel prize in economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson–in particular Ostrom’s dedicated researches in the inter-relationship between mankind and our ecological system, thus ensuring the sustainability of our water, forest, fishery and other shared resources–should serve as a loud and clear alarm to mankind, who have now come face to face with ecological disasters of unprecedented proportions.

Environmental initiatives continue to thrive in all corners of the Earth. Although many people are well equipped with the knowledge of protecting our environment, few will actually turn that knowledge into practical actions, resulting in the piling up of trash, severe river contamination, illegal logging as well as ill-planned and uncurbed developments. The quality of our environment has deteriorated further, culminating in a broad array of hygiene issues and illnesses.

Elinor Ostrom spent her teenage years in the depth of the Great Depression and the subsequent second world war, when resources were scarce and potable water a rarity. She grew vegetables in her own yard, and made her harvest into canned food. This opened up her eyes to the realisation of the necessity to work with other people for the common interests of all when resources were in short supply. Such a realisation had laid a solid foundation for her future scientific research works.

Judging from this perspective, it therefore came as no coincidence that she was given the Nobel.

It is an undeniable fact that environmental degradation has resulted in global warming. Even in Malaysia, the average atmospheric temperatures have risen over the past three decades.

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Summarizing her findings about the “tragedy of the commons”:

1. We must value the strategy of a more balanced overall development: In the past, due to the lack of overall development concept and plans, our developments have been concentrated in large cities while the well-being of rural residents was overlooked.

For instance, we moved polluting factories from cities to outlying areas and adjacent rural communities. We should have instead formulated a set of preventive guidelines to curb environmental degradation. The success of environment protection depends very much on the monetary expenses as well as manpower, financial and equipment inputs; and priorities and timetables should therefore be set.

2. An environment evaluation system must be put in place. Works on all new major construction projects, manufacturing plants and public gathering places, should begin only after environmental impact assessments have been carried out.

3. Promote a sense of responsibility in nurturing the necessary expertise. Future entrepreneurs must come to the full realisation that the prevention of environmental degradation is a responsibility which they are obliged to, and the money invested in the equipment for the prevention of environmental degradation should be seen as part of the essential operating cost in their production and service delivery. At the same time, they should also establish research bodies aimed at grooming expertise to fight pollution.

Not believing in the “tragedy of the commons,” Ostrom has put her entire lifetime’s effort in the researches on outlying and underdeveloped communities, living over a very long period of time with their impoverished residents.

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The 2 types of economies are on a crash course:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_41/b4150055757494.htm

The Clash Over Clean Power

Utility chiefs are juggling the conflicting goals of green energy and low rates—and self-interest reigns

BUCKING POWERFUL INTERESTS

What makes the task even more difficult is a fundamental clash between the two goals that Rowe, Rogers, and other CEOs say they are passionate about: keeping power prices low to benefit customers and averting the potential catastrophe of climate change. The effort to curb emissions, after all, will significantly raise the price of coal-fired and other fossil-fuel-generated electricity and make alternatives more competitive.

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Some countries are already there:

The future of energy happening now in Germany

Friday, 16 October 2009 08:01

Germans are leading the way in the clean energy revolution.  From huge smart grid projects and massive wind and solar farms to smaller micro-generation projects at the home to new appliances Germany is taking energy efficiency very seriously.

Germany passed legislation more than 20 years ago that required utility companies to pay homeowners who generated renewable power.  Since 1990, carbon emissions there have been reduced by 23 percent as a result of forward-thinking policies and by embracing innovative technologies.

The country is now conducting tests that will determine if homes can produce all of their energy needs and sell excess back to the power grid.  Operating under the label E-Energy, the project will include tens of thousands of homes in six separate regions.  The €140 million project has attracted many of the world’s largest energy and technology firms who have agreed to help pay for the effort.  Germany believes that a similar nationwide program could conserve 10 terawatts of energy annually – an amount equal to the yearly consumption of 2.5 million homes.

The Germans are also working on offshore wind farms and massive solar power installations to be built in Africa.  Several energy companies are working on the solar project that will eventually feed clean energy into Europe’s power grid.  Schemes such as these can eventually provide up to a third of the country’s requirements, according to estimates.

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The point being, that the Nobel Committee picked people that reflect that…the “Growthers” just don’t get it and never will:

http://nobelprize.org/

Nobel Prize Winners For 2009

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009

Elizabeth H. Blackburn

Carol W. Greider

Jack W. Szostak

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Thomas A. Steitz

Ada E. Yonath

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009

Barack Obama

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009

Charles K. Kao

Willard S. Boyle

George E. Smith

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009

Herta Müller

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009

Elinor Ostrom

Oliver E. Williamson

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I did not say it up front but Elinor is the first woman to get the Nobel Prize for Economics -Yaaaaaa

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Peak Oil To The Oil And Gas Crowd Is Like Turds In The Punch Bowl

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Yup, they don’t like it much:

http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091014/OPINION/910139986/1021/NONE&parentprofile=1062

The fallacy of peak oil

By Kelly Sloan
THE RIGHT WORD

The onset of this week in Denver has been witness to a conference hosted by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a collection of hand-wringers, theorists, and computer-modelers (co-founded, incidentally, by none other than Randy Udall, brother of U.S. Senator Mark Udall), who subscribe to the proposition that the world has reached, or will soon reach, the point of maximum oil production. This historic juncture, the theory asserts, will serve to signal the beginning of the end of the fossil-fueled society, as worldwide demand transcends supply, resulting in a steady, irreversible decline in oil production, terminating at the moment when the very last thimbleful of crude is cajoled out of the ground.

