Category Archives: dying planet

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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Overpopulation – We are drownding in ourselves much like flies in a bottle

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This has always been the case but the major religions and the ruling elite don’t care because they imagine they live in a different world from the rest of us:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wwiii-population-wars-a-12-bomb-equation-2009-09-29

 

Paul B. Farrell

Paul B. Farrell

Sept. 29, 2009, 12:01 a.m. EDT · Recommend (13) ·

The coming Population Wars: a 12-bomb equation

Can Gates’ Billionaires Club stop these inevitable self-destruct triggers?

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — So what’s the biggest time-bomb for Obama, America, capitalism, the world? No, not global warming. Not poverty. Not even peak oil. What is the absolute biggest, one like the trigger mechanism on a nuclear bomb, one that’ll throw a wrench in global economic growth, ending capitalism, even destroying modern civilization?

The one that — if not solved soon — renders all efforts to solve all the other problems in the world, irrelevant, futile and virtually impossible?

News flash: the “Billionaires Club” knows: Bill Gates called billionaire philanthropists to a super-secret meeting in Manhattan last May. Included: Buffett, Rockefeller, Soros, Bloomberg, Turner, Oprah and others meeting at the “home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan,” reports John Harlow in the London TimesOnline. During an afternoon session each was “given 15 minutes to present their favorite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests.”

The world’s biggest time-bomb? Overpopulation, say the billionaires.

And yet, global governments with their $50 trillion GDP, aren’t even trying to solve the world’s overpopulation problem. G-20 leaders ignore it. So by 2050 the Earth’s population will explode by almost 50%, from 6.6 billion today to 9.3 billion says the United Nations.

And what about those billionaires and their billions? Can they stop the trend? Sadly no. Only a major crisis, a global catastrophe, a collapse beyond anything prior in world history will do it. Here’s why:

Civilizations collapse fast, crises trigger, leaders clueless

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Have a great day….

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Geoengineering – Love it or hate it, here are 2 views

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Hate it:

http://www.alternet.org/environment/142784/james_lovelock%3A_schemes_to_%27reverse%27_global_warming_could_lead_to_disaster

James Lovelock: Schemes to ‘Reverse’ Global Warming Could Lead to Disaster

By James Lovelock, The Guardian. Posted September 21, 2009.

Better, perhaps, to let the earth look after itself than try to regulate its system through mirrors, clouds and artificial trees.

The idea of serious scientists and engineers gathering to discuss schemes for controlling the world’s climate would a mere 10 years ago have seemed bizarre, or something from science fiction. But now, well into the 21st century, we are slowly and reluctantly starting to realise that global heating is real. We may have cool, wet summers in the UK, but we are fortunate compared with the Inuit, who see their habitat melting, and Australians and Africans who suffer intensifying heat and drought. We should not be surprised that public policy is edging ever nearer to geoengineering, the therapy our scientists are considering for a fevered planet.

Our senior scientific society, the Royal Society, met at the start of the month to launch the report “Geoengineering the Climate” and to hear from its representative scientists. The meeting was hosted by the president, Lord Rees, and the chairman was Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the study group. The goal, as Prof Shepherd explained in the Guardian in April, was to investigate theories of “intervening directly to engineer the climate system, so as to moderate the rise of temperature” and to “separate the real science from the science fiction”.

Geoengineering is about deliberately changing the air, oceans or land surface of the world to offset global heating with the hope of restoring the cooler world we enjoyed in the last century. We are now fairly sure that the Earth has grown hotter by about one degree Celsius as a consequence of our own action in taking away as farmland the forests and other ecosystems that previously acted to keep the Earth cool. We also have increased by 6% the flow of CO2 into the air by burning coal, oil and natural gas. If we started global heating, can we reverse it by engineering?

