I don’t agree with every single things he says, but for the most part he is spot on.
Fantastic writing.
Category Archives: Peak Oil
Using wood for fuel?
Since I became Peak Oil aware I’ve always wondered about the assumption that as Americans we’ll just go back to using wood for heating and cooking with no problems. Most people assume that we’ll just start using wood again and there it is. Finally a blog writer touches this subject.
Click over here to read the first two parts of her series about wood.
Here in the heartland it seems unlikely that we’ll use a whole lot of wood for fuel, mostly because it’s not as readily available as other place. If I had to guess, I’d say we might see people burning corn cobs. I know that’s a strange thought, but it’s pretty easy to grow and it acts a lot like wood when it burns, although you would need some large fields of it to do much good.
Anyone have any thoughts on how this might get resolved? Read the 2 parts of the series first and see the potential magnitude of the problem.
Posted in Peak Oil
A couple interesting articles
Fiscal Cat 5 Warning via MEOW
Economics 101 via Mises
Good intro primer on Peak Oil via The Energy Bulletin
Midwest could have oil shortage soon
Below is an article that is from Reuters that came out of Singapore.
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSSP30921420071129
Here is the money quote:
The explosion on Wednesday about 3.0 miles (4.8 km) southeast of its Clearbrook, Minnesota, terminal shut down a line that carries nearly one-fifth of U.S. crude oil imports.
SINGAPORE, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Middle East crude traders are bracing for higher prices after a blast crippled the main pipeline shipping Canada’s heavier crude to the U.S. Midwest, anticipating refiners may have to scramble for supplies.
Pipeline operator Enbridge (ENB.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) shut down its network of four parallel pipelines that pump Canadian crude to the United States, and warned that the larger two lines carrying mainly medium and heavy grades could remain shut for a while.
Landlocked inland refiners such as Flint Hills Resources’ 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in Rosmount, Minnesota, that rely on the pipeline for the baseload supplies, would have to drag additional shipments inland from the Gulf or East Coast that could reverberate.
“The only way to supply refiners that do not have Canadian crude is to send crudes from the Gulf Coast up the pipelines. These are mostly light sweet crude,” a Singapore-based trader said.
That will create a knock-on impact for demand for similar high-sulphur, dense crudes that can be shipped to the United States such as Russia’s main Urals blend or Middle East grades such as Oman, which rarely travels to U.S. shores.
Much will now depend on the duration of the outage, and whether the U.S. government reaches into its 700 million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to try to fill the gap — although logistics may make that tricky.
“The problem is that the SPR oil is all in PADD III Gulf Coast, while the crude imports that have been lost are all in PADD II Midwest, and there is limited transport capacity between the two,” Sempra analyst John Kemp said.
Traders are also looking to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase output when it meets on Dec. 5 in Abu Dhabi, which might help temper the impact of the outage.
BRENT-DUBAI COULD NARROW
The explosion on Wednesday about 3.0 miles (4.8 km) southeast of its Clearbrook, Minnesota, terminal shut down a line that carries nearly one-fifth of U.S. crude oil imports.
One of the set of four pipelines will require repairs and regulator inspections, while the largest is “not likely” to start up any time soon, Larry Springer, a spokesman for Calgary, Alberta-based operator Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO: Quote, Profile, Research), said on Thursday.
Traders said the Brent-Dubai spread, used as a proxy for the premium of sweet grades of high-sulphur or sour crude, could narrow as a result of the stronger pull.
The spread has hovered above $5 a barrel for the past month and a half, indicating stronger demand for light sweet crude, and rose toward $6 as Brent futures prices outpaced the less liquid over-the-counter Dubai swaps market.
But in Early August last year, when BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) shut down its Alaska Prudhoe Bay field due to a pipeline leak, the Brent-Dubai Exchange for Swaps (EFS) halved from around $5.65 to $2.80 a barrel within one month, as West Coast refiners rushed for Asian cargoes.