Like virtually all successful fallacies, this one incorporates a large measure of truth; as a finite commodity, the world oil supply will, eventually, be exhausted. Insofar as this is the case, the theory is valid — all other factors remaining fixed, there WILL come a point in time where demand outstrips supply, and production thereby enters a terminal decline phase. The question, of course, is WHEN this will occur.

The most strident peak-oilers postulate that the date is imminent; indeed, many say it has already come and gone. The problem with their reasoning is best illustrated through an example from economic history.

In 1803, Thomas Robert Malthus presented the second edition of his “Essay on the Principle of Population.” In it, he laid out his theory that the rate of population growth would outpace the rate of increase in the food supply. He predicted that famine would ravage the earth in short order.

What Malthus forgot to consider was the role of technological advances in the food production industry. The Agricultural revolution spurred by improved tools, seeds and techniques, enabled many more people to be fed by the labor of many fewer people (and on less acreage).

In a similar vein, the proponents of peak oil tend to overlook some key factors: advances in drilling, exploration, production, and conveyance of oil and natural gas have served to make available sources which as little as a decade ago were considered unrecoverable, and hence not included on peak prediction spreadsheets. Horizontal and directional drilling capabilities, breakthroughs in well logging and evaluation technologies, and advances in production techniques serve as a few examples of innovations which have increased accessibility to, and improved recovery of, hitherto unobtainable resources.

Also conveniently ignored in the petro-doomsday scenarios, are the roles played by unconventional sources, such as oil sand, oil shale, and tight gas formations. For instance, Canada’s oil sands, which at last count hold more than 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil located in northern Alberta, were thought, 40 years ago, to be too expensive and technologically prohibitive to produce on a widespread, commercial scale. Today, oil sands production, both through mining, and in situ (in place) production, using modern techniques such as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil imports, or half of Canadian oil exports. And conservative estimates place the number of recoverable barrels in our own oil shale at between 500 billion and 1.1 trillion (with a ‘T’). To put that in perspective, consider that the lower number represents roughly triple the proven resources in the Middle East.

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I think you get the idea…but apologists for the renewable industry? Wow I never would have guessed that.

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Peak Oil, Peak Food, Peak People, Peak Water Or Peak Sex – Every finite resource runs out

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I don’t run much about Peak Oil. Don’t get me wrong. I read their best web postings and sometimes I even publish some of the stuff they report on.

http://www.peakoil.com/

I rarely ever post stuff directly from the “Peak Oil” perspective for the same reasons that I do not post “end of days” stuff. They are BOTH true. That is OIL will run out and the Earth will come to an end but the predictiveness is problematic to say the least. For sure Peak Oil will come true before Peak Days, till either happens though…well the less said the better. They are having a conference in Denver and I thought I would post a couple of pieces so it doesn’t seem like I don’t like them.

Is there such a thing as Peak Sex? Well think about it (:)) there IS only so much that you can have.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50359

http://transitionculture.org/2009/10/09/whither-resilience-and-transition-why-peak-oil-has-yet-to-outlive-its-usefulness/

9 Oct 2009

Whither Resilience and Transition? Why ‘Peak Oil’ Has Yet to Outlive its Usefulness

stress_city

It’s been a fascinating few days.  Early in the week, Nate Hagens and Sharon Astyk were suggesting the perhaps the term ‘peak oil’ has outlived its usefulness, given that we have almost certainly peaked, and that the peak oil movement needs to shift its focus.  It echoed something I wrote a while ago, likening ASPO and the wider peak oil movement to a Loch Ness Monster Society, dedicated to establishing the existence of this fabled creature.  They organise conferences, scientific searches of the loch, write papers and journals, and then one day, an entire, intact Loch Ness Monster washes up on the shore.  Then what?  They have no reason to exist any longer, their whole raison d’etre vanishes overnight.

However, I don’t think it is that straightforward.  For me, what we are seeing, taking a step back and looking in the longer time context, is a series of pulses.  Peak oil won’t go away as an issue, it pulses in and out of the collective consciousness and hopefully will increasingly come to underpin Government policy-making.  In July 2008, peak oil was pulsing as the oil price hit record highs, and issues around economics were in the background.  Now, economics has been the key pulse for the last year or so, and peak oil has been pushed off the side of the stage until the last few days.  If Colin Campbell’s original analysis, elaborated by David Strahan in his talk at the 2009 Transition Network conference, is correct, what looks likely is that the two will pulse alternately, as any kind of economic recovery increases demand, which raises the oil prices, which dampens economic recovery, which reduces demand and lowers prices, which increases demand, and so on and so on.  Until the connection between the two becomes clear, they will continue to pulse alternately.