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Or Love it:

http://www.alternet.org/environment/142687/geo-engineering_could_save_the_planet_%C3%A2€%C2%A6_and_in_the_process_sacrifice_the_world_/

Geo-Engineering Could Save the Planet … and in the Process Sacrifice the World

By Jason Mark, Earth Island Journal. Posted September 24, 2009.

Having unintentionally warmed the planet, we may have little choice but to intentionally cool it back down. But at what cost?

Earth is busted. Like a supercomputer whose elaborate code has developed a few bugs, the core operating systems of the planet are frayed: Ocean populations are collapsing, forests are disappearing, soils have become thin. Perhaps most worrisome, the globe’s atmosphere, the ecosystem on which all other ecosystems depend, is overheating. The machinery of life appears to have malfunctioned.

Since the scale of the climate crisis became clear, the strategy for fixing this glitch has focused on remediation. To maintain the atmosphere’s equilibrium, we need to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. Our chief goal should be to return the climate to something approximating the pre-industrial status quo.

But what if such a return isn’t possible? What if the planet has gone permanently haywire? As the effects of climate change become obvious and global leaders remain unable to halt emissions, a growing number of scientists say we need to begin researching what’s called “geo-engineering” — ways to artificially reduce global temperatures and/or manipulate plants or the oceans to absorb huge amounts of CO2. Having unintentionally warmed the planet, we may have little choice but to intentionally cool it back down.

Even those most interested in geo-engineering say that the idea of deliberately deforming the planet in order to save it from ourselves is, as Stanford University‘s Ken Caldeira told NPR this summer, “scary.” Yet if we shy away from manipulating the whole globe and continue on our present course, we could be left with a burnt Earth unlike anything ever seen. The scientists who are encouraging government-funded research into geo-engineering are driven by a powerful motive: fear. All too aware of the implications of unchecked CO2 emissions — and worried that political systems aren’t moving quickly enough to respond to changes in the planet’s physical systems — these scientists say we may have no other option than to tinker with the sky.

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As the atmospheric pressure mounts so will the clamor to DO SOMETHING.

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The Northwest Passage Is Open For Business – How come the world is not outraged

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 It’s Jam Band Friday ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ-aJ1bWGLw  )

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53899,news,the-northeast-passage-could-enable-russia-to-blackmail-europe

Two German cargo ships navigate the Northeast Passage

 

Climate change could open up the Northeast Passage and link European consumers to booming Asian markets. It could also give Russia the means to blackmail the West

By Roger Howard

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

If climate change can have a silver lining, then some optimists might argue that it probably lies in the Northeast Passage. Last week two German cargo ships sailed part of its course, making their way along Russia’s Arctic coast from South Korea to Siberia, passing through the Bering Strait, with an ease that would have been unthinkable before local sea ice began to feel the heat of global warming.

Already speculation is rife that this heralds the advent of a major new shipping route, running through waters that are expected to eventually become ice-free for much of the year round. This route, it is said, will link Europe with booming Asian markets, slashing distances and journey times through the Suez and Panama Canals by as much as a third. Shippers could then pass their savings onto customers, who would benefit from lower prices in the high street.

Russia could block ships that belong to states that don’t toe the Moscow lineThe political price of an active Northeast Passage, however, may not be quite so attractive. For what no one has noticed is that it would effectively become a maritime, commercial pipeline – and the story of how the Kremlin views and uses its pipelines elsewhere is by now a highly familiar one.

Moscow would benefit from this commercial pipeline in the Arctic Ocean in two distinct ways. On the one hand it could potentially charge exorbitant transit revenues – thinly disguised as ‘icebreaker fees’, even when such escort is unnecessary – on ships that move through what it regards as its own ‘national waters’. Earlier this year, Russia was levying an extortionate $16 fee on every ton of oil cargo, compared with the meagre $1 that Finland charged Baltic shipping.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXqn42AykM  )

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK3ehJ22qOU&feature=related  )

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DWcV9b5K-o )

I remember when they were together…not the continents… Theresa and Anders

Carbon Sequestration At Mountaineer Coal Fired Power In West Virginia

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What do you think Industrial America has against the Appalachian Mountains?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/earth/22coal.html?_r=1

NEW HAVEN, W.Va. — Poking out of the ground near the smokestacks of the Mountaineer power plant here are two wells that look much like those that draw natural gas to the surface. But these are about to do something new: inject a power plant’s carbon dioxide into the earth.