Even if U.S. refiners do not pull Middle East crudes directly, European markets facing the loss of Urals may see increased demand, setting up a West versus East tug-of-war during the peak of season demand for the northern hemisphere winter.
Only about a handful of Middle East crudes from Oman, Abu Dhabi and Qatari crude are traded freely on the market, amounting to around 4 million barrels per day (bpd), but even some of that volume is contracted under annual contracts.
Higher demand from Japan and South Korea in winter for kerosene-rich Abu Dhabi crude, could further limit available supplies and help push prices higher. (Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt; Editing by Jonathan Leff/Ramthan Hussain)
Despondant lately…
Since I returned from the Community Solutions conference I’ve been feeling a little down about our world, and it’s future. After you spend a weekend in an environment like that, talking about all the things that are wrong with the world, and how the general public doesn’t seem to notice these problems, I think it’s understandable, but it’s not charecteristic of me to be like that.
Since I’ve returned I’ve felt this sudden urge to make changes now! To do everything right now! At once! It hasn’t helped that I had to travel the following weekend, into a world where all these environmentally issues don’t exist. As I drove across Iowa I saw hog barn after hog barn only sporadically replaced by massive fields of corn or beans and the occassional feedlot or wind turbine.
One thing I’m sick of is this green gadget mentality of a lot of people. People think that gadgets like a plug in hybrid or an LED light or some other gimmick will be our salvation. I don’t see it that way, and I’m kind of sick of hearing about all these stupid gadgets. They get all the press while the real meat and potatoes of the issues don’t get any coverage. It’s a sick mental block we have, and unfortunately it seems like it might be our undoing.
It’s not good enough to get to these things as I have time. I have this sudden sense of urgency that I didn’t have before. I think some of this stems from the sudden realization, to me, that yes the world has peaked in oil production, and the speakers at the conference all backed this statement up. It’s not just something I personally believe, but a lot of darn smart people think so too.
I have this urge to get my debt paid down every more quickly. I need to find more space to grow more food for my family. I need to figure out how to inexpensively conserve even more energy in my housing and transportation needs. I have this sudden urge to get to work right now.
Sharon spoke about this topic eloquently at the conference, and she wrote it up on her blog as well. There is this little voice in the back of my head telling me that I don’t have time to waste on these things. I need to get them done right now!
Around the blogosphere it also seem like more and more of the writers I read are coming to this same realization. I can’t figure out what’s driving this mass realization, but it seem to be a very realy phenomenon. I just have to figure out how to deal with it.
One thing that I came back from the conference rearing to do was futher insulate and tighten up our house. This weekend I’ll be crawling into the crawl space to insulate the walls of the foundation, the floor of our family room and place plastic over the ground to keep the moisture and cold down. Hopefully this will help keep our family room more comfortable.
I don’t know why I haven’t done these things already. It’s not an expensive remedy and it should make a large difference in our comfort. I guess I didn’t do it because I was being lazy. That’s the problem though. We’re all being lazy and we don’t have time for that.
While this is going on I’ve been removing some nice faux wood paneling in our family room so that I can either fill the cavity with blown in insulation or pay a professional to do it. Either way we’re planning to fill those walls up. Finally. I just hope it’s not too much money.
Either way, I don’t think we have time to waste right now.
Update: As usual Aaron has a great post up, and it’s theme mimics some of what I’m feeling.
Tuesday roundup
I like doing this roundup thing so you can expect to see it more often. A lot of my topics don’t merit a post on their own, but in something like this they are OK.
The busy task of collecting leaves for the garden has already started. While I won’t be competing to collect leaves like last year, I will be collecting as many as I can. The garden ended up being quite successful this summer. Between it and the market our basement is packed with things to eat this winter. I’m still putting together a lessons learned about this past summer.