Over the last couple of days, the peak oil pulse has become most prominent, with two excellent reports which will hopefully give Ed Miliband a lot to think about, and dampen the complacency brought about by Malcolm Wicks’ dreadful and fairly pointless report on UK energy security.  The first report, by the UKERC, the UK’s premiere research establishment, sets out to answer the question “what evidence is there to support the proposition that the global supply of ‘conventional oil’ will be constrained by physical depletion before 2030?”, via. a review of 500 published papers on the subject. Its findings are striking (you can read David Strahan’s excellent analysis of it here).  It argues that there is a ’significant risk’ of conventional oil production peaking before 2020, and brands those who argue that it will come some time beyond 2030 as being ‘at best optimistic and at worst implausible’.

ellipse ellipse ellipse as they say in the citation business:

Then today, Ofgem, which regulates electricity and gas markets in the UK, publishes its Project Discovery: energy market scenarios report.  It generates 4 scenarios about where energy prices might go between now and 2020, concluding that its worst case scenario means a 60% increase in energy bills.  In order to be prepared for the decline in UK gas supplies, the shift to low carbon energy generation and the phasing out of nuclear plants, the UK needs to be prepared to invest £200 billion.  Under all of its scenarios, fuel bills will rise, and interestingly, they note that the slower the economic recovery, the less steep the rise in prices.  It is a shot across the bows of what it sees as Government’s keeping of the issue on the long finger, and failure to invest (although it does put nuclear centre stage as part of the solution).

This morning on Radio 4’s Today Programme, shadow energy secretary Greg Clark and energy analyst David Hunter discussed the implications of the Ofgem report with presenter John Humphries.  It was a fascinating piece, mostly along the lines of “how has the Government let this slide for so long”, with Clark trying to make out that the Conservatives have been onto this for years, in spite of the lack of any evidence for this.  When asked what the Tories’ response would be, he replied ‘clean coal’, a technology which Humphries had to point out, doesn’t actually exist yet, a phenomena Clark had tried to sidestep by describing it as ‘pre-commercial’.  No talk, of course, of reducing demand, conservation, rethinking supply chains, of resilience.

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Righto, the Brits are so fascinating to read and watch. Kinda like watching Gold Finches feeding upside down.

While the Americans just call each other names…

http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=6010

Will oil demand soon outgrow supply?

Peak oil believers think so, but oil, gas companies say that theory is bogus

Gene Davis, DDN Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 13, 2009


A “peak oil” conference wrapping up today in Denver is sounding the alarm that oil demand will soon outgrow supply, posing a potential economic threat to the country’s economic well being.

However, most oil and gas companies say the peak oil theory is bogus and that there are plenty of the natural resource to go around.

Mayor John Hickenlooper is among the peak oil believers. The former geologist told conference attendees yesterday that it’s not a question of if the world will reach peak oil ” meaning the time of maximum oil production ” but when it will happen.

“We cannot afford to ignore the issue,” he said in a statement. “By anticipating the expected rapid changes in both supply and demand, we can begin to frame the issue not only as a challenge but also as an economic opportunity.”

But The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, for one, doesn’t think Hickenlooper’s school of thought has much credibility. 

“For more than five decades, various individuals have claimed that the world had reached, or was nearing, peak oil,” said a statement from the group. “With more than 200 new oil discoveries in the last year alone, it’s safe to say that peak oil enthusiasts are every bit as wrong today as they have been for the past 50 years.”

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas has been hosting the International Peak Oil Conference at Denver’s Sheraton Hotel since Sunday. The event has featured more than 70 speakers who have talked about “energy, oil, and our future.”

David Bowden, ASPOG executive director, said that after maximum oil production is reached, the United States economy might have difficulties growing without the constant input of steady and inexpensive oil.

As a result, Bowden is urging for people to “conserve, conserve, conserve” and shy away from “our monolithic oil consumption habits.” Although the United States has around 5 percent of the world’s population, the country uses approximately 25 percent of the world’s oil supplies, largely because of automobile usage.

Bowden supports light rail projects like FasTracks instead of building more roads or expanding highways. FasTracks is a multi-billion dollar transit expansion plan to build 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail.

“Even though FasTracks has its challenges and the system is a bit limited right now, as oil supplies tightens and the prices go up, it will be necessary,” he said.

Critics have continually slammed FasTracks for running behind schedule and over budget.  

“(FasTracks) was such a faulty fiscal plan, it’s inexcusable,” said Jon Caldera of the libertarian Independence Institute earlier this year.

The recession and falling prices at the pump have taken the oil and gas issue out of the headlines. “But when the country pulls out of the recession and starts consuming more oil and growing populations in countries like China and India do the same the issue will become intensified, especially if oil production drops”, Bowden said.

“Anyone who tries to predict the timing and price of oil is engaged in a fools errand,” he said. “But we see the long-term writing on the wall.”

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Oh that is so BIBLICAL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_writing_on_the_wall

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