Multimedia

Captured, Then Buried

Related

Times Topics: Coal

 

Kevin Riddell for The New York Times

The inside of the plant.

The New York Times

The Mountaineer plant in New Haven is ready to inject carbon dioxide into the earth.

Readers’ Comments

 

Share your thoughts.

A behemoth built in 1980, long before global warming stirred broad concern, Mountaineer is poised to become the world’s first coal-fired power plant to capture and bury some of the carbon dioxide it churns out. The hope is that the gas will stay deep underground for millennia rather than entering the atmosphere as a heat-trapping pollutant.

The experiment, which the company says could begin in the next few days, is riveting the world’s coal-fired electricity sector, which is under growing pressure to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. Visitors from as far as China and India, which are struggling with their own coal-related pollution, have been trooping through the plant.

The United States still depends on coal-fired plants, many of them built decades ago, to meet half of its electricity needs. Some industry experts argue that retrofitting them could prove far more feasible than building brand new, cleaner ones.

Yet the economic viability of the Mountaineer plant’s new technology, known as carbon capture and sequestration, remains uncertain.

The technology is certain to devour a substantial amount of the plant’s energy output — optimists say 15 percent, and skeptics, 30 percent. Some energy experts argue that it could prove even more expensive than solar or nuclear power.

And as with any new technology, even the engineers are unsure how well it will work: will all of the carbon dioxide stay put?

Environmentalists who oppose coal mining and coal energy of any kind worry that sequestration could simply trade one problem, global warming, for another one, the pollution of water supplies. Should the carbon dioxide mix with water underground and form carbonic acid, they say, it could leach poisonous materials from rock deep underground that could then seep out.

Given the depths to which workers have drilled, they also fret that the project could cause earthquakes, although experts at the Environmental Protection Agency discount the risk of catastrophe.

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While this comment was insightful…the problems they have had with Earthquakes in Texas is more troubling:

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EDITORS’ SELECTIONS (what’s this?)

 

raschumacher

united states

September 22nd, 2009

10:02 am

This project will demonstrate that the costs of carbon capture and sequestration make coal more expensive than nuclear and wind power. Let’s get it over with so that we can face up and move beyond fossil fuels. There’s less than a 100 year supply left so we have to do it eventually anyway; let’s do it before global warming destroys the climate that nurtured the development of civilization. Burning stuff is for cavemen.

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YES – Burning stuff is for cavemen!!!!

The EnCana Bomber – Why doesn’t this get more American Press?

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We get 14% of our oil and natural gas from Canada so where is the American Press on this one?

 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/EnCana+bomber+probe+chills+community/1969701/story.html

 

EnCana bomber probe chills B.C. community

Neighbours paranoid over unsolved attacks

By Hanneke Brooymans, Edmonton Journal, September 7, 2009

I t is early evening in Tomslake and the rural roads are eerily quiet.

This corner of northeastern British Columbia is no longer the place to go for an idle drive, even on one of summer’s last beautiful days.

As the tension ratchets up around the now 11-month search for the EnCana bomber, chances are a watchful, nervous neighbour will call the RCMP.

“You don’t just hop in your truck and drive around anymore,” says one local farmer. He hasn’t driven certain roads for months now, because he doesn’t want people second-guessing why he is there. Nevertheless, he feels strongly enough about the burgeoning gas development to take a reporter and photographer on a short tour to point out the many drilling rigs, flares and compressor stations in his area.