The conference was great. I’ll have some thoughts up soon about it when I collect them all. Right now I’m floating all over the place trying to figure out what my plan should be in the future. The conference was held in Yellow Spring, OH, which is a great little town. They had some great restaurants and everyone there was really into the environment and being concious of their impact on the earth. Great environment to be in, and tons of great stimulation and conversation.
A few things I am going to work on over the next few months are window insulators, insulation for our walls and sill plates as well as working to seal up all the air leaks in our house. This winter I also have plans to build a trellis outside to help shade our front south facing windows and who knows what else.
I have some cider hardening on our table and it’s starting to look all cloudy and kind of funky. I’m not sure if it’s any good anymore. If you’re reading this Wendy I wouldn’t mind having some input, or anyone else. 
When in Yellow Springs I met some online people for the first time. I met Steve, Aaron, E4 and Sharon, among others. Aaron brought gifts. He brought up a luffa for us to have and also this mix cd cleverly title “The world peaked in oil production and all I got was this damn cd”.
We had a new shower installed recently. It’s a ReBath system. I highly recommend it. It’s very nice. Our previous shower was tile and had that standard problem where water got behind it and then the walls started to crack and buckle.
That’s all for now.
How you doin’?
Posted in Gardening, Groovy Green, Peak Oil
Soccer moms
As I mentioned recently my son has taken up soccer. While I’m at the “games” I partake in the art of observation frequently to look over other people and think about them. I do sometimes watch his games, but come on, it’s 5 year old playing soccer! It’s soccer!
Anyway, I can’t help but notice how many of the people there drive in a very nice minivan. A lot of them arrive in two cars (presumably because one came straight from work while one herded children and brought them to the event) . I can’t help but see how many of them are talking on the phone, seeming to work based on the animations of the conversations and the use of headset thingies.
I wonder how these people will cope with Peak Oil. We all know it’s coming. We know the world has already peaked. Hell, CNN ran an article on it recently, so it’s getting more mainstream. But when I see these people so wrapped up in their little worlds I wonder how they will deal with the fact that very soon their gasoline will be twice or more what it currently is per gallon. Or that their food prices will rise even more. I wonder how they will cope when their identities, their work, is stripped away from them and they have to make human connections with people.
I look at them and seriously wonder how many of those moms (or dads) would be able to cook a meal from basic ingredients. I even saw a kid at the store recently looking at packet of information on how to make mashed potatoes. The packet was a packet full of spices so he could make buttered mashed potatoes! Not even special flavored potatoes. Luckily I was there to set him straight on how to do it without the $2 packet he was buying, but isn’t that concerning? That a kid (he was probably 16 or 18) can know so little about how to cook that he can’t even make mashed potatoes?
How many would be able to grow something to eat? It makes me scared for them. During the Depression there were plenty of people in food lines, and even then the percentage of people on farms was way higher than it is now, and the people who lived in the city had worked on farms growing up, for the most part. The people in the cities had the past knowledge of how to farm so they could produce their food if they had the space and inclination. Today most people have only seen plants when their landscaper planted their lone front yard tree and a couple bushes. It’s kind of scary when we think about it. We’re all responsible for this. Not just some of us. All of us. Every single one of us can grow some food in our yards, but we are choosing not to. Choosing to outsource this vital resource to China and Chile and New Zealand because we can get the product for 10 cents less a pound.
I’ve talked to my Memaw (grandmother in law) about the Depression since I’ve become Peak Oil aware, and the biggest impact she’s left on me from those times is that while her family wasn’t rich, by any means, during the Depression they were because they had food. Since they had a farm they had food. I wonder if that will be the same in the future. Will people have food? Will people have farms? Or land to farm? It’s less than 2% of our population today that currently live on a farm. What will the other 98% of us do for our food? If we can’t buy it what then? I’m in the same boat you are. I can’t an anyway meet the needs of my family from my given plot of land. But I can certainly try to produce as much as I can.