The farmer is too nervous to have his name published, for fear of becoming the target of RCMP interrogations, harassment and phone tapping. This is what happens to anyone who openly criticizes the oilpatch in the area, he says, a view echoed by others.

The wish to avoid police attention has made residents reluctant to talk, even to each other, about the bomber or development issues for fear their views might be misconstrued.

At the Dawson Creek RCMP detachment, Staff Sgt. Stephen Grant is conscious of those concerns, but he won’t comment further on the chilling effect the incidents and the resulting investigation are having on the community. The RCMP, along with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, have thrown considerable resources at the hunt for the perpetrator–or perpetrators –of the six explosions on EnCana pipelines.

Grant says they’ve had more than 250 staff working on the case over the last 11 months — as many as 40 or 50 at certain points in time. About 1,000 interviews have been conducted, he adds.

Last week, the Dawson Creek detachment set up a new rural unit in Tomslake, 28 kilometres to the south. Part of the mandate of the four officers in the new unit is to ease the security fears of people in the area.

But residents say they won’t relax until the bomber is caught. Not even the bomber’s most recent letter –promising a three-month vacation from attacks to give EnCana time to announce a withdrawal from the area –has provided any relief.

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Been going on for awhile too:

http://www.sqwalk.com/bc2009/001491.html

Pipeline bombers probably local: expert

By Jamie Hall
The Edmonton Journal
January 6, 2009

Attacks audacious, U of A researcher saysWhatever the bombers lack in technical ability, they make up for in will and audacity, a University of Alberta researcher said after the latest pipeline bombings at EnCana natural gas facilities in northern B.C.

“We’re clearly dealing with someone who’s an amateur, but it does show that although they lack technical ability, their will is certainly not lacking,” said eco-terrorism expert Paul Joosse.

“They’re continuing to carry out these attacks, even though we’re throwing everything we have at them from a law enforcement perspective.”

Evidence of the fourth explosion in three months was discovered Sunday by EnCana workers near the community of Tomslake, about 20 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.

The crew noticed damage to a small building housing a natural gas meter at a well site, which was promptly shut down as a precaution. A company spokesman said there was no damage to the wellhead or the pipeline, nor was there a gas leak at the facility.

The RCMP in Dawson Creek are investigating the bombings, with help from the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, the explosives disposal unit and the forensic identification unit.

Joosse is convinced the attacks are being carried out by someone who lives in the area, but said it’s difficult to say whether it’s a single individual or a “small tightly knit group.”

“Even if it is an individual,” said Joosse, “there are other people who know about this person and are complicit in helping, if only through their silence.”

Residents blocked oil and gas vehicles on a road running through the community of Kelly Lake last summer, an event Joosse said was a precursor to the explosions.

Joosse said the blockade was an illustration of “widespread community support for civil disobedience, and a widespread sentiment of frustration” by locals angry over what they see as the destruction of their land.

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Apparently not everyone is real happy about the enormous damage being done to the environment AND the quality of life there. Can’t let the American Press know about that. Or do they care.

Is the EnCana Bomber a Terrorist or a Hero?

Posted by jl on 7/27/09 • Categorized as Canada, arguments, collaboration, juri, polis

alberta-tar-sands

Since last October, a man has been blowing up EnCana pipelines in B.C.  (Everyone seems to assume the bombings are the work of a man acting on his own.)  So far, no one has been injured by these attacks.

There have been six incidents in the past 10 months, and the police appear to have approximately zero leads.

From a July 16 story in the National Post: “Despite a $500,000 reward, more than 250 investigators and 450 local people interviewed, there has been no public break in the investigation.”

Earlier this month the bomber sent a letter to the Dawson Creek News in which he gives EnCana “three months to convince the residents here and the general public” that they will “cease all [their] activities and remove all [their] installations”.  (He calls this a “summer vacation”.)

The writer indicates that failure to comply with this demand will result in attacks more destructive that the “six minor and fully controlled explosions” that have occurred to date. (The RCMP for their part describe the explosions as “extremely violent in nature and … very dangerous to the local community.”)

Although the letter is certainly the work of a radical, its tone and content do not appear delusional.

“You are on the wrong side of the argument,” the bomber writes.  “Use your excessive earnings to install green energy alternatives… That can be negotiated here but there will be no negotiation with you on fossil fuel activities.”

Radical and threatening?  Yes.  Deranged and out of control?  Not really.

In any case, the RCMP have now decided to call the bomber a “domestic terrorist”.

This may be an attempt to provoke the man in the hope that he screws up in response.  (“B.C. Bomber Makes TV Appearance to Deny Link to Al Qaeda.”)  Or it could be a public-relations effort by the RCMP in which the EnCana bomber is very subtly inserted into people’s mental category of the universally-detested villain.

If theory #2 is correct, however, it’s not clear who’s winning the PR battle.

Indeed, a sampling of recent newspaper stories and readers’ comments on the topic shows that the EnCana bomber enjoys a significant level of popular support.

“mikebreta” commenting on the Globe & Mail web site:

I like what the bomber is doing. I wish there were more people like him. Standing up for what he believe in. Way to go bomber.

“Joe Canadian” writing on the National Post web site:

The RCMP, and many news outlets are painting Encana as good guys. I suppose they are given that the person(s) who are blowing up their pipelines are committing illegal acts. Still, I have to side with residents who don’t want this sour gas pipeline running nearby their town, and especially near their children’s school. Even if they catch the person doing this, no jury in this country is going to send the perpetrator to jail for doing a public service.

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I know how I would vote.

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Oil Celebrates 150 Years Of Commercial Production – But it doesn’t look older than when it was 10

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( It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDie_4dOdU -)

Why is Oil so old and yet it acts like a little child…We start this post with video from the Energy Citizens protest against Cap and Trade…I have a sense of humor but this is just childishly bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMhNZB3Vndw

Courtesy of Wes King

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg&feature=related )

But I digress here are some really useful Stats about OIL I bet you never knew:

http://www.yelp.com/topic/los-angeles-10-facts-about-oil-and-gas-not-the-kind-that-comes-out-of-your-arse

10 Facts About Oil and Gas… not the kind that comes out of your arse….

Photo of ART L.

08/02/2008 ART “The Permaculturalist” L. says:

http://www.edf.org/art…

With gas prices skyrocketing, public transit ridership is at an all time high. Instead of cutting back on public transportation services, we should be reforming our national transportation system to create more affordable travel options for the whole country.

Check out our 10 Facts About Oil and Gas to learn more.

96 Percent of the world’s transportation energy currently supplied by oil.
$75
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2007.

$131
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2008.

9.6 billion
Number of fewer miles Americans drove in May 2008 compared to May 2007.

10.3 billion
Number of trips taken via the U.S. public transportation system in 2007, the highest in 50 years.

44
Percent increase in price of diesel fuel paid by public transit agencies.

20
Percent of America’s public transit agencies that are cutting services due to budget constraints.

46
Percent of population that has no access to public transit.

$6,251
Amount the average two-worker household saves annually by taking public transportation instead of driving a car.

2030
Year by which lifting the ban on offshore drilling may start to impact the price of gas

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm63_M_4BF0&feature=related )

But if you want to see how Oil both behaves childishly and causes trouble all over the world, here is Greg Palasts take on it…

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/

The Best Thing in The World for Big Oil”

…Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Palast on why Saddam had to go.

“This war in Iraq has been the best thing in the world for Big Oil and OPEC. They’ve made the largest profits in the history of the world. The interesting thing about your book is you show how it was all planned from the beginning. The story is like a spy thriller.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Listen to RFK and Greg Palast on Iraq, a 20-minute conversation about blood and oil for ‘Ring of Fire’ from Air America.