Will you measure your worth in the future in how many potatoes you have in your cellar? The friends you have? The family you have? The reputation of your handshake? The respect you’ve earned by proving your worth to others?
Maybe we should. Maybe that would be a better way to measure your worth than the latest Dow Industrial quote or home values. Maybe that should happen now.
Attention readers
As faithful readers of the dribble that comes out of my head onto this keyboard I thought I should mention that Hurricane Dean is heading towards Mexico. Most people breathe a sigh of relief at this news, but this Hurricane is heading straight towards Mexico’s oil fields.
That’s not good. Mexico currently supplies around 16% of America’s oil imports. If their fields go off line for a while you’ll be dreaming of Katrina level gas prices.
Here’s a little math: We import around 550Million barrels of oil from Mexico each year. That means that if this hurricane hits them hard (and I would think a Cat 4 or 5 might do that) we can expect to see their oil production slip. Do you think a 5% drop due to the hurricane might be reasonable? That works out to about 23Million barrels a year, roughly 500K per week.
It’s just me, but you might want to think about perhaps being prepared for prices to rise, or maybe buy a few gas cans to store a little in the garage just in case there are supply disruptions. Supply is so tight right now it won’t take much to really cause a stumble for people who need to use the fuel.
Posted in Peak Oil
“Overpopulation is not a problem”
“…Despite many doom-and-gloom predictions, explosive growth in the world’s population isn’t something to panic about says Nicholas Eberstadt…”
So starts a WSJ opinion article from Friday February 23, 2007 discussing overpopulation and how the planet has not reached it’s limits. How all the previous naysayers regarding population expansion have been wrong. How the predictions for the future are dubious at best.
“Mr. Eberstadt says the strains that Malthus and others predicted from a surge in population haven’t materialized. Instead, as population has increased so has most people’s standard of living. The world’s population quadrupled to more than six billion people during the 20th century, a time when per capita gross domestic product almost quintupled. Similarly, while a shortage of resources would be expected to drive up commodity prices, costs actually fell in the 20th century…”
He is correct. Projections for practically all matters into the future are difficult to pin down and really count for something. But here are some statistics you CAN count on.
Currently half the people in the world live on less than $2 a day, almost 3 billion people. (So much for an increased standard of living.) And don’t forget about those books out there like Nickel and Dimed or Morgan Spurlock’s reality series discussing how people try to live on minimum wage in America. They are making a lot more than $2 a day and they are not getting by.
Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are chronically malnourished, while most Americans are severly or grossly overweight.
Almost 11 million children under the age of 5 die every single year from poverty.
From a survey published in 2000, 47% of the world’s agricultural land is considered severely degraded.
In China in fact, 900 square miles of land is converted to desert each year. (If our agricultural land is degraded and disappearing how do we feed this endless supply of humans?)
For 6 of the last 7 years the annual grain harvest has fallen below the annual grain demand. And even more scary, that doesn’t even take into account all the demand from the enthanol plants that are coming online. That means less and less of our grain will be exported to other countries for their consumption.
Mr. Eberstadt forgets the one thing that most everyone who isn’t concerned about the population levels of our world forget. Oil. Oil makes the world hum and he is forgetting the bonanza that was the Petroleum century. This stored energy allowed humans to way exceed the carrying capacity of the earth by using millions of years of stored energy to generate more food and feed more people. Oil allowed countries to ship excess food all over the world and allowed many, many countries to dramactically exceed their carrying capactiy. We’re all aware that oil is already running out, and with it our ability to produce copious amounts of food will run out. Oil allowed some countries to subjugate other countries and extract their natural resources and exploit their populations. Oil is the thing that makes it all possible. What happens when there is less oil?
It’s time to start talking and thinking about this forgotten bogeyman hiding in the closet because sooner or later it’s going to rear it’s ugly head.
Sources:
Cross posted on Groovy Green
Posted in Conservation, Global action, Green Living, Groovy Green, Peak Oil