The following is part of the story referenced in their discussion:

THE JERK: WHY SADDAM HAD TO GO

by Greg Palast
Excerpt from ‘Armed Madhouse‘

The 323-page multi-volume “Options for Iraqi Oil” begins with the expected dungeons-and-dragons warning:

The report is submitted on the understanding that [the State Department] will maintain the contents confidential.

For two years, the State Department (and Defense and the White House) denied there were secret plans for Iraq’s oil. They told us so in writing. That was the first indication the plan existed. Proving that, and getting a copy, became the near-to-pathologic obsession of our team.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqCtbEGcBBA&feature=related )
Cutting to the Chase several paragraph’s down the page and much intrigue and much spilled ink:

In the sanitary words of the Council on Foreign Relations’ report (written up by Jaffe herself), Saddam’s problem was that he was a “swinger”:

Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability
to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential in-
fluence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key
“swing” producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S.
government.

Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil?

The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control.

“Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.”

So, within days of Bush’s election in November 2000, the James Baker Institute issued this warning:

In a market with so little cushion to cover unexpected
events, oil prices become extremely sensitive to perceived
supply risks. Such a market increases the potential lever-
age of an otherwise lesser producer such as Iraq…

I met with Falah Aljibury, an advisor to Goldman Sachs, the Baker/CFR group and, I discovered, host to the State Department’s invasion planning meetings in February 2001. The Iraqi-born industry man put it this way: “Iraq is not stable, a wild card.” Saddam cuts production, or suddenly boosts it, playing games with the U.N. over the Oil-for-Food Program. The tinpot despot was, almost alone, setting the weekly world price of oil and Big Oil did not care for that. In the CFR’s sober language:

Saddam is a “destabilizing influence… to the flow of oil
to international markets from the Middle East.”

With Saddam out of control, jerking markets up and down, the price of controlling the price was getting just too high. Saddam drove the oil boys bonkers. For example, Saddam’s games pushed the State Department, disastrously, to launch, in April 2002, a coup d’etat in Venezuela.

This could not stand. Saddam delighted in playing cat-and-mouse with the USA and our oil majors. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t playing with mice, but a much bigger and unforgiving breed of roden

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The original is not so bad either

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsHOQmKhps )
I mean if you really want to set the world on fire:

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/discovery-news-2009-cool-jobs-burn-boss.html

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Energy Citizens Rally Or Protest Was Not Just Surreal It Was Sad

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I got into the rally because Roy Wehrle got stopped by Security. The lengths that they went to keep out “undesirables” was pretty amazing. Will Reynolds, of the Sierra Club went in and gave some materials to their Press Table. He was then barred from reentry by 2 Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputies for distributing political literature. Apparently after that anyone seen talking to Will was a thoroughly dangerous man like in Alice’s Restaurant. When I went in the ballroom they pounced on mild mannered Economics professor Roy and turned him away.

Remember this is the compelling protest designed to defeat Cap and Trade WHICH is the INDUSTRIES proposal NOT the Environmentalists. I like a huge Carbon Tax myself. Most European countries pay 6 $$$ per gallon for their gasoline…and that tax money is invested directly into renewables and infrastructure. Why not do something like that in the US?  This is what the “protest” looked like:

catprotest1.JPG

Photos by Wes King

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This is what they stand for:

http://energycitizens.org/about/

About Energy Citizens

Energy Citizens is a nationwide alliance of organizations and individuals formed to bring together people across America to remind Congress that energy is the backbone of our nation’s economy and our way of life.

Energy Citizens are voicing their concerns about the impact climate legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would have on American jobs, families and businesses. The alliance is urging the Senate to get it right and make sure that climate, energy and tax legislation would not take money out of Americans’ pocketbooks and cost millions of jobs.

See personal stories from people across the country, or take a look at the list of participating organizations that have joined Energy Citizens in support of American jobs and affordable energy

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This is who paid for it:

http://www.redcounty.com/illinois-business-groups-schedule-anti-cap-and-trade-rally-sept-1st

Illinois Business Groups Schedule Anti-Cap and Trade Rally, Sept. 1st

By Warner Todd Huston | 08/31/09 | 07:41 PM EDT

A group called Energy Citizens made up of 23 Illinois business associations have scheduled a September 1st rally in order to protest the seriously damaging policies of the Cap and Trade bill. The rally will be held near the State Capitol in Springfield.

The event will start a noon and will be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel, 3000 Dirksen Parkway, Springfield, Illinois.

A notice was posted at the Illinois Farm Bureau website.

A lunch will follow the roughly 45-minute event, one of 22 rallies nationwide sponsored by the group Energy Citizens to oppose House-approved legislation. IFB members are encouraged to attend, and may contact their county Farm Bureau for additional details.

The Illinois members of Energy Citizens includes the Southwestern Illinois Employers Association and Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative, the Illinois Association of Convenience Stores, Associated Builder and Contractors of Illinois (ABC), Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association, Grain & Feed Association of Illinois, Growmark, Home Builders Association of Illinois, Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers, Illinois Coal Associations, Illinois Energy Forum, Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois manufacturers Association, Illinois Petroleum Council, Illinois Pork Producers, Illinois Retail Merchants Association, Illinois Trucking Association, MidAmerica Energy, Mid-West Truckers Association, Illinois Oil & Gas Association, National Federation of Independent Business, Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative and the Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association.

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The saddest part was  they used local “personality” Bob Murray as the MC. I hate to pick on anyone but there is a reason that Bob moved from TV to Radio and there are no pictures available of him below the waist…I mean he is huge. When I walked in he looked pretty normal but when I got off to the side I was stunned. Then he made a joke about it. “I am so big”, he said, “When I asked my mom when I was born she said July 4rth….July 5th and July 6th”

http://www.spoke.com/info/pF0Rf1m/BobMurray

I just wanted to cry. They were giving away bright yellow Tshirts that read, “I will pass on $4 gas”. I wish now I would have grabbed one. There was even a sign that read, “RVer’s Against Waxman-Markey” and another sign that read, “Crap and Trade”.  As I  walked out Murray said, “The great thing about this country is that you can hold a meeting like this and then there is no one waiting for you in the parking lot to shoot your ass”.  He then turned and launched into the Pledge of Allegiance.

WHAT a parking lot it was too. As I walked back to my car, past the hundreds of Lincoln Town cars, giant SUVs and the huge Chevys I noticed that they had filled up half of the parking lot with displays. There was   a huge 16 head combine that had a Rural America Needs Affordable Energy banner slung across it. A huge semi trailer display for Illinois Crude Oil and Natural Gas. To add insult to injury the last display I walked by was 2 bucket trucks with their buckets up holding a banner that said Stop Cap and Trade. The trucks were owned by the Rural Electric Convenience Coop in Auburn that just put up a 1.2 million $$$ wind turbine.

It may take me years to get the images out of my head…..yuck

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Oh and thanks to the college students who drove all the way from Chicago when we were thinking about disrupting this madness.

catprotest5.JPG

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Energy Citizens Protest Rally In Springfield Was The Most Surreal Event I Have Ever Attended

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I could add sick, disgusting, phony and funny to that list but why bother? I can show you how it was by example. But on the 150 aniversery of the first oil well..it is just plain sad. Oil guys used to be such roughnecks now they are kinda wussy.

The 2 most surreal events I had ever been to before was an Alice Cooper concert in 1969 and the Opening of Ticket Sales at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the English Opera Peter Grimes in Los Angeles in 1984. I know Alice doesn’t need any explanation (it does really), but the opening of ticket sales for an obscure opera?

But first a picture:

catprotest31.JPG

(thanks for the pictures Wes King)

It is in a BALLROOM. I have never been to a protest in one of the ritzyest ballrooms within a 100 miles of Springfield. This is the most senior citizens I have seen at a protest not sponsored by the AARP ever. There is no ethnic diversity in the room. I have been to plenty of protests, some where there were simultaneous counter protests and I have never seen this Caucasion of an audience since my last KKK rally. It is probably tough to see but the 2 black skinned men in the room are a waitstaff member at the bottom of the picture and way off in the distance there is a black camera man for the only news organization I saw that day, Channel 20 TV. Considering the cost of this rally that in itself was bizarre. But back to Alice Cooper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA-sjSkRM4M&feature=channel

This Alice Cooper concert was when I was 14, and it was my first rock concert ever. It was in Peoria in a place since torn down called the Cow Palace. Which it literally was. A barn like structure with a dirt  floor where they sold cows (and other live stock). It was my 3rd acid trip…my first in public and I was with my fiance’ Denise and some other San Jose (Illinois) crazies. All the lights were on so it was real bright, and all of the sudden the Wedding March starts playing, these flowers POP up on the stage and simultaneously a man in a tux (stage left), a women in a wedding dress (stage right) and a minister (center stage) all walk to the center of the stage. The audience was stunned. The minister performs the wedding complete with “is there anyone here who may object to this union”? Stunned silence. Towards the end of the ceremony Alice Cooper and his band in their full make up started peering through the flowers. At the “kiss the bride” part the room goes to BLACK, the stage lights come on low and giant trash cans come hurtling over the flowers, followed by Alice and the band…In that 2 second period my life changed for ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFO_04J1r4

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My second most surreal moment could take some set up but I will try to make it as quick as possible. But first another picture of the event:

catprotest4.JPG

I mean really do these people look angry? Do they look passionate about preventing “cap and trade” in the area of carbon production because it has already worked for sulfur? NO these people look like people at the Republican Convention in Minnesota last year.

Anyway in 1984 I lived in Las Vegas with a woman who celebrated her 30 birthday. I had patiently gone to the Lyric Opera in Chicago for 2 seasons with her. Then I said enough! I am not going to another Opera unless it is in English and I was off the hook for a couple of years. BUT someone (probably her sister) told her that Peter Grimes was playing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA.  Yes the same place where the Academy  Awards are occasionally given out. So we got a room in a South Central L.A., yes the place that burned down in the riots which was surreal enough as it was. We went for a driving tour of the LA area (Hollywood, Venice Beach, Malibu) and then we had Oriental Food downtown someplace. The next day we had to go pick up our tickets at the Pavilion. Yes I know that seems quaint now but you had to physically pick up your tickets. While we were waiting in this 500 person line we were subjected to a surprise Japanese Performance Art piece.

http://www.musiccenter.org/

http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/japan/pro-performing_arts.htm

http://outwestarts.blogspot.com/2008/03/attend-tale-of-peter-grimes.html

Nobody was looking up so I have no idea how it started, but suddenly you hear a huge horn sound…like a foghorn or something real deep and loud. I looked up and there on top of the Pavilion (4 stories maybe) was a long robed Japanese figure in an elongated paper masked, flanked on each side by 2 naked guys in diapers. He blew on this big horn again. It was about 8 ft. long and rested on the ground like an Alp Horn:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070905040636AAXDrTt

Then these 4 nearly naked Japanese guys rappelled down the front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Australian style to some really weird Japanese music played through the Pavilion’s very small very tinny outdoor speakers:

swatman6.tripod.com/srt1.html

This rapel took forever. When they landed in front of us they did some short welcoming ritual (I am guessing). The guy on the roof blew the horn again. These naked guys jumped up and down once, turned and ran to the entrance way. They threw open the doors and ran inside the building and the guy on the roof was gone. People were so stunned nobody actually went through the door. Then people started clapping and several brave soldiers advanced into the que.

So there you have it. What I witnessed at the Energy Citizens protest rally yesterday was somewhere between an Alice Cooper Concert and a Japanese Performance Art piece on my surreal scale. WHOA

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